1. Tomorrow, Friday the 23rd of June, we celebrate midsummer here in Sweden. Many workers begin their annual five weeks vacation now, so of course we like to celebrate it :-)

2. From the beginning it was more of a way for the farmers to celebrate the start of the summer and the fertility season. They offered floral decorations to the nordic goddess of fertility, Freja, to get healthy growing crops.

3. Now it has become the most Swedish of all traditions. If we ever really appreciate and love the Swedish Flag, this is the day. You see it every where, even as a table decoration.

4. Mostly the festivities is held out in the countryside, which means that Swedish citys - even our capital Stockholm - is more like ghost citys this holiday. People is deserting from the city at the latest the day before. It’s rush traffic out of town.

5. The main traditional thing to do, is to go out picking flowers and making wreaths to place on the maypole. The maypole is a tall pole with a cross on it, which we dance (quite silly :-) around singing some very traditional songs. This is so traditional that we do it even if it rains. And it does. Often. Not only where I am…*lol*

6. Midsummer is also the time when the swedish people which still is left with some folk costumes, dust them off and wears them. Once in a year time. Maybe also for some wedding event or something similar. It’s very popular with weddings at Midsummer.

7. Now we comes to the next most essentials besides Love: The traditional Midsummer Menu. It is boiled new potatoes, different sorts of pickled herring, red onion and soured cream to start with. The main course is often some grilled meat or salmon. As dessert it’s the first strawberries of the summer with whipped cream we really associate with Midsummer - or summer generally.

9. We drink cold beer and spiced schnapps (snaps in Swedish) to that and every time we refill the glasses, it’s time to start singing again. We like drinking songs (snapsvisor), and there are really speedy ones sometimes…. Oh, and did I mention that it usually comes some rain during the festivities? So it’s very common that we carry the tables with all the food in and out between the showers! *lol*

10. In the evening the dance is starting. The ideal is an outdoor dance floor situated some where beutiful, maybe at the shores of one of our 100 000 Swedish lakes. It’s a magical night and also very romantic. Many Love storys in Sweden starts (or ends!) this night.

11. Young girls were earlier practically vacuumcleaning *lol* the meadows for seven different kind of flowers on the way home from the dance, since there is this saying that: if they put the flowers under their pillow that night, they will dream about their future husband. Nowadays I’m not so sure any more, if the girls don’t want to get married or if they just believe in this tradition ;-)

12. Midsummer Night is the lightest day of the year and in Northern Sweden the sun never sets - i guess they get compensated for the dark winters when they hardly have any daylight at all. Here in Stockholm the sun will set, but it will not become completely dark.

13. We’re going to celebrate it with good friends in their home outside Stockholm, more like the countryside, a really traditional Midsummer with it all (so it won’t be any post here tomorrow, Friday). They have two horses at their home too, so they said we even will take a trip with a horse and cart. Awesome!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thanks to Kelly I did this silly Blogthings question, that actually fits really well in the description of me…

You Were Actually Born Under Year of the Pig:
No worries, you’re not really pig-like in your personality. (Though you have been known to have a healthy appetite!) You are highly intelligent - forever studying and gaining knowledge. You have a heart of gold and you are appreciated by many.

You Should Have Been Born Under Year of the Dog: You are totally loyal, faithful, and honest. However, you don’t trust others to be as ethical as you are! Straight forward and direct, you really aren’t one for small talk. You are a great listener - and an agreeable companion when you’re in a good mood!

What Year Were You Born Under?

Well, I have to admit that my feet sometimes feels like pig feeth and my nose is funny shaped and I have this funny twist on my tail…. We’ll skip that part *lol*

So, am I suppose to roll around in the mud now since I’m such a pig…?

Did I ever tell you about my LOVE FOR LICORICE?

My kind of sweets is not sweet at all. I have two favorites in the top, one totally healthy: olives and one not so healthy: salty licorice. The salter the better…

I remember once when I was only about 6 years old and going with my mother on a cruise. Of course, already at that age, my bad weather curse striked and we’re having a terrible cruise. The ship were having some kind of problem too, so it couldn’t go as fast as it should.

It was a night mare cruise. I was the first one to start vomiting, since I’ve only eaten licorice all the time and I guess the stomach had enough… After me, all the other persons on the ship started to be seasick - I guess the sound of me vomiting isn’t the easiest thing to hear when you’re feeling ill yourself.

