What's cooking?

More photos!

Today I thought I would post some food pictures! 

We finally got the grill working (the home made one!). I just love grilling!

And it's great living with your own private chef!

I do lend a hand sometimes (with clear and strict directions!)   

Ah, home made spicy marinade on a steak, with veggie kebab and baked potatoes!

The table is set on the terrace!

Looks like dinner for 4, but as you can see, there are only two plates! 

Why share something delicious?! 

My lagoon fish that "grandma" caught on the beach!

It was great watching her. Wish I had pictures when she was in 

the water, fully dressed putting out the net!  

Cooked and ready to be eaten!

And, my Swedish Chocolate Balls!

I'm the pastry chef in this household!

Bon Appetite my friends!

Camilla

Pictures from the Heiva

Thought it was time to post a few pics..

This is from the Heiva Dance Competition that I wrote about a few 

weeks back. It wad Faanui (the group I saw) who took home the winning price 

this year again. And I can't stress enough how incredible these shows 

are. A must see if you ever get the chance!  

Not easy taking pics when they dance!

  

The Faanui group!

The guys are posing!

Me doing the tourist!

Cheers my Friends!

Camilla

The Cinema

We, obviously, don't have a cinema in Bora Bora, but we do have a
video shop where we probably are the biggest customers! Usually on
Saturdays we rent at least 4 movies to last the weekend! And as a
result, the selection is getting very slim! For example, I have
watched movies like "Death Race"!

However, last night our friends Olivier and Isabelle invited us over
for a "movie night". They have a projector and we got seated on their
terrace infront if the big screen with Foie Gras (yea, I ate my toast
with Nutella as I can't stand the texture of foie gras. I felt so
"grown up", not!) and wine (here I felt more "grown up"). The movie
which was playing was "Star Treak".

I can't say I'm a Star Treak fan, but I'm very open to watch new
movies (after all, I did watch Death Race!).

The movie was weird.. We all tried to follow what was happening as it
kept going back and forth in time and after 1 hour of playing it
started to replay some scenes.

When the movie was over we all stared at each other with big question
marks. What the hell was that?! Then Isabelle wanted to see something
at the beginning of the movie again, and suddenly there was a new
movie playing! We realized very quickly that the computer must have
been set on "shuffle" mode (like you shuffle your music on your
iPod!), picking random scenes! No wonder we were confused, because
when we rewatched the first hour of the movie, not only was it in
right order, but there were several scenes we didn't see the first
time that was kind of vital to understand the whole thing. Suddenly
the movie was logic!

At the end Star Treak was not bad, but I do reccomend to watch it in
"normal" mode! It's just easier to follow!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

The Haircut

Finally after 8 months I got myself a haircut. It was after that
driving licence picture (which was a disaster) I got myself toghether
and went and got an appointment.

I showed up promptly at 9am and got seated. I told the guy I needed to
cut it shorter and I pulled up my iTouch to show a few pictures on
ideas. He replied in fast French, doing a few hand moves while I was
staring blanc at him. "Sorry, do you speak English?"

One situation I feel I want to be in full understanding with the other
person is when I get my hair cut. I have walked out of hair salons
crying too many times (and those times we spoke the same language).

I got my hair washed and back in the chair he showed me a few
pictures. "Yes, something in between those 3" while thinking that
maybe I should change my mind and just cut the ends!

Then he started cutting! Big locks fell to the floor... Then I noticed
the hand shaking. And it was not just a small shake! For a moment I
was wondering if I should ask him if he needed a smoke, coffee or
maybe a shot to calm down that hand. But he seemed to master the shake!

The end result could have been a disaster, thinking about the
combination of miss communication and shaky hands, but when he was
finnished I was feeling great! Not only that it was over, but also
with the new cut! I feel like myself again!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

Charades

My luck on this island continues!

As our TV broke, friends offered to lend one of theirs, as they are
not using it anyway. So, I followed Isabelle (with her 5 year old son
in my back seat and Coco in the front of course) back to her place.

The windows were down in the car as I don't have A/C and suddenly I
hear a constant clicking kind of noise from what i assume is the
wheels. First thought was of course flat tire, but it didn't feel
weird driving. Must be something stuck on the tire, I thought, and I
keept on driving.

I really tried to ignor the sound but soon I decide to stop just to
double check. And oh yea, I had a flat tire. SHIT! was my first thought.

I knew I had all the stuff needed, in the trunk (new spare tire and
tools). But, I can't change tires! I know how to, but I would probably
damage the car even more if I tried.

As I was standing there, scratching my head with an over excited dog
in the front seat and a wondering and scared-of-Coco boy in the back
seat a guy comes walking down the road.

