Flashback Friday
Memories
Our second summer in New York, but again we were gone for a big chunk of the time. This was the first summer in 10 years that I went back to Sweden. I always hear about other Swedes brag about Sweden in the summertime, and I haven’t really understood why….until now. We managed to go to a Broadway show which was incredible and continued to revisit Central Park, East Village, and Chinatown. At the end of the summer, we thought it was time to conquer a peak, or two, again!
July
The 4th of July came and went, and the aftermath kind of reminds me of the Swedish Valborg. I was working now but always manage to find some time to go for a short walk around the campus out at Lamont. I made Swedish cinnamon buns for my birthday and even snagged a selfie of myself in front of the mirror. July always brings hot temperatures, and this July was no exception. We grew a lot of herbs, but they all died unfortunately when we went to Sweden. I think I must have forgotten about summertime in Sweden. Also, the fact that we had insanely warm temperatures and sunny skies every day probably helped a lot. Summers up north, where my family’s summerhouse is are incredible. The sunsets are always out of this world. We have the baltic sea right there in front of the house and we fish a lot while we are up there. We have our own smoker too of course, and you cannot get fish that are fresher than this. We did some blueberry and cloudberry picking and even managed to find some spruce seedling. We took a trip west, towards Norway, and then south, through Åre and then continued through Östersund before heading straight back to Stockholm. Dad gave us a tour at the Royal Palace and we visited mom’s old working grounds at the open-air museum, Skansen. The last day we went to Omnipollo brewery and even had time to visit the church and my mom’s memorial there.
August
Back in NYC W’s mom and aunt were still with us and we went to a fantastic Broadway musical called Hadestown. It was incredible and I still listen to the soundtrack every now and then. Life went on, walks to work, and beautiful views from the lab I run. I went out to Cold Spring with some new found friends and then W and I ventured out in the East Village, again. That part of town also means that we go by East Broadway mall for some seafood. Later in August we went to Ikea in Red Hook and went bar hopping over there for the afternoon. We even managed to find some live music at one of the local bars. I went out to the old Lady that stands tall by the southern tip of Manhattan. I was quite positively surprised by the visit, It was definitely worth it to walk all the way up to the crown. We were lucky and the weather was a bit cloudy and rainy so the temperatures were not as hot as it can be since it’s all within a tin can basically (well, literally). On the last day of the weekend of the month we went out to Cold Spring together and went hiking to Breakneck ridge.
September
September arrived, but instead of fall colors early on we had warm weather. Of course, because in New York fall arrives later, and also sticks around forever. We went on a road trip to the White Mountains in New Hampshire and stayed in a cute little town called Woodstock. These White Mountains here on the east coast, are very different from the ones we are used to in Alaska. We visited a research site called Hubbard Brook and the next day we conquered not one, but three peaks, all above 4,000 feet. On the way down we saw some incredible waterfalls. And just like Algonquin Peak we were scrambling over boulders and crossed creeks and waterfalls. Back in NYC fall had slowly tried to break through but the colors would last for a long time after this.
