Summer

I'm walking back home on a light summer night. It's cold.It's light. It's summer in the north. It's the summer of the north at it's best. It's been a long day, with meetings at work. then a geology filed trip to watch some black smokers, turned upside down, Like my life feels like right now.

Then a five-course dinner in an excellent restaurant, with good colleagues and friends. I only missed my soulmate, who wasn't there. I wonder what shes's doing right now, if she's wet and thinking of something exciting and fun things to do.

We philosophized a little bit about how lucky we are, Among the 8-9 billion people in the world, we happened to be born and to live in this rich and wealthy country. Life isn't too bad, even is the gearbox broke down on our bus on the way back to town. I could have been worse,

On the way back home, a little bit drunk, I stopped by a pub, to write these silly words. I know I'm a privileged guy, and I appreciate it very much. I just hope my soulmate is doing fine too.

(Picture taken around midnight today, on the way back home)

Skimas

Vacation in the mountains. Skiing with the boys. That's nice. There's only one person I'm missing right now.

Christmas. Christ mass. I'm not into the religious part if it. I should call it something else.

Snowmass? No, that's a place in Colorado, close to Aspen. Nice place. I've been there many years ago, when we lived in Colorado

Skimass or Skimas?  That's a nice name for the holidays. I have to check on the Internet if it already exists.

Lunch break is over. Time for a couple of more runs on the slope before its getting dark. Days are short in the north at this time of the year. Sunset at 2pm.

Tomorrow is another day, I believe >:)

(Picture taken today, before lunch. Blogpost written on my cell phone)

Just walking around

I'm out walking, more or less at random. Just needed some fresh air, to clear my mind.

It's a nice summer night, but summer is soon gone now. It's getting dark around 10 pm. The long light summer nights belong to the past.

The students are back in town. They make s lot of noise. Get-to-know-eachother parties and stuff like that. Happy young people, new to the town. Those were the days.

There are still some tourists around. The Japanese climb on everything they want to picture; statues, monuments, the rail og the old town bridge. I took a picture too (below), like I was a tourist in my hometown.

I stopped by a bar. Bought a glass of beer, the local beer on tap. I don't like it very much, I prefer the dark beer. Just bought it to remind myself that I really like this town, I like to live here.

It's been a wonderful summer. Who knows what the fall will bring. I'm optimistic >:)

Saving lives

It was lunchtime, and Tom and Anna sat in the grass by the fjord. It was warm, and the sun was shining. They had just finished their sandwiches.

"Everything feels so right with you, so natural, even eating a shrimp sandwich," Anna said. "But now I want the desert”.  

She stroked the bulge on his trousers, and then she opened the zipper to feel his bare skin.

“Be careful”, he moaned, “I don’t want to spill it on neither your clothes nor mine.”

“Don’t worry, I will take care of it”.

She embraced his erected penis with her mouth. Her lips moved slowly up and down the shaft, and her tongue caressed the head. Tom felt relaxed and excited at the same time, lying on his back in the grass. He looked up at the blue sky, through the sparse green leaves of a birch. In a wonderful moment of joy, the leaves of the tree appeared yellow and red.

Anna looked at him and smiled.

“You’re clean now. Nothing was spilled,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Tom.

He put his hand on the inside of her naked thigh and started to explore. She had no panties on. She spread her legs to let him touch her wet and smooth cleft.  She closed her eyes and moaned, and the wrinkle of pleasure appeared between her eyes.

Her body started to shiver. Two ants were climbing up along her thigh. Tom snapped the ants away, saving them from drowning in her ocean of wetness

“We have just saved two lives,” he said.

"Yes, yours and mine."

They were two happy horses grassing on a green field, and with no fence around >:)

(Picture taken a couple of days ago. I don't know who the people are. There are people everywhere, doing all kind of weird things on these nice and warm summer days ... )

Corporate values

It was one of the sunny and warm summer days that are rare in the north. Tom Snare sat in his hot office, trying to solve an equation he had been struggling with for some time.  Occasionally, he looked at the fjord outside the window, where the sun was blinking in the calm sea surface. He wished he could go out to enjoy the sun, but he had this damned equation to solve.

