Cleveland Dam

For my last morning in Canada, I followed through on my plan to drive up to Cleveland Dam only to be greeted by closed park gates. Unwilling to take no for an answer, I parked on a nearby street, and descended into the darkness of Capilano Canyon with nothing but my small Petzl headlamp to guide me past the fence and down the stairs.

After thirty minutes out on the trails, the day was slowly breaking, and I met another runner which made me feel slightly less guilty. As beautiful as the trails were, it was difficult to take pictures that would do them justice. However, towards the end of my 10k run, I shot a short video inspired by the one and only Seth James DeMoor which you can find on my Youtube channel.

Having returned my rental car to the airport after 332 kilometres on the roads, I am now in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge, looking at airplanes and making slides in preparation for next week’s lecture. All in all, I had four incredibly days here in the Pacific Northwest and, while it may be a while until I get back, I am definitely not finished with this part of the world.

Trans-Canada Hwy

Waking up to all blue skies, I started the day with another 15 km run around Stanley Park, this time following the seawall all the way. Though the first kilometres were a bit on the cold side, that quickly changed once the sun came up. Realizing that this would be my last full day in British Columbia, I decided to skip the afternoon session at the conference and instead drive up to Whistler which has always piqued my imagination.

Renting a Chevrolet Malibu at YVR, I followed the Trans-Canada Hwy up in the mountains to Lost Lake where I went for an afternoon hike. 

Unwilling to scare the locals (or, worse, risk deportation), I decided against skinny dipping in the lake and instead focused on exploring the trails which, I presume, will be full of spring flowers in a few days from now. Only during the very short time that I have been here, so much has happened in that regard with cherry blossom now being visible everywhere. As for tomorrow, my plan is to drive up to Cleveland Dam at around 5 am and do one last trail run before heading out the airport and flying back to the winter in Kiruna.

Panels and seaplanes

Having changed hotels to the Hilton for one night, I took full advantage of its facilities by running a half marathon on the treadmill in the middle of the night and then swimming in the heated outdoor pool after my panel. In between, I presented my paper, which ended up being somewhere half-way between the lows of San Diego in 2019 and the highs of San Francisco in 2023.

Thanks to the excellent discussant Leigh Raymond from the University of Vermont, I received some really helpful comments that I will use when revising the paper in preparation for submission later this spring. I also appreciated the work the other panelists were doing, and I will definitely borrow a few notions like “palliative justice”.

Otherwise, I have tried to be outside as much as possible today as the sun has been shining. With Vancouver being on the 49th parallel, which is about the same as Paris, I might even have had a little too much of the good. At least, I got to see a few seaplanes and eat a great salad for lunch at the Cactus Club Café.

Stanley Park

Staying at a small B&B where the national anthem of Canada was written in the 19th century, I was of course beyond tired by the time I got here last night. Yet, four hours of sleep later, I was wide awake again, which is not that strange considering that it was already afternoon in Sweden, so I laced up my marigold Torrents and went for a tempo run around Stanley Park. About seven kilometres into my run, the seawall loop was suddenly closed off, probably due to bad weather last week, forcing me to climb up to Prospect Point which added about a hundred meters of elevation gain to my run.

Once at English Bay, I could turn off my headlamp and be surprised by the palm trees and the cherry blossom, before sprinting for a few more kilometres in 4:20 min/km pace to a Starbucks for that signature “Raz” latte. 

With the conference starting already today, I am soon off to registration but, before that, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy Easter.

Polymer plenty

Clearly, someone at the Air Canada Lounge Café in Toronto did not get that sustainability memo. Walking inside, I was greeted by an entire wall with different dishes, each packed in a small plastic container, like there was truly no tomorrow. Opting for a Thai Siracha Wrap and a Greek Quinoa Salad, I can at least report that the quality of the food was quite good. Nevertheless, in retrospect, I should perhaps have taken the UP Express train into town instead of reviewing airport lounges but, with only a few hours at my disposal, there is always a certain stress factor to that.

Otherwise, my transatlantic flight turned out to be surprisingly productive as I was able to rewrite one of the weaker passages of my WPSA paper while enjoying some great views of the oversized GEnx-1B engine and the outer-space-blue sky above.

Juno

Today, I am trying out Premium Economy aboard Air Canada flight AC829 from Copenhagen to Toronto. Seated in 12A which is a bulkhead seat, I think the value so far has been splendid considering the small price differential compared to regular eonomy. With the seats being in a 2+3+2 configuration, there is plenty of room aboard this Boeing 787-9, and the lunch that was served above the Shetland Islands was almost on par with what I would have expected in business class. Now sipping on my second glass of "Juno" chenin blanc from South Africa, life appears as simple and complicated as always.

Having been brutally reminded of the ongoing culture wars thanks to the March issue of the conservative magazine The Critic that Sofie was kind enough to pass on to me the other day, I cannot say that I am particularly looking forward to presenting on Friday morning. Nevertheless, I will try my best to be as respectful as possible and, hopefully, the experience will turn out as rewarding as it was last year at WPSA in San Francisco.

