Global warming ???

Last year I experienced my first swedish winter. And what an experience... 4 months of snow !! Even though I think the snow is nice and fun and also that it makes it look brighter in the night, 4 months is kinda long...
So I was like : "but is it like that EVERY winter ???" and people were saying "no no, you know it's the hardest winter we've had since 50 years, even my grand mother says she hasn't seen that since 1960... blablablablabla". It was also the time I had to decide if I wanted to renew my contract, so even though I was thinking "this winter is kinda cold and snowy and long", I was also thinking "yes, but this is a special year, it will be better next year... global warming you know !".

Oops... So now let me explain the situation of today.
Or no, I'll show you instead :



Got it ? ;)

Yes, it was my street when I left this morning... Just for the record, last year, at this time, people were hopping to get some snow for Christmas... which they got.

But anyway, we are one month earlier that last year concerning the snow, we already had very cold temperatures like 2-3 weeks ago (-10C), which is probably gonna happen this week-end again... And people are now saying that it's gonna be the coldest and hardest winter EVER. Hum...

My main problem with the swedish winter, it's not the cold, or the snow, or the darkness... it's the fact that I'm completely terrorized by the fact that I might fall while walking on some ice, and break myself a leg or sthg. And each time I'm going outside and I have to walk somewhere, this fear is driving me crazy.

So this is probably going to be a very FUN winter ;) Yepeee !

Welcome to visit !!! (lol)

Bday week-end

I'm working from home this afternoon, and it feels good the enjoy my warm apartment a bit. I've been doing so many things since I came back from France that it feels like I've been here only to sleep !

I just wanted to write a post here to thank all the people for my birthday... both for all the gifts I got and also just for being here.
Let's start with gifts... Actually, it shouldn't be allowed to get so many gifts lol. That was a lot, great and beautiful gifts, and I love each and everyone of them. Clothes, jewelry, perfume, books, beauty products, accessories... even food hehe (thank you Eleonore, you definitely know what French people are missing in Sweden lol). And I even got something from my colleagues today ! So THANK YOU ALL for that !
Unfortunately I had a very small luggage as I was travelling with Ryanair and I had to leave half of them in Paris ! But I'm coming back very soon for Christmas (less than one month !) and this time I'll come with a BIG suitcase to make everything fit and bring them back to Stockholm.

And also thank you for coming, simply. Almost everyone was here. My whole family (mum, dad + 5 brothers and sisters !) came to Paris to see me and so we can celebrate together and I appreciated it very much.
My mum

My dad with all his children :) (yes we are 6 and yes I'm the "oldest" one !)

My grand parent's on my mum's side

My whole family from my dad's side

And I also had a great birthday party with not less than about 30 of my friends. It was wonderful to see you all.
The only thing is that it's always a bit frustrating for me that kind of week-end, cause I feel like running a marathon, seeing the most people as fit in the schedule, but then it's always very short. And for example I realized when some people came to say bye at the end of the party that I hadn't even had time to talk to them...
But there's nothing much I can do about it and I guess that's part of the "game" of living abroad.

Well, now I'm a big 25 years old girl hehe :)


And tonight and tomorrow I'm going to enjoy my birthday gift from myself to myself (we should always make ourselves gifts I think lol) while participating to a hip-hop workshop with a famous american hip-hop dancer, Gus Bembery :) I'm sure it's gonna be great !

I wish you all a nice week-end, whatever you will do :)

Flash news

Hi folks,

A short (or not) update before I head to France for a few days.
I know I don't write very often but I don't have so much time for myself so...

I'm doing REALLY good.

First of all, I'm on vacation tonight and I'm going back to France a few days to see my family and my friends and to celebrate my birthday with them. Can't wait !

Everything is going very well at work. The BIG news is that we won a HUGE tender which includes the contract I'm in charge of. I'm double blessed, first because I've worked on this tender so it's the best reward I could get. And also and mainly because it means that I can keep "my" contract, my traffic area, with those people I really really like to work with. We got the news yesterday and everybody was SO happy, relieved and proud. They came and congratulated the people involved and me included. And we had champagne of course!
I definitely like working here. :)

The thing that goes with this tender win is that they will probably want me to stay with a more permanent local contract here... Which means staying in Sweden. That's a big question in my head right now. Have to weight the pros and the cons, see how to prioritize. I kinda feel that it's like choosing between family and friends (France) vs. great job and a wonderful quality of life (Sweden). And that's really not an easy choice to make... Why can't you all come and live with me in Sweden ????? I still have a few months to decide but time's flying so...

And to finish, the great Åsa is back from New York and teaching classes again. Pure happiness... as usual :)

Gotta go sleeping now... Have to wake up around 3 to fetch my plane huhu... (How much would we do for cheaaaap flying tickets ???)

Well, hope to see you soon... in Paris, Stockholm... or anywhere else ! ;)

Burn out... ?

3 weeks withoug writing... I know it's not very fair to you dear readers.
But lately, there were lots of things going on.

First of all, I had some more or less permanent visitors. Ludivine who just arrived in Sweden had no apartment and stayed with me until she found one.
Also, my very good friend Clementine came to visit me with her twin sister during a long week-end. We had a wonderful time, partly due to the awesome autumn weather.
And when they all left at the same time (Clementine, Camille and Ludivine), I was kinda happy to be a bit alone... even though I've been coming home quite late all the time and did not enjoy my apartment as much as I would have liked...

