Fotografiska with Matteo and Johanna

My favorite museum in Stockholm is Fotografiska. I am not sure if it actually is a museum or just an exhibition hall? However, it is kind of centre of contemporary photography exhibiting both world famous- and some less famous photographers from all the world. 

As the weather wasn't overly good on Saturday Matteo, Johanna and I decided to spend the afternoon at Fotografiska and we saw four interesting exhibitions. I just loved the ones of Jill Greenberg and Elliot Erwitt and some of my favorites are shown below. 

- Elliott Erwitt .

- Jill Greenberg - 

xoxo

Brunch at String and the view from Gondolen

February might not be the best time of the year to visit Stockholm. A week ago we had -3 degrees and the whole city was full of snow and all white. Very beautiful and cosy. Then suddenly it got warmer and the snow disappeared. Today we had 5 degrees and just gray weather. 

We had a great start of the day anyway as Johanna, Matteo, Arancha an I went to Cafe String for my favorite breakfast/brunch in town. We ate until we felt like exploding then we took a walk down to Gondolen to have a good view over the gray Stockholm.

On the first picture you see Johanna and Matteo showing an egg. A (normal?) white egg. Matteo states that in Italy all eggs are brown/pink and he was very impressed about the clear white eggs we got at the brunch this morning. It is one of those things that I would never think about as in Sweden we got both brown and white eggs but maybe in Italy they only have the brown eggs then...? Quite funny discussion :-)

xoxo

Ireland reunion at restaurant Bara Enkelt

Exactly 9.5 years ago I went for my first international Erasmus exchange semester in Limerick in Ireland. It might have been some of the best months in my life. I learned a lot but more important was that I met amazing people that I hanged out with every single day during those six months. 

 Johanna and Matteo are two of those amazing people I got to know there that are still my very close friends. As Matteo now is here in Stockholm visiting yesterday I organized a little Ireland reunion and invited Simon and Marie that also studied with us in Limerick. So, the five ex Limerick students and some others of my friends met at the bar/restaurant Bara enkelt at Söder. It was Chris that recommend the place for me the other day and it was actually really good. Great food and good prices on both food and drinks.

Great evening!

xoxo

A really good training week!

This week has been the last week of "freedom" for some time and therefor I made sure to make it a really good training week at the gym. For me a good training week consists of varied training containing both cardio, weights and mobility. 

Monday: Crosstfit! Intensive and hard muscle training.

Tuesday: Sats Energy, which is a cardio class focusing on endurance and constant movement.

Wednesday: Yoga - straights and mobility

Thurday: My last hiphop zumba class with Norberto at Medborgarplatsen. I will miss it. Very much.

Today, Friday: Body pump followed by triggerpoint. Body pump as you can hear from the name muscle training. Triggerpoint is the kind of self massage and very painful class I attended once and then promised myself never to do again. I happen keep hearing and reading how good and important triggerpoint training is for people exercising a lot so I have to squeeze it in my training schedule more often. The only thing is that it hurts so much.

Tomorrow Saturday is my day off from the gym and on Sunday I have my street dance. 

That is what I call a very good week at the gym! :-)

Today my Italian friend Matteo arrived to Stockholm and he will be staying with me the whole weekend so I guess it's gonna be a tourist weekend. First thing we did when he arrived this afternoon was to go for a "fika" at Starbucks having a chai latte and American pancakes. Welcome to Stockholm!

xoxo

Flashdance at China teatern

Flashdance the musical is a stage adaptation of the musical film with the same name from 1983. I can immediately admit that I have never seen neither the movie nor the musical so it was a really great experience to see the musical live here in Stockholm tonight. 

The plot was exiting, the scenography was cool, the dances were great and many were really good singers and in total I just loved it. I even cried in the end. 

The theater itself, China teatern, is a very small place to set up such big success musical but it was nice anyway. Nothing like all the musical theaters I am used to visit in London but it was kind of cosy. 

As you might know I am a massive musical fan but I would anyway recommend this musical for all you Stockholm people reading this blog! It really was great. 

What a feeling! :-)

xoxo

Little celebration

Last night Stella and I went to my friend Chris for dinner and he surprised me with a bottle of champagne to celebrate the new job :-)

I actually still can't believe I got a job and that from Monday and onwards my days will be spent in a Swedish office. It is my first real Swedish job and I am quite sure the differences working in London, Italy and Sweden will be quite big. I am so exited and I promise to share my first thought about the Swedish working culture with you. 

