07.30.06
Posted in Hollidays, Lindy Hop at 8:16 pm by tesstess
This week I have been in Herräng, the Lindy Hop Mecca. Except during four weeks in summer Herräng is a small, sleeping village an hour above Stockholm. Then suddenly thousands of dancers invade the place and makes it alive. To be there is for me as being in a totally different world, not connected to my everyday life.
Me and Magnus attended the camp the fourth week and did the “competition and show” course. It is the first time we do this course which focus much more on show and on aerials (acrobatics), but it is my fourth year in Herräng. I longed to get here again from the last day of last year’s camp.
The first day of the course the comp & show people has to be divided into two groups. I was nervous for this audition weeks before the camp. First they (the three teaching couples of the course) taught us a short routine which I think we made quite ok, but then came a solo charleston routine, which both me and Magnus had some troubles with and in the end we didn’t manage to get into the best group which we had hoped for. I was really affected by this. I had thought I would be disappointed, but not totally depressed for a whole day! I seem to be more of a competing person than I thought. What was good is that they taught the same material to both groups. Next year, I tell myself, then we will have practiced much more and we will be in the best group, so that I can get to know more good dancers and dance with them at nights. Of course I can dance with them anyway, it’s just to ask them, but it is so much more fun if it’s a wish from both sides to dance.
One class each day we did aerials on a big football field. This is what I and Magnus love the most, and this year we learnt three or four new aerials and got more theory on some we knew from before.
Here is what my schedule looked like most days:
09-10 Breakfast
10-17 Three or four classes a 1 hour and 20 minutes, and breaks in between where we had sandwiches and chocolate. One kilo of chocolate we ate this week, half a kilo each.
18-19 Dinner
20-00 Sleep
01-05 Dance
05-08 Sleep
This way I missed the evening meetings where the whole camp gathers and Lennart, who is one of the key persons at the camp sits at the stage and tells stories, shows old movies and people comes up on stage to perform or talk. It’s always lots of crazy things going on at those meetings. I’m sad that I missed them, but this year I really wanted to dance as much as possible. The dance floor is too crowded between ten and midnight and most often I have the best dances very early in the morning when most people are gone to bed and only the most lindy loving dancers are left.
Next year we’ll go for more than one week, so that I can focus on social dancing one week and on courses the next. Some people spend the entire four weeks in Herräng. I think people from abroad get a pretty strange picture of Sweden when Herräng is the only place they see. There are lots of people from the US, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and more. Everyone speaks English at all times. Sometimes it takes quite a while before you notice the person you’re speaking to is actually from Sweden and you don’t have to speak Swedish at all. I must say it’s much better than in France, because as soon as one in a big group of people are from somewhere else, English is the given language, whereas here in France as soon as there is more than three French people in the same group, the given language is French…
There was a pool at the camp area this year, Marcus and Ellen jumped in after some hesitation. I also saw couples doing aereals from outside the pool, into the pool which was really cool, but unfortunately I didn’t manage to catch them with my camera.
This year my entire body was acing after just a few days, and after four days I caught a cold and slept one whole night and did no courses the next day. This is normal at Herräng, I get it every year. Fortunately this year I got better again and could dance from one o’clock at night until half past nine the next morning of my last day. Then two hours later, after breakfast, packing and cleaning I managed to drive two hours of the way home before I got to dangerous and have to hand over the driving to the others.
07.21.06
Posted in Climbing at 11:04 pm by tesstess
We went to the same place as last time, close to Monaco.
In the background you can see the climbing site. For me these are impressing mountains, but Anthony told me stories of walls several hunred meeters high which obviously must be way more impressing. Hope I get good enough on climbing to see them some day.
Below follows the story of how to climb in first position.
Philippe gave me the real spelling on those things you put in the rings, it’s degaine in french, and quickdraw in english. I needed lots of those so that they would last the whole route. On the second picture I’m about to take one of the degains and put into the first ring, and in the third picture I’m taking the rope through the degaine. And then it’s on towards the next ring.
When at this height, I’m really happy there are someone at the ground allways ready if I fall, and to give me advise when stuck at difficult places.
I can understand the most basic climbing terms in french now, and words like left, right, hand and foot. But I think I will prefer advises in english for some more weeks… Translating words is not the main thing you want to do when stuck up there.
Philippe and Anthony.
I like this picture of Philippe. It’s allways a nice feeling to be on your way down, first because you just made it to the top of a difficult route and second because you get to float in the air, and jump on the wall side all the way down.
At the end it got so dark that Anthony climbed the last rout with a torch on his forehead.
07.16.06
Posted in Hollidays at 9:42 pm by tesstess
Pavia is a small, old and beautiful town just south of Milano. Joakim, a friend from dancing at home has lived there for one and a half year and now we took the chance to visit him.
