A blog about Tenerife, Linedancing, Food, Shopping etc.

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Thursday, July 31, 2008

What's the matter with me?

Many times I find it hard to resist being too eager when I start doing something. I like to get results out of my efforts and always think I have to do a little bit more or there will not be any difference.
Like when I go to the beach I take too much sun in one day and become burned and loose the skin in the end. And when I start doing rehearsal of new songs I sing until I become hoarse.
And when I start shopping I shop until I almost drop.
Sometimes when I start laughing at something I just can't stop and I laugh until my muscles of the stomach really hurts, but maybe that has only to do with my personality?
I haven't been thinking much about it before, but now when I am blogging I start knowing myself better and start thinking being like me can't be normal.

I will tell you a secret! I wouldn't get out from the bed in the mornings anymore if I would resist to use the gel that's on the photo! My muscles are really hurting after all training and I think I have been too eager again! *sigh!* Do you think I have got a lack of moderation?
This is something I have to start working on now. I need to become more moderate and get myself into a better discipline. I really think I act like a child who hasn't got much experience of life! I don't like being like this!

Mountain Chaiofita

I am very satisfied with this day so far. My training program says 45 minutes walking or dancing but I have been doing better than that!
And who knows? Do we have line dancers tonight I might dance a couple of hours too!

When I woke up today I had the breakfast and then I put on my sports clothes and went out to have a mountain climbing up to the top of Mount Chiofita which is the small brown coffee grounds looking mountain between Las Americas and Los Cristianos.
The trip took me about two hours. It don't take so long time normally but I sat down at the top and rested for a while. The view is enchanting up there like you can see on the photos.

When I came back home I had a pleasant shower when Clas has bought a new handle for the shower now and it has got many different programs. One is like a massage and it's so lovely to use when you rinse out the shampoo and the hair balm. It almost grind the hair bottom.

The weather has been nice today again. No clouds and +28 degrees. It's not too warm and not too cold it's just perfect! And there is a calm breeze blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean.


Me on the way up. I took the photo myself when I was alone.


Los Cristianos


There's a cross on the top of the mountain.


The beach and harbor of Los Cristianos


Las Americas


This is the path where you walk down from the top.

Many different Nations

The line dancers are conspicuous by their absence in the summer time and we had only one single line dancer in the audience tonight, which means the night turned out to be pure country again.

A Canarian couple who live up in a town called Arona visited us again.
They are really country fans and have now bought all our CD's even when there isn't any songs in Spanish on them.
It's seldom locals come out night after night to listen to our music but this couple is really hooked on Country and we are so happy to have them in the audience.

The most of our guests are Britons and in the winter time there are also many Scandinavians, Germans and Dutches.
We have also had guests from Island this week and in August we will be visited by people from Australia. They have already made contact with us by E-mail and are line dancers! I look forward meeting them.

I think we have been visited by folks from all nations in Europe. Also guests from Russia, The North pole (Alaska), Canada, USA and many states of South America have been in our place.
We think it's an advantage to play in such an international place like Tenerife. We meet a lot of nationalities and interesting people every year and we appreciate it much.

Our plans failed!

My dear Cowboy tonight

Our plans failed! We can't go to Alcampo and Ikea tomorrow because we had too many people in tonight and then we can't just leave everything and go. Now we have decided to go the day after tomorrow instead when it's our day off.
It would have been nice to get one extra day to rest after the trip when it's really hard to do shopping in this big commercial center and Ikea in one day. You walk for maybe 10 kilometers plus try on and off clothes all the time in the different shops.
The grocery market of Alcampo is really huge and you can find almost everything there. It has got 75 (seventyfive!) cashier´s offices!
I better would make a list of what we need to buy when you easily forget things when it's so huge. You can't walk around scanning every shelf there like you normally do in the small shops here in Los Cristianos. Even the Walmarts in Florida are small compared to this market!
I don't know how many other shops you can find inside the Center but guess they are about thirty different shops of fashions, shoes and jeweleries and some of them are quite huge.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Off tomorrow?

We have now got an other artist Freddie standing in for us Fridays when we are off. He is playing international music and have already played two Fridays at Lewinski.
We would like to give him one extra night tomorrow if it's possible. Thats because we would like to go to Alcampo and Ikea for shopping and then we probably don't get back in time for the night. We'll see! I promise to put up some photos from the shopping if we go tomorrow.
Friday we have plans to just rest and have a nice dinner on the balcony.

Training again


I have been training today again. This time all the muscles above the waist.
I don't know if I was training too hard. I started feeling ill in the end of the session and I still feel like I almost will start vomiting.
The muscles I was training yesterday have been aching today even when I did stretch afterwards. Poor body ! It needs to be like in a chock of suddenly getting so much new experiences!