Around noon, Anna knocked the door to his office. He was happy to see her sweet smile, and her green emerald eyes.

“Will you join me for lunch today, Tom?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll get some sandwiches and cold drinks for us,” she said, “and then we can meet down by the fjord.”

Ten minutes later, Tom pulled his ID card at the detector, to open the gate in the main entrance. Then he was out in the warm and pleasant sun.  He walked quickly down to the fjord, to the little cape where they sometimes met.

Anna arrived with sandwiches and soft drinks a couple of minutes later.

They sat in the grass eating, and talking about the sea and the sky.

When the sandwiches were swallowed and the bottles were empties, they lay down in the grass, so close that they could smell each other’s breaths, and hear each other’s heart beats. Tom closed his eyes and he felt Anna’s sweet lips against his, and he stroke the soft skin on her arm. His hand continued to explore under her skirt, and he could feel that she was moist and longing for him.

Tom watched a plane crossing the blue sky when Anna sat down on top of him.  She was wet and soft and wonderful.  He closed his eyes and enjoyed the thrilling flight of the moment. When he opened his eyes, the plane was gone, landed on the airport nearby.

Tom had landed too.

Anna again sat next to him in the grass, fiddling with her ID card. She read aloud the four words printed on the backside of the card:

“Courageous.  Open.  Hands-on.  Caring.”

“We’ve been through all of it now”, Anna said, and smiled.

“Yes”, said Tom, “sometimes I almost believe in corporate values.”

(Picture taken a couple of days ago, by the fjord. I have no idea who the girl in the picture is. She wasn't supposed to be there.)

The land of the midnight sun

It seems like I’m back on my old informal blogging-schedule;  blogging while traveling. That’s when I get the time to do it, when I have the evenings  off, by myself. 

This year I have hardly been traveling at all. Yesterday, when I got to the airport security, I realized how much I appreciate being at home, with just a 10 minute commute to the office (thanks to the inventors of video-conferencing).

This week I’m up north, in the city known as The Paris of the North, and The Gateway to the Arctic.   

It’s quite some time since last time I was here for real. I’ve been here many times in transit. This is the town were I used to board the Antonov-24for Murmansk, when I travelled regularly to Russia. This is the transit stop if you want to experience the Arctic magic. This is where I have boarded vessels heading for the Arctic Seas, and where I slept over when I returned.

It’s great to be here in the summer, at 69 degrees North, well beyond the Arctic Circle. The mountains are still capped with snow, and the birches have just got a slight touch of leaves. It’s not very warm, but it’s light.  The sun shines around the clock. The last sunrise was 20^th May, and the next sunset is 25^th July. Two months of continuous daylight.

My hotel  (and all the other hotels in town) are down on the harbor, with a nice view to the bridge and the Arctic Cathedral on the other side. God present is here too, apparently. Religion is hard to get rid of no matter how far north you go.

The north is challenging for the Muslims. They all died out one summer when Ramadan was in the months of the midnight sun. I’m just joking.  The Muslims up here has a special permit (from God?) to follow the clock-times in Mecca. During Ramadan, they can eat when the sun sets in Mecca. Funny isn’t it?

Religion (all of them) is pure madness. That’s why I stick to science >)

(I took the picture above this morning. When I checked the last link above, I realized that I had basically the same picture 4 year ago. But if you compare, you will see that the weather is better today.)

Such a nice and sunny day

It's such a nice and sunny day. People are hiking
the trails along the fjord, and I'm sitting indoor in my office. Not for a long time, though. I'm just in for half an hour to print a student thesis that I have to read through, tonight on the plane to the North >:)

(It takes some time to print 170 pages. In the mean time, I took the picture above through the window, and wrote this post.)

Arctic magic

Last week I was up north, in our archipelago in the Arctic at 78 degrees North.  The archipelago is basically the continental shelf lifted above sea level.  It’s one and half times the size of Denmark, and more than half of it covered by glaciers. The rest of the land is free from snow and ice in the summer.

