Happy New 2010!!!

This is the first year I am celebrating New Years in London. My parents are here with me so we'll just chill, take it easy, have some nice food and watch the fireworks.

We have just had a nice dinner at the flat and are changing into warmer clothes to defy the cold and watch 8 minutes aof wonderful fireworks (I hope!).

I hope you have a wonderful New Year!!! Welcome 2010 (the year I turn 30... yikes!!)!!!!

Merry Helium Christmas!!!...(again)

Same as last year, I would like to share my favourite Christmas carrol dated 2003... Here performed with my dear German friend, Alex. A classic.

The weather in Sweden

This is what is awaiting me back home. Picture from the 18th of December. (Copyright Börje Englund)

Nightmares...

Ham season is getting closer...

Poor little piggy!

I say this every year but - I can't belive Christmas is almost here!! I am looking forward to a bit of quality time with my family and friends if they are in town - Stockholm time it is. Like D describes the Swedish Christmas: "You eat like a pig! All day every day..." I must admit it's true and the irony in this is that the main dish on the Swedish Chritmas table is - a pig... A nice and juicy ham eaten with sweet Swedish mustard...lovely!

God jul! (= Merry Christmas!)

In the supermarket

A typical day in a British supermarket

Who's the hero of the world?

My dad sent me this link to a newswire that I think is quite reliable... ;-)

http://www.tackfilm.se/?id=1259076119414RA32

Tack Pappa!

My new babies are both called Jimmy... Jimmy Choo

Meet my new friend Jimmy

When I heard about the collaboration between my favourite high street store H&M (Swedish, of course!!) I was thrilled, but at the same time I thought - "oh no! I'm definitely not going to be the only one thrilled about that!!". Thought the queues on Oxford Street here in London would be massive and having to fight with eager teenagers about the cool stuff wasn't anything I felt tempted to do. As any collection with H&M and a famous designer, I assumed it would be gone in notime so I accepted the fact that I wouldn't get my hands on any of the items even before the collection was launched...

But there is a BUT - I went home to Sweden over the weekend and to my big surprise, there was a lot left in the stores from the collection one week after the launch and it wasn't even crowded! They must have been stocking up in the home town of H&M. I was amazed. I quickly laid my eyes on a pair of shoes that I fell in love with - sure, they were more expensive than the regular H&M collection, but much cheaper than the regular Jimmy Choo collection!! My wonderful parents were there and of course, and my mom wanted to spoil me a little and she bought the shoes and a little coin purse for me - also from JimmyChoo by H&M(!!!). That made my day, week and months to come. How can a pair of shoes bring so much joy into a person's life?!! Thanks Mom for the shoes and thanks Dad for being a moral shopping support!

Too much caffeine

Don't know why I do it but I tend to overdose on the caffeine. I only drink espressos nowadays and whenever I make them at home they are always too tall .

"But why let good coffee go to waste?", I think to myself and pour myself a super espresso...

Half an hour later I am almost shaking with anxiety!!! Why can't I learn even the hard way?!!!

Boxing on the Wii

My cousin is the champ - but P is doing a good job to keep up!

D vs. P - A close one...

Art

The original

Not sure D's workmates have a lot to do at work... But one of them, G, certainly seems to have some some time on his hands to be creative. Quite good, I must say.

Home alone

My dinner: a big haloumi & edamame salad plus a veggie burger with garlic fried mushrooms. Yum!

This weekend D is in Mallorca. I decided it was a good opportunity to catch up on my studying... but not only that... I caught up on some America's Next Top Model Cycle 13 on Youtube!!! Can't tell you enough how nice it is sometimes just to sit back and relax and watch some rubbish TV on Youtube. Especially watching it on Youtube where you can watch all the episodes that have aired and just watch one after the other... I think it prepares me to really face my complicated CFA books.

You know, a good dosis of nonsense first and then you bite into a chunk of the contrary - Financial modelling and quantitative methods in finance...

New season, new things happening

New season - time to look for new opportunities!

Fall is definitely here in London. We had a few days in September with temperatures above 20 degrees which was very nice, but now the mornings are darker and the temperature has definitely gone down dramatically.

So there are a few things going on in my life at the moment - like moving houses for example. Me and D are moving to a bigger place closer to town in mid December. It's going to be nice having a spare room for people coming to visit. Now we have to make do with an aerobed which is not too bad, but a spare room with a double bed is way better. The flat is just a 10 minute walk from where I work, which is kind of brilliant actually. I won't have to spend so much on transport, which is one of the more expensive things here in London compared to other capitals.

I have also started studying Japanese again. I felt I was losing so much of it every year since I don't get the chance to use it so often. Now I'm going to class once a week to learn grammar and Kanji again.

Final thing, I have also applied for a job internally. Have heard it might get quite competitive, but I'm crossing my fingers and hope I'll get called for an interview. Wish me luck!!

SURPRIIIISE!!

My cake - isn't it lovely?
My great ex colleagues at Alteon

Juan with D's mom MC and sister Aina and her boyfriend Alberto . Happy picture!

Friend S with D's youngest sister L and friend C

I took a deep breath and thought it would be easy peazy to blow out all the candles on my own, but I was wrong... too many candles!!! Got some help from D's god daughter...

Out and about in the legendary pub "Karajo"

My god!!! We arrived in Palma late last night me and D. A dinner to celebrate my birthday with D and his family was scheduled. Well that's what I though anyway!! When D told me to go into the kitchen to say hi to Bobby - the dog - I though it was a bit weird... "I can say hi to him later" I thought... But the door opened and in the dark kitchen I saw a gathering of people and suddenly the lights came on and all my friends and D's family were there!! "SORPRESA!!!" they yelled as I entered the kitchen. I was speechless for a good minute! There was a lot of food on the table that was absolutely amazing. D's parents had spent the whole day preparing it. Everything was so unexpected and so nicely organised I was very touched. The master mind behind all of this was of course D but I heard that my wonderful friend M was also very active in the plan. Great job!

