The flat of the blade

Finally Bundesliga starts again .

wolfrolf — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:55:22 +0000

Tonight the second leg of this year’s Bundesliga starts. Probably too early to guess what team will win the pennant but I have my money on Gladbach . German TV will show the opening game live on free TV, in HD. Exciting. I still hope that Eintracht can make the Bundesliga again this year but it will be tough.

We also spent some days on Rügen; it was calm and beautiful. Just nature, the wind and waves and some rain and the impressive chalk cliffs. We have been to the island now about 10 times on vacation during all times of year and although there are more tourists now than about 5 year ago it still has a lot of nice parts and endless sand beaches which you have all to yourself.

We stayed at the Parkhotel la Mer in Sassnitz, this can be recommended as it is centrally located to both Sassnitz, the railway station and the nationalpark and the chalk cliffs ( just some minutes on foot ).

From Sassnitz you can just walk down to the beach and follow it north and after 500 m or so you will see the first chalk cliffs. Some parts of the cliffs hare eroded heavily and tumbled down into the sea. A common thing when it rains and the weather is cold so caution is advisable.

Happy New Year 2012

wolfrolf — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 17:41:52 +0000

The year 2011 is slowly coming to an end. Many things have changed and other things remained just the same.

I have a new job now and work for a new company. There is a lot of stress at work currently, not a bad things, but there is little time to post here . I will try though to be better and write from time to time.

For now enjoy this nice image from BIS …

the perfect view of moscow

wolfrolf — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:45:01 +0000

The weather here is now cold and windy, also sunny, but everything is frozen with -15 degrees at night and -10 during the day. I had taken the day off to compensate some overtime and the plan was to visit the Lenin Hills and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War ( this is how the WWII is called in Russia ). In the morning after breakfast I took the Aeroexpress to Moscow again. The train was filled with people but I managed to get a seat on the window so I could shoot some pictures. Again I felt depressed when I saw the high-rise residential areas from the 70s… there are also a lot of grafitti everywhere. I tried to take some pictures which was difficult as the train was going so fast Later with the Metro to the Sparrow Hills, formerly known as Lenin Hills. This is a place southwest of the inner city where you have a great view over the whole city of Moscow. A classic so to say. I remember I have been here before, in 1986, when the weather was rainy. Today it was sunny and perfect photo weather :) Unfortunately exited the wrong Metro station, University and realized that I had to walk around the whole Lomonossow University . I am not sure if it is still called that actually, the signs on the roads said MGU. Anyway, the main building is one of the seven Stalin skyscrapers , and in my opinion this one is the most impressive and most massive. I tried to show it on the photos, but as the building is so gigantic it was tricky to capture it as a whole in the right dimension. There was also a lot of snow everywhere, the roads and walkways were cleared, but there was ice still and I had to walk very carefully. But it was all worth it. After walking around the main building I reached the edge of Sparrow Hills park. What a view ! The whole city was spread out in front of me. Just below me the Moscow river, the Lushniki sports stadium, the Kremlin in the background, the old Stalin skyscrapers…fantastic. One old guy walked towards me and asked if I could snap a photo of him. Of course, great, I asked him if he could return the favour . Even CG got a nice pic of himself and the city of Moscow. later I walked down the hill along some Eco-Trail ( with the only recycling trash bins in all of Russia, I think ). This was actually quite nice, with explanation of native trees and birds and geology. There was also a cool abandoned building that was a little mysterious. I think I can find out what it is but for now I am puzzled. The Metro station ‘Sparrow Hills’ that I used then is build on a bridge ( super !) over the Moscow river. Great view. Then I went to the WWII museum, but it was closed on Thursdays ( weird ). Pity. I think it was interesting, with fantastic displays of battles like Charkow and Stalingrad and a lot of other stuff on the Russian side which is almost invisible in German museums. It will be the first position of things to do for my next visit . The rest of the time was a dangerous visit to the bookshop Biblio Globus ( what a name , haha ), some food ( imagine, KFC has a branch here called ROSTIKS…when I entered the restaurant two drunks came towards me and blocked the door for half a minute as they were hanging on it, haha ). When I took Metro back to Bjelorusskiy railway station there were masses of people on the move again in the rush hour. And maybe it is time now to explain something about Metro that I have not written down yet… the trains go without a schedule, a counter about the exit tunnel shows the intervals. It is never longer than 2.30 Min. When the train stops the doors open and everyone pushes out. Same thing happens when people enter the train. I was confused about this rush at first until I realized that the doors open for maybe 15 seconds and then close again whether all have exited or entered or not. No delay. They just close. What a concept. I think this would leave many Swedes on the platform as they always think the bus/train must wait until they and only they are ready to enter or leave. Well, Moscow is not for the sleepy, that is for sure. A highly effective system, the Metro, and I like it a lot !! Stations are clean and do not smell like in London or Frankfurt, they look great and everything is , well, effective.. ! I am writing this from the hotel at the airport. Tomorrow I will fly back. A very productive and interesting trip is almost over…I will miss Russia and Moscow. It was like coming back and it was wonderful to speak Russian again and be understood ( hehe ). Goodbye Moscow.

