At least it’s quite colorful and might give you lots of travel ideas and temptations since it’s quite full of travel related details….

I guess it will be a little too much if you decide to put it up on a larger wall, but as a back wall or maybe just one wallpaper gore it would be rather cool!

©Lifecruiser Love Travel Wallpapers
 

For us, the most important choice for New Years Eve (or birthdays), is the one and only: what Champagne to drink…? Below you see three different choices, from a cheaper Crémant to expensive Champagne.

Lachèze 2009 Crémant du Jura, Moët Chandon Grand Vintage 2004 and our very favorite Champagne, the Rolls Royce of Champagne: Dom Pérignon Vintage 2003, which we brought home after visiting the Champagne district in France at our Europe trip in August 2012.

As you have noticed, so far we prefer French, real Champagne – we yet have to taste more Cavas when we go to Spain later to have something to compare with – or what do you say…?

We wish for you all another very special, fantastic Happy New Travel Year of 2013, together with friends, family and filled with lots of love, passion – and Champagne of course…

©Lifecruiser Love Champagne
 

Some other New Years posts by Lifecruiser:

Happy Bubbly New Year 2012
Happy New Year Champagne Sweden 2010
Stockholm: Happy New Year (2009)
 

You will notice many scenes from Disney films, that is because it’s an old tradition in Sweden to show Kalle Anka (Donald Duck in Swedish) at 3 o’clock in the afternoon at the Christmas Eve day.

Enjoy the peace and happiness of the holidays, where ever in the world you are. We spend this Christmas in Stockholm, Sweden this year. Next year it will be somewhere else!

©Lifecruiser Love Swedish Christmas
 

Earlier Swedish Christmas posts by Lifecruiser:

Christmas Tree Gifts 2011
Swedish Heart Pepparkakor for Christmas
Santa Travel Speed Need
Merry Christmas 2009
Christmas Dinner Delights 2008
Swedish Christmas Dinner Preparations 2008
Different Christmas 2007
Merry Christmas All Bloggers 2007
Some Swedish Christmas Gifts
Christmas Street Market Stockholm 2007
Wordless Christmas
Swedish Christmas Traditions
Christmas Eve is here (2006)
Christmas Preparations (2006)
Lucia with Glögg & Lussekatter (2006)
Lighten Up Christmas (2005)
 

Bond Over Old Games

Remember how you and your buddies used to play that old game system in your parent’s basement? Well, dust it off and play another tournament. You can find vintage gaming systems online. You’re sure to enjoy a walk down memory lane as you bond together over that old game. Even if you weren’t gamers, there is something that you and your friends loved to do “back in the day”. Find a way to make it happen during your next get together.

Remember the Old Days Through Photos

After you’ve bonded again over the things you used to love, bring out all the old photos. You can sit in the living room with a drink and laugh about all the good times you used to have together. You will remember things that you haven’t thought of in years, and it will be sure to make your day. If this is a planned visit, ask your friends to bring all of their photos too. That way there will be more to see than just your collection. And don’t forget the yearbooks!

Make New Memories

It’s great to remember all the great times you used to have, but you should also try to make new memories with these special people in your life. After you’ve spent some time reminiscing, go find an activity that you can do to make new memories. You can book tee times online and then hit the greens if you’re an avid golfer. Afterwards, go out for a nice meal or head to the theater to catch the latest flick.

Don’t fail to let the years slip by without catching up with the important people in your life. While it may seem impossible, there are ways to find time together. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. Something as simple as coffee one afternoon is enough to keep the friendship going and the memories fresh in your mind. This not only helps you remember where you’ve came from, but also appreciate how it made you become the person your are today. So, call you old high school buddy and setup a time to get together soon. You won’t regret it.

Lifecruiser Love Reunions
 

Lost
If you haven’t yet, you must watch Lost. The writers and creators of this fantastic and intriguing show worked really hard to keep it from being the Gilligan’s Island of the new millennium. The pilot for this show was one of the most expensive to make in television history, but the effort certainly paid off! Every episode brings just another degree of “what the heck is going on?!?” while keeping enough continuity to keep you invested.

Flash Forward
This show is created by the creators of Lost and asks an interesting question: what if you did know the future, but only a part of it? The show plays with the concepts of destiny and free will better than any other has done before it. Is the future written in stone? Can the characters keep it from happening? Do they want to? If one person changes his destiny does that change the destiny of everybody else? These are the things that keep you watching one episode after the next.

The Prisoner
We don’t mean the modern version of this show. We are talking about the original version that so confounded viewers the stations airing it were flooded with angry letters. The main character wakes up in “The Village” but doesn’t know how he got there, who he is or why he keeps having visions from another life—is it his? How did he get to where he is now? Every episode tells you a little bit more but you definitely won’t see a lot of the best moments coming!

Battlestar Galactica
Go for the “reboot” or “retelling” of the story that aired on the Sci-Fi channel. After being attacked by the “Cylons,” the last of humanity is stranded in space so they set off in search of the fabled “Earth”, hoping it will be their new home. Sounds simple enough but there’s a twist: the enemy looks just like everybody else…which begs the question: who do you trust? One thing is for certain, you won’t be able to stop watching until you’ve seen the whole thing.

Dexter
Though this one isn’t mind-bendy in the “wow I didn’t see that one coming” sense, it definitely messes with your mind in a “what is he going to do next?” sense. This show, based around Dexter a man who murders almost for fun is violent and often horrific but somehow—in spite of all of the blood, Dexter is a sympathetic character.

