Posts Tagged ‘Positive Thinking’
At home.
Posted on: March 19, 2013
I know I may be the only one smiling,
as the snowflakes whirl down on the streets of Stockholm.
Other Swedes can’t wait for winter to be over!
But I have missed this.
Detour to Doha
Posted on: September 5, 2012
Thanks to a five hours flight delay I got 24 hrs in Doha, a free night at a hotel with all meals included, a day spent sightseeing around the city with 2 new friends that are headed the same way as me, a Pashmina scarf bargain, a sweaty stroll along the bay in 42 degrees heat and a nice and cool lunch in Doha’s most luxurious port, The Pearl.
In a little while I am headed back to the airport to continue my trip to Singapore and Denpasar but it has been an interesting and memorable detour and I’ve got some cool pics to show you later.
Thank you Qatar Airways!
A journey of a thousand miles
Posted on: May 12, 2012
A journey of a thousand miles
starts in front of your feet.
Lao-tzu
I carry your heart
Posted on: February 15, 2012
I can’t think of anything that warms my heart more right now than being cuddled up in Maria’s bed speaking to Lorena over Skype, making plans to reunite in Cape Town for Christmas and New Years, renting a big beach house together and going on chica loca road trips.
And when I got home from work today there was a little kinder egg and a note from Maria by my bedside:
Life is full of surprises!
Bring em on! 
Putting thoughts into practise
Posted on: October 2, 2011
The last day of September brought the last day of summer warmth.
I brought Maria up to the hill to celebrate her birthday.
I had prepared a barbeque and a cake with candles that we lit when it got dark.
The red wine brought back memories of Cape Town and all the good times we shared.
You know, she said, being here I feel a trace of the same kind of happiness…
That complete acceptance when you know you are exactly where you should be.
I could only agree.
And we drank to that and we drank a lot.
The next day we slept head to toe in my bed, until 2 pm, when Maria had to rush off to work.
I took a city bike at the station outside our block and biked aimlessly for 2 hours, before returning it to a station in Grönland, where I bought cheap vegetables at a market and walked the last bit home in the drizzling rain.
So happy.
I carry this great conception that coming here was necessary to where I want to go next.
Last year I was trying so hard to find a path and now it seems to be appearing clearly.
It’s almost ridiculously evident to me now that I needed this time to put all my thoughts into practice.
That I am excactly where I should be.
Story time
Posted on: September 14, 2011
You know, being here, isn’t just an everyday routine for me.
Like all the places I have lived I really take things in.
You don’t know this, but I put together phrases, sentences, expressions in my head all the time, of everything beautiful that surround me.
I could write a whole story about an ordinary day.
And in this story I would be the person to step out of Deli de Luca at St. Hans Haugen with a cup of moccha in one hand and an umbrella in the other. And I’d smile to myself as “raindrops keep falling on my head” ironically comes on in my headphones.
I would pass by my favourite flower shop and marvel over their bouquets of old pink roses and perfect orchids. The scent from white lilies would linger in my nose until I’d turn right by Wayne’s Coffee and continue to the square of St. Olavs Plass. From there I would head down Universitetsgata with the noble City Hall at the very end.
And I’d be one of many people going to work with umbrellas and rubber boots, but I might be one of few to acknowledge this as an amazing day in my life.
I have so many of these moments , these short stories.
I can flip through them and remember exactly what it felt like in random Septembers of my life; sitting on the back of a vespa, passing by the Colosseum in Rome on a warm late summer evening, biking to school in Båstad on a rainy autumn day or walking along Sea Point in Cape Town in the early spring.
Life moves in circles and appears in many ways.
Tomorrow is my 29th birthday. I have no idea where I will be for my birthday next year but I know tomorrow I’m celebrating it at Wallmans Dinner show with colleagues from work and later meeting up with my best friends Maria and Bibi who are both here in Oslo again and ready for a night out.
Today’s story is drawing to an end, and my body and mind needs its rest.
Thank you for reading, and for being a part of my life!
In all ways!
Change angle
Posted on: August 1, 2011
When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change
Wayne Dyer
I ♥ Oslo (just a little more)
Posted on: July 24, 2011
There is a thunderstorm over Oslo right now.
As if the last day’s pressure has been too hard the sky seems to want to rip apart and release all its tears and fury.
It feels like it’s been days already since the explosion, the shooting and the chaos, but it was actually just 30 hours ago.
I had just come to work when the explosion happened.
30 min earlier and I could have walked on that street. Actually, the night before I had strolled just by there, eating a scoop of passion fruit ice cream.
The hotel I work at is just two blocks from Regeringskvartalet so the blast shook our entire building. Me and Elin both ran out on the street; what the hell was that?!
And then the reports came.
I worked until midnight trying to calm down worried guests, answering phone calls, re-scheduling bookings and watching the online news.
Family and friends were calling to check on me so I had my cell phone right with me in the front desk. Just before midnight when I got off my shift I realized that my phone was gone. Now, I don’t want to blame one of our guests, they are usually wonderful people, but there were only hotel guests around that night. Both the restaurant and the bar was closed. Obviously, I was stupid to leave my phone unattended but where is the sense of humanity?
It was late, the streets were shut down, my room mate Charlotte had gone to Sweden and I didn’t want to sleep alone without a phone so I stayed over at the hotel, and started work again at 7 this morning.
When I got back home at 4 this afternoon I fell asleep to the sound of rain.
When I woke up the clouds were clearing up and the air was balmy and beautiful.
I decided to go out for a walk. And I walked for 2,5 hours.
From St Hanshaugen where I live to the pretty old streets of Damstredet and Telthusbakken, through Grünerløkka and Grønland down to the Opera House, and along Karl Johan to the National Theater. Behind the Theatre a lady with a guitar was singing beautiful, hopeful songs.
- Life goes on, she said, and I know because I’ve been through a lot.
- But life is still beautiful and worth living.
Maybe too soon for all those families that suffer from loss right now, but I walked home and loved this city just a little more.
Yes Man!
Posted on: June 18, 2011
Have you seen the movie “Yes Man” when Jim Carrey persistently says “Yes” to everything?
Well, lately I’ve been saying Yes!
I am invited to a party after work and I say yes.
I am asked out for dinner and I agree.
I am offered a free ticket to Bon Jovi, show starts in 2 hours and I accept.
Life becomes so much more exciting when you let it happen, when you let in, when you let go.
Now, I’m not a Bon Jovi fan so I wouldn’t have paid for a ticket, but I had fun and met some nice people. But I actually left before the last song.
What I’m really looking forward to though, is the Foo Fighters concert in Stockholm on Wednesday, supported by the always so great Band of Horses. I bought the ticket four months ago, before I knew I was moving to Oslo, so although they play here too, I was hoping to catch them in Stockholm together with some of my best friends.
The fact that it’s the same week as the midsummer’s celebration made me more eager to go home.
I worked five weekends in a row, 6 days a week, changed shifts and managed to arrange a whole week off, leaving for Stockholm straight after work tomorrow Sunday, and coming back straight to work next Monday.
Yes!
The more I think about it, the more I realize that I miss Stockholm, that it’s been the place I’ve called home for ten years, during so many different chapters of my life.
I have a few days to catch up with friends, cut my hair (which is half price to Norway), do some shopping and just walk the familiar streets again, before I take the train to Rättvik, Dalarna to celebrate the Midsummer’s weekend.
This year we are about fifteen people celebrating at my dad’s.
My grandma and her husband have just moved in next door and in my dad’s part of the house there are three bedrooms, a large living room, a loft and a kitchen. Somehow he has agreed to let everyone stay over for the weekend; himself and his girlfriend, her daughter, two friends of theirs, me, my brother and his girlfriend, my sister and two-three friends of ours.
I asked him if there was space for everyone and he said we’d make it work somehow.
My dad is a Yes Man!
Time is on my side, time to smile
Posted on: May 29, 2011
Lately, I seem to have so much time.
Now, I still have my equal share of 24 hours a day like everyone else, but we all know time is a relative experience. And because there is so much space in my life at the moment, it seems that time stretches accordingly.
I work full time, but because I work two different shifts: 7-15 or 15-23, it feels like I have a whole afternoon off when I finish early and the days I start late I can get so much done before work. Of course, sleep patterns get a little mixed up when I finish late, when I go out or get home early, but I’m the kind of person who can reset with a 30 minutes powernap.
I don’t need to spend time on public transport as everything is within walking distance plus there are free city bikes outside my door. I don’t need an awful lot these days so I spend neither time nor money on shopping. I don’t waste time worrying about what the future will bring.
What’s interesting is that when I wasn’t working I didn’t experience having a lot of time. Actually, I felt the complete opposite; a constant stress over choices that had to be made and a conflict between settling things for myself and pleasing others.
When the pointers of our inner clocks are spinning in every direction it seems we lose focus on the only thing that truly matters;
the Here and Now.
Time Is On My Side
and Times They Are A-Changin’
so you got to Let The Good Times Roll
and make Time to Smile.
.
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