Next Station: LAPLAND

 

It has taken me some days to settle… I love Stockholm, I love to be here and I generally have fun, but I have needed some days to find my place in this city.

I’m already living in Södermalm, central to everything, and there are so many things to do and so many opportunities to have fun that I don’t know where  to start. So far it feels like I have  not done much, just wandering around and re-walking the streets I used to walk, butthat already felt like a lot!

Tomorrow I go to Kiruna with my mum. Kiruna is a city situated in Lapland and it is the northernmost city in Sweden. It is even above the Polar Arctic Circle! We will do a little tourism there, and specially, enjoy the Midnight sun

PLAN!

I’m sitting on the train from Kalmar to Stockholm, back to the big city. This trip has been awesome, being in the countryside has done very good to me and now I’m ready for more

I have decided that these two months in Stockholm I will try to find a job as a Spanish teacher and if everything works out and I get one I will stay for a while. Then I will go to Thailand or wherever it feels meaningful. This is the plan now.

In some old posts I wrote about the feeling of non-excitement during my travelling.  Still have it. When I was in Barcelona I really wanted to do this, this was something that was stuck in my head and I could only plan to do. Now I have been 2 months travelling in Europe and I have liked it a lot but I have not made the most of it. Being a lazy tourist is alright, but there are many things out there I have not even thought about or haven’t really felt like doing. That has been fine, if I haven’t felt like it, it would have been meaningless to do it, but now I’m ready. Yesterday I was hanging out in a house in the forest with some guitar freaks who made a song of every little thing we said and one of them said he should write a book about it. And then I remembered that 2 years ago I started to write a children’s book. Maybe it is time to take it serious, after all, I have time now and the lack of it is exactly what I have been using as an excuse. This is the plan, my friends: search for a job and write the book.. or at least shape it a little more.

Stockholm i mitt hjärta

Trainers, socks, legwarmers, tights, skirt, t-shirt, long sleeves, summer scarf, and summer jacket (or Spanish winter jacket). One has to like a place very much to  wear all those clothes at the end of June and get soaked under the rain and still have a smile on the face.

When I landed last Friday, the first I thought was “this time I’m staying”… and it looks like I’m going in the right direction, since I have a flat to stay during the summer and my plan is to find a small job, maybe a big job! For now I will stay in Södermalm, one of the greatest islands in Stockholm Each island has its own personality and I think Södermalm is the one that fits best with me. There are many bars, many restaurants, many types of people, there are new places, old places, there are parks and forests, is there a better place???

Today I am going south to a little town called Kalmar. I will be there during this week and I will celebrate Midsummer there, which, by the way, is not in the midd

le of the summer, but in the beginning; but I will tell you all about it after the next weekend.

I post some pictures of the island where I’m going to stay.. so you start to get jealous and book a ticket to visit me!!

Europe is nice..

Europe is nice. It feels like a big-little-cozy-happy town where every big-little-cozy house represents a country and you can just go from one to another one and see what it is like to live under each roof. Everything is a little different in every house but everything is the same after all… the differences and the surprises are expected and they all manage to make you feel like home. And then, when you have visited some of the houses in this town called Europe you wonder what it would be like to visit other towns…

But ya, I have to admit I like Europe, it makes me feel safe because I know how things work and I can always find my way and find a little piece of me wherever I am. I’m most of the times in control of the situations around me. I hardly ever find any challenges, because, as I said before, the surprises are expected most of the times. So next time people ask me where do I feel at home I can easily say “in Europe”… but wait, wait, wait… if Europe is home, shouldn’t I be travelling somewhere else?

I need challenges, I need to find situations that break my schemes, and I want to feel slightly out of control, maybe somewhere easy for a start, somewhere that already starts giving me this feeling without make it become a shock… any ideas?

Great Free Spirit!

Yesterday it was a day full of art! After the great brunch I wrote about before, I went to see how the artist was doing in Christiania, for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about:

Christiania, also known as Freetown Christiania was a self-proclaimed autonomous neighbourhood of about 850 residents, covering 34 hectares  in the borough of Christianshavn in the Danish capital Copenhagen. Civic authorities in Copenhagen regard Christiania as a large commune, but the area has a unique status in that it is regulated by a special law, the Christiania Law of 1989 which transfers parts of the supervision of the area from the municipality of Copenhagen to the state. It was closed by residents in April 2011, whilst discussions continue with the Danish government as to its future, but is now open again.

Christiania has been a source of controversy since its creation in a squatted military area in 1971. Its cannabis trade was tolerated by authorities until 2004. Since then, measures for normalising the legal status of the community have led to conflicts, and negotiations are ongoing.

So there is where I spent some hours “co-producing” a great graffiti that in my opinion embraces the spirit of the town. The idea of the city birds, looking straight into your eyes, as if they were saying: here we are, come if you dare. It is the “great free spirit” that raised this neighborhood and that you can read in the eyes of these birds who want to fly free.

Bevar Christiania!

P.D.: check out www.randomformation.com for some more sweet honey for your eyes

Sunday Brunch at Vesterbro

Today it is Sunday, I’m at Vesterbro, known as the hookers district in Copenhagen, although honestly nothing compares to the atmosphere in Calle Desengaño in Madrid or to OranienburgerStraße in Berlin with its super skinny and boobed-developed professionals of pleasure.

