Glass blowing in Småland

Yesterday morning, we flew to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to have lunch with Femke’s mother. Femke also managed to do some shopping (surprise!), before it was time to fly North to Sweden. We slept in Tyringe (where my Mother lives) and this morning continued to Småland. Lot’s of forest, with trees covered in ice, frozen lakes and in general a beautiful winter landscape. What a contrast to Jericho the other day!

In Småland, we stopped for a fika in Växjö, then visited the famous glass factory in Kosta, where they hand blow the famous art glass of KostaBoda. Unfortunately, they stopped blowing glass just a few hours before we arrived, but we enjoyed the exhibition of beautiful art glass. To see the glass being produced, we drove 15 minutes further to Åfors Glasbruk, where the glass ovens where glowing hot and the blowers busy. It is such a treat to see craftsmen (and craftswomen) like this, creating masterpieces out of melted sand.

Outside, I couldn’t help but to try out my new camera (Nikon D300) on the stream passing the factory. I still have a lot of tweaking and practicing to do before being one with the D300, but it is a great piece of equipment.

Now, we drove back to Kosta to check out the Christmas market. We had nice sausages grilled over open fire and in general marveled at the beautiful light decorations that were set up everywhere, including the frosty trees.

In the evening, we drove to the little city of Nybro, checked in at a hotel and then went for “hyttsill” – a traditional meal inside a glass factory. Being Christmas time, they had a tasty Christmas buffet that we devoured together with snaps (traditionally spiced vodka called akvavit). There was a lot of people, and all joined in, singing the snaps-songs that goes with the tradition. Afterwards, they had a rather provincial (but still somewhat funny) Christmas show.

My Mother Christine and Femke, having a fika in Växjö

Frozen lake in Småland

The stream outside Åfors Glasbruk

The stream outside Åfors Glasbruk

Glass art from KostaBoda

Glass blowing at Åfors Glasbruk

Light decorations at the Christmas market in Kosta

Merry Christmas!

Sun and strawberries in Jericho

The oasis of Jericho

Hisham's Palace in Jericho

Yesterday, I drove down to Jericho together with Liz, my new boss in Washington. It is such a bless to come down to this desert oasis situated more than 200 meter below sea level in the Jordan Valley. Here, there is summer year round. The Palestinian farmers in the area grow bananas, oranges, lemon and vegetables. I also bought fresh strawberries. Imagine – in mid December!

New bosses and successful glögg party

Sara, Michelle, Aida, Liz and Wakako chatting away

Ruby and Femke dancing to the Turkish "kiss" song

Surprisingly, it was nice to come back to Jerusalem from India. We have a beautiful home, and home is always home, wherever it is. This week has also been exciting work wise – ANERA finally has a new Middle East Representative (read: big boss in the field) and he arrived to the region this week. With him came the new Communications Director, who is base in Washington and is my boss. She has been working for ANERA for a few months, but this was the first chance for me to meet her.
They started off in Lebanon, then came to Jordan for a regional meeting (that Femke attended when I was still in India). This Friday, they arrived to Jerusalem. So far so good – I have a good hope that we can work well together. Liz, the media boss, came over to our place Friday afternoon for some work. She stayed for dinner and we had a nice time.

Yesterday, we had our Swedish glögg party. The first guests arrived at eight, and soon we had a full house with close to 30 persons (and more than ten nationalities) mingling, chatting and sipping glögg. It is such a pleasant thing to have your house full of friends and colleagues. In the end, some of us danced to the wee hours, and when Femke and I dealt with the worst mess and gone to bed, it was 02.30. Sorry Jenny (our neighbor), for playing loud music late! Luckily, she was also at the party, although she did not stay until the end.

Hypoxia 3-2007 is out

Forgot to mention that while I was in India, my third issue of the Swedish paragliding magazine Hypoxia came out. Feels good.

Now, I am working with the next issue, due to be published 25 February.

Major update to my travel site

Just made a major update to my travel website, with lots of photos from around the world. Why not take a look here?

Tonight Femke is coming home from here meeting in Jordan, I miss her so, we have not seen each other for close to three weeks.