I remember saying to my mother: I’ll never ever eat licorice again!

Usually it is like that, if you’re getting sick after eating something special you don’t want to see that again for ages. But what did I do? Incredible enough, I ate licorice again already on the return cruise! And I have been ever since.

I just LOVE genuine salt licorice, but it’s difficult to find the right licorice abroad actually.

Licorice is produced out of the roots of the bush Glycyrrhiza glabra. I have no photos of it, since I’ve never seen it in real life and this blog only shows our own photos or some gifs.

It could be fatal if you eat 100 gram of licorice per day for a long time, but as always these kind of amounts is individual. It depends on so many other facts too. The researchers advices is to not eat more than 50 g per day.

Some negative consequences of too much licorice:

- Headache
- High blood pressure
- Getting swollen
- Heart disorder
- Muscle weakness/ache
- Kidney influence

It’s the glycyrrhizin acid in the licorice that influence your salt balance, which influence a lot of things in your body. In controlled doses used (mostly in medicines) it can be healing too, for several diseases.

To be on the safe side I’m going to make the licorice habit more like a memory from now on and favorite the olives instead…

HerbMed about Licorice
Steven Foster about Licorice

NOTE: Sorry, we can’t visit your Monday Memories this Monday, but we’ll try to catch up when we comes back from our trip to Ireland :-)

The Swedish rush traffic tax is said to impress in New York. I don’t believe my ears….

There was a conference held about our trial with the traffic tax in Stockholm in the end of May, where representatives from many countries attended. Appearently New York’s Kathryn Wylde found the trial interesting and said that they’re in the need of something similar, because the rush traffic costs New York 6,8 billions of dollar per year.

I do hope that they will get something else that will work better in that case, because the trial is very harshed criticized over here. The tax trial haven’t been working as good as they will pretend and it’s costing us tax payers a lot of money: 3,8 billlions Swedish crowns so far. We’re going to vote about this trial later and if it would be a majority of No-sayers, it will still cost us that amount.

Though I don’t think that it will be a No answer, it has come to stay. They always try to sneak new things in like a trial and then it’s too hard to take it away….

One of the thing that disturbs me the most is that - as usual - they haven’t done essential measures to improve the public communications yet. Shouldn’t that be done BEFORE you force people to go by public communications? As well as making sure that the other roads around the city can manage more traffic?

I always find that they start deciding about the wrong things in the wrong ends. Ever heard of the word preventative?

They tax us for everything. Very often totally unnessecary parking tickets. If you aren’t in the way or causing any traffic jams or problems, why can’t I stand there?

Sometimes I wish that we Swedes were a little more like the French and not so bloody bleach. In France they really demonstrate if it’s something they don’t like. I admire them for that.

Or like this fellow I recently read about…

Tue Jun 6, 8:26 AM ET

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serb man set his car on fire when he heard how much he had to pay to reclaim it after it was towed away for illegal parking.

An attendant told the daily Press the man was very calm.

“He went to his car, took a few things then opened the hood and set the engine on fire. When it was well ablaze he got back on his bike and rode off.”

I sometimes get a similar urge like him….

Grumpy mumbling: Especially when we get 700 Swedish crowns (about $98) parking tickets on our little street, time after time after time. The problem is: there isn’t enough of parking spots here, so what to do? Park kilometers away and take the bus home? I don’t believe we can go back to a car-free society…

1. Mr Lifecruiser. He has to be with me or it’s simply torture, longing for him and thinking of him all the time. Missing him in my bed, needing his warmth, missing to share all the experiences with him. Missing him to take care of me when I get ill - and to carry the luggage ;-).

2. 1 suitcase or big bag compact packed and 1 smaller as handluggage with some necessaritys for the flight like an extra sweater, some candy, Coke, newspapers to read, playing cards, cameras, painkillers, the most important like tickets and hotel vouchers.

3. I prefer a seat by the window and near the emergency exits on the flight if I’m allowed to choose. Not too far in the back, it’s noisier there. And with some extra space for my loooong legs. I will try to avoid flying with Malaysian Airlines again because their seats are made for a much shorter person than I am, so the seat was totally wrong for me. My back started to hurt at once I seated in their airplane when we went to the U.S, there were no support in the back at all.

