Category Archives: Journal

Mills has been looking into commissioning a new instrument, so we went to visit one of the most prominent luthiers of the nordic mandola species. Ola Söderström has a workshop in Upplands Väsby (north of Stockholm, between the city and its airport). He picked us up at the train station, and regaled us during the […]

I don’t know whether anyone besides me will find this entertaining, but I have been having fun with trying to document what we’ve been seeing during our many hours on trains (and buses). Lots of trees and fields, cows and sheep, a tractor, a rainbow, golf courses and football games, bus stops and train stations, […]

We were only in Örebro for a couple of hours, but I thought you might like to see pics of pretty buildings. We had a little picnic on a lawn overlooking the castle, then a wee perambulation around town before it was time to go catch our train. I’m including a pic of calligraphy in […]

I’ve seen a variety of butterfly gardens, but this one in Karlskoga is also for bees. There are even a couple of bee-houses, each of different construction. I spent a little while learning to use the aperture priority on my new camera so I could take more satisfying pics of the critters, though they still […]

(I was going to call this post “Visit with a heathen,” but I’m going with Mills’s suggestion instead.) In Karlskoga we got a chance to visit with Anders Norudde, builder and inventor of many violin-related and harpa-related instruments. He’s also well known as a musician, notably with the band Hedningarna (“The Heathens”), and has a […]

From Borås we headed west to Goteborg, and then back out a short commuter-hop to Partille. I’ve long heard of the existence of relatives from my father’s side who live in Sweden, but this was the first time I’ve had a chance to get out to the west side of the country to meet them. […]