10 more NFL predictions

/ Greg / Leave a comment

I’ve already made my first set of ill-fated 2012/13 NFL predictions on the order in which the teams will finish.  I must be a glutton for punishment, because here are ten more predictions involving stories that I think will emerge this season.

1. By the end of the season, the story around Michael Vick will be whether the Eagles will pick up the next season on his contract or if the organization will wash its hands of him and move on.  Even though I’ve picked the Eagles to win the NFC East, I’m hedging with this prediction.  I can see Vick having another middling season where he’s either hurt and/or continues to turn the ball over at a frightening clip.  I really hope I’m wrong.

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A new year. A new set of predictions.

/ Greg / Leave a comment

The morning air is crisper, and that can only mean one thing – the start of football season is upon us. Before the start of the season last year, I made an attempt to demonstrate my football predictive prowess.  Looking back on the results, I’m not sure why I’m going to try it again.  Making predictions about a football season is a fool’s game.  I know that, but I just can’t resist.  Like last year, I’ll take a stab at how I see teams finishing the year, as well as a few storylines that I think will play out over the season.

For this post, I’ll cover how I see the teams finishing by division (* indicates my pick for the wildcard playoff spots) Continue reading →

A taste of reindeer

/ Greg / 1 Comment

This trip to Scandinavia wasn’t really a foodie trip for me.  That had nothing to do with the  cuisines of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, all wonderful and worth exploring, but more the economics of eating out repeatedly over a 14 day trip in some very expensive countries.   In prioritizing what I wanted to try in Sweden, reindeer was at the top of my list.   I managed two tastes on the same day.  The first came at Skansen when I stepped up to order a #4:

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Gamla Stan in photos

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Gamla Stan, the original site and old town of Stockholm, has a charm that keeps drawing you back.  Its narrow, winding streets, lined with shops, cafes and restaurants, are an unmistakeable tourist draw.  Here are some photos of Gamla Stan as we experienced it a few times over our four days in Stockholm.

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Palaces, Royal history and Globes – Day One in Stockholm

/ Greg / 1 Comment

I’m ready for the first full day in Stockholm.  This is partially because I forgot to pull the blackout drapes closed the night before and our east facing room became bathed in daylight before 4am.  It’s also because we get our day started with a pretty substantial Swedish breakfast.  This is the morning I came to wonder where lingonberries have been my whole life.

On our “must see” list in Stockholm is Drottningholm Palace.  Located about 40 minutes outside central Stockholm and easily reached by metro and bus, it feels like we’ve arrived somewhere very far away from a large urban metropolis.  It’s about 10am and I’m struck by the peacefulness and lush green surroundings:

Arrival

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Gluten-free eating in Sweden

/ Greg / 2 Comments

Before writing more about our time spent in Sweden, I feel compelled to write about the wonderful options for gluten-free eating in this great country.  My fiancée was diagnosed with Celiac a number of years ago.  On our travels in non-English speaking countries, this has made for a few difficulties while eating out.  Sometimes we have to simply leave a restaurant, sometimes my love is on the receiving end of a dirty look or an uninspiring meal while I go to town on a delicious dish she can’t have.  Not so in Sweden.  At every eating establishment we visited, there was an immediate understanding of Celiac Disease and the requirement for strict gluten-free food.  Everyone was good enough to warn us about possible cross-contamination if any items were fried in oil used for other non-gluten-free items.  You come to expect that level of service at nicer restaurants, but on this trip, a true sense of the ease of gluten-free eating came from visits to a couple of fast food places and cafes.

Not the kind of place we’d normally visit while traveling, but when your partner hasn’t had a fast food hamburger in more than three years, McDonald’s becomes a bit of a novelty.   So much of a novelty, that on our arrival we dropped our bags at the hotel and made a beeline to the first set of golden arches we saw.  Here are the gluten-free versions of their double cheeseburger and Big Mac.  Taste-wise, they’re authentic to the regular burgers.  The buns are actually pretty good:

GF double cheeseburgerGF Big Mac

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Second stop: Stockholm

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When we booked our trip to Scandinavia, I didn’t quite grasp the size of the geography we were about to traverse.  Leaving Copenhagen behind, we boarded a high speed train for the 5+ hour journey to Stockholm.   The train trip was a relaxing way to spend an afternoon.  The scenery of Sweden zipped past the window while I sat back and flipped through a magazine, listened to music and read part of a book.  When we pulled into the central station in Stockholm, I was ready for the next four days in the Swedish capital.  Over that time, we were planning to see Royal palaces, a couple of unique museums, take a day trip to Uppsala, and to sample some Swedish delicacies (of particular interest to me was reindeer).

When I think back on my very first impressions of Stockholm that night, I was struck by the dichotomy of how foreign it appeared to my eyes (the architecture of Gamla Stan, the language on a menu – it didn’t look like anywhere I had been before), yet how familiar, comforting and welcoming it felt.  My traveler’s spirit made itself home here without  any hesitation.  I immediately knew these four days were going to be special and I would be in danger of falling in love with this place before lunch the next day.  Helping that happen was this experience the next morning on a city bus trip (dog lovers will understand…):

Dogs on a Stockholm bus

Wandering in Copenhagen

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Like every trip and city visit I make, there’s always a “wandering around” time to see some sights.  For Copenhagen, this ended up being the last full day of the visit.  Here’s a photo tour of the places I wandered past that last afternoon:

Copenhagen’s famous Nyhavn.  An area of 17-18th century buildings lining a canal stretching to the harbour:

NyhavnNyhavnNyhavn Continue reading →

A picnic in Copenhagen

/ Greg / 5 Comments

When we started planning our Scandinavian trip we knew we were going to be taking it easy on restaurants given the general expense of eating out in Copenhagen.  Luckily, we had a pretty comprehensive grocery store close to the hotel and a wonderful organic bakery with a selection of gluten free items made fresh every day (Naturbageriet).  We also came to discover the very new market-based food hall, Torvehallerne, that was immediately between our main train station and our hotel (how lucky!):

Torvehallerne Continue reading →

Hillerød, Helsingør and Humlebæk

/ Greg / 2 Comments

The tourist cards most larger cities offer end up being a bad value for us.  To “break even” you usually need to spend a couple of days running through museums to feel you got your money’s worth.  Not so with the “Copenhagen Card” – for us, the attraction was that full transit and regional train access was included.  That made our day trip north of the city on a series of trains painless.  Our plans for the day are a visit to Hillerød to see Frederiksborg Castle, a quick trip to Helsingør to wander around and find some lunch, and then on to Humlebæk to visit the highly renowned Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

About 50 minutes after leaving Copenhagen’s central train station, we arrive in the tranquil surroundings of Hillerød as the castle opens for visitors:

Frederiksborg Castle Continue reading →