The post that first caught my attention was pasta with fresh corn pesto. And that is what Oziel and I made for dinner tonight. This is our attempt below.

We were very happy with the result. The recipe makes about four serves.

The other post that caught my attention was ginger beer. We also made that tonight, but haven’t had a glass yet as we want it ice-cold (so no photos).

I love ginger beer but, like salt and vinegar chips, it is one of the things that hasn’t taken off in Sweden. It is possible to buy from Gray’s American Store in Malmö. Gray’s sells supermarket goods from around the English speaking world that are otherwise hard to find in Sweden. They even sell Tim Tams for the bargin basement price of 9.20 AUD per pack!! However, all of their Cadbury chocolate comes from the UK =(

But I am not sure I can be bothered to go and vote. It’s not the train fare, we were thinking of going to Copenhagen anyway. And it’s not that I am registered to vote in a seat so safe that Volvo is looking at using the technology in its next car. It’s that I am so disillusioned with politics – even if I cast the deciding vote I am not satisfied with the difference it will make.

Politics has become a career. There is no room for ideology as the political corporations seek market dominance. Political ideology is no longer a vision for the nation, it is about ensuring a sufficient number of votes market dominance in a sufficient number of electorates markets.

To facility change in Australian politics today, you need to be part of a focus group. You don’t need any qualification – from my observation it actually helps not to have them. No, this is more like a psychologists couch – you vent your fears and prejudices. Then the political corporations roll them into their product offerings. How else can someone explain to me why 2000 people coming by boat to seek refuge from unwarranted persecution can be blamed for trafic delays in Sydney?!

We need leadership. Leaders shape opinions and beliefs. They don’t just follow them.

I was pleased to see on the issue of adoption by same-sex partners that the Swedish politicians lead public opinion, rather than waited for it to catch up with their own beliefs. When introduced, adoption by same-sex partners was only supported by 17% of the nation, but eight years later it is supported by a majority of the Swedish nation. They did what they thought was right and took the nation forward with them.

I recommend you listen to the discussion on Late Night Live from 4 August 2010.

For lunch Oziel and I headed to Max Burger. They have new self-service terminals for ordering, much like the self check-in terminals at the airport.

To our surprise, no one else used these terminals while we were eating our lunch – preferring the queue. But it turned out that these were even better than we expected:

• There was no queue for the terminals, while the queues for ordering with a cashier were at least six people deep.
• We could order by picture – meaning the cashier didn’t get confused with our Swedish.
• We were given many more options than we knew existed (eg. swap chips out for salad, carrots, potato gratin, etc …)
• After ordering we went to the express counter to pick up our meal and it was almost ready (fast food in Swedish is not known for being fast).

We give the Max self-service terminals the thumbs up.

Hopefully this isn’t something I need to think about for a long time, but it seems overall my best option is to go back home to Australia (via The Swedish Wire). However, remaining in Sweden will prove to be cheaper.

I think it is important for Australians to realise that not only are things not that bad, they’re actually quite good. Rather than talk about winging Poms, we need to reflect on attitudes a little closer to home.

Let’s start with healthcare. Public opinion rates this as the governments poorest performing area, yet a recent study rated our healthcare system second best in the OECD and I’ve already mentioned our end-of-life care. Further my healthcare experiences in Australia have been positive, so I cannot explain this disconnect. This is especially confusing for me when most Swedes are very proud of their healthcare system – but every session I see a number of international students go home developing and third-world countries because the Swedish healthcare system is unable to deliver them health outcomes they deem to be acceptable.

Next, public transport. I will admit that I lament at the state of Sydney’s public transport system. Yet the cumulative delays for my travel on Swedish public transport in the last week is over five hours, and while the northern hemisphere has been enduring a heatwave the airconditioning has been broken on around one-third of the carriages. And while Sweden not making the Eurovision finals was described by the media as a fiasco, the state of public transport this week didn’t rate a mention.

And I don’t want to even write about the misinformation and fear in the so called asylum seeker debate.

Im not trying to say things are better in Australia than in Sweden. I am saying that with a positive outlook everyone is happier, and you can still work to achieve greater things. We should still aim high. Things could be better and should be better. I can think of many areas where I would love to see improvement. But rather than bitch and moan about things that aren’t that bad, we should raise the quality of our political debate. When it comes down to it, we are all going to die, and Australia is one of the best places to do it.

Yesterday a small village 45 minutes drive north of our place recorded the hottest temperature in Sweden since 1994,it was 34.5ºC. While Oziel and I spent most of the day in the air conditioned comfort of IKEA, it took us the better part of three hours to get there on a train with faulty airconditioning on a train line with faltering power. Getting home was worse – Sweden is not designed to handle “heat waves.”

