After holidays

So - 3 weeks in total and now back to the reality. Well, sort of back - still haven't got a real kick for work ;)
5 days in Göteborg were so nice. When I arrived on Saturday - there was a heavy rain downtown, however in Åkered where Petra and Magnus live - sun and amazingly warm! So we even went to swim! Later on a grill and nice evening sitting outside in the garden.
Sunday - rain rain rain. We went to town since Petra promised Theo to get a ride on the "GBG-wheel". So we did it.







Then one of the biggest events during this stay was that Petra and Magnus got a little baby girl (while I was staying at their place!). Big congrats to the proud parents!!

I spent some time with Tania and Dan and we had also a nice dinner at "Hos Pelle" with Fredrik and Ylva.

It feels (as usually) great to be home. I think it's time to be back :)

After GBG, back to HH, laundry and repacking the suitcase. Off to Malaga together with Monica to visit Handan and Hamid.
Now we are talking real vacations!
It was warm and sunny and totally relaxing.

We ate good food (mainly seafood), drank good wine, swam a lot in the sea, played beachvolley, read books, yeah - total relax!
Also lots of talking about Iran, politics, religion and life. God! Sometimes we were so serious ;)

At the pool:


A view from the terrace:


Dinner on the terrace:


From the beach:






Handan and Hamid's place is cozy and nice. Next time we have to stay longer.

Today Alex is coming back to HH. Tomorrow I guess IKEA visit - we need another wardrobe to get place with all our clothes. Oh well...

Holidays in France (2)

After few days on the idyllic Ile de Re we went to the South. Well, at least south of Bordeaux - to Mimizan-Plage at the Atlantic coast.
We stayed at a B&B 150m from the beach. The owners were really nice people and each morning we got our petit breakfast in the garden.
There was also Helga - a mini greyhound dog. Or rather a poppy. She was sooo cool and friendly.
The beach was perfect. Well, the waves were sometimes really big so it was a bit tough for Alex to practice surfing. But he didn't give up :)
Each evening I had a portion of seafood, fish or moules marineres. Lovely! And chilled white wine to that.
We read our books, jumped over waves in the ocean, biked around, ate well and listened to some outdoor concerts in the town each evening.











We saw also a flower iceland at the lake close to Mimizan.






We had 3 days of a perfect weather, and the day we were leaving it started to rain. Perfect timing!! :)

From Mimizan we drove up North again. Our destination was Vouvray area - we stayed in Rochecorbon. I was in that region in 1994 so it was nice to visit some Chateaus and drink good Vouvray wine again.
Our landlord gave us a perfect introduction to what places to see so we visited 2 castles - one in Chenonceaux and one in Amboise. In Amboise there was Leonardo da Vinci's grave (by the way, French people pronounced his name in such a French way that you would almost believe that Leonardo was French ;), and we also visited his house where his studies were in Chat. du Clos Luce.

The view from our room:




La Loire in the evening:


At the entrance to Chateau:






Amboise:


I'm a bit obsessed with photographing those:








We also went to Tours, mainly to have dinners there. A very nice downtown, and so many restaurants around! It was a hard choice where to eat.


Our last stop was Vernou-sur-Brenne. Just on the other side of Vouvray.
The village was very small, but there were many wine caves - as on the map :)


And our B&B:


The last day was just a drive to Paris, returning the car and getting ready for take off.
The holidays were perfect!!! Maybe a bit too much baguette, jams and marmelades for breakfast, also quite weak coffees but what does it matter?...
We had fun and met so many nice people. Alex was doing great with his French.
Next time hope we can visit Provance, Marseiile and the surroundings.
Now back to work - it's gonna be hard. But maybe there will be some days in Göteborg in August. And for sure 4 days in Malaga.