for the motherland …

wolfrolf — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:08:16 +0000

Second day at work, a lot to do, talking to different users of our application again. Many others come by and take the opportunity to talk about all kinds of other stuff connected to IT, so I write everything down and promise to talk to some poeple back home. Maybe I am too nice, but I understand they do not have much contact with ‘us’ so I try to make a good impression and listen to what they have to say.

Some pictures again also …some from the IKEA Khimki store, which is as usual in Russia connected to a MEGA mall. The Khimki store was the first one to be opened in Russia about 10 years ago..big celebration next week that I will miss, too bad… and just outside the store, across the parking lot, on the side of the highway between St Petersburg and Moscow , is the monument to mark the spot where the German attack against Moscow was stopped in Winter of 1941. I was brave enough to walk across the road and took come photos. The monument was mainly a row of 3 gigantic red hedgehogs, quite impresssive.

And last but not least… CG in charge of the room and the food . He also helped me with drinking pepsi and he observes also wen I write here so I must be careful not to write bad things

And for Kristian… the chocolate I bought, one is called Babayevskiy and one Alyonka .

glory to the red army !

wolfrolf — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:16:43 +0000

Today in the morning I went to the Central Army Museum, which was really great ! I have been to quite many military museums already but this one was among the best by far. Why _ It had an incredible collection of documents and stories and personal belongings and pictures of people that fought in the wars for Russia, mostly of course WWII, but also the tsarist troops, Afghanistan, UN peace missions even _ all very personal and impressive. A different kind of museum.

One impressive display was a room on the top floor showing German booty flags from the victory parade in May 1945, the names of all heroes of the Soviet union from WWII written in the white marble walls, the flag that flew on the Reichstag and even some writings from the Reichstag plus uniforms and medals and such from the Soviet Generals from that time.

And another picture from the museum…

The rest of the day was rather quiet, I walked around a little on Arbat, but was very disappointed. IT is absolutely not what is written in all the travel books, both Lonely Planet and Rough Guides write, Arbat is a Must and great and vibrant… in fact it was full of cheesy souvenir shops and beggars and drunks and some restaurants. Not something I would recommend.

I did find a nice tractor for Kristian, look here.

And some more nice pictures from metro stations..

And some more images of Moscow…. first to give you an idea of how Russian shop sometimes..

And how they live….

And how they get around when they do not take Metro … the Russians have this cool Trolleybus _ the first real electric car, hehe. It has no exhaust and almost no sound although some look very run-down and old.

And finally what I bought today. CG had a stressful day, he was in the bag first but then he got out and run around the army museum as he was so excited . He is high maintenance. Then I bought an old Russian comic from an old babushka on the street, about the wolf and the rabbit, a classic. CG likes the wolf in the comic, as he is also a troublemaker

I also bought a very peculiar piece of cake, it looks like a cow, but I do not know how it is, but I will try it tonight. You can see it on the picture above. That’s it for today. 2 days of sight-seeing are over, and tomorrow work starts, more reports then ( with a more reliable internet connection for sure, hehe ):

wolfskins and ruby stars…..

wolfrolf — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:03:23 +0000

Today I started some serious sight-seeing _ and you can imagine how my feet hurt now, haha… you can actually walk in Moscow, but distances are long and traffic fumes stress the body and it also was windy and cold.

Still, the sun was shining and I walked and walked. First metro to Izmaylovo to the Vernissage market, that was great actually. I also managed to buy something although it was difficult to haggle because the Russians know of the concept and expect you to haggle there but they just, well, don’t haggle themselves. So you keep dropping your price, they do not move at all. I walked away from stuff twice, but finally it worked . So, see the results of my trip here .

I bought some books also and two cool note books for school.

There were several dealers at the maket which sold stuff from dead German soldiers which apparently had been buried for some time somewhere in Russian soil. This felt weird. They had everything, weapons, ammunition, belt buckles, dog tags, medals, everything.

