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Posts Tagged ‘Sweden’

  1. Snowball vs Lindy Focus

    January 1, 2012 by Jo

    For many, there were two place to be this new years. If you were in Europe, there was a large chance you were going to attend The Snowball in Sweden or if you were stateside, you were most likely going to head to Lindy Focus in North Carolina. Some quick stats:

     

    The illustrious and hilarious Andrew Thigpen served as the MC at Lindy Focus and thought it would be a marvelous idea to send some lindy love from the USA to Sweden. On Tuesday the 27th, he went to the dollar store and bought markers and construction paper so that people could make holiday cards for  particular individuals at Snowball, or for the camp in general. On Wednesday, he overnighted the messages to Sweden and on Thursday they arrived. In response to that, Snowball made this video (below) for the crowd at Lindy Focus.

    Not to be out done, Andrew stirred up the Friday night crowd and sent even more holiday cheer to Sweden. What a guy!!

    All I can say is: Lindy Focus – Party Time!!!!!!

    Category Events, Musings | Tags: ,,,,, | 1 Comment

  2. Jazz Jam 2010 – solo contest

    August 14, 2010 by Jo

    Congratulations to the Killer Diller’s very own Sharon Davis for winning the Solo Jazz division at Jazz Jam 2010!!!

    Contestants: Josette Wiggan (USA), Juan Villafane (AR), Sharon Davis (AUS).

    Videos from Lindytysk

    Category Competition, Dancers, Musings | Tags: ,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  3. The Plan – Sunday

    April 24, 2010 by Jo

    Kevin and I finally decided that we are staying in Gotenborg, Sweden until next week and will fly to Kiev, Ukraine on Friday.

    Currently we are staying at Jane’s house (she is one of the organizers of Swingin’ in Spring which is the event Kevin and I came for) and it’s quite cozy. Kevin and I are still going to the studio to train and we’re still eating out. In someways it feels like a very plain existence, but in other ways I almost feel “normal.”

    On a side note, I am rather proud of myself. I very rarely have the opportunity to train the way I have been, for this many days in a row, and you know what? It feels great! ARRRR (*shaking fist in the air)….if my travel schedule was different I could train more…..hehe, or I’d have to come up with better excuses =) Nonetheless, It’d been great to regularly have access to the type of facility I currently do.

    ____

    On a differnet note, Kevin and I went to the Liseberg Amusement Park yesterday and had a blast!! We saw rode all the roller coasters, got slightly sick, ate a bunch of candy, and then danced to a 15 piece big band on a real dance floor. Fun fact for you: apparently Sweden has the largest per capita consumption of sugar. Young or old, they love their sweets.

    I jumped in two of these pictures so it wasn’t weird that Kevo was taking pictures of people with ginormous candy. Wow, right? Here are some other fun pictures from our adventure:

    “Captain Morgan” Jo outside Liseberg.

    Finally, here is our “commercial” for the best ride at the park. The Kanonen Roller Coaster goes from 0-70km in 2 seconds! Wow-ee-wow-wow.

    The Kanonen Roller Coaster

    Category Musings, Photos and Videos | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 1 Comment

  4. The Plan – Wedesday

    April 21, 2010 by Jo

    Our plan continues to change, but in general, this is what I think we are going to do:

    (This is from an email that Kevin wrote to a buddy of our back in Pittsburgh)

    ” We are still in Gotenborg, Sweden and our ideas for what to do next change daily, sometimes hourly, but it looks like we will all go to Stockholm this weekend for a big dance show, then take a ferry down to Riga, Latvia where hopefully our Lindy Mafia friends from Vilnus, Lithuania will pick us up and drive us to Vilnius where Juan and Sharon are teaching a workshop. Meanwhile, Jo and I will try to catch a ride from the Rhythm Junkies (Lithuania Jazz Band) who are hired at the same event in Kiev, Ukraine. Of course, we need to try to get transit visas through Belarus first. Juan and Sharon were already going to be in Europe. The volcano is [potentially] making them miss their gig in Slovenia . Jo and I where hoping to be back in the US for 10 days, but it’s smarter for us to stay since we have three big gigs in May that we don’t want to miss. Even if we go to the US, we may not be able to get back for in time. ”

    The latest and greatest! More to come!!

    Oh yeah, and you can follow me now on Twitter for my latest updates. I am trying to get them to sync with my site, but so far I am having minimal luck. Sigh.

    Category Musings | Tags: ,,,,,,, | 3 Comments

  5. Game plan: What to Wear

    March 23, 2010 by Jo

    Packing is such an ordeal now that I am trying to match my clothes and look presentable on a regular basis. I am sure at some point it will get easier, but as of right now, I still have to try on clothes, put together outfits, and see what I can combine with what. Guh….more work than necessary, and I am slow because I get easily side tracked (like now….I am blogging instead of packing).

