Our night off

We are now off Fridays and last night we went to Las Americas to have the dinner at Greek Corner which is one of our favorite restaurants when it comes to food.
We have 4 nights of in a month and we go there at least one of them, sometimes two times.
After the meal we went over to La Karina to see
the staff and the owner.
Oh, we miss them so much! And I think they miss us too.
It was very nice to work at La Karina.
The staff there is like a family to us.

Me waiting for the starter at Greek Corner.

Me and one of the waiters.
By the way, when we started playing on Tenerife five years ago
Greek Corner was the place where we started.
We had only 20 songs and had to sing some of them
3 times in a night!
Now we have about 250 songs in our repertoire.

The starter of the "Mesa Greek Corner" dinner.
I recommend you to try this meal at least one
night while you are on Tenerife!
You get many small portions of different Greek specialties.

Clas and the angel of Veronicas.
On the way to La Karina we met this
cute little angel outside Veronicas.
She must be the most beautiful PR ever on Tenerife!
She had a lot of glitter on her skin, which made her shine like an real angel, but the camera didn't catch it.

Pär + Pernilla = True

We got a nice surprise last night at Lewinski.
We got an invitation to attend a wedding here in Los Cristianos.
Pär and Pernilla from Sweden, who have visited us many times at Lewinskis the last years, are going to be married in the Swedish church at the beach front on Friday.

The swine influenza

What do you think? Is it going to be as serious as they say, or
is it just a propaganda of the medical industry to earn more money?
And is this going to be our new look?
Cute, isn't it?

Dinner in Adeje

It was our night off last night (Friday) and we went out for dinner with our friends Tove and Jan Egil from Norway.
We went by taxi up to restaurant La Rambla in the small mountain village called Adeje.
We had a real nice evening and stayed there the whole night.

Tove and Jan Egil.

Tove, Jan Egil and Clas in Adeje.

21.000 visitors

It has passed 21.000 visitors!
Thank you so much for visiting my blog!

I have tried to keep a break from the blog this summer and
have only been doing a couple of posts per week.
It takes a lot of time to blog as much as I did last winter.

When you blog every day you have to live a lifestyle with your camera available all the time.
You don't really think normally when you easily start value everything you see and do.
And you constantly look for something to blog about.
You carry the camera with you everywhere and the blog is constantly in your thoughts.
I haven't decided how much I will blog the coming winter season but I think it anyhow will be more than now. We'll see.

We are right now busy planning for the winter season and have been out looking at different restaurants. We have got a few invitations but haven't decided where to go yet.
We like La Karina 1 very much but the problem there is that we only get to play three nights a week and we like to find a place where we can play five or six nights a week.
It only causes confusion when we move back and forth between different restaurants and last year many guests couldn't hardly find us and they went to the wrong place and had to take a taxi to find us.
Our goal is to find a place in Las Americas where we can play five/six nights a week and have a big dance floor.

If you are a restaurant owner and have a big restaurant in a busy area, with room for at least 200 guests, and a big dance floor, please contact us on our mail.
susanne@clasholm.com
cc@clasholm.com

Fondue Party

We are off tonight.
It's Thursday and flamenco night at La Karina.
We decided to have a fondue party on the balcony and just enjoy the night.
We are going to play Friday and Saturday.

I will explain the sauces for you when they are the best ones we ever have had.

Starts from the right: The first sauce is made of white wine and garlic.
I dipped the chicken pieces in this sauce first and then into the next sauce that is pure Asian sweet and sour sauce. Delicious!
The third cup contains Palm honey from La Gomera mixed with white pepper.
In this sauce I first dipped the fillet steak pieces and then I dipped them into next cup that has got Teryaki sauce.
Oh, it was so lovely! Next time we have fondue I will do the same.
Thought I must blog about it so that I remember the receipt.

Clas sleeping

He, he! Clas don't know that I took this photo the other night when he was sleeping!
Sometimes he go to bed earlier than me and you see how it looks!
He takes all the space and there is no room for me...he,he!
No! As soon as I curl up next to him he moves to the side and put his arms around me.
I just took this photo to surprise him. :-)

Last Night

Last night we were off and we went for a nice dinner to restaurant Mamma Mia that is opposite the Mediterranea hotel in Las Americas.
The owner of the restaurant gave us a free dinner when Clas has helped her to translate the menu to Swedish for her new restaurant that soon will be opened.
We got a three course meal and it was very very nice.
Thanx a lot to Maria Isabel! We really enjoyed it!

