Singapore, Singapore (long layover on the way to Malaysia)

I flew Singapore Airlines to Malaysia and had a nine hour layover in Singapore. In addition to having extensive comfort and shopping options in the airport, they have different city bus tours that you can take for free, if you have a long enough layover. After the twelve hour flight, which arrived at 6 AM, I signed up for the tour at a desk directly outside of my gate, grabbed a doughnut and a coffee, and met up with other tour-goers about an hour late to go through customs and get on the bus.

I happened to be there on the extra day off that most people were granted because it was the celebration of Singapore's 50th anniversary. Nevertheless, the tour guide was cheerful and  full of good facts about how Singapore is a wonderful multi-cultural place to visit or live ("Please come back and stay for longer than the bus tour").

Part of the skyline from the highway into the city.

The tour had two stops, but I would split it into three parts. The drive to the city, when we learned about the history of Singapore, the high proportion of public housing (85%), the dense public transit system, and where to get a good meal "very cheap". Almost every balcony of all of the high apartment buildings that we passed was sporting a Singaporean flag.

After passing by some colonial buildings and the Formula 1 track, we stopped near the financial district to look at the Merlion - a creature that has the body of a fish and the head of a lion. It symbolizes the city's origins as a fishing village and the roots of its name, which comes from "lion city" (someone probably got confused with a tiger, according to the tour guide).

Of course I joined in with the selfie-frenzy, with pretty poor results.  

On the way to the next stop w passed some buildings that evidenced the diversity in the city: 

"We even have the Jews!" - tour-guide

Not the best shot of a Hindu temple, but check out the color and detail + the national symbols celebrating the birthday.

 The next stop was near a big mosque, in an area full of adorable cafes like these, which were mostly closed:  

Has a nutella sea salt tart

Even a Swedish one 

Rich and Good Cake Shop. This building style is called a shophouse
because there is a shop on the bottom floor that people live above. 

Beancurd City! Actually not in that exact area, but we
passed it on the way and I love the name, colors, and mascot.

Recreation opportunities for all ages:

Fun exercise options for seniors!

 And reminders of the birthday everywhere: 

I didn't really have may expectations about the city, but was so surprised at how many massive buildings there were. The tour did a great job of selling the city as a livable/workable space, although I do not think it would be that interesting as a vacation destination.

(Hello) Stockholm + Lund + Karlstad, Sweden

In February I ventured back to Sweden for a great week in one of my favorite cities, playing one of my favorite sports, and briefly seeing some of my favorite people. This was the second iteration of the Hello Stockholm tournament, which is indoor on artificial grass at the Swedish Olympic Training Center. Everything was contained at the center (accommodation, food, party, playing), which was very convenient. 

I joined the team of another former Swedish Fish player, Yrr (pronounced "ihr") from Munich. The name comes from the book The Swarm and yrr are crab-like sea creatures that are trying to eliminate humans, but this can only be achieved through collective actions... or something like that. It was so nice to be playing again! My knee didn't even hurt - until I tried to dance at the party :( 

Not the best team pic ever, but also not the worst. (the twins alternated having their eyes closed in each of them)

It was so nice to see all the Stockholm folks, watch some good ultimate, do some swedish-ish things and to play with this cool team. I will go with some of them to a beach tournament in Italy in May, along with Frida, a Swedish Fish friend.

Then I headed down to Lund to visit Emilia, a friend from Stockholm, whom I haven't seen in a few years. She just got back from doing research for her masters thesis in India and interrailing around Europe over the summer, so it was great to catch up. We thrift stored it up like the old days. Lund is a cute little university town. 

Viking runes in Lund.

I then went to Karlstad to meet with my committee, do some bureaucratic things and give a lecture on business innovation in the water sector, which could have gone better. Now I have a much better picture of what needs to happen for me to finish my doctorate.

Two weeks back in Switzerland, then it is off to Tanzania for a PhD course!

Linköping, Sverige

Five consecutive weekends of ultimate doesn't leave much time for blogging (especially when you have to wait for other people to post photos), so I've decided to have an individual post for Swedish nationals and lump the other three weeks into a massive post.

06-07/09 USM: Uppsala, Sweden (coaching)
14-15/09 SM Dam (Women's nationals): Linköping, Sweden
21-22/09 Burla Beach Cup (picking up with british people I don't really know): Viareggio, Italy
26-29/09 eXtended European Ultimate Championship Finals: Bordeaux, France (watching/volunteering)
04-06/10 Oktoberfest Hat: München, Germany

*all of the photos in this post are stolen from Ultimate Sweden's Instagram*

My team Swedish Fish won silver at the swedish national club championships this weekend! It's not gold, but I am really proud of how we played and considering our two match-ups against the champs were 15-7 and 17-5 in pool play and the finals, respectively, they deserved it. There were only a four teams and it is not uncommon for the tournament to get canceled for a lack of teams (last year there were only 3) and all of the four teams were really combinations of multiple teams. We joined forces with some young superstars from a suburb north of Stockholm.

