Mr & Mrs Signert

Patriks 30th Birthday!

Today it's Patriks 30 Birthday and we celebrated it yesterday night at the rooftops of Bangkok.

Banyan Tree - Vertigo Bar floor 61, pretty windy for a while..

This was our first stop but there was more to come...

Lebua - The Dome at State Tower on floor 67, live band and fantastic view over the city and Chao Phraya river.

Breeze - at State Tower on floor 51 and 52 (The highest outdoor seafood restaurant in Asia, inlcuding an orchestra playing every night)

It has been a very exciting last couple of days but today we are getting ready to head off to Sweden, via Vienna.

Bangkok

After many hours of packing and saying our goodbyes we left Brisbane in a shower of rain. Showers that are not so common any longer in our home town.

Kristins friend from work Michael Norman was very kind to drive us out to the international terminal and our first stop was the tax free shopping, of course!
But with that much hand luggage and a wedding dress to top it off we only lasted a short while.

The plane has landed in Bangkok and we have had four nice days in the city of angels. A bit of culture, lots of thai food but most of all shopping birthday presents for Patrik who turns 30 on 1 June.

Laura & Jimmy's Wedding

Our friend Laura Johansen from the choir married her Jimmy on Saturday.

Laura, Lauras brother Bernard and Lauras father Steinar are a

ll a part of our choir. The Johansens are half Norwegian half Australian and are all very talented within the art of music.

We sang with the Scandinavian Singers choir at their wedding in Mt Carmel Church, Cooparoo and then went to the wedding reception in the evening at Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens.

It was a great party...

Here's Patrik and Kristin with Steinar. Lauras very Norwegian father, who played Grieg at the wedding.

Madama Butterfly at QPAC

QPAC is brisbanes cultural centre. Yesterday we took the opportunity to see the famous Madama Butterfly.

It is a dramatic story of East and West with Cio-Cio-San, a beautiful young geisha who weds an American naval officer, Lieutenant Pinkerton. Forsaking her own traditions, she is convinced that his love will bring her a better life. She later learns the heartbreaking truth that her beloved’s loyalties lie elsewhere, when he sails back after three years' absence with a "real" American bride.

As many other operas it all ends in tragedy and tears. But the performance was very good.

On the move again

It was about 1,5 year since we did this same procedure... but in Sweden that time.
It is packing time!

It took us about a week to get all our stuff in order for the move and on Friday 4 May the movers came to pack and move. We waved goodbuy to all our precious personal things, among those thngs where our new digeridoo, our RM William Boots and Australian stubbie coolers. A few memorable things that you just wont find in Europe.

Here's Patrik checking the inventory list in our hallway before shipping.
So we're now on our way back!

Sydney weekend - at the Opera

During our weekend in Sydney 13 - 15 April we attended a Shakespeare play at the Sydney Opera House. It was the tragic story of MacBeth.

Here's Patrik and parents, Kerstin & Ronny.

As most people know the Sydney Opera House would not have been so beautiful if it wasn't for the Swedes. The entire surface of the Opera House is covered with tiles from Höganäs.

Christchurch - New Zealand

After a few days in Auckland we flew to Christchurch. Christchurch is the largest city on the South Island of New Zealand. The city has a great heritage from the English settlers that arrived 1850. Similarly to Melbourne, Christchurch has old trams running around the centre of the city.

New Zealand is well known for its sheep and the landscape scenery is beautiful.

On our last day in NZ we drove out to the "French Peninsula". It was hard to capture this beautiful place in photos.

Kerstin & Patrik enjoying themselves at the warf.

Aukland - New Zealand

For our Easter break we took off to Auckland, the Northern Island of New Zealand.
We met with Patriks parents, Ronny and Kerstin there. It's been about 9 months since we saw them in Sweden so we had lots to talk about.

Auckland is beautifully situated surrounded by lots of bays and the ocean almost surrounds the city.

We headed off to Rotorua to see the fantastic volcanic activity. The city is also known for the tribal home of the Te Arawa people, who settled here more than 600 years ago.
The geothemal activity was wide awake!

Geysers