Vapiano with Anna

Vapiano is an Italian restaurant chain spread out all over Europe which has gain quite huge success during the last five years. It is simple, has quite good prices and the food it ok. Italians would rather cut their throat than calling the place “an Italian restaurant” but all other Europeans seems to love it. 

I do appreciate their slogan “chi va piano, va sano e va lontano” which in this case should be understood as “Who´s having an relaxed and easy-going approach will be more healthy and live longer”. I believe the same! But you better be relaxed if having dinner at Vapiano as you have to stand in a very slow queue to be able to order your food as the poor chef as to cook it in front of every single customer. I believe the quality is quite low but it is an ok place for a quick dinner with a food anyway. 

Anna and I ended up at Vapiano Skrapan as the place (Koh Pangang) we were supposed to go to was over packed. At Koh pangang people are not allowed to book a table in advance so when we arrived it was a waiting list over an hour to get a table for two so we gave up and went to Vapiano. 

xoxo

Dog pub night at Brew Dog

In Sweden it is not very common that you bring along your dog to the bars, restaurants or coffee places. Actually there are only few selected places where you are allowed to bring you dog with you, in most places the dog is just banned to get in. It can be seen as quite rude to tell someone to leave the dog outside (or at home) but it all a respect of allergic people. It is a shame as this omits dog owners to be able to join friends for dinners or lunches out. 

In Italy it is kind of the opposite, you are allowed to bring along your dog to most bars, restaurants and shops and I can say I prefer it that way, even if I am one of dog allergic people… 

Yesterday the Brittish pub Brew Dog (that quite recently opened up a pub at Kungsholmen in Stockholm) held a dog event together with the group "Hundvänliga Stockholm" where everyone that popped by for a after work beer could bring along their dogs. Let’s say the event was a big success as so many people showed up with their dogs in all shapes and sizes. People (and dogs maybe) mingled around and talked about dog-kindergardens in town, the most healthy dog food on the market, the best dog schools ecc. My mum, Stella and I joined for one and an half hour before I had to rush away to my training. It was a fun and different event. 

xoxo

Cozy zombie Sat and a hectic Sun

Brunch with Cicci, Laura, Zuzana and Tobi at String

Soon I am about to say thank you and good night to this weekend. Suddenly the weekends just flies by and I feel that I don't even have time to take a deep breath and relax.

I guess that my mistake is that my weekends are too full of plans which means I just rush from one spot to another without having a true possibility to do what I actually need to do or want to do in that particular moment. I really try to keep my Saturdays and Sundays out of plans but in some kind of way they fills up with things anyway. 

The only two plans I had today was to meet up with some friends for brunch this morning and then attend my street dance class in the afternoon. On between I was looking forward to do some washing, cleaning and just relaxing at home. It didn't really turned out to be like that. As the weather was fantastic (blu sky, sunny and 8 degrees counts as being a fantastic weather a february day in Stockholm) I decided to take a long walk in the woods in my area after the brunch and Cicci and Laura decided to join. Then Laura and I went for a tea. Then I rushed to the dance class. Then I got home, had a shower and once again rushed out for a drink with a friend. And now, at 10pm I am finally at home but it is almost time to go to bed already. Sunday is gone. But I shouldn't complain. Even if I would have preferred to have few hours of doing nothing I have had a really good day.

Dessert time in cosy Skogås. 

Also yesterday was a quite good day even if it was slightly short. I got out of bed after a1pm in the afternoon, had lunch with Johanna and then went straight out to Skogås for dinner at Lisa and her boyfriend's place. At midnight I was already in bed again. But it was a good day anyway. Especially the evening in Skogås was just what I needed. A really cosy and relaxing night in.

With that I say good night to this fairly short weekend and I welcome a new challenging week at work and fun plans for the evenings. 

Buona notte!

xoxo

Norwegian girls night out

I had a really good evening last night. Though facebook I managed to find out my Norwegian friend. Hege, from London was visiting Stockholm over the weekend so we organized a little last minute girls night out at Hotellet. I don't have words to describe how happy I was to see Hege again. She used to be kind of my best friend for a quite short period of time in London before she moved to Malta and left me alone in London. 

Before I went out I had dinner with my kindergarden friend Anna that finally (and I mean Finally) has moved back to Stockholm after many months on the other side of the atlantic sea. 

A fantastic evening!

xoxo

Fabulous Fit Thursday

Lets say I have had a good Thursday when it comes to exercising. Well, I have had a good day in general actually but I am mostly proud of my training results. 