Besides that of course the usual , wooden boxes, shawls, fur hats, matryoshkas in all colours and sizes.

Some guy from kyrgizistan sold two wolf-skins. I was so impressed I talked to him a little in broken Russian ( he did not talk it so well himself, hehe ) and he told me his family hunts and then prepares the skins and furs, then they travel to moscow to sell once a year. He also had bear skin and fox plus wild boar and deer etc… The wolf fur looked real and was a bargain also, 15.000 rubles. It came with paws , claws and head attached ! Good that CG did not saw it…

I was too excited that I did not take a picture.

I took pictures of other things though ….

the nose of the lucky dog at Metro Proletarskaya, marshal Shukov on his gigantic horse ( note how the artist made him appear bigger as he was quite small himself ), the Point Zero of all Russian distances where people threw money behind their back ( and poorer people darted after it like snakes ) and me on Red Square of course ( some Russian I asked shot a whole series with me … ), newly-weds laying flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier and a cool cosmonaut monument.

Enjoy !!

Moscow !!

wolfrolf — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:09:54 +0000

I have not blogged for quite some time, I admit I am guilty ! The winter in Sweden was long , lot’s of snow even down here in Skåne and we did not do much as our car did not have any winter tires. When we bought it ands winter was slowly approaching we thought to save the money as there is never any real winter down here anyway… haha… at least we saved the money.

But _ I am not in Skåne, I am in Moscow on a business trip. Monday I will meet some folks from the service office _ I am very excited about the possibility to talk to actual users of our programme

If course CG is also here !! He has already approved the new Aeroexpress train and the bed in my room … look here

I was also wandering around in the Metro ( mostly to see some places after reading the really excellent book Metro 2033 ) and it felt like being back 20m years ago when I was in Moscow the last time _ red stars, monuments for the vistory over facist Germany in 1945, ’floor ladies’ sitting around everywhere and watching, well , nothing in particular, and a lot of police everywhere.

Belorussians partisans Monument at Belorusskaja metro Station Circle Line

I am back in Russia. It feels really like no time has passed. Sure there are more billboards now and some shopping malls, but the majority of the russians still looks like 20 years ago and they live like 20 years ago. On the way from the airport I saw some really poor housing areas, totally desolate high rise buildings, run down , walls crumbling , you get the idea… I admit I feel sorry for them. Old babushkas, old enough to have fought in the war, are begging for money in the metro. It is a shame.

To end with a positive note, here is the view from my room

another year has passed…

wolfrolf — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:00:43 +0000

I wanted to wish all readers of the blog a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year 2010 !!

Another year has passed. Many things happened, some good and some bad , but I guess everyone can confirm that. I started to work as product manager which is something completely different from what I did before but it is a slo challenging and work never gets boring now.

The year 2009 also brought two long anticipated games, Operation Flashpoint2:Dragon rising and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. OFP2 was a huge disappointment to me and I have stopped playing it altogether. Compared to ArmA2 which matures more and more now it is just a shooter, not the simulation we hoped for. Modern Warfare 2 is great, a wonderful single player campaign again with fantastic idea, snow scooters and real cool ideas, but the multi player mod, oh my god…. there are no dedicated servers, the connection over Steam is , to put it mildly, really inconvenient and slow, and it kind of kileld the clans for this game. I still play it to warm up the reflexes, but it is almost dead to me too.

What will 2010 bring ? We just have to wait and see.

PS: Gävle bocken burned 22-DEC-2009 !!! The rascals even thought of overloading the webcams at the same time around 03:00 AM so no images were recorded. Quite elaborate

brave gävle-bocken _ go go go !

wolfrolf — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:08:29 +0000

It is time again, the mighty straw goat has been built again like every December and we all watch anxious the webcams every day if he will burn again ? Or not ? Or maybe later ??

Gävle bocken from 2006

Webcam 1

Webcam 2

At least he has cool fire extinguishers placed near his legs and of course he is sprayed with this fire repellent stuff ( chemicals, I like ).

Gävlebocken, go go go and , we all love you !

lund on BBC

wolfrolf — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:55:26 +0000

This is an interesting film I found on the BBC website _ Lund is a small and old city in the south of Skåne/ Sweden.

This film shows a very impressed reporter who talks about the high percentage of people that take the bike instead of the car. Could the reason maybe be that there are a lot of good bike trails in Lund ?

I like it, anyway, and I want to share it with you as I think this shows how attitude can change. This is good ! But it can be hard when the wind blows and it rains and is cold