There were only 2 games each day (3 pool games, then placement matches) We started the tournament down 0-4 to Akka, but went on an 8 point streak to take half! This was really good. I mean Akka is a good team, but our team really needed a positive first game. Emilia, one of my swedish besties recently moved to Lund for school and now plays with Akka. After a little bit of good-natured trash talking, she got to eat some of the pumpkin muffins that I had baked for the Fish.

Then we fell to E6 in our second match of the day. It wasn't really close, but we figured out some ways to elevate out game.

We had sushi for dinner (followed by hamburgers for those of us with appetites) and met up with another team at a pub to hang out for a bit. There are very few ultimate tournaments in Sweden, so it was nice to catch up with players I'd met throughout the year.

We started Sunday with a match against Örebro. They have a lot of girls from the U23 national team and their girls often play open youth tournaments and they also beat Akka and lost to E6, so we didn't really know what to expect. The wind picked up during warm-ups, so we played zone the whole game. We took the match 15-1, with time to spare, so we had extra time to rest before finals.

Looking super serious after winning 15-1.

We lost substantially in the finals, which was not unexpected. E6's attitude towards the whole tournament was really irksome. They essentially felt entitled to the gold (and the one world's bid sweden is guaranteed) and wanted to do as little work for it as possible. They only wanted to play round robin (no semis or finals). We had agreed on a match to 17 for the placement games, but they tried to get the rules changed right before the match to play to less. I mean, it's great that you are awesome, but the rules say you have to score 17 points to so to worlds, so stop complaining and just play!

If you want to brush up on your swedish or see a photo with me in it in the local paper, you can check out this article about how there are no referees in ultimate.

Stockholm & Godegård, Sweden + London & Manchester, GB

This past Spring my dad came to visit me in Sweden. The true purpose of the visit was to watch Premier League games in the UK, but he flew in and out of Stockholm, so we also got to take in a Swedish league game, sight see in Stockholm and visit the town that our ancestors emigrated from in the nineteenth century. A lot of planning and research went in to figuring out this trip: we tried to find a weekend where there were games on Saturday, Sunday and a weekday for which we could get tickets.

Stockholm
Dad was with me in Sthlm for a day before we went to England for our soccer-vacation. It was rainy, but I tried to squeeze some Swedish things in: a bus ride around Gammla stan and Södermalm, a tour of Systembolaget, a tour of KTH (well the library and quad... no hiking up to my office in the M building). The sun came out and we walked around Stureplan/Nybroplan on our way to Stadion, the 1912 Olympic stadium to watch Djurgården IF play. The stadium is brick and beautiful, but the team is moving to a stadium in the outskirts because the field doesn't comply with FIFA regulations.

Fika. Swedish afternoon coffee break.

One of the quads at KTH.

GB

Peter Crouch: awkward looking in real life, too.

We flew to London the next morning where we were graciously hosted by Kathryn (our families go way back) and her husband, Richie, a wine writer. We "went for a curry" for dinner then turned in. The following day, Dad and I walked around South Bank (and got some Krispy Kreme... they are fancy in England) before heading to Loftis Road to watch QPR play against Stoke. This wasn't an ideal game, but tickets were available and there were two Americans on Stoke's roster at the time (Shea and Cameron - I'm pretty sure I was the only person in the stadium who cheered when Cameron was subbed in late in the game).

"Enjoying" a pint at the local...
my super smokey microbrew was a bad choice. 

Hanging out with the (replica) dinos at the Natural History museum... well worth the visit just for the architecture
 + PROTIP: they have eduroam wifi.

We spent the next day in London, we couldn't get tickets to the Tottenham game that I was targeting (I'll have to go to an MLS game, if I want to see Dempsey play), but we watched it in a pub. Dad loves talking to strangers about soccer. I don't remember the chronology, but we also went to the Natural History Museum to check out the dinos and the British Museum to look at the stolen artifacts. Richie roasted chicken and vegetables and picked out a with a nice dessert wine, which he needed to taste for a certification he is doing, to pair with the strawberry trifle dad and I picked up at the grocery store (that seemed so casual in comparison).

I went into the ManU supporters only Trafford Pub,
but now they are making me accessorize!

