Thursday Again

Suddenly two weeks have passed since my last post (that is starting to sound familiar...). I'm quite busy at work at the moment and I don't have much free time to blog there ha ha :) Anyway, here's a recap:

• Our dear friends Jenny, Mauro & Leah as well as Maria & Daniel visited us for a long weekend in the middle of January. It was especially wonderful to have Jenny and her family here as they live in Brazil and don't come to Europe that often but this time they are in Sweden for three months and thus had time for a trip to Belgium as well (and we met them briefly in Sweden at Christmas). Isolde and Leah (20 months old) fought about toys from time to time but most of the time they really enjoyed each other's company. 

Isolde wasn't too keen to let Leah try her bike

Nice lunch at one of our favourite brasseries (since it has both an indoor play area and a playground outside) while two out of three children were napping.

• We were invited to a raclette dinner at our friends and neighbours P & O but they couldn't find the raclette :) Fortunately the food was still delicious and the company a pleasure as always. I'm so glad they are our neighbours!  At the moment they are in Sweden for a couple of weeks and we miss them!
• The following day (Sunday) O. and Peter went to the annual (?) Brussels car show and spent nine (!) hours there. We have the opportunity to buy a car VAT free here in Belgium and many auto dealers also offer "diplomatic discounts" and we want to take advantage of this of course. Peter is now doing very serious research with comparisons in excel and what not so it will be a well-informed decision once we take it. We will sell our current car once we have received the new one, no need for two cars! At the moment we are learning towards BMW, Volvo and Volkswagen Passat (our current car)  but we're also looking into SUVs or other cars that can take 7 passengers, which would be useful when we have visitors here in Belgium. 
• I celebrated my 38th (yikes!) birthday last week. It was a Tuesday and a work day (I wish birthdays were always a day off!) but we had a dinner (and overnight) guest actually! My cousin Fredrik was in the country for work (he has a new job since a few months back which usually takes him to Zeebrugge near the coast) and decided to come a day early to celebrate my birthday and see where we live, so that was nice. 

Cake from one of the local bakeries.

• The day before my birthday my friend and former colleague Mette was in town for work and came over for dinner. She's coming back in March and then we'll probably go out for dinner instead. Last week was a week when I was going to be away on a work trip in the second half of the week and Peter would be alone with the kids for two days, including three evenings, and I felt he didn't need an extra evening on his own on top of that. 
• The work trip was my second to Sweden since I started in September (and next one might be in March if it happens) but this one involved much more planning and preparation on my part as well as active participation by me during the actual visit.  We had quite a hectic meeting agenda but I had one free evening that I spent with a group of friends at one of the newer restaurants in town, Nosh & Chow.  I can really recommend it, both for the food and the atmosphere including the decor. 

• While in Sweden I just had to have a semla of course, and I had it at one of the new cafées in our old neighbourhood.

Semla at Karla café

• I caught a cold just before heading to Sweden unfortunately.  It wasn't that bad during my two days in Stockholm but then at the weekend my nose was pretty clogged up and on Monday I stayed home to recuperate with the result that on Tuesday I was much better.  I'm glad I didn't get the cough that I usually get when I have a cold.  Perhaps the higher humidity in Belgium helps?
• The day after returning from Sweden we attended our friend's Chris & Jacqui's daughter Emilie's baptism at their local (Catholic) church (where Jacqui also sings in the choir and lowers the average of the choir with about half..).  It was a nice little service followed by champagne, tea and cakes at their house. 

I like that they invite the children to be a part of, or at least come closer during, the ceremony.

• As for the children, Harald has started walking!  He prefers to crawl still but he walks more and more and also at his own initiative to get to one place to the other. 

• It looks like we have secured a place at a crèche (nursery) for Harald from July!  We will visit on Monday so I will know more then.  But it sounds like a good place (comes with recommendations) - it is just next to Isolde's school and the staff speaks English and one of them even Swedish! 
• What else? Isolde had a haircut (much needed as it was getting long and matted), we got a new fridge/freezer as the old one was leaking and we're very happy to have a cleaning lady who comes once a week (she isn't perhaps as thorough as I would want her to be but she's a nice girl, and most importantly, we don't need to quarrel (as much) over cleaning.

At the hairdresser

The result!

Friday Gallery: Lock(s)

This was a difficult theme.  I couldn't really find any photos of locks (lås) in my albums and I didn't have time to take any new photos. But in the end I found one that fit the theme.  It's taken by Isolde at last weekend's visit to the automobile museum Auto World.  Isolde has just recently become interested in taking photos herself - before it was just looking at the photos afterwards - and you can see that she needs some practice :)

Birgitta is our hostess for the month of October. If you want to participate in Friday Gallery, let us know through the widget on Annika's blog.

