Oh, so long time ago I was listening to this song. Venice seemed unreachable. For fact, I was never there but I moved much farther than this town.

So tonight, I wonder if Francis is for real still thinking of this girl he talked about. as a teenager, I listened to this song thousands of times, wishing for my “prince” 1) to see more and 2) to tell me all these romantics words. For real Francis, are you still even thinking of this girl? Do you even remember her name? What did she do that was so unbelievable? No, i don’t mean how she looked like, I mean, what she did.

When the next song on the playlist goes on, I get even more sentimental. Samedi soir sur la terre. How many times did I and my friends listen to it, trying to picture the role perfectly and above all, play it perfectly, at this bad disco, le sirocco. How many girls went home disappointed (or raped)? What was the limit between the will to fit in a do g everyone was listening to and one’s real needs to explore love and life? This text is resuming the whole well: it’s only a normal Saturday night.

To everyone out there wondering if you should fit in any model: be yourself, say yes and no as you wish and be strong. Life’s not easy and no one will ever be ready for your negative.

Two from three. Blur in France, RHCP in Sweden, Led Zep is left for me to see live in order to complete my list of musical wishes.

The concert tonight wad good, nice mix between old and new songs. The band showed a lots of energy and the public was responding. The bad thing was the bad sound with kind of an eccho. That did not work good for the rapping parts, the more detailled playing and the talking. I don’t know if it was the arena or our places though.

But I can fall asleep happy tonight, I saw my teenage idols.

About a year ago, I wrote a long post about which podcast I regularly listen to. This is a big part of my inspiration sources and I felt that I needed to update the list a little bit now.

From my list last year:

 

• Les pieds sur terre (ca 30 min, french, every working day). I still listen to it every damn day. This is one string to how life is going in France, about very actual subjects, just listen to it!
• Sur les docks (ca 1 hour, french, every working day except friday). Stil going strong. Some themes were not very according to my tastes, but I would say that I listen to 90% of them.
• Tendens (ca 30 min, swedish, every working day). I am definitively not an everyday listener but I catch the gold parts of it though and listen to the themes that interest me.
• Documentary on One – RTÉ Documentaries (ca 45 min, english, every two day). Even thought this documentary is very good, I don’t manage to listen to it for two reasons: I run and take the train very less than I used to do (podcast time dissapears) and I am a little too tired on the evenings to listen to something in english. Still very good quality, go for it if you wish!
• P1 dokumentär (ca 1 hour, swedish, every sunday). I cannot say that I listen that much to it nowadays. I think that the team has some troubles to find interesting subjects that haven’t been talked about. A little boring, but sometimes there is some gold part as well.
• Varvet international (ca 1h30, english, every two weeks). Christopher Triumf stopped making it (at least he does it much more rarely). I grew tired of his way to put himself in the center of attention when you only want to hear about the guest. Now, the listeners know in and out that Christopher has problem with drugs and so one, this is how they would say in swedish: tjatigt.
• Värvet (ca 1h-1h30, swedish, every sunday). Exactly the same comment than above.
• Les femmes, toute une histoire (ca 1 hour, french, every sunday). I grew very tired of the “talk show” impression of this program. I just let it down.
• Concordance des temps (ca 1 hour, french, every saturday). Same comment than abouve, but this is more the lack of pod cast time that made it a little bit dissapear of my playlist.
• La marche de l’histoire (ca 30 min, french, every working day). Too serious for my tired brain, but still interesting.
• La fabrique de l’histoire (ca 50 min, french, every working day). I was already a “picker” last year, I did not become a fan. This dissapeared from my playlist.
• Historiepodden (ca 1h-1h30, swedish, every sunday). Still very happy and interesting, this is my sunday go-to-bed-story every week.
• Kropp och själ i P1 (ca 50 min, swedish, every tuesday). I just skipped most of the podcasts this year because they are repeating themself. Plus that I grew tired of people giving lessons to others. The swedish way of “not being better than anyone but not skipping the jealous part” is killing the spirit of this show according to me, and I just can’t stand it. Maybe good for others, but not my cup of tea anymore.
• Stil i P1 (ca 55 min, swedish, every friday). This is definitively a program that I listen less of because I am not running that much anymore. I like the subjects, a mix of actual things and mode and history but the tittles are not explaining enough  what it will talk about, so this is not the podcast I pick when I just have half an hour ahead of me. I like to listen to the whole program, so when I am short with time, I often choose something more explicit in the tittle.
• Les nouveaux chemins de la connaissance (ca 55 min, french, every working day). So serious and hard for a tired brain, I skipped it. But nothing is wrong with the program!

 

 

And there is some new ones this year!! See by yourself!!

• Fredagspodden med Hannah och Amanda (ca 45 min, swedish, every friday). Hannah och Amanda are two sisters, living and working in the media area in Stockholm and they are talking about a lot, between earth and sky. A lots of how it is to become succesfull and some clever reflexions about whatever. I began to listen to it recently, but I like it.
• Entreprenörspodden (ca 50min, swedish, ca every week). I wanted to get inspired by doers, people that really take their ideas to reality but the ton of the podcast is somehow “besserwisser” and I don’t recognise myself in it. I give it some more listening though.
• La prochaine fois je vous le chanterai (ca 55 min, french, every saturday). A lovely program about music from now and then. Very relaxing and funny at the same time. Not much pretentious, I like to listen to it on sunday mornings before to get up.
• Hasse och hundraåringarna (ca 1hour, 1,5 hour, swedish, now and then). Hasse is visiting some old people and ask them about their life. This is a gold part of life, experienced and very often humility. Love it!
• Framgångspodden (ca 1 hour, swedish, every week). Alexander Pärleros is VERY annoying but the guests are interesting, so I try to get inspired by them and skipp my irritation. A good thing with this podacst is that there is a long and a short version of the same interview. Good if you are in a rush!