Clas at Mamma Mia.

Engaged

My son Mattias Söderholm and Pia Törnroos

were engaged last Saturday 18.07.2009

Sharing in the happiness of your engagement and
wishing you a wonderful life together.
Congratulations

Our schedule

Our schedule has rapidly changed again , like you see.
This is Tenerife!
Instead of Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday we are going to play Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday the coming week.
I'm so sorry, and hope nobody will be fooled because of the wrong schedule that was put up earlier.

Cecil is going for vacation again, the coming week, and because of that we will, some nights, play on his nights instead on our own nights at La Karina 1 (Close to the Elit Sol Tenerife Hotel).
We'll start at La Karina 2 (between hotel Andorra and Hotel Vulcano) on Saturday next week (18.7).

I would be very happy if we could find a restaurant where we could play six nights a week, the year around, and where we could have a real big dance floor.
We every now and then get invitations to play at different restaurants here on Tenerife, but the problem has been that the restaurants are too small in size when it comes to the dance floor and the seats.
Please, keep visiting our website before you leave for Tenerife, to be updated where we are.

I know that it's not good for our image to play in two different places when it sometimes makes our guests confused. Some people even went to the wrong place last Winter and it caused them an extra fee when they had to take a taxi to find us...

It's not good either to be off many nights in the Summertime, when we should build up a Summer audience for the coming Summer seasons.
So far this summer we only have had a couple of bad nights. (only about 50 guests)
It has in our opinion been a quite good Summer when we never before, while we played in Los Cristianos, have had so many guests in the Summertime.

My dream is to one day get a place where we can have room for at least 300-500 people in the same time.
Where we play now it's only room for 200 people and the dance floor is many nights too small in the winter time.

The new restaurant has to have two dance floors; one for the line dancers and one for the couple dancers, or one where we can have all the line dancers in the middle and room for the couple dancers to dance around + has to be in a busy area.

Do we have to go to England to get this, or will it be possible on Tenerife?
We have already got invitations to come and play in England but have felt that we are not prepared to go yet.
But now, since our song repertoire has been updated with the last pop line dances, we are much more prepared.
We'll see! Maybe we one day will come to England and have a tour in the line dance clubs? I think it would be very fun!

New songs

It was the premiere for some of our new songs last night.
It's a lot of youths here on the island now, specially in the area where we work, and we have changed our repertoire a little bit and mix our country songs with popular pop songs that the young people are listening to right now.
It was very fun to sing tonight when many of the youths new the lyrics and could sing along.

I have been practising a lot of new songs the last weeks and last night I sang songs like Human, Poker face, My life would suck without you, Mi chico latino and The boy does nothing etc.

He, he! We maybe have to throw the hats away as long as we sing these songs when they probably are as far from the country that you can get...But I like them very much.

It has been quite difficult for me to learn to sing in the new way they sing today.
It's more like singing and rapping in the same time.

Some of the new songs we sing now are also popular line dances which means we will also continue to sing them in the winter time if they are requested by the dancers.

I am right now learning how to sing a song called Hush,Hush but it's so difficult and have so many words that I probably have to do rehearsal of it for one more week before I am brave enough to start singing it on the stage.

Our schedule

Clas, Yvonne, Me and John outside La Karina.
Yvonne and John are two very good line dancers from Holland who visit Tenerife a couple of times every year.
This photo was taken last week, the last night they spend with us before they returned back home.
Please, click on the photo to get it larger.

This is our work schedule at La Karina the coming week:
8.30 - 11.30 pm

Friday 10.7 Yes!
Saturday 11.7 No!
Sunday 12.7 Yes!
Monday 13.7 No!
Tuesday 14.7 Yes!
Wednesday 15.7 Yes!
Thursday 16.7 No!

We are off Saturday and Monday and then
Cecil will be on the stage instead with his Jamaican show.
Thursday it's Flamenco show 9 o'clock, like normal.
Welcome!

Not much to say

Sorry I don't blog much now.
It's only because i don't have much to say.
My life is just going on like normal; I am sleeping, eating, shopping and working.

The last two days I have been planning outfits for the coming two months.
It's a tough job when the hangers are heavy and I have to try on every outfit and change the pieces until I become satisfied, but I am happy to get the wardrobe in order.

