The Ancestral Home

Since coming back from Bali, I've been thinking a lot about the concept of the "ancestral home," which is really important to Balinese people, and pretty much irrelevant in the West. Take my own family, which is spread all over the place. A couple of years ago, my folks sold the house we grew up in and moved full-time to their summer home on Maryland's Eastern Shore. I've been living outside our home state (and now outside the country) for more than a decade, while for the past few years my brother has lived in Delaware and Hawaii. This is perfectly normal in the U.S., and most of my peers' families are similarly far-flung.

In Bali, however, over many successive generations a family will continue to inhabit the same compound comprised of a kitchen building, a temple, and individual houses with just a bedroom inside each for the grandparents, parents, sons and their wives, and any unmarried children, typically adding up to between 12 and 24 people. The effect is a really weird clash of traditional and modern. These compounds are quite ancient, but often the people who live there have electricity, cable TV and Internet service and even videogame systems (our cycling guide mentioned having a Playstation), and many of them ride motorcycles to work at upscale resorts everyday. And can I draw your attention for a moment to the awesome photo above, in which an Iron Maiden poster hangs on the wall of a family compound building?

Instead of moving into more modern homes, Balinese people continue living in the family compounds their great-greatgrandparents (and much further back) lived in, because they believe ancestors inhabit the spirit world and should be honored almost as highly as gods. To sell your home would be to abandon your ancestors, an act considered shameful and very, very bad karma. Young people from well-off families might go away for a few years and work in another city, on a cruise ship, etc, but they always come back home. At least the boys, anyway, because the ancestral home passes down the paternal lineage, while the female children of each generation join their husbands' households once they get married.

But anyway, learning about the Balinese household culture cast an interesting light on my own. Balinese people couldn't really wrap their heads around our families being spread across the U.S... not to mention the fact that John and I currently live in different countries!

Terrible Table Manners

The other day Niklas and I were having lunch together, alone in the Bonnier break room. I was happily tearing into a salad when he leaned toward me conspiratorially and said, "I eat like this too sometimes, Megan," as if we shared a naughty secret. Horrified, I stopped chewing and looked around. Was I chomping with my mouth full? No. Elbows on the table? No.... But I was holding my fork in my right hand and using it to stab/scoop up bites, while my knife rested on the table. Niklas, on the other hand, was holding his utensils European-style, with the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right, pushing food onto the back of his fork and bringing the bites to his mouth with the tines pointed down.

Well, of course I've seen people eating like this before, but it was never taught to me. I'm not sure if I'm a bumpkin or what, but I don't think most Americans eat this way, ever. I've been to lots of fancy restaurants and my dining companions ate like I did.... didn't they? Now I'm starting to second-guess myself, though. Have I been missing social cues for the past 30 years?

The day after the Niklas incident, I was at a work lunch with two young Swedish ladies, and I noticed that they were eating the "proper" way, but I decided that it wasn't the time to try to totally redo my eating style and possibly look really clumsy in polite company. "Whatever," I thought. "I'll just eat the way I'm comfortable." Well, they definitely noticed. More than once I caught the girl across from me starting as I shoveled bites of food (salad again) into my mouth with my right hand.

And then today, I attended the luncheon for Storajournalistpriset (the grand journalism prize) at Manilla, the Bonnier family's showcase home on Djurgården. I sat at a table with couple of my colleagues who I consider friends (Niklas and a woman named Elisabeth), and attempted to use my utensils in the European way. I found that my bites had to be very, very tiny and it was taking me forever to finish my food. In fact, the entire room cleared out and I was the last one still eating—no joke. Elisabeth has a daughter my age and is a bit maternal toward me, so I explained to her that I was learning a new way to eat. She asked me to show her how I usually do it, so I demonstrated. Her jaw literally fell open: "No, no, this is impossible," she said. Okay, I get it, you have nice manners, I told her, but surely you eat the way I do at home? When you're by yourself? Nope.