Holidays in France (1)

They started 2 weeks ago, and now are over. It's good to document at least some parts of these vacations.
Met with Alex at CDG in Paris. Such a great moment to see him after 1 month break! We got our rental car - not Citroen 2 which we booked, but Skoda Fabia - still ok since it was 4 door car :)
First place we visited was Alex' relatives' in Coulommiers, not far from Paris. A cute little town, famous from their Coulommiers cheese (a sort of camembert, but with a milder taste. Mums!).
We stayed there 2 nights. Visited town, read books in the garden, did some jogging in the forest. Nice! There was quite mch practice for me (or rather listening) of Romanian again :)



Our next destination was Nantes - to visit Alex' cousin Adina, her son Gabriel and boyfriend Gustavo. On the way to Nantes we had an obligatory visit to Le Mans. We spent there few hours, and Alex was in the 7th heaven since there was also a race of some old cars. I think he took 200 pics in Le Mans. I won't place many pics here - but be sure - they are all saved on our laptops.



From Le Mans we went to Nantes. We stayed there for 3 nights. Spent a lot of time with Adina, went to see Pornichet at the coast and Guerande - a little cozy town, famous for gourmet salt manufacturing.
Gabriel - Adina's and Gustavo's son is the happiest kid I've met. He is so cool and so full of energy and he moves all the time. So much energy!!! I think he will be a climber since he climbed on everything he could.







At the beach in Pornichet we had the first Moules dish. I continued with this dish quite many times afterwards as well :)



And in Guerande we had super delicious crepes. Mums!



After those few great days, we went to Ile de Re. I was a bit afraid that we would have a bad weather - when we were in Nantes, the last day was so rainy, but when we arrived to La Rochelle and then to Ile de Re, the sun was there :) Puh!
We stayed for lunch in La Rochelle, a town before the bridge to Ile de Re. Cozy town. Many tourists though. It started to feel like vacations.
ile de Re was soooo beautiful. Most of the houses white with pastel colors of shades and window finishing. And there were flowers all over.
Here the entrance to our B&B.











We rented bikes for 2 days and biked totally 40kms or so. We went to St. Martin - a very nice and cozy town. We also visited La Flotte and Loix. We stayed some hours at le Bois Plage. The only disadvantage was that we didn't take any UV cream when we biked so we sort of burned our faces and shoulders on the first day. Afterwards factor 50 was in use.



Salt collection on the way to Loix.

Summer is here!

It's been over a week now that we have a wonderful summer weather in Hamburg. It reminds me summer 4 years ago, when I came here as a trainee, for the 1st time.
Some days were super hot 36C or so... I mean, it is fine when you are at a beach but not in the office where the temperature gets around 30C..

This weekend Monica and I went to St. Peter-Ording - 2hrs drive from HH. A really nice place. Kind of feels like Denmark ;) So it was my swimming in the sea premiere this year! It felt so great in the water!!!







Germany gets to the semi-final...No comment. I think this team is really good, or super focus and somehow it works, but the whole paranoia in the country is just too much. In a way I'm glad I will be away for the final. Actually I hope it will be Holland-Spain in the final. But so far whatever I hoped for didn't come true..

Elections in Poland. Today the 2nd round Komorowski-Kaczynski. It looks good so far (Komorowski) but the final scores are ready tomorrow...I hope it will be fine!!

Just few more days and holidays!!!! Whoohoo! On Friday - France! Can't wait.

Football fever

So, it has started. World Championship in Football. Strange - it is my 2nd one in Germany. I was here for 6 months in 2006 and so I am here now...
Things that got changed - there are German flags all over; cars have 2 or 4 flags plus ome of them have "socks" on the car mirrors - looking as flags. OMG!
On top of that - there is those "trumpet" sounds all over and some kind of fireworks applied already now - at the first game for Germany. I don't know what's gonna happen in case they win... But maybe not my problem - maybe I'll be on holidays by then :)

The past week was very warm and humid. It was hard to breathe ;) But this weekend was a bit cool and cloudy. Alex came on Fri evening and yesterday we celebrated Monica's birthday. First a dinner at a new (for us) Italian restaurant in Altona (Cuore Mio), then some cuba libres in a bar while watching USA - England. We supported the US (for Dennis who was with us), actually England didn't really perform.
Today it was a lazy day...

