Holiday in St Petersburg

Posted on April 28, 2014 by jonas

The last weeks we have been working on renovating the apartment. Tanya’s father has been helping us and even though there is still work to be done, a lot has been achieved. The small bathroom, the balcony and the winter garden are now substantially refurbished. Since the tempo will now decrease, when Sasha is back in Siberia, I think we will be busy until autumn to finish what we have started but there is no urgent work to be done since the rooms can still be used.

We went to Rome over Easter in order to get some rest after weeks of hard work. It was a 10 hour drive since there were no major traffic jam or other issues. We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast around 20 minutes of brisk walking from Colesseum. We did three days of serious sightseeing, basically visiting all the major touristic places that could be reached by foot in the city centre, including taking a look at the pope at his candle lightning ceremony on Good Friday. On the way back we went via the St Bernardino pass and at 2000 meters above sea level there was still a lot of snow and 3 degrees Celsius. 17 degrees difference compared to a few hours earlier in Italy.

When we came back to Adliswil, we had some more work, both for me at CS and for Sasha and Tanya at home, before we all three took a flight to Moscow two days ago. Sasha continued eastwards meanwhile Tanya and I took a night train in the opposite direction. Yesterday morning we woke up in St Petersburg and the weather was almost the same as in Rome. The streets are noticeably cleaner but the air has the typical St Petersburg taste of dust.

We are renting a central apartment close to Chernyshevskaya metro station and yesterday we spent walking around in the city and revisiting the famous landmarks. In the evening we went for some classic Russian ballet at Marinsky theatre. It was not bad and we could both enjoy the 3.5 hour show even though Tanya was able to follow the plot better since she knows the stories…

Now we will have a few days of further touristing and relaxing in St Petersburg before we return to Moscow on Thursday. It will be nice to rediscover Moscow as well. Nowadays I go to Moscow and Russia more like on a biyearly basis, instead of weekly. Taking airport express to Belarusskaya and then switching to the metro feels like an episode from a previous life and still so familiar.

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Ongoing renovations

Posted on April 13, 2014 by jonas

It’s been a while since the last post, which sometimes happens, and there is not much spare time at the moment. Tanya’s father is visiting us for a few weeks and we are doing a second round of renovations. This time the small restroom, balcony, and winter garden is given some attention. There will be some lesure as well though, since we have a trip to Rome around the corner.

I think that’s all for now, time to sleep…

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Weather and other things

Posted on January 6, 2014 by jonas

I usually don’t deal with such topics as weather in my blog but let’s make an exception since it extends beyond the topic. The news has reached Novokuznetsk about the ‘life-threatening’ and extreme cold weather in US. CNN reports that car driving is forbidden in some places if not absolutely needed. People should stay at home since it is cold outside and so on. Pray for those who are affected by -20 degrees Celsius…

It might of course be a problem if people and infrastructure is not prepared and/or don’t think or are homeless or so. But still. We have -26 Celsius here in Novokuznetsk at the moment and nobody is worried or acting in a different way just because it was -5 yesterday and -26 today. It is colder sometimes and warmer sometimes, so what? Take an extra pullover and make sure you have proper shoes when going out etc. People still go skiing down to -30 and the infrastructure works normally.

My point is not that Americans are weak and Russians strong. What is considered normal in one place is not necessarily normal in another place, and the differences do include other things than weather as well. There are many things which are different in Russia compared to US and Europe. When coming from Europe or US it is easy to come with a “western mind”, even when trying not to, when one is observing and discussing with people. Note to myself; try harder.

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New year celebration and first skiing session of the year

Posted on January 2, 2014 by jonas

During the afternoon we went for some quick cross-country skiing in the neighborhood. We are staying in Tanya’s parent’s central apartment in Novokuznetsk which is located by river Tom. There are skiing tracks along the river 5 minutes of walking from the apartment. There has not been much snow here until a few days ago but now it is perfectly fine for skiing, and that we did until Tanya’s feet started to feel unwell. There are pillars for electric light as well, but they have been broken for years and the city sadly does not seem to have money to fix them.

Tanya after the cross-country skiing

The new year celebrations were carried out according to tradition. Tasty food, including goose and caviar, and new year presents. The dinner starts late, at midnight, so there is no way you will fall asleep before midnight.

The day after tomorrow we go to Mezhdurechensk for two days of downhill skiing. It is not far away, about an hour and a half by car, but we will stay overnight in an apartment.

