Hallå, 

Sipping on a cup of tea as I'm watching a few interviews from the Swedish election. It's Wednesday afternoon and I'm sitting in my newly build Ikea bed, with a sore throat. Was looking forward to some extra time for training today on my day off work, but that did obviously not happend.

Maria and I are still organizing and trying to get all things in order after the move a few weeks ago. The new place is good in a lot of ways; it's close to both of our jobs, nice & calm area (no downtown crazyness), we have our own space, it's cheap etc, BUT, there's also a few downsides that we have started to notice. It's loud (Dundas Street is just outside our window), the walls are not very soundproof, a bunch of ants live in our kitchen, I've got two electrical shocks from a light switch etc. It's a very old house and we're totally fine without anything fancy, but ants and electric shocks doesn't feel that great.


Other than that, the weather is changing. It's been pretty cool in the air the last few weeks, which really affects the store when it comes to bike sales and so on. I've started to display some ski stuff in the store, but we're still waiting for all the booking inventory from Fischer and Salomon for another month or so. My training is going pretty well. From time to time I get a dip or two when I feel I don't have any energy and the days just pass by too fast without time to rest inbetween. Soon we're changing hours in the store from 10am-8pm to 11am-7pm which will give me a few more hours a week to spend out of work. I love my job and my collegues and it's really awesome to be a part of a business that's starting up from scratch and together make it grow into something great. In mid Oct we're expanding into the building next door and it's a lot that needs to be done, but this business has so much potential and all of us are so motivated to take it further and work hard for it. Right now we're in the process of re-building the website entirely which will make a lot of things so much better and easier. 
Have said that, I sometimes feel I'm not doing anything except from working and training. Both of those things are strongely connected to the store and the people in it, which makes things easy, but sometimes I just want to get out of there and get some perspective. 


My newly bought and buildt Ikea bed and my half-unpacked room. 




Craved sourdough bread and cheese for breakfast one morning. So, I had it. YUM!


My Canadian sister Kasia and her HUSBAND (WAHAAAT??!) just got married in Las Vegas! This is our wedding gift to them from Velotique - a painting of them as "God" and "Adam". It really describes them as a couple - ridiculously funny and awesome. 
 




Thanks for still checking in even though I've had a bit of a break for about 4 months. It's been a busy summer and it still is. The Swedish House Mafia arrived one by one from May until June and half of them left about a month ago. Frida and Veronica are starting school in Luleå and Lund so they had do head back to Sweden. Maria however is still here with me in Toronto - WOOOP! She's got a great job at one of the top cafés in Toronto (if you ask Blog TO for example http://www.blogto.com/cafes/tearo).

The summer has been epic. Still can't believe everyone managed to get over to Toronto and we could spend it together. The four of us have been living in Regent Park throughout the whole summer in a new build condo, but it's too big and expensive for me and Maria to have by ourselves so this weekend we're moving to Leslieville. Super exciting. Maria has a 2 minute walk to her work from our new place and I have a 5 min bike ride. Couldn't found a better spot, We're gonna miss Regent Park though and our friends in the condo...

Having a day off work today. Have spent the morning cleaning up my room and getting things in order for moving this weekend. Also, went to the doctor early in the morning to check out my eye that I've had problem with the last 5 days. Luckily no infection so I'll just keep on washing it and hope for the best. Now I better head out for an A3 interval session!

I'll aim to give a little update ones a week or so.

Thanks for still reading!

Ellen

Hejhej, 

As usual, everything and nothing has happened since last time. The days look kinda the same, except for a few highlights every here and there. It's ok though, cause I like my life as it is right now. This morning I'm doing some errends at the bank before work cause June 1st I'm switching the Beaches for a condo in the Cabbagetown area. Not by myself.....3 amazing swedes are coming here and we're gonna move in there together! SO awesome. Verran arrives in the middle of May and then Frida & Maria arrives a month later. It was tuff to find something for all of us in the right neighbourhood, for just a few months, for a decent price etc, but we think we got it. All the papers are signed and today I'm gonna transfer the first months rent. Sweeeeet. 


Other than that.....well, I just got promoted at work. I'm from now on the sales manager in the store, which means lots of work and responsibility, but that is what I want so it's great. 

