Archive for the ‘Friends & Family’ Category
Reflection
Posted on: May 20, 2013
Another awesome weekend is at end.
Another night I fall asleep with love in my heart.
Behind my eye lids there are are so many faces and they all turn to me and smile and we dance and drink until the sun begins to rise over the city.
I feel connected with everything and everyone around me.
I feel beautiful and strong.
I have picnic with Maria in the park and she reminds me of the greatness of taking chances and the importance of joy. I meet with Karoline and I see how far she’s come and how far she can go. I talk with an old American couple at work that after fifty years of marriage reveals the secret to a happy relationship – to see yourself in each other and give more than you think you’ve got.
Goodnight ♥
Women: we share, we care
Posted on: April 17, 2013
My friend at home calls me on a Sunday morning, crying.
Twenty minutes later I am in her kitchen.
She is feeling emotional and calls her boyfriend who is abroad but he doesn’t want to talk until he gets back, a month from now. She needs to stick it out.
❤
Meanwhile a friend in Oslo is going through a depression. She tells her boyfriend she needs him to just be there. But he doesn’t understand how.
On my way to her place I happen to pass by a flower stand and decide to run in and buy her a bouquet.
She realizes her boyfriend has never brought her flowers.
❤
In Switzerland my friend is sad, missing her boyfriend who is left in South Africa. She wants to talk, but the internet in Africa is slow and the connection is cut. Everything remains unspoken.
❤
Speaking to my friend in Stockholm her story tears up my heart. She met a man four years ago and they were crazy in love and planning her move down to his home country, when her dad got sick and she had to stay in Sweden to take care of him.
As her dad got worse, her boyfriend stopped answering her messages and just disappeared. Four years later, he gets in touch and asks her to come visit him. She gets on a plane across the world and they spend three weeks together. When she gets back home he disappears again.
And she is alone with all her thoughts and feelings.
❤
These are the stories we share, us women.
All this silent suffering caused by men,
we pour out and help each other carry.
We don’t always have the answers or know the right thing to say.
But we stay.
In transit
Posted on: March 21, 2013
I am at my dad’s house in Rättvik, Dalarna. The sun is glistening on the snow-covered fields outside.
I keep warm by the fireplace inside.
Five days ago, I arrived Stockholm looking like a Christmas tree with pink shoe laces, a pink and purple hoodie and a multi-coloured embroidered yoga mat-case.
Around me, everyone was wearing dark designer coats, leather boots and fur hats.
But my grandfathers wife, Ursula, generously gave me a cashmere wool coat as a belated birthday gift and soon I was one of the flock.
In Stockholm I did what I always do on my return-visits: run around the city catching up with friends and family until everything becomes a blur of subways stops and coffee shops.
This time my Norwegian friend and colleague Karoline was in town so we made the most of it, meeting up for lunches and after work drinks with my friends Micke and Pontus.
I also made time to see Bibi, Lito and Jesper. And my cousin Filippa and her newly born daughter, Otilia.
It was love at first sight.
People’s lives have changed while I’ve been away.
I guess mine has too.
Although, while I travel on these trains in Sweden, carrying my luggage from place to place…
It all feels very familiar…
Holidays are over
Posted on: March 15, 2013
From across the room, piles of stuff are starring at me screaming: Get Packing!
But I choose to lie here in bed with a purring cat by my side. Just a little longer.
I’ve gotten sick again which makes it the forth case of tonsillitis in two months, and yet a reason why I really need to go home.
In all honesty, my time in Cape Town has had its ups and downs. Not only have I been sick a lot, I also got mugged off my favourite camera and my USB stick with six months travel photos, stayed in four different apartments and went bankrupt long ago. But because it was Malin’s first time in Cape Town I kind of ignored that. Which should keep me in debt for about a year.
On the upside I got to laugh with my best friends, enjoy these spectacular sights once more and meet someone that made me realize what I want – and what I don’t want.
I am ready to go home and get back in charge.
Of my health, my goals and ambitions.
Create some stability. Grow up.
See, I must have done something right in my previous life because everybody is always looking after me!
