Back on stage

We started playing again Sunday night after having a vacation of nine days.
We went to the owner of Lewinski in the middle of the day asking if we could stay home a couple of more nights when it was so hot and everybody said it's no tourists out in the nights. But we were told to start again and we proved very sceptical to the suggestion and told each other we will not have more than maybe three or four tables with guests.
Guess if we were surprised when the restaurant after a while started filling up. It was a crowded night and we had many line dancers as well. Thanks to the owner who told us to start again!
It's still very warm weather and it's +29 on our balcony. The sandy storm has abated and the skies are more clear and we hope to be crowded tonight again. But it's a change over day for the tourists so it depends on how tired they are when they arrive to the island. Maybe we don't see many before tomorrow night?

Grand Prix, Barcelona

Clas in his "Formula uno" outfit.



Jihaa! Kimi won the race in Barcelona!
We hoisted the Finnish flag on our balcony, like we always do when he wins, to show the neighbors where we are from and who we support.
I think Alonso has got the most fans here on Tenerife and second could maybe be Massa?
I don't know about any other supporters who live on the island who are fans of Kimi.
But I don't think we are the only ones. He might have many Ferrari fans here who support him.

A couple of years ago you could see many Spanish people, here on the island, wearing Renault T-shirts to show they were supporters of Alonso. The hysteria has now cooled down a little bit when he hasn't been much on the podium. But he had a quite good qualification race in Barcelona and ended up number two so maybe he will do a come back. It must have been very frustrating for the fans and himself at the Sunday race when the car started burning and he had to stop.
I think he is a good driver but it seams like the car isn't good enough. But you never know! Maybe we will see a lot of the blue-yellow shirts here on Tenerife again if the car gets better. The old fans can proudly start using the old Renault t-shirts they bought a couple of years ago i.e. if they didn't throw them away when he went to the stable of McLaren last year.

Clas has got 5 different Grand Prix shirts which he uses in the daytime. On two of them it only says McLaren (he is a Mercedes fan), two have got Kimis face on them and one has Heikki Kovalainens name on it.
He is called " El Sheriff" by some of the Spaniards here in our neighborhood. Thats because they see him every night in cowboy outfits and hats and with the `sheriff star´on his vest.
But he don't walk around like a sheriff in his spare time!
No! Then he looks more like a Grand Prix freak or something like that.
When he walk out on town he furthermore uses black sunglasses and a black cap and almost nobody recognize he is the cowboy.
When I go out there are people everywhere who nod and greet. That's how it is when you work on a stage in a small town like Los Cristianos.
I haven't got any Grand Prix shirts and I haven't even been thinking of buying one.
I think the look of the shirts are too masculine and definitely not my style.
Why can't they make a really pretty dress for the women. I would like to have a short, creased, red one with Kimis name on and all the company logos and it would be nice if it has a belt around the waist.

Barcelona qualification

Kimi has the pole position! Jihaaa! I hope he wins tomorrow!
Alonso was number two and looked very happy too. He is from Asturias and you can see what great support he had today on the photo above. The blue flag has the region coat of arms of Asturias on it.
I think he will race like crazy tomorrow.
Number three in the qualification was Filippe Massa. Very nice!
It will be a exciting race tomorrow!

The electricity

Wind power plants here on Tenerife.

A while ago we lost the electricity in our house again.
We wonder what's the matter and we have been standing out on the balcony like two doves, watching what's going on down on the street, like the other neighbors always do when something is up.
The electricity comes and goes like it seams.
Unelco (the electricity company) is very quick. It takes only a couple of minutes and then they are here with their car and open the small door they have out at the street. They take out some parts and put in some new parts and then it works again. It seams like they are watching our house carefully when they are so quick to be here every time it goes out.
Today when I came back home from the shopping tour the wife of the landlord were standing at the entrance of the house warning everybody to use the elevator.
That was nice when it wouldn't be fun to be locked inside between two flats.
Before I had mortal fear when I was in an elevator but then I learned to trust in Gods care and now it's not really a problem anymore. If I die I die, but I don't believe that I am going to die because of an elevator accident and I believe I am still going to live for many years.
I don't feel that I have finished my mission here on the earth yet. I hope I am right.