Pearl Necklace

No, it's not what I want for Christmas (well, jewellery is always on a girl's list...).  It's the string of cars driving in the middle lane on the motorway between Stockholm and Södertälje tonight on my way home from work.*  Always when I'm driving I get so annoyed (in a calm way as I'm a rather calm person) with all drivers who stay in the middle lane, even though it's empty in the right lane or they are driving too slow for the middle lane, or both.  Is it that so many Swedes are nervous drivers and stay in the middle to prepare for a shift of lanes or exiting (even though exits are mostly to the right) 13 km down the road, or because they don't want to have to change lanes if another car is entering (even though it's the entering car that has to yield and you don't have an obligation to move).  Tonight was extreme with a string of cars in the middle lane even though it was completely empty to the right.  Why?!  In a way, tonight was less of a problem since there wasn't much traffic, but when there is traffic, which is most of the time, these drivers are really blocking off a big part of the road.  The third lane between Södertälje and Stockholm is rather new (and there are now lights all the way) but if people are not using, what was the point of building it?!


* I decided to drive back and forth as it saves a lot of time, especially in the evenings.

New Car!

Today's highlight: we picked up our new car, a Passat TDI 140. The BMW 5 Touring we inherited when Peter's parents bought a new one has been great - engine power, comfort and security - but in the last one-two years we had to replace the generator and the engine and fix a few other things and by the time we sold it the battery was acting up too, so good riddance really!

I have also wanted a much more environmentally friendly car (and wouldn't have bought a BMW myself). The Passat has a pretty strong engine and runs on diesel - satisfying Peter's driving experience wants - but emits under 120 mg (on average, not always in city traffic though), and so falls under the green car definition.

We chose between Passat and Volvo V50 but realised the bigger Passat was much better for a growing family with car seats and prams and all other stuff children "need". I will miss the space for the handbag that the V50 has though (I know that such a girly thing to say but usually car designers don't think about these things so it's worth pointing out!)!




Via Anna's iPhone

If Ikea Bought Saab...

Borrowed from Emma. (Though I think it's a Golf in the picture..?)

"Notice of Payment Before the Notification" - UPDATED

Apparently Peter never paid the fine and haven't heard anything more from the Italian authorities so I guess we're still waiting for the "notification"...

Did I tell you about all the trouble with the traffic police we had on our European travels last summer? We were able to add a speeding ticket and a fine for driving in a bus lane to our travel memories. And our rental car was towed.

The speeding ticket was pretty straightforward, our fault, no issue there. The car being towed, that deserve a separate post. That brings us to the fine for driving in a bus lane.

It happened in Florence (the towing was also in Italy by the way) in early June - we spent a long weekend in Tuscany with my parents. I remember that we were a bit lost in a roundabout around a station (can't remember the name, probably Santa Maria or something equally holy) and took two laps before we found the entrance to the parking garage underneath the station. We don't remember seeing any signs for bus lanes and we were just one of many cars in the the roundabout. When we checked the location on GoogleMaps afterwards there were mainly cars on the streets on the satellite photo. Anyway, we didn't think much about it when we were there; it was when we had been home for a few months and suddenly received a fine for 90 euros that we looked it up.

I have to say that the Italians are very organised when it comes to collecting fines. They are not really known for organisation, are they? But included with the letter was instructions for how to log onto a website, which had all details of the "case". And the information was in English even! On the other hand there is a thin line between organised and bureucratic...

As we wanted to contest the fine Peter thought it would be good to discuss it with someone in person. And surprisingly there was an English-speaking desk to call! The guy was really helpful and said he would e-mail Peter information on how to appeal.

So far so good.

Then we read the e-mail.

Please find attached all the necessary documentation to make an appeal to the Prefect of Florence. You'll find 3 files [attached]: "how to make an appeal", an appeal form in Italian and a English form for a better comprehension. You have to send the Italian appeal in a registered letter ONLY AFTER you receive the official notification, since the letter that you have received is only a "notice of payment before the notification". This notification will arrive approximately 2 months after the first letter. You need to wait for this letter, because if you appeal before this particular letter the Prefect of Florence will reject it. You have to enclose in the appeal all the documentation that can help you regarding this infraction (hotel or car rental receipt).

Okay, so we had not actually received the fine. Only the NOTICE of the fine. We have to wait for the official NOTIFICATION. We laughed and said that I guess we will just wait for that then.

But then we read the last sentence of the e-mail.

Please be aware that if the Prefect denies your appeal, the fine will be doubled.

