moving day / 2010-08-22 / stockholm

as mentioned, i seem to have neglected this old page. so feeling guilty, i searched for new ways to do that which was done before to breath some new life in to the scribblings page... and i found it at tumblr.com. so now officially scribblings has relocated to a new address at pokrupa.tumblr.com

facebook killed the blog... / 2010-08-10 / stockholm

well, cleaning up the 'ol website, I see that it has been a long, long time without an entry here. simply put, facebook killed this page very quickly, as i noticed that the last entry corresponds roughly to the date that i got a facebook account. my news to friends is posted there, although that is rather seldom as well, and still proves to be the easiest way to keep in touch. sorry old page, i will keep you anyhow in the hopes of new ideas!

eeeeestonia / 2008-05-24 / tallinn

For Lisa's birthday we took a midsommar vacation to the lost lands of Estonia. We found a fabulous hotel in the heart of the old town and Lisa was treated to 2 days at a spa. We spent our days walking around the old town, down to the port, out to the wet and muddy open air museum and checked out the shady market on the otherside of the tracks. All and all a wonderful trip with the exception of an untimely encounter with some foul greek olive leaves which resulted in a "violently turbulent" trip back home spent which was spent hugging many toilets. Luckily it was only Mom and Dad that suffered the food poisioning wrath and that Niklas was spared.

spring time shenanigans / 2008-03-21 / stockholm & vemdalen

after a fun filled day joining Nils at work, we packed up the car and headed north...to the snow and mountains for a little R and R. along the way, Niklas upgraded his cruising to full blown, all out walking. there's no turning back now folks! we're racing to keep up while Seymore is fearing for his life. we managed to capture footage (video) for proof of the wandering Niklas. the topper to our easter holiday, a visit from the Easter bunny courtesy of the Canadian Club where Niklas picked up his first egg...or two. to see our springtime shenanigans check out these photos.

nearly one year's worth of tunes! / 2008-03-08 / stockholm

ouch. ok, i've been real slow in putting up tracks... but that is not to say that i haven't been collecting them. so in one year of podcast listening, i still have a few picks. the list of music is getting long so for convenience i've moved all of the music over to this seperate page. so please listen on...

happy birthday, little man! / 2008-02-13 / stockholm

our little guy has completed his first journey around the sun today! a truely stellar event! the year passed with all of the many firsts to be expected - jolly jumpers, sitting up, crawling, cruising, building blocks, walking with the wagon (video), kisses from girls, flirting on the train, swimming, fika in cafes, snow, sun, beaches, christmas, smoked salmon, blueberries, cats, playgroups and ended off unfortunately with an ear infection. that's alot; if it were me, i'd be finished!

the day passed with mandatory fixings, including cake (video), presents, balloons, party whistles (video), music and a day trip to the zoo. of course, he's only one, so most of the excitement was on the parents side, and he was confused now and then as to why we were making such a big fuss. and he only was interested in a spoon or two of chocolate cake, so i will play that card later on... "well, my friend, you turned it down all those years ago on your first birthday, so i guess you don't need any now!"

all of this was captured in a few first birthday pictures.

chocolate, diamonds, and beer - how cliche / 2008-01-16 / antwerp

a holiday right after the holidays? why not?! so we were wild and crazy and headed down to the party mecca of Antwerp. I actually had a three day meeting there, so Lisa and Niklas joined along. we went down the weekend before to tour around Antwerp, Brussels and Brugge. took the train around, ate some chocolate, drank some beer, stole some diamonds, and ordered pizza. Niklas gathered a few TinTin items to culture himself up a little and went to his first zoo to see kangaroos, flamingos and hippo - oh my! here then are the photos.

some christmas, some work, some fireworks / 2008-01-03 / hammarby & stockholm

if you read below, back to christmas 2006, you'll see that we had made a promise to come home to canada for christmas this year... but as i'm sure you've figured out, that again was not the case. expensive flight tickets plus a very hectic fall led us to decide that we'd best keep it simple this year - after all, i was pooped and we were back in canada for six weeks this past summer...

Lisa had to work the days between christmas and new years, so we ended up only going down to hammarby for a few days, and spending the rest of the time quietly back in an empty stockholm. the days were basically filled by making the rounds from one cafe to another around downtown. this being Niklas' first new years, we thought we would take him outside around midnight after all the fireworks woke him up (recall the blitzkrig approach to fireworks in stockholm from 2006), but as it turned out the little guy slept right though the entire raid... i have no idea how. so Lisa and i snuck out for a few minutes to share some champagne with the neighbours in the courtyard and fire off a box of rather impressively large fireworks. (apparently the night of new years is the only night of the year that anyone and everyone can launch fireworks at free will without getting a permit... which then explains the two drunks i witnessed buying a shopping cart full of explosives at the grocery store on december 30th.)