We then headed north to Manchester to see Man U play Aston Villa. We had to join the supporters' club in order to get tickets. One of my dad's teammates and a lifetime ManU fan was also at the match, so we met up with him and his girlfriend before the match to talk soccer. We are not really Man U fans: in England, I like certain players and tend to follow them as they move around Europe (especially the few Americans who make it over there) and don't like the big money clubs and I'm not sure, but I think dad just likes football. Nevertheless, dad bought a scarf and I did not appreciate getting draped with it. Van Persie had a beautiful hat trick (including the "EPL goal of the year" according to my dad) against (american) keeper Brad Guzan. Man U clenched the League title by winning the match, so the crowd was really happy. They sang and chanted all game long. It was a crazy fan experience - very different than that at QPR! We caught a flight back to Sweden the next morning.

The view from our seats.

Godegård

After our UK soccer extravaganza, we returned to Sweden for 36 hours before dad flew home. We watched Bayern trounce Barcelona in my local pub, then work up early the next morning to road trip 3 hours to Godegård, the town where my dad's great-grandparents emigrated from. Armed with some cursory genealogy research (thanks LDS church), we hit up the cute old church and cemetery. We knew the names' of parents of the relatives who settled in Pennsylvania, but could not find their headstones. There were lots of Karlssons and Perssons, but we were looking for Larssons and Jonssons. We found a few potential relatives, but no one whose names we had. It was really fun searching for our roots; it felt so detective-y.

The town had several informational placards posted (all but one were in Swedish), so we were able to gather a little bit of history of the town. It was big in iron/steel and the smelter shut down about the time that the family came to the US, so we think they may have left because there were no jobs, especially since they settled in a metal smelting area of PA. We also saw the old festival place (now a field) and missed the annual festival by a week (it was May 1).

The sole restaurant/gas station/store.

Cute little church. We couldn't go inside, because as far as I could tell,
the guy with the keys would be there tomorrow. 

Some history in English, so I could confirm what
 I "understood" in Swedish

The manor house.

Uppsala, Sweden

Last weekend kicked off the first of what could be five consecutive weekends of Ultimate!

06-07/09 USM: Uppsala, Sweden (coaching)
14-15/09 SM Dam (Women's nationals): Linköping, Sweden
21-22/09 Burla Beach Cup (picking up with british people I don't really know): Viareggio, Italy
26-29/09 eXtended European Ultimate Championship Finals: Bordeaux, France (watching/volunteering, maybe)
04-06/10 Oktoberfest Hat: München, Germany

After Oktoberfest, I do not know what I am doing or where I will be. I am not 100% sold on going to XEUCF. I have some friends who will be there playing and it seemed silly to fly back north for such a short amount of time, but I think it is also a little weird to go to a tournament to not play. (feedback appreciated in the comments or other channels) I may also have a job interview that could screw all this up...

Three days before I was scheduled to come back to Sweden in Mid-August and was really questioning my decision to do so (more on that in another post... maybe), I got an email from a guy in the Swedish ultimate federation who does a bunch of youth stuff in Stockholm asking if I wanted to get school team ready for the Ungdom Sverige Mästerskap, USM (youth national championship). I had helped at some school demonstrations where we take over a few gym classes at a school and teach throwing and do some drills and had kept score and reminded kids of the rules at the Stockholm school tournament in May (basically like instructional observing), but I had never had a group on my own before. I decided to try it out - It sounded like fun and I would get paid in "Ultimate Money" (to get around wage taxes, the money gets donated to my sports club, which them applies it to my costs such as tournament fees and jerseys), plus it sort of gave me a purpose for being wherever I was during my job search (and make interviewing in Europe much easier)... I mean it was lovely hanging out with family, but I didn't have very much going on in NC.

The team I worked with had some Ultimate experience: it had been taught in their gym classes for the past two years, they actually won the school tournament in May, and they had played in an indoor tournament somewhere at some point, but most of the schools in that competition had only recently picked up the sport (in one case we did an instruction on Tuesday and they brought 3 teams to the tournament on Thursday). They had some notion of the rules, but the rules used at the previous tournaments were not standard WFDF rules (in indoor you count to 8 and can drop the pull and at the school tournament you could have a meter of "disc space," since they were new throwers), so I really had to fight against these old rules. They also had basic throwing skills, but we worked a lot on taking your time and throwing flatter. We didn't make much progress on making a stack or executing set plays.

A practice. In cuts! (all at once and too close, but still cuts!)

