Contrasts

Back in Austria - ready for kick-off.

It's warm and, sunny (oh well...) and inspiring to be here again. I'm stoked about having left the winter and snow behind me for sunny days and blue skies.
Before:

After:

(S)NO(W)

It's cold, it's snowing and it won't stop!

This time of the year

I love them.

One Week Ago

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

  

 

  

 

One Week Ago

Let's go to sleep in Paris - wake up in Tokyo

I am at the moment back (temporarily) in Sweden after a week of traveling. I have visited one of my favorite cities (again) and I have had the great pleasure to add another city to that list. London was as great as I recall it, and Venice is something unique - a very special city.

Here are some of my reflections following my great trip:

• London is great. Period.
• Londoners do not look like Londoners anymore - influences from Italy and France have never been more evident. Fashionable yuppies and clerks presented the obvious paradigm shift in how your average Paul is expected to look like. Suits, coats, shoes and scarves can make a huge difference. The best part is that people have their individual and unique appearance. It's not like walking through Stockholm on a normal day where EVERYBODY has to look exactly the same, dress in exactly the same colors and behave exactly as everyone else. London 1 - Stockholm 0.
• Do you remember "Buffaloes"? You know those stupid, ugly shoes that boys and girls wore about a decade ago. We have been spared these ugly and horrible shoes for at least eight years in Sweden, and I used to think that they were gone forever. I was wrong. I haven't seen these shoes worn by anyone for a very long time and they don't appear on the shelves in shoe stores either (thank God), but Londoners still seem to embrace and demand shoes that look as if they were dipped in horse shit. London 1 - Stockholm 1.
  
  
  
• The tube in London is probably the most (or at least one of the most) effective and punctual metro systems in the world. Very few delays, very frequent train services and quiet cars WITHOUT assholes playing music out loud with their cell phones. The only negative thing I can say about the tube in London is that there are no trains after midnight. Other than that, it excels any other tube I have traveled with in the world. People living in Stockholm are used to delays and a very ineffective public transport system. People have had enough and everybody wonders how a capital that always has had a cold climate could be so poorly prepared in terms of public transportation systems annually. Take a hint SL! London 2 - Stockholm 1.
• Venice is as I mentioned earlier a very unique place. I fell in love with the city and I am determined to return soon again. However, those who are familiar with the city are aware of its infrastructure (or lack of infrastructure if you will). It's a city outside the northeaster Italian coast in the Adriatic Sea, built on an archipelago of 117 islands formed by 177 canals. The islands on which the city is built are connected by 455 bridges. Imagine yourselves how it looks like. During my stay in Venice, I found out that the city is one of the candidate cities bidding to host the Olympic Games of 2020. I cannot stop to feel disappointed. This is a city without traffic, a city protected from the commercialism and billboards of other significant cities in the world. An Olympic tournament could not be more misplaced in my opinion.
  
  
  
• The Venetians were more friendly than the Romans. Much more friendly.

That was all for now. Thank you for reading.