Very Hot!

This satellite photo shows how the sand is blowing from Sahara out over the Atlantic Ocean.

Oh, now it's very hot here on Tenerife!
We have had + 37 on our balcony today and that was in the shadow! Right now it's + 32 and it's 8.30 in the night!
The calima is terrible this time and it's very dusty air and I haven't been out anything today except when I was out shopping in the middle of the day. We try to keep all windows and doors closed and now it's only about 26 degrees inside.
Many times when the calima gets strong it ends with a heavy shower and now we don't know if we can play tomorrow. If it's raining cats and dogs we'll stay at home...If it's still + 35 or more in the night we stay at home when all the tourists probably are locked up in the hotels to avoid breathing the sand...and if it's strong winds with a hurricane intensity we can't be out on the terrace playing when nobody can sit there ...Maybe we can be off for a couple of more nights?
To be honest with you, we don't know right now how it's going to be.
As musicians on Tenerife you have to be flexible and it's always the weather and the tourist flow that rules your life. But it's very seldom the weather rules. We have the best weather in the world with no big differences in the temperatures and the weather we have right now is unusual.

Clas has now used his brain to figured out how he can make Finnish Garlic cucumbers for us.
He is very cleaver! Maybe we will have the delicacies after a couple of days. That would be nice!
Oh, I can already feel how it's going to taste in my mouth! Delicacy!!!

Tonight I made two thick fillet steaks with creamed root vegetables for dinner. That because the Tasca Avenida restaurant at El Hierro, which is the best restaurant in La Restinga, had run out of fillet steaks.

Grand Prix in Barcelona

It's Grand Prix in Barcelona this weekend.
We will watch the qualification tomorrow and Sunday we are invited to our friends Paul and Patricia from England, in the afternoon, to watch the race.
Kimi has had the best race-time so far when they have been doing the training and I hope he will make it again this weekend. He is the best!!!
Kimi! Thatataaah! Kimi! Thattattaaah!
Suomi! Jihaahaaaa!

Charco Azul, El Hierro

Before we left El Hierro yesterday we visited Charco Azul, in El Golfo, on the northern side of the island. It was many steps to climb down before we got to the level of the sea and the caves down there. A nice place where you can sit in the sun and look at the mighty waves.

We also went to see the smallest Hotel in the world that has four bedrooms. It has been cited by the Guinness Book of Record as the smallest hotel in the world since 1992. The hotel dates from 1884 and stands on the small jetty at Punta Grande in El Golfo and is a two-star hotel.

La Cueva Don Justo, El Hierro

This is from the inside of the cave. A photo I found on the internet.
Address of the photo: http://www.jakopin.net/primoz/slike/2007/El_Hierro_2007_VII.html

Last year when we visited El Hierro we met a man from Germany who lives on the island.
He told us about `Cueva Don Justo´ (Don Justo cave) in La Restinga. It's the thirteenth longest cave in the world and has a volcanic tunnel that has six kilometres (four miles) of galleries.
We didn't have time to go and see it right then but decided we will visit the cave next time.
He told us to be careful when we go there when it has happened that people have become exited of the nice galleries and went from one to another until the torch has been running out of batteries and they have had to be rescued. He also told that a dog was missing inside the cave some years ago and the government don't like people to go there anymore when they don't know what happened to the dog.

Last week I started researching about the cave on the internet and this is some of what I found:

It is the richest lava tube system on the island and contains a well developed troglobitic fauna. All species found in Cueva de don Justo are endemic to the island and seven are exclusively found in the caves. The system is threatened by tourism, garbage dumping, vandalism, and the invasion of alien species such as cockroaches. Because the system is on private land, there are no local organizations focusing their efforts on protecting it. The Cabildo de El Hierro (local island government) placed a gate at the entrance several years ago. However, the gate was quickly destroyed and never rebuilt.

