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

The spring is slowly coming

Hej!

Here they come, few pics from a Sunday, when by the way we got Silver, a beautiful 5 months cat with all the energy of the world. He had never been outside before and it was so funny seeing him exploring, stepping carefully on grass for the first time, playing with butterflies. 

Sunny days in Sweden...

It is already Thursday and it seems the time flies away. We are in the middle of April and it is been more than a month since we came from our vacation in India. When you take perspective from a memory, it becomes a bit more magic.

Memories are a important part in our life and we tend to select that moments that made us happy forgetting the bad times. Our memory is smart and try to protect us. Then, we also play with our memories. Whenever something we did went wrong, we try to delete the rests of our "mistake" from our life, even that mistake comes with so much beautiful moments. I think weak people does that, take distance from memories, not allowing themselves to recognise the beauty and the happiness in them. Even the society push you to hide those memories. And also, having the "untouchable memories" can be a good gun for the "bad people" to hurt you. So my recommendation is, be better than that, reply to people with acceptance and in general, they will get shock.

I think brave and happy people recognise their pain, cry, go through it, talking it. Allow yourself to have those memories that reminds you once you went for something with all your heart but it sinked on the way. In my opinion it is really healthy to be sincere and honest with our feelings. And it is not simple. It takes time. But the worse thing one can do is pretending nothing has happened, cause all the memories you have now, are your life and make you the person you are today.

So, let's stop pretending. Yes, I do mistakes. Yes, I did a lot of mistakes. Yes, I still believe I am a good person after all. Yes, I have strong values.

With the memory of a magic moment in India, this is all for today.

With love

Tamara

(reading loud a random chapter of a book about philosophy and commenting it with my hungry boyfriend, while waiting for food)

Keep on walking

Hello!!

After a busy week in our life here and with a lot of ideas to write about, I am back :)

Since I moved to Sweden is being a year of constant changes and a bit of instability, even I am very lucky cause I have my boyfriend, who is my stone of serenity. As we were saying yesterday, we complement each other perfectly, he thinks in the long run, and I am expert of the short run so we make it to live life in a decent "medium run". 

Now, while I am here writing, he is fixing plants around, full of energy, looking to me thinking "and this woman is just sitting there with her computer... is she not going to help me out?... but well, she has been working a lot this week, she needs time for herself... But really, is she still there with the computer??" :)

Today is S U N D A Y.

A perfect day to fix the garden with the family. Now it comes the part where I exaggerate a bit about Sweden. Here, in central Sweden, the spring comes in the summer. Well, it is the 10th of April and things start to get greener, but few are the flowers that dare to bloom. 

Today we will take some pictures to illustrate the spring.

Have a beautiful day

Love

Tamara 

Everything has a beginning...

Hello!

It is time to write.
And I love it.

Well, where does one start these things?

My name is Tamara and I would love to use this blog to express myself, share a little bit of my life and some of the things I do for fun. That's why the name of the blog, because one of my hobbies is doing chaplets with natural flowers or just going around with some fresh picked flowers in my hair.

I have grown up in Galicia, a beautiful region in the North-West of Spain, but nowadays I live happily in Sweden with my love one. So, a lot of my talking is about the difference of living in Spain and Sweden. I have just moved less than a year ago and I am still learning a lot about the culture and its people. No big complains by now. Just cold, cold reactions, lack of red blood. Here the blood it is a little bit more bluish you know? :)

Apart from my half real/half own created judgements, I am completely in love with this culture. Do you want to follow me in my way to become a 100% Swedish?
* No animals or boyfriends will be injured.

So, this is an open board, art, music, colours, photography, inspiration... Let's make it flow.


Love and light

Tamara