The appartment was charming, newly renovated in a very old house.
View from the balcony. From here you could see roof tops and several old churches, all of which did their best in waking us up in the morning with their bells.
These are the stairs up to his attic appartment. Lock closely and you see that there seems to be no support under the stairs. They made you walk them quickly.
This is a big castle in Pavia.
On Saturday we went to visit a monastory outside of Pavia.
Then of course we ate Italian food. Joakim made us some really nice food 
We couldn’t have found a better cook!
And then we played Settlers, of course.
07.12.06
Posted in Climbing at 10:31 pm by tesstess
Yesterday was the third time I went climbing and this time Magnus came along and took lots of pictures for you to see!
We went to a site where I haven’t been before, it’s a bit longer to drive from Sophia Antipolis but when there the reward is big since it is a truly beautiful place, just near Monaco and with a fantastic view over the sea.
Here we are on the way from the cars up to the climbing site.
At the mountain side there are lots of routes, some just a few meters apart, and each route has a level. Anthony and Nicolas check the climbing book to know which route to climb.
And off they go. I and Philippe are on the ground while Nicolas (on the other end of my rope) and Anthony (on the other end of Philippe’s rope) went up on a route each in first position. First position is to climb first and hook on the degens (French word for tva karbinhakar med en tio decimeter lina emellan) in the small rings on the mountain side. It’s around two meters between the points so this is the least safe part of climbing. Last time I went in first position on an easy level, its lots of additional things to think of and much more difficult than climbing in second position when the rope is already drawn through the top ring.
Nicolas on his way down.
And Anthony coming down.
Nicolas is just reaching the ground again.
Now it’s my turn to climb. Here is the knot, like a double eight. Note the difference in length between the climbing shoes and my perfectly fitting dance shoes which I wear everywhere. The smaller the climbing shoes are, the better they are for climbing.
I made it to the top! Breathtaking view from up here, and it looks much further down than it looked up. The route was about 27 meters and the ones I did the other times were around 12 meters.
Magnus had lots of fun experimenting with the camera, here is the test when tilting the camera a little bit, and wops how much more difficult it looks to climb at once. Philippe was the most advanced climber with us this time.
I’m eating my sixth breakfast this day.
Here are some more nice climbing photos.
This day we had only time to climb two routes before it got dark. The last picture is of the small town beneath the climbing site.
07.09.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:42 pm by tesstess
Unfortunately Magnus forgot Settlers at home when coming to visit me. Two weeks without Settlers felt too much to bear for us, so we (mostly Magnus) created our own Settlers game.
Here we are, me, Johan and Anna, working on the game.
And here is the finished game, works great!
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:34 pm by tesstess
Today I and Magnus went touristing in Nice. Actually it’s the first time we are in Nice, really funny I’ve been here for five weeks and not been in Nice once!
We took the car there even though people warned us it’s not very fun driving in there, but I feel it’s so much more freedom with a car and I hate those busses going up to Sophia Antiplolis! It was easy to find a car park, a bit expensive but ok. From there we walked towards the main shopping street.
I wish I could say the shopping street in Nice is beautiful but unfortunately it is not. They are building a tram down the main street and it’s really ugly. We found H&M and felt like home for a while. Also found a camera/computer/cd/tv store where Magnus could be happy for a while and rest from all the clothes stores I drag him into.
The old town of Nice was nice. We walked through it and up on a hill where we had a view over the city and the beach. This hill is where all couples go to marry, we saw at least four different wedding companies up there taking photos. It’s a custom here for the bride couple to go in a car with flowers and all the wedding guests to follow in their cars, with small white rosettes on the antennas and everyone blowing their horns.
It was a hot day so it was really pleasant to come down to the beach and cool down in the ocean. The water was clean and nice and there was no risk to get the clothes full of sand since there were only stones on the beach and at the sea bottom. Luckily the stones were rounded and nice to walk on, a bit uncomfortable to lie down on though.
07.02.06
Posted in Hollidays, Sweden at 10:51 am by tesstess
On my first day in Sweden, me, Magnus, my parents and my grandparents went out on the sea. The west coast of Sweden with all its islands is really beautiful. I’m so happy I had time to go out and enjoy it this summer!
Before going out one of the ropes got caught in the propeller but Magnus and dad soon solved the problem and we could go out on the sea. My dad was driving and the rest of us tried hard not to be weat, because the water was splashing up over the boat when going fast.
When coming out a bit on the ocean we stopped and put in the anchor. My grandparents used to go out a lot to fish when they were younger, now they need someone to come with them and drive the boat. Here is my grandpa and mom in action getting a fish each. In the end grandpa had caught three mackerels and mum one.
