We got back from Europe 36 hours ago, and I've spent most of the time sleeping. We'd had a pretty rough flight across the Atlantic -- although of the three of us the baby was the least grumpy. I'm a terrible jet-lag victim, though, and just a few hours of time change really messes with my biorhythms.
Yesterday was Amita June's first birthday, and although we were all tired we had a good time just the three of us. My parents, Maj's parents and our siblings all called, and we picked up a few presents that had been shipped here while we were gone. Amita got a trip to the toy store (net haul: 1 rubber ball, one Caillou book, one crapload of block toys) and a special breakfast. Sadly, she and her papa fell asleep together before she got her birthday dinner.
We're having a birthday party at our house on Saturday, "from 3PM to bathtime". It should be a little more lively than our quiet day at home.
tags: europe jetlag amitajune birthday
Malmö
I don't think I've posted anything in a little while, since before we went to Malmö. We had a really nice time while we were there. I had corresponded with Sean Finney, another Debian developer who lives in Malmö, before we left for Europe, and he'd offered a meetup. We had a free day in Copenhagen so I figured I'd take him up on the offer.
Malmö is only about 40 minutes from Copenhagen by train, so we were able to take a trip over quite easily. There's a beautiful bridge between Zealand and Scania which we crossed by train -- the water was beautiful. We managed to miss Sean at the train station -- I'd given some pretty tenuous instructions on how to meet us -- but we managed to get out and see the town a bit for ourselves. The old city has two squares -- the Stortorget or Big Square and Lille torg or Little Square -- right next to each other. The Lille torg is circled by restaurants and we had a decent lunch at a place called the Moose Bar -- Scandinavian staples like salmon with a Thai presentation. A good idea.
Sean managed to catch us as we were walking around, so we had a nice coffee together at a café on the main drag. He's been in Malmö for more than a year, and is taking classes at nearby Lund. We managed to exchange GPG key signature preliminaries (what Maj calls the "Debian butt-sniffing ceremony") and had a good time talking about the state of Debian and Free Software.
We split up at the train station and Maj and I went off to explore the towns small castle. It has a number of museums, but it was late in the day on a Sunday, so we opted instead for a walk to the beach, looking out to the bridge and ultimately the skyline and wind turbines of Copenhagen. After a long walk circumnavigating Malmö's distinctive Twisted Tower, the tallest building in Sweden, we headed back to Copenhagen for a dinner at Tivoli Gardens (probably my favorite spot in Copenhagen).
tags: copenhagen malmö travel sean finney debian
Zürich
We made a special stop on the way home to Montreal through Zurich. We flew on Swiss Air, which has a hub in Zurich, and they gave us a free 24-hour layover in town. Fortunately for us, we got to spend some time with our good friends Mark Jaroski and Allegra Biava. They're friends of ours from SF who moved to Switzerland around the time Maj moved there, and they now live in Lausanne. Both are extremely funny, intelligent and clued-in people. They were passing through Zurich on their way back to the US for a family visit there.
I'm glad we got to see them, since I got to meet Noéma, their 2-year-old daughter. Noé was born about 8 months after we last saw Mark and Allegra -- they weren't even telling people they were pregnant at the time. She's a barrel of laughs -- a real fun little person. She and Amita June got along great.
We spent most of our time walking around central Zurich, seeing some of the sights and taking it easy. There's only so much tourism you can do with one toddler, and two toddlers raises the requirements considerably.
I think the big downer for Zurich for me was how many people we didn't see. I'd hoped to connect with Alex Schroeder, founder of CommunityWiki, and also Martin Krafft, another fellow Debianista. Most disappointing, we missed Marco Prestipino, who's doing work at the University of Zurich in information transfer in online communities.