Last day in Sweden

In 24 hours I'll be on my way to the airport going back home! In the mean time here's something I found interesting enough to put it up on a post. Apparently a popular way to memorize pi is to memorize a poem or story where each word represents a digit of pi through the number of letters it contains. A popular piece is titled Cadaeic Cadenza, whose title itself comes from the digits of pi in a different manner - by assigning A to 1, B to 2, etc. The poem begins: "One / A poem / A Raven / Midnights so dreary, tired and weary", and the length of the words are, in order, 3,1,4,1,5,9,2,6,5,3,3. Sometime words longer than 9 letters are used to represent two consecutive digits, too. Check out the full text!

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A tourist for a week

In case you haven't stumbled upon it already, I've been keeping a set of pictures for my final week here in Stockholm. I've been eating buffets, visiting attractions and riding the local transit aimlessly to explore the city outside its central core. There are pretty much daily updates in the pictures, so check back often!

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Last day of work!

It's the last day of work! Which is kind of too bad because I didn't get to finish everything I wanted to. But then again, a week from now I'll probably have no idea what I've been working on this summer anyway. So between now and when I fly back on October 1, it's time to be a real tourist - do all the things that people who live here never get around to doing. Things like museums and if the weather permits, more exploring of Stockholm in general. Speaking of the weather, I think I'm leaving just in time. It's been cloudy 9 days out of 10 for the past month or so, and I had to buy some very ugly gloves so I could countinue to bike to work. Anyway, I'm sure I'll be quite glad to set foot in Toronto again when the time comes. Goodbye St. Jude!

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Pictures from Vienna

Pictures from my Vienna trip are all uploaded on a new Flickr set. The highlight: a display in the Sound Museum that claims "England Conquers Canada" in 1760.

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Back from Österreich

Brian used a good phrase to describe this weekend - it was a big "gong show". Too much details would mean a huge post, but I can sum it up with a few simple points:

• Lots of drinking,
• Crazy manager yelling at me and Brian for sleeping in Kari's dorm's common room,
• Crazy trip to Bratislava with a great choice of restaurant but a terrible choice of a nightclub,
• Kari was one of the 11 boys,
• Interesting visits to the Vienna Natural History Museum and the Sound Museum,
• Biggest outdoor concert in Europe with more people crammed onto an island than the population of Stockholm.

That's about it... pictures will come soon but my salute goes to Kari for having such a crazy life, all the time!

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Brian visits Stockholm

Brian was in Stockholm from last Friday to today, when we both came to Vienna to visit Kari. We spent the weekend doing some things I've never done before. First, taking a cruise on the inner Stockholm Archipelago (kayaking in which is a popular passtime among the locals). Then, taking the usual walking tour of the city. And on Sunday, visiting the Vasa Musuem (housing the only surviving preserved 17th century warship). There was a nice surprise when we visited a thai food kiosk in Slussen that had apparently gone through a change in management, and a special 1kr (that's about 15 cents!) lunch special was on. Anyway, hop over to the Flickr set to take a look at the rest of the pictures.

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