Obviously there are other shows that provide their own excitement and mind bendiness (Twilight Zone? The early years of X-Files?) but these are some of the best and most worthy of your time. Is this list missing your favorite mind-bender? List it below!

Lifecruiser Love Mind-Benders
 

If you have been following our travel blog for a while, you know that we already have announced that we are making preparations for a future move – and that we in that preparations phase were forced (lol) to drink a 31 years old Napoleon Mandarine Liquor… (We sold the emptied bottle later!)

We have been living in an already small apartment (50 sqm) for years now, just to be able to save for our travel, to afford going on as many trips as possible, but now we are moving to an even smaller apartment (43 sqm) higher up on the same street, believe it or not!

We will save an extra 600 SEK/month, move up one floor (not so cold apartment when not on ground floor), plus getting the extra bonus effect of not having our nagging, annoying neighbor who literally are stalking us with her negativity all the time.

The saved money will go to a future move, together with whatever other amounts we succeed to save up. Our future move will most certainly be to Spain if nothing unexpected happens – thinking of the economic crises in Spain which can affect our decision in many ways. Why Spain? Because of the ease for us and our family to get there, plus the excellent climate for our aching bodies.

When having a goal like travel or moving abroad, living a compact life style is not any problem at all. The adjustment to this compact living is going so easy that you wonder why the heck you have bothered with all the other stuff earlier in your life, which only complicates your life.

We have sold plenty of stuff by now, getting quite a bit of extra money to both cover the cost of the move and to buy new smaller, cheaper furniture which is easy to move or to get rid off later if we’re moving abroad next time. If we do, we will not take anything with us.

If not moving abroad, we will most certainly try to stay during the winters abroad, because the Swedish winters are killing us both slowly. We will start this winter, by going to Costa Blanca in Spain around February-March to do a research of which area there would be best for us.

Our nearest moving day though is set to the 3rd of December, so as you can imagine – if you know our efficiency since earlier – we have already started the packing for the move…

©Lifecruiser Love Travel
 

The number two birthday present for this Champagne lover was of course the Moet Chandon Grand Vintage 2004 Champagne. Makes memories pop up from our trip to the Champagne district in August, when we visited their unbelievable huge wine cellars in France and their beautiful vineyards!

©Lifecruiser Love Travel Goodies
 

The thing is that when living at the same place for a long time, you always start to collect a lot of things again! *bummer*

Believe me, we have been throwing (and giving) away so many bags full of clothes, home textiles, kitchenware’s, things (even paintings) now, so I can’t even keep up with the counting of the bags.

So what are we cleaning up for? Except for the fact that you need to do it once in a while, we also have a future move in the mind actually. The move can come surprisingly quick, knowing how we can be, so better to be prepared.

We might move to an even smaller apartment further up in the street or to another location, another city or somewhere else in the country – or even abroad. You’ll never know with us. If the right opportunity comes, we certainly will grab it!

We have had in mind for several years now, that we might spend the winters somewhere else and just a shorter summer period in Sweden. We will see what happens… For sure is that we will make some kind of escape later this winter, short or long….

©Lifecruiser Would Love To Move Abroad
 

Both liquors are from slijteri & wijnhuis Zeewijck in IJMUiden, The Netherlands and have an old, seaman-related history, so what could suit this blog any better…?

IJMUidens Spicy Liquor-bitter Piertje

As you can spot a glimpse of in the photo below, this is a darker liquor, which in it’s spicyness reminded us a bit about Jagermeister actually, but with a milder taste better suiting our tastebuds and obviously even the old fishermen in IJMuiden: if you consider the fact that there were 36 bars there they could escape their harsh life for a while…

The name comes from when they discovered this safe haven once upon a time, named after the ancient heads of harbor of IJMUiden. The piers protected the North Sea Canal channel in order not to silt up.

The harbor built up in IJMuiden were invaded by many fishermen at this time, who liked to drink the Kruidenbitter, giving it it’s nickname Schipperdrank or boats men liquor. I don’t blame them: it’s really good and they lived a hard life!

IJMUidens Rom Liquor Sluisje

The other is a Rom liquor based on an old family recipe, with a strong Vanilla taste, bottled in a very nice old looking ceramic bottle even this one – as you can see in the photo. The name is Sluisje, which as a word means sluice and that is another interesting attractions they have to attract us tourists. Very interesting built sluices well worth a visit to study the construction of them.

Be aware though, as with other liquors, they’re rather strong: we did noticed that when we did drink it now at home… ehrm…

I say no more than: thank you again Cora and Ron, you’re as sweet as the liquors that you gave us and we really, really appreciate your gift!

Continue to keep an eye on Lifecruiser Europe roadtrip 2012 Flickr Photos, there will be new photos uploaded there now and then until I’m done with them all.

©Lifecruiser Love The Netherlands

Earlier posts about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly at the Europe trip
Ending a long Europe road-trip
Europe roadtrip: in the Alps
Europe trip: leaving the Champagne district to go to Provence
Europe Road short update
Europe Road: leaving Bruges
Europe trip: blogger meet in Wijk aan Zee and IJMuiden, The Netherlands
Europe Road Trip Day 2-3 Goodbye Germany Hello The Netherlands
Europe Road Trip Day 1-2
Europe 7500 km roadtrip start!
 

Yes, the above was we were welcomed with when driving home the last leg of your trip – and have been a big part of the week and today it is even worse than that, it has been pouring down all night and day long.

Only positive thing is that it is easier to adjust to the indoor activities we now need to attend after being away for two whole months! Yes, I’m still trying to sort all the photos from the Europe trip… Have patience with me since they are in a unsorted mess, I tell you…

©Lifecruiser Love European Roadtrips