big sun

Today it was a beautiful day, very sunny and warm. When I woke up, I didn't need to put my music on because the birds were performing like Opera singers! This morning I did “almost jogging” for the first time this year (last time was August last year). Considering this long break, I set a 3km run-course (used to run 7-8km)and it was absolutely enough. To be honest, I could not run all the way, I sometimes walked, that’s why it’s “almost jogging”. And in the afternoon, my friend Sara and I sat on the balcony at my place. She asked me if I could prepare Japanese dinner for her, I made this with her, Chirashi-zushi (a kind of sushi without fish), kimpira-gobou (burdock/svartrot), soup and salad.

vigor

I’ve started doing some stretching in the morning, it’s just for 10 minutes but it gives me great energy for the day ahead of me. Other than this, trying less caffeine, less sugar, more vegetable and more smile!!
I have a mentor who always tells me the value of a smile & the power of a smile-“smile is important, especially on ladies’ faces”. I simply agree with her. Would be fun to find out if Swedish people or people being in Sweden too long think I am drunk, insane or an American (see my previous post) :-)

I found a sign of spring (pictured above).

a check-list of your "Swedish-ness"

To my non-Swedish friends in Sweden,

I found an interesting check- list. The original one contains more than 350 check items. This is just an extract of it. I enjoyed reading it, which means......

YOU KNOW YOU’VE BEEN IN SWEDEN TOO LONG WHEN...........

01. When a stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume:
a: he is drunk
b: he is insane
c: he's an American

02. You mutter "oy,oy,oy" continually to yourself even though you are the only one in the room.
03. You can use bra, fart, and slut in the same sentence without giggling (bra=good, fart=speed, slut =finished).
04. You start calling squid "black fish".
05. You accept that the best answer for a question is always "Jag vet inte" meaning "I don't know".
06. Silence is fun.

07. Sundays no longer seem dull with all the shops closed, and begin to feel restful instead.
08. You pass a supermarket and think "Wow, it is open, I had better go in and buy something!"

09. You no longer look at sports pants as casual wear, but recognise them as semi-formal wear.
10. You no longer see any problem wearing white socks with sandals.
11. Indoors you wear sandals with socks, regardless of the season.

12. You know the names of at least three different types of sill (pickled herring).
13. You know how to fix herring in 105 different ways.
14. You eat herring in 105 ways.
15. You no longer eat yoghurt, you drink it.

16. You think that riding a bicycle in the snow is a perfectly sensible thing to do.
17. You're complaining in January not because it's minus 10 degrees, but because there's no snow.
18. You regard it as sensible to eat ice cream when it is –15C.
19. It's May. It's 15C degrees. And you're stretched out on your balcony in your bikini trying to get a head start on your tan.

20. Your wife watches TV while you look after the kids.
21. You are no longer surprised when you see full-frontal male nudity in a commercial or on TV.

22. When offered a bottle of beer the first thing you look at is the alcoholic percentage.
23. You know the catalogue numbers of all of your favourite wines at Systembolaget.

24. While visiting England someone gives you directions and says, "It's about 5 miles down the road." You in turn ask, "Are you talking Swedish miles or English miles?"

25. A 25 % sales tax on just about everything is no big deal.
26. You don't find it strange that they add tax on top of the taxes.

27. You think everything in Sweden is good.

28. You think that reading this list is one of the most exciting things you have done for ages!!

new look

Hello again! It’s been a while since I updated this page last time. A lot of activities went on and my mind was busy and also lousy. After such a long silence, honestly I was falling into “quitting” mood but some of my friends kept asking me about my blog and I felt encouraged by them to restart it. So here I am, hello again.

