21-28 August Mickey and I visited the Greek island Limnos (Lemnos). The island is the 8th biggest in Greece, located in the center of the Northern Aegean sea.
We travelled with Apollo and stayed at Porto Myrina, Powered by Playitas. The hotel had a lot of different sport activities included in the price. At some activities you could just up show at the set time, others you should sign up for. We tried Yoga, Padel, Scuba diving, kajak, SUP and did a lot of laps in the pool.
Tuesday we did a 12 km hike to the “Antenna hill”. Beautiful 360 degree view over the landscape from the top:
Wednesday we experience “extreme weather conditions” where there came a SMS warning!
Spent the day playing backgammon and visit the fitness center:
Thursday we hiked up and around the Castle of Myrina, that could be considered as one of the most resistant and best fortresses in Greece:
Friday we rented a car (“jeep”) and drove around the island to see some of the sights – A dessert. Sand dunes (and a tank) at Gomati beach.
Extraordinary lava formations at Falacro and drove on some dirt roads – great fun! and might be the best sight of the day. A salt lake at Aliki, that was not white but muddy due to the rain storm.
Had lunch at the surf beach Keros. Should see some windmills at Kontias but probably also due to the storm, the path up to the windmills was closed. Many of the roads was very narrow, especially through the villages:
Saturday we did a 14 km hike to “The Church without roof” (Church of Panagia Kakaviotissa). This Greek Orthodox Church was built by refugee monks who fled to the mountain as early as around 1,416 AD and is one of its kind in the world.
The track towards the church we choose an alternative route that Google maps marked as a path. In reality there was not much of a path, only the ones the sheep and goats had made. We used Google maps as a compass to help us keep on the right track. An exciting adventure.
Hiking back from the church, it was more or less roads and “the beaten track” all the way back to the hotel.
Myrina is the capital and main port of Lemnos and counts on 4500 inhabitants. The settlement stretches around two beautiful bays and between stands the imposing Venetian castle surrounded by massive formations of volcanic rock.
Visitors are charmed by the old neoclassical mansions, Ottoman buildings and fountains, traditional houses, narrow streets and modern constructions that compose the setting of Myrina. Along the waterfront lie plenty of restaurants and traditional taverns.
22-26 January 13 present and former colleagues from NNE spent at Saalbach-Hinterglem, Austria, for some days of skiing. The trip was planned for taking place last year but cancelled due to a virus. We were all looking forward to the trip but there was some uncertainty and anxiety up to the days before departure. The Danes needed a negative PCR-test (max 42 hours old). It was enough with a third booster shoot for the Swede but needed proof, train ticket, that I just arrived from Malmö the same day.
We travelled with Northlander and stayed at Skinetworks Hotel Pinzgauerhof in Hinterglem. Perfectly located close to the lift Reiterkogelbahn, ski rent Heil’s and after ski Goaßstall.
Friday and Saturday before arrival it was snowing. Sunday it was a little bit cloudy, Monday-Wednesday it was Kaiserwetter!!
Today, Wednesday 19 January, I was invited by Mads at the Danish intranet network Intra2, to tell the story about 25 years of intranet at NNE.
It has been an interesting and fun experience to dig deep into the archives to find material to the presentation.
This is the overview of the different frontpages throughout the years:
I started at NNE, in the Visualization department in 1997, as web designer working with the intranet. Back then we used the tool Microsoft Frontpage and worked directly in production – publish content and it was live. If something went wrong – try again… limited amount of testing and documentation 😉
Since then ways of working, tools, software, design, content and functionalities has changed but many of the challenges are about the same. This slide is from 2002: NNE Intranet challenges 2002
Information Management – Structuring unstructured data
Search engine
Personalization e.g. the role and job function of the employee
Integration with Oracle and Documentum (in 2022 it’s other applications)
Choice of Content Management System
Web statistics/analytics
Language choice – Danish or English
This is what was on the wish list in 2009 and it’s about the same 2022:
Access from the mobile phone
Virtual workrooms
Integration with social media applications
Web analytics
A great search engine
Many thanks to my former colleagues whom I worked with in the NNE web team, Carina and Rune, for the great input at the meeting.
