Quiet Saturday – preparing for a week to come that will be packed with activities.

I was just out for a short walk in the Łazienki park, two minutes away from the Embassy. It is lovely at anytime but especially now when spring is transforming itself into summer. I am eagerly looking forward to the start of the Chopin concerts…

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Three weeks without blogs. What have I been doing?

First of all having vacation. One week in New York together with my wife Karin was a great experience. I have been there before on a couple of duty trips during my time at the Swedish development agency, Sida. But never touristing in this way. Additionally we managed to reconnect to…

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 One of the most touching experiences I have had during my time in Poland took place today. The commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It started April 19th 1943 with no hope of victory.

We wanted to choose our own way to die, said one of the three remaining survivors, Simcha Rotem, in his remakable…

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Meeting students and visiting NGO:s are some of the most inspiring tasks in my calendar. Last week I had the opportunity to do both.

“Federacja na rzecz Kobiet i Planowania Rodziny” is an organisation promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights  http://www.federa.org.pl/ e.g. through advocacy and legal support but also through education in these matters by volunteers. These are issues that I have been working a…

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One of the privileges of being Ambassador is all the opportunities you get to meet engaged people, dealing with crucial issues in society. Today I had one more experience of that kind: the visit I made with my wife Karin and Ms Irene Benthe to “Dzieci nieczyje” – Nobody’s children – the largest organisation figting child abuse in Poland.

I have wanted to make this…

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What is highest on the agenda right now? Judging from most conversations I overhear or take part in the answer is obvious: the weather. Winter is keeping its grip on Warsaw. Looking out through my window I can register one more day with quite heavy snowfall. As on Good Friday – and the Easter holidays that followed. I have never been so eagerly waiting for…

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Friday morning – meaning yet another winter morning in Warsaw. Probably not very different from Sweden but I am longing for the lovely spring days that Warsaw normally can deliver when April is coming closer.

I started the day – as I mostly do – with an early lesson in Polish. Yesterday we worked quite a lot with different expressions…

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I remember I wrote a blog perhaps a year ago that was called “Tight Tuesday”. Yesterday I had one more of the kind – and a most inspiring one.

First of all because we had a visit to Warsaw by our Minister for European affairs Birgitta Ohlsson and two of her staff members. That obviously meant a meeting with her…

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Friday morning March 8th. A day that for me means two very different topics. One being security and defence, the other gender equality.

Security and defence will dominate my calendar today since our Embassy is hosting the Swedish Defence Commission (Försvarsberedningen) for which my colleagues have prepared a comprehensive programme. I am quite impressed that the entire Commission is coming, in fact they arrived already…

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Very different tasks on my agenda this week. Yesterday began with a breakfast meeting between President Komorowski and the Swedish MP Björn von Sydow – former Speaker and former Minister of Defence as well. In both capacities he was a colleague to the present Polish President, and it was a great experience to see them together. And to once again experience the…

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