Kreativ- and Sunshine award

I am increadibly honored. I was given the Kreativ-blogger award by no less than four lovely, creative ladies:

Zoe 

Yoshimi

Whipstitch Sewing 

Boo Dogg and Me 

and to make me even more proud lovely Kosmika gave me the Sunshine Award:

Girls, you're spoiling me, I might get big-headed ;-). Thank you all so very much!

For the Sunshine Award  I must do this:

~ Put the logo somewhere on my blog or within my post.
~ Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
~ Link the nominees within my post.
~ Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
~ Share the love and link to the person from whom I received this award

and for the Kreativ Award this:

1. Copy/paste the Kreativ Blogger Award picture onto your blog
2. Thank the person who awarded it to you and post a link to her/his blog
3. Write 7 things about yourself we might not know
4. Choose 7 other bloggers to award
5. Link to them
6. Notify your 7 bloggers of their award

Now, I'm in an insane period of my life (visits from friends, loads of work with the housing cooperative where I'm in the board - a very swedish thing, most of us live in one - a trip to Norway next weekend, and to add to burden my work is participing in a competition and I have to work laaaate, and on top of that during the weekend).

 So I will do the easiest bits left only (for great hints on which bloggers I would have awarded had I had the time, take a look at my link-lists and blog-feed), I will tell you 7 things you might not know about me. Not that easy, I tell you.

1. I am blind to McDonalds (do I even know how to spell it?). Other people orientate around town by using McDonalds as landmarks. When they try to give me directions and mention McDonalds I stare at them with a dumb gaze. There was even one right next to my closest supermarket (I frequent them quite often...) that I hadn't noticed. Another one across the street from my work-subwaystation. I only found out about them when people used them as landmarks and I had to ask where on earth they were (I don't eat there very often, no).
Might have something to do with the fact that I'm lucky enough to mainly like very healthy food such as seafood, meat, veggies and fruit. And that I'm totally dedicated to buying as much ecological food as I can, it just feels so much more right for me. I find it especially hard to buy non-ecological dairy-products and meat. And the bread you normally find in swedish supermarkets, don't even think about it, I buy Levain at the bakery. So I guess this "secret" really is about me being a very quality conscious eater...

2. I've lived for a while in Australia, England and Japan.

I went to High school for a year in Mornington on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne (at Mornington High School, now all gone). Australia has a very soft spot in my heart! I will never forget meeting parrots in all thinkable colours on my way to school or freezing my ass off in winter (in a tropical country! though I know Melbourne is more temperate than tropical). I loved it all. 

I also spent a year in Manchester, UK, where I went to university on Erasmus exchange (I'm an anglophile big time! I buy only English tea and am fortunate enough to live near an excellent British butcher where I get proper English sausages when I get cravings. I really think English food is underestimated in the rest of the world). I studied at Manchester Metropolitan University where I - apart from landscape architecture - took a course in Japanese, which leads me on to my third living - abroad - experience:

I've spent a total of 9 months in Tokyo (split in 6 + 3 months, the second visit I got a scholarship-flight-ticket at my Japanese-course in Manchester, lucky gal, huh!). I just really had to take a break from my studies (after too many years in school) and got the chance to work in a tiny bar called Skåne (the name of a swedish province) in Shibuya, where I served Swedish spirits and bread to Japanese businessmen who taught me everything I wanted to know about Japan (if they could) to practise their English. I had the days off and had an excellent opportunity to discover Tokyo. Nihon ga daitsuki desu! Japanese culture impressed me tremendously, and although Japan is known as "very different" to us westerners, I remember thinking - surprised - that Japanese manners were just like Swedish when I returned there for my second visit. I think maybe I just felt that way because I love Japan so much that I simply felt perfectly at home there. And I was very happy to return.

3. I'm the eldest of four siblings, I have three younger brothers.

The picture shows me, my brother's girlfriend Sylvia with my niece Ella in the tummy, my niece Julia, and my brothers: Martin, Henrik and Joakim. The picture is from last summer, Ella was born in October.