...and of course, i cannot post something without putting up pictures of Niklas' first christmas.

back in sweden for the fall / 2007-11-07 / stockholm

coming back to sweden from canada in august, we cleared customs with two imports: Ian and Patty Wiebe. and good thing we did cause we would have never been able to get all our bags and crap home if it wasn't for them! many thanks. they then spent two weeks here eating, drinking, boating, reading, touring, shopping, etc. and we headed down south as well to Hammarby, Kalmar and Öland. soooo nice.

fall was a lot of running around, but even still, Niklas was in full gear starting to craw, standin' (with the help of what ever is about a foot and half off the ground), takin' dips in the pool, and gettin' ready for christmas.

so i've collected a bunch of pictures from Ian's skillfull perspective and from Niklas' "firsts".

hot summer on the prairies / 2007-08-10 / winnipeg

holy hannah. when it gets hot on the prairies, it gets HOT. and we arrived right in the middle of it. apparently Stockholm had a rainy and cold six weeks of summer, which strangely enough broke in to sun and warm as soon as we came back in mid august. just call us lucky.

so we packed up the circus and flew across the ocean to spend six weeks back at home. the plan was to drive west in the Tradesman and spend some time in the mountains, but well, with a 5 month old, +40C heat, no airconditioning, 16 hours on the prairie highway... err, no thanks. so we stayed in Manitoba and swam, ate, swam, layed around and pretty much did a whole lot of nothing. visiting, out to the lake, up to Red Lake, bbqs, weddings, and some evenings out. we may have missed the mountains, but all in all, no complaints.

six weeks results in rather quite a few photos, so here is just a sampling of the summer in Winnipeg.

cbc radio 3 - part 3 / 2007-06-17 / stockholm

a few months worth of tracks here that i realized i've never posted, so i'll just list 'em...

'merry christmas' -- nice ballad that turns in to a christmas wish on the very last verse; so you can actually pretend its not a christmas song if you just ignore the last 20 seconds.
'second best death' -- from the prairies; wide open spaces, big skies, endless horizon and crickets.
'measures and scales' -- sooo sultry. who knew folk could be so sexy? "He plays piano in a jazz band. I love him for the man that he could be. I asked him, 'if i let you, would you play me?' Then delighted as he tickled every key."... and hidden in there, i found what i realized is a perfect description of my self : "I am just a dreamer, wearing sensible shoes.".
'indestructible sam' -- a little lyrical beat.
'don't give up' -- unassuming and very Beck'ish.
'ashes to ashes' -- another track from Jill Barber (the sultry folk girl from above).
'between exhales' -- gentle track, and yes it ends with a cut.
'a mirror without' -- just a good track.
'no believing' -- piano vocal, probably my favourite track of this bunch and would make a good soundtrack to a little summer indie.
'listen to your own' -- great walkin' tune; my stride seems to fall in to beat every time.

approaching the big three months / 2007-05-04 / stockholm

someone somewhere had said that if you can make it through the first three months, then you'll survive. well we are coming up on that hump shortly, so thought we would post a few pictures of the past three months to show that we are still alive and kicking.

Niklas has been seen about the town still sporting fashions from the '77 spring collection. his busy social calendar included picnics, parties, first acquaintance with grandpa, curling, and chairing a canadian club committee meeting. after all this activity, a relaxing weekend getaway to the spa was in order. his personal assistants are busily working on upcoming engagements including a trip south to Hammarby and a tour of western Canada during the summer of 2007.

all little fingers and toes accounted for / 2007-02-13 / stockholm

after some false labour very early monday morning, things finally started kicking in to high gear that evening. we made our way to the hospital around midnight where lisa "enjoyed" a long period "discomfort". after serious coaxing from the doctor and midwives, Niklas Ray Pokrupa finally made his appearance at 06:50 (as promised by one of the midwives, who said "before 07:00!", cause she had the hopes of seeing him before her shift ended).

after a stressful arrival, he was checked out quickly by the staff and passed all his tests with flying colours. Lisa and the little one (and me) then spent the time recovering and were kindly moved in to a great private ward with our own room, two beds, tables, chairs, and full kitchen serving meals around the clock down the hall. there we stayed, unrushed and relaxed, getting support and learning from the wonderful staff for three days before coming home on friday.