We also read in a tourist brochure that it's closed as a measure of protection for an endemic species which lives inside the cave.
But we decided to go there and see what it's like when some of the sites on the internet says the gate is kicked down and some sites says you shouldn't miss out to visit the cave while you are on the island.
We were looking at the map we got from the car hire company and found the name of the cave and went out looking for it in the area. We walked for about 2 hours and then we gave up. We couldn't find it. Now we know the name was written in the wrong place on the map.

In the night when we were chatting with some locals at a bar I started asking about the cave and the direction. One man who is a retired doctor from Tenerife said he will show us where it is but he invited us to go there when it was dark outside and when we said we would prefer to go there when it's daylight he wasn't interested anymore.

Next day we went to the tourist information desk to ask where it is. The lady there said it's closed and it's no idea to go there. I didn't give up and asked her where it is and she gave us a map and wrote a cross at the exit road of La Restinga meaning the cave was almost in the village.
I asked her if she was sure (because the doctor told me it's out on a field) and she said it's at the foot of Montana Pueblo and put an other cross about 3 cm higher up on the map.
We checked all the maps we had and there wasn't any mountain called Pueblo!
We went out looking for the cave again in the direction she had shown us but didn't find it.
One of the waiters in the village where laughing and said maybe we will find the cave if we come back again next year. He had no knowledge where the cave is and had never visited it.

It really looked like the direction of the cave is a secret among the people and we finally gave up.
Of course it's not fun to have tourists getting lost in the cave and to go in and look for them etc. But why can't they just open up the first rooms in the cave and place gates at the tunnels further inside? Isn't there tourists enough to make a business out of it?

Now when I got back home I went on the internet to search if it says exactly where the cave is and I got to know it's at Montana Prim and I think we can, if we like, find it next time.
Clas was also searching and he found a site where it says it's prohibited to visit the cave. You need permission from The Cabildo of El Hierro in Valverde and it's only researchers who get it.
That explains why nobody like to tell us where it is. Specially when the gate is kicked down.
Oh, we didn't know we were asking for something prohibited! I wonder what the locals think about us now when we have tried to get to a place that is prohibited by the government. Maybe they look at us as spiers or real criminals? Maybe we have really put us on shame?

This is the opening of the cave today. A photo from the internet.
Montana Prim is in the background and Clas is now trying to find the GPS direction of it.
Address of the photo:http://www.jakopin.net/primoz/slike/2007/El_Hierro_2007_VII.html

We are back

This is La Restinga by night from one of our balconies.

Now we are back from El Hierro. We arrived with the ferry about 8 o'clock last night.
We have had a wonderful weather and it has been relaxing to be there. But I think our vacation of nine days is too short. We would need 2-3 weeks! Maybe we can have some more days off in May? It depends on how crowded the restaurant will be in the nights.

It was quite windy when we went home by the ferry yesterday and Clas didn't feel well. Some of the passengers even started vomiting.
The Fred Olsen ferry is a catamaran ferry and it goes well in the big waves and I thought it was just relaxing to be rocked back and forth and fell in sleep and missed out the whole travel that takes about two hours.
On our travel out to El Hierro we saw dolphins swimming beside the ferry.

Today a heat-wave from the desert of Sahara hit Tenerife and it's +32 right now in the shadow on our balcony. We have a calima going on and it's windy too and a lot of sand and dust in the air which makes me sneeze all the time.
Good we don't have to play tonight when it's really terrible to sing when we have calima going on.

Tonight we are going to have a barbecue on the balcony. We are both so tired of eating nice dinners out in the restaurants that we said yesterday we maybe should eat only water and bread for a couple of weeks now to get the appetite back. Our nice dinners on El Hierro were like the drop that made it run over.
Gourmandizing is an unhealthy way of living and it has given us a serious problem when there isn't any menu that would attract our taste buds anymore. We can sit for hours every night and try to figure out what we are going to have for dinner and there is no desire of having a meal. We just shiver when we think about food.
The only thing we would like to have is Finnish sausage and Garlic cucumber, and we can't have that here on Tenerife.
Sunday we start working again and that is good for us when we don't have to think about what to eat. We just get there and they serve us the meal they have decided. Very easy!