Right now, I feel unworthy of it all.
My mom tells me that there are wool scarfs and mittens waiting for me when I get home and if that isn’t enough she will keep me warm with hugs. My dad asked if I wanted to go skiing in the Rättvik slopes next weekend, because he just ‘wanted to spend time with me’
In Stockholm, Rättvik, Hudiksvall and Oslo people are waiting for me. Bibi said I could stay with her in Stockholm. Both Malin and Maria has offered me a room in Oslo until I find my own.
‘Up to you babe. No stress. I love you’ were Maria’s exact words.
Here in Cape Town, both Lorena and Tess opened up their hearts and homes to me.
I don’t know how to thank you enough. But I am dedicated to try.
See you on the strong side.
A beautiful transition
Posted on: March 1, 2013
First of March hits like a stone thrown at my pretty glasshouse.
It doesn’t brake or shatter my world completely, it just creates a little crack through which I can start to see the long flight home, the bare streets of Stockholm, the silent train ride home.
Family. Friends.
Swedishness.
I have been gone seven months and admittingly, I’ve gotten used to this life. My feet have gotten used to flip flops and soft sand. My liver to late nights and coctails.
The real world awaits me two weeks from now with colder temperatures and undoubtely more expensive things.
But don’t get me wrong. I am looking forward to going home. Even starting working again feels exciting and I can’t wait to get back to the gym. Get some routine and all of that.
(Oh the things you miss when you’re away)
This is the beginning of the end of my trip.
The time when I start reflecting on what has been and what’s to come. If you have followed me through the years, you will know what I’m talking about.
I don’t have any photos from the first month in Cape Town with its Christmas and New Years parties and catch-ups with old friends. I lost everything when my camera and usb-stick got stolen. But its all very clear to me, on the inside.
Like the features of my new found friend, and the precious moments the two of us have shared.
My old friend Malin arrived like a hopeful letter from home, a package of childhood memories, silly jokes, girly conversations and lots of laughter, and she is staying here for the remaining of my trip.
What a beautiful transition.
Distance got nothing on us
Posted on: January 12, 2013
I woke up way too early in my friend’s apartment with last night’s makeup and an aching head. But the sun was shining and I had an important Skype date to attend…
No matter the distance and the many years that go by, there is no place like my best friend’s house and that hour when the morning sun reflects on the snow outside.
And no comfort as the familiar sound of her voice and our hometown dialect, as we share stories and secrets meant for no one else.
Mio and Minna are growing up to be the most charming, loving and wonderful children and Frida and Andreas keep finding ways to grow and evolve, even after fifteen years together. They are a source of inspiration and a place I will always call home.
Saknar dej bästis och ser fram emot att mysa med hela familjen Löfling snart! Älskar dej! <3
Happy (New) Year!
Posted on: December 31, 2012
Happy New Year people!!!
Sorry for the silence, I’ve been busy chilling out on Cape Town’s beautiful beaches, sipping coctails in the sunset, going on coastal road trips, admiring the breathtaking views, remembering why I love this place, dancing and drinking until early morning, making new friends, catching up with the old and smiling for no particular reason…
Other than the fact that I am living my dream and loving my life!
Again, I have so much to say and so much to share and one of these days Im gonna sit down in front of a computer and catch up with it all, but right now I need to get back to my fifteen amazing friends that are hanging out, laughing and playing in the pool in the house we got rented by the sea side.
And tonight I will toast to 2012; for all the places it took me, to 2013; for the joy of living dangerously and to life; for never ceasing to surprise me!
Sacrificing sleep for fun
Posted on: November 13, 2012
It is 4.30 in the morning and I should probably have packed or slept a couple of hours…
But there are too many musts in life, so instead I stay up and talk absolute nonsense to my best friend Bibi, until we laugh so hard we almost pee our pants.
I need to take a taxi in two hours for my flight to India and although I have been on the road for 2,5 months, this feels like a completely different chapter to the trip.
This is the nerve-wrecking, soul-stirring, uncomfortable and insightful part.