for all those keen on the numbers, they are: Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 06:50 GMT+01:00, 3.42kg (7 lbs 9 ounces), 51cm (20.1 inches).

and for those keen on photos, you can see some from the first three days here.

new year with new things from old times / 2007-01-01 / stockholm

2007 is here and we brought it in sitting high up on a hill overlooking stockholm. expecting to just watch the city fireworks, we were literally blown away by a city wide fireworks show. everyone and everybody goes out and buys an obscene amount of surprisingly large fireworks and then sets them off at will. so from high up on the hill, we got a spectacular unchoreographed fireworks show from all around us for over two hours - the city of stockholm was exploding everywhere! i've never seen anything like it.

thinking of the new year made me think of what has past. the new cool is the old retro... which is lucky for us. my mom, Tina (sitting in the photo to the left from the early 1960's), lived and studied in stockholm in the late 50's and early 60's. studying to become a teacher and Master Weaver, she shared a flat with her sister and other friends, and eventually had her own place. then came the time to move to south africa in the 70's, so her precious apartment was carefully boxed up and stored away at Hammarby.

it is now then, some 30 to 40 years later, that we've opened up her little time capsule. after she passed away in 2003, moving to sweden for a period almost became a necessity to take care of things here. coming here with only suitcases, her time capsule from the 1950-60's was a godsent. since coming we've been slowly discovering things and with every trip down to Hammarby we bring back something else and are now making full use of her things once again in a flat in stockholm. kitchen things, furniture, lamps, paintings, photos, glass...

some things we only needed to give a quick cleaning, but some other things have required some "rescuing" - reframed some pictures, re-upholstered chairs, completed some glassware. Tina sure had an eye for style, so for those with an affinity to design, i've collected photos of most of Tina's time capsule things.

full of food and napping / 2006-12-27 / hammarby

our third trip down to Småland for christmas, and it was as would be expected... lots of food, lots of drink, napping, visiting, quiet, dark, and just nice to relax and be with family. although it was green. quite green; no leaves, but the grass and fields were all green as could be. not exactly the white christmas that Bing was singing about.

it was a bit of a bitter-sweet thing since it is always nice to go down to the farm, but we had built ourselves up in anticipation for going back to canada for christmas this year so we were both a bit blue that we wouldn't be spending time with Jerry, Yvonne, family and good good canadian friends. next year, we promise.

in the mean time here are some christmas photos for 2006.

learning how to drive all over again / 2006-11-20 / french riviera

as much as i bitch and complain over coffee about no-frills-bring-your-own-toilet-paper discount air travel and ryan air in particular... "yes we fly to every destination 1.5 hours away from an actual destination."... they are damn cheap. with all these low cost airlines, the whole eurorail pass thing is just so 80's. now-a-days if you're not picky you can score a flight to pretty much anywhere in europe for $60-80 round trip.

and so ryan air suckr'd us in yet again and we found a long weekend flight down to Milan, well Bergamo which is an hour east of Milan. we rented a car and then drove amongst the crazy italians down to Genova and along the coast to Monaco, Nice, Antibes, Cannes and then up through the french Alps and back around (not through) Turino and Milan. two nights in italy and three nights in Nice.

as with any long drive, you end up with a bunch of roadtrip pictures.

cbc radio 3 revisited / 2006-11-04 / stockholm

well i managed to pull some more tracks from cbc radio 3 and stuck the links below. btw, if you want to browse through other canadian bands or tracks, all of these tunes can be found on new music canada.

'i am a glow' -- nice little vocal guitar bit.
'vertebrae' -- another track from winnipeg's Christine Fellows.
'the bleeding heart show' -- no canadian indie collection is complete without something from the new pornographers.
'whose side are you on' -- real catchy tune from a kid in regina.
'rocketship' -- grant lawrence's pick for #1 tune of 2005 on radio 3, a band from winnipeg.
'nothing is cool' -- hip hop track that gets a lot of play on radio 3.
'forever in the sun' -- some transient in the mix.
'rock guitar' -- and a great little beat track.

"breaking new sound" / 2006-10-14 / stockholm

one of the hard parts of being out of the country for so long is being away from the comfort of home radio. but with cbc being quick on their feet and putting out podcasts for nearly all of my fav programs (ideas, dispatches, as it happens, dnto, and my new found radio 3) i've been saved. so full of podcasts during all the wanderings this summer, i came across a good number of home grown canadian tunes on cbc radio 3. in the spirit of sharing, i've put a few mp3 tracks below...