Recently I am a bit into home decoration. I just feel like getting a new taste for my place where I get peace of mind. Here I am not trying to buy big pieces of furniture or change the wall paper but a new look can be gained just by replacing small things such as lamps, rug, bed linen, curtain etc. The lamp pictured above is my recent purchase. When I saw it for the first time, I didn’t know if I liked it or not. At 2nd look, I thought it was interesting and would suit my kitchen, so I bought it. Now I think I like it, but not sure….Anyway it is always exciting to have a new look on anything.

0630 - cleared! but ....

Japan’s Princess Kiko welcomed the first boy in the Imperial family for 40 years. In related to this, I’ve been reading articles about the debate over the change of the imperial succession law ( today’s law tells only men are allowed to become monarchs. But Crown Prince and Crown Princess have only a daughter). Living in a country where the importance of gender equality lies in the society, I am a bit curious to see where this Japanese debate is going. To make the imperial throne “gender-neutral (means that Y chromosome to be equipped is not a decisive thing)” would be a symbolic step-forward for Japan.


A bit about my life. I no longer exercise dance a lot, but today I felt like dancing and I visited a milonga (tango dance) in Copenhagen with some friends. There were a lot of good dancers and I had a lot of fun. We arrived there at 10pm and danced non-stop until 2am! It was quite a work-out! My dress got drenched and my feet full of bloody blisters… ay ay ay…

By the way, I think I can say I conquered 0630 wake-up, but being honest, still struggling when my arm reaches the alarm and keep it snooze a couple of times. Obviously I am not ready to move on to 0600 wake-up. Why is it so hard?

update on my morning snooze

I took a note of my wake-up time;

Mon 21 Aug - 07.20 (totally failed)
Tue 22 Aug - 06.30 (good!)
Wed 23 Aug - 06.50 (hmmmm, not accepted)
Thu 24 Aug - 05.30 (lodged at a hotel,couldn't sleep well at all)
Fri 25 Aug - 06.00 (again, not good sleep - woke up before alarm went off)
Sat 26 Aug - 06.00 (due to work)
Sun 27 Aug - 08.00 (I needed sleep longer)

the photo above is an evidence that I was up early. This shows the morning sky of Denmark where I stayed. I wouldn't say I conquered 06.30am wake-up. This week I'll be out of town, being in a different time zone but I'll stick to 0630 wake-up!!

to wake up without the snooze

Every morning my alarm goes off at 6.00am, I hit the snooze button and sleep for another 9 minutes. After 9 minutes, my alarm comes back, I hit the snooze button again and sleep for another 9 minutes again. After 9 minutes, my alarm comes back..... then I finally wake up at 7am or 7.30am. Can you count how many times I hit the snooze button before I get out of the bed? It is 7 to 10 times! How can it be so hard to wake up at 6.00am?

I want to be a morning person. That’s why I keep my alarm setting at 6 even though I cannot wake up. My goal time for waking up is ideally 5.30, in this way I gain 2 hours of available time in the morning. I could do a lot of things already in the morning! That's the point. Now to wake up at 5.30 tomorrow morning would be a bit too optimistic, so I should probably take it by lessening the time by half an hour. I have 6.30 to conquer this week and 6.00 next week and then 5.30.
Let me see if I can really stick to my plan.
Tomorrow morning, I can hit the snooze button only 4 times.

vacation

Long time no blog. Some friends of mine have started to ask me if anything is wrong with me. The answer is no but I was simply lazy.. Thank you guys who have been viewing my pages from time to time. The lesson to be learned is to blog little but often. One thing I should mention to you now is that I finally adopted one of the important Swedish customs, which I could not practice last 5 years --- it’s Looong summer vacation. To take a 4 week vacation in summer is sort of standard in Sweden and I took all July off this summer. In my position at work, it is a bit difficult to completely switch myself off from work for a month so I occasionally checked my emails and had my mobile phone on but things worked well and I had a very relaxing break.

