Spring chicken in California

I had four days off before Easter this year and went to California for a week to see my brother and hang out with one of my friends in Los Angeles. The benefit of L.A. is that you can get beach and skiing on the same week! :-)

My brother and his girlfriend live in Studio City in the San Fernando Valley in northern L.A. It’s a fantastic location, quiet and residential but also with some nice restaurants and shops. I spent some time shopping on Ventura Boulevard, the main shopping street and through-fare in the Valley, and also had dinner there at a cozy restaurant one night.

The weather in L.A. is mostly warm and sunny all year round. In the back yard at my brother’s, there is a lemon tree growing, constantly ripe with lemons (as you can see from the picture to the right), just waiting to be picked and used for fresh frozen margaritas!

On the Wednesday before Easter, my brother’s girlfriend, Julia Albert, a talented singer / songwriter, had a gig at Café Cordiale in Sherman Oaks. My brother played the guitar and sang backing vocals. Julia’s mother, brother, grandmother and some other relatives were also there to watch. We all had dinner there before the performance. Julia’s music is wonderful – check it out at http://juliaalbert.com/. It was nice to experience the intimate setting of this gig - see photos below.



I spent one of the days down at Venice Beach with my friend Thomas. For those of you who are not familiar with Venice Beach, this is a stretch of beach south of Santa Monica with a long beach promenade, along which people roller-blade, go skateboarding, biking and running, or work out in the sun at the Muscle Beach Gym, play tennis, volleyball or basketball at one of several courts dotted along the beach. The rather famous Venice Beach Boardwalk is full of quirky street stands, hustlers and weird people, trying to make a buck by making sand sculptures, wearing ugly costumes, juggling, selling their own, home made CDs etc. It’s definitely worth a visit – you’ll have a laugh and be fascinated by all the Weirdness there is in this world.

Since I am a passionate salsa dancer, Thomas took me to see one of his friends, John Davila (in picture to the left), who happens to be an On2 salsa instructor in L.A. We had good fun in the sun at his place for a couple of hours, learning a new On2 routine. Check out Davila's website at http://www.salsero.biz/index.php

On the Good Friday, Thomas and I went to Raffi’s Place in Glendale for some lovely Iranian food for lunch. I don’t think I have ever tasted Iranian food before, but I liked it. If you happen to be near Glendale, drive to Raffi’s Place and try it out. Nice staff and fresh food.



In the evening we went to Sherman Oaks Galleria for dinner and a movie. Thomas was mistaken for Eddie Murphy (very funny) by one of the visitors to the shopping galleria, who stopped him and almost asked for an autograph. The movie we ended up watching was really bad, not even sure why on earth we would randomly pick a film with such a title anyway… “10,000 B.C.”… If it screens at a movie theater near you, please pick another film for your evening out.

After four relaxing days in L.A., I was off to Big Bear / Snow Summit in Southern Caifornia for a couple of days of skiing with my brother.

London salsa – where and when

After 6 months in London I believe I have come to some conclusion on which the best places are for salsa dancing here, at least L.A. and Mambo style.

Mondays – Bar Salsa on Charing Cross Road close to Leicester Square. Super Mario usually DJ’s here when he’s in town. Usually a good crowd – the good dancers are there between 11pm and 2am (which is when they close and the bouncers come yelling at you, trying to hurry you out).

Tuesdays – never been out yet; does not seem to be a good club night for salsa.

Wednesdays – Bar Salsa, open till 2am.

Thursdays – my friend Jeff has started On2 courses and social dancing at Surya Bar at King’s Cross, open till 12pm. See http://www.salsageeks.com/ for more info.

Fridays – MamboCity event in Ealing Town Hall, open till 1am. This is usually jam-packed, hot and sweaty and a lot of fun.

Saturdays
– Scala at King’s Cross last Saturday of every month (usually open till 5 or 6am) + the night before all Bank holidays (open till 6am)
– Prodigal / Cape on Love Lane (close to St. Paul’s) open till 3am – this is a nice venue with a good salsa DJ and usually there are good dancers. Sometimes this clashes with Scala nights.
– Palladium at Latin Palace in Oval – I have only been there once but it was not good. Irene is trying to build a rep there and get people coming regularly but I really didn’t like the venue and it’s located way off and therefore hard to get home from unless you have a car of your own or can catch a ride.