'dont be so mean jelleybean' -- quite possibly one of the best live sing-alongs i've ever heard.
'the company store' -- something i've come to call "folk angst".
'nowhere with you', 'love this town', 'natural disaster' -- the east coast's Joel Plaskett.
'souvenirs' -- tune from winnipeg with a nice piano background and chorus.
'houses' -- little railway beat tempo, that picks up nicely at around 150 seconds.
'elves on patrol', 'kill the day', 'needle and the homage done', 'the fifty minute hour', 'sabaturu' -- a handfull of ambients and beat tracks.
'violet light' -- and a tune that was aptly described as "the sound of intimate conversation and late night cigarettes".

frequent flyer points pains / 2006-09-11 / on a plane

this is a very obvious statement, but yes, after this summer i do prefer trains over planes. simple, cheap, good view, nice big tables, bar car, and any seat on a train is basically a first class seat on a plane.

i can attest to this based on the absurd number of times i had to leave home this past 5 months. stevenage UK, gothenburg for easter, southern germany, paris, edmonton, winnipeg, red lake, netherlands, southern sweden, southern sweden again, utah, edmonton again, gothenburg again, and winnipeg again... in that order. although i can say that i at least got bumped up to First Class on United during my third trip back over the atlantic. now that is flying - this is no seat, but more like a fully reclinable command centre. frighteningly, there is still one class up called First Class Suite. granted all that did was spoil me and now i can't dream of flying in the sardine can at the back of the plane. sadly its my bank account makes the decision, not my ass, so economy it is for me anyways.

i haven't posted any photos yet, but that's work in progress.

visitors from another planet / 2006-07-03 / stockholm

spring and summer this year is about trips but more importantly, visitors! canadian visitors to be exact. yup, two visits from friends back home made for a great spring/summer.

kaleigh joined us (from germany) for a long weekend in march for wanderings, coffee, and yoga. you can see her pictures here. mark then joined us for three weeks in june-july for the tourist stuff in stockholm, the buddy guy concert, volleyball, swimming, boat trips, viking sites, and a road trip to southern sweden for midsummer. you can see his pictures here.

pain au chocolat / 2006-05-15 / paris

so i had a small workshop/conference in a place called wurzburg, germany. not all that particularly interesting. so we decided to jazz it up and take advantage of cheap flights and link together my trip to germany with steve and sarah's trip to paris. lisa flew in to hannover, we spent the day there and then we flew to paris to spend a long weekend with some fellow ex-winnipegers. so we romped around, walking what i swear was the equivalent of three times the circumference of the earth, took pictures, devoured bread, ate the food, and drank the wine.

here then are some photos of our wanderings in possibly the most famous city in the world.

bratwurst man / 2006-05-12 / hannover

to those who have snooped through a few of my sketches you may have noticed one called the "bratwurst man". no, serving hot dogs from a backpack kiosk is not a new get-rich-quick concept of mine, it actually exists. so in order to convince those who do not believe me, i've included this photo we took in hannover of a real live bratwurst man, complete with umbrella, condiments, drinks, weiners, buns and a GAS GRILL all in one mobile two legged food distribution unit.

the law of halves / 2006-02-18 / stockholm

a physical or philosophical debate can be had about how many times you can cut something in half, but the swedes have figured this out a long time ago. they know very well that one can forever cut a smaller piece from a larger piece.

case and point is simply the daily activity of "fika"; this is basically coffee break during the day when everyone gets together and chats over coffee and usually something sweet or baked. a nice way catch up with everyone. now what is interesting is the cutting up of the baking - people take for themselves, but one will soon notice that no one ever takes the last piece. instead each person will cut an ever smaller piece, eventually leaving only molecules... but at least leaving something.

so leaving work late at around 6:30 friday night, i came across the notorious last piece and had to capture photographic evidence of one of the quirks of swedish manners. and yes, i left the piece behind.

a stockholm tradition / 2006-01-13 / stockholm

innebandy is a swedish thing, but "skridsko" is most definitely a stockholm thing. the combination of lots of water, cold, and little snow makes for the perfect conditions to go out skating on the lakes and waterways that make stockholm so scenic. this tradition of skate touring has evolved in to its own sport, complete with special long blade skates, races, safety equipment, mapping systems, ice condition reports, and so on.

as my first introduction, i was honoured to join the folks from work for a friday extended lunch out on the waterways behind our office. indeed a fantastic way to get around and spend a sunny afternoon.

