Preparing for the Swedish Skydive Filmfestival 2012

Tomorrow more than 140 swedish skydivers will come together at Bio Rio, a big cinema in Stockholm. First there will be a show of all videos and voting. Later the winners will be presented and celebrated. I will be there to represent Sweetliving and TonFly. We are Sweden's only TonFly retailer and are proud to present TonFly as top sponsor of the event! 

So at the moment Im preparing tomorrows gifts and packing all that might be needed for a long and fun day, and of course for he nights party! So many friends I havent seen since season ended, cant wait til it starts again :) Its countdown...

Where I live, in Uppsala, we skydivers are actually very good meet up almost weekly. We can e.g. eat dinner together, go for a beer, have a chocolate try out, dz party (at an empty snowy dz), go to cinema etc etc. Tonight we will do the famous cutaway drinking game.... You know it? You watch the (funny) movie Cut Away, and drink every time they say: cutaway, dropzone, whuffo or you see the GoFast logo and 1-800-skydive. This can end with very happy skydivers. Depending on what you drink ;)

Tonight I'll better stay to water and coke, I need to get up early tomorrow to be there in time and prepare as much as possible...

Looking forward to tomorrow! :D

xxx Hella

Seasons change for boards

Its now the big seasons change in Stockholm for my boards.

Summertime is longboarding, wintertime its snowboarding and in between its monsterboard or some call it dirtboard.

Its now too many wet leefs on the ground for longboarding and that is soooooo sad.

So time to put the wonderful longboards away and bring up the snowboards, witch is not half as fun as longboards.

My favorite longboard is the Swedish brand Kahalani, with the board made of chestnut tree and extra big wheels for smoth cruising in city traffic.

Sometimes I have my 8 year old son sitting on the front of the board and Im standing on the back, he have his own

longboard but is too lazy and want to sit on mine like a taxi... hmmmm

My husband and daughter also have a longboard each and its wonderful cruising around and go for picnics or just transport yourself around the city.

Last week I took my son to the park for a lesson in dirtboarding.

The most amazing advantage in riding the dirtboard for a 42 year old mother is the HANDBREAK... I love the handbreak...!!!

It can be scary sometimes when it gets to very high speed with longboards, snowboards and dirtboards, but the handbreak... wow am I happy...

He of course was flying down without using the handbreak

Bye bye longboards until spring

Leaving Cape Town

Sitting in the Lounge in Johannesburg on my way back to Stockholm again sipping my last holiday GT.

What a positive surprise this country and town was! First experience the Political heart of Johannesburg with the history of apartheid and then the complex history of South Africa, however for the fun part of South Africa is Cape Town, Jo-Burg as great shops, Restaurants and Jazz music but also very much the Commercial heart and soul of SA not the adrenaline fun side which I came for.

Cape Town is the place to get the ultimate holiday for an adrenaline person like me, they have great skydiving even if I passed it this weekend, diving, shopping, trekking, all kind of sports and activities and amazing nature.

this is the Water Front

It’s cheaper than Europe and much cheaper than Stockholm (apart from skydiving where Sweden is still one of the cheapest place to skydive)

The party life was great with lots of bars, discos, and live music, mostly on Longstreet but also at Camp Bay

Negative bits were the beggars, I always get annoyed with beggars, and tourists give them money and therefore it’s very beneficial for them, so they are everywhere, and they can spot foreigners from a distant.

The ocean is not warm, not even in peek summer, I hate cold water… Bring a wetsuit!

Taxi through town 10 min was 6€
Pooch dinner with first class meat and wine was 30€
Normal lunch 4,2€
Coffee was 1,2€
Sharkdiving was 53€ in the Aquarium tank
Sharkdiving in a cage in the ocean full day was 140€
Hotels its good for all kinds of wallets, we had a five star designers hotel Villa Zest with only 7 rooms and fantastic service and cost 135€ including breakfast per night.

A weekend was far to short in Cape, I have to go back

Diving with sharks at last

Oh dear, I’m still so full of adrenaline.

I manage to get to dive in Two Oceans Aquarium by the Water Front in Cape

Town. They have a 2 million liter seawater tank full of Sharks, mantas, fishes and turtles

I met with the dive master at 10.45 for short instructions and to put on the diving gears. You have to have an open water diving license to be able to dive there. I was very nervous and of course my diving gear was broken, first the regulator, then the o-ring and the buckle to my weight belt broke and almost fell of on a turtle. After a lot of frustration I finally sat on the bottom of the tank and tried to relax with a shark bumping my head with her tailfin, relax… relax… breath slowly, I knew it was a she, because the dive master pointed her out before we went in and she had a big scratch on the side

– Don’t get close to her, she will not bite, she has been fed, but she’s a bit bitchy, he said. I notice…! That bump got my mask full of saltwater.

With the GoPro camera on my hand wrist I got some nice films, not brilliant since its my first time using it under water. I was filled with a humble love for the beautiful creatures swimming around me. I big joy apart from diving in this amazing aquarium was to see my husband and more than a hundred visitors behind the glass waving at me, I got so exited that I didn’t see a huge manta approaching me, it took me by surprise that I lost control and fell on my back onto the ground, I started to laugh my ass off, it was so funny and once again I got my mask filled with saltwater

I can go on and on about this 30 minutes dive, every little detail was absolutely amazing
- all of you that have dive license please go there, it’s a memory for life! Sweetling David and all sharkscared people, this is a fantastic way to learn to get to know them, we are on the bottom list their menu

I left the aquarium 13.30 with a huge smile, a shark tooth I picked from the bottom of the tank, and ordered fish for lunch, how bizarre!!!!………

Finally in Cape Town!