At lunch I went with my new colleague Jaqueline for a boxing session. I haven't been boxing since I was in London so that was an experience. I felt my arms and shoulders aching the whole afternoon every time I had to lift anything as light as a piece of paper. The SEB kort office has a own gym that every day offers different kinds of workout classes for free for all employees. It was fun but nothing special. Most of all I went as I want to get to know my new sweet colleagues. 

Then after work it was time for some more exercising. I met up with Lisa, that finally have got herself a SATS membership and together we attended a "shape" class at Zenit. It is a highly intensive group training class and already within the first half of the class I could feel my arms on strike but in some kind of way I managed to give my all until the end.

There are many Swedes actually that exercise twice a day. Many people goes to he gym at 06.30 in the morning to manage to do an hour of training before heading to work. They say its the best way to start of the day. I don't believe so. Others loves to get out of the office for lunch training just to fresh up the brain for a while. I can get that  Then, most people seems to train almost every evening. You Italians might think, oh my god, they are crazy, and that is what I thought as well when I moved here but suddenly I am one of those crazy people.

However, I won't start exercising twice a day. It is too much for my little body. I might use the lunch training those days I am not able to to to the gym in the evening but that's it.

xoxo

Hello our little Victoria Secret box!

We all need some self-pampering from time to time!

About a month ago, during the dark and boring month of January my friend Tobi came with the brilliant idea to do some shopping/orders together from the US. Zarah and I sat down an afternoon to carefully eye through the whole Victoria Secret web page and made a fun little order. Last night, a month later, we got it. I was thrilled like a kid on Christmas eve when I picked up the box, carried it home and started tearing it apart. We got a colorful mix of training clothing, underwear and make up and even if everything we ordered didn’t arrive it was a gratifying feeling to get all those new things! My question is why we haven’t got Victoria Secret in Stockholm as I am sure it would sell very well… 

xoxo

A weekend in Åre with Cicci and the Dutch gang

Åre! Åre! Åre! 

It used to be my favorite holiday destination in the late 90's and few years on but then I broke my knee in a ski accident (in Åre) and after that I didn't go back. Not until now. Actually I haven't been overly interested in skiing at all since that accident and I didn't expect to like it this time either, but I was wrong. I just loved it. Cicci had to drag be out of the slopes as I didn't wanna stop skiing. It's such a wonderful feeling flying down the slopes.... To bad it is kind of a complicated and expensive hobby that needs lots of planning before getting away anywhere. But I hope to be able to plan one more skiing trip this year!

However, to make a long story short I have been up in Åre for the weekend. Cicci, Antal and I left on Thursday evening and took the night train up and arrived in Åre at 08 in the morning. Might sound horrible but it was actually a quite comfortable trip. We kind of went straight out skiing. It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed every second of it. In the afternoon Cicci and I went to the afterski and had such a fun time. People goes crazy at the after ski's, suddenly the shy Swedes becomes a bunch of screaming rock stars. In the evening we just went out for dinner with the gang we lived with. Oh yea, forgot to say we shared a cottage with Antals four friends from the Netherlands, all guys. 

Saturday was a less good day out on the slopes. It was very windy, actually they called it stormy so many of the arial lifts were closed. In the afternoon it started snowing heavily as well and we were almost alone out on the slopes. So sad that one of two days of skiing almost got destroyed. No, I really have to make sure to go skiing at least once more in 2013!

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On the 14 hours night train up to Åre - Cicci, Antal and lots of snacks

 Me in my train bed 

 08.00 - Good morning Åre!

 Straight out on the slopes

 Beautiful day!

 Lunch with the whole gang at Fjällgården

 The gang on the top of the mountain

 Super duper fun afterski party at Fjällgården

 Dinner out with the gang

 View from our house

 Stormy day...

 Cicci in action

 Well needed lunch

 Snow storm

 Tired people...

 Not too much people out in the snow storm...

 The guys were kicked out while the girls were watching the euro vision

 Went dancing at the club Bygget but for some reason we forgot to take photos... Here we are, the whole gang, back home tired and happy :-)

 Last breakfast with the gang

Wonderful trip and now I just wanna go skiing as soon as possible again.

xoxo

Happy valentines day!

I just got back from Åre, the Swedish alps, after an absolutely fantastic long weekend away with friends and what you see above are what I found at home. A lovely bucket of flowers from Zarah and the poster I felt in love with at Fotografiska last weekend from my dad. On top of that my mum had passed by cleaning the dishes I had left when rushing away the other morning. 

Normally I don't like valentines day. I like the idea of a day celebrating the love in the world but I don't like the commercial stress around it. 

However when coming home really tired and a bit sad the great ski trip already is over I got very happy over my valentines gifts cheering up my evening. 

Hope to add pictures and little story from the ski weekend tomorrow evening.

Good night from a very tired girl.

xoxo