Clas has built small shelves down at the floor inside our big wardrobe and now we have got a better order for the shoes and the boots, which is nice.

We have nice weather here every day. It's +28 and no clouds.
My tan is again on the way to fade out and I will soon try to spend some time in the sun.
It's really strenuous but we must have some tan to make our guests not believe that we are sleeping all day long or that we are just sitting at the computers during our spare time.

20.000 Visitors

for visiting my blog

La Karina 29.06.2009

I have made two different video clips.
This one is from Monday night and on our tenecountry site
I have published one from last night (Tuesday).
We have many line dancers now and it's so fun to play every night.

To watch the video below, please, click on the arrow.

Click here if you like to see the video that is on the other site.

Poor Us!

Oh, we hardly can't move normally anymore!
But we just keep on playing and dancing at La Karina like nothing has happened.
It would just make people worried if they knew how we look under the clothes and because of that we keep it a secret.
Except on our blogs and on the Facebook, of course, where we tell the most of everything.

Now it for sure will take a long time before I go to the beach again.
The stupid thing, like it seams, is that this happens to me every summer!
But next summer I will remember it! *sigh!*

Remember to use at least number 30 of sun protection when you come to Tenerife in the summer time.
And don't stay on the beach for longer than two hours at the time, or hide under a parasol!
It's really like being in an oven!!
The lovely calm breeze from the Atlantic ocean fools you to think it's alright and suddenly you look like a grilled pork without knowing anything.

Sorry! These pictures don't look nice, but I decided to show you anyhow.
Maybe it can be a warning to somebody who is on the way to Tenerife or any other similar place in the world?

Poor Clas! He has now only got one pair of pants that are big enough so that he can wear them on the stage. It would look terrible if he had to wear shorts on the stage. Wouldn't it?

The outside of my thigh. I can't hardly wear any skirts and it's now a problem every night to find an outfit that I can wear. But I know it will become better after three days. That's how it has been during the past years.

Our day off

I will show you what we have been doing on our day off,
which now is on Thursdays until the 10th of July.

When we woke up in the morning we decided to spend the day down at the beach.
It's very sunny here on Tenerife now and today we had + 26 degrees.
It's very seldom I spend a whole day on the beach,
because I know my skin gets burned every time.


We had Subways for lunch and later in the afternoon we shared a bottle of champagne.
The Russian people next to us peeked when we had champagne and the stupid thing was that we only had two cups and could not share it with them.
Next time we bring champagne to the beach we will for sure bring more cups so that we can share with our neighbors.


To be honest with you I burned my skin again today.
I used a high protection number on the suncream but it did not help.
Actually we are both very burned now and Clas can't wear tight pants.
He has burned his legs terribly.
I have burned the hips, the legs and the left cheek + the shoulders and the arms.
We'll probably have to lay under the ceiling fan when we go to bed.


In the night we went for dinner to Greek Corner in Las Americas.
Like always we had the Mesa Greek Corner menu which is our favorite.


Clas at Greek Corner.


After the dinner we went over to La Karina to watch the Flamenco Show.


Me at La Karina.

Clas took a video clip from the flamenco show.
Please, click on the arrow to watch it.

La Karina 24.06.2009

This is a video clip of some of the line dancers at La Karina last night.
I have also published a video from the night before on our fan club on Facebook.
If you like to watch it click here.
Please, click on the arrow to watch the film.

Happy Midsummer

I wish you all a happy Midsummer

The Midnight sun in Lapland.
When it gets to this position it starts rising again.

The Midsummer is a time of celebration in Finland,
where we come from.
Some families spend the midsummer weekend out in the archipelago,
where they have built summer cottage on the islands.
In Midsummer night the sauna is typically heated and family and
friends are invited to bathe and to grill.

Bonfires are common, specially in the Finish talking part of the country, and they are burnt at lake sides and by the sea.

Midsummerday (Sunday) is also the day of the Finnish flag.
Then the flag is hoisted at 6 pm on Midsummer eve (Saturday)
and flown all night till 9 pm the following evening.

The Midsummer in Lapland, Finland is bright.
It's the time of the nightless nights.
Night and day the midnight sun stays above the horizon.
For instance, going as far north as to Utsjoki,
the sun stays above the horizon from mid-May to mid-July.
Altogether two months!