With six hours to go until touchdown at Pearson International, I plan to spend the rest of the flight preparing an upcoming Zoom lecture and giving comments on a few draft manuscripts written by my students.

Zooming away

With one colleague on sudden sick leave, I have twice as many theses to supervise this semester so I ended up being in a hurry in a yesterday to finish everything before jetting off to Canada this morning. Staying at Hotel C just opposite the railway station, I even had to skip my Djurgården running plans, instead opting for 5k on the treadmill before returning to yet more thesis guidance in front of Zoom.

Now checked in to Vancouver, my first stop of the day will be Copenhagen, hopefully with enough time to grab one of those barista coffees in the lounge ahead of the transatlantic leg to Toronto. 

Den Sista Resan

Yesterday, Eddie and I went to the movies with my parents to see Den Sista Resan ("The Last Journey"), a new Swedish film by Filip Hammar about his ageing father who once was a much beloved French teacher in Köping. Documenting their joint trip in an orange Renault 4 to Beaulieu-sur-Mer, undertaken in a desperate attempt to revive the father’s faltering spirits, the film managed to speak to all three generations of us watching and, eating pizza together at Ernesto afterwards, it felt like the perfect way of celebrating my mother’s birthday.

Otherwise, my mother and I have gone for a couple of runs around Stensö, I have found some old photos from my childhood (see below), and Eddie has constructed a railway station with my dad in Minecraft. Now on the train back to Gothenburg, I fear the coming days will be quite busy as I try to wrap everything up in preparation for my transatlantic flight on Wednesday.

39 years later

Cross country

After a busy week, Eddie and I are on the train across the country to Kalmar, leaving behind a home packed into boxes. Having stocked up on “smågodis” at Pressbyrån, he can look forward to four hours playing Elite Dangerous while I get to mark exams, but I guess it would have been worse had it been the other way around.

SAL

One of the great advantages of being in a small academic environment like Halmstad University is that I get to participate in seminars across the disciplinary boundaries. Today, that meant listening to a paper on identity making aboard the Swedish America Line (SAL). From the exhibition “Frizon” about gay culture aboard the ships to getting to experience Scandinavian Airlines’ 2.0 version with Anna back in 2016, I have long nurtured a certain fascination for SAL. Though I guess I will have to do with Cunard if I am to ever sail across the Atlantic, just passing the America terminal in the port of Gothenburg on my long runs give me a strange form of existential satisfaction.

In other news, the big thing happening today is that my dear mother is turning 75. Sadly, I could not be in Kalmar to celebrate with her but, already on Friday, Eddie and I are taking the train to see her, something that I am very much looking forward to.

On a marché sur la Lune

It is early Monday morning, William is reading Destination Moon with Tintin while I am once again catching a train to Halmstad. If I keep doing this until my retirement, I will have travelled the distance to the Moon and back along these tracks.

Meanwhile, on the theme of saying the right things for the wrong reasons, the Sweden Democrat Charlie Weimer has pointed out the obvious, that “Fit for 55” is not going to happen. To any long-time reader of Rawls & Me, this should not come as a surprise. Though emissions did go down in Germany last year, mostly thanks to a stagnating industry and greater imports of nuclear electricity from France, the massive cuts envisaged in the EU deal would require hundreds of new nuclear reactors on the continent or a complete deindustrialization, neither of which appear particularly likely.

Brooks

Leaving the moving boxes behind for a couple of hours, I walked down with Eddie to Universeum for a reunion with some of his new friends from the TV production. With one programme left of the season that features Eddie, I have been thoroughly impressed by the first four programmes and how natural he has appeared in front of the camera.

Over coffee at Tony’s, I read another column by David Brooks in the New York Times which again reminded me of the fact that, as good as Brooks is at capturing the prevailing Zeitgeist, his analyses almost always go in the opposite direction of my own. To my surprise, I found that I have only mentioned Brooks once here on Rawls & Me over all these years, despite my conflicted emotions about On Paradise Drive and some of his other books.

Green light for Kalle

Yesterday, the supervisors’ committee at the Department of Political Science in Umeå decided to give a green light to my PhD student Kalle, meaning that he is now ready to publicly defend his PhD on 4 June. This will mark the end of a five-year long intellectual adventure that started with me being on the selection committee for the PhD programme in the summer of 2019. 

Otherwise, the last days here in Gothenburg have been quite rainy and, after getting completely soaked on my morning run, I decided to head indoors in the afternoon for some rowing and ten faster kilometres on the treadmill. Still 47 kilometres behind pace, I will certainly have to be creative if I am to get my running done over the coming weeks as I will both be moving houses and flying across the world to Vancouver.

Swell season

Not the Irish-Czech folk rock duo, but a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from Margaret River in Western Australia (yes, I definitely have to go there one day) to mark that this mad Wednesday is over, a day that started shortly after 4 am with the writing of a syllabus followed by the customary train ride to Halmstad, a thousand meters in the pool, a seminar and then the miserable experience of having to grade a third-chance exam at which I had to fail 20 of the 22 students :-(

Fortunately, tomorrow promises to be less stressful with time to finally finish my paper for WPSA in Vancouver and maybe even get some rowing done at the gym.

