I’ve spoken to a few locals here, Swedes that have lived and had businesses for several years, decades even. The consensus is that there have never been as many Swedes living on or visiting the island as right now. With all the sun-depraved visitors flying in from Stockholm, Malmö, Göteborg and other cities, I suppose it’s not really surprising that Swedish seems to be the second most spoken language here in Palma. I don’t mean it’s a nascence (though you do have to watch what you say) – it’s just that after Bodrum, where we barely heard anyone from Scandinavia (but plenty from Holland and Turkey), it’s a little strange to hear so much Swedish chatter.

Aside from an absolutely terrible fish dish last night at an unnamed Swedish owned restaurant (but not La Perla), the food experience has been really good here.

Though much smaller, I could argue that the number of decent corner restaurants here in Palma is pretty much on par with what I’ve experienced in Barcelona. Like the ancient eatery El Puente, a new favorite place where we’ve already eaten a few times. Might even end up there tonight again. More images from Mallorca/Majorca here.

I find it increasingly interesting how my memory works – especially so when it fails me. With my humungous computer archive (4TBs and counting), I obviously have the advantage of being able to recollect by looking through my images, videos and rereading articles I’ve penned.

I wonder if a day will come when I don’t recognize photos I’ve taken, videos I’ve shot or stories I have written.  Probably.

In an entirely different part of my memory, I recently find myself making these really interesting associations. Like for example, this old tractor we came across during our bike ride in rural Kos the other day.

As soon as I saw it parked on the edge of the field, I felt compelled to get off my bike and photograph it. But why? Perhaps because my maternal grandfather Eskil had a similar tractor back in the 1970s. I know I rode in the cabin with him a few times. And he might even have let me steer it, too. Don’t remember that level of detail, though. Heck, I don’t even recall what type of stuff he grew on the fields outside of Trollhättan. Wheat? Probably.

I wonder what a loaf of bread tasted like back then. Would it be more flavorful, healthier to eat and would the methods for growing the grain be better for the planet than what’s used today? Everything seemed less sinister in the 1960s and 1970s. Maybe I’m just naive. Probably.

My maternal grandmother, Eskil’s wife Agnes (which prepensely is Elle’s middle name) used to make a fluffy, yet wonderfully chewy flatbread that when eaten straight out of the oven and topped with home-churned butter and a generously thick slice of creamy cheese, put me in a state of calm that I’ve since never experienced.

Some mornings when I stayed with Agnes and Eskil, breakfast would consist of a slice of grandma’s delicious bread and a large cup of really sweet hot chocolate. I remember exactly where I sat at the small kitchen table with its wax tablecloth and window overlooking the road to the barn. To my left was grandpa, holding up the local paper and mumbling now and again about something he had just read. Rarely did Agnes take a load off and sit with me for breakfast.

There seemed to always be a ton of stuff to do in the kitchen, around the house or on the farm. Like making sure gramps had his lunch with him before he took the tractor parked out back and headed out in to the fields.

More photos from Bodrum and Kos are now available here.

Shot this timelapse from our balcony yesterday. Not suffering from jetlag, yet I still wake up sometime between 4 and 5 am-ish, mainly for a pee, and can’t get back to sleep after that. So after yesterday’s awakening, I got the idea to capture a compressed 24 hours of our fabulous view.

A friend pointed out the other evening – over a glass or two of summertime wine – that my climate change motivated intention at the onset of 2019 to travel less was failing miserably.

I thought of this while showering a few minutes ago. The warm water took a little longer than usual to arrive and I caught myself feeling impatient by the delay.

I could argue that unlike many other business travellers, or, as I like to call them, “corporate seagulls” who constantly fly from meeting to meeting and likely spend more time in airport lounges than they do with their families (let alone experiencing much of the places they travel to), my travels document destinations and I share my impressions – in words and visuals – with many thousands of people. Though I these days rarely produce much for Swedish travel magazines, once my work is published on, for example, www.airlinestaffrates.com under Travel Tips or on the site’s companion Facebook page, over 170,000 people can read it.