I told Niklas and Elisabeth that if I showed up at home this December and started eating Christmas dinner in the European way, my family would probably make fun of me and say I'm putting on airs. Actually, though, I have to admit that it's more convenient to hold your utensils one in each hand, instead of constantly switching the fork to my right hand. I just have to get the hang of it. Is it putting on airs if it actually becomes a habit? And if it's the "right" way to eat in any case? I'm so confused!

So, dear readers, please help alleviate my confusion by voting in the poll below. It'll be really interesting to see the results, and it'll clear up the question of whether my U.S. friends have been doing it the right way all along while I hopelessly failed to learn proper table manners.

How do you use your table utensils?

• 
  
  European-style: Fork in my left hand, knife in my right. The knife is for cutting and pushing little bites onto the back of the fork. The fork should be brought to the mouth curved-side down.


• 
  
  Common American-style: I eat with my fork in my dominant hand (right hand only if I'm right-handed) and I put the knife down when I'm not using it. The fork goes curved-side up.


• 
  
  Cotillion-style: I was taught that the European style is the proper way to eat, but I only use it on very fancy occasions.

Big Brother in the Bathroom

You've heard of those paranoid schizophrenics who think they're always being filmed? I think it's called the Truman Show complex or something... Well, I pray that no one with that disorder ever needs to pee while visiting Bonnierskonsthall (Bonnier's art exhibition hall in Stockholm).

The photo above is the monitor that displays footage from a closed-circuit camera mounted inside the toilet. So the unlucky bathroom visitor gets to watch his bum descending onto the seat, and then whatever else happens next.

The installation has done exactly what the artist intended, which is to stir up a lot of ruckus about the right to privacy, and what if the footage is being recorded or sent to an alternate monitor somewhere that others can see, etc. In fact, Stockholm's daily newspaper reportedly published a story deriding it as tasteless and invasive.

I wouldn't exactly stand in line for that bathroom, but I personally think it's kind of cool that the Bonnier family is willing to display such subversive art. Bonnierskonsthall is a pretty cool place, actually, with rotating collections that lean toward young, edgy, experimental art—very much along the lines of P.S. 1 in New York City.

What do you think of the potty cam?

Mo Money Mo Money

Great news: I got a 25 percent raise this week! Okay, not really—it's just that the crazy fluctuations of the currency market have brought the dollar up 25 percent against the Swedish krona. I took a pretty big financial hit when I moved to Sweden, because at the time, the krona was 40 percent higher than the dollar. In other words, if you were making $100,000 a year in the U.S., your salary would be worth just $60,000 in Sweden, where, incidentally, the price of everything you buy is also 40 percent higher. Ouch.

Anyway, so I got a little boost, at least temporarily. Before I went to Bali, it was 6 kronor to the dollar, and as of yesterday, it was 8. However, this morning it had already slid to 7.7, so this small victory might be short-lived.

There was an interesting interview on CNN International this morning with a European talking head who was trying to explain why the dollar is doing so well in the currency market despite the stock market crashes. Basically, there's a herd effect going on right now. People started buying the dollar because they thought it would be safer than stocks, and that boosted the value a little. Then others were encouraged, so they bought it, too, and it bumped up even more.

Meanwhile, unfortunately, other global currencies are tanking horribly (though Sweden seems to be doing fine). I'm not sure how much the U.S. news is covering this, but Iceland in particular has gotten creamed. Their currency now carries only 25 percent of its former value. In fact, the nation is bankrupt, which is insane considering just a few months ago it was still extremely expensive to travel there. All the world currencies are pretty volatile right now, especially those in emerging markets, which are swinging up and down wildly (see Korea, Brazil and Hungary). I've never taken that much interest in economics in the past, but it's really fascinating to observe what's going on right now. I guess it's a good time to be a young person with no real assets. We haven't got anything to lose, as they say, and it's definitely a buyer's market.