So, here I am, Sunday afternoon, windy outside (around 10ºC) and looking up to the sky hoping it doesn’t rain today. Danish people have told me that when the weather is like this people just stay indoors and hang out since there is not much to do, and yes, maybe these cute people that like to dress funny are right! It is too easy to go to Christiania and buy some pot and some beers and hang out somewhere cozy and nice and be lazy and so nothing all day.. and yes, this is pretty much what I have been doing.. not that I’m proud, just telling things as they are

And what is waiting for the next days?  Im going to do some acro tomorrow, maybe Wednesday too! And I might go to Malmö (on the other side of the Øresundsbron – the bridge in between the cities) and then apparently there is this festival called Distorsion 2011 with parties and fun in different districts in the city! Looks like this week it going to be a little busy..

Ich liebe Berlin

This picture was taken in a toilet of a nice café in a nice street of this great city of Berlin. I walked there from my “home” in Berlin searching for a place to have something for breakfast, and wohoww! They gave me a plate with different kinds of cheese, ham, honey and some fruits, together with different types of bread and a coffee latte. The sun was shyly starting to shine and I was there on the terrace, with the great breakfast, sketch book, red sunglasses and some birds trying to steal the bread of my plate. And then I realized this is pretty much the summary of my stay in Berlin: walking around, sitting somewhere, drawing, having coffee, watching people pass by and going with the flow.

In other situations I have tried to see more or less everything, still behaving like a lazy tourist, but making sure that everything that must be seen is seen. But this time I feel I’m going to come back soon, and I feel there is so much to see, so many places in this huge city, that one can’t even imagine to see them all. It feels like every district has millions of hidden places out there, so I found MY BERLIN, with my favorite lunch café so far, with my yoga studio, with the shopping street, and the quiet places. I’m sure next time I will find a different Berlin, just as I find a different Barcelona every time I have lived there after a while of being away.

Tomorrow back to København.

Just a bad tourist

Yesterday I got to Berlin, and this morning I wondered, so what do I want to do in Berlin?

I have crossed 600 german km and it feels like nothing is so special.. just travelling, you know..? And people ask me that I look very calm, too calm to be travelling around Europe and to be doing something that so many people want to do… and it is true, if I think about it for a moment, I am not specially excited. I am pretty relaxed, I do what I feel like doing, and if I spend 4 hours sitting in a cafe or walking around without a real destination, it is fine, it doesn’t feel like wasting time. This is me as a tourist. I like to get to know the places from a local point of view, from a real point of view. I like to know how people live in certain place in the world and I don’t need to visit all what the city has to offer to the  hyperactive tourists. I’m a bad tourist maybe,… I just don’t care. I like to find out how would it be like to live in certain place, so I do daily activities.. like lay down at a nice park, find where to do acroyoga, find cafes with Wi-Fi for clients and look at nice and cute guys who pass by. Only little thing to make it real would be to find a job.. although if I think about it carefully I haven’t done much of that lately either..

Rudolfplatz

So, I’m still in Köln, and I like it much better than before.. my feeling has evolved in a positive way.  The experience in Paris was great, and I hadn’t expected it and I was going to Köln, finally!! I had head so much of it! I felt it would be crazy and party and wild and interesting from the beginning..

The beginning was pretty good though, the CS host treated me like a queen and also i got to meet some friends on Sunday.. But Monday.. it felt like someone had unplugged the electricity of the place!! it felt as if there was nothing to do here! it was just an impression though, there are many interesting museums (or so i heard… hahaha) and there is this great Cathedral they have.. and believe me, for some who know me at least a 5%, hearing me say that a Cathedral was cool… you know… it must really be cool.. so I met with 2 couchsurfers and we decided to go up the towers.. but WAIT! Where is the elevator???? I was sure I had seen one from the outside and it actually really existed, it wasn’t a fantasy that my great mind created.. My great mind just didn’t think that the elevator was meant to be used by he workers that were repairing some of the towers.. sooo…. bummer! I was going upstairs after a crazy night of beers and little sleep.

If I had been there by myself i would have given up and gone somewhere else, and as we say in Spanish “y aquí no ha pasado nada”.. but no, these CS were already “laughing” at the fact that i was talking about this elevator that they thought to be imaginary.. so if i really gave up and went to have an ice cream they would laugh even harder.. so i took all the energy i had stored for emergencies and I went upstairs.. The first part felt like forever.. but after a while it was not so bad. Then.. once we were on the top, I realized it had been worthy.

Today I’m back at Starbucks, using their internet with a coffee that got already cold . The square where I’m sitting, Rudolfplatz, is my day time place.. i always end up around here.. at night Zülpicherplatz is the option, with all these soviet bars which play heavy metal music.

Yes, I feel the rhythm of the place now, it feels natural, it feels like the only way to really know what this city is about is to  turn on the laid back button in yourself,… then fun then just comes on its own.

BARBAROSA

So, I am in Köln. I already met so many people! On Saturday I arrived in the evening and I met with my CS host for that night. It was really cool, he brought me to a small friends gathering with barbecue, beers and wine Looks like a good start, huh?

Yesterday I met with Christian and he walked me around the city and it as cool to see his favorite places! I definitely will come back to some of the cozy terraces! Then we found me a hostel in the city centre and we met with Bianca. Long time no see too! It was really nice to see her again and talk a little like time didn’t pass by.

In the evening I went to an acro-jam-lesson I know, I know… but I need a little routine and I need to keep fit! So we played a bit, had something to drink and back to the hostel. After all, it has been a long time without sleeping 8 hours!

Köln looks like a nice little city. Everything is walking distance, so today afternoon it is walking time. I have to buy a sim-card and flip-flops. Let’s see what else happens today!

BarbaRosa? it is the name of my tram stop!