One week away from the modern world, away from cell-phone coverage and wireless networks. It was the last week of midnight sun, and still light around the clock. We stayed in a nice and comfortable ship that took us around in the fjords. When I woke up one morning and pulled the curtains to the side, the first thing I saw was a Beluga playing outside of the window.

It’s cool to hike around with geologists, because they know everything about the landscape we pass; how and when it was made. Layer-cake mountains and rivers, valleys and fjords, carved by the glaciers of the ice ages.  Present-day glaciers flow slowly from the mountains to the fjords. Sometimes ice bergs break off the front of the rugged ice, and exhibit the bluish ice core.

In the morning we went by Zodiaks to work, from the red and white ship to shore. There were smart and shy students, and loud professors with big egos, and everything in between. All of them were nice people. We had a great time.

We hiked over shorefaces and plains with scares flowers, into the valleys, and up in the mountain sides. At interesting exposures we stopped to study the rocks, and to get a lecture by an expert. The outdoor classroom, as stunning beautiful as it can possibly get.

Polar bear scouters armed with rifles were ahead of us and out to the sides. This is the kingdom of the polar bear. It’s his home, we are only visitors. We must behave according to this. 

The polar bear is the perfect raptor, waiting patiently by the seals breath holes, climbing vertical cliffs to get to the bird nests, and running twice as fast as Usain Bolt. The polar bear is the king of the Arctic, and one of the few raptors that hunt humans.

The Arctic is magic, the Arctic is addictive.  I had to get home before I got stuck.  But I’ll be back >:)

(I took more than a hundred pictures last week. Above are just a few of them)

Summer days

The science of meteorology defines a summer day as a day with maximum temperature above 25 degrees Celcius (77 Fahrenheit). That's the international definitions, according to met web sites.

In north we use a more conservative definition: A summer day is a day with maximum temperature above 20 degrees Celcius (68 Fahrenheit). 

So far this summer we've had only three summer days in our town. No swimming in the fjord. Usually wearing a fleece jacket when going outdoor. Some people think it's been a chill summer.

I have a somewhat more optimistic view. I define a summer day as any day with 20 hours of light. We've had many of them, since the mid of May.

And still we're only in July. We might even get some warm days before the fall comes >:)

(A random summer picture from my archives, taken some years ago, on a nice summer day out in the archipelago on the coast, some four hours with the fast catamaran from our town)

Summer in Winterland

It’s June, and there are signs of summer. The trees are dressed in green leaves. I have cut the grass once already.

Last Sunday, we had a nice and warm day. Little boy and I biked to town in shorts and T-shirt to buy ice cream.

Yesterday it was snowing.

Today I’m wearing wool socks.

It’s summer in Winterland.

Summer in the north doesn’t mean it’s warm. It just means it’s light all the time.

The light summers are addictive (and the dark winters too). When you’re used to living in the north, you won’t consider living anywhere else, at least not for a long time.

The nature of the north is like a chubby woman, shaved by the cold and harsh winters, and then in the spring her fur grows back, just as it should, just where it should, leaving the highest mountains bare >:)

 (I took the picture above on a late summer night about a year ago, when I walked across the old town bridge on the way back home from a late night in town.)

Piligrim and pizza

It was a beautiful day in the north. Blue sky, sunny and no wind. I got off the plane and met with the driver. We got through the three checkpoints, filling out forms, checking passport and visa, and passport again.

It's always a somewhat stressing procedure. Something wrong? No. It's like a relief when you hear the sound of the passport being stamped by the officer behind the counter.

Then, we were on the way to Murmansk, about four hours drive, with Russian pop music from Radio Vania. We passed Nikel, which almost looked cozy today, and then Zapolyarny, Pechenga and Sputnik, where the road was incredibly bad; bumpy gravel road for some kilometers.

We passed through beautiful arctic landscapes. Not spectacular like the Colorado Rockies or the Swiss Alps, just overwhelming by its endlessness. Huge boulders and moraines, left behind by the glaciers that carved the landscape. Wide valleys and low and wavy hills, covered by snow and scattered birches. There are no leaves on the trees yet. Too early in the spring. It's still a month or more till the trees become green.