On Fridays and Saturdays there are also occasional salsa events at Colosseum on Nine Elms Lane in Vauxhall which can be quite nice as a change. These events usually draw a mixed crowd of Cuban, LA style and mambo dancers.

Sundays – Salsa On Sundays (SOS) at the Royal National Hotel at Russell Square. This is the salsa social of the week organized by Leon Rose and Tamambo, and usually all good mambo dancers come here.

Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona in February

I’m a little behind on my blogging, it’s just been crazy lately with too much work.

I was in Spain on business in February for a week to attend the Mobile World Congress, a big tradeshow, held at Fira de Barcelona. For all my years in the telecoms & wireless industry I have never been to this show, not even when it was called GSM World Congress and then 3GSM and was held for many years in Cannes. It was interesting to finally get a chance to attend this event, which is huge for all network infrastructure, service and mobile phone providers and carriers / operators to gather and discuss new industry trends and requirements. The event is typically attended by some 50-60,000 key decision-makers in the mobile industry.

A nice panorama photo taken at Fira Barcelona by one of my colleagues

I had meeting after meeting and walking around the tradeshow for four days... I didn't see much of Barcelona other than the conference facilities, restaurants and the inside of a few salsa clubs.

Symbian was there with the theme "Tomorrow's technology - today's phones". We had a booth in Hall 8 with good technology demos, a couple of speaker / panel opportunities, and a Hospitality Suite on the Fira Avenue to nurture and meet with customers, important partners and press. I went to visit my old colleagues in the Sony Ericsson booth and checked out some new phones. Symbian also threw a big party at an off-site venue with about 800 guests with local DJs and a live band called The Pinkertones, one of Barcelona's hottest new acts.

Symbian booth

Panel discussion

Symbian Hospitality Suite

Senior Product Manager, Lars Lindström, demonstrating some new smartphones in Sony Ericsson’s booth

The Fira entrance / exit gates

I found three fairly descent salsa clubs, which I visited on different nights. I managed to get a couple of colleagues to tag along to Antilla Latin Club on a Saturday night. The place was quite busy but unfortunately there were not many good dancers. I spotted one tall guy with long hair (kind of reminding me of the famous Swedish tennis player Björn Borg back in the days when he had long hair) that seemed to be the best there that night and invited him to dance which turned out to be a good move. Funnily enough, he showed up at the other two salsa clubs I tracked down while in Barcelona on other nights.

On Sunday night I went out on my own to Mojito Club. They celebrated their 10th anniversary on the night I was there, served champagne and handed out gifts. They also had a dance performance by some local dancers and a salsa band playing. I saw someone at the bar looking exactly like Ricky Martin but since he and his lady company seemed to enjoy the evening without much extra stir around them I assumed it was just a look-alike.

I met up with a salsa friend from Stockholm, John, who works for IBM and happened to be at the MWC as well this week. On the last night in Barcelona, or Barca, as many people call it, we had a long dinner catching up on life in the fast lane and then went to Agua de Luna, apparently the “place to be” on a Wednesday night in Barca if you’re into salsa.

Sure enough, there you could spot all the famous and good dancers that travel to international salsa congresses around the world, and I had the pleasure of dancing with the world champion of salsa 2007, Adrian (saw him compete with his partner in Puerto Rico last summer – see separate blog post about the Puerto Rico Salsa Congress 2007), and another quite well-known performer, Ramón, who took turns dancing with me to a couple of super fast Mambo songs...! Lots of fun but it resulted in me getting sore ribs and abdomen from dancing like crazy. I am apparently in poor shape these days! ;-)

Very pleased but beat after an activity-filled week in Barca with too little sleep I returned to London with the last night of great salsa fresh in my mind and body, and a big smile on my face.

I am hoping that next time I will have time to actually see more of Barcelona.

New Year’s salsa in Birmingham

The single excursion outside of London I have done since I moved to the UK was to drive up to Birmingham from London with my salsa friends Steve, Eva and Gormack over New Year’s.