I visited Intersport today and bought the Nike pants on the photo. Not my style, but they are very comfortable and I will start using them in the gym.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Training


I am ready to go to Lewinski for work but Clas isn't ready yet and I decided to blog a few words while I'm waiting.
Today I started the training and my first session was for the leg muscles and the bottom. You can say from the waist and down. I feel little bit stiff in the muscles now but maybe it becomes better soon. I did a stretch program after to be sure I will get out of the bed tomorrow. Next training session I will do the biceps, breasts, abdomen and the back but it takes a long time and I maybe will have to split it up and do the training in three parts..?

An other thing I managed to do today is that I burned my skin again!
Yes! I know what you think! This puts me really on shame but I decided to tell it anyhow.
I was just sitting in the sun on the balcony for a "while" doing rehearsal of some new songs.
I didn't put on any sun protection at all when I thought I am not going to sit there for a long time.
Now I have burned my face and the front side of the body again. But it's not as terrible as last time but I am pretty red. Who would believe you can't even sit on the balcony for a while to become burned! *sigh* This is frightful!
We have to go now! Have a nice evening!

Silver Treads And Golden Needles

I thought;- Why not publish one more song and I get a good start with the label by having three songs there already!
All songs I publish here on my blog are only in mono and the quality is not as good as on the CD´s that we sell in the nights!
An other thing is that you will not find songs here from the four latest recordings that we have released here on Tenerife. ( We have made 7 CD´s)

`Silver Treads And Golden Needles´is a song by Linda Ronstadt and I have been singing the song for about three years now. We also do a beginners line dance to the song that is called the same, namely `Silver Treads And Golden Needles´.

Oh, dear it's four o'clock! I need to go to bed! Good Night!*yawn*



What Part Of No Don't You Understand

Alright I will publish one more song!
This is originally a song by Lorrie Morgan.
Sometimes we dance a line dance that's called `Smokey places´ to this song. It fits perfectly!
I would like to dedicate the song to the men who are whistling after me when I walk through the town of Los Cristianos! :-)


Satin Sheets

I have recorded a song that I sing sometimes in the nights and decided to publish it so that you can listen to it. Just click on the arrow and it starts playing!
The original was sang buy Jeanne Pruitt and a lady from Norway asked me to sing this song about two years ago.
I didn't know the song right then, but wrote down the name of it on a piece of paper and found it later. I like it very much and now we have got it into our repertoire.
I don't know how old the song is but maybe it's about 60 years old or more. Anybody knows?
I think the original was recorded on a stone cake?

I am sorry the quality isn't the best on this demo ( it's only in mono) but you can hear how the song goes and how it sounds when I sing it.
Maybe I'm gonna publish more songs in the same way in the future and I have made a new label for it that I call `Song demos´.

Oh, this song reminds me now about our satin sheets that are in the wardrobe. I always forget about them but they are really nice this time a year when it's very warm. I will try to remember them next time I change the bed clothes. *sigh!*
The lady in the song says she's not satisfied with the satin sheets and the pillows and not with her husband either, but I am! I am lucky with all the three of them! *giggle*


Monday, July 28, 2008

New songs

Last night was very warm and no breezes on the terrace.
We were only two line dancers and we decided to play old country the whole night through when we had some real country fans in the audience. It's nice to have real country nights every now and then. The people sing along and do requests and we sell many CD's.

We are both going straight into the shower now as soon as we get home from work and it's so wonderful to calm down with cool water. One thing is however disgusting and that is when the fingers become wrinkled because of the high humidity. One minute in the shower and they look like raisins. I hate it!

I have been searching for new songs on the internet since we came back home. Now there's gonna be a lot of rehearsals again!
I have got about 30-40 new songs so far this year and Clas has got five. I think he has made 6 or 7 songs more, that he hasn't learned yet, and it would be nice if he could learn them before the season starts in September.
He has promised to learn them for a very long time...but he never do it and now I try to remind him of it all the time. Poor man! I hope I don't nag him too much.
We have got three duet songs ready about 6 months ago but he hasn't learned his part yet! That's because he don't like to take new songs when he thinks it's difficult to learn and remember lyrics.
He remembers every chord without any problem and if he could choose he would only play and not sing at all, but that would be very strenuous for my throat when I already now get problems with it every now and then.

If I could decide I would like him to learn more line dance songs when it's a lot of work for me to learn both the lyrics and the dance steps, and finally how to get them going in the same time + many times I have to play the tambourine too. It would be much easier to only have to concentrate on the dances and the backing vocals. We'll see how we work it out...Oh, It's late again! Good Night!

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Lewinski tonight

I was dancing so much tonight that I had to stretch when I got home to be sure I can get out of the bed tomorrow.