Finally, we passed the bridge across the fjord, and entered Murmansk, the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle. The population is about 300.000, down from 500.000 in the Soviet days.

I checked into the hotel, and then went to the cafe to get something to eat. Irina was behind the counter, as usual. Black hair, red lips, white waitress-shirt with a red scarf. She's a chubby and cute girl. Always smiling, though she's working day and night for a salary which is just a fraction of mine. Life is not fair, and will never be.

I ordered something they called pizza, and a dark beer. Piligrim, local beer from Murmansk. The full name is “Piligrim Nord Svetloye”, according to the text on the bottle. Bad pizza, good beer. Very good beer. One of my favorites.

And I left quite some tips for Irina when I left. I think she deserves it >:)

(Some pictures I took today: An old mine in the hillside right outside Nikel. View of Murmansk from my hotel; note the Stalinist concrete blocks in the suburb on the hill; still decorated with old communist symbols,as you can see when you get close. A bottle of Piligrim dark beer on my table in the cafe, still waiting for the so-called pizza, and Irina behind the bar, counting today's income in the cashier machine.)

After the election

This morning at 9am, my Russian driver picked me up at the hotel in Murmansk. Mission completed; I was going home. He was taking me to the Russian border, or more precisely, to the nearest airport across the border.

We drove through the winter-white wilderness of north-west Russia. We crossed a scenic mountain pass with two or three war memorials by the road. There were big battles during WW2. The Russians are good at building memorials.

It was a four-hour drive, and we had plenty of time to talk. We duscussed history, fishing, cars and kids. Then we talked about moving to Kaliningrad (not me, of course), and the recent Russian presidential election.

The driver doesn't like Putin. And I expect he didn't vote for Putin, but I didn't ask directly.

"What's wrong with Putin?" I said.

I have my own opinions, but would liked to hear his views.

"The main problem is that he's been in office too long; eight years as president, then four years as prime minister. People want change. Now we fear another eight years with Putin, at least."

Putin is in control of everything; the natural resources and the state-owned compenies, newspapers and television. He even dictates the super-rich oligarks, or jail them if they don't obey. The longer he rules, the more he behaves a Tsar, or a blend of Tsar and KGB officer (which he used to be).

Still people voted for Putin. According to official figures, he got 65% of the votes. Even the dead voted for Putin, thousands of people who had been dead for years. If the false votes are subtracted, he still gets more than 50% (estimated by international observers).

Halfway we stopped in Titovka, a small place in the middle of nowhere, with a cafe that serves instant coffee and something they called pizza. Maybe it was omelette; I'm in doubt.

Then we entered the military zone, where the roads are very wide. They were built for tanks, during the cold war. Built for a Red-Army invasion, that never came, fortunately.

We passed by the medieval town of Pechenga, and the depressive and polluted mining towns Zapolyarny and Nikel, where nothing has changed in decades. Then, some 10 km (6 miles) before the border, there is a check point. A grumpy guy in army uniform looked at our passports and searched the trunk of the car. He nodded , OK, but didn't smile.

Between the check-point and the border is a transit zone. You can drive through, but stopping is prohibited. At the boarder there is double-checking. A Russian officer stamped my passport, and let me through. Then finally, at the last check point, the officer greeted me: "Welcome home".

I was out of Putin's reach, for this time. Back from the USSR.

(Some pictures taken along the road; Pechenga and Nikel.)

Back in the USSR

Not really. I just borrowed the title from that old Beatles song. The USSR is history, split into a number of more or less democratic and independent republics. I'm in the north-west corner of the biggest one; Russia, the land of Putin.

Yesterday morning, I took a plane up to the Paris of the North. It was one of these big jet planes, a Boeing 7-Something. It was windy on the coast. Very windy. The first approach for landing was aborted right before we touched ground, because the pilots struggeled to control the plane in the wind.

In the second approach, the plane tilted again. Out of the window, I looked straight into the white-topped waves of the roaring sea. I don't know how, but in some way, the skilled pilots managed to level the plane right before landing. It was a very unpleasant flight, a real adrenaline booster.