The LatinMotion team of salsa instructors and promoters every year arrange a big New Year’s salsa bash attracting people from all over the country. We arrived after dark so I did not have the chance to see much of Birmingham except for the street where the Paragon Hotel, where we were staying, and St. Anne’s Club were located on Alcester Street, next to St. Anne’s Church.

When we arrived, there was a big Rueda workshop going on. As soon as the free classes for the night had ended, the actual party slowly started picking up. About 200 people attended the party this past New Year and it was a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

Sadly, very few people had really dressed up, despite being New Year’s Eve. On the other hand, dancing comfortably and sweating like a pig hardly go hand in hand with a tux or an evening gown, so it’s understandable. I was however quite surprised to see a few locals in jeans, polo shirt and leather vest… It did seem a little out of place.

Eva and Gormack gave a performance, as did another London couple called Mauro and Aiste, and a pale couple dressed in white, Lisa & Mark from SalsaOxford.

Left: Eva, Mauro and Aiste. Right: Steve & I

Eva & Steve dancing

At midnight LatinMotion had a balloon drop with gift vouchers for dance shoes, salsa classes and more. There was also a Limbo competition at some point during the night into which a few of our brave London salsa friends entered - didn't know Simon was such an agile Limbo master! The winner got 1 year's worth of free Latin Motion nights & classes. It was a quite fun night with lots of good music spinning, and the party lasted till 3am.

Salsa dancers always get starved by a full night’s workout, so when a big group of us had finally made our way down the street to the Paragon Hotel, we had the good fortune of finding an Indian food delivery guy in the hotel lobby. The poor man was service-minded enough to come back with a huge delivery of rice and curry dishes, and probably didn’t even get tipped enough. The New Year’s bash in Birmingham came to an end with a huge yawn and ours of after-sweating in an over-heated hotel room.

My first 1.5 month as resident in the UK

Now a Londoner

Time flies; I have now officially been living in the United Kingdom for almost 1.5 month and don’t think that the penny has dropped yet. What I mean by that is that London feels kind of like Stockholm and any other big city in the world, albeit bigger than the capital of Sweden of course. I’m used to travelling a lot and using English as the communications language in my work every day, so it almost feels like I’m on an extended business trip. I have not yet realized the full implications of not living in my own home country anymore.

I finally found a place to live and “moved in” to a 2-bedroom apartment in Earls Court on October 1st. Well, actually my furniture didn’t arrive from Sweden until Wednesday the 3rd, and the apartment was not really ready to move into, but you can read more about that under “Cons” below. Here’s a list of random impressions of pros and cons of living in London:

PROS

1. Alessia, the Italian girl I met at the New York Salsa Congress earlier this fall, let me stay at her place near London Bridge for almost 1.5 week when I first arrived in London, while I was looking for flats. Both she and her flat mates, Turker and Joanna, were really friendly and hospitable, which gave me a nice first introduction to London.

2. On my very first night in London, Alessia invited me and another Italian salsera, Martina, along for dinner with Filippo, Luis and Yon in the boys’ top-floor apartment in Tower House with a roof terrace and marvellous view over London at walking distance from Aldgate East tube station.

3. Friendly salsa scene with lots of good dancers, some of them very handsome and charming too! :-) I now know where to go on what week-night.

4. Borough Market next to Southwark Cathedral on Saturdays – this is a well-stocked market-place with everything imaginable in one place; from fish, vegetables, huge pumpkins, and flowers, to wine from all over the world, all sorts of French and Stilton cheese, British jam and marmalades, all sorts of tea, sausages and salami... Next to Southwark Cathedral you can also get freshly made crêpes.

5. I like my new job. Symbian develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for smartphones. My colleagues are really friendly and welcoming and there are enough challenges to keep me motivated for a good while, I think.

6. Successful Symbian Smartphone Show at the ExCeL Centre and a great party.




7. London has many cool and trendy restaurants with really good food and I have already found a few that I imagine that I will return to many times:

• Ping Pong on Eastcastle Street in SoHo near Oxford Circus – really good Asian fusion cuisine and fantastic cocktails.
  
  
  Luis, Filippo, Alessia, one of her former colleagues and friend at Alessia's birthday dinner at Ping Pong in October

• Busaba Eathai, a Thai restaurant near Goodge Street in SoHo – excellent food, busy environment (not really the place if you want a romantic setting for two but perfect if you go with a group of friends) with friendly and service-minded staff.
  
