Coming back

Coming back to the life.

Since midsummer in June, our life has been about packing and unpacking, little backpacks, handbags,  picnics, big and heavy laggage, wedding dressings, diving equipment...

I can't complain. It has been wonderful, and the summer is not over yet :)

Here in Sweden just 1 week left of the "official vacation period". So the 8th of August people start to work, kids start the school... Even though till September, not a lot of courses and other activities start for real. Thanks god.

It is a strange sensation for me, because now is the peak of the vacation period in Spain, and actually, most of the people have, or would like to have, the vacation in August. August means summer for me. August means "verbenas". August means that my skin is bronzed.

So I will try to keep on with my summer feeling. And thinking that we will travel to Spain in September helps a lot.

Summer 2016, you are not over yet, not for me, not for us.

And, as life is not easy as it should be, I need sometimes a cure of happiness, and so far, music is always by our side. Play this song right now, make it louder and dance as nobody is watching, dance alone, dance in front of the mirror, with your dog, with your mum, with your boyfriend, with your alpaca...but shake it!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWhsZtUN6UI

With lots of love,

Tamara 

Midsummer night and other stories

Midsummer is one of the most known Swedish celebrations.

It is what we call back in Galicia, o San Juan de toda a vida. Both parties were born to commemorate the shortest night of the year and ended up in a excuse to meet your friends and family, eat good food and be outside decorating everything at home with herbs and beautiful flowers.

Lightly different, but a lot the same thing.

Well, here it is why I, an innocent poor Spanish girl with little brown eyes, short hair now, cause I cut it some months ago but I had it really long before, but you know, one gets tired of long hair sometimes... what were we talking about?

Ok... why have I become a Midsommar lover?

It is common that all the girls pick up some wild flowers and do beautiful and big chaplets for the hair. Flowers is actually the main decoration everywhere.

It is common that the people from the villages meet to prepare a nice midsommar pole that they wonderfully decorate with herbs and flowers. Most of the neighbours gather during the midday to pulled up the "pole", a symbol of the fertility, and celebrate this 24th of June. Last year I was quiet amazed of the spirit of the people, specially the youngest and the oldest ones. Some people even dress up with Swedish traditional clothes.

Then, Midsommar is generally a countryside celebration, all the cities are (almost) empty.

I have seen how easily Swedish people can enjoy of a picnic everywhere, any time of the year. In one second they have prepared a thermo full of hot Swedish coffee (they are really proud of their coffee), some delicious sandwiches with butter, fundamental in this country, and luckily egg, some Kanelbullar, cinnamon buns, and all perfectly packed up in a beautiful picnic basket.

This picnic abilities of my man impressed me so much, I still remember how he prepared a perfect picnic with hot chocolate to warm my heart after my first day skying. Sorry, I mean, after my first day falling down all the way down hill, several times, with skies in my feet, cause he brought me up hill to see the sunset. Sunset I completely forgot a minute after cause I was busy hating him. But the nice picnic we did in the little hut make me feel the day was perfect.

Coming back to Midsommar, I have to say last year we celebrated ourselves in Gothenburg with some friends, and even the city was quite dead, we had such a nice evening. It is a tradition to eat the new potatoes with herring and nice sauces, and of course, Swedish strawberries for dessert.

But the best of the traditions is to mix them up with more traditions.

And if we are talking about food, even better.

We had a super delicious midsummer dinner with Turkish meze, different sallads, new potatoes and herring, strawberries and Galician gin tonics. It could not be better. A fantastic evening with fantastic people.

And of course I can not forget the snaps, shots of strong alcohol that Swedish drink in the middle of the lunch/dinner just after singing proudly "the snaps songs". This make all the people in the table specially happy and talkative. This year I will sing the songs feeling I know what I say, not like the past year, when I felt they were singing in Japanese.

So, this is a little bit of everything I can say, if Swedish people feel I missed something really important, let me know please. But the fault is not mine. It is Ki's who hasn't teach me better ;)

I let some pics of our last "midsommar" and the link of a video who illustrates better what I am talking about,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8ZLpGOOA1Q

(any expert of the topic would notice the lack of Swedish flags and Swedish napkins, but I think it looks perfect)

(Snaps time! Who knows the lyrics?)

*Sorry for all my comments no related with the topic.