Thank god for Charades is all I can say, because he didn't speak
English and I haven't gotten to "spare and flat tire" in my French
lessions yet.

So, he put the spare on. Kids gathered around and we all watched while
he worked! Excellent!

I finally got the TV and it's installed and everything! Still no cable
though, so we will continue renting movies!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

1h photo development? I don't think so!

So, I was just down to take a picture so I can renew my driving
licence back in Sweden. I look like a criminal by the way! I'm glad I
didn't ware my orange top, because then I would look like Lindsey
Lohan in her orange jump suite (which reminds me of a story of my
friend Virginia....! Hmmm...!).

Anyway, I asked the lady how long it would take to develop a film from
my under water camera. I understand that people don't develop pictures
anymore (me included), but beeing a tourist destination where you
snorkel (i.e. cheap underwater camera with film), I thought it would
take maybe 24h. Yea, 1h is way too fast. They can't work at that speed
(lol)!

The answer surprised me (and really, I don't get surprised very often
anymore!). She said they needed 5(!) films before they would even
concider taking it to Tahiti for development. The Thai elepant safari
out in the middle of no where was faster printing photos!

I guess I have to wait until I get back to civilisation to see my
snorkling pictures unless I can use up 4 more disposable cameras!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

Bloody Sunday

So, Sunday was not a good day, for any of us. Although, I finally feel
better and have energy to do things!

Lazy Sunday as usual here in Bora Bora as nothing is happening anyway.
As I was doing the dishes after a late lunch I saw Coco through the
kitchen window walking by outside. But, what was he carrying in his
mouth? A huge fish head!

We finally caught him (really don't feel like having a fish stinking
puppy at home) and we suspected that he had stolen it from the
neighbors dogs (the guy go fishing quite often). So we threw it back
and the dog went back home to hide it.

But Coco, I guess, thought it was finders, keepers. So he went back up
to check it out. When he's all the way up he got curious to see what
was going on with the neighbours (he's just so loving and wants to say
hello). But the dogs (2 big Labradors, one which is Coco's dad) didn't
think the same.

Before i saw the other dogs I saw Coco starting to run, and scraem.
Next second I see the two labs coming after him in full speed. Coco
made it down the hill before the other two caught up with him. It was
horrible. I was running too. They attacked him and shook him as I was
almost there and I was screaming at the top of my lungs. So was Coco.

They let go of Coco when I came up close and they went back home. Coco
ran up to our house. He was so scared the poor thing. We realized very
quickly he had 2 big bitemarks, one on his chest and one on his side.
So back inside to clean the wounds. Then we realized he broke a tooth
as well.

The rest of the evening he was just sleeping and looking very sad.

First thing this morning I took him down to the vet which shaved and
cleaned the wounds and gave us antibiotics. She said it wasn't too bad
after all, thank God! Now he's feeling better but still sore in his
body.

Then to end it last night we turned on the TV to watch two movies. And
guess what... The TV decided to break down! So no more TV for me!

Hope you guys had a better Sunday!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

In Sickness and in Health

It doesn't matter... You still have "things" you have to do around the
house.

I hate beeing sick, specially when you just feeling like crap with a
slight fever. Like today! I don't have much of a fever, I cough and it
hurts in my chest, throught tickling and I'm slightly congested. I
have absolutely no energy and not much of an appetite. But I'm not
sick enough to lay all day in bed and just sleep.

Also, I have an Energizer Bunny (that would be Coco!) that I can't
turn off. So of course I have to take him out and try to burn some
energy off. I'm not sure how mothers do it with kids when they are
sick, but with one puppy it's not easy.

And on top of all, today I had to (yes, it was way overdue) clean and
mop the house. And do laundry! Some rest and icecream in between!

So, in sickness or in health, there are still things that has to be
done.

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

Is that a Swedish boat I see?!

The other morning as I went down to drop of Daniel at the dock I
almost drove over the edge of excitment. On one of the boats docked
there, there was a SWEDISH FLAG swaying in the wind!

Ah, some fellow swedes!!! So today I packed Coco in the car (it's so
much better having an excuse to snoop around!) and went down to see if
the boat was still there. And it was!

We passed first on a distance to see if someone was there (as we were
training the walk, Cesar's way!) and I saw a couple sitting with a
sewing machine on the ground. Yay!!!

As we made our walk back to the car I passed the couple, who were
supposed to be fixing the sail, but it looked more like they were
trying to fix the machine itself, while video taping it?!. So I
excused my self and asked if they were Swedish, pointing at the flag.

