The Rest of Week One

I can't believe it but it's already up to my fourth week here, and I haven't even finished writing about my first week! Time to rectify that...
On Tuesday (I think) of my first week, I went bike shopping with A. This task took quite a long time, because the three (yes, three, in Ronneby!) bike shops were on different sides of the town. In the end, I settled on this one

from the Norwegian guy simply because it was fairly cheap (800kr) and it was more the type of bike that I was used to in Australia. It has had a few issues since then, but I've been able to deal with most of them. Thankfully, the seat no longer tips upwards at the front so I don't fall off the back whenever I'm riding. I've also put on two lights so that I can see when I'm riding home in the dark towards the end of the year. The front wheel reflector has also been reattached thanks to some garden ties! As an added bonus, the bike has a gear system - although it did take me a day or two to work out which gear corresponded to which type of slope. The gear system comes in handy on the way home, as most of it is uphill. Also, my luggage finally arrived on that Tuesday.

On my first full weekend here, Ronneby had its Festival - a bit like a small version of the Royal Show back in Perth. It takes over almost the entire town centre. There were heaps of stalls, and a huge number of people who had come to buy things. G had never seen so many people in Ronneby. A couple of photos of the event are posted below. I didn't end up buying anything because I was not confident speaking any Swedish. The first photo is of some of the rides in the town square, and the other is of some the stalls near the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Pub.


I have also taken a few photos from around the area of our flat. We live in a suburb called Hjorthöjden. The sign for it is below. Basically it translates as 'Deer Heights', because we live in an elevated location, and there are some deer in the forest quite nearby. I have seen some a couple of times, but they are always too fast for me to take a photo.

The next photo was taken about half way down the hill of Lindblomsvägen towards more of the main part of Ronneby.There is also a photo taken out of our balcony. The bike shelter is at centre left. The other photo is of the steep path on the other side of the flats, near Årdervägen. I don't like going up the hill this way by bike as it is quite steep and there are too many bugs in the air.
The first Friday evening I was here, we had a BBQ out the back of our block of flats. Then we went to the beach volleyball court just near BTH to work off some of those calories. In one photo, A is showing off her muscle tone whilst J and G set up the net. The other photo shows the car which we had to protect with covers which was parked dangerously close to the court. There were cars everywhere due to the Festival being on. Despite the covers, the car was hit a couple of times. Fortunately, there seemed to be no visible damage. The BTH building is in the background at the left.

Saturday night was an evening of fun at M's flat, which is just 2 buildings away from our own. M is my office neighbour at BTH. G made nachos, and most of the time was spent on a game of Settlers. A link about the game is at http://www.funagain.com/control/product/~product_id=011246, however I laugh loudly at the suggested game time. We took almost 8 hours! This game had so many rules to remember that it would take me a few times playing it in order to get used to it. The night concluded (at 3am!) with a quicker game of Robo Rally.

As a final note, I include this photo of the vapour trail of one of the many aircraft that fly over our building. This happens a lot in Sweden, but rarely happens in Australia...I think it has something to do with the air temperature. Anyway it provides a little entertainment when you get a few planes crossing paths (although not at the same time!)

Take care all,

Bruce.