During the mid-winter months (November - January) it's the opposite.
Then the sun does not rise at all, for about 50 days, in Lapland.
The bright stars and sometimes moon combined with totally white and pure snow anyway give light enough in clear nights to see very well.
In this time of the year you often can see the Northern lights
(Aurora borealis).

New agenda at La Karina

Me at Alcampo today.

We have been to Sta Cruz shopping today.
I bought a dress, 2 skirts and a vest + some jeweleries and Clas bought 4 shirts to use on stage.

When we got home in the night we had a grill party out on the balcony.

After the meal I watched the "Benidorm" Special video that we got as a gift from Mick and Frances a couple of days ago. Clas watched it directly after we received it in the mailbox.
It was as good as the other programs in the series and I recommend you to watch it.

We'll have a new schedule at La Karina from next week.
We are off on Monday like normal, but after that we'll play every night except Thursdays when it's flamenco show.
Cecil who is normally having his Jamaican show at La Karina three nights a week is going for vacation and we will cover his nights.
This means we will now play six nights a week at La Karina, the restaurant that is close to hotel Sol Tenerife in Las Americas.

La Karina 16.06.2009

We made two different video clips when we played last night.
The other one is published on our fan club site at Facebook.

Please, click on the arrow to watch the video clip.

Birthday Party

Our friend Catarina from Sweden had birthday yesterday and we were invited to her birthday party at Scandishop.
It was a lovely night and it was fun to meet some of the Scandinavians who stay on the island during the summer.

Catarina and her boyfriend.

The party guests.

Hot nights

Oh, the counter has passed 19.000 visitors!
Thanx a lot to you all!

The nights are much warmer now than in the wintertime.
When we get home from work we have to take of the clothes directly and go straight into the shower to cool down.
To be honest with you it's very "sweaty" to dance and entertain when it's so warm.
I have to wash all the clothes after every night!

After having the shower we sit out on the balcony evaluating the night having a night snack.
I can say our life is back to normal again.
It's good to be on vacation, but oh, how I like to be back on the stage again! It's so fun!

It's still very quiet on the island and we have only about 60-80 guests per night.
In the winter time we have about 200 guests per night.
But we should not complain when we probably have got most guests of all the restaurant here in the south. The tourists who are here now seam to like Country and western music.

The last nights we have played line dance songs the whole nights through.
Some of the line dancers come to Tenerife in June every year and it's so fun to play when they dance.
We have had dancers from England, Scotland, Holland and Germany this last week.

We both feel that the nights pass too quickly now and we could gladly play for at least one more hour per night.
I am also happy when I think I'll probably start loosing weight again when I dance so much.

The only bad thing is when we every night stop at the 24 hour market, on the way home, and buy chocolate bars that we throw in before we go to bed. *sigh!*

Busy, busy, busy

Sorry I don't have much time to blog right now.
I am busy doing a lot of other things...
It's our day off today and we'll soon start preparing for a grill party out on the balcony.
We have been out on town earlier today and it's nice weather, +25 degrees.
I have plans to sun bath some day soon, but right now I'm too busy.
Have a nice evening!

The Water Pipe

A couple of years ago I bought a beautiful water pipe here on Tenerife.
It was meant that it just would stand as a decoration in our home, but today Clas got the idea that he would like to try it.

First he went on the internet to learn how to use it.
Then he went out on town hunting the special tobacco that it deserves and found a shop where they sell it.
It's not a real tobacco when it hasn't got any nicotine or any kind of drugs in it.
I would say it's more like a tea tobacco or something...and he bought one with a taste of cherry.
Maybe the real tough guys use some stronger stuff in it?

After the dinner he finally put on the show and I decided to make a video clip to show you how the whole procedure went.

I also took a couple of drags from the pipe to get to know how it tastes and I would say it tasted like a cherry tea mixed with smoke.
A problem did however come up...
We forgot to close the balcony door during the experiment and now it smells cherry tea smoke everywhere in the apartment and I have got headache.
Hopefully we'll get rid of the smell before we go to bed.

If the headache don't stop I will paint my forehead with a stick that we have got from friends in England.
It's called "4Head" and when you paint the forehead, it becomes very cold and the ache leaves immediately. I recommend everybody who is going to visit England to buy it. It's very good!

Please, click on the arrow to watch the video clip.

Israel, Obama and Iran

The relations between USA and Israel don't look to be as good as before and to be honest with you I don't really like the political thoughts of Obama right now.
I am a big fan of America normally but now I can't agree with him when I feel he is putting Israel in a very bad position, just to get a flirt with the Arabs.