Bali Photos

I came back to Sweden with jet-lag and a nasty cold, plus it's rainy and gross outside and the project I'm working on for Bonnier seriously stalled while I was gone. Sigh. So I'm just going to pretend I'm still in Bali. I know it can be boring to look at other people's vacation photos, but my family will appreciate them, so please forgive the indulgence. Off to drink tea and have a morning cheer-up workout.

B-Ahhhhhh-li

I just got back to Sweden after my trip to Bali with John, and before I call anyone and tell them about it, I figured I'd write something. You know how you lose momentum in telling a story after you've repeated the details a couple of times? Well, here you're gonna get my first-take impression of how it went.

In a nutshell, the trip was breathtaking. My gorgeous husband, tanned, lean, surfing his ass off and gleefully downing tropical fruits like he'd never see them again. Stunning vista after stunning vista—the ocean beating against the cliffs of Jimbaran, ridiculously luxurious accommodations complete with hand-carved furnishings and infinity pools, gardens bursting with jasmine, frangipani, passionflowers, azaleas, oleander, mango, bananas; fluorescent green-terraced rice paddies, scuba diving among psychedelic coral reefs, anemones and nudibranchs...

And the Balinese were so gracious and good-natured, with huge smiles and intense spirituality. They make small offerings to the gods each day at home and at their workplaces—even in taxi cabs and on the deck of the scuba-diving boat!

There seemed to be ceremonies happening every day we were there. Our stay overlapped a special festival that happens only every 30 years, as well as the monthly full-moon festival, a wedding, temple blessings and several other occasions I couldn't begin to decipher. One night in Ubud, a guy named Kadek who worked at our hotel invited us to join him and his family at a special temple ceremony. I wasn't feeling well so I rested at the hotel, but John participated in the Hindu worship service dressed in the required ceremonial attire (which is pretty amazing considering he sputters sulfurously at the very suggestion of going to church). He said the ceremony was beautiful and lively, and he shared a meal with Kadek's family in their home.

That was a really interesting thing about Bali: it's possible to experience the island like you would any other tropical locale (some people never leave the resorts or the bar-lined streets of surfer towns like Kuta and Seminyak), but it's also really easy to get a close view of how the Balinese actually live—they're more than happy to show you. On one of the most memorable days of our trip, John and I got a ride to one of the towns around the crater of Mount Batur—an active volcano near the center of Bali—and then we rode bicycles 30 kilometers back into the town of Ubud. Our guide was a sweet 19-year-old kid called Jering, and along the way he showed us how coffee was roasted at a coffee plantation, and then we dropped in on some ladies harvesting rice (I helped out with a little threshing), a family making bamboo ceiling material, a traditional woodcarver, and Jering's own family. They were all shy and welcoming and as curious about us as we were about them.

But the weird thing about generously being invited into these people's homes was experiencing their poverty in a very personal way. Tourism is Bali's most important industry, and the Balinese are acutely aware that their relationship with foreigners must be positive and symbiotic—and being good hosts is part of the Balinese culture anyway. But yet, as in any third-world paradise, there's an uncomfortable socio-economic gap between the visitors and the locals. The most dramatic example of this was on the island of Lembongan, where we spent several blissful days playing in the calm ocean, swimming, snorkeling and scuba diving. We stayed in a lovely, simple hotel perched on a cliff over the Indian Ocean, with our own spacious little ocean-view hut—for $90 a night, which we thought was a pretty good deal. But as soon as you stepped off the hotel property, the immediate next door neighbors were a seaweed-farming family who slept in a three-walled shanty with dirt floors, a collapsing roof, and no electricity or running water. They had a sweet ocean view but they were living in abject poverty. Our $90-a-night "bargain" room represented a lifestyle far outside their reach, but was just steps from their front door.