    I am heading to Europe tomorrow and I’ll be visiting Cologne, Germany; Barcelona, Spain; Dublin, Ireland; and Gothenborg, Sweden. Luckily I’ve previously taught in all of these cities at all of these camps so I have general idea of what to expect. It’s going to be a good bit colder than it’s been the past few weeks and there are beaucoup performances I have to prepare for which translates to “beaucoup de luggage.” I decided I wanted to write out what I was bringing in hopes that it would detour me from over packing (I’ll keep you posted on that). So here’s what I think I am bringing, what days I think I will wear it, performance info, and weather:

    Monday
    jeans + blue silk shirt (+ long sleeve shirt) + belt
    knee socks + boots

    Tuesday
    high waisted jeans + BCBG shirt (+ long sleeve shirt)
    Tuxedo jacket
    heels

    Wednesday
    gray dress + 2 pairs tights
    knee socks + boots

    Thursday
    leggings + white sweater + tank top
    (OR blue shirt with jewels + long sleeve shirt)
    knee socks + boots
    -night: gray skirt + white top
    tights + scarf
    black shoes

    Friday
    jeans + blue/white striped shirt + tank top
    Tuxedo jacket
    - night: red twirly dress (+ long sleeve shirt)
    VS tights + white shoes

    Saturday
    brown skirt + red/purple/long sleeve white shirt
    scarf + belt
    black shoes
    -night: dress (white check & black) + scarf + tights

    Sunday
    blue dress + black shirts
    footless tights + black shoes
    - night: purple dress + tights

    additional items:
    work out pants + 4 shirts + running shoes
    pjs + shirt + flip flops

    COSTUMES
    Stratosphere: dress, knickers, hat, goggles, boots
    Puttin’ on the Ritz: red lingerie
    Group number: black & red dress / gold skirt

    PERFORMING:
    Barcelona:    weather: 45-61 degrees
    Stratosphere
    Fan Dance
    Hawaiian

    Dublin:        weather: 39-53 degrees
    Intro #
    Stratosphere
    Fan Dance/PotR
    Hawaiian
    Finale

    Gothenborg:       weather: 36-50 degrees
    Stratosphere
    Fan Dance

    EEEEEk!! lots of stuff.

    More to come!

    Does anyone else do this or is it just me? Hahha, it might be.

    Category Fashion, Musings | Tags: ,,,,,,,,, | 3 Comments

  6. Hotels in Stockholm

    July 25, 2009 by Jo

    It’s 6:30 in the morning and I have spent the last couple of hours trying to find housing for 2 people in downtown Stockholm. I found a place to stay, but I wasted soooooooo much time doing so! Here is what I wish I knew a few hours ago about finding a hotel room super last minute in Stockholm.

    First, what issues are you solving for?

    > be realistic about your price point – what are you willing to spend and what is that number in US Dollars, Euros, and Swedish Kronor
    > what general area would you like to stay in? To figure this out, look at a map of the city and find a district that you’d like to be in to help narrow your search
    > is it close to public transportation? What line are you on? In general, it’s good to have a basic understanding of the public transit in a foreign country…..unless you’re in America (sans New York) then look at the freeway system…
    > how long will it take me to get to T-Centralen to catch the train to the Arlanda Airport?
    > will there be internet?

    Figure out what matters to you the most and put them in order.

    Let’s go back just a bit so you have a better idea of where I am coming from. After I dicked around for about 3 hours, I finally figured that I was willing paying around U$130, give or take U$30. I then typed “Stockholm hotels” into google (uh!!! Why didn’t I do this hours before????? Why (groaning)??) and saw that I had more options than I really wanted. From there, I located the tube stops, crossed referenced these with a map of subway system and realized that some of the hotels I had originally planned to stay at were no where near a tube stop. Cross them off the list.

    I picked a bunch of hotels that were located near a tube stop and then slowly went through the process of entering in the dates of my stay, number of rooms, and number of people. Lots of places were booked solid, a number were enormously out of my price range, and a few hit the mark. In general I was rather impressed with The Scandic Hotels. There were multiple locations and most were rather affordable – I am talking between 750-990 SEK a night for two people! Sweet.

    Other places that I thought about staying:

    Anno 1647 – Mariagränd 3, SE-116 46 Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
    Story Hotel – a very artsy-looking place that stole my heart, was about 2000 sek, but a tiny bit too far from the Arlanda Express (in comparison to the hotel I ended up booking)
    Nordic Sea Hotel – holy shit this place is cool! And it has an Absolut Ice Bar in the hotel (visited that last year….it’s really cold in there :-D )
    Nordic Lights Hotel – same kinda thing as above. Right by the Arlanda Express. Freakin’ cool.

    So that’s why I know. After hours of pointless work, that I clearly could have done in 20 minutes, I learned that I am not very efficient at 6am but I can relish the thought that I just learned something that will surely help me in the future.

    Category Musings, Q&A | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,,, | No Comments

  7. Day One – Sweden

    April 25, 2008 by admin

    Today was a very fulfilling day.