The excitment was very high at this point, and then they answered
back. No we are Russian! But the flag?! The flag is blue and yellow...

It turned out that they had bought the boat from Sweden, and they
explained to me that it was an old, very good, all wood sail boat
which was built in the 70's. And they decided to keep the flag as it
was easier. Here they kind of lost me, but it had something to do with
the paperworks.

Chatted for a little bit with them about the extreme prices here in
Bora and a little bit of this and that, before Coco and I headed back
home.

I left slightly dissapointed that they were not Swedish, but I had a
good chat with a nice couple!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

Solar Eclips in Bora Bora

Today was the day, when the moon passed infront of the sun in French
Polyneisa. The eclipse in Bora Bora was 94% full.

We got up early early (the full eclipse was at 8:23am) and got ready,
then headed down to the cafe to get chocolate croissants before taking
the boat to Hilton Resort. By the dock, the locals had a party which
was obvious it had been going on since last night. Typical local, they
had parked a car in the middle with speakers on the roof with blasting
music. Then the people (the onese that made it through the night) was
hanging around drinking. As we parked the car, there was one man down
in the parking lot, and after a closer look we realized it was one of
Daniel's staff! We walk around the corner, and there was another staff
passed out on a park bench. Still in his kitchen pants (you know those
black and white square)! Both who are supposed to work tonight, so at
least they have some time to get their act together!

We arrived to the hotel and hiked up that famous hill and watched the
eclipes by the spa with our eclipse glasses (and eating eclipse
cookies made by the great pastry chef, Alexi!). The glasses looks like
the old version of the 3D glasses but compleatly black.
The eclipse was pritty cool actually. It didn't get compleatly dark
and we didn't see the full "ring" but what we saw was more like a thin
half circle. This is my 2nd solar eclipse, but last time I didn't have
the cool glasses!

When we had enough of the eclipe we took the stairs down to the staff
compound and watched the WC final (Holland/Spain) with Arnaud, Joel
and Alexi.

The rest of the day is beeing devoted to chillin'!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

Birthday Tip

Have you ever wondered what to do on your next birthday?

Well, you could spend it on a mega yacht in Bora Bora and then rent a
motu (that would be a small island) to have the birthday bash on. And
to top it off, a big firework that lights up the sky!

Apparently that's what a girl is doing here for her 17th birthday!
(I'm still trying to figure out who it is!)

Good thing is, my terrace faces the motu and I got VIP seats for the
firework show last night! And they didn't seem to save any money on it
either. Nice show!

So, start saving!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

Sessions w/ Cesar

I have now signed up for sessions online with Cesar Millan to get Coco on the right track! And me too I guess!

First class (4 chapters) is done and it included a lot of basics which are very important.

Excercise
Diciplin
Affection

That's how it's supposed to be! In that order.

He also talk about how important the walk is. The only problem is that Coco don't really walk. He sits down, look at things, listen and sniff. So when he finally does walk, I'm so excited and let him walk before me! Oh well, he's still young and will learn soon (better be sooner than later because he is almost 25 pounds, 12 kg, already!)

Coco has also become friends with the neighbor's pack of dogs. Specially one, a black funny looking guy with huge ears where one stands straight up and the other one is laying down. And Coco gets so excited, but behaves well. I'm so glad he gets to play with other dogs now to learn the doggy language.

Well, wish me luck with my classes!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

Heiva Dance Competition - Fanui

Yesterday was a great and fun day!

It started out with breakfast and soccer (Spain/Paraguay) at the cafe
and Coco came along and behaved great.
Then back home (weather so, so) chillin' until after lunch when we
took Coco to the beach. The water was flat and Coco dove in right away.

At dinner time, my private chef cooked another great meal and
afterwards we headed down to the Heiva to watch the dance competition.
They sing/chant first, which was nice to hear for about 5 minutes, and
we checked out the rest of the festival until the dance started.

The dance, traditional of course, was amazing! Each area in Bora Bora
have their own group and they compose the music, the choreography and
costume design themselves. Fanui (the village. I live in Vaitape),
which has won the last 2 years, did a great job. They were first out!

Their troup concisted of 65 dancers, singers and of course the drum
and ukulele players, the band. The dance was about growing up and
making a choise in life, taking a new path, leave the island or stay
with the family. Rebellious! Drugs, alcohol, smoking. All which I
think is very relevant for the people here.

As I stated already, the show was amazing! I mean, with the drums,
girls shaking their ass like I never seen before and the guys with
their masculine warrior look and their costumes, it's so electric and
powerful.

Before heading back home we got caramel popcorn to top off the
evening! Pictures and hopefully a video clip will be posted shortly!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla