Cushions

New cushions on my soffa. Bought them in Mexico last Christmas. Do you like them? I do!

The lake

One thing I love about Gothenburg is how close to the nature you are. Take the tram for 20 min and you're either by the sea, ready to board a boat that takes you to the archipelago, or close to a lake.

Last Sunday, we opted for the lake for two friends. A bit of food, a book, sunscreen, bikini & sunglasses and here we go. When I went down the tram, I had a little walk. 

First, I passed this old house.

Passed the stable, didn't the see the horses this time though. :(

Continued and recognized these marvelous little cottages. You can book them for a wedding for instance. Anyone tempted?

Walked a bit more and finally arrived there. Our usual spot is on the peninsula that you can see on the left in the background, so that where I headed after taking the picture and being surprised on how little people there was this day. Holidays + nice weather, where were they? Eh! Only better and quieter for us.

We usually take the end end of the peninsula but there was people when we arrived (took the pic later). 

So we chose a spot a couple of meters from there. Put our blankets and towels on the ground and take off our shoes.

Suddenly a duck mommy with her babies passed by. It had to be a good spot.

So I laid down and did nothing the following 5 hours except from eating and talking with my friends and thinking how great life is.

Sweden at its best

Had a BBQ with some friends yesterday. We chose a nice little spot with a sweet view. Right?

You see the two churches in the distance? I live somewhere between the two of them. :)

Wedding outfit

Two weeks ago I was at a wedding outside of Stockholm. This time it was my good friends Brenda and Andreas that were getting married at Andreas' parents summer house which is located at a beautiful place by a lake. That's my only wedding this year, a change compared to the previous years where it was an average of three. 

Anyway, here is how I looked. I had the dress already that I wore two years ago at another wedding. And I just loooooved the peacock earing that I got in Mexico last Christmas and I thought the colours would be great together. After that, I just had to stick to the green-blue-turquoise color scheme.

Dance III

Here are some more pictures from the dance show I saw a couple of weeks ago. I've realized there are actually some other pictures from yet another number. So more pictures coming up! 

"Dance"

Summer is here

Summer has come. On the paper at least. When it comes to the temperatures, we're not exactly there yet in Sweden. We had around 25 degrees at the beginning of the month but now this week, it's more 15-16 degrees, brrrr. But in a way, not so surprising since this week it's Midsummer, a big celebration in Sweden about summer where, ironically the weather is usually bad, cold and with rain. But that's not what I wanted to write about.

Back to summer and warm temperatures. That's when I change my perfume to Pamplelune from Guerlain. I've had it for several years. The strange thing for me about perfume is that I have a very hard time to change, for a very long time I had only two, one in the winter and one in the summer. Pamplelune being the summer fragrance. And I can't wear it until the thermometer reaches a certain level. That's when summer is here for me. Summer, warmth, holidays, strawberries, swimmingpool... That's the associations I have to my perfume. No wonder I love it!

PAMPLELUNE: L’ESPRIT DU PAMPLEMOUSSE ET UNE NOTE DE BERGAMOTE

Au petit matin, les volets s’ouvrent
Le soleil se lève et réchauffe
Vue sur un verger d’agrumes 

Source: Guerlain.fr 

How about you and your perfumes? Do you change often? Do you have any summer favourites?

Dance II

A week ago, I wrote here about a Mexican dance show I saw here in Göteborg. Here are a couple of pictures. Click on the pictures to see them in their original size.

The dancers changed their outfits three times. The first ones (top pictures) are from Vera Cruz. The ones above are from Nayarit where the dancers are from. 

The last outfit was the most beautiful in my opinion, with larger than large skirt which creates great effects when turning and swirling. You saw a glimpse of the dress and of those effects in the Dance post. And I took a lot of pictures that turned out great. Will try to narrow down to a few and post them this week.

Handicraft

How fabulous is that?