A nice receipt

Yesterday we didn't do much. I made a dinner for us in the night and was surprised myself how well it turned out.
I made a fillet steak of pork and found a receipt, in a magazine, that said you should boil the steak in dry white wine together with onion slices and apple slices for 15 minutes and then fry it in butter. After that you let it rest for about 5 minutes and then slice it and sprinkle flakes of gourmet salt over it.
I did it and made a sauce of mint, honey, oil and balm vinegar that I poured all over it. I tell you it was lovely! I will definitely make it again. Mint taste and pork, that goes well together!
I also made 7 different root vegetables, including small potatoes in the oven. I cut them all in pieces and put them in the baking tin and poured a mix of oil, squeezed garlic, black pepper and salt over them and baked them for about half an hour. Easy and very delicious!
And with them I served an other sauce made of Creame Fraishe mixed with a little Thai sweet and sour sauce.
It's very seldom we make dinner at home. Maybe about 10-15 times a year. But it's really fun to do it if you just have got time.

Tonight we were out down town eating a Thai dinner at a Chinese restaurant. It was very lovely and we got a lot of different dishes and a soup as a starter that was outstanding. We have had this meal before and like it very much.

Clas has started packing the suitcases and ask me if I need my jogging shoes...I need to go and see what's up!
I will probably not blog anything while we are on El Hierro when I don't think there is any internet cafe'...but if there is I maybe give you an "in the middle report" while we are there.
Have a nice week!

El Hierro

This is La Restinga where we are going to stay, a small fishing village with nice waters for diving

Tomorrow we are leaving for El Hierro, the small island south-west of Tenerife, behind La Gomera.
We have already booked everything; the tickets for the ferry, the car and the hotel.
We don't have to be at the ferry terminal here in Los Cristianos before twenty minutes before the departure time and that's nice when we have a lot to do at home before we leave. The trip with the Fred Olsen ferry lasts only for two hours.
The car hiring company is going to bring us the car when we arrive at the harbor of El Hierro. They have their office at the airport.
We are going to stay at the same hotel as last time. It's a lovely place in the southern part of the island. The apartment is up in a tower and you have a nice view over the town, the beach walk and the harbor and there is a lovely restaurant in the neighborhood where we have the dinners and an other lovely restaurant at the beach front where we have our breakfasts and lunches.
It's a very quiet place and almost no tourists. Maybe only Clas and me and some divers who stay under the water in the daytime.
Now we are just going to relax!
I have figured out it's not possible to rest while you are at home where you have the computers, the internet and a lot of things which need to be done.
First I thought I will bring the laptop with me, but now I have changed my mind and leave it at home. We are just going to spend all the time in the wonderful nature of El Hierro walking along the beach, visiting caves, strolling in the mountains and sit in the nights and talk nonsense with the locals.

The first day of the vacation

Today is our first day of the vacation.
I have been cleaning the balcony and Clas has been out buying ingredients for the meal he is going to make tonight. We are going to have a barbecue on the balcony.
I have got some Home style and Antique magazines from a Swedish lady and when I have finished this post I will go out and sit in the sun and start browsing my way through them and read.
Imagine! No work tonight!
It's hard to really understand it when we are so used to be at Lewinskis in the nights.
Somewhere deep in my heart I feel like I miss it a little bit. It maybe will take a couple of days to get used to the new thought and to really get into the state of relaxing.
We had about 80-100 guests yesterday when we played which means it looks like the tourist flow is coming up again. Some say that May will become a crowded month this year. I hope so.

