THE TALES OF LIVING

I have the longest to-do-list these coming weeks, which is not the best situation to be in. I think I'm going to try and tick off following from my list today:

• Take some photos
• Organize and delete old photos on my laptop
• Go to the library
• Write a letter (to print and send tomorrow)

I have a a heap load of things I need to do before Florence and London and the weeks are spinning by so rapidly. After London it's pretty much going to be summer and a lot of things will be slowed down by summer holidays and people taking out vacation and after summer there is a trip to Rome and then probably I'll move to London. So there is to say the least a lot to do.

Since I'm going to be isolated and ripped of any connection to the internet during the weekend, I thought I should give you some music recommendations to keep you occupied. The videos below are bands I really like and listen to quite a lot these days.

My parents have decided to whisk me away over the weekend to their countryside house. I have to admit I do not look forward to this. Sure, the whole nature, ocean, woods and fresh air thing is great. I used to love going there as a kid and we would go every weekend all year round and on all my breaks from school.
But in recent years I haven't hardly been there at all. I don't look at it in the same way. It was all fun and games when I was little but know it's something about all those open spaces and meadows that just makes me feel claustrophobic. Is it not ironic feeling claustrophobic in a big open space?

I've contemplated the fact and reached the conclusion that since I do not have my own car or a drivers license for that matter, when I'm at the countryside house I loose the power to go where I want to go or leave when I would like to.
It's a completely different story in the city. Here I got all the bus and tram routes down, I know which way is the fastest and which way is the safest. Somehow I feel that the city is looking after me, like an invisible bigger brother who keeps an eye out for his little sister. I've walked home countless times in states varying from sober to rather heavily intoxicated. The city has somehow always taken me home safely. In the city, I know where to go, who to talk to and how to take myself home safely. The city with its streets and alleys are my turf, here I feel like I can go anywhere and do anything.

This is not the case with the countryside house, because I can not choose to leave when I want to and there is absoultely nothing of interest to do. There is no internet, there is no cellphone reception, there is no interesting channels on the telly, there are no live gigs at nightclubs, there are no trams, just no anything.

Yes, I've realize that I'm a city girl. I love the city and the city loves me. I am a asphalt flower.

I don't know if this is just me and my crazy thoughts/routines.
I work at an office in the central part of town and since it's got such a good location, it's more a rule than an exception that we go out and eat lunch at one of vast and varied range of lunch restaurants that are within a walking distance from the office.

As we all know different restaurants attract different groups of people. I have lately realized that I am effected by how I look and how I feel when I pick where to have lunch.
If I feel like I've got pretty cloths on and are happy I'll go to the hipster place where everyone is always extremely well dressed.
If I feel sophisticated and got an outfit to match I'll got to the bistro where all the mid 30's have their business lunches.
If I feel hangover, sick or have a bad hair day I would rather go and have a take away or sushi.
If I feel like I want to sit and chit chat with someone rolled up in a blanket I'll pick a cafe.

If I'm forced to pick a place to eat lunch where I don't feel comfortable that particular day due to what outfit I have on or how I feel, it gets me extremely annoyed. Not annoyed in a way that I would express it to anyone but in the way that I feel out of place or think that people are going to look down on me, if for example I'm in the business lunch bistro wearing hipster cloths and high top rebooks.

I remember once when I was about 7 years old and woke up in a hotel room in Italy. I can't recall what city in Italy it was, but the feeling when I woke up was amazing.
The sun shined through the white long curtains and outside my open window I could hear a street and a city that was just waking up. I could hear cars driving by, people signaling with horns and bells on their scooters and bicycles, people talking while walking down the street and yelling "Good morning!" to people they knew across the street.
The smell is a bit harder to describe, but it was a mixture of smell of the pavements, the smell from the small vegetable and fruits shops that were opening up early in the morning and the smell from the cafe across the street where people were stopping by to get their morning espresso.

The smell and sound of my city (Gothenburg) is a different story. Firstly Gothenburg is right by the sea, therefor you get an ocean smell. Not like the smell of beach and seaweed, it is more an icy smell of the salt of the ocean. If you've ever been on a boat on the sea at dusk or dawn, that smell is a part of Gothenburg´s smell. Mixed with the icy smell of the sea is the natural smell of the city. The smell of the pavements, the people and the traffic.
Gothenburg has a very distinct sound, we have trams in this city and they have a distinct sound when they swings around corners. It is a squeaking noise, but not in an annoying way but a soothing and calm way. That sound is something I think all people from Gothenburg miss when they move away from here. It is like a soft layer of cotton which cocoons the city from the outside world.


This spring I will visit Florence(for a week) and London(for a month) and this time I'm going to make sure that I'm aware of how the cities smell and sound. I regard the smell and sound of a city like a sophisticated and subtle visiting card for that specific city.