The new Vauhti rollerskis arrived in the store about a week ago, so exciting! Tried out the classic T 710 and they are really smooth and stable. These pink skate skis really draws a lot of attention in the store and people ask a lot more questions than before.


Now I gotta walk over to the bank. See ya!
 
Hej hej!

Sitting in the kitchen eating my breakfast (wasaknäcke with avocado + yoghurt mixed with some cottage cheese and spirulina powder). It's really tasty. I eat sooo much avocados - it's like my best friend. If I'm out of avocados, I'm lost. My first thought will be "how fast can I get to the grocery store and get more?". I need help. 

However, ran this morning in my barefoot running shoes. Felt ok. Yesterday we went skiing up north. Hardwood Hills is still open a few more days so we really have to take every chance to go up there. Tmrw may be the last time for this season. This past Sunday after work all of us went biking together - Kasia, Rob, Brian and I. It was awesome! Got to borrow a display bike that we have in the shop, an Opus Allegro 4.0 with carbon frame, fork and weighs only 8.7 kg. Pretty sweet ride! Makes me so tempted to buy my own road bike since I can get a really good deal from the store. I have a bike that I commute with, but it's a steel frame so it's really heavy and old. I can't keep up with people riding carbon bikes with a bike like that. I'm considering buying a bike with aluminum frame, but carbon fork which is comparable to a fully carbon bike, but a little heavier and doesn't absorb vibrations quite as well. Carbon bikes are wicked expensive so it feels like an aluminum frame would do the job for me. 

I'm considering this Devinci bike. It's called Silverstone SL 4.

And the colour is perfect,,,,black and blue. Gorgeous!
 
 



Forgot to update again! I'm the worst blog writer ever. The thing I wrote I was going to do in my last update a month ago was.....hold on.....traveling back to SWEEEEDEN. Wieeheee, It was so great. AND unexpected. Unexpected is probably the best word to describe it all. Unexpected for me and for my family & friends. Unexpected that I suddenly was able to do Tjejvasan this year again, ski in Grönklitt with my brother, hang out with Maria, Verran and Isak, spend hours at Kaffestugan chating about unimportant things, see my mum, dad, sister, grandmother and my dogs after almost a year, meet up with Karro who I've missed so much......and have FIL & müsli for breakfast. I needed that.

Gotta do some stuff before work.....it won't take another month before my next update, promise.

E

 Hallå i stugorna!

Funderar på vilket språk jag ska skriva på....I'll take it in english. Now when Frida is back here in Toronto it's easy to fall back into the swedish again. Maybe "fall back" is the wrong expression, but before she came my english was really good and from time to time my swedish accent disappeard. I also had a little trouble expressing myself in swedish cause I barely used it for several months. When my brother came to visit for a few weeks he said that I spoke swedish like a foreigner. Now I speak like a real swede again. It's funny how the brain works and how easy you get used to things. It's all about repeating. 

So, a lot has happend since last time. Like I said, Frida is back here again which is completely amazing! Just like the good old days :) Work is going well - still lots of ski sales. The winter here has been great for cross country skiing, except from the extreme cold weather. It feels like Toronto is starting to wake up and realize how great this sport is.
We have been skiing up in Hardwood Hills as often as possible, which is around 3 times a week (Frida, me and Rob). Since it's almost 2 hours one way to get to the trails it has taken a lot of determination to be able to ski at all with a full-time job. 

Wake up 4.45
Walk to the store at 5.30
Leave Toronto 6.00
Start ski around 8.15 up in Hardwood
Leave 10.15
Get back to Toronto 12.15
Take a quick shower and start work at the store 13.00. 

A busy work day on top of that and you're pretty exhausted. 

But if it is something that you really want, you will make the time for it and do it. However, that is not always completely true, but in most cases. In this case I'm very grateful to my boss for taking this time to drive up there, to sacrifice well needed sleep in an already crazy busy time with buying a new business and with all the stress that comes with that, just to go up skiing. And I know that without a car, a canadian driver license and with the fact of being under aged to rent a car, neither me or Frida would be able to get up there and ski.