Loosing weight

The summer is soon here and the magazines are filled with reportages about loosing weight.
Oh mi Madre, as the Spanish people say, I know I am too roundish. Or maybe you call it chubby in English?
I read in a magazine yesterday that they have figured out that you eat more when you buy large portions. What a revelation!
Of course you eat more when you buy a larger amount. You don't buy it to throw it away. Do you?
But to be honest, I very seldom eat up everything I buy. Instead I am the one who like to have many different plates and tastes.

Somebody had been doing an investigation at a cinema and found out that the people who bought the big sizes of snacks had more calories than the ones who bought small sizes. Maybe something to think about?
Yes, I agree that it's more healthy to choose a smaller cone of popcorns when you go to the cinema, but when you go out buying stuff in town they maybe don't have different sizes of your favorite sweets.
This idea of loosing weight sounds quite good and healthy though, if you can make it a lifestyle.

If the food is your problem, don't order any starters and deserts. If you drink too much coke or beer. Take a small one instead of a large one. If you like to have an ice cream choose the smallest one. If they bring you a big plate with a lot of stuff on - just eat what you like most...
It's very easy! Eat whatever you like but in small amounts! Good Luck!

WARNING

There is a criminal gang operating here in the south of Tenerife right now and many have been robbed.
Their scheme is something like this:

A man stops a tourist (could even be a couple) on the street asking for the direction or something.
Then suddenly two other men come up and identify themselves by showing false police cards.
They tell the tourist, that the man he is talking to is a drug dealer and ask him if he did buy drugs from him.
When the tourist says no they ask to get the bag to check up the contents.
They check the bag and if there is money or a passport or something else of value they steal it.
Then they give the bag back and tell - "okey, you can go".

The best thing is to not carry any handbags when you go out. Try to keep everything in the pockets if it's possible.
The handbags are like baits for the criminals.

Holiday 18-26 April

It hasn't been many tourists these last nights we have been playing. Only about 40-50 guests per night.
Normally when it's good nights we have about 130-200 people.
Because of this we have decided to take our holiday already now instead of the first week in May.
We play tonight but from tomorrow we are on holiday until Sunday next week.
The tourism is going down every year after easter and we hope it will become better in May.
This year isn't like the years before, when easter turned up earlier than normal, and we don't really know
how it all is going to be. But we will be back on stage Sunday 27th of April.

The Scandinavian Tourist Church

Yesterday we were invited to the `Scandinavian Tourist Church´ for a nice dinner.
We were about 15 people at the table which were so beautifully decorated.
The church is situated on the second floor in the commercial center of Puerto Colon, facing the harbor. They have every week services in Swedish, English, Finnish and German and the swinging music they have makes you feel very happy.
They are closing down now for the summer season but will be open again in the middle of October.

UFO sightings in the archipelago

Is Mount Teide (3918m) a magnet for UFOs? Does it have an aura around it which can be seen from another hemisphere?
This is a couple of the questions that were made in an article of Tenerife News.(11.04.2008)

New recent seeings of UFOs have got people in the Canary Islands talking again.
About a week ago, several alleged sightings of an UFO in Gran Canaria made the headlines, with a number of people calling the police and the media after spotting a large bright object floating in the sky. Even last autumn a couple in La Laguna on Tenerife watched a wedge-shaped object hovered near their home.And between August 2004 and December 2005, three separate sightings also hit the headlines and each concerned a photograph.

It's said that unexplained lights have soared above the volcano throughout history and there are constant of commercial liners being intercepted by brilliant lights which the bemused pilots have been unable to explain.

1975 an commercial jet on it's way from Austria to Tenerife had to make an emergency landing in Valencia after been trailed by pulsating red objects which zig zagged across the skies.

1992 witnesses claimed a mysterious aircraft fell from the skies at Teide but it was all hushed up by the Spanish military. Apparently, a group of friends had been walking near mount Teide when they were told by soldiers to go home when there had been a landslide. They had sneaked back and alleged they saw a powerful beam of light on the side of the vulcano and later spotted a convoy of military trucks transporting a huge object. Whatever happened the force was enough to snap off a 450 ton lava projection from the side of Mount Teide. Could it be the rock the trucks were transporting or was it really a flying saucer?