Lately I've been quite into Pete Doherty and his new album Grace/Wastelands. It's a bit peculiar since I haven't been a die hard Babyshambles fan.

However, what interest me about musicians and their image in the public eye is how it can effect how people view their music. Pete Doherty has, as may not be a secret, not had the best public image and it has been crowded by vicious rumors, drugs and jail. Since you are through media fed with this image of him I have been a bit skeptical to his solo album.

But without my knowledge I heard Last of the English Roses on a radio show and realized how brilliant that song is. I think that people, and I will definitely try and follow this perception, should stop judging an artist after their actions and solely judge them by the caliber of their music.

Song of the day: Pete Doherty - A little dead around the eyes.

We met up at my place and spent some downtime and listened to some music and got sent the location of the rave by text. I checked out the adress and the bus/tram routes. It was on the other side of the river just behind a big sport and event arena. It's a fairly central location but still in a part of town where there aren't too many people. It felt safe knowing where it was and that I were able to get home whenever I wanted to.

The rave took place in a "closed" lunch restuarant which is in a district dominated by office buildings, so there wasn't too many people around who could get bothered by the loud music. The rave was a bit more organized than what I expected. Firstly, they had a wardrobe, but the guy garding it seemed to be two sandwiches short of a picnic. He had to write my wardrobe number on my arm (I guess they don't trust their guests to have pockets or being able to keep track of a wardrobe card) and when writing the number on my arm his hands where shaking heavily.

And about those cliches...
They had decorated the place with banners with glow-in-the-dark colors and there were 'sculptures' hanging from the ceiling casting diffrent lights and shadows all over the floor and the walls. If I would be judgemental I'd say that the decorations definitely would look more stunning, I imagine, if one were high.
The people who went there definitely only dressed in cloths looking as they came from this shop.
And about those pills, that one expect to see at a rave. There was definitely people who didn't look completely sane. Everyone seemed nice and friendly, even those who seemed to be high except a couple of persons who really had that 'mad eyes' stare and looked awfully high. However, I thought I was going to see people dancing up with their tounge out of their month with a pill on it and then someone else would kiss them and thereby swallow the pill.
But I saw no drugs at all, so I'd say it all looked/seemed a lot less like a drug feast than what my exceptations might have been. The only drug refrence that happen all evening was this guy who offered me some crystal meth, which I kindly refused and this girl who asked me in the line to the toilet if I'd only been drinkning. She later complemented me on not being high and told me to have respect for drugs (like I haven't had that before).

It just seemed to be people who like that kind of trance/techno music and just wants to dance. There were a some weird fashion trends, all the girls had either really blond dyed hair or really dark dyed hair for example. If you were aware of it there definitenly was people who where high, but there was no open handling of drugs. I'd say that if you are not into that kind of music (which I'm not really...) it will get a bit boring after a couple of hours. So if you are going to go to a rave, go because you really love the music that's going to be played.

I had a glowstick which I was going to take a picture of when I got home. But just as I left this high guy took my glowstick from me under the excuse that "You are going to get it back" and then he preformed a "stunt" where he inserted the glowstick (which was quite flexible) up his nose and then open his month so people around could see the glow in his palate. Not a nice vision. Do I need to point out I did not claim my glowstick back.

All in all an interesting night.

It's Friday today, the big Go-Out-On-A-Spin-Around-Town night. Tonight I'm going to try out something new. My first plan for the night was to have some friends over, drink some wine, chill out and listen to music. Perhaps go out to a indie club after that, if everyone was going to be up for it. Instead my friends (who do this on more regular basis) have decided to take me to a Super-Secret and Super-Illegal rave. Yes, you read right!

I have never been to a rave before, not even a legal one. This seems to be the perfect rave to start out with, the conversation between me and my friend went like this:

Friend: So we are going to this rave tomorrow. Are you SURE that you are up for it, Sanna? This is Not a beginners rave.

Me: You know me, I'm up for anything. I'm sure I can handle it. So where is this rave?

Friend: We don't know that yet.

Me: What do you mean by that? I'd like to check out the bus routes to make sure that I can leave whenever I'd like to.

Friend: Well... They keep the placement of the rave a secret until 2 hours before the rave begins. It's for security reasons, since this is pretty illegal.

Me: Right... That'll be fine. I'll just have to wing it with the bus routes, one always get's home somehow, someway.

Therefore this is rather exciting news, since it's going to be interesting to test the waters and see if raves really live up to all the cliches that people actually have about them. Will it be all pills and people dress in clothes solely from this shop? Or will it be happy people who just want to dance to some hard techno music?

I'll give a report as soon as I've gotten home from the rave and tell you all about it.

