Birthday 2011

My 25th birthday easily qualified into the list of nice ones. The day was sunny, I was invited to wonderful dinner that had me food-coma paralysed for an hour and I spent time with people I like. In the evening I threw a party at my place and mixed 27 new Barcelona friends with very different backgrounds in my small livingroom – they proved to get along really well and everybody seemed to have a good time. We continued to a club, danced all night and shared food, talks and laughs at sunrise. I got to bed when the sun already had been up for a couple of hours so summing it up it was a good 25th, even if some friends from Sweden obviously were missed.


Thank you all my new friends!

Like many of my days, this one has its own theme song. It’s an The XX remix of a Florence and the Machine song called You’ve Got the Love and I have been playing it on repeat today. As always – I’m sharing my goodies. Enjoy!


Florence and The Machine – You’ve Got the Love (The XX Remix) (2009)

Friendships

I was just in one of the nice little bars around the corner, and with a new friend in front of me and a glass of wine in my hand the clock passed midnight. I’m good, it wasn’t that bad this time. I even got a very thoughtful present – you really do listen to the things I tell you! Thank you so much for keeping me company, I had a lot of fun and it means a lot. New friendships are a beautiful thing. So are the long and lasting ones, thank you for your calls darlings, I love you.

My foolish heart and rainy days.

Today my throat is a mess, the temperature changes in my room are not doing me any good. The current sound of Barcelona is dominated by raindrops so I am adding my own sounds to this natural orchestra to create the perfect rainy mood. Let me introduce you to a legend with a peculiar posture, meet Bill Evans.


Bill Evans – My foolish heart
The Village Vanguard Sessions (1973)

Video recorded at the Vanguard Sessions in 1964

La Metamorfosis

image

I found Kafka (The Metamorphosis, 1915) in Spanish in the bookshelf of my new apartment and I decided to give it a try. So far it has been quite confusing but also amusing and I’m still hanging in there.

I love big bookshelves filled with books left behind by random people and I always look for them all over when travelling. Now, the fact of actually having one, filled with gems I always wanted to read – in the language I want to practice, in my own livingroom is really just another reason for not wanting to leave this magical city.

I love the fact that the choices I need to make now all are realities I really look forward to engage in. Now it’s just about deciding what alternatives I actually have and choosing the most exciting and fruitful one and see to which other places and alternatives it takes me.

I don’t agree when people tell me that I’m lucky to be encountering new opportunities all the time. I am thankful and happy about having the possibility to travel and move and search, but there are always alternatives, possibilities and choices. And with the risk of sounding pretentious, I do want to state that it is a fact that is general for most people, and that you just need to choose to look for them and dare to jump on that moving train when it passes by instead of letting life get in your way. If you enjoy change, that is. Change and development and new experiences.

Salar de Uyuni

One time I bought myself a Charango in Bolivia. Then I took a 12 hour bus from La Paz to the Salt deserts of Uyuni and learnt how to play “el condor pasa” in the sun.

There are some moments one can just live, re-live and appreciate, endlessly. I am trying to collect as many of these as possible and it’s a never ending project that I love living.

Goodnight!

Little Girl Blue

Nina Simone is really good company. Here are three songs from her first album, Little Girl Blue, released in 1958. The last clip is a claymation video produced by Aardman Animations in 1987 for one of the songs from the album. High quality jazz – Enjoy!



Nina Simone – Love me or Leave me


Nina Simone – Mood Indigo

Nina Simone – My baby just cares for me
Little Girl Blue (1958)
Video directed by Peter Lord, produced by Aardman Animations (1987)