I have been surfing on the internet now looking for some new line dance songs the dancers have been asking for. Did find some but not all of them.

There was a beautiful couple from somewhere in Britain visiting us tonight and they think I sound like Philomena Begley when I sing. It's not the first time people tell me that and a while ago I finally found some music with her on the internet and could hear how she sounds.
Do I agree? Njaaaheeeh! Maybe we sound a little bit the same, but not exactly...But she was singing many nice songs and I will definitely go back to the site later to listen more to her.

It's time to go to bed now! Good Night!



The signs


Our signs have now got new places.
The one with lights inside (on the photo) is where the big one was before
and the big one is now up on the roof of the restaurant.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

New Times!


This is the longest post I've ever made!

When we came home last night we started discussing `the new time' that Tenerife is facing right now. When you live and work here you can feel how it's bubbling under the surface.
Maybe it sounds like a boring topic to talk about in the middle of the night when you normally would sleep, but I think social planning and criticism is quite interesting topics and like to parse and evaluate different trends and developments thats up.
Right now it feels like some kind of reform is going to take place here on Tenerife, maybe during the coming ten years, and the businesses that will resist will probably disappear from the market in the end.

Fifty years ago when the tourism started growing on the island it was very easy to get a good business. If you were the owner of a small space somewhere you could make it a bar or a restaurant and the tourists just poured in and you made a good business.
There was no demand of good service, lavish interior or education and the tourists were satisfied with the most of everything understanding they were on an undeveloped island which was just cute and picturesque and everything was very cheap. At that time you could have a good business without expending much money.

In these days it isn't the same anymore. Today the tourists are more enlightened and people who have been traveling a lot abroad demand a higher quality.
They work hard to get money to travel somewhere and their vacation is a highlight of the year when they for ones get time to relax and live a luxury life.
Not many tourists laugh and accept to be fooled anymore and the most of them like to get value for their money when the prices have gone up. If they don't they maybe will choose another place where to go next time.

One problem, as we see it, is that there is not much understanding of `the new time´ among some of the old business owners.

-Some of them don't believe that a good costumer service and a nice staff policy will benefit. They many times prefer to employ people they know instead of educated people and don't think about how skilled the person is when it comes to languages which is of an utmost importance when you work with tourism. Many old waiters, taxi drivers and other don't speak anything else than Spanish!
Foreigners get to work if they are willing to serve as slaves for a salary that is unacceptable and many people from the eastern countries of Europe are made of use.
Why would we boycott companies who use children as workers in Asia and accept the fact that these people are working like slaves in the daylight in the middle of Europe? We need to boycott all kind of slavery! These people, many times with such a nice personalities, need to be treated like the other workers! The worker needs to get the salary he deserves!

-They don't believe it's important to put money into renovations of the facility to make the place more attractive to the customers when they before was crowded even when they only had hard benches without any back support for the guests. Some of the restaurants and hotels haven't got any face lifts the last 20-30 years and the furnitures would fit better in the place where they bring all the trash! The government is running after them now and tell them to do something or close, which is nice. But many are good in doing compromises. They maybe start painting a wall and stop before it's ready and that means they are working on it.

-They can't understand the idea of marketing when they before didn't even need a sign that told the name of the business. Advertising in daily news papers is only an expense and some have still the same menu they had when they started 30 years ago.

Today the ministry of the tourism is worried about the creasing amount of visitors on the island. They talk a lot about the necessity of getting quality into all the businesses that are depending on the tourism but in many cases they speak to deaf ears.
But my believe is that there is going to be a reform in the end.
Now the new generation get education and they become familiar with topics like marketing, market investigations, well developed business ideas, customer service etc. They get the keys that will play a decisive role in the final conclusion of surviving. The competition is getting more tough.

Non serious businessmen will probably face problem to find competent workers who are willing to conform to their obsoleted ways of doing business in the future. Who would like to put years into an education and end up working in a place where the time did stop sometime in the sixties? As soon as they find something better they probably will leave. If they don't it will put their profession on shame to act like they are not educated at all and be forced to make tricks to the costumers to make the owner earn more money.
It's not only the tourism that is getting more enlightened. There is also a new generation growing up who gets a know-how about their future profession and that hopefully will cause the positive effect that is needed.

The times are becoming more tough for us musicians as well! This summer has been hard for many and some artists have lost their job when the restaurants haven't been able to pay any salary.
Some restaurants have closed down and the opportunities of venues are not so many anymore.
Before they just could employ a quiet piano player and they got people in, but now they need to find musicians that are attractive to the tourists to get anybody in.
Many tourists are also expecting more from the entertainers. It's not enough anymore to just stand and sing song after song with a terrible sound coming out from the speakers.
No! You have to speak to the audience and dance and bring up everything you know to try to make a show of it and try to build up a nice atmosphere. It's not easy!
The guests are much more conscious today and have been watching TV programs like Idols and Fame Factory where they have learned to be more critical to what they hear.