The school is located in Husby, which you may have heard about as the site of the riots in Sweden a few months back. The gym coach their likes Ultimate because of spirit and self-refereeing and is even trying to incorporate some of the themes of Ultimate into other subjects at the school. One of the keys for the week was being a good ambassador (the others were holding the force, running up and down instead of side to side, and at one point "stay friends"). There were teams from all over Sweden (okay, not really the north) and the kids needed to show them that they weren't the type of people who set cars on fire. We had some attitude issues at the beginning, but by the last game things were going really well.

An unflattering photo of me with the squad. Screen shot used for attributing the source and for the amusement of gained by reading all the hashtags, which the ultimate Sweden account manager loves. My favorite: Sport with Swag!

We practiced an hour a day four days a week for two weeks, but that was not quite enough time to catch up to the level of play of teams that are part of established Frisbee Klubs in Sweden. We almost won a game (for bronze), but blew a 6-4 lead, losing 6-7 to Sigtuna, which is located just north of Stockholm (my club sometimes holds joint practices and combines with them when we are low on numbers for tournaments). The comeback is partially a result of them going straight up on our flick hucker (basically our default action) and us running out of gas. I'm so proud of the kids for making it that far - most of the team had never played on a sports team before. Their attitude was so much better in that game, maybe it was because they were able to get some more points on the board (we only scored 6 total in 3 games on Saturday), but they cheered, "peppa upp"-ed each other, and didn't get hung up on their (or their teammates') mistakes. The last game really made the whole experience worth it. AND it continues the Stockholm-Sigtuna rivalry!

I tried to speak some Swedish with the kids (they didn't laugh like my friends do), but was largely unsuccessful. I would start a sentence in Swedish then toss in some English for the words that I didn't know and I think that was just more confusing.

Will update with more photos, when/if they get emailed to me.

Sweden Semester I: A look back

Written in January, but just never posted! It's interesting to look at my expectations for this semester and how things are panning out. (pretty spot on)

Just a few weeks after arriving, I was invited to a teammate's summer cottage to close it down for the season. It was down a dirt road that was off another dirt road, which was off a gravel road neat Kopperberg. The cottage was powered off of a single solar PV panel and has a composting toilet. We went mushroom and lingonberry picking (very swedish activities), rowing on the lake and played lots of board games. It was a nice, relaxing introduction to the country outside of Stockholm.  

The crew rowing

Shortly afterwards, I went to Swedish mixed nationals with the Syndromes. They let me play in the less important pool play games. We ended up getting the Bronze (out of seven teams) and I think everyone was a little disappointed, but we'll get 'em next year!

Cool looking shroom (not for consumption

Then came lots and lots of school and The Royal Institue of Technology or Kungliga Tekniska högskolan (KTH pronounced Ko-tay-Ho) My courses were Renewable Energy Technology, Energy and Environment, Sustainable Power Generation and Sustainable Energy Utilization. That last one was particularly rough... dry early morning lectures on complicatedish material. I'm glad it's behind me... No more classes! Just a 30 page paper and a 20 minute presentation stands between me and my master's degree.


My friends Dani and Anders hosted an american thanksgiving for some of the north americans. Check out the sweet potatoes that I made (L) and my plate full of goodness (R). I took some photos of the people there, but we were all stuffing our faces and they didn't turn out very attractive

Right before exams, I went to Lapland with a few classmates to attempt to see the Northern Lights. We were successful! More photos can be found here. We also did some hiking in the snow and saw some reindeer. Since I would have been procrastinating and not studying for exams anyways, that seemed like a good way to spend the time.

Right now I am playing the indoor season with the women's team Swedish Fish. We went to København for Kung Volmer. After I got used to the necessity of throwing hammers, it was lots of fun, but super tiring (we had three handlers and the other two were sick, so I only rested about a point each game). We ended up 11th/14 had some close games, but are still figuring out team dynamics and lost our last match to some rude young girls, which was a little embarrassing. We have a big tournament in Göteborg/Gothenburg the weekend after I get back from Bangladesh, which I am really looking forward to, we are getting some player back who had taken off the first half of the season. 

That said, I'll be staying at KTH next semester for my thesis. I start the semester off (early) with a 3 week trip to Bangladesh to do a field study relating to identifying/developing good/effective/sustainable business models for rural electrification. I'm really excited about this opportunity and the flexibility that writing an academic thesis (rather than working for a company) should afford me. 

For the upcoming semester, I'm looking forward to getting to know Stockholm a little bit better, my dad visting for a soccer extravaganza, traveling to european tournaments with ultimate, and ya know... figuring out the next few steps in my life (maybe).

Tortilla

We had a brunch with the ultimate squad this weekend and while I was looking for recipes, I kept being drawn to frittatas. The one I wanted to make called for goat cheese, but the grocery store I visited did not have any, so I changed course mid-shop and decided to make a tortilla (the Spanish variety).  This is a thick, dense potato and onion omelet that is served at all hours in Spain.