14-21 of October, Mickey and I visited the small beach resort Agia Marina, Crete, not far from Chania. We travelled with TUI and stayed at Atlantica Caldera Village, room no. 212 with a great view from the balcony, overlooking the village, sea and the island Agioi Theodoroi, a nature reserve inhabited by the Kri-Kri goat.
Here follow some stories and pictures of what we did during our stay, enjoy.
Walkabouts:
Beach walk Agia Marina – Palatinas, 8 km.
Hill walk Agia Marina – Cave Nerospilia, 8 km. (the cave was closed)
Beach walk Agia Marina – Chania, 11 km.
Chania is the capital of the Chania regional unit. It lies along the north west coast and consists of the city itself and several nearby villages.
On the way we had a break at Iguana Beach and passed Abandoned Graffiti House,
In Chania we walked along the Venetian Port, where we had lunch. We took the bus back to Agia Marina.
Bus day to Elafonisi:
Monday we went on a bus trip to the beach Elafonisi. The trip went via the gorge Topolia and a stop at Cave Agia Sofia (Wisdom of God) before we reached Elefonisi.
Here we spent a couple of hours walking around, swimming and relax on the beach. Elafonisi is an island when the tide is high and famous for it’s pink “sand”, that actually is seashells. Since many tourists have taken the sand with them home, there isn’t much left. The authorities have strengthen the rules and set high penalty for removing the sand.
Many thanks to our guide Joanna, who told many good stories about the culture of Crete and the scenery we passed through.
Beach walk at Elafonisi, 2 km.
Rent-a-car day:
Wednesday we rented a VW Up from a local travel agency, Beyond Travel, on the main street in Agia Marina.
The journey: Agia Mariana – Gorge of Imbros – Hora Sfakion – Frangokastello – Giorgioupoli – Kourna Lake – Agia Marina.
The gorge of Imbros is the second most popular gorge, after Samaria. for walkers on Crete. The gorge of Imbros was the main route through which Allied Forces evacuated Crete in late May 1941 after losing the Battle of Crete. Close to 20.000 troops (mainly New Zealanders, Australians and Brits) headed from the North of the island through the gorge of Imbros to Komitades and Hora Sfakion where they were due to be picked up by ships and taken to Egypt. About 13.000 made it onto ships. The rest were made prisoners by the Germans or escaped to the hills. There is a monument in Hora Sfakion commemorating these events.
Hora Sfakion is a small village with a main harbour front of tavernas, two minimarkets, a butcher, and a bakery. There is a quiet local beach immediately west of the village, and several pebbly beaches nearby. Hóra Sfakíon has a variety of tourist accommodations: rooms, studios, and apartments. The local economy is based on tourism, fishing, olive-oil production, and sheep and goat herding.
28 May – 1 June, 1941, British and Australian forces was evacuated from this bay after passing the the gorge of Imbros.
Frangokastello is a castle and scattered settlement on the south coast of Crete. The castle was built by the Venetians in 1371–1374 as a garrison to impose order on the rebellious Sfakia region, to deter pirates, and to protect Venetian nobles and their properties.
Returning to the north coast, Mickey found an alternative way on Google Maps. A small winding road with around 25 hairpin turns. I admit I was little nervous driving up this road. Very steep, narrow, no crash barrier, parts of the road broken and fallen off on one side, stones and rocks fallen on to the road on the other. Glad we didn’t meet any cars…
Due to the narrow road and suffering from a little bit anxiety, I “forgot” to take photos of the beautiful scenery. Found this picture on Google Maps.
Credit: Wolfgang Johannes
Formerly a small fishing village, Georgioupolis is more of tourist town now. The town square is surrounded by outdoor seating. The 9 km beach is the main attraction of the area with the church of Agios Nikolaos on the islet with the same name. Here you also find a small harbor at Turtle River, where you can rent different kind of boats to go up the river or out on the sea.
Nearby Kourna Lake is a popular excursion.