However, the government have been practicing in real what they now try to speak to the businessmen. They have in a few years given the tourist areas a face lift and it's now more beautiful here than ever .
And it needs to be said that the most of the restaurants are nice and have a high quality but some times it's the tourists themselves that choose to go to one of the old restaurants to find food for less money. Then they start complaining when the service was bad, the drinks were wrong, nobody did speak English and the bill wasn't right.
Quality costs and it would be nice if more people would be willing to sponsor the nice restaurants too, by going there and eat every now and then. These restaurant owners have brought up a lot of money to make it as enjoyable as possible for the tourists!

Our night out

Here is some photos and a video clip from our night out at Ray and Debbys place.
It was a lovely night with line dancing.
Ray and Debby normally have many line dancers but tonight, Friday, it's a big change over night and we were not so many. I think they however had the most guests in the whole town!
I am sorry I forgot to take any photos of Clas who was the photographer.
Promise to do better next time!

Me and an other guest line dancing


Ray on the stage. It looks like he has got a beard but it's only the microphone


I was sitting next to this lovely couple from Ireland


Me and Debby


Ray tried on a funny hat that Clas bought from a Chinese lady


Our dinner


This is when we started the dinner tonight. You can see the roses of the week which Clas bought today on the table. We have had red, pink, orange and white ones before and this week he did choose yellow ones.


The dinner was really lovely. I will explain what´s on the plate:
12 o' clock: Grilled red onions
3 o' clock: Uncle Ben rice
6 o'clock: a hot macaroni salad
7 & 8 o'clock: Grilled sirloin steak of pork
10 o'clock: A mixed sallad of many different vegetables
11 o'clock: Grilled paprika in a pickle sauce

Wine: Vina Norte Gold, a very nice wine!

Remember! I can eat whatever in small portions 1-2 days a week!
This plate has got a lot of carbohydrates which is not so nice. But I tell you, the taste was very very very very nice!

Friday, July 25, 2008

Shopping

I started shopping when I went out to the company.
I only visited two shops and this is what I found.
-A top and shorts for the training. I am sorry the sharpness of the photo is very bad. I took it with my phone camera.
- A bracelet with hearts in turcuoise. Oh, I like it so much and it will fit perfectly to my turcuoise boots and outfits!
- I also bought a nail polish in blue, a white bra, a white belt (on the photo), A T-shirt for Clas that was too small (anybody needs a T-shirt?) and a brown necklace for my Indian outfit.
There's a lot of new stuff now in some of the shops and I will soon go out shopping more.
Clas is soon ready and we are now going to Ray and Debby. More about the evening later...


Our day off


It was good we didn't go to Sta Cruz shopping today because now I have got a lot done in our home.
I have been cleaning the house, doing the laundry and even cleaned the windows of the balcony doors.
When the laundry machine stopped Clas told me there was still soap bubbles in the window.
He told me to open up the small filter that is down at the floor to see if there is something clogging the whole system. I did it and out came like a river of water and it went out over the bathroom floor and it was a lot of dust bunnies in it. Oh, what a mess! I had to start cleaning the bathroom one more time.

Clas has found a luxury version of the Vina Norte red wine I blogged about before. The etiquette looks the same but the cap is in gold and the price the twice of the normal.
We will have a barbecue on the balcony tonight and try it out and then we will go and see our friends Ray and Debby. They have stopped playing at Acapulco and are now in a new place.
I told our line dance guests yesterday to come there, if they like, so hopefully we will be many line dancers tonight.

We have sold quite a lot of CD:s the last two weeks and have only a few left so now I will go out to the company that prints the covers for us to order more.
Have a nice evening!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

The question of the day

Have the Americans really been on the moon?
There are some things that tell the opposite!
Why is there only documents from the first time they where there?
How is it possible for a flag to sway when there is no air?
Have they made this up only to prove they are better than the Russians who were first in the space?

I don't know. What do you think?

This question was asked on an other web page today.
I have never questioned that they have been on the moon but this sounds interesting.

Lost 1,2 kg!

I feel much better now and soon I will start doing the training.
I have lost 1,2 kg the last week only because of the diet.
We get the dinner every night at Lewinski and we have told them three times we don't like to have any French fries but we still get it every now and then. We don't have to eat it but it's easy for some pieces to slink down when they for once are on the plate.

It's our day off tomorrow and we had planned to go to Alcampo and Ikea but Clas says he don't like to go before next week so it will have to wait. I think it's alright when they probably get time to get in more clothes from the new collection.