Today started off somewhat similar to yesterday, so we wanted to go somewhere to escape the heat. Our experience the previous day lead us to conclude that the bus would provide a safer mode of transport.

Oziel found what appeared to be a secluded beach a couple of kilometres from a bus stop in the difficult to pronounce hamlet of Yngsjö, 35 minutes drive south from our place.

The bus was full leaving Kristianstad, but almost everyone got off in Åhus. By the time we made it Yngsjö, there were only five passengers left on the bus – and the other three were lost. So we were expecting to find the quiet and secluded location for which we had searched.

Our plan went somewhat awry. After walking through the sleeping hamlet and a pine forrest we arrived to a beach that made Bondi Beach look quiet and secluded. We have no idea from where everyone came!?

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After work today Oziel and I headed to Åhus for our first beach swim of summer 2010. Between leaving home and arriving at the beach the sun disappeared behind the clouds and the wind started blowing. But I have missed the water sufficiently and jumped into the 17ºC water.

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My first attempt ended quickly – the minimum length of time required to swim from the end of the peer to first lader. But for the second attempt I managed to Swim out to the pontoon.

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Today I unpacked and the above picture is the result. It’s basically the same as my old office, except for location and outlook. Before I looked across a car park, where now I look into the library and a computer lab. Plus the new building is waterside (except in the winter, when it is ice-side).

This weekend past Oziel and I ran in the half-marathon celebrating 10th anniversary of the Øresund Bridge, linking Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmö in Sweden.

Normally this impressive feat of architecture is only open to motorised vehicles (cars and trains and such), so truth be known, our primary reasons for participation was to see this thing up close, with enough time to really take it in. But we decided we may as well use the opportunity to get fitter.

We have both been training for this event since our trip to Australia. For me training resulted my first visit to the doctor in Sweden, after pulling a muscle in my foot. Oziel, however, preferred to wage war on his knees.

After both taking three weeks to recover from our injuries, just before the race, we didn’t think we would finish within our registered completion time of two-hours to two-hours-and-fifteen-minutes.

In total 30,000 people participated in the race. I didn’t fully appreciate the sheer quantity of this number, until it took us almost 17 minutes to get part the start line from when the starting pistol was fired.

The race started with four kilometres through a tunnel, to a man-made island between Denmark and Sweden. The tunnel was very hot and smelt of sweat. Every couple of minutes the runners started clapping and cheering. The sound was intense. As soon as we reached the fresh air at the tunnel exit the runners I let out a sigh of relief with the two runners on either side of me.

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The next four kilometres were across the man-made island. Oziel told me to push myself here so that I could take it easy on the climb to the top of the bridge. But it was at kilometre 7 seven that I found my energy. Up until this point I felt like everyone was running past me. But from this point in the race I felt like people were getting in my way.

The bridge was spectacular (8 km). I slowed down to take some photos on my phone, but didn’t want to break my rhythm. That’s why the towers appear at a less structurally sound angle than expected. (The cameras in our phones obviously require us to stay more still than running allowed.)

The final five kilometres, through the streets of Sweden, was when I found people were really getting in my way. It was during this time that I saw the pace-keepers for the two-hour finish. They started before me, so I knew as I overtook them that I was going much better than I expected. This gave me even more energy. But the streets were crowded, and I felt like I was running much further than the official distance as I zigzagged through the crowd.

As I reached the finish line I hit a wall of runners who had given up. My final sprint turned to a death march as people groaned with pain, awaiting their bananas, water and medals.

My official time was 1:53:13, putting me in 6293rd place. This [unexpectedly] beat Oziel’s 7811th place at 1:57:43.

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Sweden uses an Idol style tv-series, entitled Melodifestivalen, to select who will represent the nation in Eurovision. With the most SMS votes, the winner this year was Anna Bergendahl with This is My Life. Unfortunately this performance was not “strong” enough to make it to the Eurovision final.

At the time of publishing Anna had 3500 Facebook fans.

Meanwhile the Facebook fanpage entitled The Swedish guy from Eurovision 2010 was so hot has accumulated 6000 fans. This guy is Eric Saade, and he was the runner-up in Melodifestivalen this year with the disturbingly named Manboy.

This has lead to the obvious conclusion that Eric should have represented Sweden this year. While I think the Manboy tune is far more catchy than Anna’s, I just can’t get over the title.

(Personally I think This is My Life was better than many of the songs that made the Eurovision final.)