I was moved by Bali and I had an amazing time there, enjoying the beauty, the delicious Indonesian food, the opportunity to unwind and be responsibility-free for a while, and the company of my husband, who I don't see nearly often enough these days. Even so, I think it's pretty impossible to go to a place where people are struggling so hard to get by and not feel confused and grateful and a bit guilty about my own circumstances, which were illuminated in sharp relief against theirs. We did our best to be responsible and conscientious visitors, but I was left with the compulsion to do more. I always wonder what responsibility I have as an outsider once I've traveled to a new place and had an intimate view of other people's difficult lives. One possibility is to give to nonprofits that help business owners in places like Bali. My favorite is Kiva.org, which arranges interest-free loans for people in developing countries. The idea is that the loan-granter (say, me) gets her money back once the business is established, which is a matter of pride for the loan recipients, who probably wouldn't qualify for a traditional bank loan but don't want to rely on straight-up charity. I've placed an ad for Kiva right here on my blog, so you can click on it if you'd like to try your own hand at microlending.

Anyway, the last thing I'm going to say about Bali is that I couldn't have wished for a better honeymoon. John and I hadn't seen each other in two months, and we'd been planning this trip since last year. It was an incredible balance of relaxation, adventure, culture, and romance. We'll have photos to post as soon as John uploads them: he's still traveling home to Santa Fe today. Big-time kudos to my fella for doing the scheduling and creating the perfect pacing for our trip. And many, many thanks again to Mom and Dad for starting our journey off with an amazing wedding gift. Can you feel the love? Can you feel it?



Kiva update: After I finished posting this, I visited Kiva.org and found that they've partnered with an Indonesian microlender called DINARI that grants Kiva loans to Balinese entrepreneurs. They don't have any new businesses listed at the moment, but I'm subscribing to the RSS feed so I can keep track of any projects coming up and see how the current entrepreneurs are doing. Also, the Kiva volunteer in Bali has a pretty good blog.

A Few Pre-Bali Thoughts

Tomorrow I'm taking off for two delicious weeks in Asia, sans computer, so you won't hear from me for a while... but before I go, I'll leave you with a few absurd Swedish things I discovered this week:

1) McCafe
Check out the photo at left: Scandinavian hard-wood surfaces, enticing large-scale images of frothy espresso-based beverages, appealing modern logo. Hmmm, looks like a nice enough place. But what's this, a supersize menu? Those familiar flat burgers and skinny grease-saturated fries... Holy crap, it's a McDonalds!

But you'll find no Ronald here. No Grimace and Hamburgler, no golden arches. No weird neon plastic sliding-board room that smells like little kid feet. Nope, this hoity-toity burger joint could pass for an upscale Stockholm konditori. Apparently, red and yellow plastic decor doesn't fit well with the Swedish modern design aesthetic. Fair enough, but seriously, this place is a kick in the nuts to the American McDonald's brand identity. "You (thud) are (thud) UGLY!"



2) Caloric Punch
What the hell is this stuff? Here's the description offered in shaky English by the Internet Cocktail Database: "Proprietary venerable brand of Swedish punch liqueur (which see). The least smoky of the available brands. Limited availability. Produced and sold in Sweden. Known to be distributed in parts of Europe. Export and/or distribution unreliable. Regional."





3) Swedish TV Circa 1962
Today while researching a story, Niklas came across the following schedule of Swedish TV programming for a typical weekday evening in 1962:

Sveriges Radio TV:

18.00-18.30 Lerhuset. Danish children are building a mudhouse.
19.35 News
20.00 Unnatural nature. Anders Erik Malm ask a question to television viewers.
20.20 First Division. Swedish film from 1941.
21.50 Evening News.

So to recap, from 6 to 6:30 pm, you can watch Danish children building a mud hut. Then there's static till 7:35, at which point you get a brief newscast. Following the news, there's a nature program where somebody "asks a question to television viewers." (When do we hear the answer?) If you're still awake, you can watch a 21-year-old movie, followed by the news again. And th-th-th-that's all folks!