helsinki by boat / 2005-12-31 / helsingfors

not sure what to do for new years, we decided to spend it on the Silja line ship across to Helsingfors with a bunch of drunk swedes, fins and russians. was a grand old time! got on the boat friday, explored the ship that night, woke the next day in Helsingfors, explored all the sights, shopped a bit, back on the boat, had a hell of a new years eve dinner, and then celebrated new years three times.. (23:00 for the russians, 24:00 for the fins, and 01:00 for the swedes!) .. then slept all sunday once back in stockholm.

here's some photos of the trip. highly recommended! and i didn't even end up using my lifevest.

christmas in southern sweden / 2005-12-26 / hammarby

another year passed, so quick. and so we headed down to Småland once again for a quiet christmas. along with the mix of swedish christmas fare, this year we brought down some north american staples - tortiere, apple pie, and best of all home made eggnog.

ate too much once again, though. snow finally came on the 25th, so at least we had a white christmas. after a four hour train ride down with a cat and about 5 million other travellers, it was nice to settle in to the quiet and calm. we came a bit before everyone else, so bought some food, relaxed and sat around. ended up spending nearly a week there and never once drove in to town - a few walks around in skögen, but the rest of the time spent in the quiet timeless bubble of Hammarby... but that's what the holidays are all about.

took a few photos, but in all honesty taking out the camera, turning it on and pressing the shutter sounded like an awful amount of work, so it didn't happen often.

safety first / 2005-11-08 / stockholm

one of the rights of passage to being a swede in the school/work environs is to join in on playing "innebandy" - or "indoor bandy", which is basically indoor hockey with a ball and a shorter rounded stick. so in the hopes of improving my weak game, i bought a nice new stick. now swedes are somewhat noted for their conscientiousness for safety and detail, but the following tag on the stick with detailed notes on how to properly select a stick size is a bit much.

sounds awfully dangerous. maybe i'll just stay home because, you know, it is snowing out, and slipperly, and windy, and interest rates are increasing, and my calcium intake has been low this month, and...

odd thursday morning reading / 2005-10-27 / stockholm

taking the tube and reading the paper go hand in hand. so this uneventful thursday morning i was shuffling throught the metro paper and came across an article with the title "your man may be a psychopath"... well how's that for a pleasant morning read.. so i stand there in the full train and begin to watch all the guys starting to stir in their shoes upon coming across the article, and more entertainingly, the women getting that growing look of doubt-turning-in-to-critique that women do so well. the ride was quite silent, and i could just imagine the awkward silence that would follow between couples that night and over the weekend while all the women evaluated their men.

what made it even more funny was some of the markers that were listed. "charming and conversational", "sees himself as better than others", "has no regrets or feelings of guilt", "manipulative", "dominant", "has difficulties dealing with feelings", "not enough compassion"... that could very well be at least 50% of the fellows on the train right at this very moment... god help me, i'm surrounded by psychopaths.

snippets of fall / 2005-09-26 / stockholm

lisa has undertaken a project now that were are back from canada; she has been out photographing fall in whatever ways possible. kind of like a "learning assignment" approach, picking a different topic or subject each time. gotta say, considering this is her first serious try at it, she has no formal training in photography and that getting a camera to do exactly what you want is always tricky, she's done a fantastic job!

my new ride / 2005-07-22 / stockholm

i bought a bike. been a few years since the last bike, so i am long overdue. but this steps aside from norm for me, as you can clearly see. second hand scandinavian style cruiser, in a woman's frame. baskets, bell, kickstand and all. but without a doubt, the best way to get around the city. considering it takes me 35 minutes by tube to get to work or 35 minutes by bike along the waterways, it only makes sense.

and no, i am not the only fruit riding a woman's bike here.

tourists / 2005-07-01 / stockholm

we have settled in to our new home and have finally had the chance to wander around a bit. we even had our first "visit" from mario for the weekend! spectacular city, even more so in the summer, so lisa took some photos of the city and the old town.

its hard not to be a tourist in this place even though we technically live here.

the long drive down to stockholm / 2005-06-07 / stockholm

in keeping with my routine of moving residence at least once per year, for the past 11 years, it is time to move south from Kiruna to Stockholm. the four day drive took us across the mountains to the atlantic, down the norwegian coast to Trondheim, back across to Uppsala, then in to Stockholm.

all this to start up my project work at the Swedish Space Corporation, which should keep me busy until christmas.