I'm very fortunate to finally live in the same city as one of my brothers now, he moved to Stockholm a couple of years ago from the south of Sweden. We go to concerts together when we have the chance, which is especially great because I really missed someone to go to certain concerts with before he moved here (my friends don't like all the music I like). My other two brothers live in Gothenburg and in Bergen, Norway (where I will go next weekend to meat my second, nearly brand new niece for the first time, yippie!). Our parents live in Österund in the north of Sweden, so we are a well distributed family, to say the least.

4. I eat almost everything, but not cold eggs and marsipan + cream. Many swedish sweets consist of whipped cream in combination with marsipan and I just can't eat it. People love it and love sharing it even more, and I'm always the really, really dull one who rejects their offerings. I used to force myself to eat it, but I'm too old now, I had my share of forcing myself to do things I don't like (an advantage of growing up, don't you think!). I do find the cakes beautiful to look at though...

Above a semla. Bun + marsipan stuffing + whipped cream. Tuesday next week is the big Semla-day in Sweden and people go crazy. I don't.

And a prinsesstårta (Princess-cake). Sponge-cake + jam + custard + whipped cream + marsipan. Everyone loves them, I don't. My boss and I share the same birthday and I have to reject his birthday cake, on my birthday, every year. I feel deeply ashamed! Why don't people just love chocolate cakes or strawberry cakes instead?

5. I've participated in the World Championships in sailing. In the J80- Worlds in Kiel in 2008 to be more precise. It was loads of fun but a real strain too because I was in the crew partly because the boat owner wanted to date me (the story of my life), partly because he wanted two very light-weight new crew-members and partly because my friend (the other light weight crew-member) bought half the boat and finally because we all worked really, really well as a team until I eventually started dating the captain/boat owner. Or actually, until I realised I was head over heels in love with him, and he was in me, or so he thought. It didn't last long (we were a terrible mismatch it turned out) and ended about a month before the championships, so let's just say I didn't have to diet to loose the weight I needed for us to weigh in as a crew (we all had to loose weight, not that either of us really needed to...). Ah, stressful, sad times.
Anyway, I don't regret any of it and I have some truely fabulous memories from it all! In the long run you keep the happy memories and loose the sad ones, I think.

6. I love perfumes almost more than anything! Actually I call myself a perfumaniac and scent addict. Scents make me feel full of life, both man-made ones and those from nature.

I especially like perfumes by the Swedish company Byredo. Gypsy Water is my favourite. For everyday use I wear Viktor & Rolf's Flowerbomb, and I also really, really like Chanel Allure Sensuelle, but I think I may be a bit sensitive to something it it (makes me sneeze) so I still just try it on once in a while instead of buying it... I have a few other perfumes that I like, and use quite often, but these three are outstanding. If I feel a bit low I simply got to NK (a big, posh departmentstore) and try on a couple of Byredo-fragrances, it's like a very exciting Smörgåsbord (buffet) and I get excited first by the choosing-process and then by the interesting scents (they're nothing like your average perfume). Ok. I'm finished promoting Byredo now!

7.I'm a technology-nerd. In a way I'm like a stereotypical man in that sense. I love reading tests and reviews before I buy my technical toys, and I tend to begin believing I will get something reasonable and end up buying the best I can find. Though - and in this sense I guess I'm a typical woman - I like small gadgets, which is very lucky since it ususally means I'm not interesting in the most expensive options (which my economy just would not cope with). And I like to keep them for as long as possible, I don't feel the urge to replace them when the next model is out, phew!

My two latest technological toys are my Baby Lock Overlock-sewing-machine and an iPhone (the 3Gs 32Gb) that I forsee will completely revolutionise life, I LOVE it! I mean, yesterday evening when we were hanging out at a restaurant me and my friends checked out works by Kandinsky (a friend of mine had been to a Kandinsky exhibition and wasn't that impressed), looked at the houses I lived in in Tokyo and Melbourne, looked at my friend's house in the north of France (Google Earth) and then I forced myself to put the phone away. I also forwarded an important e-mail to my friend when she asked about it, to make sure I wouldn't forget. And I can check train times, the weather forecast or the latest newspaper headlines at any time, almost anywhere.

Well, there you go! I'm glad I didn't have to tell more than seven...