This is little Stella. My mums cute little dog that spend the evening and night with me. It was so cosy to fall asleep and wake up with her by my side. I so wish I could have a dog of my own but I know it wouldn't be fair as I just don't have the time to spend with it.

xoxo

My first real Swedish JOB CONTRACT signed

So now I can tell you... My past three weeks has been extremely hectic and stressful thanks to my busy job search schedule. 

I have had over 20 interviews. I have met 9 companies. I got 2 rejections and 7 job offers. 

It is absolutely insane! 

After have been living in Italy for 3,5 years where the job market is next to dead I was chocked over the massive response I got here in Stockholm when I started to apply for jobs. 

One of the rejections I got was my absolute dream job. I reached the forth and final interview and passed their big accounting test. In the end they choose between an auditor and myself and they choose her. It really broke me down. 

However, the same day (last Friday) I got another job offer for a big media company in town that I accepted. But then this Monday two more offers popped up and in the end I choose one of them. 

I gonna work as an accountant consultant for Amendo finance and my first long term assignment will be at the second biggest bank group in Sweden, SEB (Skandinaviska enskilda banken) in their payments and accounting department. 

I don't have any previous bank experience and I am very exited taking on this challenge! :-D

xoxo

Swedish cuisine at it's best

My Italian friend Paolo from London is here visiting and obviously he asked for good Swedish food for dinner so after my choir tonight I took him to my favorite Swedish restaurant, Dalanisse. He didn't only like it, he Loved it! :-)

Off to bed now as tomorrow is an important day.

Buona notte!

xoxo

Hosteria Tre Santi

I have finally found a really good Italian restaurant, Hosteria Tre Santi at Söder in Stockholm. 

The few Italian restaurants I have tried since I moved back to Stockholm has all been nice but absolutely nothing special and not worth its price. But tonight I really enjoyed my visit at Tre Santi. The staff was Italian (which normally is not the case at the Italian places here in Stockholm) and they only spoke Italian to us. The food was really nice and the place itself was both elegant and cozy. And so, I have a new number one on my Italian restaurant list :-)

The rest of my Sunday has been kind of lazy. I stayed in bed late this reading the news and drinking maybe 5 cups of hot tea. Then I managed to drag myself up and into the centre to go shopping some more things I need for my upcoming ski trip, for example a helmet. 

Then in the afternoon it was time for my street dance. I like it but anyway I feel I have to drag myself there each time. It is fun but I am not sure if its really my "thing". When I go body pumping, for my zumba or yoga I kind of fly away to the gym. I like it so much I just can't wait for the class to start but that is not really the case with the street dance. This was my third time and I have promised myself to give it six lesions before I decide if going on with it or not. Three more times to go then... ;-)

xoxo

Hello Sunday!

I find it so sweet when some of you sends me e-mails when I don't post anything on the blog for some days. I really get emotionally touched that people that I don't even know cares about me, it's just amazing. 

I don't have a good reason for not updating the blog for some time, I have just been very busy. It has been a hectic week with hard decisions to take, many interviews to attend, tests to do, people to meet and keeping up with my training. 

Friday was a quite bad day, I got bad news and was in a really bad mood the whole day. Not even my favorite zumba class managed to share me up, then you can get it was a really bad day, heh? Thanks god for my parents and my friends Zarah, Cicci and Niklas that did all they could to cheer me up and managed made me end the day with a smile on my face before heading to bed. 

In the evening I went to the cinema for the premier of Frozen in 3D. I don't have a clue why it came out this late on the cinemas in Sweden as UK and Italy released it long before Christmas. However in Sweden the premier was this Friday and obviously I had tickets to it. I have been waiting for that movie since Luisa visited me in November and told me how fantastic the film was. Unfortunately my expectations were to high and I got a bit disappointed, but it was sweet and gave me some good laughs.   

Yesterday was a much better day. I started it off with a good body pump class at Globen. Then I went to town shopping some things I need for my upcoming ski trip and I also managed to meet up Dario and Elisa for a lovely fresh mint tea at Cafe Schweizer. I had never been to that place before but it immediately jumps in on my toplist for coffee places in Stockholm. 

In the evening Cicci and I had a tacco dinner and watched the first quarter final of the Swedish eurovision song contact. I can admit that I expected nothing from it and maybe therefor I was happily surprised that I liked the show. Or actually I hated the show itself with bad tv presenters and crap jokes but the artists and the songs were really good. It was a great mix of music styles, voices, clothing and performances.

Today its Sunday and its raining outside so I guess Stockholm will loose all the beautiful white snow we have been having for some time. Too bad, because this week coming I have two Italian visitors coming to Stockholm and I would have loved to show them a snowy Stockholm...

xoxo