I have a laundry going on right now and there is a lot of stuff to do in the home too.
I just stopped by to say some few words...
Have a nice day!

Paparazzi

Clas played a`paparazzi photographer´yesterday and took this photo of me with the camera zoom, when I was on the way back home from the cobbler.
I think I visit the shoe repairer at least ones a month when the boots loose their rubber soles when I jump on the heals and do the scuffs in the line dances. Normally these movements wouldn't make any negative effects on your boots, but the problem is that many of my boots are very high and the heals are thin as sticks. .

One of our guests have been complaining about my high heals the last two nights and think I need lower boots when I dance so much.
Seen from a health point of view she is definitely right and I have got many different low boots but prefer high boots when I think they look more feminine and nice. Like you see on the photo I try to use low shoes in the daytime.

Lewinski Wednesday Night



We had a lovely evening last night on the Lewinski terrace.
It was a total of about 80 guests during the night and really many were dancing and the night went absolutely too quickly.
Many said they will be back tomorrow and we will continue the party then and almost dance till we drop. The temperature is about + 24-25 now in the nights and you become really hot when you dance. It's lovely to be able to be out on the terrace, and dance under the open sky, when you need to catch every little breeze. It's probably about + 30 on the stage where we are, because of all the lights.

I think I can say now that I know the line dance called "Ride the river". Thanks to Dot and Brian from Manchester, England!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Move down to Tenerife


Many people who come to Tenerife like to sit and dream and talk about doing something special with their life. The most common subject is that they would like to move down and start living here. I guess at least 50% of the tourists are sometimes dreaming about it.
They ask if you know about any job for them and wonder where they can rent an apartment and how much that would cost them per month. They ask about the taxes, the salaries the medical services and about the living and working conditions.

When you live on Tenerife you are constantly confronted with these questions.
Sometimes I get so tired of answering when I know there are only a few, maybe one person of hundred, who is really serious. Or is it one person of a thousand?
You have to describe everything and if you know an available work they are not interesting when it all comes around. No! They only like to cherish their dreams and pretend for a while that they are going to full-fill them.

What can you do when this happens? You have to pretend that they are serious to not destroy their beautiful dreams in which they many times have got much more money than they have in real. I am honest! *smile*
But sometimes I wonder if the truth is that they only would like to figure out how much we earn here and how much we pay for the apartment etc. Maybe they like to hear that we hardly have no money in the pocket to calm down their jealousy. Yes! Some of the tourists are jealous of our life!

Sometimes people like to discuss business. Then they say they like to move down and open a restaurant and like to have us as partners when we are the ones who are going to take care of the entertainment. I don't know how many times we have told people we don't like to be involved in any business here on the island. We are only like a module that we put into others businesses, like hotels and restaurants.
We have learned, these last four years we have lived on the island, that the business we are going to cooperate with have to have a Canarian owner. We are not interesting in working with restaurant owners from other countries if we don't have to. To work for Canaries is absolutely the best and that gives us a better protection. Foreign restaurant owners many times get problems. Specially if they do success, because then somebody will force them to close down.

I have only one thing to say to you who dream about moving somewhere abroad.
Sell what you have got if it's needed and move! Don't make yourself a slave for earthly things like cars, houses, boats etc. The day you die you are not going to get it with you to the heaven. Live the life while you can!

Don't save every coin like the squirrels save the nuts! A currency reserve is nice but spend the extra money! If you don't find anything to spend them on..Give them away to people in need! Tight people is the worse I know!
We always buy everything we like and we eat what we like and we like to give away as much as possible. To go out eating with tight people makes us frustrated when they always pick the cheapest restaurant where the food is terrible. They neither give any tip to the waiters which is really awkward.
Here on Tenerife a normal tip from a rich man would be 5-10% when the drinks are very cheap and the waiters get very low salaries.
Some people miss so much when they never get to feel the happiness of giving. It's more blessed to give than to receive!
If we know that somebody is poor we gladly pay for them, but when we meet rich stingy fellows we are not interested in blessing their tightness. If they like to worship every cent they save it's their business but my opinion is that it's only God who is worth to be worshiped. Money only deserve to be used!

You live only one time on this earth so why don't you make your dreams come through?
We have never regret that we moved to Tenerife and many times we tell each other about how lucky we are when we have had the courage to do what we wanted.
We think it would have been really frustrating to stay up in Finland, continuing dreaming, and we would have missed out all the blessings here on Tenerife.
Many people say they will let their dreams come true when they get retired. Who knows how long he is going to live?
Oh, is this sounding like a long sermon? Okay! The sermon is ended!