Kourna Lake is the only natural freshwater lake on Crete. It covers an area of 579 acres and maximum depth reaches 22 meters. The lake is a protected area as an important wetland with many species like moorhens, ducks, eels, snakes and a rare two-color turtle and occasionally herons.
Beach day:
A day spent at Gorgona Beach Club with sun, backgammon and bodysurfing in the quite big waves. Thanks to Director Alex and staff, for friendly and good service (and for use of your backgammon).
Restaurants Agia Marina:
These are the restaurants we tried. Dessert and raki served was the custom when paying the bill. “Raki is like Ouzo, but worse” – statement from a waitress.
Botonis – Grilled pork chops. The wood fired “globe grill” was standing in the restaurant
Neraida – Mixed grill, more than enough for two (got doggie bag for lunch next day)
Nostos – Ingo: Moussaka, Mickey: chicken gyros
Olivi – Both had very nice beef steaks with great “potato salad” (potato mixed with garlic, lemon and parsley)
Last summer I did the marked track and found the part on the old E6 challenging with quite a bit of high speed traffic with little or no respect for inliners (or bikers) and rather ruff asphalt.
This year I found out about Fyrleden, a detour that runs along the beach between Olofsbo and Glommen, very nice and beautiful views.
The other detour was to avoid the old E6. In Morup we crossed the old E6 and took the road to Tvååker. Much better asphalt and very little traffic and the few cars passing us took it nice and easy.
A very nice bike path started just outside Tvååker towards Träslövsläge. We had tailwind all the way to the coast :-).
After approx. 48 km we arrived to Varberg where we had after skate at Rolands Kök & Bar.
Respect to sister and friend who biked back home to Falkenberg, with face wind and some rain.
I took the train…
Inspired by the winner of Master chef of the Decade, Catarina König’s, menu Patrik, Gisle and I made this our food challenge 19 December. You find the original recipes, in Swedish, on koket.se. – Starter | Main
Starter: Lightly pickled Char (röding) tartare with smoked quail eggs, dill mayonnaise and fried beetroot (We skipped smoked quail eggs)
Fried beetroot and potatoes
1-2 almond potatoes
2 small beets
White asparagus
3-4 white asparagus
0.5 lemon, peeled + juice
butter
Garnish
red onion, finely chopped
fresh horseradish, grated
fresh chervil (“körvel”, we used cress (“krasse”)
How to:
Chart
Fillet the fish, peel and bone it out. Mix salt and sugar and rub in the char fillets. Let soak for about 30-40 minutes. Rinse and dry with kitchen paper. Cut the char into small cubes into a tartar. Mix the tartar with cold-pressed rapeseed oil and freshly ground black pepper.
Dill mayonnaise
Heat the spinach leaves in a dry frying pan until it “withers” becomes dark and soft, just a few seconds.
Add egg yolks, vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, dill and the heated spinach leaves in a blender or cylindrical container. Mix smoothly until completely green and then gradually add the oil to a thick mayonnaise. When the mayonnaise is really thick, remove the mixer and taste it with possibly more vinegar (for higher acidity), Dijon mustard, salt and freshly ground black pepper. The mayonnaise should taste Swedish summer and have a sweet and sour character.
Fried beets and potatoes
Slice potatoes and beets thinly on mandolin with the skins on. Heat the oil to 160-170 degrees and fry the potatoes first and then the beets until golden and crispy. Take up and let drain on kitchen paper and salt immediately.
White asparagus
Peel the asparagus. Boil lightly salted water with lemon peel and the peel from the asparagus. There should only be so much water that it only covers the asparagus.
When the water boils, lower it so that it just boils and put down the peeled asparagus. Let it cook “al dente” for a couple of minutes. Take up and set aside while the boiling water should now be reduced down to about 1 tablespoon left. Remove the lemon peel and asparagus peel towards the end.
Cut the asparagus into pieces, 2 cm long. Put back in the pan with the asparagus reduction. Add butter and a splash of lemon juice.
Serving
Put a tartar form in the middle of a plate, spoon in char tartar and press with a spoon so that it holds together when the form is lifted up. Add finely chopped red onion. Carefully lift off the form. Nicely wrap the dill mayonnaise with the white asparagus around the tartar. Put beetroot and potato chips in each clique of mayonnaise. Grate fresh horseradish over the tartar (like a bird’s nest) and put the egg in the middle. Garnish with chervil and dill.