Everything up to here has been easy.
I have been in Bangkok for two days and again, there are a lot of should and could have´s but when my friends offered me to stay in their luxurious condo with pool, gym and library facilities, my priorities quickly changed.
I got a chance to catch up with myself and the people back home, to lounge around the apartment, listen to Spotify with a coffee in my hand, feeling at home.
Geir is Norwegian and Shannon Thai-American and they live here in Bangkok. The night I arrived they took me out for real nice sushi, drinks with their friends, shots and champagne, and we danced in a sweaty little dance club until early in the morning.
I don´t know how to thank Geir and Shannon enough. I can only promise myself that when the day comes that I have a house, someplace beautiful in the World, my door will remain open to all these people that helped me get there.
Today I met up with Mikaela, that I know from my time on Gili Islands and in Malaysia, and that I will be travelling to India with. We spent 8 hours in Bangkok´s shopping malls today, got pedicure, new shoes and sandals.
I also bought an amazing new camera that I am excited beyond words to start using tomorrow!
So that I can continue to share these beautiful moments and images with you.
(Ok, I actually MUST pack now!)
The magic of the moment
Posted on: October 17, 2012
Right here, in the little hippie town of Pai, in Northern Thailand.
Right now, warm blues music infusing the cool evening air.
Me, leaning back in this open internet spot’s leather chair having just finished a delicious lime and coconut ice cream.
And the band plays my favourite song; Little Wing.
Does it get any better than this?
My dad, saying that if only he was a little mosquito stuck to my backpack, he would love to go all the places I was going.
I promised I wouldn’t spray any repellent on him.
- Oh, it would take a lot more than that for me to let you go, he replied.
The sound of my grandmother’s laugh through the computer speakers, reading my mother’s beautiful e-mails, missing my best friends and knowing that they miss me too.
An interesting encounter with a zen writer and healer has had me thinking, and I can’t seem to want to make any decisions about the next couple of days, although I know with ever dawn, my flight out of Asia is approaching.
I really just want to enjoy these moments.
Surrounded by majestic mountains and even greater love.
Partying away the 20′s
Posted on: September 18, 2012
Tropical sunny skies.
Turquoise water lapping the white sand beach.
- I’ll have another frozen orange slushy please. Make that with vodka.
I find myself on Gili Islands, just outside Lombok in Indonesia.
I came here after my 7 days health and yoga venture in Ubud and I was craving a good drink!
Already the first day I met a whole bunch of people from Brazil, Canada, Sweden and Australia.
And next thing I knew we were toasting local Bintang beer in the sunset before hitting the strip of reggae bars and restaurants, chatting and cheering like only fellow travellers do:
Without a worry in the world.
It turns out I made the right choice to celebrate my birthday here because my new found friends were lovely, singing for me at the strike of twelve, sharing great conversations and love.
My body got its share of alcohol alright and I, who never get hung over felt embarrassingly shaky as the whole staff of my hotel came and sang for me during breakfast with chocolate brownie, which, as delicious as it was, I couldn’t finish.
I’ve been staying at Scallywags for 4 nights and have loved it! The staff is so sweet and personal and I’ve even made friends with the general manager and his family. I treated myself to this place although it was outside my backpackers budget but I got a good deal and the breakfast buffet, the awesome coffee, the pool, the fresh linen, the towels, the a/c, free water bottle per day, wifi and tv totally made up for it.
And did I mention the slushies?
On the day of my birthday I went snorkeling boat trip with my new friends.
And in the evening met up with Emma, Linn and Mikaela, now considered old friends, since the flight from Stockholm, the overnight in Doha and the crazy Kuta experience. We had a barbeque dinner on the beach at Scallywags and feeling a lot fitter, I finished the whole brownie and chocolate truffle dessert.
Yesterday I met up with my friend Katja who I met in Ubud and we had more frozen orange slushies and she gave me a beautiful bracelet for my birthday.
I am moving over to Gili Air in a few hours and spending the next couple of days diving and chilling over there.
With less alcohol involved.
After all, I am 30 years old now.
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