New line dances to learn

A couple from England started teaching me the "Ride the river" line dance tonight.
They will be back tomorrow and then we are going to dance it again before we start playing so that I remember it.
It's nice when people take time to teach me dances. It saves a lot of time for me when I don't have to figure it out myself from the dance step sheet and it's very easy to learn a new dance when you just have to follow somebody else.

I hope someone who knows how to dance "My Veronica" and "Catch the rain" will visit us soon because these are the next dances I am going to learn and we have got the music for them.
By the way, the group Barbados who sings `My Veronica´ that is a popular line dance in England and Holland right now is from Sweden. The singer Magnus Carlsson is on the photo.

I will check up how "Rock around the clock" goes now before I go to bed. I didn't remember how it starts tonight. I don't dance it in the same time that I sing which means I never dance it, and nobody else knew how it starts either. So easy it is to forget how a dance goes when you don't dance it every month! *sigh*

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Orders and Swedish products



It's only about twenty days until Mattias and Pia are coming to see us and a piece of paper + a pen are laying on the kitchen table so that we can write down what we would like them to bring from Finland.
Many times we say it would be wonderful to have this and that, but now when we can make an order we don't remember what we like to have.
We both know there is an important thing that we need but nobody of us have still come up with it.
And of course we can't order so much that they need a truck when they go to the airport, but Finnish coarse rye bread will definitely be included and Salmiak candies and I would like to have some crosswords in Swedish too...

We can have some Swedish products from Ikea here on the island which is nice. They don't only sell furnitures at Ikea but many provisions too in their grocery department.
An other chain from Sweden here on the island is H&M, Hennes and Mauritz, but I haven't found much there when a lot of the clothes they sell here on Tenerife looks out of glamour and sometimes they are creased too. The H&M stores in Sweden and Finland are much better.
The mens wear are nice here but only small sizes like S,M,L. It seams like they have brought the products into line with consumer needs when many of the Canary and Spanish people are very small.
We also have the Scandishop here in Los Cristianos and the owner import products from Sweden and he always says we can tell him what to order and he will fix it. Very nice!
The Scandishop is closed in the summertime but when they open in the autumn we can have frozen cry fishes and we make a small party for ourselves every year.
The cry fish season started yesterday at 12 o'clock in Scandinavia. Oh I wish we had some!
But I don't like to boil them myself when you have to put them alive into boiling water which is really terrible.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Shopping


I have been out shopping again.
There was many new outfits at Stratovarius today, when the sale is coming to an end, but the style was not really mine.
I bought the boots there and in an other shop I bought the black shoes.
I also bought a black top today and a nice belt with a lot of small artificial diamonds.




We are planning to go to Ikea and Alcampo for shopping soon. Maybe Friday.
I need new flowers for the balcony again when some of them have almost died + Clas needs a lot of new clothes which is going to take the most of the time.
It's almost impossible to find clothes for him here in the south when they only have small sizes.
The only problem when we go to Sta Cruz is that he don't like to try on any clothes. I have to use all the tricks I know and last time he tried on maybe 20 pair of pants, some vests and 20 different shirts which wasn't too bad. But I like him to try on every piece of clothes we are going to buy!
He thinks he can see the size by the eye and like to just take them and go and pay.
Since we came to Tenerife he has bought many shirts without trying them on. Seventeen of them are now hanging in the wardrobe, never used, because they are too small for him. I don't like it that way and will try to do my best to get him into the fitting room this time.

A short update

It has been like a tornado going on among the entertainers the last month here on Tenerife. Some have finished playing in the restaurants where they used to be. Some have moved somewhere else and some has changed their total image and is now imitating stars they haven't been imitating before. It isn't like before anymore.

Some restaurants have now got PR:s on the street again which was banned last autumn.

The Siam Park will soon open and they are now working on the final phases of decoration and technical trials. As expected the park offers brand new and innovative attractions, as well as the classic water rides, all with a special Siam Touch.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

My son Daniel

My younger son Daniel called me today. He is on a boat outside of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria right now. That means he is not far away from us at all.
The next harbor they will enter is in Dakar, Senegal, Africa which makes me little bit worried when I have heard it's a lot of crime there.
After Dakar they will go down to Lagos in Nigeria which means they are sailing down along half of the African East coast.
He said they are prepared and will check the boat carefully when they leave the harbors.
It's common that people are hiding on board trying to get to Europe and get a luxury life as they believe.
He is only 22 years old. When he was 19 years old he was sailing from Canada down to Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay twice and he has been in really many places and countries already in his life.
He will get back home in September and then he maybe will come and see us.

