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In Florida, Travel

Let the quarantine begin

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

July 13, 2020

We are back from Florida. Quarantine Day 2 today. 

Our trip was nice, a mix of research and vacation. We got to enjoy the beach and then we drove around to check different areas. The city hasn’t recovered from the class 5 hurricane that hit two years ago, so it is a bit hard to get an idea of if we would like to live there or not. The house is great, the neighborhood is so cute and we found some nice beach areas so I think I can picture us living there, but then, the downtown or whatever we wanna call it is still somewhat under construction, lots of buildings and houses looks like crap and we would have to drive for twenty minutes to grocery stores and stuff. But, on the other hand, this would be the case in most American cities I’d say, at least that’s how I’ve found it to be here in this country = nothing is close by, drive everywhere, strip mall here and strip mall there and in between there’s nothing going on. 

I originally said no to Florida because of a few things; hurricanes, alligators plus it’s really hot and humid during summer. BUT, this house was built right before the hurricane 2018 and nothing happened to it (the fence was broken a little but the house was fine) and the neighborhood is not in a flood zone. It is possible to meet an alligator but you probably won’t, plus if it’s not an alligator it can be a bear (like here in CT) or dangerous snakes or coyotes or whatever other animals that lives in this country hahah, you can’t escape nature and wild life.
And about the heat… I have only been to Florida during colder months (except when we went to Disney World in September which was hot but that’s not by the ocean), so all I knew about the humidity and hot weather is from what others have told me,..and people hate it, even up here, people in New York complain about the humidity all the time (heck, even the Swedish people complain about warm weather and they have it for like ten days a year hahah). I happen to be ok with it and if it gets too hot, I’ll just go inside to enjoy the air conditioner. But, I didn’t know what to expect, how bad could it be? Well, it was not that bad. Yes, in the middle of the day when it was 33°c and very humid, I felt a little dizzy…because I was dehydrated, other than that, I loved it. Thor might have to be inside a lot during the summer months, but we did see plenty of dogs, even fluffy ones, and they seemed fine. 

We have to take some time now to really think about it. Some things to think about; Is the house going to be too big for us, too much maintenance ? Do we like this city enough to see us live there? How could our lives look like if we live there? What is our priorities in life? etc etc… We will have to make a pros and cons list. We can’t buy the house this second anyway (it’s not for sale just yet, some this and that stuff which will take some time), so we have some time to think:)

And now, we are in quarantine for at least 14 days. Not that it will change much from before our trip, we have been isolating since March, but now we make sure to always wear our masks if we leave the apartment, and we only leave if Thor needs to potty. I would like to go for walks by myself sometimes to get some exercise but that has to be in the morning or maybe late at night then when there’s less/no people outside (plus it is very hot and humid here in Connecticut now in the middle of the day so it’s tough to walk anyway). But 14 days isn’t that long so I think we’ll be ok:) 

In Connecticut, Stamford

First summer days

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

June 1, 2020

Hi hello how are you? We are doing good over here. Thor still has stones in his bladder but doesn’t seem bothered by it, however he still has ear infections and it’s driving us all a bit nuts. Jim and I have had several sniffles since February which we are a bit tired of by now, but that’s how it is when you spend so much time with each other, you just pass it back and forth I guess and the immune system can’t keep up. But we feel good overall and that’s all that matters:)

What has happened since last I wrote.. hmm…it’s been a week. To be honest, not much until this weekend really. I have barely even been working out cause I could tell that if I would push through my latest cold it would get so much worse, so I have mostly just done restorative yoga. And the weather has been pretty boring.

