Party Lights!

It's been pretty well documented in this blog that I really like my lights. I've installed a number of different types of lighting so far- cable lights in the kitchen, embedded LED's in the deck, halogen downlights in a drop ceiling.

Sooz really wants one more type of lighting: party lights for our new outdoor space. She likes the old fashioned European bistro lights with clear, round bulbs on a string.

I found a set by the venerable European company Konstsmide which seemed pretty good, but at nearly 500kr for a string of 10 bulbs, I thought it pricey.

I've had success in the past with purchasing a few multi-voltage goods in the USA (or the UK), and just using them with a different plug when in Sweden. I've found that more & more things are made to operate on 110/220 volts these days, a benefit of globalization, I suppose.

However, that doesn't seem to be the case for party lights. I found a number of vendors, partylights.com being the biggest. They have a wide array of bulb sizes and types, lengths of strings, etc. It's even possible to custom-order strings to one's own specifications! I was salivating.

My hopes were dashed, however, when I found that everything worked only on American-style 110 volts. I called to see if I could order a 220V set. I was told that wasn't possible, in a tone of voice that made me think I wasn't the first person to have asked that question.

I did find a company that could get me a 220V transformer, and to make up my own set to order. However, at $2.25 per foot of wire, $5.75 per bulb, and about $150 for the 220V transformer, the cost was getting quite a bit more than the Konstsmide set I had rejected as too pricy!

A bit more googling found that the set I wanted also came in a 20 bulb length. I could find it in the UK for only £30, or 350 kronor. A simple plug change, and voila! I have a nice string of bulbs, twice as long, and for two-thirds the price. A good deal all around.

Party Lights, part 2

My Swedish friend Anette read my recent post about party lights. She sent me a fantastic link to a Swedish vendor who sells exactly what I was looking for.

I can specify the length of the light string, how close I want the bulbs to be spaced, and choose my own bulbs from an assortment. Perfect.

The one hitch is that, like many Swedish goods, it's expensive. A 6 meter (20-foot) string with the simplest lamps would cost over a thousand kronor (about $140). That is quite a bit more than the UK alternative I had posted about before.

However, it's always good to buy things locally. Importing things one-off has caused me trouble before. I think we'll wait until we're at the house next, so we can have a good think and measure about just what we want to do with the lights. If I am going to order a customised string of Swedish lights, I want to be sure we get just what we want!

Party Lights, part 3

I've posted before about getting a ring of party lights for the stuga. I had said that I found a good product and planned to get them in the UK.

After a bit more research, though, I don't think I can do that successfully. These lights work on lower voltage and so need a transformer. That isn't usually a problem, but in this case, the power plug is integrated into the transformer itself. These kinds of transformers are called "wall warts" and it isn't possible to change the plug fitting.

Rather than mess with it, I found the same lamps in Sweden, for a bit more of course. Marcia has bought them on my behalf and they're in her garage, awaiting my arrival. Despite the cost, it is better to have the right thing when one is dealing with outdoor-rated electricity.

Now I have to decide where to put them! Sooz has some specific ideas. We will have to experiment when we're there next.

Searching in Swedish / Söka på Svenska

Not to get too technical here, but I've come across something interesting that may be of use to my multi-national readers. I mentioned recently that my friend Anette sent me a great link to a Swedish distributor of party lights.

I had been searching quite extensively (or so I thought), but the website she forwarded was new to me. Why might that be? One advantage was that Anette was searching in Swedish, and although I try to use Swedish words, she, as a native, is obviously a lot better at it. Another trick is to use google.se instead of google.com as a starting point. Starting a search from a .se domain, and using Swedish words in the search, is the best way to find Swedish results. Makes sense, doesn't it?

One other way to improve the results of web searching is to use a VPN, or virtual private network. VPNs can be used to make you appear as if it you're in a different country.

When accessing a website, one's location is identified to a degree. If I'm in Chicago and type "Bears" into google, I'm going to first get results for the NFL football team, and not information about the kinds of bears that live in the woods. If I'm in the US, and searching for party lights, I'm going to see local providers, not ones in Europe.

A VPN can get around that location information and allow the user to 'pretend' they are in a different country. Such an ability can be useful for many reasons. Turkey, for example, has banned Twitter for political reasons, and a Turkish citizen can't access twitter from their country. If, however, that citizen used a VPN to pretend they were in a different country, they can get around their government's restrictions and tweet away.

More prosaically, some entertainment is restricted to the country of origin for rights purposes. I can watch "Saturday Night Live" on Hulu here in Texas, but I can't when I am in Sweden. A VPN would allow me to appear to the Hulu folks like I'm in the USA, so I can watch shows just as if I'm on my couch at home, even though I am very far away.