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Halftime in Sheremetyevo

Posted on December 27, 2013 by jonas

We have closed the first chapter of the Christmas and New Year celebrations and we are about to open the next one. At the moment we are at the airport in Moscow, Sheremetyevo, and there are still a few hours until the flight to Novokuznetsk. This year they have simplified the procedure somewhat as we don’t have to check in the luggage again in Moscow, it goes straight to the final destination. Next year they will also get rid of the paper slip that one gets when entering Russia and that needs to be kept until you leave Russia. That is progress 🙂 It will also be interesting to see if the 72 hour visa-free-trips will be introduced as has been reported. I think that could introduce the tourist trips to Moscow and St Petersburg significantly. I have not been in Russia for a year since we were busy at home this year but next year we want to go to St Petersburg again and it would be more convenient without the visa requirement since I don’t have a business visa at the moment.

We had a good, and as usual eventful, time in Västerås. The weather was not the best possible but we did not spend much time outside and we did not go to Västerås for the weather, but for the people. It was great to see the family, including Joel’s girlfriend Sara, Raoul and Gunnel, and friends from ABB Industrygymnasium. Last night Jakob and I could spend some time tuning his computer as well which felt rewarding for us when things started to work better.

Freja stays in Västerås for her yearly “spa-like” week with mom’s nursing and care. Freja showed great loyalty last year when she still wanted to come with us to Switzerland instead of staying in Västerås with longer walks and better meals. We hope that we can count on her also in a week…

The weather in Novkuznetsk seems very pleasant, same figure as in Västerås but with a minus sign in front. There has been no snow so far but according to online weather services it is arriving at the moment and the next days. Looks like there is hope for a white New Year at least.

If anyone wants to get in touch, I am (in addition) available on my Russian mobile number +79832230631.

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Experimenting with Sonos and home automation

Posted on December 9, 2013 by jonas

After being hooked on Sonos and installing loudspeakers everywhere, (yes, also in the washing room and the garage) I have started to think about how one can control and use the system also for other purposes than playing music and film in different zones.

Example: Let’s say you have a thermometer in your garden connected to your network and you would like your home to tell you the temperature at 8 o’clock every morning before you go to work. The sonos system would be an excellent choice to convey that message.

Tonight I took a look at what open source home automation software there are on the market. I found Openhab which “aims at providing a universal integration platform for all things around home automation”. It was fairly easy to set it up as a service on my ubuntu server and they have bindings for a lot of hardware, among them Sonos speakers. They have a decent Android application and after some configuration it is now possible to execute some simple commands like play/pause via my android phone over the internet (yes, the traffic is SSL encrypted and password protected). That is promising for the further development.

Tonight I also installed an open source Sonos client written in Java that runs fine in Ubuntu. Sonos only provides client to Windows and Mac OS but with Janos we get “full coverage” since Java runs virtually everywhere.

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Weekend summary

Posted on November 24, 2013 by jonas

Yesterday we had planned a trip to OBI and made a pit stop at IKEA for breakfast. After finishing our breakfast we noticed that the sofa we have been considering was on sale so we bought it and went home. The sofa fit perfectly in the X5 when maximizing the space in the trunk. OBI can wait until next weekend.

The sofa has been assembled in the small bedroom and the bed that was there before has been moved down to the server room in the cellar. The cellar room looks much nicer now after Tanya’s painting so the support personnel can now take a nap among the servers.

Lately the Sonos sound system has been completed since Conrad delivered the last four speakers a bit late. The ten loudspeakers are working well and has also freed up two sets of loudspeakers to be used with laptops in the small bedroom and washing room. I think the next step is to buy one or two Play:1 speakers to be used in the winter garden or cellar depending on where you are.

I am also considering a TV for the small bedroom but I think it could be worth waiting a year or so. By then it could be time for a 4K TV for the living room and thus freeing up the current TV for other duties.

Another project is to prepare a laptop for Tanya’s father. At the moment I am installing the Russian version of Windows 7 on my Dell XPS M1330. It is a few years old but has managed to age without falling apart. I think it could serve well for a few years more in Siberia.

I have also carried out practical duties today since I started the day with equipping the Saab with winter tires. In the afternoon we tried it by taking the Saab to Albis and going for a walk up the mountain.

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Typical Saturday

Posted on November 2, 2013 by jonas

Since the major renovation projects are finished or not yet started, our weekends nowadays usually consists of finishing and refining existing setups rather than making ground braking changes. It often starts with breakfast around 9 at IKEA, followed by some complementary purchases (like a wardrobe last week) at IKEA, and something more at Bauhaus/Jumbo/OBI. We are back at home around noon and starts assembling/installing our new stuff + cleaning/washing etc.

Today we bought a lot of paint at Bauhaus. We will paint the floor and walls in the “server room”, our new room in the cellar. I have emptied that room and Tanya has started cleaning it. We can probably start painting it tomorrow or next week.

The wardrobe in the small bedroom got installed more permanently today. The molding is now customized for a better appearance and the only thing that is missing, at least according to Tanya, is a bed sofa instead of the current bed.

In an hour we are going to the airport to pick up Natasha who is coming a one week visit. On that topic, we had Jonas Ullberg here for two days this week and since we were anyway going to Bern to pick up my Russian visa, we showed him the Swiss capital as well.