But this weekend we had the first real summer day with 27°c degrees and sunny (!!) and I got a lot of my energy back. Basically all of Saturday I spent doing different things on our terrace. We started with breakfast inside but then I brought my coffee out and finished reading a book. After that I carried all my planties out to add some more potting soil to them. No replanting needed but for some reason all my plants like to eat their soil, the palm tree was basically just roots. I also planted some seeds but I don’t know if they will actually come up this year, I have been waiting for the potting mix to be delivered for weeks and I don’t know if it’s too late now…but, I planted some stuff anyway, we’ll see. 
We went for our weekend walk on the “cute street” but it was too hot for Thor so we didn’t walk the whole way. Still nice to be out, noone was outside on Saturday and it was very quiet all day.
And then I organized the terrace while the boys were taking naps, not much but it is really cute and cozy out there now. One string light died over the winter so I moved one that we had and put up a new fairy light that I ordered. When I was done I grabbed a new book to read and just sat there enjoying my new outdoor space:)
In the evening we first watched some MMA fights and then watched two hours of ballet. Lincoln Center has a “Dance Week” where you can go to their website and watch some old recordings of dance performances. On Saturday it was “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” from 1986 with NYCBallet. On Sunday I watched a bit from an evening with several different ballets with ABT at Metropolitan Opera House 1978. There are three more shows I plan to watch this week.
When I sat on our terrace by myself on Saturday, my heart and mind felt so full of gratitude. I’m “happy” the pandemic and quarantine happened now and not when we lived on Manhattan, that would have been a very different experience for us. Now we have our own private terrace and streets to walk where you meet very few people. We have everything we need and most of all we have each other.

It’s so wonderfully green outside
Half of our terrace
Lady bugs visiting means good luck…but how did she fly all they way up to 7th floor..?
My hairy man in the reflection..he looks like a caveman now hahah

However, we do live right next door to a police station. On Sunday we started our morning with coffee in the sun, and then I cleaned the whole apartment and did some laundry (Sundays has become my tidy-up day). After all that we were both pretty hungry so we decided to walk over to the Mexican place downtown to order some take-outs. What we didn’t know was that every street around here was blocked off by the police and outside the police station was a large group of protesters. We managed to avoid it by walking around those crowded blocks and we got our mexican order. Aaah, guacamole! Jim got tacos and I got veggie quesadillas, it was amazing! And then we didn’t do much for the rest of that day. Sat outside for a little bit, we ordered some stuff we needed, I watched ballet and at night we drank tea and watched Scrubs.

A very healthy breakfast hahah
A young Baryshnikov:)

We had an absolute amazing weekend! Finally warm weather, I am so happy:) I hope you had a fantastic weekend as well.
Have an awesome week!

Edit: CT articles says that the protesting in Stamford had been very peaceful. The police department showed their support and together they all went down on their knees for 8 minutes of silence. I was very happy to read this, there are too much s*** going on in the rest of the country. Violence is never the answer. 

In Stamford

city opening up

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

Yesterday, May 20, they finally opened up the city a bit. Not sure really what changed other than restaurants are from now on allowed to serve guests at tables outside at a 6 feet distance and I think all the shopping malls are now opened too, but of course face covering is required and all the other social distancing things we are ordered to follow. Jim took Thor for a walk downtown in the afternoon yesterday and saw that all bars/restaurants outdoor seating were full and there were news teams filming it all (I found an article, read HERE)
It’s exciting that things are opening up. We’re not really planning on going out to eat or go shopping at the mall anytime soon, so it won’t change much for my husband and myself, we’re happy to distance ourselves a little longer. Since we have read that countries has got new cases since they opened up from quarantine, I think it’s smart to continue distancing ourselves a little longer to see how this will turn out. But nonetheless, yesterday was exciting anyway and it gives us hope for a bright and functional future. Some people can go back to work and companies can hopefully survive. It sounds like Jim will have to work from home for the rest of the year which he is happy about, and lot of other companies has realized that they don’t need to pay for big offices because their employees can work from home, so, it looks like that will be the new normal after all this. 

No news on when dance studios will be reopened though. Or when our building will be allowed to open the gym. No news on anything really, the only thing that has changed from yesterday is like I mentioned above that restaurants can serve food with limits and shopping is opened. And we have heard that hairdressers can open up but not for haircuts, only for blowouts, which is one of the weirdest things I’ve heard all year haha. 

