i'm in loooove....

With my new apartment, what else did you think ;)))
it's so nice and big and lovely, with big windows, lots of light, and so so quiet at night you sleep like an angel, and with a huge wardrobe that actually seems to be able to fit all my clothes (and this is not an easy task). Not easy to move especially not with last minute drop outs, but finally we made it over with everything thanks to my great helpers of the day (anki, nuno, miguel, mikaela and vincenza) and with the huge camionette that i ended up renting and driving... a bit scary sometimes as there was no way to see cars coming from the right side, but quite cool at the same time (picture to come later). so a new apartment returning to my earlier neighbourhood and now living 5 min from the lake and closer to work - it's wonderful!!!

as you can imagine, the move took most of my weekend, but i did manage to go out on friday to see two concerts which were both great, one in a south american surrounding and one at chat noir which really made us dance away, even in my beautiful red shoes which were starting to hurt me by this time...

ok, no more time to write as too much to do at work and need to go home to clean up my place before my mum comes for 4 days tomorrow, plus have anki and julie over for dinner tonight, as julie is only home for a week from ethiopia... catch you soon!

never enough time....

to write anything here, it's just work work work when i'm in the office, everyone's back from vacation and super motivated, so everything's happening at the same time and my slacking off, looking out in the blue, wishing i was outside in the sun (well this was in august) is now paying as i have sooooo much stuff to do that i really should work this weekend but i can't because i'm moving houses, or rather flats :))))))))))))))))))))))


ok, as the multi smiley above might show, i'm very excited about my new apartment, it's big and nice with lots of light and space in the kitchen, a bedroom, a living room with my new sofa, and a tiny excuse for a balcony, but still a balcony and i loooove balconies... a bit scared though when counting on my budget and realising that it will become a lot more difficult to just hop off to another country or city for a weekend of fun without any pre-planning... and my plans and dreams of going around the world were probably just pushed up another few months at least :(


guess you cannot have everything though, and at the moment i chose to have a great space now rather than planning for then... but then i've always been more of a 'slösa' rather than a 'spara' (swedish expressions)... and with my plans to go to zambia sometime during the spring, perhaps london for a weekend of musicals, indian and fun, perhaps lisbonne for a weekend in the fall since i'm now unofficially part of the portugues maffia in geneva, and perhaps a hundred other places including skiing, sweden for christmas and and and....my plans for my RTW will probably be pushed even further away. argh and to think that this was the reason why i launched this blog to start with...


back to work and then off to dinner and packing my apartment into small small boxes - the amount of stuff one manages to collect - impressive...

3 x M - update take 2

Mikaela & Julien = sant

The civil marriage took place in the castle of Martigny, Valais, which was a real beautiful surrounding for such a happy day. The only warm and sunny day in two weeks of rain, it was a great day, starting at 8 a.m. with the marriage among close family and the two witnesses, Jean-Baptise (see picture) and I, continuing with breakfast in the castle next to an open fire, then lots of pictures and climbing the castle for the breathtaking view, and finishing with a 4h long lunch up in the mountains at 1400m. Then back to Geneva for me to finish off the day with Anki and some other friends at the Lake Parade, while the newly wed went to a close friend's wedding dinner to continue celebrations with yet another wedding :)

And the final M day, the biggest day and most incredible day took place a week later on Saturday 14 July in a castle in Tuscany not far from Florence. A very busy day for the wedding party, running around in every direction, getting hair fixed, helping the bride into her dress, and then off to church for a beautiful ceremony in Italian (perhaps that's what made it so beautiful for a non-believer like myself) putting tears into most the guests eyes. Singing by an opera singer with a beautiful voice and the bridesmaid of 4 years old (M's little sister) climbing on me and being sooo cute in her beautiful dress did only add to the magic of the moment.

And then back to this magnificent castle for a drink and huge table of anti-pasti, followed by a 4 course dinner in the garden under the stars. Finishing of the night with a few hours dancing, we were happy to all lie down next to the pool the next day for some well deserved rest.

