Although I’ve only been away for two years, I miss the Bay Area. Our time there was short, but enough to make good friends and memories, meet nice people, and do exciting science. So when I saw that the next ACS conference was in San… Read More »ACS conference in San Francisco
It’s 3 AM, Swedish time, and I’m jetlagged. 48 hours ago we were sitting on the plane from San Francisco headed for Lisbon, Portugal. Three days before that, I was finishing up experiments and clearing out my things in the lab so we could focus… Read More »Flying in Covid times
It is the 4th of July, the Independence Day here in the US. It’s likely the last one I will experience and as I’m typing this fireworks are going off. Although we can’t really see any fireworks from our apartment window, we have been able… Read More »4th of July 2021
I´ve been in the US for 8 months now and one thing that keeps bugging me is how old-fashioned my bank is. There are many things about it (and possibly the financial system in the US) that are different from what I am used to… Read More »US banking from a foreigner´s perspective
My family has been in the US for almost two months, and what have we learned so far? Everything is expensive Very early on, we learned how expensive things are in the Bay Area. Housing is ridiculously expensive, and we spend around half our income… Read More »Two months in the USA
After a couple of days resting at the hotel, we were told to stand-by for busses that would take us to Mina on the 8th of Dhulhijjah. No-one knew in advance exactly when the busses would arrive, but when it did, we would all quickly… Read More »My hajj – Mina, Arafat & Jamarat
Although I was looking forward to the trip and determined to go through with it, I knew I would miss my children, and I worried that my youngest one, who was only 9 months old, would miss me as we had never been apart for… Read More »My Umrah before the Hajj
Going for Hajj is a big thing, one of the biggest adventures in your life. For me, thinking back to where and when it began, it’s getting difficult to remember. Although the process started almost a year ago (when we first started talking about making the trip), it finished just over a week ago. In total one year from start to finish!
Read More »Preparations for Hajj