View over Elbe, between Dresden and the Czech Republic

Sunflowers at Amerzee, outside Munich

Night in Berlin

Delicatessen in Bologna

The Danube gently floating through Budapest

Beautiful landscape in Norway

An alligator I happened to swim into in a river in Florida

Manhattan, New York City, from the sea

Orange Revolution, Ukraine

Back in Jerusalem

Puh. That was a long journey. I started from Kamsheet yesterday at eleven in the evening. First a private transfer to the airport in Mumbai – a three-hour hell-ride with several near collisions and a portion of driving against the traffic on the wrong side of the road in Mumbai. Scary stuff.

Then waiting for hours at Mumbai airport, boarding the plane for an almost six hour long flight, more hours of waiting in Istanbul and finally the last flight back to the Middle East. After more waiting at Tel Aviv airport, I caught a transfer to Jerusalem. And now I am home! It is a much harder life being a travel journalist than most people would ever imagine.

Tomorrow morning there will be lots of photos from India here.

Photos from India on my web page

If everything works out, you will be able to check out some photos from my India trip here.
I will stay here for another week, and then some, but this is what I gathered so far. Some of the photos have not been adjusted yet and most of them have no captions.

that will come later.

A very small cross country flight, and an exciting return

This is where I started


this is where I landed. with the welcoming committee :-)


Kukaram gave me the first lift

This is my second lift. Great guy!

Two days ago, I did a small cross country flight. I took off from Tower Hill, where we fly everyday when in the Kamsheet area. After gaining some good height (close to 900 meter above take off) I turned north and headed for Fly Nirvana, the paragliding center where we stayed. It is approx eleven kilometers between the take off and the center.

At first, I did really well, and reached another mountain, where I could join a thermal and top up with some more height. But after that, I hit some really heavy sink and lost most of my height very fast. Soon, I realized that I would not be able to make it all the way to the center, and started to look for a place to land. A field nect to a little hamlet seemed a good choice.

While circling down, preparing for landing, the field turned into a hill. Still not to steep, so I should be able to use it anyway. Kids where running in from all directions - a sight that reminded me of the final scene in the film "Platoon".

I survived the landing and started to pack up my glider. The kids stared with big eyes. We did not have a common language, but smiles and sign language can take you far enough.
The children's eyes grew even bigger when my huge glider (it is 29 m2 big) disappeared into my backpack. 15 minutes after landing with some kind of airship, I had it packed away and on my back, strolling away. No wonder they were amazed. It reminds me of a cocoon, slowly transforming to a butterfly, but this is in reverse and a lot quicker.

It was still before lunch, so I decided to try to hitchhike back to the take off and have some more flying. First I walked through the sugar cane fields on small paths. Here and there, I met people that were all surprised to see me there - a foreigner with a huge backpack in the middle of nowhere.

Reaching the river, I turned left and soon found a bridge. Below, women were doing the laundry on the rocks. On the other side, I found the main road. It was well over 30°C and I was starting to get warm, but continued walking. Just a minute before, the only bus passed, so I was a bit unlucky. Being Sunday, not much was happening.

but then my luck changed. A motorbike showed up, and stopped to pick me up. We managed to balance both me, my glider and the driver on the little bike, and off we went on the pot hole-ridden road. Unfortunately, Kukaram, the driver, had to turn off after less than halft the distance, so I was walking again. But I probably saved an hours hike in the heat.
Maybe 30 minutes later, I was warm but determined to keep walking. But luck smiled to me again, and an enormous truck loaded with firewood stopped and picked me up. It was not much faster than myself, but somewhat more comfortable.

Reaching the village, i thanked and jumped off and
found myself a group of tandem pilots that took me up to the mountain. Three bananas later, i had had my lunch and was up in the air again!

Morning walks

Several mornings, I have been out walking. Then, when the others are on their way to the flying site, they pick me up in one of the jeeps.

It is a nice thing to do, have a walk on the country-side in the morning, when it is still fresh and cool. And I meet a lot of people. Above, you have some photos from these walks.