4. The Destination has to have something more to offer than just a beach. We love to be on the beach, but not all the time. We are explorers. We love to rent a car and go off by our selves, but sometimes it’s also very good to go on regular sightseeings or excursions to get more information or extra help if it’s dangerous surroundings.

5. There MUST be a lot of nice restaurants and grocery stores, so we can keep the hungry monster (me) fed, calm and alive. One of the hardest thing for me to be without is olives. I love olives. So naturally, I’m a big fan of Spain, Greece and even Italy where we have found wonderful olives… Among other tasty dishes. *starting to drool heavily*

6. There is a need of going dancing. We love to dance, but we do have problems to find the places when we’re out travelling. It seems like it’s most teenagers or very young people that are out dancing nowadays. Where are all the adults? Very often we just find a place that plays music, but no one is dancing - until we arrive there. When we’re going out, we’re determent to have fun - no meaning with going out otherwise hah? So we start to dance and try to get up more people dancing. Usually we succeed, but it’s very hard work sometimes and we end up totally like wrecks *lol*.

7. The hotel don’t need to be that fancy, we appreciate a friendly and serviceminded staff more. Not that we don’t enjoy luxury, it’s just that our money will last for more trips if we spend the money right! The bed usually is to hard, it’s the same on almost all hotels we have been at. Sometimes we have had to put extra blankets to make it softer. And yes, the beds are too big for us who is used to our 35 inches bed ;-)

8. We love to travel to warmer countries. It’s always nicer when the weather is good, it keeps us in a better mood. It’s recreation for our aching bodies. If only my bad weather curse could stop cursing me, it would be perfect…

9. The survival kit has to go with us with all the medicines to cure me when I get ill, which I do too often as you already know. And with band-aids, plasters for the chafed foot from all the walking.

10. Maps over the area is essential. Very often we have done some research in advance to know what we’re interested of, but sometimes we just go out there and see what we found. Especially if we rent a car. We often end up having some kind of small adventure because we’re taking off on some smaller roads which sometimes end up in no where *lol*.

11. If possible, we always end up somewhere near the sea. We love the salty sea air and the exciting waves that’s rolling in. It’s something very special with the sea that makes us very happy and harmonic. The sea also has the most beautiful romantic sunsets were we can sit looking out on the sea, hug each other and kiss until we’re breathless…

12. Coming home…. Home sweet home is a valid saying after all. No matter how nice it is to be away, it’s always nice to have your own bed, kitchen, bathroom and things.

13. ♥ LIVE, ENJOY… LOVE… TRAVEL LIFE!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Time to celebrate! We were applying to be members of The 9rules Network a while ago and out of 700 sites, 111 were selected - and we’re one of them!

*jumping up and down in excitement*

We were quite surprised by this great honour. Of course we were hoping, but in this good company, how could we stand a chance? Maybe it was our passion and love that drawn their attention.

What is the 9rules Network then?

As stated on the website:

“The 9rules Network is a community of the best weblogs in the world on a variety of topics. We started 9rules to give passionate writers more exposure and to help readers find great blogs on their favorite subjects. It’s difficult to find sites worth returning to, so 9rules brings together the very best of the independent web all under one roof”.

Some members seems to be concerned about not being that exclusive any more since we, the newbies, have been selected, but is it really less exclusive just because of the increase? I don’t think so. The exclusive part don’t come from the amount of members, it comes from being one of the kind, passionated of what we’re doing, which we all are.

The benefits with 9rules is not only to increase our traffic to this blog, it’s a community which help each other with our common passion for building websites to be the very best, by helping each other to reach our goals. Making more friends, giving and getting advices or feedback and sharing projects or ideas.

They originally started in 2003 with a set of 9rules for living:

- Love what you do.
- Never stop learning.
- Form works with function.
- Simple is beautiful.
- Work hard, play hard.
- You get what you pay for.
- When you talk, we listen.
- Must constantly improve.
- Respect your inspiration.

For us, these rules are not only rules, it’s the way we already live and will continue to live - in cyberspace or in real life. Actually we think that the first rule “Love what you do” would be enough to cover in the rest of it.