The week hopefully will pass fast. On Fri - flight to Gdansk. Cool cause Filip will also come.

And then 3 weeks more and holidays! Can't wait!

June?!

So...only one blog in May... But that's what happens when you are away for 3 weekends in a row. After GBG, it was turn for Budapest. 24th May was a day off so I had a long weekend in BUD. It was 26C and sun - so different than the weather in HH. We walked in the city, went to Margaret's island - on Danube. Man made island - probably a popular place for Party's people during communist times. Now a sort of recreational place, with a track for running - ca 5 km long. Tennis courts, swimming pools, quite ok. We also went around the Parliament building and did some shopping downtown.

The weekend after was Sthlm and Kristin's and Kicos wedding. We stayed in a flat in Solna - arranged by Christer's sister. Alex arrived late on Fri. On Sat we went a bit around Gamla Stan and had a lunch downtown. Then quickly shower and change and went to the church. On the way there it started raining. Crap. But then during the party it got better so the night was nice. The party was really nice, with many beautiful speaches, a great atmosphere and a perfect band playing good songs. Nice!!! And my new heels were also good and didn't cause many problems ;-)
Sunday was a bit tough. Alex had to leave already at 5 AM to the airport. He landed in BUD by the time, I left to downtown Sthlm. A bit of shopping and lunch and then plane to Poland for a workshop. The week was a bit tough, and also the weather in Wroclaw sucked. Rain and 11C :-(

Now it's a great weekend in HH. Summer is here! At least for now :)
We just had a nice BBQ in the park.
Only 1 month and I have holidays!!

Long weekend in GBG and Fjällbacka

I was really hoping today that the volcano ashes would make some problems again and I would have to stay in GBG... Wishful thinking ;-)
I went on Thu before noon and came back today on Sun.
The agenda was quite tight but I managed with everything (well almost). On Thu I went t Jenny's and Iba's, we had a late lunch, talked for hours, it was great. I borrowed Tania's bike and biked like 5 years ago to work in Lindholmen. Except so much has changed!! There are so many new houses, buildings at Chalmers campus, etc. Amazing! And it felt so cool to bike there again.
In the evening - dinner with Dan and Leif. I picked a place and it didn't turn out to be any hit. But food was ok and wine as well :) Later on some beers at Jazzå.
Friday - a bit of shopping before noon. The day was sooooo nice!! Sunny and warm. After getting whatever was needed, I went over to Petra's and Magnus' place - we made some grill, many old friends came over. It was so nice to meet everybody again and spent some quality time. Mats - the BBQ master did also a perfect job! :)







The only sad part of this evening was that Alex didn't make it from Budapest...He was supposed to land around 8pm, but called at 7pm to say that due to some accident on a highway in Hungary he missed the flight :(( The good part was that he managed to get a place on a flight on Sat morning. So he arrived (together with rain though) on Sat around 10am.
We had breakfast and Alex and I went to visit Tania and Jan in Fjällbacka. The trip was a bit pain in the ... ue to rain. Soooo much of it!
But when we arrived to Fjällbacka it stopped so perfect timing ;-)
We had some coffee and went for a walk in Veddö - Jan was the guide.













After this walk, we went "downtown" to have some refreshments. We decided that we would stay over night in F-backa and drive in the morning to the airport.
We were sitting for ca 1hr in a café at the pier. So relaxing and beautiful.









Then we went home and had a dinner with fish, potatoes, cheese and an apple pie. Mums!!!
A short digestion walk at 23.30 :)

This morning Alex dropped me off at the airport - my flight was at noon and his after 8pm. So we had a short fika at Landvetter and then he went downtown and as I heard met a friend of ours in Borås. Wow!
This was such a great weekend. I really didn't want to leave. And we are for sure ready to go back (well for me going back, for Alex starting a new chapter in his life) :)