Over the hills, under the moon - and off the beaten path

  At the end of our garden, across the water, we can see the small island of Faroe, and even though we haven't really explored most of Gotland, we felt tempted to visit it. Faroe island is known for being rugged and beautiful, but its primary claim to fame is probably that it, for many years, was the home of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.  Here he built a marvelous, secluded house, and we decided today to make it our mission to find it - hidden as it is somewhere along the rugged coast.    You can't just ask locals for directions to the place. We tried, but they must have been used to sheltering Bergman from prying eyes and they obviously still feel somewhat protective of their famous, former resident. The answers were each time along the lines of 'The Bergman house? Gee, I don't know exactly. It is far from here. Very far from here!' What we could do, was finding an old photo of the house to see how it looks, and then, by following the island coastline on aer...

  Furillen made a huge impression and by chance, our next big discovery was yet another abandoned and beautifully renovated limestone quarry, which lies just next to our house in the north of Gotland. The large 160-hectare Bungenäs quarry was for many years off-limits as it was  used by the Swedish armed forces for military training. When the military left the area, the plan was to erase all the industrial buildings and the military installations and build a golf resort with 300 identical houses. The entreptreneur Joachim Kuylenstierna, whose father had worked at the garrison, hated the idea and bought the site with a bold plan.    He wanted to have houses on Bungenäs that were adapted and almost subordinated to the wildly rugged landscape and contacted a young, local architectural firm, Skälsö architects, which made a master plan for the area.     When you now buy a plot at Bungenäs, you can't build a pre-fabricated house and you are not allowed to fence i...

  During summer Gotland is normally filled to the brim with tourists, but in these corona times (and out of season) we almost feel we have the island to ourselves. The roads are  empty, and when we drive around, we let os lead by serendipity. Yesterday, chance took us to the small island of Furillen, which turned out to be an abandoned limestone quarry.   The surreal potholed wasteland and the brutal, almost postapocalyptic beauty of the run-down industrial buildings looked like a set taken out of a Mad Max movie, but when we peeked through the windows, we could see some minimalistic, beautifully renovated rooms and restaurants using limestone, concrete, and hardwood. This was actually a hotel!   We looked in on www.furillen.com and found out the quarry had been closed for many years, when it was discovered by the Swedish fashion photographer Johan Hellström. He immediately fell in love with the harsh landscapes and sold everything he owned to buy the isla...

We had so many plans for traveling this summer, but like everybody else, we saw all our plans crumble as the months progressed and the corona threats evolved. We sheltered in place and enjoyed some fine experiences, discovering places in our local area, which we had never visited before.   Now, it is fall. We REALLY want to spread our wings a little bit and we have found one of the few safe places for Danes to go to just now: The Swedish island of Gotland.  Gotland, the ancient home of the Goths, lies in the Baltic Sea, a three-hour ferry ride from the mainland, and we have rented a house for three weeks, which we hope will give us ample time to explore the medieval town of Visby, the many wilderness areas around the island and the rugged coastline, filled with the limestone sea stacks, which the locals call raukars.  Last night we just sat in the garden, having a drink, looking out towards the Farösund strait and the small island of Farö beyond that. What a joy...

　 In Denmark we have the expression 'to keep Elsinore Castle at port side'. As you're sailing north through Oresund, this means, you're bound for the Seven Seas. The other day Rita and I took the ferry to Sweden and sailed just past Elsinore castle. This was our first trip in a long time as Rita had been ill for more than a year. Now she is well and we  celebrated the start of our brand new travelling season of 2020 by taking a small warm-up trip to the Swedish seaport of Helsingborg. We thought the world was soon to be our oyster, but just a few days later the corona virus closed down everything! Now, living in seclusion and lockdown like almost everybody else, we can't even reminisce about the fantastic sightseeings we had while in Helsingborg. There was none! In hindsight, we actually should have thought a second time before deciding to use a bitterly cold Sunday to visit a small provincial town, where ...

Yep - I know, it IS cheesy, but coming to Boston for a few days, I just had to look up Cheers, which I frequented for so many hours in the 80ties, where the bar appeared almost non-stop on TV sets around the world. Sitting for a pint (on Norm's seat) I found out the brutal truth: Actually, no one in there knows your name! A few hours later, I happened to find the real deal. Deep down in Southie - the notorious Irish-Catholic neighborhood in South Boston, which  the gangster 'Whitey' Bulger  ruled for decades - I found refuge from the cold wind inside the pub  Murphy's Law. In here, nobody wanted to have their photos taken (and you don't push your luck in Southie) - but it was a nice place to sit for a couple of hours - and actually, a few of them did indeed ask for my name 

My feeling just now is - emptiness! For the last couple of weeks, I have been working for the Bernie Sanders campaign leading up to the New Hampshire primary. The Bernie Brigade is known for its enthusiasm and vigor - and we, the scores of volunteers, have been  canvassing the neighborhoods in and around the snow-filled capital of Concord. Now - the election is over! Our candidate won. Last night we partied - and this morning all the candidates, the reporters, the satellite uplink trucks, and all my Bernie Bros have left town - bound for the upcoming primaries in Nevada, South Carolina, and beyond. As I walked the streets this morning, I felt like the only guy left and now I wait for my bus to Boston and the flight back home. I sit, thinking back on some fantastic days filled with laughter, camaraderie, hard work, and a lot of sludge and huge snowdrifts to cross before you reached  the doors to knock. When I volunteered for the Bernie Sanders campaign, it was...

Last night, I went to the huge rally, which Trump held to spite the Democrats on the evening of their Primary! I probably have to keep this a secret for my Bernie friends, as most of them would find attending a Trump rally as offensive as if you wanted to go dancing with the devil himself. I went, and - what can I say - is seeing believing? Can you believe how many red hats you can have standing in line on a bitterly cold night? How many you can cram into one hot stadium? You probably can, when you know how hard the recession hit New Hampshire in the 2010s. Today employment is much better and many blue-collar workers see Trump as their savior. He is the astute businessman personae they know from Fox News and from many seasons of reality TV. Can you understand how a person, who is rambling along for more than an hour, obviously speaking whatever rubbish comes into his head, can gather this much admiration? The roaring red hats might be too busy cheering to ac...

Many years ago, I saw a newsreel of presidential candidates walking the snow-filled streets around New Hampshire, greeting voters in diners, grocery stores, and barbershops. I was a child then, and the candidates may have been Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater, but I still remember deciding at that time, that I would one day experience the New Hampshire primary, which every four years is the first primary in the nation. 56 years later it has finally happened. I'm in Concord, the capital of New Hampshire, the candidates are here, the snow is everywhere and I'm not just a bystander to all the political debates - I'm thrown right into the action, as I'm here working as a volunteer in the Bernie Sanders campaign. In Concord, we're probably 20 or 30 activists, who walk the streets, knock on doors, distribute flyers, and try to persuade the voters. This has been a dream come true - and not only am I working for the Democrats in what probably will be...