We want to keep the passion of writing on fire as much as our love to each other. The only difference is that in our love to each other there isn’t much room for more improvements since it’s already flaming perfect ;-)

When it comes to this blog, the process is going on, we’re working on it constantly. We already update regularly, but we don’t think that’s enough. Oh no. We are determent to improve our writing skills further and also the design of this blog layout.

The layout has been an issue since the beginning of this blog actually, but since we’ve been busy travelling and being ill ;-), the re-design part have to wait a little.

Though the most important thing of all is our readers - yours - impression of us and the communication with you. We love your comments, short or long, fun or serious - as long as we get some kind of reaction from you.

So, keep coming back, it’s YOU that keep this blog alive!

Opening up the Dom Perignon’s to make a toast for us, it’s we together that made this blog to what it is today.

Technorati Tags: 9rules

Field Reporter: Miss Ass. Lifecruiser

1) Do Viruses ever get sick?
2) Do witches run spell checkers?
3) Does a broken Window get you 7 meg. of bad luck?
4) How come programmers find it so easy to master the special language that runs computers, yet those same folks who write the technical manuals for the rest of us have no grip on simple English?
5) How come the users can find all the computer bugs and not the programmers or analysts?
6) How do you press F1 when your PC has a keyboard error or no keyboard present?
7) If a food processor slices and dices food, what does a word processor do?
8) If Ignorance is Bliss, then why aren’t there more happy Windows 98 users?
9) Is AOL so expensive because someone has to pay for those free disks?
10) Is it true that in Russia, a KGB keyboard has no escape key?
11) Why do most software developers call bugs they can’t fix, features?
12) Just where is the “any” key anyway?
13) Why does the computer auto-save while you are trying to delete?
14) Why do they call it a hard disk if its damaged with the slightest impact?
15) Why do we trust computers when they make as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 people working 20 years make?

Today we’ve had a mouth full with the dentist. Mostly because of the fact that it was so early in the morning. At least it was early for us night owls: 11 o’clock… *yawn*

Isn’t it strange that our teeth shall begin to fuss with us just before or during a trip? And both of us every time now.

I’ve never had that problem with my teeth before, I have really good quality, quite the opposite from Mr Lifecruiser. Except since I did a big fix with special porcelain crowns at my last dentist. She obviously did a poor job, or at least with a bad quality of the material - this one lasted for about 2 years, just long enough to let the guarantee time pass…

Very irritating, so I switched dentist to Mr Liferuisers, who said that he thought that the crown were a bit thin, he would’nt have done it that way. He fixed it temporarily then. It sucks that I paid over 6000 Swedish crowns (over $800) for these two crowns to be really sure that they would be good for quite a while and then this happens. I’m just waiting for the other one to crack.

Mr Lifecruiser had this time lost 3 fillings in a short time. One of the teeth in the front, so I tell you he was really HOT ;-) You could believe he had been in a fight. Except that anyone that knows us, know that he is even more peaceful than I am…

We couldn’t let him travel to Ireland like that or…? I mean, think about it, an Irish pub in Dublin a late night - some one could think that he was looking for a bar fight ;-)

While he was in the dentist chair being tortured I was tortured in the waiting room. No, I don’t mean by other patients, even if I sometimes think it is a pain with some of them, this was a more fun-pain torture. Just tiny wounds afterwards. And scratches. Yes, they had a puppy there! A dachshund who was in his teeth itching age…. No need of a dentist there! He was quite a mouth full to handle.

They had a quick look at mine too, despite that they had no appointment for it. Nothing were fractured of the temporarily fix I have on top of the crown, just a pocket in the gums, they washed it, no big deal. I’ll take care of it and then we’ll see.

Afterwards we had to reward Mr Lifecruiser with something for being such a good boy *lol* at the dentist, so we went up to a popular street in the southern part of downtown with a nice view over the city and bought him soft icecream. OK, I confess, I wanted one too :-)

We did a photo stroll there too, but it was difficult light up there (not to mention all people, bus etc in the way), so they may not end up particularly good since we only had my old camera with us.

And: the sun was actually shining today! Not all the time, it was cloudy, but, we can tell: the summer warmth has come back and we can actually be outside again!

With very big bright smiles, showing our teeth.

Yeah, the SUN… I can’t belive it.

*totally speachless*