Bleubug

July 27, 2021July 27, 2021

Crawling to Normal

Well, I’m fully vaccinated and an increasing amount of people in Sweden have joined me. There’s the specter of the Delta variant in the world now and it’s tweaked infections up a bit here, but we’re lucky that it’s not so much. So far this Spring and Summer I’ve been able to venture out and here’s a range of pictures. I guess the theme is transport, but there’s also some sunny scenes of other things as well. Pictures here include those taken at the Vasa and Ship history museums in Stockholm as well as our local historic railway called Lennakatten.

January 3, 2021January 3, 2021

Precious Light

Winter here in Sweden has short days as you find in Northerly countries. This year there has been little snow and the sky has been usually an overcast slate grey. However, if the clouds dissipate and the ice blue shows through you find the low sun can supply an astonishing warmth to the landscape. One such day I caught some examples of the long, lingering fire tinged illumination.

August 14, 2020August 14, 2020

Summer of Covid

It takes a long time for me to put a new post up, this time it seems a century. Last post I said we were looking into a pandemic but at the time of this writing we’ve been living in it for quite a period. I needn’t say it has changed so much about life, even in Sweden where we’ve had “mild” response to the virus. Most of all it limited travel so when my vacation came up we took a drive to areas of Sweden I’ve never seen. I’m rather happy about this since the country of my residence is still a bit of a mystery to me and has many surprises to impart.

The first surprise I had on the trip was that my camera succumbed, not to a virus but a rather small fall onto a carpet. The last image it took is the header to this post. After that I had to use a backup camera which didn’t allow me as much latitude in capturing images. Such is life.

I’ll not make comments right now about where these photos were taken, but most were in Skåne , Hallands, and Blekinge. A few were on the Göta Canal which is most lovely.

March 27, 2020March 27, 2020

Chilly

Winter should have been cold but it was only chilly with little snow. It’s now Spring but there is still a strong chill in the air. Chilling it is as we stare into a pandemic. I guess the seasons were warning us.

December 8, 2019August 2, 2021

A Brief Time in Riga

There’s a lot I could say about Riga but since I only had a short time there I’ll try and be just as brief. We often think that the Soviet sphere of influence tore everything down within its control and replaced it with Brutalist communal architecture. I’m glad to say that is not true in many places. My trip last year to Tallinn and this one to Riga showed that very pristine old towns can exist. Of course much was rebuilt after the two world wars so it’s not exactly as it was but the fact that areas seem untouched by time says quite a bit. The largest concentration of Art Nouveau buildings resides here and I wish I could have seen each one.

It was typical November weather on the Baltic with grey skies and the threat of rain constantly. Not a good environment for pictures and certainly not what I had hoped for. A bit boring and bit colorless I present here the images I took.

October 5, 2019March 12, 2021

Animals

It’s strange to think that a place in Sweden has so many animals from other countries. You’d think the cold would limit that but it doesn’t.

September 25, 2019

Crete, Again

Another year and another trip to Crete. I do love the place, especially since it is such a contrast to Sweden. This time I wound up getting ill which means I didn’t feel up to too many photos. These will have to do.

[Show as slideshow]

August 11, 2019

In-Between

Often these photo posts just replicate what I have put on Facebook already. Not cool, I know. However, I doubt anyone notices so no guilt on my part. This time I’m putting up some photos exclusively here. Rejoice! Or not. Anyway, I’m behind in syncing this site to my Facebook photos so this lessens my guilt a bit. Hope these aren’t too disappointing.

[Show as slideshow]

November 28, 2018August 14, 2020

Tallinn In The Cold

Estonia has a long and turbulent history. There’s a hackneyed phrase for you but pretty accurate here. Bouncing between empires and occupations it hasn’t been until the fall of the Iron Curtain that they could rise up as a nation. It also means that a city like Tallinn has not been scarred by modernism too badly…until recently. New building is evident all over but the old city is still untouched. I had a ferry ride there and spend a brief day exploring this impressive place.

November 11, 2018

Dark and Darker

It is hard to even find a Swede that sees much positive in this time of the year. The days get very short and the weather is damp, wet, and gray. To me it is worse than the depths of winter and makes It a challenge to just leave the warmth inside and move about. However, if one doesn’t get out you will go stir crazy which is why I went to Stockholm for a photo walk. Seeing unfamiliar places and vistas overrides the instinct to be warm and hide. Possibly I found some beauty out there, but you be the judge.

[Show as slideshow]