Main: Beef fillet Rossini with magic Madeira sauce and planed truffle
Ingredients: Serves 4
4 pieces of beef fillet, tenderloin (à 200 g)
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 clove garlic, crushed
4 slices of duck liver
1 black truffle (we used deep fried parsnip)
butter, for frying
rapeseed oil, for frying
Madeira sauce
2 shallots
1 clove garlic, crushed
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
3 dl red wine
2-3 dl veal stock, not concentrated
2 tbsp madeira vine (we used Sherry)
25 g butter
salt
black pepper
Deluxe Potato Fondant
2 baked potatoes
3-4 tablespoons duck fat
3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme
salt
Green beans
150 g green beans (Haricote Vertes)
lemon, finely grated peel and juice
butter
Garnish
oxalis (we used parsley)
How to:
Madeira (Sherry) sauce
Start with the sauce, which must take plenty of time to become juicy, round and delicious.
Peel and finely chop the shallots. Fry the onion soft in butter together with crushed garlic and thyme. Add the red wine and reduce to half. Add the veal stock and reduce to half again.
Strain the sauce into a new saucepan. Add a whole sprig of thyme and let reduce a little more. Add madeira and finally stir in the butter. Whisk and set aside until serving.
Potatoes fondant
Punch out round, tall and nice cylindrical potatoes from the baked potatoes. Cut them evenly after punching.
Put the potatoes in vacuum bags and add melted duck fat, fresh thyme and salt. Vacuum the potatoes with a vacuum machine. Boil the bags in a saucepan of boiling water for 15-20 minutes, the time depends on the size.
Before serving, burn the potatoes with a burner to get a wonderful “charcoal character” on the potatoes. (We fried the potatoes quickly on very high heat)
Beef
Set the oven to 100-125 degrees. Salt and pepper the meat all around. Quickly brown the meat in a hot frying pan with butter and rapeseed oil, a few sprigs of fresh thyme and a crushed clove of garlic. Scoop the meat during frying. Place in an ovenproof dish, pour over the frying suace and put the meat in the oven until the internal temperature is 53-54 degrees.
Green beans
Cut off the ends so that the green beans are evenly long. Boil them soft in lightly salted water. Pour off and turn in butter, salt and lemon.
Duck liver
Cut the duck liver into 1 cm thick slices. Salt and pepper lightly. Quickly roast in a hot and dry pan on both sides just before serving.
Serving
Burn the potato fondant with a burner so it has a nice surface. (we fried them in a very hot pan) Place about 10-12 green beans next to each other on each plate. Place the pieces of meat on the beans. Place the grilled duck liver on the meat. Plane over the black truffle (we used deep fried Parsnip) and decorate with oxalis (we used chopped Parsley). Serve with the sauce on the side.
Dessert: Chocolate Mousse
(not from Catarina’s menu)
Ingredients: approx. 6 servings
3 egg
1 pinch of salt
2½ dl cream
1 large pinch (krm) of vanilla powder
100 gr dark chocolate
Little Kahlua
Berries and chopped chocolate for garnish
How to:
Separate the eggs. Wisp the egg whites hard with salt. Wisp the cream with the vanilla, not too hard.
Melt the chocolate. Let it cool a little bit. Add the egg yolk, one at the time. Add some Kahlua. Stir the mixture nice and easy into the egg whites until it becomes an even mix. Mix with the whipped cream.
Pour in serving glasses covered with plastic and put in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Garnish with berries, chopped chocolate and/or whipped cream.
16 – 20 December 2019 I had the pleasure of joining the Munk family, Birgitte, Morten and Andreas, on a ski trip to Davos, Switzerland. We stayed at the very nice Sunstar Hotel close to Davos Platz.
SAS flight to Zürich – train from the airport to Davos with change at Zürich HB and Landquart. Approx. 2,5 hours.
Tip: Save some money on the return ticket by using the ski pass to Kloster and buy the train ticket starting from here. Disadvantage – you need to change train one more time in Kloster.
