Celebrating 4

Not until tomorrow actually, but it is our fourth wedding anniversary!

Reading the future?

I can't help but wonder what a coffee cup like this tells us?

Happy holidays to all!

Shana Tovah, Eid Mubarak, Iyi Bayramlar!

Eid/Bayram was proclaimed here tonight. We are also in the middle of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah this weekend.

Best of holiday wishes to all celebrators!

IKEA - art, design and commerce...

IKEA was the topic of this year's great exhibition ot Liljevalchs art gallery in Stockholm, widely commented also for it's commercial aspects. We saw it on it's very last day.





Speaking of IKEA, here in Abu Dhabi they seem to be moving out of town (which has been said for years).

Internet

Have reposted in the delicious-account (see to the left) a link to a June report on Internet usage in Iran. The topic of democracy and freedom on the net continues to be highly relevant also to other countries in the region, notably Azerbaijan these days. but examples could be innumerable.

Finland in Stockholm

To symbolize the partition of Sweden and Finland 200 years ago, but also our continued friendship and proximity. The Finland Institute in downtown Stockholm (2 houses down).

Excursion to Vaxholm

Photos from fancy archipelago idyll Vaxholm, taken on a later summer excursion with grandma!

Summer in Stockholm?

Can look also like this - photos from an August hailstorm in downtown Stockholm.

Building site

A peek at our own building site, destined to be a southward-looking balcony!

Middle East blogging

You can find some analyst's blogs in the left column (I've also highlighted some of them before, here) and here is one more: Reidar Visser on Iraq!

Siberian apples

Well not in Siberian Siberia, but in down-town Stockholm Siberia district, we found these apple trees about 2 weeks ago!

Late summer evening in Stockholm

A rainy mid-August evening in a Stockholm suburb produced this suggestive light over the lake.

Reading UAE

Have during the summer read the below titles by Chris Davidson, for once outlining all the bits and pieces on the UAE that are known but rarely compiled and analyzed. Recommended to those interested in the history and development of the UAE!

Anti-trafficking

The Stockholm Ethnographic museum sells artefacts against trafficking, quite nice actually!

Sad memorial

The 11th of September is a sad day for the world. For what happened and for the consequences. In Sweden it was made even sadder by the murder of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, to the day 2 years after the disaster in New York and Washington. I really wanted to erase the date from the calender.

The dhows waiting

for the goods heaped on the quay.

Boxes of stuff to load...

...on to the waiting dhows!

Exports

We've seen this before, the loads of stuff being loaded on to dhows in Sharjah.

Sharjah!

The skyline of Sharjah has a modern coastal look from afar, but looks more like old Dubai up close.

Modern graphic calligraphy

The creed of Islam in a supercool modern graphic format, by Mamoun Sakkal, exhibited at the museum.