Lifecruiser

There isn’t any.

Source:
“SwedenThe Secret Files” by Colin Moon

There is only once that I have thought that Mr Lifecruiser were so disgusting that I wouldn’t kiss him and that was during our honeymoon!

We were on the greek island Crete driving around and stopped at a nice restaurant to eat something. There really is some great food in Greece, but of course Mr Lifecruiser had to choose to eat deep fried octopus… I can’t stand octopus, neither the smell of it or the look. *feeling sick at the thought of it*

He had to make it even more disgusting by putting the whole mouth full of them, challenging me to try some of them. That was the only time I’ve said: “There will be no more kisses for a couple of hours at least, despite the fact that we’re on honeymoon!”

He thought I was hard at him, but that was really the only time I’ve thought he was disgusting. There were grease from the fried octopus all over his mouth…

For me, it was like some one participating in The Fear Factory. *shivering with fear*

No honeymoon lips for kissing!

This post is dedicated to Mr Haney at Ramblin On, because he seems to love cars so very much.

In the Thirties as many as 90% of all cars in Sweden were imported from USA. They were more suited to the rough roads here than Swedens first own car, the Volvo, launched in 1927.

Classic American cars from the Fifties and Sixties have a peculiar status in Sweden today. Throughout the long winter fanatical owners work on classic Chevrolets and Buicks with the sole aim of showing them off at summer rallies. They have become cult symbols and can be worth almost as much as a new car.

The favoured models are from 1955 to 199, preferebly a Thunderbird or a Cadillac, but even a Chevy Impala 59 with side wings appeals to the real Classic Car enthusiast. Towns now compete to organise the rallies in which thousands of old cars cruise around.

Surprisingly, Sweden is said to have the world’s largest number of well-preserved American cars!

The Swedish King maintains a great interest in motor sport: at the vintage car rally on the island of Öland The King likes to drive an old Volvo PV 60 that he received as a present on his 50th birthday. Even his uncle Prince Bertil was very interested in cars and participated in many rallys during his lifetime.

Last year we went out to watch the event called Gärdesloppet , now changed to Prince Bertil Memorial Day, in Stockholm, which has been held every year since 1922. There is a long, very, long parade with veteran cars (50 years and older) and mopeds (30 years and older) driving through town. It really is like being drawn back in time. We just love old cars and the suitable old clothes they are wearing.

Then there is a lot of other activities too out on the Djurgården. There is old racercars competing against each other in a little rally, veteran airplanes flying over, a lot of shows off and handing out prizes to the participants with the veteran cars. You can be there for many hours, there are so many stunningly beatiful cars. Even for some one not interested in cars!

This year it’s going to be held the 28th of May and we do hope that we can go there then, to take some better photos. It’s worth seing once again!

You can see our photos from last year in our Flickr folder Veteran cars 2005 .

Sources:
“Things Swedish” by Mari Hemming
royalcourt.se
gardesloppet.com

Despite the fact that Sweden is a very small country and don’t have so many inhabitants, we’ve had a lot of creative inventors. Maybe it’s the dark, cold winter that keeps us indoors thinking a lot….

Examples of Swedish creativity:

- The ship propeller (John Ericsson)
Probably to take us away from this horrible winter

- The refrigerator (Carl Munter & Baltzar von Platen)
To keep the hungry monsters like me calm

- The medicine Losec/Prilosec (AstraZeneca)
To keep hungry monsters stomach calm

- The Zip fastener (Gideon Sundbäck)
Hm…Need I say anything…?

- Scale for measuring temperature (Anders Celsius)
To measure the hungry monsters degrees before explosion

- Grouping plants with latin names (Carl Von Linné)
We do like when things is in order

- Self-aligning ball bearing (Sven Winquist)
Oooops, didn’t know they had to be aligned ;-)

- The Tetra Pak milk carton (Ruben Rausing)
We had a lot of cows here, what can I say?

- The graphic color display and the AIS (Håkan Lans)
We want to be able to see other warm places and know how to get there!

- The De Laval nozzle for steam turbines (Gustaf de Laval) Wow, didn’t know we needed more steam power

- The artificial kidney (Holger Crafoord)
Could come in handy after all the Absolut Vodka/Whisky drinking

- The three-point safety belt (Nils Ivar Bohlin)
We’re best on Rally too, yes…?

- The first implantable pacemaker (Rune Elmqvist)
We do have a lot of hearts here

- The 6 x 6 cm single-lens reflex camera (Victor Hasselblad) We like to watch ourselves on picture

- The dynamite & Gelignite (Alfred Bernhard Nobel)
We wanted to blow the whole Sweden in the air????

*Boooooom*

Sources:
“Things Swedish” by Mari Hemming
Wikipedia about Swedish Inventors