Tuesday Trail

After working for a couple of hours this morning, I went for a longer and fairly technical trail run up to Jonsered. Listening to “Western Stars” with Bruce Springsteen (which is quite unusual for me as I normally never listen to music when I run), I followed the same trail as when running Vildmarksleden in August for the first fifteen kilometres and then Gotaleden up to Jonsered, passing many lakes that made me considering going for an icy swim. However, since I had to be back in time for some afternoon online meetings, I prioritized catching the 10:43 train back to Gothenburg. 

Dreams near and far

With eight long months left until Kullamannen 100k, I desperately needed a race to look forward to. As such, I was happy to discover Borås Ultra Marathon in late May, starting right here in Skatås, following Vildmarksleden to Hindås and then Sjuhäradsleden to Borås for a total of 91 kilometres. Having done the first half of the trail back in August last year, it seems like the perfect challenge with basically no other costs than the registration fee so, without much hesitation, I signed up.

Otherwise, I just received a new coffee table book by Lonely Planet which, I am afraid, risks becoming a lot more expensive than that race to Borås. Covering six continents, I have been to 14 of the 100 beaches featured and, upon seeing the other 86, I immediately started checking my point balance...

Alone in the dark

In preparation for Kullamannen 100k in November, I thought I should get some more practice of running in the dark with my head torch, so I went down to Delsjön last night. Meeting exactly one (1) person and his dog out on the trail, I have to admit that it felt slightly ghostly and cold, though still a far cry from the H.P. Lovecraft horror of the 1992 classic video game “Alone in the dark”.

Today, the same forest looked completely nonthreatening as I ventured up on Brudarebacken for some great views of the city below on my morning run. When returning for a second run in the afternoon, the morning frost had even turned into "shortsväder" for the first time this year (about a month earlier than in Umeå).

Back to blue

After six weeks with almost no "blue" activities in my Strava, I found the time for 1,500 meters of swimming this morning before our joint APT meeting at LHS. Discussing our new educational strategy and the upcoming research evaluation exercise, I was again reminded of the bureaucratization of academia and the growing number of organizational professionals (as for more on that, see this very timely piece by my colleague Linda and others).

Now on the train home, I was at least able to pick up a new batch of exams for some rather practical work. With both kids being home from school with colds again, I am not overly optimistic but hopefully I will make some progress on my article for Vancouver tomorrow as I have no teaching planned until Friday.

Danska Vägen

From Hamburg via Umeå, I pour up some coffee in my Nord Coast cup and appreciate a moment in the sun along Danska Vägen before an afternoon in front of Zoom. Already now, the sun rises almost 30 degrees above the horizon (which is about ten degrees more than in Umeå). Stopping at Lejonet & Björnen to buy some sorbet for Eddie who has come down with a cold, I fear this will be another week of vobb even as Vabruari is now officially behind us. Luckily, Anna does not have to go to Trollhättan tomorrow so I can still take the train to Halmstad as planned.

Lundabron

From my time in Umeå, I have many fond memories of racing across Lundabron, either as part of CR attempts with Elin or Parkrun, but last night I was content with a slow jog through the mystic mist. Sadly, the same low hanging clouds made me miss out on the unusually strong Northern Lights that apparently had been visible as far south as Wales.

Otherwise, Eddie and I had a great day in Umeå yesterday, meeting up with his friends and checking out some cold-water swimming opportunities at Nydala (even if I ultimately chickened out). Ending the day by sharing a pizza from Basta and watching “Smarter than a fifth grader” together, I really appreciate these father-and-son adventures.

Kung Fu Girl

With three weeks left in our apartment at Prästgårdsängen, the attic looked like a tornado had gone through yesterday but, after a couple of hours, Anna and I had restored some structure, and I could make salmon tacos with a Riesling from the Pacific Northwest.

As Eddie is off from school on Monday and Tuesday, we are making another excursion to Umeå to see his old friends. While he is playing the post-apocalyptic computer game Timberborn in which ingenious beavers are taking over the world, I have been able to complete the last revisions to my grant application to the Swedish Research Council so now I have one less thing on my to-do list.

Finally, from the world above the clouds, I am happy to report that the "polarrulle" is now officially back (even if in a slightly modified form). With the transition to Skyteam around the corner, I felt even more nostalgic when drinking my black coffee in one of those blue cups with "Star Alliance" written on the side. Once SAS leaves Star Alliance, maintaining airline status will make a lot less sense for me personally and, going forward, I will probably just book the cheapest ticket regardless of airline.   

Size matters

Last night, Anna and I took the tram to Contrast Public House on Tredje Långgatan for a stand-up show with my long-time friend Hanna Voog. I got to know Hanna when she was working as a librarian at the department of political science in Lund where I was doing my PhD. In recent years, Hanna has had quite some success with her stand-up shows and last night was a good indication of why as the show was remarkably funny with a very warm and generous tone. 

Otherwise, things are still really busy at work but at least I managed to squeeze in 40 minutes of indoor rowing yesterday so now I am back on pace after being sick quite a bit in February. As for the running, I am still about 80 km behind pace but hopefully I will be able to catch up on that soon enough as springs is just around the corner.