Mike's 40th birthday in Stockholm

If you have read through most of my posts you have already come accross Gerlinde and Mike, two friends of mine living in Stockholm.
Gerlinde is actually also colleague of mine and Mike, her husband, I got to know during an IT project in our company.

Some weeks ago, Gerlinde was over in our office in Oslo. Her flight back to Stockholm was only late in the evening and so after work we had gone out for a drink/snack in the sunshine before she headed back to the airport. During our chat she had mentioned that Mike was going to turn 40 this year in June at that they were planning a big birthday party - and suddenly I was invited :-)

I immediately checked for flights and one of the many connections between Oslo and Stockholm was still offered at some reasonable price and so I booked: Oslo-Stockholm early in the morning of Saturday 16/06 and back again (once more early in the morning) on Monday 18/06.

My coming to the party was kept a surprise until last minute and it took Mike some seconds to check who I was when I rang the door and he opened :-)

I had already arrived in the morning and the first guests were only expected by 3 p.m. So I helped Gerlinde and Mike with some last minute preparations and groceries.

Then in the afternoon, a big bunch of family and friends with kids arrived. Their flat was just packed :-) As most of these guests had smaller children, they left again after some 2-3 hours - to make space for the no-kids-guests that would stay during the whole evening.

That's also when the food switched from sweet (cakes) to salty (cold cuts, lasagne, quiche, bread and salads).

Then later on also the "high-proof" drinks came out and the party continued until about 2 a.m.

I think Mike and Gerlinde enjoyed the day/evening and had a great party!
Though I didn't know nearly anyone of the guests (except for their lovely kids Amelie and Milou, and another colleague), I met some nice people.
Actually also Gerlinde's parents came over from Holland to stay for a week. I had really fun communicating with them as they didn't really speak a lot of English and so we ended up with me talking to them in German and them answering me in Dutch. LOL!


On Sunday I went together with them and their whole family (kids and Gerlinde's parents) to visit the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet (the Swedish Museum of Natural History). Not only did it have exhibitions on evolution, the Polar regions, the world climate and many other interesting aspects, but also "Cosmonova", the huge IMAX cinema, was a highlight of the museum where we went to see a 45-minutes movie about the world's reefs.

The day took a rather unexpected end. I knew Germany was going to play its third match in the group qualifications of the European Football Championship that evening, but I was a guest at Mike's and Gerlinde's place and I didn't get to know them as big soccer fans. So which interest should they have in watching a match with Germany? Thus I was totally prepared for not getting to see that match - which would have been absolutely fine as I was spending some great time with friends instead.
However,  I actually I figured out that Gerlinde likes to watch soccer when her national team, Holland, is playing :-) And then, even having her Dutch parents over, it became pretty obvious that it eventually would turn out to be football evening.
The only thing: the Germany-Denmark game was parallel to the Holland-Portugal one. So we agreed on starting to watch a bit of the Germany game before then switching over to the Holland game.
Unfortunately for the Dutch audience of that evening the Swedish TV channel decided to give the preference to the Germany-Denmark match and thus didn't show Holland playing.
That way 3 Dutch, 1 Swede and 1 German actually ended up with some beer and cocktails in their hands, some snacks and crisps on the table watching the Germany game :-) And since Holland needed Germany to win to get at least the slightest chance of proceeding to the quarter finals, they were all cheering for Germany! LOL!
I really hope you didn't mind, Gerlinde and Mike!?!

It was definitely a great weekend and I thank you so much for having me had over and staying at your place! Great to see you again.


The weekend was over far too quick. On Monday morning, at 6 a.m. I was already on my way again to Stockholm airport. And back in Oslo I went straight to the office...