Magnificent! Tack Mikaela

3 x M - update

3 x M as in 3 times celebrating Mikaela - her hen party in Geneva, civil marriage in Martigny and wedding in Tuscany. A lot of fun and quite a lot of work for me who had the great pleasure to be her maid of honor and witness and to share this big event with my oldest friend met in Geneva. From the choice of the wedding dress, and then shoes with multiple trips to Annecy (including quite a bit of non-wedding related shopping as well) to the big d-day it has been an eventful spring and summer. For me, the most work went into organising the hen party which with some help from the weather goods and luck as to timing went really well and was a great day and a good memory for all the gals i hope :)

The day started with a kidnapping of M in bed, still half asleep it took her a while to understand what was going on. With a small nibbling of breakfast in the cars, we headed of to an hour of cowboy imitation through horse riding in the forest between Messery (where M lives) and Excenevex, France. A cool hour which we all enjoyed, though some might have found it a bit more scary than others. It was ended by a gallop by M in the closed-in area.

Next came a few hours of playing tarzan, jane and cheeta - though without any tarzan present ;) Adventure forest meant a lot of climbing, some tricky parts, quite a lot of screams and much laughter. M as Jane was a great hit!

After all this excitement and activities it was time for a well deserved lunch at the one sand beach of Lac Leman which happens to be right there in Excenevex. A delicious lunch prepared by Mikaela's older sister and almost extra mother, Heidi. A dip in the lake later and we were off back to Geneva for some rafting canoe on the Arve which, though we do not have any photos, was a very impressive experience and frankly quite scary sometimes giving us a real adrenalin chock :) But the day was not over with this. Back at Aude's place where we then spend the evening and night, M got changed into an old dress her mother used to wear in the 50's, her rollerblades, some accessories and the task to ask people down at la terrasse (one of the busiest places in Geneva on a beautiful saturday apero time) for their love recipes which were gathered in a book then handed over to her at the wedding. She was impressive, really taking her task serious and we advanced approx 5 m in 20 minutes while she asked any interesting persons or group of people around for their thoughts - going up to people us others girls considered staying clear off and getting advices from them.


After a bottle of rosé as ammunition it was then time to head back to Aude's for some well deserved dinner and drinks - two of M's favorites sushi and capirinha - and some dancing, singing, laughing and good times. though the plan was to head out afterwards, once we finished dinner at 2 a.m. and after a day full of activities we were all happy to climb into bed and sleep like babies.

A REAL COOL DAY :))

I chose the sea...

it has been quite some time since i last wrote anything here, more than a month actually, reason being that i have been first too busy at work, then sick, and finally off on vacation and not wanting to use a computer in the heat more than for a few minutes at a time... however, forced by circumstances to stay two extra days at my father's place in slovenia and seeming that it is raining i thought it was time to fill in some missing information.

first however, why am i here? well, following on my father's notorious lateness we left portorož where he lives and i spent the last week an hour later than planned, meaning that we lost our extra hour of precaution. then the actual drive took about 20-30 minutes longer than what stated on viamichelin, and finally and worst when arriving at the right exit in venice there was a choice between two roads - one going to aeroporto and the other to some city we have never heard of and not the city where the right airport was supposed to be situated - hence we followed the signs to the "airport". only arriving at it did it say the name which was not the right. a lost 30 minutes, the exact time needed for me to arrive in time for my flight to stockholm so hence i missed it as they refused to let me through even though the airport was tiny and there were almost 30 minutes left to take-off grrrr. on top of that, the next flight is only tomorrow and it is fully booked as are all their flight out of venice until 1 august. so now, i'll have to go down there, an almost 3h drive one-way, tomorrow to wait and see if by chance someone does not turn up and then can fit me in.... so, not sure how i will get out of here nor when, and in the meantime, after having looked on all possible flight out of venice, milan etc and realised that no good options existed, i decided to try my chances on wednesday and enjoy my extra day at the beach - but for some reason the bad luck keeps following me and today, after a week of not one cloud, it is raining :((

oh, well, enough of the negativism- at least i got to see venice for the first time in my life. the plan was in fact to go there for a few hours during the day before hitting the airport, but then i chose the sea over the city and decided to go for a last swim in the most lovely water in the world. finally i guess i got both ;)


so, please keep your fingers crossed tomorrow that i get a seat on the plane to stockholm!

who are those people who would have dared?