Grand Prix Germany


Congratulations to England! Hamilton won again!
Second was Piquet and third Massa. Kimi was number six.
Next race is in Hungary 3th of August. Hopefully Kimi beats them all then!
The total points are now; Lewis 58, Massa 54, and Kimi 51.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Qualification Germany

Hamilton did it again! He has got the pole position tomorrow.
Number two is Heikki Kovalainen and three Filipe Massa. Kimi is number six.
It seams like the Mercedes cars are in good condition now but this is not the final results. A lot can happen tomorrow and I hope Kimi will be on the podium. They say it can be rain and then he is very strong.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Romantic Dinner


Oh what a romantic dinner Clas made tonight. The plates were even decorated with roses!
We had spits made from chicken breasts, rice, salad, a hot macaroni salad and a special sauce made of soar cream + sweet & sour sauce.
It was so delicious but many carbohydrates that I try to resist. But I can have normal food 1 day a week and I tried to not eat too much.

And today he bought new roses for the dining table. Seams like we get new roses every weekend now. He is a real gentleman!



Blogging


Clas says I feed the fishes too often. With that he means that I am blogging too much.

I try to make three posts every day but sometimes I do only two. I read somewhere that you have to make at least three posts per day or the readers will start thinking your blog is too boring, or even worse, they can become angry at you! It's not fun to visit a blog time after time and there is no new updates.

I don't know how long I will keep my blog going. Maybe until the New Year? Then I have been blogging for one year and maybe that would be a good time to quit. We'll see.

Being a blogger has become like a lifestyle and it's almost the same as taking care of a child.
You think about it all the time and try to remember to take photos and every little happening has to be printed down on the computer.

In Sweden the blogging has taken one step further. There the bloggers who have got many readers have it as a profession and they get their salary from the advertising the companies do on their sites. They also get a lot of stuff for free, like makeup, pieces of jeweleries, clothes and invitations to a lot of venues with free drinks and food. But they have to blog about what they get to not make the companies unsatisfied and to become unpopular.

On my little site I don't have so many readers and I pay myself for everything I blog about and have no sponsors or advertising posts. I do it only as a hobby like the most of the bloggers do.

No divorce!


I think I better need to give some information...
I wonder now if our guests in the nights start believing we have become enemies or that we are ready for a divorce? I mean Clas and I.
Before we used to sit together at some table in the breaks, many times talking with friends, but now Clas is sitting at one table and I am sitting at an other one. We really try to be as far from each other as possible keeping the dance floor between us.
I will explain why we are acting like this! It's only because I can't stand cigar smoke right now.
I start coughing like crazy till I almost die and thats not good for my voice.
Clas is puffing on his cigars and is not interesting in saving it until I become better. He don't inhale when he smokes and only does it to keep up the cowboy image, and you know, the image has to go before the health in this case!
I hope my bronchitis will become better soon and we can go back to the normal.

Shopping


I got the skirt yesterday! Or I got two skirts! I found an other one as well.
And a shirt, two belts and some make up too.
I was only out shopping for about 40 minutes and bought so many things.
It was really like a miracle! Many times I run around for hours without finding anything.
I am so happy now and today I am going to start planning new outfits that include the new pieces of clothes I have bought the last two weeks.
It's our day off today and we will have a barbecue on the balcony later tonight. Clas is out in town buying the ingredients.
Tomorrow it's the qualification race of the Grand Prix in Germany and Sunday is the race.

Short or long hair?



I have got a comment from a man called Uffe. He prefer short hair.
Should I cut it short? What do you think?
These two photos have got the same makeup and a hair color that is close to my natural.
The long hair style is quite similar to what I have right now.
I mean, short hair would be nice now when it's warm days here on Tenerife...?

Thursday, July 17, 2008

A nice but busy day

It's nice weather again today, about + 28 degrees. It feels just perfect!
I have got a long list of `must do:s´ like; ironing, clean dishes, clean the house, have a shower and I would like to go out and buy a skirt I have seen before but didn't buy when I didn't understand that I really need it. I hope it's still there.

My oldest son Mattias and his girl friend Pia are coming to see us in August. They will stay here for ten days.
We have booked one of the neighbor apartments, that is full furnished, for them to sleep in when we haven't got any guest room. We really look forward to see them and can't almost wait until they arrive.
We will take as many days off as possible from Lewinski while they are here.

I need to continue with my work...Have a nice day!

Good Night!

I don't blog much this night. I started playing the game that Clas has on his blog when we came home from work. It´s very easy and never said `game over´. I had been playing for about two hours when I gave up. It's time to go to bed! Good Night!
He,he! Clas thinks I have too many animated pictures on my blog. I can't help it but I like them so much!


Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Dancing

I haven't been dancing much the last weeks and now I miss it a lot.
Last night a line dancing couple from Holland visited us and I did
a couple of dances together with them but that was all.
As soon as my cough gets better I will start dancing like this girl!
I like some of her movements and would like to learn to do the same.

The motorcycle accident

Have you heard about the man and the motorcycle accident in Florida?