A VPN helps a lot if I am looking for Swedish content when I'm not in Sweden. I just set my VPN to make me look like I'm in Stockholm, and voila! I have the best of both worlds.

There are dozens of VPNs available, most are free, or very low cost. I use one called Tunnelbear, as it works simply on all my my Apple devices. It's worth giving it a try to see what the internet looks like from a different country!

A really lazy day

Tuesday started out with the excitement of a moose sighting. We saw the young one about 25 feet uphill from our deck. I managed a decent photo for the web gallery.

It was mostly sunny, so we just putzed around and enjoyed the nice weather. I managed to extract the hornet's nest with no difficulty, and I installed a few LED 'party lights' above the couch, just for fun.

We saw lots of apples and plums on our walk in the evening, and Sooz is going to try a bit of cooking with the local ingredients. I also tried to take a star trail photo last night, but my first attempt is a bit underwhelming. Friday night is forecasted to be clear so I will have another crack at it then.

Today is rainy, so we're going to paint in the little house, and Tony and Ann-Catrin are joining us for dinner tonight.

Catching up

We had another beautiful day today (and it's going to be nice the next few days at least!) We were a bit jetlagged so it was a lazy day. We managed to get the party lights up with a little pulley system so I don't have to climb a tree every time I want to string them.

Grant and I also retrieved the boat from Bosse. He drove us around the island to point out the dangerous points of navigation, and then we tooled around on our own for a bit.

Today, we're going to make our inaugural trip to Nämdö in our boat. We're going to have lunch and do a bit of shopping to replace our lost food. I hope we'll be back from our sea voyage to post again tomorrow!

UPDATE: We survived. It was a lot of fun, although I got a bit wet there in the back of the boat. The journey took us about 25 minutes each way. The navigation (with Sooz's help) was straightforward. The only problem was the '3 Stooges' routine every time we went to moor the boat! But we managed to do it safely in the end, even if it might have been less than elegant.

It's nice to know we can get to Nämdö pretty much anytime we want, at least in times of decent weather. More photos available on the July Flickr page.

A few updates

It's a lovely Saturday afternoon and I'm sitting on our new deck with Sooz, who's video chatting with her dad on her iPad. The sun is nice and warm, but the breeze is still crisp!

We've been busy with a few small projects. Sooz managed a fire at our traditional spot, and we were able to get rid of last year's logs, along with a big pile of fresh cuttings as we groomed our forest.

We also strung our party lights over our deck. They are attached to the house, and then strung out to a nearby tree. I'm going to figure out a better way to attach them so I don't have to climb a tree every time I set them up. I think a pulley and some black rope might do the trick. I will investigate at the hardware store and report back.

I also tried to take some star photos, with limited success. Frankly the nights are too short already. Sooz mentioned she thought the days were getting perceptibly longer, and, as usual, she's right. The day we arrived here, April 28, was 15 hours and 30 minutes long. Today will have an additional hour of daylight. At this time of year, each day is 5 minutes longer than the day before.

Annika and Olle brought me a new TV antenna pole, and I was able to raise my antenna about a meter. This enabled me to clear the treetops, and my signal is now significantly better. However, most of the local broadcasts we've watched is just the hockey, to be honest.

The other big news is that it looks like we have bought a boat!! Annika's stepfather, Bosse, is selling his little boat. It's double-hulled fibreglass,  4.3 meters long (14 feet), and has a 15HP Yamaha 4 stroke Yamaha engine, with an electric start. We got it into the water today, and took it for a spin around Aspö. I think it would be perfect to make grocery trips to Guns Livs, and to visit the little islands around us.

Photos of all this (and more!) are on the May 2015 photo page.

The final is tonight!

We're hosting a party as usual this evening, lots of old friends and new ones, too, including one Eurovision virgin! There will be 15 people jammed into our little flat, which will be interesting.

As for the show, I'm looking forward to it. The first semi-final was terrible in my opinion. Belgium somehow made into the final with an insipid song. But what do I know? The bookies have Blanche singing "City Lights" at fourth favourites:

The act that is making me smile, though, is Moldova. It's a perfect Eurovision song in every way:

The fake saxophone, the backup singers becoming brides, the rubber-leg dance... all perfect.

An advantage for both the UK and Sweden is that they go late in the show: the UK is in lucky 18th spot, and Sweden is 24th of 26 performers. Going later is better.

All the chatter today remains around Italy and Portugal. The bookies agree with online polls that it's a race between those two. But it's Eurovison, so literally anything can happen! I can't wait.