I've been feeling under the weather the last two days, so when I, went out to eat lunch with a colleague, looking pale and with a bad hair day it was a bit of a chock.
The first days of spring seem to be some kind of 'stating the territory' days in Gothenburg. As soon as you feel the first warm ray after a glimpse of the sun: It's like the spring outfits just start popping up like mushrooms. Too bad the spring outfits don't have delusional effects...
The spring outfits are pulled together by sunglasses, tights with shorts on top and blouses, all the outfits are topped off by spring shoes and long scarfs to fight the cold wind off.

This is not the sight you want to face when you are on the recovery side of a bad cold, dressed in winter clothes with a bad hair day. I couldn't even get into my favorite coffee place for some caffeine due to the hordes of hipster kids all dressed in spring outfits.

Yes, spring has arrived. Tomorrow I'll go to my coffee place 15 minutes early armed in a stunning spring outfit.

Lazy Sunday, or it could have been. But I'm going to the gym later on.

I went to this party on Friday. One of my friends is currently studying philosophy at Uni and his course mates were having a party in their flat. So he asked me to tag along (bribed with a bottle of wine, I went along with it). It was strange. It was like stepping into the past 10 year into the future. I'll explain:

When we were 15 years old we all used to hang out in this public park on weekend nights. Everyone was wearing black and red striped clothing and the more makeup/dark hair/piercings you had the cooler you were. This was all cool and fun then. But we grew out of it and started to go to legal/illegal clubs, started drinking wine instead of beer and started to wear other types of clothing as well.
But these people at the party... It was like they hadn't change since they were 15 years old. They've just gotten 10 years older. It was a bit sad, I'll have to tell you.
Not because they still got that sense of fashion/style, it was sad because they seemed to still act/think/behave like 15 years old.
It was all a bit strange.

Anyway, you should listen to Metronomy and be happy, that's what I'm doing (if you add drinking coffee to the equation)

As you may know I've recently taken up training (at the gym) again. I went to 4 sessions last week and have completed 3 sessions this week but are contemplating to go to two more session. I usually go to the sessions that are a bit dance like, choreography and less strength and lifting weights.
I used to go quite frequently when I went to school, so this is not a new thing. Since I've recently picked up this good habit again some of my thoughts about going to the gym has returned.

One thing, that I've realized about going to the gym is that there are different types of persons regarding socializing at the gym.


I've also discovered that I (without realizing it) view the gym as a place for me to be by myself and collect my thoughts and just being alone in a crowd of people. I find it relaxing to just be quite and work out. Recently I've met people I know at the gym, even going to the same sessions as me. I find that a bit stressful, them trying to be nice and chit-chat about stuff when I just really want to be quite and amongst people that I don't know.

What type of gym person are you? or What type of work outs do you do?

It feels like my weeks fill up so quickly with things I have to do. Last night (Tuesday) one of my friends sent a text saying he was back in Gothenburg and wanted to hang out. I sent a text back and said " I might be able to meet up for a cup of coffee on Sunday afternoon". It's a bit crazy that this a normal week for me, on Tuesday all my time that week has been planned and filled up.

And still, my life now is much more low stress than what it was this autumn when I tried to manage a part time and a full time job, running my nightclub and studying 25 % of full time at Uni. Might I say it was crazy stressed and it did not do wonders for my health.

I think I've learnt a valuable lesson, you always have to make time for yourself. Downtime, when you can relax and just do what you feel for. Time with out pressure. Like this week, I've planned to just be by myself on Friday night, slouch in the couch and watch telly. Then I'm going to turn in for an early night.

Me and Mum has started this new eating regime. We started last Monday, so it has been a week now. Mum has gone to yoga about two times and on one long walk with one of her friends.
I however, have workout hard at the gym 4 times last week (aerobics and things like that).
She has lost 4 pounds and I haven't lost anything.

I think this is rather unfair. I try to convince myself that I might have gained muscles or weight more than I thought when we started this new eating regime. Maybe I'm going to lose some weight later on, Mum perhaps just lost it quicker. Still unfair.
This is making me rather annoyed at the moment.

Just wanted to get it off my chest.

There, no more whining today.

I'm still at work. After work I'm going to the gym to workout (time to become a skinny bitch), then I'm going to buy a cultural book and after that I'm going home to make dinner for my mum (who's feeling a bit under the weather).
And after that a friend of mine will come over for vegetable sticks and homemade dip. We aren't even going out.
This is what a grown up person I've become lately. I get up in the morning and eat omelette. Some time soon I might take up knitting as a hobby too.
All my age anxiety over turning twenty is really taken an odd but useful form.

I haven't been to active lately. Why do I feel like I start all my entries like this, these days?

Tonight, I've just sneaked away from a grown up dinner party and are currently enjoying a chilled glass of white wine and a episode of Boston Tea Party. I will return to grown up dinner party in time for dessert. It's all about timing, to get the meal but escape from boring topics around the dinner table.