Yesterday, Dragana and I moved from interim apartment #1 to interim apartment #2. Thankfull this "only" meant moving from Nacka to Johanneshov / Arsta which is about 4 miles.  That said we were working flat out from 4 pm until 10:45 pm.

Hit the sack at 11:30 pm and then got up at 5:45 am this morning and was in the car by 6:30 to start the cross country journey to Boras to start the 2008 Scandic bike tour.  Wheels down at ~ 1 pm! 

Last night Dragana and I packed up the few belongings we have at the moment as we're moving from one temporary apartment to another. Thankfully not more than 4 miles between the two, but still... Sucks to have to live out of a suitcase for 2 months ;-)

Hopefully we'll manage to move all the belongings in 4 trips with the little Volvo station wagon I am driving at the moment.

Then when that's done, hopefully no later than 8 pm, I'll hop in the car and drive to the other side of Sweden to crash at my parents place and then tomorrow morning have an easy 90 minute drive to Boras to start the Scandic Bike Tour... 

This week is St. Walpurgis day on Thursday, which means everyone also takes Friday off, and some take a few more... Peter is taking Wednesday off which means he will be off for 5 consecutive days!!!

These precious 5 days will be spent riding a TT bike at high speeds around southern Sweden!!! Not just any kind of riding though. I am driving down to Boras in western Sweden to take part in the Scabdic Bike Tour 2008 together with 18 other guys & girls.

This is organized by none other than Jonas Colting who is a 2 time Ultraman World Champion and also World Class on the Half and Full IronMan distance. He's done something like 8.17 on the full distance ....

Over 5 days we will be covering roughly 550 miles on the bike and for those who feel like it also go for a run either before or after the ride. We'll be staying in Scandic Hotels along the way and need to worry about nothing else than riding as there will be a van hauling our gear from town to town!

I'll try to do some live reporting from the road as it unfolds!

Todays update from Dragana.... Besides shopping, again... she also made some bad ass soft taco's Mmmmmmmm. Even with rock hard Avocado's she performed a miracle as usual! The she hauled Peter's tired butt to the movies to see Varg (Wolf), a new Swedish movie with super stud Peter Stormare (Prison Break, Fargo etc...). Good flick about raindeer farmers in northern Sweden and their struggles with Wolves killing their raindeer.

Allright folks, time to fast forward to NOW!!!

For the past five or so days we've had awesome weather by Swedish standards, all the way up to 65 yesterday & not a cloud in sight! True to form everyone and their mother were out in forcearound town and elsewhere, many in shorts & t-shirt only...

With such nice weather you've just gotta go out for a run! Dragana did however opt for a 1 hour spin class as it was downtown and closer to the shopping... :-)

Over the past three weeks Peter's been hitting it pretty hard both on the bike and running for a reason, but more on that later. Yesterday's workout was special in many ways, had a nice easy 12 mile run on one of my favorite trails around in Nyckelviken. It's either up or down as you are running up and around a huge hill that goes all the way down to the waterline. In a couple of places you have a fantastic panoramic view of the city of Stockholm. I'd forgotten how awesome that was...

About halfways through my second lap I saw something that should have dropped my jaw, but somehow I managed to keep a straight face. Just to the side of the trail I see this scruffy looking 40 - 45 year old guy with long hair and a pair of 80's shades standing really close to a much younger girl. Right as I come up next to them he goes "...she's really nice..." then I see that she's got her hand in his pants & is making hand relief..... Borat would have been screaming here! Not sure if she is "Nr 3 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan" but pretty obvious, ironic and most of all tragic. Only in Sweden...

From then on the run was pretty uneventful, just very nice weather and birds singing from the trees!

Speaking of that, later in the day Dragana and I walked to the grocery store and on the way we heard Woody Woodpecker hard at work. Baaanngggg, bannnggg, baannnnggg. We stopped and looked up in the tree and after a while we saw him. If you've never seen it it looks funny as heck! He hits the snout full force at the tree and then waits four, five seconds before going at it again. We were dying laughing at the sight of this hard working pecker. Dude's gotta have a headache by now!

On to Sunday. Dragana went (window) shopping today. Peter went for a 2 hr something ride on the TT bike around Ingaro which is a little picturesque island where you can put together a 25 mile loop. Easy day today to prepare for next week....

First off we apologize profusely to everyone of our great friends for dropping off the radar for a few weeks after we involuntarily... :-( left Austin to move back to Stockholm, Sweden.

So far it's been full speed ahead for both of us!

We landed in Stockholm on Saturday, March 15, dropped off our suitcases at the apartment we're borrowing from one of Dragana's college friends & then had lunch with another friend, Yuba who was kind enough to pick us up at the airport.

After that we hit the sack hard and must have slept for 12 hours straight...

On Sunday we went out to look at apartments, and we covered 7 different pads in one very hectic day. Found some decent prospect's but still not the "this is where we want to live place" so the search continues...

Monday, meant going straight to work for Peter. Nice to finally have some colleagues that appreaciate you and what you do a bit more than was the case with EMC in Austin!...

The first couple of weekes back in Stockholm were super hectic, full speed ahead at work for Peter, while Dragana was hunting for a job during the day. In the evenings we plowed real estate ads to try and find an apartment we wanted to buy asap... Preferrably in Nacka which is a very pretty part of greater Stockholm that's less than 5 miles from downtown and where we lived for 8 years before moving to Austin. If not Nacka we would love to live in Hammarby Sjostad which is a new part of Stockholm that's popped up in the last 10 years or so. Very trendy, very close to downtown but also very expensive if you want a modern 2 bedroom apartment.

If you thought downtown Austin (read AMLI......) is expensive for it's location try Hammarby Sjostad or Sodermalm, or (god forbid .... ) Ostermalm. This makes the 2nd Street district seem very affordable ;-)

After about three weeks we finally found "the place", so we have now bought a 2 bedroom apartment in an area of Nacka called Jarla Sjo. It's a very fresh pad that's about 1200 sq ft, with a slight lake view from the patio, and its built in 2004 so there's only one prior resident.

The only downside is that we can't move in until May 14 as the current owners get their new apartment in the same area the weekend before...

Don't have any pic's just yet, but we'll publish some as soon as we have moved in. Won't be much furniture to begin wit, but we'll work on that!

Continuing the good news stream, Dragana got a new job after just two and a half weeks of trying. Well done! Now we can start sharing the bills a bit more evenly ... ;-)

Good thing we have been soo busy 'cause the wether has just plain SUCKED! The first two weeks it snowed, some days from the left, now how 'bout that for a change....

Below a few pictures from our latest (we will be back at some point....) Tuesday night track workout at the O'Henry Middle School in Austin.

Dragana with one of her little brothers & Peter getting ready to whoop some butt in the annual friends(???....) & family bowling in Tidaholm! 

More to come!