Weekend in Gdynia

This weekend I'm at my parents' place in Gdynia. Came on Fri evening and actually staying until Monday. Magda with her boys came as well so it was a full house those 2 days :) Nice! We had a really good time together, nice dinner with family, walk at the waterfront in Gdynia. Max is such a cute little boy!
Here with his mom:



Family at the beach:




Tomorrow - another massage session. I've got to fix my back. And flight back to HH in the afternoon. Of course the trip is like a big project but cheap flights - what to do...

In the middle of fall

Forgot to say last time - Robyn's concert last Sunday was soooooo great!!! She is so cool and talented and a great performer! We had so much fun! Of course not so many Germans were dancing but we did a lot. Met also a very interesting man around 70 year old who goes often to different concerts. Amazing!
This weekend was also nice, with sun but not such high temperatures. Fall is here. We spent time with friends, had dinner (again) i L'Orient (a lebanese restaurant nearby) - which was as ususally nice. Then Handan, Hamid, Alex and me went to our gym for a party. I know...a strange concept to have club in a fitness place but we just went to experience it once. Nothing special, a lot of Untz Untz Untz music; on one floor with "black music" is started OK but then turned to too much salsa and so on. Cool but not for such a long time! Especially when there are 3 couples dancing!!!!
Today we met again with some friends for fika. Nice, relaxing and fun.
Usch Monday tomorrow. Not looking forward. Next weekend - a family weekend in Poland. Alex will be off to Romania.

Hiking

October is here. What happened to September?! ;)
In the week I had to do my car's service. So the mechanic guy showed me what has to be replaced and fixed: shock absorbers (they broke when he wanted to change them!), brake pads and discs were the major highlights. I assumed the price would be around 600EUR. It ended up at a bit over 1000EUR!!!!!! OMG!! So freaking expensive!!! So now I seriously consider getting rid of the car...OK, I didn't have to give it to VW/Skoda workshop but generally it is super expensive to own a car.

Weekend is almost over. Why?????
Today we went hiking in Harburger Berge. At least some nice nature and a bit of a hill :)
I expected more wild trails but we tried to go off from the main hiking "roads" or riding paths. It felt so good to have my hiking boots again!
It smelled mushrooms in the woods but we didn't find any good ones...











This week there will be some action at work, also a trip to France. And next weekend we will go to Robyn's concert on Sunday! Yuppi!!

Hmmm....

Such a long break in updating this blog... Many reasons - mainly I think being lazy, but also not so much happened since my vacations. Work work work. Fall has arrived earlier than anybody expected. It starts to be dark when you get up, and also around 19.30. I don't want it! I know - each year the same story. But I didn't get enough of summer!!!! Actually it feels that summer was sort of 5 months ago. So weird!
Anyway, what happened since last time - Alex came back home. Now focus is on finding a job in Sweden. On top of that he has a broken sternum (chest bone) so he has to take it easy for 5 more weeks.
I don't have anything broken ;)
The weather doesn't really help my bones though... (Karolina, 68 years old ;-)

Last weekend we had a late birthday celebration (Alex). It was fun! Although so much alcohol is left that I think we need a new party at home. Maybe Halloween? ;)

This weekend my parents and Filip came to visit. So nice! We had an obligatory shopping round downtown. Shopping project was successful for everybody but me. How hard can it be to find a pair of shoes?!?! ;) In the evening we had a dinner in a very nice restaurant at Fischmarkt (Kasematten) http://www.river-kasematten.de/. Fish was perfect! A plan to go out later on was not really an option since Filip's plane was quite early today.
The eternal greyness on Sunday has been awful! Rain rain rain. Blä!

A new week is coming. Hope it will be a good one. I cannot believe that we almost have October. Scary!

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.