The next flight to Murmansk was on a good old Antonov 24, a small propeller plane, a piece of Soviet technology from the 1960s. It's a robust plane, built for harsh conditions, simple and reliable technology, if they just keep up with the maintainance program. I hope they do.

It's amazing how these small propeller planes fly in bad weather, and it feels quite comfortable. The small planes kind of flow on the air like a little bee, moving with the wind bursts, rather than trying to oppose it.

The Antonov 24 has nylon curtains in the circular windows, and there is full Russian service on board. It means vodka. I don't drink that stuff; it's poison, and a tragedy for the Russian society. Vodka is the main reason why the avergage expected lifetime of Russian men is less than 60 years.

When I arrived in Murmansk, my driver picked me up in the airport and took me to the hotel. The road from the airport to the city makes a detour into the forests. They started out in the wrong direction when it was built.

Moscow is a modern metropol, but Murmansk is very much like it used to be in the Soviet days. Old buses and Red-Army vehicles (and some brand new Lexus'es and BMW's) are driving in the streets. Huge nuclear-powered ice breakers are anchored on the bay.

A few miles out the fjord is the town of Severomorsk, with the big navy base and shipyard. During the cold war, it was the headquarter of the Soviet Northern Fleet. It's still in operation, but the submarines are not as many as they used to be.

Murmansk was bombed to bits and pieces by the Germans during the 2nd World War, and then rebuilt in typical Soviet style architecture. The suburbs on the hills accommodate thousands of people in massive gray concrete blocks.

I'm back in the USSR >:)

(Pictures taken today and yesterday. The first picture shows central Murmansk, with the big cranes on the harbor and the fjord. In the upper right corner is the Alyosha statue, a 35m (110 feet) high concrete statue overlooking the city, a WW2 memorial built in the 1970s. The second picture is a close-up of the Antonov 24, parked on the snow-covered runway of the Murmansk airport last night.)

Things I hate about flying

Last year, I was traveling quite a lot, way too much for a normal family life. My resolution for 2012 should be to travel less.

When I updated my trip recording yesterday, I made a quick count. In 2011, I went on 19 business trips, to a variety of interesting places:

• Milan, Italy.
• Doha, Qatar.
• San Antonio, Texas.
• Moscow, Russia (7 times).
• Murmansk, Russia (4 times).
• Domestic, northbound (2 times).
• Domestic, southbound (4 times).

Fortunately, we use video conferencing quite extensively. We hardly do domestic travel anymore.

There are a few things I really dislike about flying. This is my top 3 hate list:

1. Sitting in a center seat: A long flight squeezed between two fat guys, and fighting for the arm rest is a nightmare. I want a window seat.
2. When the guy in the seat in front of me leans his seat backward and steals half of that small space I have to read and write and work. The seats should be fixed in the upright position.
3. Airport security is such a hazzle; taking off clothes and shoes, emptying pockets, taking lap top out of the bag, long lines.

I shouldn’t complain too much. I know I’m lucky and privileged, traveling to (some) nice places, and even getting paid for it.

Flying is not all bad. There are things I like about it too:

1. Sitting by the window looking down on interesting places as we pass by.
2. Getting some undisturbed time to read and write.
3. The comfort in business class. I don’t fly business class very often, only on flights taking 6 hours or more. Most of the time I fly Economy Extra, to be able to re-book flights as needed.

My ambition for 2012 is maximum 10 trips. That’s acceptable.

Anyway, next week I go again; booked my tickets today.

(I took the picture above last fall, on-board an Aeroflot plane, over the western part of Russia. The clouds make up an interesting pattern of almost parallel lines. I'm not sure what's causing this, but it was a nice view.)

The most polluted place on the planet

The initial visits of polite negotiations are completed, the contracts are signed. Now it's about technical work, getting the job done. That's the fun part, at least for me.

I've had two full working days with our Russians partner in Murmansk, working hands on, by the computer, processing and analyzing geophysical data. Most of the time things flow nice and easy. But sometimes we get stuck in language problems. The guy I work with most of the time is technically very skilled, but he has a limited English vocabulary.