Malaysia – Truly Asia Anyone who have watched BBC World last few months may recognise this phrase and song in an advert of Malaysia tourism. It’s a beautiful TV advert. I travelled to Malaysia and Brunei for 2 weeks on my vacation and spent some time in Japan. Malaysia racially embraces Malay, Chinese, Indian and many ethnic groups of Borneo. It’s interesting to see how all the races live in harmony. And historically the footprints of Portuguese , Dutch and British can be found on colonial architectures. Borneo’s rainforest offers us to see abundant wildlife, interesting plant life, jungle trekking trails and more. Secluded quiet beaches in Langkawi was nice, too. Brunei has very few things to see but interesting to visit there anyway to see that the Sultan has absolute power and his government accrues mountains of money from Brunei’s oil fields. The people are well looked after (provided with subsidised cars and free healthcare to all). The sultan seems to be so popular and supported by the people. I uploaded some photos from my trip. Please visit “Ryoko’s photos”

Malaysia ～♪　Truly Asia～♪♪

spring has come to lund

A gorgeous day - sunny and warm in Lund. Although trees are still naked and the wind is still chilly, I feel spring is finally on its way to Lund. People come out and sit in the sun. How nice to feel the heat of the sun after such a long harsh winter!

accent in language

Does time have a roll when it comes to learning a foreign language? Yes, it does. It takes time to obtain its large vocabulary, rich expressions, listening and understanding skill etc. But what about "accent"? If we speak a foreign language for long enough, then do we come to speak it native-like in its sound? Hmmm, I am not sure about it. Of course we should be able to improve it to much extent, but it does not seem to me there is a mutual connection between the length of learning and the improvement of accent.

And next question is that "Is that a problem to have a foreign accent in a language? "
I am sometimes told that the way I speak English does not really suggest that I am from Japan( I don't seem to have a strong Japanese accentin my English), but it does not necessarily mean I have a good communication skill in English. As a matter of fact, I meet people who have much stronger accents than I, but they could have much better overall communication skills. I don't believe there is an interrelation between accent and communication skill, either. So it is no problem to have an accent inlanguage communication. This is what I think.

Nowadays I've come to think that the accent in languages should be recognised as one's identity or one of physical features such as tall, fat, blond, tanned.
I personally feel friendly to English with Spanish and Indian accent. They sound so lovely.
A friend of mine gave me a song called "London is the place for me " by Lord Kitchener(www.calypsoworld.org/uk/london.htm). This song makes me purely happy and puts a big smile on my face. You understand why if you listen to this. I thought about the accent topic above while listening to this song actually....

what i want to write

It's been quite a while since I wrote here last time. Time simply flies so fast.

I want to write about the harsh winter weather in Lund, about my tough relationship with -10 degrees' world, about problems with my dry nose (pain in the nose) and dry legs in the dry cold air.
I want to write about some trips I made, about my 1st experience of splendid tango-dancing in Tokyo, about Barcelona's palm trees under the big sun and my old friends, about unexpected great meetings with some people and unexpected troubles with flights and loss of my valuables and belongings during the trips.
I want to write about having been ill in bed straight after the new year's day, about benefits of sleep for health and beauty, about interesting medical check-ups I went through.
I want to write about pleasures of good food and drink, about my recent learning of red wine.
I want to write about Skype as my life companion and about installation of cool 100Mbit/s speed broadband.
I want to write about what happens to my mind when I think about spring and summer to come hopefully soon! I will have a lot of terrific plans towards summer.

I have a lot more to write, but I'd better stop here. It's Monday tomorrow, not my favourite day.... I need to go to bed now.