Last year a doctor visiting a patient in Tenerife and his taxi driver had seen a flying saucer descend in front of them with two huge figures dressed in red at the control panel.
These incidents coincided with a more believable prolonged and logged report 1976 from an armed Spanish navy escort ship whose crew observed yellow-blue lights in the sky - lights which were also seen by hundreds of recidents of Tenerife, La Palma and La Gomera, makes people confused.

I don't really know what to believe. It sounds like a first of April joke but the paper has published this the 11:th of April.

If you like you can write `UFO Canary Island´ on Googel and search and you get more information about UFOs that have been seen in the archipelago.

Yesterday was our day off

Yesterday we went out for dinner with some friends to restaurant Fortuna Nova. After the meal we went to Central Park in Las Americas for line dancing.
I have been busy these last days doing rehearsal of some new songs.
It's two duets; My kind of woman, my kind of man and Rocking years.
Clas hasn't started learning his part yet but I hope he will soon.
Tonight we will be back on stage. Hopefully it will be many tourists this coming week.

Tuesday

When we woke up today we went out for breakfast/lunch to a restaurant called El Parral here in Los Cristianos. It's in the neighborhood of Lewinski.
The food was nice but its quite expensive to eat there. It's a Spanish restaurant and they have a lot of Tapas and the restaurant resamble restaurant Meson Castillano in El Camison.

I have been cleaning the house the rest of the day and now we are soon going out for dinner.
Where? we don't know.
We are off tonight. We had only about 40-50 guests during the night yesterday and we decided to ask if we can be off tonight when we know it's a change over day for many tourists today and it probably would be a weak night again.
We have been working six nights a week since December and start feeling tired. It seams like we need more and more sleep every night to make it.
Many artists, on this globe, work normally 3-4 nights a week and have an 1,5 hour show.
We work for three hours every night 6 nights a week and it maybe wouldn't be normal to not be tired. You give out a lot of energy on the stage even when it looks like you just sing and play.
But there are also artists that work seven days a week and some of them have to take drugs or drink a lot of alcohol to make it. I don't like to drink at work when that for sure will destroy my life.
I wonder how many would like to have a night out looking at a drunk person?
And drugs is something that I am scared of. I have never tried and don't like to try either.
We are planning to have at least a week off in May and then we go to El Hierro to relax.
It will be nice and we will come back like new people.

Springtime

Its Spring and I decided to make a new design of my blog.
Now it's ready and tomorrow I am going to do the same with our home.
It really needs to get a beating of the scouring rag.

Grand Prix

Kimi is satisfied with the results of the Grand Prix in Bahrain. He was number two and has now got 19 points and is leading the championship.
Massa won the race in Bahrain and that is good because he hasn't got many points since the start of the season and is not so far a threat for Kimi.
Next race is in Barcelona 27.4. Let' s see if Alonso can make it on his home ground? Poor guy! It seams like his car isn't strong enough?
Maybe Massa is going to be first again? I say "Kimi,Kimi, Kimi...!!!"
Clas says "Kovalainen, Kovalainen, Kovalainen...!!!" And our friend Paul says "Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton...!!!" What if, let's say, Kubica win?
All the three of us will have to stand with long noses! like we say in swedish.

The Jante Law

It struck me that maybe there are people that don't know what the `Jante Law´is.
Scandinavians like all people have cultural codes. The `Jante Law´ is a mentality that thrives in the villages and towns across the region and exist among its inhabitants. It is a restrictive law rather than a progressive law and is a self-imposing restriction that can be painful for those ambitious enough to seek success and a reminder to others that one must literally not get too big for their boots.
An example could be if you somehow make a success and people start coming to you talking about it...then you have to have like a sad expression on your face when you talk about it. You can't look too happy because then people become jealous. No, instead you maybe should start talking about something that is not so nice in your life instead. That will make the person you talk with to feel you are not having more success than himself. If you don't the person probably will start feeling jealous when he think about your success and start making you excluded of the society.