Fresh and Sweaty Redux

I belong to a gym in Stockholm called Friskis & Svettis, which hilariously translates to "Fresh and Sweaty." Due to the name's sleazy R Kelly overtones, my husband quickly changed this to "Booty Sweat." So far, I've used the gym mostly for the cardio machines and spinning classes and have warily watched the group training sessions from afar. This is because the majority of classes at Friskis involve that weird 1980s brand of low-intensity grapevining and kick-ball-changing typically performed by pear-shaped women who shouldn't be bouncing like that in spandex.

These classes, called "jympa," are taught in exactly the same creepy way by robotically chirpy instructors at Friskis branches all across town. It's a chain gym with a cultish following—Swedes LOVE them some turn-steps and over-the-tops. (See the above photo, swiped from the actual Friskis Web site.)

Well, a couple of nights ago I was taking a spinning class in a room that overlooked the main aerobics hall, and I noticed something different going on down there. The class was doing plyometrics and push ups and running sprints at the behest of a ridiculously fit female instructor. I thought, there you go, that's the way to exercise—I've got to try that out.

So, I looked up the name of the class (it's called "intensiv") and went to try it out this evening. This time, it was led by a short-shorts and sweatband-wearing Richard Simmons lookalike. It was held in a huge hall and there were at least 50 people in the class. We started off by doing stupid dance moves like the running man, interspersed with high-knee jogging and some sort of elaborate leg-crossing maneuver. The first song was even "Eye of the Tiger," I shit you not. I was panting and giggling and wishing my friend Heather—who has an appetite for silly choreography and whose dad has been known to refer to aerobics as "slimnastics"—was taking this class with me. I kept asking myself, "Is this ironic? I can't tell if this is ironic..." The class consisted of equal parts asymmetric haircuts and hightops and fit middle-aged Swedes, which threw my hipster radar way off.

But about 30 minutes into the class I stopped laughing, because I realized my ass was getting kicked all over the yim-nahz-ium. We went from "Come On Eileen" to techno-powered sprinting to some sort of funky Middle Eastern beats and a brutal series of mountain-climbers, dive bombers and military push-up variations (one-handed, one-legged push-ups? With a little hand-hop at the top? Ow).

I was glad it was genuinely intensive—exactly what I was hoping for, in fact, only I'm not in the best shape of my life. But I will be if I do a few of these classes each week! I've been slowly rehabilitating my upper body since I had shoulder surgery in August, but I realized tonight that it's time to start working harder. After all that over-the-head clapping and standing on my hands, my shoulder's range of motion is better than it has been in months. And I have to give the instructor props for his eclectic music selection—not to mention fashion sense.

Rainy Day Stuff

Okay, it's been pouring out all day and I have to confess I haven't yet left the apartment. I've been catching up on the news, blogging, and doing silly girl stuff like picking out outfits for the week and playing with my hair. This is one of those days when I'm especially glad I don't have kids, because at the moment I'm free to waste time on whatever the hell I want.

On a totally random note, I'd like to briefly mention that for the second time in recent days, I woke up to the sound of a bird playing around in my kitchen. My kitchen windows are the old-fashioned glass kind that open outward like French doors, and there are no screens (no bugs either, that I've seen). When it's warm enough, I leave them splayed open, and there's a little bird who likes to hang out in my sink on rainy days. There's usually a dish or two soaking in there from last night's dinner, and I'll hear him splashing and giving himself a bath. This makes me nervous, because birds sometimes panic and start flying around the house and forget how they got in, but this little guy is pretty clever. I get out of bed and sneak out to check on him, and as soon as he sees me, he flies away. I think this is pretty damn charming (even though having a bird bathing in my dishes is a little unsanitary—I wash them in really hot water to keep from getting grossed out). Just keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn't poop on anything or fly into a closed window and kill himself one day.

But now what I really want to know is... what do you think of my hair? I've been seeing this braided-front hairstyle on girls all over Stockholm, and while I hate the idea of following a trend, I love how it looks... at least on other people. My bangs are very short, but I used to get paid to braid show horse manes, so I figured I'd be able to pull it off. I managed to execute the braid (the key is to plait the sections under each other instead of over, like a draft horse mane, if anyone knows what I'm talking about—see photo), but I wonder if I'm too old for this style? I'm going to the gym now, and it's certainly fine for that, but with makeup and a chic outfit, could I wear it to work? I think I'm going to try it. Thoughts?