It's been about a year since I left Madrid and this seemed like a fitting marker of that milestone. After consulting several recipes and Alberto, my Spanish course-mate, this is what I came up with:

After adding the mixture of egg, fried potatoes and onions to the pan. 

After the flip. It was not very graceful.

Finished product. Super oily.

I ended up not taking it to brunch (I opted for scrambling eggs and baking some spare peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough). It tasted fine and had the right consistency, but it was just sort of underwhelming. Like it's hearty, substantial and nice, but wasn't really impressive. It also took a really long time to chop all the veggies and cook through, so I don't know that I'll make it very often, but I'm really glad that I tried. I have been snacking on it all weekend and will continue to enjoy it with lunch this week.

Taste of Sweden

It has been snowing steadily all day and the ice cream truck still runs! I heard the song playing and thought it was some sort of residence complex-wide alarm!

Swedes are prodigious ice cream consumers and I had heard of this phenomenon, but this was the first time I have ever seen a truck here (even in the summer).

 I chased it down. It wasn't a typical ice cream truck, they sell mostly bulk bars/cups (+frozen pizza), but I was able to buy an ice cream sandwich!

Stockholm

I've been in Stockholm for a little more than two weeks now and it's pretty great! It's nice to be back in a city with ogle-able bikes and a well thought-out public transportation system.

I live on the island of Kungsholmen, which is really cool. There is a 9 km waterfront promenade along the perimeter, which is additionally buffered by big green parks/greenspaces for most of the way. It's so pretty, like makes me actually want to  go for a run; however, I've yet to take my phone to capture the great views. During the weekends everyone is crusin' around on their boats playing fun music and there are lots of balloons- it's like a parade! 

Rålambshovsparken is on the island and is super cool. When I first arrived, there were outdoor movie showings and picnics. Under an overpass that goes thought the park, they've built basketball courts, track straightaways and a skate(and scooter)park, since the area would have been concrete anyways. Last week I went kayaking around Kungsholmen and some of the other islands with some classmates. The red building in the background is the city hall and on the right you can see the main part of Stockholm and maybe even make out the central station.

It's an easy comute to school and close to the center. Plus, I live in an (sort of) actual apartment building (instead of a dorm) and my studio has a full kitchen (read: oven) that came stocked with cutlery and accouterments. My room still isn't "together" - I need a bookshelf or another set of drawers and have been checking the basement room for abandoned items regularly. Magents and postcards cover my fridge and the room came with a swedish flag, but the rest of my posters/art will be going up this weekend, if I don't take a trip.  I've been riding the metro, but will take more advantage of my subscription to the city's bike sharing program. The metro rides have given me lots of time to read on my new ereader, but I want to have a better grasp of the city.

The weather has been (surprisingly) quite nice, albeit a little schitzo. Shorts and dresses are still occasionally appropriate!

I've been practicing with the local ultimate team, the Stockholm Syndromes and I am way way way way-er out of form than I expected, but they are nice people and it's good to be running around again. The first practice was really weird, I did great during the drills part, successfully laying out twice during the hucking drill, but when it came to the scrimmage, I dropped every single disc. I also got skyed and a blackeye for the trouble (it's finally gone!). Playing-wise it has gotten substantially better since then, but I've been cupping and popping, so it's still unnatural and awkward. Nationals is in two weeks in Jönköping, I probably won't play that much, but it will still be fun to check out the scene and a different part of Sweden! They won silver last year, and from what I've gleaned they seem a little bit bitter about it, so we are totally gunning for the gold!

Sweden seems to run on cards. Metro card, temporary student card (photoless - just to get the reduced metro price, but also surprisingly valid for claiming the student discount at fancy, yummy, vegetarian buffets), bike card, bank card, cafeteria card, library card, insurance card, old student card for when temporary one fails, residency card, computer-room card, american driver's license for when residency card is not accepted, and my german blood donor card (just because it has my blood type incase I'm in an accident). Fortunately the change-purse that I bought in Morocco to give as a gift (and forgot to) is perfect for carrying them + some krona (and the wallet that I had planned to buy at home this summer, but forgot to, would have been horrible). The krona is sort of an annoying currency and not just because everything is expensive: the coins are relatively large. A small coffee at the non-student price is like two and quarter dollars, a cheap beer at a bar is about seven and a half. All of the citrus looks really sad to be here. That said, there is definitely a greater diversity of food available here than in Madrid or Nantes.

 

My Grandma has suggested that I update more frequently with shorter posts, so I may try that and see how it works out!

Here you can buy (light) fun