During the week it was only Parsenn and Jakobshorn that was open and quite a few lifts and pistes at these areas was closed. Don’t know if the reason was early in the season, lack of people, lack of snow (I think there was ok with the white stuff) or due to strong winds sometimes – maybe a combo… anyways, we got some really nice runs during the stay, both on and off the piste.
Conversation day one, after arriving at the top of Jakobshorn:
Ingo – “Note that I haven’ been skiing at all this year, I have an injured knee, still in rehab mode, I have rented skis I haven’t tried yet. Let’s take it easy the first couple of runs, on the piste.”
Morten – “No problem, we do that.”
After approx 300 m down a transport run…
Morten (stops looking over the edge, off piste) – “This looks nice, let’s try!”
Ingo – “What!!”
Morten – “Looks fine, let’s try. No problem, we take it easy…”
Ingo – “Ok, let’s try it but it’s against my will ;-)”
…and off we go. It was fun, went well but I admit, I was “a bit” nervous…
A year ago, 21 December 2018, I went through a surgery for a Quadriceps Tendon Rupture – QTR.
You can read more about the rehab process in previous posts.
I started inlines practice in May. Done some long tours and participated in Berlin Inline Marathon in September. Running is still a little bit of a challenge but #gettingthere.
My nice physiotherapist, Kasper at Virum Fys, have suggested some exercises that I’ve done several times a week. His last advice was to keep on with the rehab training don’t stop just because you stop at the phys, apparently a common situation…
Twice everyday I have massaged the scar with different remedies – 98% Aloe Gel, Locobase Repair cream, Aloe Vera Rub or Blue Hors Hot & Cool. The goal was that the scar should be gone after a year, nearly there:
Last week I was skiing in Davos, Switzerland, both on and off the piste. Have to admit, I was a bit nervous at times, how should this work out but it turned out well. The knee got some TLC in the evening and was happy 🙂
Saturday
Flight CPH – Madrid with a friend of Norwegian. Limited service on board. Good we bought a Joe and the Juice spicy tuna sandwich to go as “on-flight-meal”.
Metro #10 from airport, change to #8 to Tribunal.
Checked in at Rentalis Gran Via Fuencarral, an Airbnb flat (didn’t know booking.com have airbnb). Small, nice and clean with fantastic location. It was a challenge finding the entrance since the notification from Booking.com didn’t have a street number. Called the host, José, that guided and greeted us. José liked Madrid very much and he wanted the guests to do the same :-). He explained and marked all the sights in Madrid on a map.
It was raining so limited walkabout. Dinner at the local Delisko.
Monday – walkabout theme “Getting High”, 16 km
Sunny and chilly. 4-8 degrees in the early morning! Mickey comment, “like being at a ski resort – clear blue sky, sun and cold”.
The host José marked some viewpoints on the map.
Started with Mimosa (Cava + orange juice) brunch at Brunch club – great brunch salad, Mickey Slamon wrap
First viewpoint – El Cortes Ingles – view to Schweppes building
Second viewpoint Endifico Espana – 360 Rooftop bar where Stephani served us rosado, birthday version :-).
Passing Templo de Debod on the way to third viewpoint, Teleferico de Madrid
Walked through Parque del Teleferico and passing Lago Casa de Campo on the way to Palacio Real and Catedral de la Almudena for viewpoint #four. Arrived too late, It closed at 14:30.
Dinner at restaurant La Cabana Argentina Mickey’s birthday gift to me 🙂
Mickey invited to cocktail bar – 1862 Dry Bar
The 30 August I had a check up for a “disability certificate”, to the insurance company.
Made a visit to Malmö Hospital where the ortoped examined the knee, measured ROM – range of motion and muscle loss.
Range of motion (normal 0/140): Right: 0/120 | Left: 0/140
Thigh: (circumference 10 cm over the knee cap): Right: 42,5 cm | Left: 46 cm
Knee cap: Right: 41 cm | Left: 39 cm
Conclusion: It looks good, little less power and ROM in the knee and leg but keep on with the rehab…