Okay, so we can wait x number of months, do tons of paper work and then risk having to pay 180 euros instead??!! No, thank you! So we decided to just pay the stupid thing, even if we had only received the "notice of payment before the notification".

Healthy Smoke - UPDATED

Today the European Parliament decided on carbon emission levels for new cars from 2012. Even if the share of "green cars" has increased substantially over the last couple of years (partly due to a 10,000 SEK grant towards purchase), Sweden still has the oldest car fleet in Europe and desperately needs tough requirements to get rid of old, fuel-consuming cars. This means that when it comes to actual emissions, Sweden is worst in all of the EU.

Today's decision is important but unfortunately the Swedish government was successful in getting their particular demands through, namely to easen restrictions on flexi-fuel cars. Sure, flexi-fuel cars are "greener" than regular petrol run cars, but that is provided their owners actually fill them up with the greener fuel option. But since these cars can actually run on both biofuel, mainly ethanol, and traditional fuel, owners can easily get away with fuelling the old, regular way, and producers can keep on making cars that run on petrol (especially at the moment with ethanol prices competing with petrol for the most expensive position). And even if they do run on ethanol, ethanol isn't perfect either - it still emits carbon and then of course we have the issues of where it comes from but I won't go into that debate now.*

Greenpeace has made a very interesting and important point - I hadn't really thought of it that way before. The car producers and the politicians, including Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren talk about "green fuels" when these fuels are still far from "green". But car producers make it sound like these fuels are in fact good for the environment and healthy, i.e. not just a bit less bad but actual on the plus side so-to speak.

Last year the Swedish Consumer Agency reacted and stopped Kia Motors from using terms such as "in harmony with nature" and "environmentally friendly" in its commercials. The Agency said that "words like environmentally friendly in principle can never be used in the marketing of cars, since cars normally are a major stress on the environment".

But one year has passed and such slogans are now every day stuff. Words like "environmental engine", "environmental family diesel", "environmental champion" and "environmentaly nice" are common. Greenpeace also questions the car producers' choice of images in their marketing - they often use their slogans together with sun flowers, butterflies, forest, greenhouses and fields.

Greenpeace is consequently reporting 25 international car producers to the Consumer Agency for misleading marketing. Instead producers should be telling the truth, that cars have a more or less negative effect on the climate or are more or less energy efficient. Greenpeace argues that if the marketing doesn't change we will have "an impossible discussion - that about the environmental cars and the green fuels' environmental problem".

In case you haven't really seen the problem with this yet, Greenpeace illustrates it well:

"If a cigarette manufacturer would market cigarettes with less nicotine as health cigarettes many would react. But not when car producers market less emissions as environmentally friendly."

UPDATED
Just to give you a few details from the decision. New cars will be able to emit a maximum of 130g/km of CO2 by 2012 and 95g/km of CO2 by 2020. This can be compared with the present average of 158g/km of CO2. Should carmakers fail to meet these limits they will have to pay a penalty of 20 euro for every extra gram emitted. Larger cars will be allowed to emit slightly over 130g/km but for Volvo and Saab, both of which currently produce cars that emit an average of 190g/km of CO2, much needs to be done.

The lighter restrictions on ethanol cars that I mentioned is in effect an exception designed in a way so that it currently applies to Sweden only: the prerequisite is that the country must offer ethanol (E85) at more than 30% of its petrol stations. Then ethanol cars sold in that country get a 20% "discount" on CO2 emissions - as long as it's not more than 25 grams/km.

* Also, for me it's difficult to see a huge SUV as a green car just because it runs on ethanol. We need to look at the actual emissions rather than the kind of fuel, i.e. output rather than input.

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

Green Driving

Environmental theme today. Five steps to greener driving behaviour:

1) Plan, plan, plan. It's essential for economical driving. Don't stop and start when it isn't necessary.
2) Drive in as high gear as possible. Change directly from second to fourth gear. Or from third to fifth. Today you can drive most cars in highest gear already at 50 km/h.
3) Keep the speed limit and don't overtake when you don't need to.
4) Motor break instead of breaking with the pedals.
5) Roll downhill - and keep level gas uphill.

Other tips
* Keep the right tyre pressure. Higher pressure reduces both wear to tyres and fuel consumption.
* De-assemble the roof box. Reduced air resistance gives lower fuel consumption.
* Use motor heaters. Cold starts consume a lot.
* Don't let the motor idle.
* Service the car regularly.
* Turn off the AC when you're not using it.
* Half of all car journeys are shorter than 5 minutes. Park the car and walk instead.

Source: Swedish Road Administration / Svenska Dagbladet newspaper