12 FEBRUARY 2007
Känna? (what’s up?)
…and a Happy Valentine’s day to all of you from cold (but not heartless) Sweden. We want to send of our love to you! We hope that you are all staying warm this winter wherever you may be. Erica and I are starting to get a taste of the Swedish winter, but it hasn’t snowed so much here yet. So, we don’t have any picturesque photos of Sweden’s natural beauty this month. However, we had some time in January to make a quick trip to France. This month’s photo gallery also has some exclusive photos of our new apartment!
France
We had some time before I started classes again and Erica’s research picked up, so we thought we would make the most of our winter break. We decided to travel to the European mainland for a quick visit to France. The purpose for our trip was to visit a colleague of Erica’s in Metz; however, we didn’t think it would be right to not visit Paris for a few days.
It was Erica’s first visit to Paris, and her romantic side got the best of her. She loved the city even in the middle of winter! The first day we spent seven hours getting lost in the Louvre Museum. It is an amazingly huge museum with art and artifacts from all over the world. We also visited the Musee d’Orsay. Erica loved its collection of impressionist paintings by Renoir, Monet, and Cezanne and the sculptures by Rodin (he did The Thinker).
After all of this artistic gluttony, we decided to step out into the city and admire a few of the architectural wonders. We visited Sainte Chappelle—an amazing example of light gothic architecture where the ceiling appears to float above the brilliant stain glass windows. We also visited the famous Notre Dame Cathedral which takes gothic to the other extreme with its massive stone columns and flying buttresses. Of course, no trip to Paris is complete without a visit to the Eiffel Tower. Something about seeing the Parisian icon in person sealed the deal for Erica—she has to come back someday. All this tourism required fuel so when we weren’t seeing the sites we were enjoying the French wine and cuisine.
From Paris we took a train to Metz in the northeastern Lorraine region of France. This was actually the reason for our trip to France as Erica was visiting the Georgia Tech campus in Metz. It was a pleasure to experience another side of France in a smaller city. Metz has a beautiful cathedral, St. Etienne, which was lit amazingly well at night. We also took the time to wander through the quaint stone streets of the city which really gave it a small-town feel.
New Apartment
When we returned to Göteborg, we had to settle into our new apartment. We were informed before we left for Cyprus that we would have to move to a location closer to downtown Göteborg. The location is less convenient for me to roll out of bed and make it to my early lectures, but it does allow Erica better access to all the specialty shops in the city. I’m not so sure that is a good thing… Regardless, we do like our new apartment. It is an older building with high ceilings that has been remodeled nicely. If nothing else, it is a much quieter location than our previous apartment—an important aspect for two acousticians! Check out the pics of our new place.
