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Hi! I have been sick for a few days. Boring. When I try to do stuff, the energy quickly runs out of me. New York is very cold these days and down here in Battery Park it’s very windy as always. Last weekend I barely had a jacket on and then it got cold again, and this weekend it’s supposed to be warmer again. So weird and no wonder we all get sick. But it is winter now after all, so we all just have to suck it up and hope we’ll be better soon.
I was looking through all my pictures from when I lived in Portugal. I don’t miss the student life there or the dance studios that got flooded every time it rained or the ballet teacher that screamed horrible words in Portuguese or that I had to miss lunch every day because I had no time to go there between classes, but I miss the friends I met there and how hard everybody was working in the studios and the 2€ 2 L beer that you were only allowed to drink outside on the street and of course I miss the wonderful weather. I don’t want to go back to that time, but I do want to go back there again. One day.

Vaknade upp med en snostorm utanfor fonstret. New York bjuder inte alls pa en rolig vinter. Och har vet man inte hur man ska ta hand om det sa det bildas hogar av sno som sen blir stora polar. Det ar inte sa kallt ute, men att bara titta pa snon gor att jag fryser. Forra arets vinter hade totalt 4 dagar sno vilket var helt underbart. Det ar naturligt att man som svensk klagar pa vadret (svenskar pratar ju inte om nagonting annat) och sa gor aven jag nar det ser ut som det gor utanfor fonstret just nu.

Ja, ja.. I tisdags var jag pa Max Brenner med tva tjejer fran Osterrike som var har pa semester. Den ena studerade som utbytesstudent i Portugal samtidigt som mig. Sa kul att se henne igen! Kul att prata minnen fran skolan och Lissabon.
Jag tanker pa den tiden ibland. Jag fick underbara vanner dar och en otrolig erfarenhet av dans och hur samhallet fungerar dar. Jag mottes bl.a av larare som var hogt uppsatta pa bade skolan och inom dans i Portugal som direkt hade fatt sparken i Sverige for hur de undervisar. Att fa varje kvinnlig student att grata efter varje klass var bara en av de dagliga uppdragen. Jag traffade aven fantastisk koreograf/larare som pratade om saker som jag nu har byggt de senaste aren efter. Det var bara en termin, men jag fick med mig sa mycket i min ryggsack genom livet. Att vara utbytesstudent ar nagot som fler borde ta chansen till.

Woke up with a snowstorm outside the window. New York does not give a fun winter at all. And, they don’t know how to take care of it so there is big piles of snow which then becomes large puddles. It’s not so cold outside, but just watching the snow makes me cold. Last years winter had a total of four days snow which was absolutely wonderful. It is natural for Swedish people to complaining on the weather (Swedes do not speak about anything else) and so will I when it looks like this outside the window right now.
Well, well.. On Tuesday I was at Max Brenner with two girls from Austria who was here on vacation. One studied as an exchange student in Portugal with me. So fun to see her again! Fun to talk memories from school and Lisbon.
I think of those days sometimes. I got wonderful friends there and an incredible experience of dance and how society works there. I met for example teachers who were high up on both the school and in dance in Portugal that had directly gotten fired in Sweden for how they teach. To get every female student to cry after each class was just one of the daily missions. I also met an amazing choreographer/teacher who talked about things that I now have based the last couple of years on. It was only one semester, but I got with me so much in my backpack through life. Being an exchange student is something that more people should take the chance to do.

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