Wonderful Copenhagen

Just got back from a little trip to Copenhagen, where I had a meeting with some folks at Bonnier's Danish magazine publishing company, and strolled around the city a bit. I gotta say, Copenhagen is pretty fantastic. It feels a little more urban than Stockholm, even though I think Stockholm is bigger. I can't really put my finger on what it is, but the city feeks more like New York (albeit cleaner, friendlier and older) than other places I've been in Europe. It's pretty diverse, with a sizable Muslim population and a good deal of racial diversity. You don't see as much diversity in Stockholm, and I'm not sure what the difference is, because both cities are into equality and tolerance. Maybe Denmark has easier immigration laws?

Anyway, there's just a higher energy in Copenhagen than in Stockholm, where the vibe is overwhelmingly calm, reserved and family-oriented. There's good music playing in all the shops and cafes, and art and fashion (slightly edgier than Stockholm) and cool design everywhere. Swedes joke about the Danes being kind of coarse, but to me they seemed more normal, because I guess Americans are pretty coarse, too. For instance I was in a bar, and the group of Danish guys sitting next to me bought me drinks and told each other rude jokes and were generally boisterous, which I thought was good fun. Honestly, it was sort of refreshing to be flirted with instead of ignored. Swedes are trained from birth that the sexes are equal, and this causes the men to be really worried about seeming condescending or lascivious if they should so much as look at you. The effect—which I've discussed at length with my Swedish girlfriends—is that no matter how beautiful a woman is, she feels sort of invisible in Sweden. Hello, fellas—it's okay to show appreciation of the opposite sex! Women do it all the time. Just make eye contact and smile. Maybe do something crazy and say hello. No one could be offended by that.

I wish I had some photos of Copenhagen to share, but my iPhone, which doubles as my camera, mysteriously crapped out and refused to work in Denmark (but was fine again as soon as I landed in Stockholm). I would have liked to show you the insane number of bicycles on the streets in Copenhagen, as well as the modern architecture and the adorable pastel buildings lining the canals in the old part of the city. The bike thing is really interesting, actually, because there's a 200% sales tax on all new cars in Denmark. How's that for a way to cut greenhouse emissions? So, if people have cars, they mostly have cheap, small ones. Or they just forego the car altogether and use bikes and the excellent public transportation system. Before going to Copenhagen, I saw more bikes on the streets in Stockholm than I'd ever seen before. But in Copenhagen, you're more likely to have a bicycle accident than a car accident. There's so much bike traffic that there are bike traffic jams. For instance, on Friday night after work, I saw cyclists lined up ten-deep waiting for a light to change.

Oh, and did I mention the neighborhood of Copenhagen where it's legal (well, sort of—read on) to smoke weed? I didn't have a chance to go there, but there's a place called Christiania, where a bunch of hippies squatted in a former military post and took it over in the 1970s, declaring themselves a "freetown" with independent laws and a whole lot of hippie art murals (like the one pictured above). The Danish government considered it a social experiment, and they allowed them to set their own rules, which allowed the trade and consumption of "natural" drugs like cannibis and mushrooms, but forbade hard drugs. In 2004, the government decided the drugs were causing problems and made an effort to clean things up. So, Christiania is currently the subject of ongoing negotiations. I'm not sure what the exact legal status is, but apparently it's a colorful and interesting place to visit, and there are no criminal charges for consuming pot there, according to a few of my American friends who urged me to check it out in case it gets shut down sometime soon.