Right now, things calmed down in my personal life, like mostly I don't have anymore visits planned, and even though I love that people come to see me, it feels kinda good. Especially as winter is coming (we had the first snow yesterday) and I'm usually very tired at that time of the year.

Professionally it's quite the opposite actually. As I told you a few months ago, I was about the enter the budget process. It was a very intense period for me. I felt like I had to be everywhere at the same time, I was learning by doing which was very time and energy consuming. But I'm happy, first because I've learned A LOT, and also because I've been told by different people that they were impressed by the job I had done, especially when they knew it was my first budget. Which basically means that I've achieved my goal in this challenge. So I'm proud and happy about that.

The thing is that I though this would be over like at the end of september, beginning of october. But this is not really what happened... Because now my boss is involving me at a different level, which is much more global and it's requiring a lot of work again. This plus all the other tasks that I had abandoned during the budget, and on which I have to catch up... It's always interesting and I'm actually quite flattered that my boss is asking me, but sometimes too much is too much.

So I've been surviving this quite good... until the end of this week where I felt that I was about to collapse, both physically and mentally. At some point I guess body and mind are saying STOP, and this is what's happening to me right now. I even have some sleeping troubles actually. I'm so tired that I can't sleep...
I took a day off on Monday. So I'll see how I feel after this 3 day week-end.

I keep on going training quite often because I need to feel that I'm not ONLY working and because dancing makes me feel good in general. As I wrote in an older post, dancing is definitely the short-term solution to all my concerns. And on top of that, training is quite addictive anyway, tired or not tired...

Well, this is where I am now. Sorry for the people who only like to hear me saying that everything is fine and that I'm the happiest in the world. Actually, I'm like that 95% of the time and I don't like to complain. But in the remaining 5% of the time, I wanna be honest to both you and me.

But now, let's start the week-end with a very positive thing : "Nougat pillows" cereals for breakfast with a special thought to Julia ;)

Hugs to all !! <3

Hejdå #2

As I've mentionned it in a previous post, some of my French friends have decided to go back to France, or at least they have decided to not stay in Sweden.
So a bit more than one month ago, it was Leonore and Leonard who left, and this week is was Eleonore and Samba. I haven't had time to realize it because this week has been crazy busy and crazy speed, but now that it's the week-end, that things are calming down, I'm starting to realize and it's not that easy.

The thing is that we've been hanging out together since day 1 and for me they are really part of my life here. Living in Stockholm it's definitely hanging out with them. Not only of course, but still. So even though I'm not alone and I still have friends here, it won't be the same anymore, and I'm feeling quite empty at the moment. Something's definitely missing.

I miss you all !

Eleonore, Leonard, Leonore and Samba.

But we'll see each other soon when I go back to Paris in November.
And until then, I have some stuff in my apartment that make them kinda be with me as I got some furnitures from their apartments ! For example "Palmito" (the big plant on the left), the London frame and some other things, that make my apartment feel very cosy :)

Fall is here...

...for real. I'm not a huge fan of this season as it's the season where it's gonna get darker and darker, colder and colder, and thus quite depressing !

But the other day, when I had the chance to leave work before it was completely dark lol, the light was so amazing that couldn't think anything else than "wow, fall is really magic". So first I took the bus, but after 2 stations, I decided to get off and just walk to cross the bridge because I knew the view would be amazing. And it really was.

Here is Kungsholmen.


And Gamla Stan.



So now I've decided that before starting to complain about dark, rain and cold and I would enjoy the beauty of the first days or weeks of the fall in Stockholm. Because it's really beautiful :)

Everything is possible

The other, I read a post on Åsa's blogg about feeling successful in your life, working hard to achieve your goals and realize your dreams, and feeling powerful. That's how I interpreted it anyway.

And God this is so much reflecting the way I've been feeling this week. This has been a really intense week, at work especially. I won't go into detail because this is of absolutely no interest for you, but when the week finally ended (cuz I really felt like it would never end), I thought : "Wow, I've been able to do all this and I did a great job ! I'm strong, and I'm good !!" I know some people would think it doesn't feel right to say yourself that you're good, but why not saying it if it's the truth ?
But anyway, I'm feeling very powerful now. Of course this had a price, I worked really hard and I had some tough and stressful times - but that's the right way for being successful I think.

And it's funny because when the working week ended, I headed to a dance class, which was kind of a master class held by a guy, working for an organization called "Mind Over Matter". And the philosophy during the whole class was to always think it's possible, try and try again until you succeed, cuz you CAN succeed, it's all in your mind. And if you decide that you can do something, you will be able to do it, soon or later. And that was really true. The class was definitely anything but easy, lots of technical challenges I would say. So sometimes after the teacher had shown one step we were like "ok, I'm never gonna do that !". But still, we tried. Some were more successful than others (and I'm on the "others" group lol), but it didn't matter, we all tried, and after a while, we almost all managed to do it more or less correctly.

So today, even though I'm totally exhausted from this exhausting week (!), I'm feeling powerful and I'm feeling strong :)