こんにちは ２００６年

（Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｏｎｌｙ）
今日は日本語です。いつも英語で書いてしまうと、同じ内容を日本語に訳すという作業が怠け者の私にはとても面倒 で、英語ばかりの記述になってしまっている 私のＢｌｏｇですが、年始の挨拶くらいは日本語できちんと！と思い立ちました。と、年始と言っても、もう１月も中旬。本当はもっと早くにご挨拶 を・・と思ってりましたが、風邪で年明け早々から寝込んでました（言い訳）。。今年の風邪はしつこく、まだ抜けません。空咳と熱です。日本は今年は寒いと 聞いてお りますので、皆さんもお気をつけて・・・。

２００５年は皆さんにとってどの様な年でしたか？嬉しい事、怒った事、悲しい事、楽 しい事、様 々な出来事があったのではないでしょうか？私にとっても色ん な感情を経験した１年でした。中でも気持ちが沈んでしまう事が少し多い年だったかな、と感じます。人との別れや日本の家族の事で気を揉んだり、仕事で落ち 込んだり・・・。しかし、何か１つ失うと、何か１つ得、そしてまた何か１つ失う、という何かプラス／マイナスの”流れ”のようなものがあるのかな？と思わ されたような１年だった気がします。

２００６年、風邪を引きながらの散々な年明けでしたが、それでも早速いくつか快いニュースに恵まれ、まずまずのスタートを切ったかな、と思ってます。２００６年はいい年になりそうな予感。
怠 け者の私でも、一応、今年の誓いを立てました。健康的で（特に風邪引きの身には）、自発的で、そし て創造的な２００６年にすると・・・。自分が関わる社会、会社、知人 ／友人は何を必要としているのかという点と、自分は何をしたいのか、何ができるのかという点をはっきり意識しながら、その点をつないで行く努力をして行き たいと思います。

日本にいらっしゃる皆さんとはなかなかゆっくり顔と顔を合わせてお話する機会がありませんが、何かの折にお便り頂ければ幸いです。あっ、そういえば、今週末から東京入りでした。何人かの皆さんとお会いしますねぇ。楽しみです。

では、皆さん、素晴らしい２００６年を創造して下さい！
亮子

letters

I trust you had a lovely Christmas with your family and I'm assuming many of you are still enjoying or will be enjoying the seasonal holiday now or soon. I've been receiving a couple of phone calls and SMS from some friends asking me where I am now (I guess it's because I usually disappear from Swden when I have a week off or more). I am actually in Sweden this Christmas break even though I've go a 2-week-off and even though Sweden is dark and icy cold in this period of the year. This doesn't sound so exciting maybe, but in fact I am enjoying a suitable amount of "blank & calm" time, which doesn't demand me to make plans or efforts for anything. I just wake up every morning, and do whatever I feel like doing.

I, even so, have some guests visiting me to take care of and flying up to Stockholm for some activities this week, otherwise I am spending my time reading a lot, writing a lot and eating & sleeping a lot!! This is also a great opportunity to do things which were not always on the top in my priority list, such as browsing my photos and organizing them in the photo folders (done), refreshing the list of all my contacts (done), reading back my diaries (done), making a collection file of my 100 favorite songs/music 2005 (not done yet - Sven, I need your help!) and restarting my French study (done, but it's another story if I can continue it or not...) ect.

Another good thing I've done is clean up my letter box. This box contains piles of letters and cards sent to me by my friends, beloved ones and families in the last 7, 8 years until today. Reading some of them, I realised again how warm, personal and touching the words written by hand are, compared to the ones typed on the keyboard. And now I'm writing some letters by using a pen and papers, and my hand!!

A Happy New Year to everyone!

Do all Swedes drive Volvos and live Ikea furnished houses? - my insight on Sweden (2)

I have seen some similarities between Swedes and Japanese people - both of them are shy, stiff, humble and taciturn. The mentality of "a nail sticks up gets hummered down (to be average is to be safe)" exists here as well. I would emphasize, however, "A nail sticks up too much doesn't get hammered down" in Japan while "every nail sticks up -no matter how much it sticks up- gets hammered down" in Sweden. This might be the reason why there're so few Rolls-Royces to be seen (they can be too obvious a sign of success) and why even rich people don't have 'flamboyant' life styles in Sweden. To be average is to be safe.
One thing I should add after referring to "Swedish average life" is I have lived in several countries and I find Sweden's life-standard is proudly high.