Here are 10 rules that define the `Jante law´ and that many times are used against a person in prosperity:

1. Don't think that you are special.
2. Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.
3. Don't think that you are smarter than us.
4. Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.
5. Don't think that you know more than us.
6. Don't think that you are more important than us.
7. Don't think that you are good at anything.
8. Don't laugh at us.
   
9. Don't think that anyone cares about you.
10. Don't think that you can teach us anything.

As an unwritten set of rules to limit ambitions or attempts to be successful in order to protect other people’s jealousy, the `Jante Law´ is human nature itself. The unconscious need to put down or put ‘in their place’ those who seek to elevate and elongate their personal levels of economic and educational achievement. This is something that many non-Scandinavians suffer from too.
The law is meant to preserve social stability and uniformity, and the `Janters´ who break the "unwritten" law are treated with suspicion or even hostility.

Everybody who moves into Scandinavia from abroad will sooner or later feel the presence of the `Jante law´ while the people who have been living there all their life are so used to it that they don't recognize it in the way they behave.
When you as a Scandinavian have been living abroad it's many times not fun to return and become under the influence of the `Jante law´ culture again. When you have got to taste the freedom you like it and you start resisting the bondage which means you don't fit in the context.

We are from Finland

People ask all the time were we are from.
Some believe we are from Germany or Sweden and some believe we are from England or US.
I am a Finland-swede and I was born on the west coast of Finland in a village called Petalax.
My parents still live there. I have got two sisters and one brother and I am the youngest one in the family.
Clas is also from Finland and grow up in Singsby, an other village about 50 km north of Petalax. His mother is alive and he has two brothers and one sister of which he is the oldest one.

Before we moved down to Tenerife we lived in a place called Sundom that is in between our home villages. Sundom is at the red spot on the Finnish map here by.
Our mothers language is Swedish even when we are born in Finland. Finland is a bilingual country and there is about 300.000 people who are talking Swedish as their mothers language.

Many times when we say we are from Finland there is a murmur of surprise going through the audience. Cowboys from Finland?
For many it sounds very eccentric.

We were living in Florida 1996-97 and that's where we got the American spirit and were so brainwashed with Country music that it really became our lifestyle later on.
We love America and the people we know there. I would like to be like them!
They think big, do big things, have big hearts, live in big houses, sleep in big beds, have big cars and are open minded to everybody. When they sing they many times sing straight out from their hearts and I like it so much. They are allowed to be bold!
Every culture has of course it's fascination, but I think America is just the opposite of the `jante law´culture of Scandinavia which I'm so tired of.
To be into Country and Western music is like having a piece of America in your heart and I like that.

Our day off

It's Saturday night and our day off.
Today I only have been resting the whole day. Clas went out to Scandishop playing bass in the middle of the day and when he came back at 6.30 pm we started a barbeque on the balcony.

Botox

More and more people start using Botox and when you are an artist it's almost a must.
I don't like the look it causes and think that many of the ladies were more beautiful before the operation.
I've heard that it’s like electricity:`If you want to keep it on, you have to keep paying´.
No I am not going to be Botox addicted!
I prefer the look God gave me!

Grand Prix, qualification

Kimi Räikkönen ended up number four in the qualification today.
This is what he says:

"I'm not very happy with the way today went, but fourth place is still a good starting position for the race, given the potential we have. The balance of the car was not perfect right from this morning and I struggled a bit to be as quick as I would have liked to be and could have been. Now we have to look at the data to try and find out why. I think that tomorrow in the race, when points are up for grabs, I will be very strong. I think we might have made different choices in terms of strategy, but let's wait and see in the race if that's really the case."

I'll cross my fingers tomorrow and hope him at least to be among the three best.
He has got the Finnish `sisu´ (means the Finnish "Go!") so if the car can make it he probably will win!