    Kev and I got to sleep in until 11am (and we went to bed early last night) and it was soooooooooo nice. We have cute little beds that are nice and warm and rather conducive to a good night sleep, might I add.
    I got up and showered and Kev got to his emails. After a bit, we realized that we were hungry, so we took ourselves to the restaurant we ate at last night and ordered the lunch special. Kev had a pizza (again) and then I ordered a Greek Salad, which I thought had meat on it. I was unpleasantly surprised to find that it was just like the salad they had at the “salad bar” thing, but with olives, feta cheese, and lots of onions. Now if you know me, you know that I don’t like uncooked onions at all. They taste bad and they make me smelly.

    I digress.

    Lunch was nice, but we still hankered for more. We headed down the street a little ways more and bought some goodies at the local grocery store before we had hustled back home to prepare for training.

    Jane drove us to the studio and her card didn’t work so we couldn’t get in. Kev and I danced around for about 45 minutes before someone showed up and let us in. We realized how out of shape we were after our 20 minutes cardio session, but we prevailed. And to top it off, we did a fast Charleston song to push ourselves even though we were tired. I am so glad we did that, but MAN and I out of shape.
    And then we worked on choreography. We have some good stuff, but we need to start stringing our ideas together.

    Jane came and grabbed us around 5:15pm so that we had some time at home before the dance. I read through emails while Kevin napped and then we showered quick-quick and got ready for dinner and dancing.

    The dinner was serve-yourself style and was nice and basic. Ooh, and there was a rhubarb cobbler for dessert. It was a tad tart, but still nice. Kevo and I danced a bunch, took some pictures and recorded some video of the evening, saw a performance, attended the teacher’s meeting, and headed home. We are getting up a little before 8am tomorrow, and we had classes to plan, so we figured it was best to head home early. And now it is almost 1am!

    I am going to shower and then head to bed.

    Goodnight!

    Category Events | Tags: ,,,, | No Comments

  8. We have Arrived!

    April 24, 2008 by admin

    We finally made it to Sweden around 5pm their time and it was a lovely day out. It was sunny and even a tad warm (when there was no wind). After Kev filed a “lost luggage” claim, we exchanged some money and headed to the Nice Bed &Breakfast. It’s a very cute yellow building that looks very well insulated. In fact, all the buildings look well insulated, but no surprise since the Swedes truly have winter out here.
    I laid down for a nap while Kev played on his computer. I think at some point he napped because we both got up around 8pm to take showers and then meet Jane (one of the organizers) for dinner. The showers are very cute, but require that one squeegee the floor. There is no basin or anything to stand “in” so the water seems to spray/splatter all over the ground. After that, we headed outside and down the street about a block, there was Jane and Steven Mitchell! The restaurant we went to for dinner was only a block from our place and the place was super cute. The ambiance was calm and modern and the food was excellent. We all ordered pizzas which were thin but large. Kev and I both had a Tropicana (ham, banana, pineapple, and curry), Jane had something with meat, and Steven had an egg and something.
    After dinner we headed out to meet up with Dax and Alice. It was great to see them again. We hung out at the dance studio briefly and then Steven and I headed home because we were exhausted. Kev stayed back and hung out with the gang and had a great time (so he told me the next morning).

    Off to bed!

    Category Musings | Tags: ,,,,,, | No Comments

  9. Flight to Sweden

    April 24, 2008 by admin

    Yesterday (or today really; I haven’t slept yet) Kevin and I left for our trip to Sweden and it was off to a great start, until I realized that I forgot my jacket and gloves! Total amateur hour! How could I, Miss I-am-cold-all-the-time, forget my jacket when I am going to Northern Europe and the Easter Block? Oh yeah, that’s right….because it was hot in Pittsburgh when I left!

    Well, there has been lots of flying since that discover and still no new jacket in sight. At PIT I tried to find a jacket and couldn’t; at DTW I tried again and found a sweatshirt (I have one of those already, btw) for $120 which is WAY too pricey; and here at AMS I have found some sweatshirt things, but they are in Euros and I just cringe at the thought at how much it will really cost me.

    The flight from DTW to AMS was pretty easy. I watched a movie and then watched some dance clips on my iPod and now I am pumped to dance! And guess what?! I have 4 hours until my next flight, so realistically, I have the time to dance before I take off for Sweden.

    I didn’t sleep on that flight. I think it was the fact that I was thinking about dancing, choreography and all the things I want to accomplish, or I could chalk it up to the fact the seats were uncomfortable. Highlight of the flight: Kevo stopped by a Japanese restaurant before we left DTW and bought some sushi (which I got a bite of) and a bean cake for me. Delish!! He’s so thoughtful!!!

    Currently, Kev and I are sitting in the internet area typing away at emails. After we write a bunch we are going to hop online, send these guys, upload the new ones, sign off, write some more, sign back on, and do it all again.

    Last thing (this is amusing/ironic for me). I don’t like to check luggage because I feel wherever you go (unless you are moving), you shouldn’t have to check luggage. This trip required that Kevin and I check our heavy and over-sized luggage and I was betting that my luggage would be delayed because that would make life even better (forgetting the jacket SUCKS, but having my luggage go missing on top of that would super suck). Yet it isn’t my luggage that will be delayed; it’s Kevin’s! It’s sad to hear, but oh so ironic.

    More later. Cheers.

    Category Events, Musings | Tags: ,,,,, | No Comments