Catch up...

Wow... It's been almost one week since I haven't wrote anything... !
But I am a VERY busy girl u know ;)

The last week-end has been really nice.
Friday night was cruel ! Started with some beers at the Mosebacke (not sure about the writing) with the usual crew, Leonore, Samba and Greg. Marc joined us for this time. Then we headed to the Garlic and Shots restaurant. I don't think I've already told you about this restaurant, which is actually one of my favorites here in Stockholm ! As its name says it, it is a bar and restaurant where almost everything contains garlic ! Even beer !! I tried it once for the experience... Well, it was not as bad as I thought, but not the best thing ever still... ! But the food is really really good and not very expensive. So we go there quite regularly, and that's what we did last Friday. As usual, super good food and beers (again !).
Then I was supposed to join my Swedish friend Charlotte (that I met when I was studying in Hong Kong) at Stureplan, a place in Stockholm where there are lots of bars and nightclubs. But I was quite tired of the week (working + training) so I was about to go home. But finally, I don't know what happened to me, but I suddenly changed my mind and at the last minute I decided to join her. And I was SO right to do it ! We had a really good time there and I (very briefly but still) met a lot of Swedish people. I was so happy cuz usually I am meeting French people, and even if I really like my French friends here, I would LOVE to be more integrated in the Swedish population. I know that for this I should speak swedish but that's one of my next goals (one thing at a time !). So I told that to her, and we said that we would hang out together more, which made me very happy :) We finally ended up kind of drunk I should say (oops...) and came back home around 3.00.

No need to mention that when I woke up on the Sat morning, I was not feeling so well haha ;) So I just spent the day at home, chilling... But that's good sometimes, especially if you are very active during the week ! Same in the evening.

And Sunday was a great day too. Started the day (not so early !) by a brunch with Valerie and Ophelie and that was soooo good ! See the picture below ;) Yummy !



But that was a lot of food, so at the end of the afternoon I went to a class that I like to go to sometimes : dance aerobics ! Didn't feel so well moving, jumping and dancing with all this food in my stomach haha, but at least I eliminated a bit... I hope !! ;) And the evening was quite common for a Sunday evening : Skype session with family and friends.

Now we are Wednesday. Tomorrow it will be 7 months since I am living here. Times goes by really really fast... That's crazy. And it's not getting better I guess. Well, I know I'm repeating myself...

But anyway, tomorrow I'll also be in week-end at noon ! Yepeee ! The advantage of living in Sweden is that the day before a red day (=holiday), you work half day only ! And Friday is a red day. So I'll have a 4,5 days week-end. So cool ! Laetitia, one of my friends from Keolis (where I was working in France) is coming to visit me (and Stockholm of course) with her boyfriend, from Friday night till Tuesday afternoon. They will be the first visitors of quite a long list until this summer !

To finish this article, I'll just say that I still have a FEW free week-ends until July so if you wanna stop by... just let me know ;) You are all more than welcome ! :)

Reflexions...

Just got back from my 3rd dancing class of the week (one more on Sunday), and... it just feels SO good.
Actually those dance classes, and dance in general are very powerful when it comes to change my mind, my spirit, the way I feel. I don't know how to explain this but it's really like, when the music starts I start to smile and be happy, almost in another world. Sort of. I can have had the biggest problems in the day, it will then disappear, during that time at least. When I'm sad, I start to be happy, when I am tired, I find some unexpected and hidden energy, when I am in a bad mood, I just smile again... I think I could almost say that dance is the (temporary) solution to all my problems !!
Well, enough about dancing ;)

The upcoming week-end is one of the few ones I have with nothing really planned before... the beginning of August... ? Oh my God that's scary !! I'll have lots of people coming to visit, one trip to France for one of my friend's wedding, some special events here in Stockholm I'm going to attend, my trip to NYC, then to France again... And then I'll be back to start my second year here ! Can't believe I've been there for 7 months already, time's really flying.

I was thinking of it a few days ago, and I just realized that I haven't had that "adaptation" period that you have when you live in a new country. I remember, the year I spent in Atlanta, the first months were really hard for me, it was hard to be so far away from family and friends, I was always trying to know what they were doing and so on, hard to get used to the culture, the people... And then I started to feel better after like... 6 months maybe ? Same when I was living in Hong Kong. The first week, it's all about discovery, excitement, meeting new people, so it's fun. But then you just realize that you are almost at the opposite of the world and you start to feel lonely, again the culture can be quite hard to get used to and so on... And maybe one month before I left, I started to feel good in this new environment.
So I was expecting kind of the same reaction, experience here. And almost nothing happened ! Well, nothing bad at least. As soon as I got here I felt good, I felt like home. Of course I have had some times harder than others but I've never felt depressed and I've never been in a "I wanna go back home" mood. But perhaps the reason to this is that I managed to make it really "home" since the beginning, building my own life with this new job I like, this new people I've met and the ones I'm meeting continuously, those wonderful dance classes, my apartment that I just love... And probably focusing on what's happening here and not on what's happening somewhere else and wondering if I wouldn't be better over there...

The conclusion of this is just that I am VERY happy at the moment and I am not planning to come back to France so soon. Before summer 2011 at least. Then we'll see where life brings me... :)

"Parlez vous anglais ?"

This is the name of a band recently created by one of my friends (and ex roommate actually !), Matthieu.
He is a wonderful musician and I really like his work.



Here is the link of his MySpace if you want to listen : www.parlezvousanglais.fr
The style is electro/disco/rock.

I hope you'll like it as much as I do ! :)

YEEEESSSSSSSS !!!