Beautiful peonies

This bouquet is unfortunately no longer in front of my window and that's too bad. Gosh! These peonies looked amazing! I think peonies are now competing with azaleas and a couple more flowers to be my favourite.

Stockholm

Last week we had a long week-end, Thursday to Monday so my friends and I went to Stockholm for five days. First my train was cancelled (for a reason still unknown to me) so I had to wait for more than one hour at the train station. Then when I arrived in Sthm, I met my friends at the hotel and we hanged out on the terrasse on the roof and relaxed and planned the week-end. 

In the evening we walked through the city and Gamla Stan (the old town) and went to Debaser. During the winter this is a hip concert venue but in the summer they have a big outside terrasse and like a beach club feeling with DJ's playing. Really nice.

On Friday, we started with day (like the following ones) with a huuuuge and very good breakfast. After that, we walked through the city with some shopping stops and headed to Djurgården, one of Stockholm's 14 islands, past Skansen, the world's oldest open-air museum and to the Prins Eugens Waldermarsudde. Prins Eugens is the current king Carl Gustaf's uncle and his private residence was transformed into a museum when he died. 

On Djurgården, near Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde

My friend Vera joined us and we went in to see the Lars Wallin exhibition. Lars Wallin is a Swedish fashion designer who is celebrating the 20 years birthday of his fashion house. He usually designs clothes for the Nobel Price dinner and for the Swedish princesses Madeleine and Victoria. Last year for instance he designed 14 dresses for guests for Victoria and Daniel's wedding. The show was great!

On Djurgården, near Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde

After that we had lunch in heaven. Heaven being Rosendal's garden, an amazing place still in Djurgården, so green since you have nature all around, so calm, (så good food!), you wouldn't believe you're in the city. That's one of the things I love about Stockholm, even if you are in the city, the nature is everywhere! In the evening, we had dinner at a great Latin America inspired restaurant called Supper. Incredible food and a great experience.  

Östermalm seen from Djurgården

On Saturday, we went for some shopping, more walk throughout the city, a nice vegetarian lunch with a view over the city at Herman's and visited the photo museum Fotografiska. 

Katarina Church on Södermalm

View from Södermalm

View from the Herman's restaurant on Södermalm

View from the Herman's restaurant on Södermalm

On Sunday, more walk in the city. Have I told you by the way that the weather was great every single day? Blue sky every day and 25 degrees. A great feeling of summer. Anyway after that we stopped in a sports bar to see the Roland Garros final between Nadal and Federer. Well, only the first 2-3 sets because then we had to go back to the hotel because the others went a Jerry Seinfeld show. 

The Af Chapman boat on the island of Skeppsholmen

Monday was also a day off in Sweden since it's was Sweden's national day. I met my friends Anna-Carin and Sanna for lunch. We chose Moseback theater, which offers once again a great view over the city. After that, the temperature "required" we had an ice cream so we left Södermalm (the South island) and went to Gamla Stan, bought our icecreams and found a spot near the parliament, in sun, to enjoy the icecreams. There we were joined by Helen, who I had met on Twitter but never IRL. It was really nice to meet her. She also wrote about our meeting (in Swedish) here. :)

In the background, the National Museum

I spent my last hours in Stockholm with Romain on the deck of the Af Chapman boat. You know the floating youth hostel? They have now opened a café on the deck. I think it's quite recent because I didn't know about that. Not many people seems to do either which is good because it meant it was quite calm there in comparison with the crowd in the rest of the ctiy. 

On the way back to the hotel, we saw the military closing the streets so we asked what was happening. It turned out the royal family was going to leave the old castle in Gamla stan (they don't actually live there) to go to Djurgården. We waited to see them pass and managed to get a glimpse of them. After that, back to the hotel to get our luggage, buy some dinner and huuuge (and delicious) muffins from the Muffin Bakery on the way and jump on our train back to Gothenburg.

A glimpse of the princess Madeleine (Carl-Philip behind her, Victoria and Daniel were cut)

A glimpse of the Queen in the traditional Swedish costume

A great great week-end!