So, our days will continue like it has the past fourteen weeks. But I am thinking of if I should go to the grocery store soon on my own though (we have only ordered groceries online for delivery for the past three months). Fruit and greens is what I miss the most and I can tell that my body is starting to feel weird without it. We haven’t ordered for a few weeks now and we have run out of fresh ingredients (we do have some frozen veggies and dried fruit). We have some carrots and lemons left, but that’s it and my body is not happy and both Jim and I are extremely tired and feel a bit sluggish at the moment. Sure we can order for delivery again, but I want to pick out my own stuff cause most of the time the things they send us is about to go bad in a day cause they pick up the first thing they see, I like to take my time and find the best banana or the freshest salad or an item with expiration dates that isn’t tomorrow. If only one of us go into the store, keep mask and gloves on, pay with the watch and we wipe everything off when we get home, it should be ok.
(( I know I know, we sound like dumb idiots for taking such precautions, but we believe the biggest problem is that most people don’t take these kind of responsibilities. Even if they don’t feel sick themselves they can still spread it around to so many others – just look at Sweden, most people think they are ok, they eat at restaurants, they party at clubs, they send their kids to school and hang out in big groups in the parks, but it results in spreading it around and then hospitals refuses to help people 65 or older, way more people are dying because others are idiots [I really really hope it turns out in the end that Sweden did the right thing, I have way too many people in Sweden that I care about]. So, in order for us to be able to sleep better at night, we want to do absolutely everything we can to not get the virus  < though, I think it’s possible we’ve already had it >  and spread this around. This is not going to be forever, a little extra distancing doesn’t hurt us ))

The diner next to our apartment early yesterday morning

In Stamford

coffee in the garden

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

May 19, 2020

On Friday we had 27°c! We ordered a bench for our terrace that arrived last week. I’ve been wanting a second area out there, like a little coffee and reading nook, and a bench seemed like a good idea since it gets so windy up there and we need sturdier things. We sat there all Friday night, just listened to music and talked about life, it was lovely. 

On Saturday we went on our usual weekend walk on the “cute street”. Every weekend for the past month we have been walking there to see when the Lily of the Valleys would bloom (I do this every year). This weekend a lot of them had started to bloom, the whole street smells wonderful. Unfortunately I can’t bring any home like I used to do in Sweden, cause they grow in peoples yards, not out in the wild. So I creepily walk up to people’s front yards to stare at and smell their flowers. 

On Sunday, Jim decided that it was time to get our first take-out coffees since the lockdown started. He put a mask on and went to a drive-through. He picked up two coffees that I wiped off with sanitizer wipes at home (the cups, not the coffee haha) and two bagels that we put in the oven for a minute before eating // since they say that the virus stays on surfaces for awhile so we decided in the beginning of all this that anything coming into the apartment has to be carefully handled and wiped // Aah, it was nice to drink coffee that someone other than myself had made haha. I miss going out to eat, can you tell:) 
After a weekly cleaning of the apartment, dealing with laundry and wiping off all surfaces in our home, Jim suggested that we leave Thor at home and drive to Bartlett Arboretum about 15 minutes from our apt. Felt weird to leave the pup, he hasn’t been alone for over two months. We decided to get ice coffees on the way to the garden. Of course, once again, we wiped them off in the car and used hand sanitizers on ourselves. 

When we arrived, we were kinda shocked to see how much people there were. Holy moly, we’ve never seen so many at that place before, the parking lot was completely full (it kinda makes sense though since a lot of other parks are closed still). Everyone seemed to be walking the different trails in the forest so Jim and I decided to go check out the gardens where actually noone else were. Thor isn’t allowed in that separated area so we have never checked it out before cause we always bring him. Not much blooming but it was still very beautiful. And it was so nice to be just the two of us. Yes, Thor is “just a dog” but he is a family member that needs full attention when we are with him, so a break felt nice. 

Of course we were wearing our scarves, ready to pull them up over our faces if we met someone,
and so did people we met. Feels weird, looks weird, but this is the new normal😷
Since barbers and hairdressers has been closed for two months, hubby has been leaving his beard to grow.
We’ll see how long his beard and hair is once this is all over hahah

Yesterday, the books I ordered over four weeks ago finally arrived. I have so much to read now that I don’t want to do anything else hahah. But I need to find time for it. It’s funny how much busier my husband and I suddenly have become since the quarantine started. I have things to do nonstop throughout the day. But I guess the biggest change is that I cook all our meals at home now and for two people instead of going out to eat and to maybe, only maybe, be cooking for myself once a day, and that takes a lot of time 😛 

Anyway, today is another lovely sunny day and I will try to take some time to sit on my bench and read while the sun is still out. 
Have an awesome week!

In France

Paris video

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

May 14, 2020

Aww, I decided to watch the video I made of our vacation in Paris earlier. We had such a great time, we saw so many things during our four day trip. Jim and I are a good team when traveling, or, ok, we are a good team always:) Since we can’t travel anywhere these days, I like that I have my videos to look back at.