With lots of love,

Tamara

Blue

With love,

Tamara MR

8th May

26 springs

Grazas

All my love,

Tamara

Moments

Moments of happiness.

Be present.

Capture them.

If it is not with your camera,

do it with your heart.

Sometimes I just laugh,

with no reason,

just because I am alive.

I live the life I want.

I don´t do things because they are expected,

I do what I want to do.

I see people falling in life,

but they don't see the fall.

They are busy and worry with another life.

They forget about what they want,

who they are.

People around can make you confuse.

We all affect each others life.

But we have to learn to stop them,

to stop the bad energies,

to stop the control,

to stop the dependence.

Be yourself.

It is not easy all the time.

But at least,

try as hard as you can.

Create your own shade,

don´t follow the others one.

And always,

make special moments,

make moments be special.

 

With love,

Tamara

My Odyssey

The feeling of having a tornado of languages in your mind is pretty amazing.

When learning a language becomes essential for you, your mind is completely focus on that and each single day is a challenge. One always learn something new and interesting.

If you are Spanish and you have been Erasmus you will understand perfectly my experience. Well, there are different cases, but in general I think we all have that special and magic moment when talking to a german.

Talking to a german. Be or not to be.

Jokes apart, I remember it was really hard to realise that the 10 years learning English in the school and the years of private lessons were not enough to have a reasonable conversation. You could easily talk about colours, fruits and the verb " to be". I think we all in Spain could make a Master class about the verb "to be".

So there I was, standing in a cocktail party (you bring as much beers as you can buy, go to someones else house, put them in the fridge and they disappear magically in 20 seconds, so you end up drinking the whiskey that someone else brought from the duty free). It was full of germans, some turkish, one french and me. They were talking English as they were born in England, as I saw it. I tried to catch up the conversations and  instead of focusing on what I was saying, they said "oh such a cute accent you have". It was so embarrassing for me I realise I had to start focus hard  to really learn English.

It was there when I first feel I needed to talk another language so I could control a situation, I could communicate myself and meet a lot of amazing people.

I am still learning English every day. We talk in English at home and I do mistakes, ask for the meanings of words and use google translator.

After speaking a language that allows you to communicate with the most of the people, you also feel like learning the language of the country where you live in. In my case, I was in Istanbul so I decided to make a little effort to learn Turkish and communicate with some neighbours and sellers. It is one of the most beautiful languages I have heard.

Learning Turkish was not easy when your focus as a Erasmus student is to travel all time. But I came back to the country after finishing my university studies to look for a job and enjoy the wonderful city of Istanbul in another way. That was the perfect moment to learn more Turkish. Fortunately, I got a job in a wonderful kindergarten as an "English teacher" and just my boss and the art teacher could speak English. The kids and the rest of teachers just spoke Turkish. How is life!

I learned some Turkish so I could communicate at work and tell some funny stories about my life. How hard it was! I think I have forgotten a lot of it cause I am not longer using it but I would like to, in some point of my life, keep on learning Turkish. From Turkey I moved to Sweden with my "Swedish" and another new language.

The first 2 or 3 months my mind was completely messed up. When people talked to me Swedish I replied them in Turkish. And that is incredible cause I can't say my Turkish was not that interiorised, it was more the relation of my mind between them like the "strange languages" on me.

After my work in a restaurant and Swedish lessons in SFI (a Swedish for foreigners course completely for free, I think this institution deserves a full post and some pictures of the amazing people I have met there). I dare to say I talk Swedish. In a decent level. But it allows me to work in the kindergarten, communicate myself with the kids and my workmates, read all around, be more independent.

A long way to go and always learning something new. Life is amazing.

Live and learn.

The shopping list I did in January. 

I got the pic from my boyfriend who hesitated if buying a horse (häst) was a good idea.

Luckily we bought just yeast (jäst).

With love

Tamara

Textures

Get wet, get dirty, get tired.

Going for a walk in the mountain is the cure.

It doesn't mean you will get a better salary.

It doesn't mean you will not argue with your family.

It means you will breath pure air,

your body simply connects with the nature,

as there was where we come from.

Touch, look up and down.

Look around,

and touch again.

Human beings need contact.

Contact with the nature and contact with each other.

So hug.

Hug often.

Hug every day.

Hug the ones you love.

Hug from the distance.

With love,

Tamara