Sometimes he needs to call for another guy (or two) to help with the translation. And sometimes I get caught in a verbal crossfire, between two (or more) guys yelling at each other in Russian. It's kind of funny, and I'm just sitting there in the middle, smiling, and waiting for things to be sorted out.

Yesterday even the General Director came by. We shook hands and said hello, and nice to see you again. It's fun to meet him, because he looks just like Breczhnev, a living flashback from Soviet times.

Today I'm going back home. I checked out of the hotel this morning. I stayed in the Pi-room, room 3.14 (I'm a math fan, so I couldn't avoid noticing). The driver took me to the airport; the same route back, through the wilderness.

ABout 50 km (30 miles) before the border, we passed through the town of Nikel, first founded as a slave labor camp by Stalin.

It's probably the most polluted place on the planet.

The Kola Peninsula is very rich in minerals. There are mining settlements all over the place. In the 1930s, the worlds largest reserves of nickel were discovered, and the settlement was simply called Nikel. Today the population is about 15.000, and they all make a living form the nickel plant and the nearby mines.

The nickel plant releases huge amounts of nickel oxides and sulphur dioxide into the air. The population has big health problems, in particular respiratory deceases, and reduced life expectancy. The woods and the mountains are completely black and dead around the town. In the winter, the snow is black (the driver told me).

I can tell you, it looks really bad, like the backyard of Hell. The owner of the plant, Russian mining giant Norilsk, isn't doing much about it. Nikel is in the middle of nowhere and at the end of the world, so who cares?

I took this picture from the car when we passed by Nikel. We didn't stop, the driver didn't want to. The town is to the left and the nickel plant to the right in the picture.

On the bumpy road

Can you write a novel while riding in a car through the wilderness of northern Russia? I can't, and I didn't even bother to try, because it would just make me sick.

I have two so-called novels in progress, sometimes in progress at least. The first one is a crime novel. I ran into some problems with it, some issues with the plot, and I'm kind of loosing the overview and control of things. I'm not quite sure what to do about it, so I started on a 2nd novel, which is more like a road novel. There's no plot, I just write, and I write longhand, in a notebook that I can always bring with me when I'm travelling.

Yesterday I wen't on a business trip to Murmansk, again.

I'm a little bit reluctant to domestic flights in Russia right now. They've had too many accidents this year. In the last plane crash, a couple of weeks ago, an entire pro-hockey team from the KHL (the Russian equivalent of NHL) was wiped out. Right now Russia is even ranked behind Congo on air-line safety.

So I chose a different route this time. I took a plane as far to the north and east as I could get, close to the Russian border. It's a two-hour flight, and I spent the time working on my (2nd) novel. Great!

The novel is about two old men escaping from the nursery home. Just like me, they're going up north, but by train and ship, rather than plane and car. Since I'm just a hobby writer, I don't have much time to do research. So I have to write about things I know and places I've been.

My Russian driver picked me up at the airport, and 15 minutes later, we crossed the border to Russia, which takes some time. There are two check points, one on each side of the border. About 100 km of the road goes through a Russian military zone. So there were more check points, in and out of the military zone.

It's difficult to build good roads on the tundra. The roads get very bumpy, because of the seasonal freezing and melting of the surface layer. Sometimes it feels like riding a roller coaster. Reading and writing in the car is out of question. The only thing I could do was to talk with the driver, about fishing and hunting and cars and Soviet history. He told me interesting things about every town we passed through. That's the way I like it, when the driver acts like a tourist guide as we go along.

After a four-hour drive through the wilderness, I arrived in my hotel in Murmansk. Then I could return to my novel, finally. I wrote a few pages before I went down to the restaurant, to get some food and a dark beer (Krusovice, Czeck beer; quite good). Then I returned to my room to write some more.

It's a bad novel, I admit, but I have lots of fun writing it. I don't know where it will end yet, maybe in Murmansk. We will see.