By the way, winter has arrived in Lund. We'd had the 1st snow today for this coming winter.
Everyone, keep yourself warm and look forward to Christmas!
( advent candlestick - pictured on the top )

Farewell

Monday morning -- first thing I felt when I woke up this morning was emptiness and sadness. My boss is soon taking a new big challenge in his career back in Tokyo, and last Friday was his last working day in Sweden. I have been working closely with him for 2.5 years, and today I didn't receive any emails, phone calls or SMSs at all from him, which I used to receive a lot, and his office is just dark, quiet and so empty -- it feels so strange. I think that we sometimes don't realize how attached we become to some of our bosses along our career, especially the very good ones.
I really admire his big contribution to our business and appreciate his encouragement to us, now wish him a good health and success in the new business field!!

internet access in the sky

SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) nowadays offers wireless high-speed internet access on board. You can surf the web, receive and send emails at your seat in the airplane. The rate is about 30 US$ for a flat fee(there is an alternative way of payment too). I am right now flying from Tokyo to Copenhagen, which is more than 11 hours' flight and with the internet access I am no longer bored to be on this long hour flight! This is so cool!!

By the way, on this flight I am seated next to Aki Teiskonen(Finland), a racer of World Rally Championship for Production Cars. He participated in a race in Hokkaido, Japan and now heading to Corsica for another race, then continue to Spain. I have no knowledge about Car Rallying but it is fascinating to listen to him about the car races, championship tour and his life.

side in / side out

What's out / to be out / need in.
What's out / to be in / need frame.
What's in / to be in / need out.
What's in / to be out / need to make a step.

I step OUT of my dream.
I step OUT of my bed.
I step OUT of my room.
I step OUT of my apartment.
I step OUT of my city.
I step OUT of my Country.
I step IN to your country.
I step IN to your city.
I step IN to your apartment.
I step IN to your room.
I step IN to your bed.
But I cannot step IN to your dream......

Joe Kanamori 2003

Budapest

Budapest was so beautiful and lively as rumours say. I especially liked the face of the city at night. The medieval buildings along the river Danube were beautifully lit up and the whole cit looked so marvelous.
I enjoyed some sightseeings, cafés, local cuisune (I actually learned how to cook a Hungarian dish!), relaxation (bath and massage) and of course Tango dancing.
And it was an unique, special and a bit emotional experience to see my friend whom I haven't seen for a decade.

I put up some of my photos taken in Budapest.
www.flickr.com/photos/tokyoryoko/

You also find it in "Ryoko's photos" under "Links" at the right side bar on this page.

Credit card fraud

25th is my pay-day. I usually don't care so much about the pay-day or my saving account status, but this month I checked it because I have an investment plan for this autumn (I'm a bit hooked on the play of funds & shares for a little excitement :-) Will blog about it some time!)

Sogu Kuala Lumpur 153 euro 20 Aug, 2005
Jasco BDR Puch 245 euro 20 Aug, 2005
Sogu Kuala Lumpur 98 euro 21 Aug, 2005

When I saw those lines on the page of my saving account status, firstly I asked myself,
- "Have I been to Malaysia recently?"
20th Aug is just a couple of days ago....
- "No, I was in Sweden on 20th Aug."
And secondly thought,
- "Did I do net-shoppings in Sogu K.L.?"
- "No, not at all."
And thirdly ,
- "OK, I was there 3 years ago, maybe the cost of my shoppings there were withdrawn now 20th Aug"
- "no, no, no,,,, that's silly. "

And then I finally realised,
"Oh, no!! This is a Credit Card Fraud!!".

I immediately called 24 hour service of my bank and blocked my card.

Afterwards, I talked to a colleague whose card was also abused some time ago, and in his case he didn't notice the strangeness for 3 weeks and the fraudster kept on making purchases 3 to 4 times/day, almost everyday for 3 weeks until he blocked his card and the total sum of the fraud soared to more than 10,000 euro!!