Obama seams to be an intelligent man but the question is also if he can get a good deal with the Islamic fundamentalists, who seldom think in a rational way, but prefer to act in conviction of their faith.
Would he at all be able to make a good agreement with Iran if Israel would agree about the two-state solution?

Bill Clinton caused a big problem at Camp David year 2000 when he put pressure on Arafat in an intellectual way, and had him to confess that there has been a temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which is a fact that is founded on archaeological excavations, but that made Arafat so angry that he left the place and later started up the al Aqsa intifada where about 1200 Jewish people were murdered.
It can be very dangerous to deal with fanatic people in an intellectual way.

Why I can't agree with Obama right now is because I think he puts pressure on Israel in a bad way when he mix the question of Iran with the question of the two-state solution.
It looks like the reason is, that he only likes to get favour among the Arabs from who he must get help to get a good deal with Iran.
These two questions are two different things and it's not fair to mix them together.
I wonder if Obama, in the end, is going to bite himself in the tail, like we say in Swedish.

If Israel doesn't agree in the two-state question, which they probably not will do, USA will instead probably have to take use of the millitary solution against Iran.
Then people can start blaming Israel for that, when they didn't agree about the two-state solution.

Like it looks the blame is already arranged so that it will hit Israel and Netanyahu and I think this way of dealing is cowardly and unfair.
I just become angry when I think about it. *sigh*
Israel has already got enough of persecution and it will be very hard for them if the US also turn their back on them.

However this can also only be a trick from Obama toward the Arabs and it's going to be interesting to see the end of it.
He will for sure get a lot more feathers in his hat after this visit in Cairo, when he acts like a real bridge constructor!

Would you like to read in Swedish about the visit of Obama in Cairo?
Please, click here.

Our breakfast

As many times before our refrigerator is empty and we had to
go out and have a breakfast at restaurant Fados down at the beach front.
After the meal I went out shopping.
It's very few tourists in Los Cristianos now, only a few people out on the streets, and many restaurants are closed.
It feels a little bit like a ghost town and we are so happy when we now play in Las Americas where it's a little bit more people, even when it's also very quiet over there.

La Karina last night

It's still quiet on the island.
I took these two pictures when we played last night.
We had only a total of about 60 people in during the night but some of
them were dancing and singing along and it was very fun to play.

The surgery is put on hold

I have been to the hospital today and met the surgeon who is going to do the operation of the hernia and esophagus sphincter in the future.
I have now been through all the tests and got all the answers and today he carefully explained everything for me and showed me how it looks on the x-ray pictures etc.

Good news is that the hernia is not as bad as they thought from the beginning when they did the gastroscopy examination. It's smaller.
There is a leakage of the acids into the esophagus and I will probably also need a strengthen of the lower esophageal sphincter (the muscle that prevents acid from backing up into the esophagus) in the future. But we will wait and see.

There are risks with the surgery and I will try to keep it on hold as long as possible.
Right now I feel like normal because of the medication and I hope I will make it only with one pill a day for at least some years.
The surgeon will follow the process and do check ups and he will see me again in the beginning of August.

I am so happy now and tonight we start playing again and a group of line dancers from England called us today and are on the way to the island.
We both really look forward to start working tonight.

Me at restaurant Greek Corner in Las Americas last night.


Clas is waiting for the dinner.


Romantic view during the dinner.

The flight fears will increase again

An Air France plan has today disappeared on it's way from Brazil to Paris.
A reason for all the scared flight passengers to get more wind into their sails.

My thought goes to Clas' mom who was planning to come and visit us for her birthday this coming Autumn.
She has a terrible flight fear and now she has canceled the trip, not because of the fear though, but you never know if that was one of the reasons.

Wouldn't it be nice if they could put frightened passengers to sleep during the flight by giving them anaesthetic?
I mean, so many people miss out to discover and travel around in the world only because of this fear.

I like to fly and I have absolutely no fear.
Some years ago, when I went with KLM to Holland, the landing gears didn't come out when we were ready for landing and we had to fly around while the pilots worked on it.
The passengers were so afraid and some started crying, but I just thought all the time that we will make it and was not scared at all.

I really feel sorry for all the people who become scared.
I wish they could enjoy the travel like I do.

If you like to read about the accident in Swedish, please, click here.