This was my review for this year, let’s listen to them and make a new review next year!

 

After a long day at work, M and I needed to relax. No idea to go out with the minus 17 or something of today. We decided to watch a movie instead and it was “La mome”, the biography of Edith Piaf. 

I knew she died at an early age but she really had no happy life. I got a little exasperated by Marion Cotillards act, I really wonder if Piaf was all the time talking like in the film. 

Somehow, after so many years abroad, her songs are France to my ears. They take me back to my grand parents, to the valses we danced, to the accordion that was plaid at home sometimes, to the poetry of the language. I wonder if this homesick feeling will grow stronger with the years…

Anyway. This is not a sad day today, today is the day when my friend C, living in San Francisco, is turning 17. I wish you all the best for today and the years to come! Have fun C!

  
Picture borrowed here

The end of the work week is here and I celebrated it with a visit to my hair dresser. She almost laughed at me when I walked in and asked me if I had been to jail or something: my last visit was in February and somehow, my hair grew crazy crazy!

Anyway, I’m now feeling like myself again. I took myself to the library to give back the books I borrowed about San Francisco. I am now waiting for M to finish working for today and I am sitting with some magazines. This interview about Blur makes me really happy: new album from Blur! My 13- years old me will dream again of the 90’s and relive the festival in 2013 in Belfort where they had the big number on Saturday evening. Damon, me and a lots of young one that were not born in 91 were enjoying a whole evening in a summer night with nice melodies. It was even better than in my dreams and I really cannot wait to listen to their new album. 

 

I’ve been living abroad for almost 12 years now. With other words: it has been a little while. And I love it. Somehow, the life abroad, in a country where people don’t talk my mother langage gave me insights and some depth in my way of seeing life.

My first stay abroad was in Germany. I had studied german for 11 years at home, but when I arrived in Darmstadt, I was totally lost when I had to understand or talk about things from every day life. I could talk about atom power and everything, but had big difficulties to buy bread for breakfast. But I learned. With patience and nice people around, after half a year, I was comfortable. Not like a fish in the sea, but at least like something that is able to swim in the sea.

After 2 years in Germany, I moved to Sweden. I did not know any word of Swedish. But as I did with german, I learned. It took me about a year to be comfortable and now, after almost 10 years in Sweden, I would say that it would be the first langage I would talk in the middle of the night if you woke me up. Of course, when I talk, you hear that I’m not from Scandinavia. I understand pretty much everything, and honestly, sometimes I wonder myself when I see how many strange words I know in Swedish. But here again, no big deal after 10 years, this is just the result from a long stay and hard work. No genious here at all.

For me, German was kind of a trouble when I learned Swedish: the two langages are so closed that I mixed it all up. I had then a lots of years without practising German at all: this was a big mix in my head and I have some difficulties to sort the words. But some times ago, I began to watch at german documentaries on Arte. And somehow, my german is back. I understand and almost could speak again.

When I was planning our trip to France and Germany the other evening, I had a hard time to fall asleep after that. Somehow, I was nostalgic about Germany. I had a difficult period there, but the country is a mix of the strict of Scandinavian and the climat of France (at least from east of France where I’m from). I also feel like I did not use every possibility to discover things there and a lots of thoughts went through my mind.

Sometimes I wonder what is keeping me/us up here north, when I dislike that much the darkness of the winter, the coldness of the society and the lack of french food. Of course, there are plenty of good things here in Sweden, don’t missunderstand me, but somehow, I feel like I am growing away from a lots of things to discover, by staying such a long time in the same country. I am growing a little nostalgic of this feeling: moving somewhere you don’t know anything of and starting from zero.

Of course, this is not a very sexy possibility when I think of my professional career (or what it can be called). I would have to start from the beginning for this point as well. Would I be sadder? I don’t know.

Another big difference from earlier is that we are two. M also have to feel that he wants this kind of changes. But after all, what would stop us? Are our life in danger with a moving abroad? Prolly not! But it’s not on our agenda yet.

And if you wonder why this blog’s name is woistdasmeer, look at this video:

Hast du geglaubt
Hast du gehofft
Dass alles besser wird?
Hast du geweint
Hast du gefleht
Weil alles anders ist?

Wo is’ die Zeit
Wo is’ das Meer?
Sie fehlt
Sie fehlt hier
Du fragst mich
Wo sie geblieb’n is’?

Die Nächte kommen
Die Tage geh’n
Es dreht und wendet sich
Hast du die Scherben nicht gesehen
Auf den’ du weiter gehst?

Wo is’ das Licht
Wo is’ dein Stern?
Er fehlt
Er fehlt hier
Du fragst mich
Wo er geblieb’n is’

Wird alles anders?

Ja ich weiß
Es war ‘ne geile Zeit
Uns war kein Weg zu weit
Du fehlst hier

Ja ich weiß
Es war ‘ne geile Zeit
Hey, es tut mir leid
Es is’ vorbei

Du willst hier weg
Du willst hier raus
Du willst die Zeit zurück
Du atmest ein
Du atmest aus
Doch nichts verändert sich

Die Lichter sind aus
Es is’ schwer zu versteh’n
Du siehst hilflos zu wie
Zeiger sich dreh’n

Du siehst deinen Stern
Ihn kann nichts mehr zerstör’n
Weil du weißt, dass es geil war
Dass es geil war
Weil du weißt, dass es geil war