In my case, I only found the cases dated 20th and 21st Aug so far. Considering money transactions sometimes take a couple of days, there is a possibility that "my" fraudster might have been enjoying his/her shoppings with my card until 26th Aug when I blocked it, and the purchase reports haven't been shown yet on my account status on the net, and I'm fear this could be the case.

Anyway I'll leave this nasty happening behind me for now and set off on holiday again. I'm on my way to Budapest! I'm so excited about this first visit and also to see a friend of mine I haven't seen for 10 years!!

Are Swedes cold and boring? - my insight on Sweden (1)

Already!? autumn scenery (last week taken)

Lakeside at sunset

What and how much do you know about Sweden?

You have probably heard some of the names of Sony Ericsson (where I work at! well, it's actually headquatered in London though), Ericsson, Ikea, Volvo, Tetra Pak, H&M, Abba, Bjorn Borg etc.

What I knew about Sweden before arrining here were Viking, aurora, ice Hotel, vodka, hight taxe rates and a strong welfare state, and my images of Sweden were the girls are beautiful (which is true), people are tall and blond ( for some peole yes but not everyone), suicide rates are higher (not sure if this is really true : but it is locally said so too) and pornography is widespread ( not ture - unfortunately, Joaquim - : we sometimes confuse nakedness with sex, Swedes are simply nature oriented and less prudish, I think).

Chatting with, for example, taxi drivers who are often immigrants from warmer climates, they quite sometimes say Swedes are cold, boring people, who don't know how to have fun.
From my point of view, I feel that to describe Swedes as cold is absolutely unfair. They are very warm, kind and sincere but it takes time to get to know them.
People's life, even everyday life, seems to run on the basis of organized plans and agreements. Here is an extreme example, but some people make their holiday plan 1 year ahead on where to go and what to do, and book flights for next year!!
I wonder how successful "lastminutes.com" is in this country (he he...).
A lot of planning certainly bring you securities, but at the same time impromptu surprises might be missed in life, which I personally appreciate to be happened.

(to be continued)

Protagonista in Tango?

Last weekend I danced Tango outdoors just beside the seawater of Oresund strait in Malmo, Sweden. To be honest, I am not really much of outdoor dancing by several reasons - e.g. it looks too healthy for my very personal and almost illusional image of Tango (for me Tango is something related to "black & white""mysterious""bitter" and I like that special atmosphere, not many places serve this ambience though.. ), but the outdoor dancing turned out to be very enjoyable and I liked it a lot. I felt dancing with some sea breeze and sea smell in the sun somehow made me feel as if I was a protagonista in a dance film or something (sounds silly?). Anyhow this is arranged by Steve, who is well know in Malmo/CPH by his dance of course and his social skill and network. And all ladies love to dance with him, he is so popular. Everyone of us appreciates your effort for keeping this on. Thank you.

Early bird

What can I say, but life is good today. Things started out pretty good. One reason of this is that I woke up early this morning -- woke up at 05.30am (usually at 07.30 or later), did some private stuffs home, got prepared and I started my work around 08.00 (usually at 09.00 or much later sometimes)!! The point is I got extra 2 hours in the morning when my body and mind were very fresh after sleep. I could do a lot in this 2 hour free time, that 's what I found today... but I am not sure if I can do this again tomorrow morning.... I sometims have insomnia and extremely low blood pressure, my alarm doesn't work properly---- (Yeah, just excuses, hi hi...). I will try to get up early and will have another good day tomorrow too! (if my alarm works properly - still excuse... )

By the way the picture shows my office. I spend more than 8 hours a day in this space. It's small, but I like this room. I sometimes decorated the window with flowers, but not today (Hey guys, why don't you send me some flowers!!).

（Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｔｅｘｔ　ｂｅｌｏｗ）
日 本の皆さん、お元気ですか？Ｂｌｏｇを始める際に、英語で書くか日本語で書くか大変迷ったのですが、どちらか一方を選ぶのではなく、欲張って両言語で書 けばいいんだ！という簡単な事にこれまで気付かずにいました（冷汗）。それを教えてくれたスペインの裕子ちゃん、ありがとう！おそらくメインは英語になる かと思いますが、たまには日本語でも書くようにします！よろしく。

Palamos in Costa Brava // Oms in Pyrenees

The weekend in Palamos was great! The town was small and cozy and the sea water was transparent and the beach is more relaxed than, for example, Costa del Sol. We (Yuko, Joaquim and I) enjoyed Calatan cuisine, ceramic shopping (it's famous in this region), sun bathing and swimming in the sea! Yuko, Joaquim, let's go to more north (towards France) next time and try to find our own "private beach", then I could try "topless" as Yuko recommended me to do
(I was too shy...)

Sunday evening I went beyond Spanish/French boarder to french side of Pyrenees. I came from the beach to the mountain with a drastic change of the climate and the view! I was warmly invited to this place (a village called Oms) by a friend of mine Lisa and I had a fantastic time with her and her family even though the weather was not as good as we expected (it was overcast and drizzling unfortunately).

By the way,
I was always interested in learning French and I bought some study materials even 6 or 7 years ago, but I never started. Last March I had an opportunity to stay in Cannes, France for a week and I was again strongly inspired to learn it and I actually started (proud of myself!) a couple months ago! It is still going little by little though. During my stay at Lisa's I listening to Lisa speak in French and I was melting down by its beautiful sound.

To Yuko, Joaquim, Kunrat, Terressa, Lisa, Nicky, Noa, Lonia and all other people I met in Costa Brava and Oms, THANK YOU very much for your warm welcome and hospitality!!

Tango milonga in Barcelona

For tango guys,
Just a small piece of info on a milonga in Barcelona.
Casa de Valencia - C/ Corcega 335
Open on Thursdays, 22.00 - 01.30, entrance 6 euro
Full of people(maybe 100 people last night), a lot of male dancers. Mainly milonguero style. Traditional tango music. Large wooden dance floor, open atmospher and friendly people.
I visited on my own, but didn't have any problems in finding partners. I guess people are used to receiving foreign dancers.

Gaudi for the five senses - La Pedrera

Hola amigos!
I'm in Barcelona, spending a take-it-easy style of time in this busy city, which I found not too bad. Anyway no sightseeings are in my favor (since I used to live here before), instead, I'm sitting in different cafes reading books or watching people and checking new shops in the daytime, and dancing Tango at night!

I, however, did a specific sightseeing, which I do every time I'm in BCN - visited`La Pedrera`. This is one of Gaudi's works and constructed as a residencial building about a century ago. This modernista building is just so beautiful both in its exterior and interior, and even on the smallest details like a door handle, door frames and so on. When I enter this building, I feel like as if I was in the water, completely shut out from the outer world. It's like a spell that entrances all my five senses!

We are heading for the beach - Costa Brava - for this weekend!!

Happy Summer

Dear All my friends,

First of all, HAPPY SUMMER!!

I am here, writing my 1st blog as a general and experimental means of creating an open communication between all my friends & family and myself!!

I haven't been good at writing emails to each of you and I felt unhappy about that. Now I believe this blog would be a good and easy way of keeping in touch with everybody, and I'm looking forward to your feedback and comments as well :-)

I'll write in English to cover as many friends as possible, but don't hesitate to write me back in any language you usually write to me. The important thing is not language, but communication.

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Now the middle of July, Sweden is practically quite closed for vacation and I myself on vacation too! I'm off to Barcelona this Tuesday(See you soon, Yuko, Joaquim and Lisa!). I'll try to write you from there!
Please reply to me from here if any comments ↓