So all of you back home that have the ski trails next to your backyard - go out there and enjoy them! It's not until now I have started to realize how amazing training possibilities we have back home. 

This past weekend the three of us went to Ottawa to compete in Gatineau Loppet. It's Canadas answer to Vasaloppet (but much smaller). In Vasaloppet there is like 15 000 people - in Gatineau Loppet it's a few hundred. There were 3 distances to chose from, 15km, 27km and 51km. The 27 km race felt natural for me to pick since I'm not all about endurance (yet), but 15km felt a little too short. 
I've heard a lot about Gatineau Loppet from people coming in to the store, from the previous owners of Velotique and from other people that have done the race. The one thing everyone agreed on is the hard tracks - more than 600m elevation for the 27km race. Phuuu. I tried to not have too high expectations on myself so that I wouldn't get disappointed, cause it was a hard track and I didn't feel in awesome shape. Strangely enough it turned out well. The race was hard, but I managed better than expected and kept a steady pace throughout the race. Unfortunately I had to ski by myself almost the whole race. I had a group of guys ahead of me that went faster than me on the flat parts where they double poled, but on the hillier parts I came closer again and could ski with them for a while, but everytime there was a downhill and some flat parts they disappeard again. It was a bit frustrating to not be able to hang on to them, but at least it gave me a boost to see that I was getting closer on the uphills. Towards the end a few spectators shouted that I was the second lady, so that gave me a little extra energy as well. I crossed the finish line with the time 1h54min, which I'm not stoked about, but since I came second I'm still super happy about it. It was a hard track and I wasn't in great shape so I feel satisfied. 

Yesterday morning we went up to Hardwood Hills to ski again. It was -5 and bright sunshine - so perfect. Now it's Thursday morning and I'm up to something I'll tell about later.... 

 


E





Hejhej,

Sipping my coffee, reading a few blogs and getting ready for work. 10-5 today and later me and Kasia will bike downtown to watch a Polish movie. Rest day from my training today. Love the feeling when the body actually needs the rest.
Yesterday was a good day. Started with 2 hours of skiing up in a snowy Hardwood and ended the day with a bunch of nice people in Kensington Market.

Time to hit the road....have a nice day!

Hiya

Hanging out at home with Maddy and her little cousin Ellie from Australia while watching some tv. Came back from Hardwood Hills about an hour ago so I'm kinda tired. I took it really easy and didn't ski either fast or far cause I still don't feel really well. I'll see tmrw morning if it was a stupied decision or not to go skiing.

It was snowing a bit up there, but except from that it was great conditions - just a few minus and no wind. A few layers of V40 mixed with some V45 was enough to get grip.

Soon I'm going out to run some errands here in the beach, bur first I have to save up some energy and finish my coffee....:)

Posting a mix of some photos from the last little while.


The delicious fish soup with saffron that I thought made me sick

The North pole.....or The Beaches, Toronto?

Shrimp wook
Joel, standing waiting for the subway to take him to JFK Airport in New York and back to Sweden. This is just before we said goodbye and went seperate ways.
 
 
Morning!

I'm sick again....baaaaah. Got sick just after my brother came here and now I'm sick again. At first I thought it was food poisioning (after Matt's and mine homemade fishsoup) because I felt really sick to my stomach, had fever and slept for almost 24 hours. Yesterday I felt soo much better, but today I woke up with a sore thorat. Fuck! Hate this, Gonna work today anyways, but no skiing this morning. Hopefully on Friday though.

It's really cold over here. Today, not as bad as yesterday but it's around -20. Yesterday morning it was -44. NOT OK. We don't live in Sibiria. It's ok if it's cold like that in like Oymyakon or some place similar because it's suppose to. Here? NO! We're on the same latitude as south of France!
Wow, its been a while....thanks for still reading this blog. I know I really haven't spend enough time on it lately. I guess I can say it's been a busy month. I've had my brother here for about 3 weeks, then we left for New York together and when I came back I've been so busy getting back in the groove and getting everything ready for Christmas and on top of that we got this crazy ice storm just before Christmas that damaged the whole city (I didn't have electricity for a few days, but luckely I could stay with some friends). In this moment I'm drinking a very green smoothie containing spinach, garlic, lemon and ginger - hoping not to get sick, cause after the last few weeks it would be a miracle if I didn't.