Centralbadet Again

Okay, I just got back from the pool and it was so great it deserves a follow-up post. First of all, just throw every notion you have of a public swimming pool out the door. You walk into Centralbadet, and the first thing you see is a chic little cafe, with candles lighting every table. Then you walk down to the reception desk and pay your $30 (!!!!) to get in (but we have free passes from Bonnier for the month of October). Before you actually hit the pool, you have to go through a wood-paneled bar that serves cocktails and elegant small plates, past two hot tubs and a sauna. Then, finally, you get to the pool, which is centered in a hall with a cathedral ceiling, ringed by cabanas housing massage rooms and tanning beds.

The pool is actually oblong, with no lanes, and all the people "swimming" in it are slowly following each other around the perimeter of the pool, in a leisurely counterclockwise breaststroke with their heads above water. I just started cracking up. "Niklas, is this just what you do? You have to go around in a loop behind all these people, breaststroking really slowly?" He was like, "Yeah, you noticed there were no Swedes on the Olympic swimming podium, right?"

So, I continued to crack up while I swam along in a breaststroke with the rest of the Swedes. There were actually signs on the wall saying "please respect the calm" (meaning don't talk too loud or splash around) and instructing us to swim counterclockwise. We chatted and paddled around and looked at the amazing frescos painted on the wall, and then we got in a hot tub for a little while. That's my idea of a lunchtime workout!

Where in the World is Artificial Swedener?

Yes, yes, I'm behind on posting again. Well, that's because work has been ramping up a bit, and I've gotten into an after-work gym routine that doesn't include dragging along my laptop. But tomorrow I'm off to Copenhagen, so I thought I'd write a little bit here before I go.

First, a quick work update: My main job here in Stockholm is to head up the launch of Bonnier's new Web site, which we're hoping to have live in mid-January. So far, we've planned out what needs to go on the site from a navigational standpoint, and we've chosen the team to build it. We had a very long kickoff meeting last week in which we brought in key company people to discuss important stuff like how the site will be used for HR recruiting, how the brand will be presented, etc. And in the coming months, between meetings with the developers and designers to make sure their process is on track, Niklas and I will create content about all the various parts of the business, as well as a series of videos about "life at Bonnier" in the various offices around the world.

The other part of my job is to create a print publication all about Bonnier to hand out to potential business partners and corporate advertisers, or anyone who might need a big-picutre view of the company. This sounds really boring, but Niklas and I are magazine editors, so we decided to put it together just like we would a cool magazine, with feature stories about the most interesting events in the history of the company (like how Bonnier used to smuggle newspapers into Eastern Europe to combat Communism), and the most colorful people working here now. It'll have infographics and fun sidebars and full-bleed photos—basically all the trappings of a consumer magazine. We're writing, editing and compiling all of this ourselves, though, which is a lot of work. This week, we'll hire an art director to help us create a beautiful package for all the articles we're putting together.

I've also been doing a bit of consulting on Web projects within Bonnier Tidskrifter (the Swedish magazine group) and Bonnier Publishing (the Danish magazine group). That's why I'm going to Copenhagen tomorrow.

My carbon footprint just keeps getting more massive with all this traveling, but I have a feeling this is a just a brief phase of my life, and I think it's a wonderful thing to experience other cultures and places firsthand, so I don't feel too bad about that, although I do have enough liberal guilt and consciousness of other peoples' judgment that I feel like I have to explain myself!

So, with that caveat, I'll tell you that next week I head to Bali! Woohoooo! I can't wait. And another exciting thing is that I booked a ticket to visit Rhonda and Kai in Dubai for a few days in November. I figured I'm more likely to actually get there now that I'm already halfway around the world. It's very expensive to fly there from New Mexico, but not so bad from Sweden.

Now I'm off to enjoy a lunchtime swim at Centralbadet, the city pool. I was picturing a very plebian establishment with swimming lanes and cinderblock walls, but Niklas tells me this is actually a pretty luxurious place, more for relaxing than serious exercise. (See ridiculous photo above, of candlelit Stockholmers clinking wine glasses in front of the pool... That pretty much says it all.) And there's a hot tub, which is pretty much my favorite thing.