Day 2 - Hanging out in Malmo - 9 1/2 Weeks - Copenhagen to Lecce 2019

September 20, 2019

Day 2 - Hanging out in Malmo

Reloading and Relaxing - getting organised (sort of) and catching up with relatives

It was close to 24 hours from when we woke up in Calgary until we were able to get horizontal again in Malmo. Did that ever feel great.

When we awoke it was grey, blustery and very fall like weather. We weren't really feeling 'bikeish' and were grateful for the ability to have a relaxed day checking out Malmo with Arcelly and getting the few remaining things we needed to get done checked off.

The biggest piece of 'organisation' was getting our phones sorted for two months in Europe. This was the most painless process we've ever had for this. Andres had procured two 'pay by the month' SIM cards on his account for us. We popped out our Canadian cards, put in the Swedish ones, changed a couple of 2-factor verification numbers and voila, our phones were now up and working. All this in about 5 minutes sitting at the kitchen table, coffee in hand. Thank you Andres!

Even better (worn out rant warning !!!), the cards cost about C$15/month for 25GB of data per month and are good to go everywhere in the EU. Everyone in Canada who's reading this now, pick your jaw up off the floor and stew on this for a while. Once you've worked yourself to (almost) the point of irrational rage, gather up your friends, share this story, get them equally fired up and then storm your local Bell/Telus/Rogers offices and raze them to the ground!

Uh, just joking about the last part. I'm not really advocating street violence, but we do have a federal election coming up and the large scale rip off of all Canadian consumers by our mobile providers that is enabled by gov't policy and regulation should be an issue for all voters.

Ok, that's over with. I'm calm now.

The rest of the day went well. We picked up a LPG canister for our stove (took about a minute in the first outdoor store we wandered by vs 4 days of searching in France), got our panniers repacked from flight to bike mode, and then just casually poked around old Malmo with Arcelly.

We had a nice casual family dinner and managed to hold off the jet lag until about 10 pm.

It was over dinner when I had a Professor Liebowitz realization:

The realization that I showed up at the dinner table without my quiver of languages!

Arcelly is originally from Peru. Andres is from Estonia and went to Uni in the USA. Their children were born in Sweden and have done all their schooling here (so far).

Over the dinner table there were four languages in use, with a few more in reserve, just in case. In use by everyone but me I should add. I was reduced to blabbering away in my hoser english. Welcome to Europe.

Tomorrow will be more of the same as today. It's Saturday and Andres won't be at work so we'll do a little site seeing with him

Some of you might be quietly wondering "When are they actually going to start pedaling?" Patience my dear, patience. It will come.

Song of the Day Burning Down the House - cover by Tom Jones (yes) and The Cardigans

Yes, it's cheesy, but who doesn't like Tom Jones! This is from his 1999 comeback album Reload, an eclectic series of covers with, let's just say, more current artists. This is his take on the Talking Heads classic with the Cardigans, a Swedish pop band that had a good run in the '90's.

The view out our window this morning. We are right beside the Oresund straight

Looking the other way to the eponymous bridge

We are also right beside Malmo's main architectural highlights - the Turning Torso, an apartment building constructed around the turn of the century. It's also the tallest building in Scandinavia

City bikes and wet cobbles in Old Malmo, a classic European combination. You can even have a little game of Where's Waldo with this picture!

Lovely half-timbered buildings in Old Malo

Interesting vantage point on a fountain in front of the City Hall

Kirsten & Arcelly in the city hall square. She's not camera shy, I just liked this composition

Very nice Botanical gardens at the Malmo castle fortifications. The last remnants of summer

Fall is definitely here, there was more of this than flowers in full bloom. Still very intricate if somewhat monotone

It's not only the Dutch with windmills. These are scattered all around the Baltic coast

Fall starts in a couple of days .... so does our pedaling!

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