I hope everyone have had a nice Christmas spend together with family and friends!
Joel is here! Yep, he has been here for more than a week already.
He came from Australia with a cold, so the first few days here in Toronto he spend in my room sleeping. Now he feels well again so I've been able to show him around the city a bit. A few days ago I got his cold though and I'm still kind of under the weather. Have been working 9 days in a row so I'm kind of tired, but I was able to go home early today from work to rest cause tonight I'm going to see The Hives with Joel and Matt. Such a bad timing for a cold, cause we've been soo excited for this concert.

Joel went to Ikea today while I was working and bought some Lussebullar (saffron buns) so we just had some "adventsfika" since it's the first of December. Gotta hold on to the traditions! Don't think I've ever been so aware of Swedish traditions as I am now here in Canada, haha.

Now we're soon gonna get ready to take the streetcar to the concert. Have a great night!
Hejhej. 

Had the day off today so I've been cleaning my room, doing laundry, grocery shopping and some cooking. Really needed that. Also went by Velotique to get a few things and catch up with my awesome colleagues. It's safe to say that things at least arn't boring around here....soooo much drama. A little too much for my taste though.  

I feel I'm a little all over the place at the moment. But it is ok. That's life. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade - right Frida?

My brother is coming here tmwr. Feels unreal. It is so much I wanna show him. Gonna go and meet him at the airport tmwr morning and later we gonna go to a Swedish christmas event (if he has the energy after 36 hours of traveling). We'll see tmwr how thing's feel.


"oh sometimes the blues is just a passing bird
and why can't that always be..."

E
10 days since last time...

What's happend since? I'll do a quick summary.
Except from working and training I've met some new Swedes which is great. One of them had been here for almost a year and had kind of the same story as me + her friend she came to Toronto with just went back home to Sweden too.
I also met a few other Swedes the day after - all girls in my own age. We went out for dinner and talked Swedish the whole evening, I haven't really had so much contact with other swedes here before, but suddenly I've met so many!

My friend Annaliis from Estonia have been here in Canada for 2 years and this past weekend she went back to Estonia... She has to apply for a perment resident visa if she is gonna be able to stay here in Canada and that is a HUGE process that takes a lot of time and money, so she had to go back to Estonia. She's gonna try to apply from Estonia, so hopefully she'll be back here again soon, but it's so sad she's gone. We had a really nice "Goodbye-dinner" or "see you later-dinner" this past Saturday. Kadi, Julie, Annaliis and me went to a Indian Bistro called "Cinnamon" here in the beach and had a delicious meal. Later we went to a friends party and read horoscopes the rest of the evening.....haha.

Morning!

Was a bit confused with the time when I woke up this morning. I felt so rested even though my alarm was set on 7.30. I thought I should be a lot more tired and the sun was shining unusually bright for being that time. It took a while until I realized that it was the day for the time change - 1 hour back. Suddenly Everything made so much more sense. Had to message Kasia too, just to be sure. Didn't wanna be an hour late for work!

Started this morning with a long rollerski, then I had a nice breakfast with egg, avocado and matcha tea. Now I'm off to work - have a great day!

 
Hi!

Was off work today so I've been doing some laundry, grocery shopping for the week, some cooking, gym and now I'm on my way to bike Downtown and meet up with some Swedes.

It was Halloween yesterday so I we dressed up in the evening. Kadi was a witch, Annaliis was a mix of "Snowwhite" and "Little red riding hood", Dylan was a cowboy with his dog Quinn in a lasso, and I was Catwoman. I wanted to be Arwen from Lord of the Rings so I spend my whole afternoon looking for things that would suit for that outfit, but it was hard. Tried to make my own elf ears but they looked so stupied so I changed my mind in the last minute for Catwoman.


Annaliis & Kadi
This guy was awesome. He was dressed up as a pregnant, black nun. When we saw him he was chewing gum and playing with his Iphone. Haha, couldn't be better. Oh, and he was gay too.

This is a button from Velotique that people push so that the door automatically opens. I was gonna paint it so it got more visible for the customers, so I painted a Swedish flag on it instead, hehe...

E