This week I have been to my second Russian lesson and even though I have not spent much time practicing, I think it is good for me.

Now time for some final preparations before our guest arrives.

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Mixed bag of Turkey, Israel, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein

Posted on October 20, 2013 by jonas

Since my last blog post we have been for holiday outside Antalya at the Turkish coast. The weather was excellent and the sea was warm so we had a great and relaxing week together with Tanya’s parents. In the end of that holiday week, we went for a 24 hour trip to Israel to visit Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Dead Sea. It was of course a compact trip but it was 24 well spent hours.

When we came back from Turkey, my parents joined in Zurich and the next days we were touring Switzerland all together. Regarding Germany in the headline of this blog post, before my parents joined we spent a day in Konstanz for some shopping and sightseeing. On Friday that week we packed ourselves in two cars (Saab and BMW) and went to Geneva. On that same day we visited the city garden and had a look at the city. It is still hard to believe that the fountain is 140 meters high but if wikipedia says so… On Saturday we went to Cern’s Open Days and took a peek at that collider of theirs. It is not easy to get an overview of all their activities and theories but we did our best. Since Geneva is a bit far away for a day trip, we stayed in a French hotel and drove via the south side of Lake Geneva on the way home which was a first for me and Tanya as well. All in all it was a pleasant finish of that two week holiday.

Regarding the ongoing renovation project, it has slowed down a bit but Tanya has recently finished off the kitchen including the interactive board. At the moment we are in process of moving the kitchen equipment in place. Tanyas’s father also quickly put up a roof for the winter garden when he was here in September. My most recent contribution is a shelf for the office which has been put in place today. I will spend some time the coming week to put things in order there. On the technical side of things, I have recently installed a wireless hifi system from Sonos. It is covering the apartment and I have to say that it is very intuitive to operate with applications for all major platforms.

The next step for some more serious renovation is probably to start with the restroom but we are hesitating since November and December seems to include some visits from friends.

The garden also got an overhaul recently, kicked-off by an initiative of Tanya’s mother. We now have some more thuja trees connecting the big hedge and the ones we got last year. Besides that we got rid of a lot of half-dead bushes and two trees plus replaced the old fence with a nicer one which includes a gate. Since Tanya likes walls, we have also built a little wall. Later on we should replace the tiles outside of the winter garden but I think that has to wait until spring time.

Today we went went for a day trip to Liechtenstein with Paulo and Monica. Initially we wanted to go with the Porsche but the rear seats are not really meant for grown ups so we went with the X5 in the end. The weather was perfect and we had a great stay in the small capital, Vaduz.

Tomorrow Tanya starts a German course in order to take her language to level B2. I need to improve my language abilities as well so on Tuesday I will check out a Russian course to see if I can take my Russian to the next level. Let’s see in a few weeks if we are on the right track.

Regarding weeks and future, we have decided to take the car to Sweden for Christmas and have booked tickets for Novokuznetsk for new year. In other words, we are ready for the fourth edition of our flying Christmas/New Year circus.

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Weekend – and no planned work

Posted on September 7, 2013 by jonas

Wow, it is early Saturday and we have the weekend in front of us without a huge to-do-list. Great news. As usual we had a release on Friday, i.e. yesterday, but I got out of office before midnight at least.

Since Tanya came back from her trip to Novokuznetsk, we (naturally mostly Tanya) have been working on the bed room and yesterday she finished putting the new floor in place. The old floor, and the carpet that was glued to the floor under it, is in the Saab together with some other garbage. I don’t think I have ever seen the Saab so packed and it is soon time to go to a recycling station, in Schlieren now for a change, and get rid of it. My regards goes to Fredrik R for the recycling coupons…

The plan for the weekend is to relax instead of working, and I think we both need it. The municipality folks at Adliswil are re-doing the street outside of the garage, but I hope we will be able to get a car out, and then head south to Ticino at 9. We have booked a hotel in Locarno where we are meeting our friends Daniel and Hanna. They are staying in Italy but “Swiss Italy”, i.e. Ticino, is close enough for a visit. The hotel seems to have a nice view over the city, at least according to the images on the booking site, and since the weather forecast predicts 29 degrees and no rain, the expectations are set high. 🙂 With nice company, it can’t go wrong even if the hotel is a disaster and the Swiss meteorologists happen to have a bad day.

My old cars got CD players so this week I have burnt some vintage CD-Rs. Feels a bit like travelling back in time but it is fine. Tanya’s new computer seems to fail the simple task of burning audio CDs (it always fail with some error message in the end of the process regardless of burning software) but Brasero in Ubuntu on my old HP is executing swiftly. No more portable loudspeakers or weak FM transmitters anymore, proper plastic discs, that’s the future. 🙂

Okay okay, time to get going. I’ll get back with a report from Locarno. Cheers for now.

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