After the party we went out to the best bar in Mallorca: The Karajo. There we danced, sang (shouted) and laughed together. It was a great night.

I am so thankful and happy I have all of these lovely people in my life!!!

PS. Pictures coming soon!

Update: see pics above!!!

Not this one - the next one!

So this is my last birthday as a "twenty-something" I'm no where near a crisis and life is still jolly good! Should I be worried about the next one? The big 3-0? Will I break down and cry and think about the things I haven't achieved or will that happen at 40? Scary to think I am only 11 years from turning 40!!! But I'll worry about that when that day comes! Today I will go out for a nice meal with some friends and D.

Rest in Peace...

Yesterday, I went to my Swedish grandmother's funeral. It was a very sad but also happy day. I loved that it was both. We were able to say a proper (tearful) goodbye to her at the church and afterwards we all went to my aunt's house to talk and have something to eat. It was a gathering of family from the north and the south of Sweden, talking about happy memories of the childhood in the north. It was so nice to see people I had never met before or I had only met as a baby, having something so recogniseable about them at first sight - they all kind of had the Englund nose, that I also see in the mirror every morning.

My father and his siblings used to spend their summer far up north in Tornedalen, oh so close to nature - actually bang in the middle of nature with nothing but fresh air. I loved to hear that even my great grandmother was a tough old lady! She was a big strong woman, raised on proper home made butter and fresh cream and weighed close to 100kg (about 200lb). She used to ride down a steep hill on her trolley, controlling the cirves of the road perfectly with that tremendous speed! I hope I got some of that in my blood!

My grandmother was a tough and determined lady that wasn't always easy to get along with, but she was my grandmother and I will always cherish the happy memories I had with her.

Vila i frid, farmor.

Say what?!

I just read in the papers few days ago that a new research report had found that the difference in slaries between men and women were 40% and even as large as 80% for bonuses in the financial sector in London. As a woman that working hard and studying hard to get a recognised designation, I lose my motivation - for a while (I'm not going to give up and let the bastards win, am I?!). I mean, come on! We can't possibly be going backards, can we?! Especially not in these times of financial crisis, when we should have learned from our misstakes. There are also theories saying that testosterone filled youg men are largely to blame for excessive risk taking in the financial sector, so in theory women should be even more valuable on the market. I hope these pig headed sexist bastards will retire soon so we can get some fresh blood into the financial sector that will put up a better fight against inequality!

Yeah, that felt good...

Summer in Sweden

The yearly BBQ!!!
Grill master Daddy

Responsible for the rice!!!

Lovely dinner guests

D with 2 beautiful chicas - J and H!!!

Well of course we arranged a quiz about the Englund family!

The winners were H and J, with happy runners up in the background

Me and daddy on our way to Djurgården

Terminator D goes canoeing

Woohoo! We suck at this!!

Freshly picked blueberries for the sponge cake - You bet your a** it was yummy!

That's right - we found them yummy mushrooms in the Swedish forest!!

In Nyköping city... our summer residence (cosy house) is located 20 min by car from there

How come my parents completely kicked mine and my brother's ar**s in boule?

Viva Mallorca!!

It is true!!! Third time is a charm! At least for me. I just found out my CFA result and I passed!!!This is the format you get the results in...As you can see I scored above 70% in all areas except in ethics... Go figure!!! Am I not ethical? I always thought I was...

Ciao bella italia!!

My Italian sister
Luisa, Me and Mon

At the church - "everybody raise your hands at the count of 3!! " (in Italian) Me: "Heh?"

The groom (Andrea), Mon, the bride (Giorgia), Sue and me

Cutting the cake... It was yummy!

Having lunch at la nonna's (grandma's) place to have...

...delicious Italian Polpette (meatballs)

Last weekend I was in Turin, Italy, for a friends wedding and since my "Italian sister" Monica - my flatmate from Dublin - also was invited and is from there, I had the pleasure spend time with her and stay in her mother's place during my stay in Turin.

It was such a great weekend!!

Am I a master chef or am I?!

I meal I whipped up in a second
Kablam!! It's a beauty on the inside as well as on the outside. 4 words: home made lemon custard, baby!!

What makes a good cook? I think a good cook knows his/her groceries very well - not saying that you have to know many weird exotic groceries that almost nobody has ever heard of, but if you have decided to go for steak - it means you can taste and feel the difference between a well done steak and a poory done one. So at what stage can you start feeling confident that you are at least a half decent cook? I'd say, when you know enough to be able to experiment and make a good meal - but that is entirely my definition. Just following a recipe time after time usually become less and less of a challenge, unless you go for haute cuisine, I suppose... Although I find that it is a talent as well to follow a recipe to the smallest detail and also get the dish to look exactly as in the recipe book is a merit on its own - I never get it to be just like in the book, but I always put my own little twist to it. I trust my kitchen instincts. It took me a few years to realise, but I finally have the confidence to say that I'm a pretty good experimental chef!

Having read my own comments to the pictures, I almost feel a bit obnoxious, so enough bragging now.

Over and out.

Do you dare to try my food?

Some pictures from the trip

Washington Memorial

The Capitol building

D at Lincoln memorial

In the car spotting an Amish buggy in Amish country

Me with gigantic cookies

Jeana, Kaz me and D, all in the colours of the American flag - they got married on the 4th of July

Me on a Harley - suits me, doesn't it?