Hehe, as you might have guessed, I got my vacation !
Not exactly the dates I wanted, but good enough to be able to go to New York. Oooohhhhh yeaaaahh !!!!
I think I am the happiest in the world right now :)
And I should say that even if my body is in Stockholm, I feel like my mind is already in New York !

Ah... That was a really good week ! :)
And I've been to 6 training classes this week (2 core, 1 body balance, 2 street dance and 1 jazz) so it was also a very good training week ! But now my body is kinda asking for some rest so I guess I won't go back to the gym 'til Monday.

Oh, and once again... if somebody wants to join me for the dance workshop in New York this summer, here is the link : http://www.spectacleartmosphere.com///francais/inter.html

Fingers crossed...

Because I am waiting to know if I can take the vacation I want for my dance workshop in New York this summer...

At the beginning I didn't even thought that could be a problem, but this afternoon I realized that, first we have the monthly closing at the beginning of July, and second we need to always have somebody at the office. So I don't know when they will say they want me to be there... And it stresses me out, really :( Because I would be soooo mad if I couldn't go to New York because of that.
We have a meeting tomorrow and this is one of the subjects so we'll see...

Please keep your fingers crossed for me !!

Summer project

As you might have noticed, since a few months, I am really focusing again on my dance training. It was quite hard at the beginning since it had been a long time since I hadn't really taken classes, since high school maybe. Of course I danced quite a lot when at university but it was not really the same, it was more about creating choreos and teaching them to others than a work on MY dancing and MY technique. And I was really missing this, I really wanted to get better, to take the next step.

So that is what I am doing here. And I am really happy because I have found a GREAT teacher (not the first time I'm mentioning it I guess haha), and because it makes me feel SO good and I think I am learning quite a lot.

And last Friday I received an email from a girl who is handling an artistic association, working with artists and organizing events and internships... This was about a 10 day dance internship that will take place in New York this summer. When I read this email, I started to get very excited since it is EXACTLY what I was dreaming of. It has been a few months since I am thinking of going back to New York (I've even been thinking of trying to find a job there after my job here in Stockholm), so for me SUMMER + DANCE + NEW YORK just equals PERFECT COMBO !
I still need to think about it, make sure that I have a sufficient level to go there and see how I can finance it (any donators ???? lol) but I'd really love to go. And I also think it is the best way to really improve and get to the next level.

We'll see... :)

For those who might be interested to join, here is the link to the website of the company that's organizing.

Now I'll leave you with some images that just make me dream right now...

Back to real life...

Vacation is good, unfortunately to be able to go on vacation, you have to work sometimes... :(

Well, I shouldn't complain because I really love my job there, but still, it's hard to come back ! Especially after a 29 hour journey and a jet lag of 11 hours... And the most annoying is when you don't have your luggage since it seems that it has stayed in Los Angeles. Haaaa this story made me crazy... Anyway.

Now I am back in Stockholm and even if it is not easy to be back, I like my Swedish routine :) It started Wednesday by seeing my colleagues and co-workers again. Then Thursday I went back to my beloved jazz class. Actually I started to feel good again after this class ! Then Friday I was invited with my French friends to a housewarming party hold by Holger, a Swedish guy but who speaks really good French. At the beginning we were a bit "afraid" as we didn't know anybody except Holger and that we were the only non Swedish people. But it happened to be a really nice evening. And yesterday we celebrated Leonore's bday. Cool party as well.

A few pics of yesterday night at the Vampire Lounge - The best place on earth for cocktails :)


Valerie and Eleonore


Eleonore, Leonore and Leonard ;)


Today is just rest-and-do-nothing day, except boring stuff as laundry and cleaning... But the weather is soooo nice that I might not resist to a little walk outside, just to feel the sun a little bit...

And then I'll get ready for another week. Lots of work in perspective, but also good stuff, as my dance classes on Monday and Thursday (and maybe Wednesday... ?), my Bodybalance class on Wednesday morning, and a great dinner with the Swedish people I met when I was studying in Hong Kong. Nice program ! And then probably more parties next week-end haha ;)

Tahiti report

Hi guys,

I am sorry I know I should have written before but time is just flying...

I got back from my vacation in Tahiti a few days ago and sometimes I just feel like I still haven't landed in Stockholm...
I had an amazing time there, and it was so good to see Camille again after such a long time.
The weather has been pretty awful actually, but we always managed to change plans when we had to and I just tried to enjoy every minute I had there. So we went out quite a lot, I took some Tahitian dance classes with Camille and her collegue Fiona and it was reeeeaallly funny (even if I happened to be very bad haha, it is always nice to try something new !), I walked quite a lot in the city, I went to the big market and I just hanged out at some different beaches just resting and trying to get tanned !
Still, we spent one day in Moorea (an island just in front of Tahiti) and we swam with rays and sharks... Crazy !!!
And the last week-end we were supposed to go to Fakarava, in the Tuamotu islands to do mainly scuba diving. Unfortunately all flights were cancelled that day because it was raining so much that the landing/take off area was totally flooded.
So we finally decided to go to the peninsula where we found a very nice lodge. Even though it was not the kind of week-end we expected, it was a really good and fun one ! We almost only ate and drank because there was not much else to do haha, but we also had some good time in the pool, we saw 2 beautiful sunsets...
So just THANK YOU SO MUCH Camille for this wonderful journey. Miss you already...



I'll come back later with more pictures but most of them are on a DVD that I forgot in Tahiti ! So I'm just waiting for Camille to send it to me !