  
  Mimmis, Luis & Martina at Busaba Ethai
  
  
• Strada, a chain of Italian restaurants in England – good food at very decent prices in a nice, cosy setting.
  


• Med Kitchen on Charing Cross Road, around the corner from Bar Salsa – fabulous pasta, however too heavy prior to dancing because you cannot help but eat all! ;-)

8. Wicked Halloween party at Tower House – lots of people, all really friendly and easy-going in truly international, cosmopolitan spirit; a mix of French, Italians, Spaniards, even a few Swedes, but I only met one Brit all night, and he was standing rather shyly in a corner of the roof terrace talking to no one before I walked up to him.

9. Nice walks along the river Thames – I like all the bridges and the way that the afternoon light and sunset glows on them.

Potters Fields Park
Tower Bridge

Cheyne Walk near Battersea Bridge

London Eye

10. The fact that most museums in England do not cost anything to enter. I went to the Tate Modern with colleagues to see an illusionist art exhibition and had a relaxing afternoon doing something I normally don't.

Spider statue outside Tate Modern - St. Paul's Cathedral in the background

11. The custom of British men (and for that matter women too) often calling you “love”, “hon’” (as in “honey”) or “darling” instead of “miss”, “Ma’am” or “Madam” – e.g. “Sorry, darling” when they bump into you or “Go ahead, love” when they step out of your way in the street. Wonderful! :-)

CONS

1. Foxtons, Foxtons, Foxtons! I’ve had nothing but issues related to the landlord and the lettings agency Foxtons since I moved in. Did you know that there is a "We hate Foxtons" web site?! http://www.wehatefoxtons.com/

2. Breach of contract - repainting not completed until Monday this week despite Addendum to my tenancy agreement clearly stating that, “The landlord will repaint all walls of the flat in the same neutral colour prior to the commencement of the tenancy” (which was October 1st).

3. Delayed and below-standard cleaning when I moved in which meant I have had to take care of the following issues myself:

• Removing mud and filth in the detergent compartment and filter of the washing-machine.
• Removing years’ worth of dirt on all skirting boards, door frames and top of doors.
• Cleaning curtains / roller blinds and air vents.
• Cleaning of cupboards and removing old, torn posters and a broken laundry rack in the hallway cupboard and dirty shelf papers stuck with tape or blue tac in bedroom cupboards (what I call general "junk").
• Cleaning dirty and greasy kitchen fan (fan also in need of new filter).
• Removing remnants of old food splatter in the top of the inside of the microwave.

4. Due to the cleaning not having been done upon delivery of all my furniture and belongings from Sweden, my moving company was not able to complete its work and unpack. So not only did I have to perform the cleaning on my own, but also all the unpacking.

5. Broken boiler meaning I had no hot water or heating the first 11-13 days of my tenancy.

This is the London rental market for you – a disgrace!

Check out my photos from London>>

Flat hunting in London

I’ve just spent the weekend in London. I am changing jobs and start working for a new company on October1st, hence moving to the UK by the end of this month. I am very excited about this move, starting a new chapter in life. It will be the first time I live abroad.

I had some handover meetings with our PR agency at Piccadilly Circus on Friday and then went to my hotel near Gloucester Road and crashed… Still jetlagged from my New York trip, I ended up missing a salsa night in London, which I tried making up for by going to Salsa Palladium on Charing Cross Road near Leicester Square on Saturday night. It turned out to be a big disappointment and a waste of time – it was horrible, horrible, oh and did I mention horrible?! Most people who were there were absolutely shitfaced (pardon the language, but some colloquial slang seemed appropriate here) and could not dance. It was hot like a sauna in there and the floor was extremely sticky, and what’s more, they didn’t play one single salsa song during the full hour that it took me to queue for a Mojito at the bar, drink it while watching the swaying people on the dance floor and saying no to several guys who wanted to dance reggae ton or Latin disco with me… I then finally agreed to dance one merengue and one half-disco/half-salsa song before I couldn’t stand the place any longer. Remind me to never ever go to this place again! For a place called “Salsa Palladium”, I have never been farther from a salsa experience…

The rest of the weekend I have explored a couple of different parts of London and gone flat hunting – guess I need to start changing vocabulary now to more British… normally I would say “apartment”. I’ve seen some different places in the South Kensington / Earl’s Court area as well as Covent Garden.

