Cold snap

Waking up to -13 degrees, I read that yet another cold snap is on its way, with cold air coming down from Greenland by midweek. Feeling kind of miserable, all running is on hold, so instead I am spending this Sunday morning revising PowerPoint slides and indulging in a rather epic breakfast.

Having rebooked my hotels for California, I am still planning to run the 28k Billy Goat Mountain Climb in Silverado, as well as heading into the desert for a night under the stars in Anza-Borrego State Park. But instead of staying at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, where the conference is, I found a much more affordable Holiday Inn Express. So I guess it really is full circle to two decades ago, when my road trips with Gabriel featured stays at such romantic IHG locations as Andrews Air Force Base, with fighter jets constantly taking off overhead. At least I used the points well, staying at Coogee Beach in Sydney later the same year.

Circles

Eighteen years ago, I was on a flight from New York to Düsseldorf, looking forward to spending Valentine’s Day in Rome. Reality, however, had other plans, and instead of romance there was theology at the Vatican with a Catholic priest whom I had befriended a few years earlier in Vienna.

With Valentine’s once again proving to be a rough ride, my cold worsened overnight, and the day brought a series of small mishaps and forgotten gloves – only slightly mitigated by a semla in the brilliant sunshine. With the sun now climbing ten degrees higher than at the winter solstice, its rays are at least beginning to warm.

Talamone

Having already confessed my sartorial sins – and the very real risk of becoming a "returmissbrukare" – here is my latest attempt at reproducing the famous Talamone look. This time, however, all sales are truly final, as I ordered an Amazon Essentials piece for 29 USD directly from the US.

Otherwise, I woke up with a slight cold which made me skip my planned half marathon in Skatås in favour of answering student emails and preparing slides for my upcoming statistics classes. Feeling somewhat better in the afternoon, I popped down to the gym with William for some light strength training instead.

6-7

You know that internet memes die the moment 47-year-old bloggers start inserting them into every conversation. Still, tonight I regained at least a little respect from the kids when I showed them that I have made 67 trips in my current qualification year with SJ.

As for lore and inside jokes, a well-dressed fox at Hamburger Bahnhof yesterday certainly made my day. But now it feels good to be back in Gothenburg and settle into a few calm days before the next teaching dash begins.

Glyptoteket

With the kids having barely been to Copenhagen before, I took it upon myself to brave the elements and lead them past the city’s most iconic sites, including the Little Mermaid – surrounded by ice – and the white plumes of biogenic hydrocarbons rising from Amagerværket. Still, after five kilometres of brisk winter walking, the mood was beginning to sour, and an escape was urgently needed. And what better refuge than the palm trees and Roman sculptures of the Glyptotek.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Ludvig Beckman has taken a stand against the inhumane deportation of teenagers in Sweden by resigning from the ethics council of the Swedish Migration Agency. At a time when too many choose silence, every act of resistance counts. Just as the regressive elements of Danish energy policy need to be called out (for those wondering, Denmark’s emissions on this winter day stand at 217 grams of CO₂ per kWh – roughly five times that of Sweden), so does the idea that racism can be defused simply by speaking the same language (as the Danish Social Democrats have long attempted). That road is ultimately toxic to democratic politics and the very ethos of liberal democracy.

Lounge Tegel

Getting up at the ungodly hour of 4:20 am, the kids and I took the Regional Express back to Berlin Brandenburg well ahead of our flight up to Copenhagen. Having never flown out of the airport before, I did not quite know what to expect in terms of queues and, seeing that easyJet had a whole bank of morning departures, including one to Rovaniemi for those who missed the Santa season, I thought it better to be safe than sorry. Once at the airport, however, it took only a few minutes to check my bag, and we were through security in no time.

Having had my American Express Platinum card for a year now, the economics of it, compared to my former life on the frequent-flyer hamster wheel, still astonish me. The fact that I can book any ticket with any airline – in this case a €25 fare with easyJet – and still enjoy an abundant breakfast in the "Tegel" lounge for myself and one guest is simply unbeatable, especially considering that SAS was €100 more per person this morning.

Now, leaving the Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft behind, we have twenty minutes until landing in Copenhagen, where the forecast promises heavy snowfall and weeks of cold winter weather. Later in the afternoon, we will take the ferry over to Helsingborg and then the high-speed train to Gothenburg – but first, time to see a bit of the Danish capital.

Indoor Skydiving

When first planning our trip to Germany, we considered going to Halbe and the world’s largest indoor water park, housed in a former airship hangar. But the logistics turned out to be complicated, so instead we chose to take to the air in the form of indoor skydiving. With tickets for kids being considerably more affordable than for adults, I chickened out – a decision I slightly regret in retrospect.

Taking the S9 out to Waßmannsdorf, the kids received a thorough safety briefing before launching themselves into winds of more than 150 kilometres per hour, all smiles. As a parent, being able to give them these kinds of experiences is something I truly value, and William’s exhilaration when the airspeed was increased and he suddenly shot all the way up the cylinder was unmistakable.

Einsteined

Closed since 2022, my favourite sanctuary, Café Einstein on Kurfürstenstraße 58, now survives only as a chain of coffee shops scattered across the German capital. Nevertheless, I could not resist returning for a highly anachronistic flat white and a Brezel. Having started the morning with a steasy city run – taking me down every possible memory lane, including the final hundred metres of the Berlin Marathon (still on my bucket list) – a caffeine fix was just what I needed before heading over to the zoo with the kids.

Post-panda, the day continued with a visit to the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum of Contemporary Art for me, while the kids returned to Futurium, followed by a ride out to the Hurricane Factory in Waßmannsdorf – but that is a story of its own.

Carlsberg Nordic

Once in Copenhagen, William and I headed over to the newly renovated Aspire Lounge to grab some lunch. In my case, that meant a DIY smørrebrød with roast beef and a cold non-alcoholic lager. Having checked out the nearby Carlsberg Aviator Lounge back in December, this seems to be the better option now with my SAS days being firmly over. Apparently, the Aspire Lounge also has a fine-dining “suite” option which, at a hefty upsell of 199 DKK, feels a bit uncertain in terms of value – at least when travelling with an eleven-year-old ;-)

After crossing the Baltic, we landed in sunshine and I got to see Berlin Brandenburg Airport for the first time. Having been delayed for a decade, the airport opened just in time for the pandemic, and since Berlin has always been more about trains than planes for me, it is understandable that I never got around to checking it out before. Flying back to Copenhagen with easyJet on Thursday, I hope to explore a bit more – but today, we jumped straight onto the RE20 to Potsdamer Platz.

Kattegat

 

Flying out over Kattegat with William next to me, it is suddenly the 10th of February, and I am on my way to Berlin for two days with the kids. Sipping a Cola Zero and indulging in this winter’s The Escapist, I am thrown back to Sofia and Tangier, to adventures past and future. Having finally decided what to do with my rapidly expiring American Express 2-4-1 voucher, I booked an award trip in economy class with Kenya Airways for the end of January 2027. At 60,000 points for two, it is a steal beyond words – and a sensible finale, as nothing would in any case be able to beat Anna’s and my epic return from Argentina aboard the Queen of the Skies.