I still love Sweden: the Ljuscafé

After 3 days, finally new Blogger-beta is in control. The only resting issue is René’s report; the layout of the Kajakwoerden-feeds in his RSS-feed-reader is disturbed. I am afraid I can’t do much about it. Blogger-help reports of some known bugs with RSS-feeds in Blogger-beta. But after all, I suppose it’s not Blogger’s fault, but my own clumsiness that caused most panic with me. Blogger Heldesk gave a quick and adequate response to my questions. And I do like the improvements of the beta-version: posting pictures works better, it’s easier to add new items to the template of your blog, changing the layout and colours of your blog now is a piece of cake: the new dashboard works more “WYSIWYG”.

I used the new Blogger-features to lighten op my blog: can use some brightness, these dark days! I haven’t seen the sun since Sunday. Wednesday’s issue of the paper (NRC-Next) learned me it can be even worse: in the darkest days in Stockholm the Swedish enjoy a little bit of daylight only from 9.30 am till 3.00 am… A inventive entrepreneur opened in 2005 the Bright Light Café (Iglo Ljuscafé) in Stockholm. Artificial daylight seems to help against a Winter-depression. Also in the Netherlands Bright light–treatment for the Seasanable Affective Disorder Depression (SAD) is getting slowly more standard in public-healthcare. Personally I am not ready yet for a bright light-treatment: I do prefer using the spare bright hours left to go outdoors. Actvities in the fresh air do enlighten my sometimes somewhat cloudy mind. Kayaking, biking and hiking as a medicine! But, looking at the pictures of the Ljuscafé, perhaps I should drink my next cup of tea in the bright white family-bathroom, with the Halogen-spotlights switched on at full power....

Let me finish with some kayak-related notes. I added some new links to my bloglist. The blogging kayak-scene is steady growing: Douglas Wilcox of the Scottish Seakayaking Photo Gallery (what a scenery, great pictures!) started his own blog, so did Mark Tozer a Mountain Instructor and Sea Kayak Coach in North Wales sponsored by Rockpool Kayaks. And over the ocean I discovered the interesting blog of Susanita, a sporty and fast kayaking (competition-surfski’s) lady at the East Coast of the US. All blogs worth a visit.
A special bonus for the Carfree Girls: this link to the Hawaii-adventures of Rich Delong. Note the picture of the bike-kayak-combination. It brings together the best of both worlds: the Cannondale racing bike transporting a beautiful Greenland-kayak! Touring around with this stuff at the big Island of Hawaii: some guys have it all ;-)