Covent Garden Market


Martlett Court in Covent Garden

Although I haven’t yet quite found the type of flat I would like, I am confident it will work out by the end of the month. I met with a rental agency near Gloucester Road called Foxtons and the broker told me that flats are advertised and gone pretty fast in London, but if you’re willing to make fast decisions after you’ve seen a place you like, have your references and down payment (standard seems to be that you pay one month’s rent in advance + 6 weeks’ deposit) ready, you can actually get the keys and move in within a few days. Quite different from Sweden, where you usually have 1-3 months’ lead time… In Stockholm there can be several years’ waiting line for popular city areas, at least if you’re doing it the legal way....




Victorian style property in South Kensington

Left: Typical British phone booth. Right: Natural History Museum

Left: Victoria & Albert Museum. Right: Holy Trinity Brompton

I have grown very fond of the South Kensington area with its Victorian buildings and museums like the Natural History Museum, the Victoria & Albert and Science Museums. I hope to get a place in this area. The rents are in general three times higher than those for similar space and standard in Stockholm (well, the standard is perhaps not exactly comparable – they do things differently in the UK) but in order to do London properly I feel I don’t want the long commutes from any of the suburbs, so I guess I just have to suck it up and pay the price…

You can see more photos from London in my Flickr album here>>

Exploring Brooklyn and enjoying New York Salsa Congress 2007

I’ve just spent six nights dancing in New York City! :-) I took a week off from work to attend a salsa congress and visit my friend Duane in Brooklyn. Duane picked me up at the airport shuttle bus stop at Bryant Park after work and we had a drink and something to eat at the restaurant bar there which allowed us to catch up a bit.

That same night we went to dance at the pre-congress party at Caché. I was extremely tired so I didn’t dance much but it was good to see some old friends again like Marlon and Dave. Also Angel Ortiz was there and some people I had met at the Puerto Rico Salsa Congress (Gustavo, Michael, the guy with the broken toe whose name I can’t recall…).

Street corner and Duane’s apartment building in Brooklyn

The New York Salsa Congress was held at the Hilton on 6th Ave (between 53rd and 54th Streets). The congress started with a welcome party on Thursday night and I managed to get a cheap party pass for the weekend from one of the congress organizers whom Duane knows very well. The congress was a lot of fun. I met a lot of dancers that I’ve seen before at various congresses around the world, most recently in Puerto Rico, but also at congresses in France, UK, Switzerland and more. I had a fabulous time dancing with people like Angel Ortiz from NYC, Al “Liquid Silver” Espinoza from L.A., dancers from London and some local dancers from New York like Luis Guerrero whom I met in Puerto Rico. Mark-Anthony Sheppard from Toronto (Canada) is actually considering moving to Stockholm to be closer to his dance partner Elena and be able to travel to more congresses in Europe with her. I also met some of Duane’s close friends. I was happy to get acquainted with Alessia, a very nice Italian girl from Puglia (south of Italy) who lives in London and can give me pointers on the salsa scene there.

Cool cats getting ready for the congress party…

Alessia, Duane and me

Duane with Mark-Anthony from Toronto, Canada

Larry (opera singer from Ohio traveling around the world and engaged by the Met), Anna (from Köln, Germany), Duane and I at the congress party

Me and Michael (was DJ at the after party at Platos in Puerto Rico) from Washington DC, I believe

After having danced all night you tend to get very hungry… Duane and I went to eat breakfast on the lower East Side one morning after the congress. After the last salsa party we had breakfast with Anna from Köln in Germany and a Dominican dancer living in Brooklyn, Manuel, at the Dominican restaurant El Gran Mar de Plata in Brooklyn at 7am... This was a local nightclub and restaurant for Latinos, seemingly busy around the clock. I tried some local dish which I can’t remember the name of (think it was mashed plantain with fried egg).

