Sunday, August 31, 2008

McOld

McCain might have chosen a running mate who's young and a woman*, but it doesn't change the fact that the McCain team is an old** ticket.

10 things younger than John McCain, according to GQ Magazine and thingsyoungerthanmccain.com:
1. ISRAEL: Born in 1936, McCain was 12 years old when the Jewish state as formed in 1948
2. McDONALD'S: Opened in California in 1948
3. ALASKA: Became the 49th state in 1959. McCain is older than Hawaii too.
4. NYLON: The synthetic material was first used in a toothbrush in 1938
5. THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE: Completed in 1937
6. THE DANDY: The comic premiered in the shelves in 1937
7. BALLPOINT PENS: The biro was patented in 1938
8. THE FIRST COMMERCIAL: The Bulova Watch Company aired the first ad in 1941
9. SCRABBLE: Patented by Alfred Butts in 1948
10. SPAM: Introduced in 1937

*If I were an American voter I would never vote for someone who's a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and opposes women's right to abortion; it doesn't matter that she's the first female vice president candidate.
** Old as in policy and age.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Soon, Soon

I'm back from Nice (as of Sunday) and back at work (as of today) and I'm slowly going through four weeks' worth of holiday photos (as of yesterday) and I'm drafting travel stories (as of tomorrow). In the meantime, a funny news item from this summer:

According to a Visit Sweden survey on what the first thing foreigners think about when they think about Sweden as a tourist destination, many answered cold things like winter and snow. Next on the list were nature, countryside and forests. And here's the funny part (at least to me): Frenchmen thought about beautiful women, while Germans thought about elks (moose) and the royal family. Isn't that so according to the stereotypes?!!

Speaking of tourists foreign tourists are apparently spending record amounts of money in Sweden. Last year tourist consumption totalled 88 billion SEK. Tourists on a cruise spend on average 3,000 SEK per person and for every 100 SEK a foreign tourist spends around 45 SEK goes to the state. The top spenders are from Russia and China although most overseas visitors come from Germany and the UK, the USA and Norway. The attractions that bring in most visitors are Kulturhuset, Globen and Skansen. Personally I would think Vasamuseet is pretty popular too.

I leave you with a little travel story preview!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Back Home

Just a short post to tell you that we're back home. It was quite the road trip - we travelled 2,971 miles or 4,754 kilometres (475 Swedish mil) in two weeks!! And tomorrow we're going back in the car, well not the old people's car, a Mercury Grand Marquis, that the rental car company dumped on us in the US*, but our own, much smaller albeit big for Swedish standards, BMW combi, to go to our friends Åsa and Rikard's wedding in Västergötland. Back on Sunday and hopefully some time to post reflections and photos from the US trip before we're off again to Nice for a last vacation for this summer.

* Sure, petrol is very cheap in the US, even after the recent price increases, but this beast was pretty thirsty