And the title of this post is inspired by Jack Kerouac of course. His novel is a lot better than mine >:)

(Half way between the Russian border and Murmansk, we stopped in a cafe in the middle of nowhere, to get a cup of coffee and a salomon sandwich. The cafe is that little yellow building to the right in the picture. I think it's an old freight car from the rail road company.)

Down by the seaside

It was the last week of the summer vacation, and we went to the coast down south. Actually, it's not very far south, just an hour driving south of Winterland.

Blackberries are growing wild by the roads, very nice to eat right off the bush. Blackberries don't grow in Winterland.

(I might use this as a definition; Winterland is the land north of the northermost blackberry bush.)

We had some nice and lazy days by the sea, swimming, jumping from cliffs (the kids, not me), fishing, or just racing around on the fjord in a small boat, just for fun.

Little boy caught a grasshopper and put it in a jar. He named it Roy and tried to teach it tricks. It turned out that Roy wasn't very willing to learn.

I've read some good books, of course. First, I read my every-summer-on-the-beach book; The Gambler by Dostoyevsky. It's about the 10th time I read it. Second, I read Boomerang by Tatiana de Rosnay. Good book, recommended.

Then I found this old book in a shelf; The Barble Bush by Charles Mergendahl. I had never heard of it before, but the text on the back cover made me curious; "2.5 million copies sold" (not necessarily a good sign), "mercy killing, adultry, seduction, insanity ... sordid ingredients". And the book wasn't bad, I think.

From time to time, I got tired of reading; I wanted to write. So, I got a notebook, and started to write a new novel. The notebook has pages labeled from A to Z (plus a couple of strange letters we're using here). Just for fun, I started a new chapter for every new heading-letter, and each chapter beginning with the same letter. I'm writing longhand, so I have to rewrite (and edit) everything later.

My new (so-called) novel is a story about two old men escaping from the nursery home, and their adventures as they travel northward. It's is kind of a road movie, except that it's a novel, and that they travel by train and ship rather than car. On their way, they summarize their different, but equally miserable lives and hope that their last journey will bring something exciting. I have no plot and no plan; we'll see where it ends.

Led Zeppelin? Yes, that's right. I borrowed the title of this post from a Led Zeppelin song on the Physical Graffiti album.

(I took the picture above on a nice and sunny day at the beach. The area along the coast is of great geological interest. The rocks were created by volcanic erruptions some 150 million years ago, and later carved and shaped by glaciers. It's nature's own art.)

Flying on an Antonov An-24

I had a relaxing Saturday morning; my mission is completed, just waiting for the plane back home.

I’m flying out of Murmansk on an Antonov An-24.This classical Soviet propeller aircraft was constructed by the famous engineer Oleg Antonov in the 1950s. From 1960 to 1978, more than thousand AN-24s have been assembled in the factory in Ukraine, for both public transport and military purposes.

I was left alone in Murmansk last night, when my Russian colleague went back to Moscow. This morning, I put my suitcase in the storage room, and took for a walk outside. The streets were quiet and empty, just a few old Russian cars and buses passing by. It's very different from Moscow, with it's modern buildings and abundance of German luxury cars. Murmansk still gives a Soviet feel, except that the Marx and Lenin posters are replaced by commercials. It was a nice and sunny morning, and it's the middle of July. It's supposed to be summer, but still it was pretty chill outside. No more than 10-15 degrees (50-60 Fahrenheit), too cold with just a T-shirt and a thin jacket.

Coming back from my short walk, I found a coach in the lobby, and sat down to read and write, and to do some people watching, interesting as always. Two German women went up to the reception and asked for a map with the sights of the city. The receptionist was apparently surprised, and had nothing to offer. I was surprised too. There's not much of interest to see. It's the huge Alyosha statue, the cranes on the harbor, the former Soviet navy base in Severomorsk, and the midnight sun. People go fishing and hunting on the Kola Peninsula, but nobody go to Murmansk for vacation.

The driver picked me up outside the hotel at noon, to take me to the airport. I'm trying a different route this time, going straight west, across the border, and then continuing on a domestic flights. It's the shortest distance, but not necessarily the shortest time. It's not easy to find effective transportation between the remote places in the north, and Saturday is not a good day for traveling. There are not many flights to choose from.