The last night in New York I went to Session 73 on the East Side of Manhattan, which had a nice live band playing. I sat down at a table on the sidewalk and enjoyed a good salad and some wine before entering. Most people from the congress were on a post-congress salsa cruise that night, so there was a limited number of good dancers at Session 73. However, the first one I invited to dance was a tall, handsome, fabulous dancer from Spain. I danced with a couple of other congress visitors from Germany, an older Mambo gentleman as well as the singer in the band during one of their breaks. I also made friends with Jonathan, an On1 dancer from New York who recently started learning On2. All in all I had a good night at this bar and restaurant in the corner of 1st Avenue and 73rd Street. They had a surprisingly good wooden floor for being a bar.

However, I have not only been dancing on this trip… I have actually had time to do and see other things as well.

Brooklyn excursions
One day I decided to explore Brooklyn on my own and took the subway to 7th Street and walked up 9th Street to Park Slope. This is one of the nicer areas in Brooklyn apparently and is close to quaint little bars, bookshops and restaurants.

Prospect Park in Brooklyn is a big park – not as big as Central Park, but it apparently has the same architect. Prospect Park has big greens with baseball fields, various trails to walk with ponds and small waterfalls, a dog beach at a pond which looked more like a Louisiana swamp (not that I’ve ever been there but I’d imagine it’s quite muddy with a lot of wild vegetation), areas where people meet to barbeque, walk their dogs etc. You’ll find some photos from the park below.

Entrance to Prospect Park

Baseball fields in Prospect Park
Dog beach

Trails in Prospect Park

Later I met Duane and we went to have beer at T-Lounge in Brooklyn. This was a cool place. Many people seem to come here and use it as an Internet café. You could have lots of different beers from all over the world, and I tried a very good raspberry flavored one. They also served very strong and good Turkish coffee.

T-Lounge in Brooklyn

Monday this week was Labor Day in the US so I went to a Labor Day Parade on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. It was a sticky hot day and extremely crowded. I think all Caribbean people living in New York City were gathered here this day… There were lots of Jamaicans, people from Trinidad & Tobago and other Caribbean islands. I had some pork sticks from a food stand and tried eating amidst all the shuffling of people trying to pass by to watch the parade. I think I only saw a handful of Caucasians all day. I didn’t really think about it until a truck drove by in the parade with a sign saying “Chocolate City” and then I realized how fitting that statement was in this setting.

It was hard to see anything and to get anywhere due to all the people but nonetheless it was quite interesting for a few hours. I made my way through the crowds to see the passing trucks and processions of people from different Caribbean islands with flags and colorful costumes. The NYPD had a busy afternoon trying to pave the way for new processions along the blocked Eastern Parkway and keeping the peace among spectators, filtering people to the overcrowded subway trains etc. You'll find some photos from the Labor Day Parade below (click on them to enlarge).

Baseball at the Yankee Stadium

Duane had tickets to a Yankee game at the Yankee Stadium in the Bronx so he took me to see the New York Yankees play Tampa Bay (Florida). This was a great experience! Luckily the Yankees won (Yankee fans would probably exclaim “Of course they won – it would have been a disgrace otherwise!”) and people around us were happy and helpful in explaining some baseball history, background on some of the players (of course I don’t remember anything!), the Stadium etc. Apparently the Yankee Stadium seats 56,000 people and has been the home of the Yankees for 84 years. Now they have started building a new park to be completed in 2009, which will seat 51,000 people. There are lively debates on what to do with the current stadium, which bears so much baseball history. It’s been remodeled a few times and today only has one of its original sections left with a lovely white fence at the top. Some photos from the Yankee Stadium and the game below.

Yankee Stadium and the parking lot

Bridge between Queens and the Bronx

On our way home, Duane drove me through Harlem so I would see the famous Apollo Theater (check out http://www.apollotheater.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Theater), where some famous singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Ross, Gladys Night, Aretha Franklin and the Jackson 5 have been discovered during Afro American Amateur Nights or kick-started their artist careers.

Apollo Theater in Harlem

It’s been a great week in New York and shall miss the City beat, although I know I will be back before too long.

View all my photos from this NY trip on Flickr>>
(I have limited some photos in the set to my Flickr friends; if you’re one of the latter, you’ll be able to view all 180 photos.)