Tenerife

Some people don't really know where we are living.
Tenerife is an island outside the coast of Africa, but it belongs to Spain.
The small island that is most far away from Tenerife (inside the ring) in the direction of South-West is El Hierro. That's the island were we go to rest when we get tired.
The very small island that is between the two islands is La Gomera which you can view from Tenerife when the weather is clear.
We have so far visited all Canary Islands except La Palma and Fuerteventura.

Parasol

The days are becoming warmer now and today we bought a new parasol for our balcony.
Its easy to put up and take down when it has got a crank.
We have been looking for months to find one that would fit and I am so happy we finally found it. It's really big and I like the posh looking of it but it needs 4 concrete plates down on the floor to make it stable and we haven't got them yet.
It's so big I couldn't get all of it into the photo.

No fines!

We went to the owner of Lewinski today to talk about the police visit yesterday.
Good luck! We haven't been fined for the sound!
There is somebody who is envious when we have got so many guests in the nights. They call the police in hope to shut us down, but everybody think it's something sick about it.
The police have, of course, to come and see us but they are not after us at all.
When they come we have to take down the sound to show the neighbors the police have been there talking to us and then it's alright again.
You can't move down into the middle of a tourist resort and say it has to be quiet when you like to go to sleep at 10 o´clock! If you like to sleep in the evenings you should choose an other place where to live! A tourist resort has to have entertainment and without that the tourists are going to leave the place.
I told Clas this morning that I am so tired of being accused for the sound that I like to change restaurant, but now I know it's no problem and the police is not against us. Our sound is alright!
Tonight we continue playing in the normal way.

Fines again?

Clas was so happy a couple of days ago when he got all our computers to work . He said `Now everything is in order, I really wonder what is going to happen next´?
Last night we almost got the answer!
About 11.30 pm when we were playing at Lewinskis one of the waiters suddenly came up to us and told us the police were on their way in.
He knows there is a neighbor who always complains about our sound.
He was right! Out on the street was two polices and they stepped into the restaurant and went up to the bar.
We took down the sound a little bit and continued playing.
After a while the waiter came up to us again and told us to take down the sound even more and we had to take it down so much that we hardly couldn't hear what we were singing.
The waiters had again to show all the papers of the restaurant.
We didn't even go and talk to the police when it seems like they don't like us to be involved.
Last time when they took our signs I went out to the street to talk to the police who was standing there but he answered me buy screaming straight out that I have to go into the restaurant directly.
They don't like us to be involved in the business they have with the restaurant and it's only the owner who gets to know what's up. Maybe we get to know tomorrow what it's all about?
One of the waiters said they had been complaining about the sound and then we have heard the fines can be quite high. Hopefully they will impose a fine on something else.
We have heard that this all is happening because we have got the most of the tourists on the south, but we don't know if it's true. We had a full restaurant yesterday ( about 130 guests) but it was a calm and nice evening and nothing happened that would cause a police operation.
It's going to be interesting to hear tomorrow what we are accused for this time.

Gifts

It's really different to be a singer on Tenerife.
We get a lot of gifts all the time from the tourists.
This last week we have got playing cards from Scotland, 1,8 kg liquorice from Denmark and today I got two nice shirts from a couple in Sweden sent to me by mail. They were exactly the right size and the style I like and I am so happy.
A friend of us from Finland even brought us three bags with finish bread and two big boxes of Salmiak last week.
I can't start telling about everything we have got during the last years but it is a lot of things.
It's souvenirs, clothes, jewelries, watches, food, candies, CD´s, DVD's, magazines, books, wall calendars, lighters, toy animals, table clothes, Cowboy accessories and hats, flowers, candles and a lot of photos and drinks etc.
I think we have like Christmas almost every week and get very spoiled. People are so nice and have hearts of giving.
Many have also invited us to come and visit them in their countries.
I could never have thought our life on Tenerife would be like this.
And the best of all, we meet people from all around the world and many come back time after time and we get a lot of friends.
What can I say? I feel so blessed and grateful in my heart.