The man was tinkering with his motorcycle outside the house and suddenly when he accelerated the machine it took off and flew straight through the open door into the living room where it overturned and the man was left under it.
His wife who was cleaning in the house heard a noise and how the man was screaming and went over to see him and she called for an ambulance.
When the ambulance had left with the man she quickly started cleaning up the petrol from the carpet and then she jumped into the car and went over to the hospital.
Finally there she got to know her husband had got a broken arm in the accident and a couple of cracked ribs and they would be allowed to return home as soon as the arm was put in plaster.

Back in the home the man went to the restroom and sat down on the toilet smoking a cigarette.
After a while he started screaming like a wolf and the wife went over to see what has happened to him. He was jumping and turning around and screaming like crazy and she got to know he had burned his bottom.
He had thrown the cigarette into the toilet among the papers she used when she was cleaning the petrol from the carpet. She hurried to call the ambulance again.

It happened to be the same ambulance and the same crew as before, that came to get him.
When they came into the house the man directly throw himself on the stretcher in anger and they started carrying him out to the ambulance. The wife was walking beside them and they asked her about what has happened. When she told them the story they started laughing like crazy and lost the concentration. The husband fell of the stretcher and broke his other arm.

Can a day be worse than this? Poor man!


glitter-graphics.com

Zenzi


When I was ready at the doctor today I stopped at Zenzi on the way back home. Zenzi is a Laser Clinic and Beauty Center in El Camison, Las Americas.

If you get extra time while you are here on Tenerife don't hesitate to make an appointment there and allow yourself some extra luxury. I think the prices are much cheaper here than in many other countries.
You can, if you like, have an Microdermabrasion that can make you look about ten years younger!
This popular treatment is an alternative to lifting and plastic surgery being able to treat wrinkles, sun damaged skin, blemishes, acne scarring, stretch marks or even as a beauty flash treatment.
Or maybe you would like to get new beautiful nails. The price of Gel nails is only 50Euro!
Zenzi offers you even massages and Spa treatments and Laser hair removal and many different facial treatments.
Phone: + 34 922 798 587 Open: Mon-Sat 10 am - 8 pm.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

New treatment


Now I'm back home. The doctor and the nurses were all really nice and helpful. They all could speak English and all the steps I had to go through went quickly and smoothly. No long queues.

I complained about the soar throat, the swollen air tubes, the terrible cough that keeps us awake in the nights, the head ace I get of the coughing and the difficulty to sing in the nights, and about the antibiotics that haven't helped much and about the mucus...I put everything on the table , like we say in Swedish, and the doctor seamed to be very understanding and decided it's best to do a real check up.

Three times I had to blow into a pill that was connected to a machine and the results, which came out on a piece of paper, were alright. No bad values which is nice when that means my illness could be worse but it's on the better side.
Then I had to go to the X-ray department and a man took two pictures of my lungs which I now have got here at home. I have never got any x-ray plates with me home before. In Finland they keep them in the hospital.

The doctor said my lungs are okay but there is an inflammation in the air tube. I got a powder inhalator and a new appointment after three weeks. They like to do a check up then to see if I'm getting better.

The medicine was quite expensive, 79Euros for one inhalator! But the doctor said it's the best one you can have and of course I like to have the best one.
I didn't have to pay anything for the appointment, and all what they did to me, when I have an health insurance that covers everything.

I hope all this coughing and pain in the throat soon will be just a remembrance but I know now I have to stay out of cigarette smoke and really strong perfumes to not make it worse.
I have to take two inhalations per day now, the coming three weeks, until my next appointment the 5:th of August.

Hospital appointment


I have only lost 1,1 kilo grams this first week but I am satisfied when I haven't been doing any exercising at all.
I will soon go by taxi to the hospital and meet the doctor. Hopefully I get the help I need to get rid of the cough when I really would like to start the training program soon.

Clas told me I better would make it up a little bit, at the doctor, and be as bad like I am almost dying. He says if I just go there and smile and not complain much they think it's not so serious and give me some antibiotics and send me back home.
He thinks I need to be a little bit more Spanish and put some feelings into it. Maybe I need to cry some tears and cough until I start vomiting and loose the breath until I faint or something similar.
No, I am not a good actor and think it will just look like a farce. But I think he is right. I ought to take some manners of the culture in practice to be sure I get the right diagnosis.

But now I really wonder how Clas himself would act when he has to see a doctor? He,he maybe he would sit there glassy-eyed not getting a single breath finally crawling on the floor?
Oh, he is so lucky! He hasn't had to see a doctor since we moved down to Tenerife and we have now lived here for four years. He gets colds every now and then but after 4-5 days he recover without having any medicals. I wish I would be the same.