Friday Theme, Water

The first thing that comes into my mind when I hear this theme is a Swedish song by a Swedish singer.  His name is Robert Broberg and he has a song called "water - the city is full of water" or "Vatten - stan är full av vatten" as the name is in Swedish. This theme makes me miss Stockholm and my summerhouse up in the north so much. Living in the interior of Alaska far away from the water is hard, but I must admit that it feels better now compared to when I just moved here.

Stockholm by night is so beautiful, and this is where I spent so many times running.

Being surrounded by water is something that I haven't really thought about before moving from Stockholm. I was so used to being by the water that I didn't even react to the fact that I always have been close to the water. Even at our summer house.

Our summer house is called "the summerhouse no rest" kind of bluntly translated. Which means, there is not really any rest, since there is always something that needs to be done. A lot of people in Sweden have summerhouses, and our summerhouse is in the north of Sweden where my dad grew up. I miss the pine, and the forest mixed with the water.

I love the water because it can make such beautiful reflections in the water, like this one below.

Hey guys, guess what, that picture above is upside down :) thought I would make something fun for you.

Before we leave Sweden I want to share one last picture with you, which is an old bathing house in a town called Varberg at the westcoast, where my dads brother live with his family.

But Alaska and the US have really nice water bodies too. Here is W in yellowstone trying to warm up:

San Fran makes beautiful reflections in the water:

Yellowstone is really beautiful, but I have only been there in the wintertime, which might be just good, since there are less people there at that point. The hot springs create really cool things:

Moving back into the west and Alaska, we do have an ocean touching Alaska. Down towards Anchorage,Homer and Juneau you have the mountains touching the water.

In Anchorage there is a brewery called Sleeping lady, just like the mountain that you can see from the porch of their brewery:

Juneau and the ocean:

Sunset in Homer is always beautiful, it is amazing what a difference water can make in a picture.

Is it so surprisingly that my research is about water too? Guess not. I had to keep myself connected to the water.

Water is such an essential part of life, we need water to survive. This picture on the right is showing my old cat Moje, who lived to be twenty something.

It is also a great way to transport yourself. Two years ago me and W went on a canoe/kayak trip in September, and it was so great, The colours were so nice.

Also, water has the great capability of forming stone through time:

By the end of September everything starts to freeze, even the berries, and you know, ice is just another form of water.

As weather gets colder you water falls are starting to turn into icefalls and before you know it you can climb them. This picture above is a picture I took of a friend of mine, the one I always go climbing with. She is contemplating the climb we have in front of us. The Ice is really thin and you can actually see the water flowing. It is more of a mixed climbing.Ice can form these beautiful natural patterns:

But us humans can also alter the ice and turn it into jus about anything. Like we see at the Ice Alaska Championship every year.

To finish up I will show you what happens when boiling water meets -40 degree air. [wpvideo L9dVTDzD]

Friday Theme!

I "joined" a group of other bloggers who have a Friday Theme where they post pictures that follows the specific theme of the week. The theme for this weeks friday blog is Evening! One of the hardest things to do here in late fall and winter is to take pictures in the dark, my camera is good, but it can't do any miracles. Therefore I am collecting a lot of evening pictures in the summertime. With 22 hrs of daylight you almost loose track on time. What I love about pictures is that they are a wonderful collection of feelings, and I can remember specific things about that period in my life, or the month or even the week and day. Another thing that for me is completely mesmerizing, is the nature, how wonderful complex the nature is and how incredible small we as humans are.

I came here to Alaska in 2009 and the schedule is busy, but as soon as there is any free time we try to go somewhere. For fourth of July in 2010 we went canoeing in the tangle lakes area, all the weather forecasts for all of Alaska showed rain, rain and rain. The drive to tangle lakes is a couple of hrs, and you can get really far in a couple of hrs, and the further away from the two "biggest" cities you go, the further away from human life as you know it you come. Hiking takes a long time compared to canoeing, you can get travel faster in a canoe or kayak than if you are hiking the same stretch. We apparently had the best weather at that time, a little bit of rain during the first day, but a beautiful evening.

To me, the nature is one of the most incredible things we have on this planet so I really consider myself lucky to live here, in the middle of all these wonderful places. There are many other wonderful places that I also would consider living in, as my or rather my dads summer house. That must be the birth of my fascination with nature.

However, I must say that somewhere inside me I still have stockholm in my heart.. :)

Isn't it incredible, that it can be 10 in the evening or around midnight and completely light!

I do realize, that we have this exact phenomenon in Sweden too, which is awesome.

So, the definition of evening itself is after 6 or around bedtime, however from the old english this term was considered when dusk is falling, or sunset. This makes it really interesting since in the wintertime our dusk is falling around noon (okay there aren't that many days when this actually occurs but it still counts).

There isn't really that much you can do during the evenings during the winter time, at least not outside. Literally, when it's -40 degrees you only want to get from point A to B if you even want to go out. Thank god for movies eh? But in the shoulder seasons, or if theres a warm-snap you can get out skiing. Our university has lighted ski-trails. How awesome is that?

In the summertime however, you have lots of time to hang out around bonfires, or BBQ and just chillax, well almost, cause then again you have all the Mosquitos...

Anyway, I think I talked enough about this topic now, so Happy Friday!!