Conversely, one could argue that my travel stories only encourage more people to board fossil fuel burning planes, cars, buses and boats.

After almost 20 years of professional travelling, it’s going to be unimaginably difficult to change my ways. I am prepared, however, just as soon as I find the perfect place to settle down at. A place so immaculately beautiful, socially and ethnically heterogeneous yet remarkably affordable, warm and clean, that my need to travel will be forever quenched. Tips, anyone? Maui comes to mind…aside from the affordable side of that island (where it’s anything but affordable).

The little fishies above gave their lives to a sauce or stew at some streetside restaurant in Asia of which I have no recollection.

Just finished an hour of twisting and bending. Got up at 05:00 am, about a minute before my alarm went off. Startting the day with qigong and yoga is like giving yourself a generous gift that keeps on giving all day long. Most of my aches and pains and any negative thoughts or seemingly insurmountable challenges I might perceive to have are gone by the end of the session – dispersed like clouds clearing from a worried sky.

I discovered yoga about two years ago and have been hooked ever since. It’s now my go-to remedy and keeps me honest and aware of my body’s current state. But you know what? I don’t buy into all the hokus pokus stuff often connected with yoga. Nothing wrong with spiritualism, just as long as it’s kept personal and not dictatorial. Heck I don’t even know most of the sanskrit names of all the animals I’m supposedly posing as. It doesn’t matter. In essence, Yoga is just a collective name for an ancient workout. No more no less. When anybody tries to tell you differently, their just preaching religion. And we’ve all recently heard about the tragedies in Sri Lanka and why we all need to stay clear of dogmas and mysticism…

After a relatively calm Easter with lots of tasty food in Göteborg and especially after yesterday’s “heavy” Easter dinner with a ton of herring, salmon and creamy sauces, my body’s yearning for lighter, plant-based food. Something akin to the salad above, shot with the Leica Q in Costa Rica during our visit 2017.

After the weekend on Gotland, I’ve spent some time sifting through my vast collection of photos from just shy of 30 years of visiting the island and neighboring Fårö. I remember being awestruck by how beautiful the landscape was and totally seduced by Visby those first few days back in 1990.

I had moved to Visby after being accepted to Gotland’s Konstskola (art school) and had somehow managed to rent a small house just inside the north gate of the town’s medieval ring wall. The house wasn’t fancy by any means, but it did have a kitchen, bathroom, a small living room and another room where I set up my easel, paints and brushes. It was an idyllic time where my art and photography developed and thrived.

Here’s a collection of photos from Gotland and a bunch from Fårö.

Looks as if most of Easter 2019 will be celebrated in Malmö – or, at least in the general vicinity. We’ve spent several Easters in Vejbystrand over the years with plenty of egg hunting, egg throwing and egg eating to last me a while. I was in a new grocery store yesterday and they had a long row of knee deep containers full of various kinds of colorful Easter candy. Like the raspberry chews above.

While I was walking down the aisle, looking at all the sugarcoated candy got me thinking that there has had to have been at least a few scientists, perhaps some with PhDs in chemistry involved in deciding how sweet, sour, salty or bitter a particular candy was going to be. Not to mention discerning the exact color, texture and how chewy a gummy bear or wriggly snake would turn out.

I mean, there’s has to be several laboratories around the world where serious, well-educated men and women in white coats spend most of their workday mixing chemicals to make candy products that the marketing departments and product managers for successful candy companies like
#Haribo, #Malaco and #Fazer have decided will sell well in grocery stores like the one I visited yesterday.

Rummaging through one of my archives today, I stumbled across several photos of Okondja, the cute and wild Affenpinscher I shot in my old studio a few years back. As friendly as she was, I can’t see myself ever owning a dog that small. They’re just too twitchy and skittish. But cute, very cute. Sadly, I’ve heard that Okondja sometime after moving to South Africa passed away. More of my dog photos from around the world can be viewed here.