The international departure on the Murmansk airport was like a small cupboard. They don't have many international flights, possibly only this one. Security, check-in and passport control was smooth and easy. There were no more than 10-15 passengers on the flight. I like the lazy atmosphere of the small airports in the north.

An old yellow truck was tanking the plane when we boarded, climbing a short and narrow ladder. The engines started to bark, propellers gaining speed, and we were ready for take of. The plane was as noisy as a punk band, and shaking like a hard-rock drill. But, what the Hell, it was cool to fly on an Antonov.


It was a two-hour flight, above endless forests and lakes in the east, and fjords between rugged snow-capped mountains in the west. Half-way the cute stewardess served a decent lunch, a salami sandwich with vodka and wine, but I stayed with tea and orange juice today.

Yesterday, when we had completed our business tasks, there was a celebration. We had some snacks and drinks in the general director’s office, whiskey with ice, Oran single malt. I don't like that stuff very much (prefer beer). Anyway, there were a lot of toasts, as usual, and they proposed a toast to my great braveness, because I was flying on the Antonov to get back home >:D

(That's our Antonov, ready for bording. Beautiful plane, isn't it? I took the picture at the top on the short walk across the runway. I shot a few pictures through the window of the plane as well. That tank-like thing in the upper part of the pitures is the engine.)

134-hour live broadcast

Right now there is a cool TV project going on here, real reality TV.

One of the coastal express ships has been equipped with lots of TV cameras, and the entire voyage from the first port in the south to the last port in the north is broadcast live on TV. It's probably the longest continuous live broadcast. It's on webcast as well, click here here if you wanna see it.

The broadcast started yesterday and lasts for 134 hours, almost six days. I watched it for a while yesterday, fun to watch in small portions, but somewhat tedious after a while.

The coastal express is steaming along our coastline every day, all year, and has been doing so for almost 120 years. A full round trip from south to north and back to the start takes 11 days. All the 34 ports are served on a regular schedule, once a day. At any time there are 11 ships in operation.

The coastal express is hardly an express any more. However, in the old days, before commercial air lines, it was the most efficient (and only) way to travel along our long coastline. Now the coastal express is operating more like a cruise line, with lots of tourists. But you can, of course, still buy port-to-port tickets, and use it as public transport.

I have traveled with the coastal express a few times, between small towns up north, when the air lines have been on strike (they have powerful unions), and on national holidays, when Six Flags Airlines have taken a day off.

Tomorrow morning the TV-ship is coming to our town. Little boy wants to go down and watch and waive to the cameras, so we plan to bike down to the port tomorrow morning >:)

(I took the picture above in May 2008, when we lived up north. It's the coastal express steaming to port. This was the view I had through the kitchen window every morning at 7:30 am, while eating breakfast, before going to work. I must admit that I miss it.)

Tagged

I was tagged a couple of days ago, by Liz Fichera. The tagging means that I'm supposted to answer some questions.

OK, I'll do my best. Here we go:

1) Do you think you're hot? If you mean that kind of hot, I know one or two who might say "yes", but most people would say "no", and I don't really care. I'm too old for that kind of games ...

2) Upload a picture or wall paper you are using at the moment. The picture above is what I've used as wall paper on my lap top for the last couple of years. I took it from our backyard three years ago, when we lived up North and the sun was shining 24/7 in the summer (unless it was raining).

3) When was the last time you ate chicken meat? Last week. I'm not very fond of eating animals with a beak. I eat chicken if I get it served, but have never ever ordered it in a restaurant. I usually prefer beef or fish.

4) The Song(s) you listened to recently? Most of the time I listen to black metal and death metal. Today Iæve been listening to Mayhem, Taake (which means fog), and Nile.

5) What were you thinking as you were doing this? I was thinking on my so-called novel that I'm trying to write. There are a couple of tricky parts in the plot, and I struggle to get it tied together in a smooth way.

6) Do you have a nickname? Cold As Heaven, invented it myself.