Sometimes even airline flight attendants tries to be funny, this is claimed to be some real examples:

1. “As we prepare for takeoff, please make sure your tray tables and seat backs are fully upright in their most uncomfortable position.”

2. “There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 6 ways out of this airplane…”

3. “Your seat cushions can be used for floatation, and in the event of an emergency water landing, please take them with our compliments.”

4. “We do feature a smoking section on this flight; if you must smoke, contact a member of the flight crew and we will escort you to the wing of the airplane.”

5. “Smoking in the lavatories is prohibited. Any person caught smoking in the lavatories will be asked to leave the plane immediately.”

6. Pilot - “Folks, we have reached our cruising altitude now, so I am going to switch the seat belt sign off. Feel free to move about as you wish, but please stay inside the plane till we land… it’s a bit cold outside, and if you walk on the wings it affects the flight pattern.”

7. As we waited just off the runway for another airliner to cross in front of us, some of the passengers were beginning to retrieve luggage from the overhead bins. The head attendant announced on the intercom, “This aircraft is equipped with a video surveillance system that monitors the cabin during taxiing. Any passengers not remaining in their seats until the aircraft comes to a full and complete stop at the gate will be strip-searched as they leave the aircraft.”

8. “Should the cabin lose pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please place the bag over your own mouth and nose before assisting children or adults acting like children.”

9. “Last one off the plane must clean it.”

10. And from the pilot during his welcome message: “We are pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry…Unfortunately none of them are on this flight…!”

11. An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, give a smile, and a “Thanks for flying XYZ airline.” He said that in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had gotten off except for this little old lady walking with a cane. She said, “Sonny, mind if I ask you a question?” “Why no Ma’am,” said the pilot, “What is it?” The little old lady said, “Did we land or were we shot down?”

12. Overheard on an XYZ Airlines flight on a windy and bumpy day. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant came on the PA and announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to (city name). Please remain in your seats with your seatbelt fastened while the Captain taxis what’s left of our airplane to the gate!”

13. Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but they’ll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than XYZ Airlines.”

Which ones are your favorite of those? Mine is #7-9!

Want to participate in Thursday Thirteen?

This is one of the tourist attractions at the island Fårö outside Swedens east coast where we go every summer. It’s a sea stack (among many!), or in Gotländska (the next bigger island) it’s called Rauk. It stands a bit out in the water of the Baltic Sea. This particular rauk is called the dog, or the coffee pot. I can see why it’s called the dog, but do you see any coffee pot involved there???

I love this photo because of the sunset and the reflections in the sea, even though the quality is not perfect in the photo. Of course, the fact that we have many fantastic memories from the island makes it even more precious to me

We have seen so many wonderful sceneries down at the sea stack area during sunsets. Birds, reflections, boats, cloud formations or colors and thunderstorms - very powerful!

The quality in this photo above is even worse, but that’s because the moon is zoomed in and we didn’t even used a tripod. What I want to show with this photo is just the fact that this is the moon and it’s red around it like it was the sun in the sunset! That was actually the first time in my life that I’d seen a moon as big as this one (not viewable in this photo) and with that red color surrounding it in Sweden.

The Nobel Laureates takes stage in Stockholm Concert Hall, today, the 10 December, in the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony - as an annual event on the day of Alfred Nobel’s death.

There are more than 300 peace prizes in the world. One of the most well known and highly respected is the Nobel Peace Prize that started already in 1901. The prize is named after it’s Swedish creator Alfred Nobel.

The foundations for the prize were laid 1895 when he in his will left more than SEK 31 millions (approx. SEK 1,500 millions today) to be converted into a fund and invested in “safe securities.”

Here you can see the Table of Nobel prize amounts.

Who was he? He was born in Stockholm Sweden in 1833 and is the inventor of the dynamite and had 355 patents in several countries, as an entrepreneur he was unbeatable in his time. He seemed to have dedicated all his life to his inventions, even his brother were killed during the preparation of nitroglycerine.

How goes that together, he inventing the dynamite, surely to be in good use in war and on the other hand, creating a peace prize? Read more in the article War and Peace in the Thinking of Alfred Nobel.

One interesting fact I didn’t know before is that a housekeeper he had for a short time, Bertha Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau (later von Suttner) left him and after that became a leading peace activist.

Did you know that he actually traveled quite a lot? Not me either. He did, but not for pleasure, it was in his work. He went to Finland, St. Petersburg, Russia, Paris, Italy, Germany (Krümmel near Hamburg), U.S, Ardeer, Scotland, UK and ends his life in San Remo, Italy in 1896.

Though he is buried at Norra begravningsplatsen in Solna, Stockholm, which also is the burial site for many Swedish famous persons including Salomon August Andrée (polar explorer), Ingrid Bergman (actress), Gustaf de Laval (engineer and inventor), Vilhelm Moberg (author), Jenny Nyström (artist, illustrator), August Strindberg (author, playwright) - and Mr Lifecruisers grandmother and grandfather

Here you can find Alfred Nobel Biographical, if you want to know more about him.

There is perhaps nothing more Swedish than the Nobe prize award ceremony when the Swedish king Carl Gustaf XVI is handling out the awards of physics, chemistry, physiology, medicine, literature. You can read about the 2007 Years Nobel Leaurates here. The one for peace is handled out in Norway. Alfred Nobel left no explanation to this dividing, so there is only speculations, no one knows for sure.

In the will he wrote:

“The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting.”

They laureates receive the Nobel Prize Medal, the Diploma and document confirming the Nobel Prize amount prize money from our Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf. Before 1980 the medals were made of 23-karat gold, but now they are “only” made of 18-karat green gold plated with 24-karat gold.

Notable facts: there is only 34 women of 797 Nobel Laureates - and Marie Curie twice. The oldest Laureate to date is Leonid Hurwicz, 2007 Economics Laureate, who is 90 years old! That confirms my thoughts: keep going, it’s never too late

There is also a gigantic royal banquet in the Blue Hall of Stockholm City Hall, which really isn’t Blue at all. The bricks in there were planned to be painted blue, but the architect changed his mind in the last minute and by then the name Blue Hall was so firmly established that it was kept anyway.

Photo: Yanan Li

Over 1300 guests will be served there by hundreds of waiters & waitressess that has volunteered for this very prestige filled task!!!

Followed by entertainment of different kinds with dance in the Golden Hall, where the walls are covered with more than 18 million glass and gold mosaic pieces (!), a pure master piece of the artist Einar Forseth. The mosaics depict portraits of historical figures and events in Swedish history.

Photo: Yanan Li

Many of us Swedes follows this event on TV, not only because of the awards, but also because of all the elegant dresses, like The Swedish Queens Gowns. We really need some festivities to light up the winter darkness a bit.

So what could be more refreshing than the flower arrangements? Every year, more than 23,000 flowers are used as decorations, which are donated by the Azienda di Promozione Turistica di San Remo, a center for flower cultivation on the Italian Riviera where Alfred Nobel spent the last years of his life.

Anyone that is curious of the Menus from the Nobel Banquet 1901-2006? (Only in French up to 2004, English and Swedish translation from 2005). I wouldn’t mind to have dinner there… The preparations begins three days before the big day and demands 20 cooks!

Next time you find it exhausting to have dinner guests, consider this:

The Blue Hall is laid out with 65 tables with 470 meters of tablecloth. 30 people begin the time-consuming task of laying out 6,730 pieces of porcelain, 5,384 glasses and 9,422 pieces of cutlery.

You can follow the nobel prize award live webcast from Stockholm. 10 December, 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. (CET)

Don’t miss that you can let your kids or pupils play Educational Games at nobelprize.org.