do you think that those people exist who actually dare go up to a cute guy or girl and start talking to them? and i'm not talking about a situation when someone is drunk on the dance floor or in a bar, but rather in normal situations, normal circumstances, like ordering a coffee (well a smoothie in my case since i hate coffee, even the smell of it) at the airport after checking in, trying to kill some time while waiting for boarding and seeing a real good-looking man looking in your direction. are there actually people that would have gone up and started to talk with this guy? or even, chosen to sit down next to him? i was contemplating the latter option, but then it felt a bit too much and there were comfortable sofas a bit further away, so the best i did was sitting down in a place where though at a certain distance at least we were facing each other... and he looked a few times. and i looked a few times. and our eyes crossed several times and we even dared keeping the connection for a bit longer than usual once. but that's the best we managed. hmmm and what if that was the man of my dreams? would i have found out if i had actually been cool enough to start chatting with him? perhaps, i would have if the place had been more full and sitting down close by was one of the only options, but now i had plenty of seats to chose from and then sitting down next felt a bit to risky... stupid girl, the worst that could have happened would have been that he laughed in my face which would not have been very bad, and even that seems quite a stretch as people normally do not react that way. but then again, who knows, perhaps meeting someone at the airport leaving a city you are not even planning to come back to anytime soon and not even boarding the same plane might just have been a sign that it would have been way too complicated ;))

but still one has to wonder, who are those people who would have dared?

at least i got a few days in Budapest, luckily in a nice hotel since that is where i spent most of my time since this was a work trip including a day starting with a breakfast meeting at 8 a.m. and ending at 1 a.m. when i just couldn't take it anymore. but i had a nice lunch in the beautiful park next to the hotel (see pic), a walk from the hotel and through the city at night (see pic), and 3-4h on the last day, walking around seeing the castle, the parliament (way too big for the size of the country, reflecting hungary's history - see pic), one of the biggest markets, several bridges, the main shopping street (and no, i didn't actually shop for once, though i was very close to buying some shoes - as usual - however, the only thing i finally bought were some hungarian spices, ajvar and sausage miam).... and taking quite many photos and walking very fast in 36° heat and finally enjoying my day off after a catastrophic morning when nothing worked. And quite importantly, i got to the plane in time, i got back to geneva only one hour late, ensuring that i was here for the hen party that i was organising for the next day (when i actually managed to not hear my alarm but that's another story).

Do you ever get angry at the world? (written 27/05)

Angry at people and the way the world works? I do. I get angry and even more so, i get disappointed. Not only about big things either like wars, genocide (i'm currently reading a very interesting book, though a bit too centred around the American response, about the history of genocide throughout the 20th century: "A problem from hell: america and the age of genocide" by Samantha Power), female circumcision, deprivation of rights, mass stereotyping and cultural misunderstandings, world leaders, starvation.... No, I also get angry about smaller more personal stuff.

Currently, i'm more and more disappointed by the people around me, and yes, i do understand that it is mostly my fault for expecting too much from people and consequently allow myself to get disappointed... perhaps this is what growing up means? but still... how not get disappointed when you try to organise a cool important day for a common friend, you put in hours of work, you manage to get places to open earlier, you try to calculate everything to manage a day full of memories for an affordable price, and some people pull out last minute threatening all your plans. It's not that important, I really do agree, but it's a source of disappointment and not really because of all the work, but mostly because you realise that not everyone values friendship the same way, that many are those who come along only as long as they do not have anything more interesting to do, who do not sacrifice anything for a friend, for one day in their lives...

I'm disappointed when talking about the death of a good friend and how it affects me, how it felt to meet up with his girlfriend for the first time since the accident, how spending the evening with her brought back everything when i have tried to pretend he is still alive, when i have hid behind my "wall of feelings" – and then the other person changes the subject to discuss the weather! Now, i understand that it can be difficult to be part of such a conversation, but still!

I'm disappointed when people that i thought were friends turn out not to care, when they disappear at the worst moments in your life - when you've just broken up from a 5 year long relationship, when the guy you like a lot (and the "friends" are aware of it because you confided in them) leaves the country, when there is the slightest complication and for one moment you forget your smile, forget to be happy, party and talk about more important stuff than feelings, such as shoes, shopping, hair, the next party..., when you feel a "friend" slip away and you ask them if something is wrong and they answer "no", but then turn around and tell common friends things about you behind your back....

I'm angry with life because there are great people out there, there are people who are real friends 'come what may', and for some reason these wonderful people seem to be the ones that life turns on bringing them grief, sickness, worries and even death.

I'm disappointed because i used to be a dreamer, an optimist, believing the best in people, and i can feel that i'm changing. I liked to dream! and it makes me angry that i'm loosing this ability to see the best in people, expect the best, but i'm also getting tired of getting disappointed.

I'm sad because most of my best friends live far away, the guy i like lives far away, and one of the best guys i ever met just left for a place even further away long before what should have been his time. I miss your smile my friend.