About Alex

Graduation is coming up in just a few weeks and the closer it gets, the more things stack together. I'm damn good at pushing things ahead of me, but finally things seem to clear up at least a little bit

The past weeks I've been dead busy. Got myself a job, launching Northern Aviators (more on that below) and at the same time trying to enjoy summer which is finding its' way into Sweden. Well needed.

Lately I've realized that I can't seem to read this blog without reminiscing about the past. So much has happened since I started it and I've met so many new people along the way. And now I'm graduating - who thought I would? Also a big congrats to Matt for getting a new job!

Gah, I hate using a Windows keyboard with a Mac.

Northern Aviators

Ah yes, my latest venture with fellow Mathieu has finally been released. We had a bit of issues in the beginning with our servers, but they should all be gone now.

So, what about Northern Aviators? Well, it's a community/utility tool specifically for aviators or people interested in aviation. We provide an online photo album (photo uploading is to come!), an online logbook (for pilots), our well renown flight plans (again of most use to pilot) and a grandoise forum (for everyone interested in aviation) in the release version. We have very cool visions for coming features, but unfortunately development is moving at a fairly slow pace due to me being the only designer/coder and me having loads to do at the moment

Pay it a visit, and stay peaceful.
Until next time.

Pardon me for being a bit slow. Thing is that all of my notes that I had taken during my trip met their fate a bit earlier than expected... anyways.

Ah yes, Greece. The country of tzatziki, moussaka and ouzo. And of olives and of hairy healthy Greeks. This was my fourth visit to the country (when do you start getting discounts?), but my first visit to Crete - Greece's biggest island.

Departure

My mother is a woman of advance planning. Everything was laid out in detail. We were to depart from our home at 2.00am (possibly 1.45am) in order to be at Arlanda first in line when the check- in disks open, two hours before departure (that would be 5.00am). Then we had a rough two hours to spend at the incredibly interesting Terminal 2 (note the sarcasm, the terminal has one taxfree shop and a single café).

Ah well, no need to interfere with her plans. 2.00am works fine for me. We packed our stuff into our car, and off we went. Found ourselves a parking spot, and took the bus to the terminal. Entered at around 4.45am.

"Perfect. We'll be first in li..."

Of course, every other person that were going on our flight had the same thought. Arrive early, first in line. Not much else to do than to nicely stand in line. Forturnately it didn't take too long before we had our bags rolling.

So we had some coffee (or well, I had some coffee) and walked around the Terminal, incredibly bored. Had another cup. And another. Wrote some MMS messages. Had my fourth cup. Started to feel hyper, so I stopped. Listened to some announcements. Had some water.

*ding-dong* "Your attention please. Passengers for flight NVR..."

Finally! I won't bore you with details of the flight since it was quite non- eventful. When we arrived at the hotel we settled in the nice airconditioned rooms and went for the pool. The hotel was positioned down a hill with a nice view of the ocean from our balcony. Very neat.

En route

We didn't do very much other than sunbathing and eat good food, which was a shame. I wanted to see Knossos, but none of the others did. Ok, so the bus ride probably would've been a killer and Hiraklion expensive, but experience people! Experience!

But let's talk about the food. The most adventurous culinary experience I had on Tuesday with tzatziki for starters, an amazing lamb in oven for main and some fresh yoghurt with honey for dessert, all local stuff and enjoyed in a wonderful restaurant with the most amazing view over the ocean and the sunset. Hard to beat.

Or well... just for the sake of it I feel obliged to mention that the entrecôte me and Johanna made for our Monday dinners were fabulous too.

On Wednesday we went to Chania Town (not China). A twenty minute bus ride and we found ourselves in an inferno of tourists, cheap shops and restaurants with waiters at the entrances, all looking at us as if we were walking pieces of fresh meat.

"Seven persons? We have magnificent table for you - magnificent view, wonderful food!"

Amazing how every restaurant in the entire town seemed to have a "magnificent view" over the ocean. We eventually settled for a classy place by the port, with live music (bouzoukis of course) and very good food. Afterwards, we went shopping mad. Even though I didn't buy anything (believe me, I was looking. But I wasn't after a Manchester United t-shirt or some dragon pocket knife), my family did. A pair of sunglasses here, a Versace- bag there.

The following days we were unable to bathe in the ocean due to strong currents, which was a shame. Instead, I enjoyed imagining the lives of other tourists. The most interesting was Gretl, an old woman who had just left her husband for a young handsome Greek, and was now enjoying life by the beach.

I saw her again in the evening at the restaurant we were in, and took the opportunity to explain to my family about my obscure fantasies. I was met with no sympathy. They wouldn't understand anyways, even if they wanted to. Tsk...

Arrival

The flight home was amongst the best I've ever been on. When getting on board, I looked for my seat, 36A.

"38, 37, Emergency exit, 35, 34... wtf?"

It appeared that I was seated at a row right next to the emergency exit, which meant that I had about 2 meters to the seat in front of me. In other words, amazing legroom. The rest of my family had seats in the rows behind me, and an older couple sat beside me. Very interesting people indeed. Summed up, the flight was a success.

And that about brings us to the MMS post I made on the car ride back to Gävle. For more pictures, check out my Flickr account or just press any of the images above.

Enjoy.