Umeå gets very quiet during summer, as almost all students leave for their families and do not return before autumn. Jassi and me decided to spend some more time in northern Sweden as we don't know when we will be able to spend an subpolar summer again :)
We were in Umeå for the rest of the Euro-Cup and midsummer, which is really a special day not least for the lack of darkness during night. People go crazy here.
I took the opportunity to go for a hiking trip with my family, which was great, even though the mosquitos up here are pretty thirsty when it gets warmer. A net in front of your face and a bottle of "Mygga" is definitely recommendable.
We went to Skuleskogen National Park, which is located around 150km south of Umeå. Even though it is a pretty small area it is stunningly beautiful and offers pretty impressive sights. (This sounds like from a tourist ad)
I spent most of the summer in Germany (Berlin, Cologne and Munich) visiting family and friends. I also did some freelance work for Axiros, an IT company based in Munich. They offer hardware and software solutions for businesses and enterprises to manage networks and large amount of terminal devices. My task was creating UI / usability concepts for database and search-engine applications.
Jassi and me returned to Umeå end of August. In the meantime, the night returned and you could sleep without hanging another bed sheet in front of the window. We drove with the car from Munich to Stockholm and had stopovers in Hamburg, Copenhagen and Malmö. That way you realize how far north we actually are. In times of air travel i totally lost my feeling for larger distances.