Sweden

We flew from the sun-drenched shores of Barcelona for the equally drenched lands of Sweden. We landed in Stockholm's equivalent of Avalon airport and made our way to this cute little train station, where a very funny man told us we had about a 2.5 hour wait before the next train to Bodafors.



While Rosie plundered the free wifi and kept a close eye on our bags (though there's probably no need - Swedish people are far too polite to steal something), I went for a wander around the little town we were in. I found this tree behind an apartment building.



After a couple of very comfortable and efficient train rides, we wound up here - Martin and Haidee's house in Bodafors.



This is their beloved creature, Godis.



They needed to move to Sweden so they could have a bigger house for Marti to keep his ever-growing collections of stuff in.



He recently came up on a stack of very rare old boards.



There's Marti and Haidee, looking over a wall at a massive lake.



Still got it.



We ate a 'plata' in a weird restaurant where the menu was on a tiny laptop behind the counter and a bird was hopping around the salad bar and the waitress seemed to think it was all perfectly normal. The plata was very rich and impressive.



Went for a roll at the 'local' park (everything is at least 40 minutes drive away) with Marti's pal Bobo. It was fun, but rather short lived, because it started pissing down.



So we went for a walk around the neighbourhood.



Midget house.



Marti's studio building



Marti's studio. Will get a lot of action over the long winter.



Everything is so green and bright.



Picked some blueberries on the side of the road.



Our gracious hosts at the local lake.



Me trying to make Marti laugh, as per usual.



Wu-tang ducks



It's a pretty amazing looking place.



Strange scene



Ornate letterboxes abound.



Most of the houses in Sweden are painted with this iron oxide stuff. I imagine the paint shops are a far simpler affair out there.



Ex forest



Just one of the words we found amusing during our short Scandinavian sojourne. Another one was a street called Niggatan.

Barcelona

Have you ever been to Barcelona? It's an awesome city, full of people living in every little space, sleeping during the day and eating great little dishes of food but lots of them.



We stayed in a lovely apartment in the Born area. This is the view by day.



Gaudi, what a chap.



One day we walked into the Gracia area, in search of something 'real' and 'edgy'. What we found was a square with a bunch of kids running around playing football and sharing snacks while their parents sat around drinking beers. We sat there smiling and drinking sangria, pausing every few minutes to look at each other and shake our heads.



Regular readers may know that I like skateboarding. Barcelona also happens to be one of the most  skateable cities in the world. The spots are a little more run down than what I remember them from almost a decade ago, but they are still magic.



I really wanted to have a look inside the Sagrada Familia because it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.



However, there was a line around the block so we didn't go in. We've made a rule not to line up for too long because it really sucks. It's pretty incredible from the outside anyway. This is the new side. I think the long tendril things look like knee ligaments.



All the human statues are so cool and angular. Look at these guys having a pash.



But as you probably know, poor Gaudi got hit by a tram when he was having a look at the Sagrada Familia one day. This is the hospital they took him to before he died. They're currently converting it into a cultural centre, which is a great idea.



This was the site of one of the highlight meals of the trip, recommended by Michelle. It was incredibly simple and delicious: tomato salad with onion and olives, then a bowl of crispy fried whole sardines (even I liked these, quite a breakthrough!), and a sausage with a fried egg. God it was good.



Park Guell was full of people. It was dusty and warm.



Yep.



I had to wait for quite a while for this scene to clear.



The street next to our apartment.



Me talking the ear off a nice chap at another amazing skate spot, Para-lel.



We went to the beach every afternoon for the last few days. It was bloody lovely. Actually I took this one on an afternoon I was out skating around. I didn't mean to get the topless chick in there, honest! There are boobs everywhere, it's no big deal.



This is a relatively new spot right on the ocean. I had a great time here and fell over quite spectacularly when I was just getting into the swing of things. Video evidence forthcoming. Yep, I filmed it by sitting the camera on the ground, Rendelsham style. Actually, I sat the camera on my iphone and my wallet, in full denial of the pickpocket reputation of the town. Barcelona, I salute you. My ankle is still sore.

South of France

Hi there! We just rolled into Berlin after catching a night train from Sweden that spent half the aforementioned night on a big scary boat. There's a lot to catch up on, so I better get started.

I should qualify this by explaining that my fancy camera broke, so most of our south of France trip highlights can be seen on Rosie's facebook. But after Paris, we caught a train to Marseille, then drove a hire car through the hills to the seaside town of Cassis. We stayed in a hotel overlooking the marina, which was incredibly scenic and beautiful.



Nine years ago, I ended up in Cassis whilst on a failed pool searching mission. We were skating these funny banks at dusk when I saw silver fish jumping onto the beach and men walking around picking them up. I was so happy to make it back there again! The banks are still there.



A big drawcard for Cassis are the calanques - little bays between the cliffs that are only accessible on foot. We accessed them alright.



The next town we stayed in was Uzes. It's a medieval town which is pretty much in original condition. You can imagine horses and chickens getting around and people throwing bedpans out the window and stuff. We ate dinner in a lovely little restaurant and asked the guy how old the building was - 1400 years!



We also visited Arles, which is where Van Gogh painted a lot of his famous stuff. Turns out he was an ultra-realistic painter, not the nutcase we thought.



Arles also has a bunch of Roman colliseum type stuff. The south of France has a lot of this stuff - we also went to a massive aquaduct bridge at Pont du Gard.



There's a whole area called the Camargue where they love breeding white horses. I took a few snaps for my sister Anna's benefit.



Nametags



In the same area, there's a slightly dodgy national park where hundreds of flamingos gather on a daily basis. Apparently they love to go there around dusk, but there were still heaps of the crazy creatures there during the day.



We stayed in Montpellier for a couple of nights - it's sort of the Adelaide of France. They have a pretty sweet skatepark with old to new elements that I tore around for a bit in a happy trance.



One morning, the other camera started working again. Good timing, because Rosie was eating a crepe that looked like a piece of cardboard.



We were nosing around Saint Guilhem le Desert, another ancient type town, this time nestled on a mountain. 



Alien Workshop are in charge of all the signage.



The whole place is impossibly gorgeous.



Bridge.



Weed waterfall.



Then we sort of accidentally signed up for a four hour, 12 km white water rapids canoeing trip.



Beautiful scenes.



We took little breaks along the way to swap ends and watch other people float past. Most of them were adventurer types, but a few were unsuspecting couples who didn't know what they were doing either. You could tell them by their crazy laughter/grim silence, and the fact they were often travelling backwards.



Rosie's view (if she turned around)



We finally made it back to home base. This was a good thing, because about 20 metres past homebase was a dam that we would have fallen over and probably died.



Rosie got a bit wet



As did I. All smiles though!



The next day, we caught a train to Barcelona.