Bloom baby bloom

<nonchalonce>As I was flying over the baltic mid-afternoon on Thursday, I couldn't help but notice that the phytoplankton were blooming. How dreadfully green they make everything. Pass the salt, would you?</nonchalonce>


It's probably a mixed blessing for the aquatic ecosystem (tons of "sea-grass" good, tons of "sea-grass" consuming limited oxygen bad) but it's very captivating from way up high, swirled around by the currents. It's also immense. I'm not sure when I became aware of it (I was reading at the time) but it was definately before Sweden, and it lasted until the coast of Denmark. More here if you're interested.

What brought me to Denmark? Thanks to the continuing mystery of airfare pricing, it was more economical (not to mention a whole lot more fun) for myself and Niamh to rendez-vous in the land of Carlsberg and Christian-Anderson (Hans), before taking a train the following day to Gothenburg (I'm still awed that you can take a train from Denmark to Sweden - an international bridge!), and then return for the homewards journey. It was a beat-the-system kind of plan, and as is always the way when you try to outsmart The System, monkeys trained in throwing turn up at The Works, and find a box of spanners.

It transpired that everyone in Sweden was back at work the following Monday, and all the Swedes holidaying in Denmark had booked all the trains to Gothenburg. We were advised to get a train to Malmö, and then try to get a ticket for the next Copenhagen-Gothenburg train there, it would arrive half an hour later. Amazingly it worked, and even more amazingly we ran into an ex-classmate in Malmö, queueing for the ticket counter. In the end we made it to Gothenburg safe and sound, and rendez-voused with Alex.

Gothenburg, or Göteborg (yot-ay-bor-ay) was, of course, where U2 were playing on Friday night, at the Ullevi Stadium, and boy was it a cracking gig. The crowd was great - really friendly and excited - very warm towards the two warm-up acts who had local connections. There was even a half-hour long spate of cyclical mexican waves around the stadium before the main event. Bono kept his shtick to a minimum, and joy-of-joys, they played some great old classics, including Trash Trampoline and The Party Girl, a favourite of mine.


I'd be lying if I said we saw much of Gothenburg - we left the following day. We didn't see too much of Copenhagen either, but I was very impressed with the cycling culture... there's a city I could live in. We were going to go to Elsinore, until we realised that it's Helsingör, and would require another train (8 hours in two days is enough for anyone), so we went to the Carlsberg factory instead. The elephant on the left made fun of me. I cried. This left it up to Niamh to defend my honour. As you can see, he was cowed, and sulked with his ball until we went away.