Here is one of the oddest things I’ve seen in a while. Perhaps file this one under “Heading for the Apocalypse”. There has been an infestation of web-spinning caterpillars in Sweden and the prolific little buggers have been encasing everything from trees to bikes with the stuff. Tell me this doesn’t look like something out of aliens? There’s not a tremendous amount of additional info here on the particular species or whether this is a common occurrence, but you have to wonder if the outbreak of caterpillars here has something to do with global warming or some manifestation of a Biblical prophesy. But seriously, really weird.
Euro Safaris
Um… don’t you have the wrong continent?
Well, according to Richard Newton writing for The Sunday Times, Europe is also blessed with safari locations where animal lovers can get their fill of the wild without traveling all the way to Africa.
Of course, there are no rhinos or elephants to be seen, but Newton was equally fascinated with wild wolves, bears, lynx, spotted eagles, and deer in Sweden, Estonia, and Finland. He provides a list of outfitters ready to take adventurers under their wing and tour them through the wilds of Europe. Naturetrek, for example, offers brown bear tours along Finland’s border with Russia.
Unusual Hotels
On the heels of my earlier post about the Yotel….here is an off-beat and interesting site about hotels came up this morning when I was StumbleUpon-ing around. The site itself is actually called unusualhotelsoftheworld.com, a mouthful to be sure, but what it lacks in brevity it more than makes up for in some really interesting information.
Take this hotel in Sweden called the Utter Inn. It is a floating, underwater hotel, where you sleep in an underwater aquarium. Look at that picture! The Inn come from the fertile grey matter of a local artist and sculptor named Mikael Genber who has decided that art should be “for the public”, which presumably means they should be able to sleep in it. This is just one of many cool places to check out at this site, others of which might give rise to some ideas on where to stay on your next vacation.
Word for for Travel Wise (06/10/06)
Staying in the spirit of idioms from World Cup teams here’s one from Sweden and a rather pleasant one at that. Good luck in the rest of the games.
Today’s word is a Swedish word used in Sweden:
bortrest – gone travelling
Phrasebase has a decent sound library for several language translations. The downside is I couldn’t find the Swedish equivalent to the English words we already know in written form. I struck gold with this long list of words and phrases used in the country. It includes the good and the bad so be prepared. BBC has the usual mp3 download for the basics. One can find several Swedish radio stations listed here. As always there’s Lonely Planet and their handy pocket phrasebooks.
Past Swedish words: ett askfat, invandrare
Word for the Travel Wise (04/10/06)
Just decided to take a much needed
break from packing to think up a word for this evening. To help with my task I went looking through some of the past
lessons and realized almost immediately what language we need to concentrate on tonight – Swedish. I haven’t touched it
since I started doing the daily word. I haven’t met many people studying the language, but just because I don’t know
them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Today’s word is a Swedish word used in Sweden:
invandrare – a
foreigner that has relocated to Sweden, an immigrant
Seems like an easy word to remember and
reminds me of the English word invader. Imagine as a foreigner you are invading the country during your vacation, but
in reality you’ll only be checking the scenes, tasting the eats, and engulfing your every waking hour in trying to pick
up more of the Swedish lang. (Okay, with the full meaning of the word you will have enjoyed your stay so much that you’d
end up living in the country.)
Phrasebase
has a decent sound library for several language translations. The downside is I couldn’t find the Swedish equivalent to
the English words we already know in written form. I struck gold with this long list of words and phrases used in the country.
It includes the good and the bad so be prepared. BBC has the usual mp3 download for the basics. One can find
several Swedish radio stations listed here. As always there’s
Lonely Planet and their handy
pocket phrasebooks.
Past Swedish words: ett askfat