popnea

Lobster Fest

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San Pedro Lobster Fest is apparently the largest Lobster Festival in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records. I read somewhere that they had a dog parade where they dress their dogs in lobster costumes, but I did not see any lobster dogs. I did get to ride in an American school bus for the very first time though! 

The lobsters were awesome!

Wheeling Around

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My friend was in a hit-and-run accident a few weeks ago and has been suffering from back pain ever since. We headed over to her house so we could play around with her wheelchair!

Jimmy Cliff at Santa Monica Pier

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I used to go to a lot of the Twilight Series shows at the pier a few years ago, but then I’ve been busy doing other things so I have not been a while. Jimmy Cliff was closing out the series this year with an awesome show! I am so glad I beat my jet lag and went to the show!

Gylfinir Bixbite

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One of my mom’s 4 year old ponies was gonna go and measure herself with other 4 year olds to see if she can be the most beautiful 4 year old in Sweden, as she was the most beautiful last year when she was 3.
Started off with making sure she had not grown to much.

Then make yourself beautiful in front of the judges; 40 point out of 50, which is really good!

Then make yourself pretty in front of the paparazzi!

She did better than expected on the jumping so everyone thought this was an easy one and she’ll go though to the final.

But then she thought it was enough and refused to gallop at the last element so she didn’t make it through to the final at the end.

We had to go home and bake a cake due to the “falling off the horse” incident earlier in the week. The sous chefs did a brilliant job.

I think you can clearly see here that I have a degree and culinary arts and went to communication arts school!

Halland

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Since my little presentation of Los Angeles was such a success in my brothers kids classes, my sisters kids wanted me to come to their school and do the same. Again, the rattlesnake was very fascinating to the kids, and they also asked me what I was doing during the Second World War and why I don’t have any kids on my own.

My sister picked me up after school and we drove to Hökhultsstugan, where my great grandmother was born. How come I have never visited this place before? I think it’s owned by the city now and used for youth camps and such.

Lunch fika – because I can’t do this where I live.

So, the Swedish supermarket takes the “self checkout” to a whole new level! You get your own scanner, walk around the supermarket with it and get to put your groceries straight from the shelf and pack into your bag, how awesome!

It even greets you with your name! Brilliant!

Over the last couple of times I have visited Sweden, I have realized the different signage the supermarkets use in Sweden Vs America; In Sweden you see a huge price tag but it’s difficult to see what it is exactly that cost 18.95sek?

Yeah, I made it to my goal – the candy shelf!

About $100 later spent on candy (and a pack of coffee), we went home, picked up the kids and headed over to a fair. I have never really been a fan of these types of events as all you can get there is a bunch of rubbish, but sometimes you find interesting things, like huge boxes of lingonberry!

Got home and practiced with Musse the pony.

The fan club!

My dad had bought a bunch of fresh seafood so we drove down to the beach for a picnic in the sunset.

Jump in the ocean after dinner!

Family Time

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We headed in to Laholm for fika.

Then home to train with my moms stallion.
My parents place;

Play in the pool before dinner!

The carport is coming along!

I love this dog, I’m gonna pack her in my suitcase when I leave!

What’s for dinner?

Oh shoot, you have to do your homework? Why don’t you stand there and read for us while we sit here and drink our beers?

Family Time

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We headed in to Laholm for fika.

Then home to train with my moms stallion.
My parents place;

Play in the pool before dinner!

The carport is coming along!

I love this dog, I’m gonna pack her in my suitcase when I leave!

What’s for dinner?

Oh shoot, you have to do your homework? Why don’t you stand there and read for us while we sit here and drink our beers?

Jumping with Musse

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My parents bought this place a little over a year ago and I think they hit the jackpot, its an awesome place with pretty much everything they need!

The kids wanted to show me their precious pony Musse today, he looks just like my first pony as well!

They are doing a great job with him, but it’s not always that easy and sometimes you fall off… I think that’s awesome though, because that means you have to make a cake for everyone who saw!

So the place my parents have has almost everything they need, just missing the carport, but they have to have something to do on their spare time, right?

Hallandsås Project

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I have to be honest; when I was cruising around Los Angeles and saw that the Swedish company Skanska was working on the new light rail system I started to giggle and thought to myself “Oh Dear! Well, some delay must already be expected, right?”.
The reason: the Hallandsås Project
Skanska started the construction in April of 1993, the goal was to drill a 5.4 mile tunnel through the ridge, it was gonna take a couple of years to complete the project and it was gonna help high speed and heavy freight train pass the ridge and connect northern Scandinavia with the rest of Europe and reduce heavy freight traffic on the roads. 
I visited the construction site a couple of weeks after the project started in April -93, saw the huge drill and everyone was very excited about it.
Then BOOM! About 20 feet in, the huge drill got stuck and broke down. What followed was years and years of problems, like huge issues. The ridge started to leak a crazy amount of groundwater, another company came in and pumped the ridge full of a chemical that was supposed to patch up and stop the water, which in turns resulted in live stock dying and farmers having to throw away their harvest. About halfway through, the project was put on hold for 8 years. Good times! 
My grandpa said “fuck it, why don’t we make what we have in to the worlds largest wine cellar instead?” but nobody listen.
After years of investigation and cleaning up after the disaster (it wasn’t actually as bad as media made it out to be, but the reputation was down the drain), which resulted in new environmental policies (office staff can’t even use a glue stick in the office as it’s not matching the policy) together with some brilliant engineering and a new drill, Skanska got back on the project, and today, Holy Crap! 20 years later was the final break through!
I learned today that I shouldn’t blame Skanska for this whole fiasco and I am sure they are doing a great job at the LA light rail…
We went to the project exhibit and got to see the final break through over a live streaming. 

I wasn’t thinking so much about it at first, but as they got closer, I got more and more excited about it!

You can see the drill, they are through, how awesome! They are expecting the first passenger train to run through the tunnel in 2015, I can’t wait!

We celebrated with “fika” after – coffee and cupcake.

This is what it looked like back in 1993 when they started.

A replica of the new drill “Åsa”, she conquered the Hallandsås and is retiring now.

You could take a piece of the ridge with you home, just like you could’ve taken a piece of the Berlin Wall with you home back in 1989. I’ve been running up and down this freaking ridge so many times in my life, I didn’t really feel the need of bringing a piece of it home. Sadly, someone thought it was an ashtray. I have no respect for smokers.