WOW what a place, they got everything!

Adventure, beauty, nature, good food, a wild mix of people and cultures, buzz and chill.

Yesterday I left Johannesburg after a very emotional journey though the history of the blacks of South Africa and their hard struggle. Coming from a safe and secure country of Sweden, its quite heartbreaking to visit Soweto, even if it’s been modernized, it’s still a disaster in some areas.

Visiting three museums of apartheid, a few tears fell but I feel so hopeful for a more just future.

Today we had a nice long walk and bus ride through the city of Cape Town and up to the top of Table Mountain, its 1 km, aprox 3 Eifel towers high and a stunning view!

Not to hard to trek compare to my Kilimanjaro trek… even for a sick husband.

When finally got to the sea level again we decided to visit

Campus Bay, really trendy surfers beach with Celeb wine bars and restaurants, the houses and apartments

surrounding the beach were to die for

The Shark-dive tour tomorrow got cancelled due to rough seas, but… I managed to find a last minute solution which is really cool…

More tomorrow

Johannesburg trauma

After two days in Johannesburg and two visits to the emergency hospital I’m starting to relax and will look around this cool city.
They got my husband in an ambulance from the airplane after a bad infection in his stomach, and when we checked in to SAS Radisson blue, they upgraded us to an executive suite.
5 in the morning we had to visit the hospital again and at 9 the hotel drove my poor husband 300m to his meeting in a limo! We LOVE VIP treatments…

Tonight we will have an African dinner with a few of my judge colleagues who live here. I work extra as a skydivejudge for artistic skydiving and formation skydiving. I met them first time in Russia during the world cup, it was a hard competition with 40 degrees heat and lots of forest fires.

Tomorrow I will visit Soweto and apartheid museum and some other interesting stuff while sick husband go to work

See you soon

South Africa adventure

Hi there

So nice to be here on Sweetliving blog.
I’m a guest blogger from Stockholm Sweden and will share some of my adventure with
I am 42 years married to my soul mate a British bloke.
I have two children 18 and 8 years.
I am an adventurer, mother, wife, career woman and time optimist trying to mix my life in harmony. My motto is to do the utmost of my life and not to be afraid of crossing my comfort zone (or that of my husbands, which is fun to see when he feels a little nervous)

I just recently returned from a fantastic trek to the top of Kilimanjaro with Fair Travel.
Maybe I share that crazy week with you later, but this time I’m writing from the airport on my way to South Africa.
I have the big fortune to follow my amazing husband on his business trip, he always regrets taking me...

- wow lets stay a few extra days and go shark diving and climbing Table Mountain!!
- Shit! he thinks and regret badly even mentioning the trip... but she is doing it again...

It also happens that Sweetliving David is extremely phobic to sharks, so this trip I will dedicate to him and my poor husband and all of you people who are scared of WHITE SHARKS.

I prepared my GoPro camera and let you follow me under water to meet the mean killing machines and other fun stuff I come across.

Anyway, time to leave the comfort of the lounge and start this little adventure, our hand luggage is bursting at the seems, I hate putting it in the hold, soooo slow at the other end when you want to run out the airport and start the fun. I always travel only hand luggage wherever I go.

I also send my love to Sweetliving Hella on an other part of the planet, China, and her wingwalking adventures. Fly safe!

Blue skys and Blue clear water!

Lova

First airshow day

Late evening, right before bedtime.

Today has been very…. I do no. Different in a bad way.

The airshow started good. Really cool opening with fireworks, continuing  with Skip and Jurgis showing a great aerobatic display with pyro effects!

A couple of more displays later we stood ready on Catwalk. Engine was running, we where standing next to the runway, ready and waiting for our turn. Looking at a fighter doing his show. Something gave a bad feeling inside watching it. And when he was leaving display area, it happened. 

Suddenly the airplane turn over and went straight toward the ground. I couldn't believe what I saw. The fighter kept going straight down and disappeared in the ground with a cloud of fire and black smoke. Next to it, one parachute hang in the sky.

Still cant believe its for real. I've been thinking so many times this might happen, and now it did. Luckily it landed on an empty field. I can say no more about the accident, cause no facts been released about what happened.

As the accident was taken care of, the show continued with great performances and all safe flights. But it was weird, so weird.

Todays was friday, as you can se from the carpet in the …………. :) They change every day! 

The airshow finished early afternoon, and we went back to the hotel. A shower then hit downtown for shopping! Well, shopping buckets, soap and more towels to clean the airplanes ;)

To light up the finnish of the post, here's some funny spellings!

All for today.

Stay safe and take care of each other out there :)

Good night! xxx Hella

Some team airplanes nicely in a row with our Wasp in front here. More cloudy today. Whats cloud and whats smog? Sometimes hard to say ;)

Fwd: At airshow in China :)

Hey! 

Her comes a loooong post!

Last post didn't even contained all text I wrote so I must add some extra ;)

Well, those bags I posted i pic of, I told u  little whats in'em. Since I will continue travel after the airshow I brought everything needed for surviving some backpacking and hiking. Got everything in those bags between fancy dresses and high heels to hiking boots, first aid kit and a trangria…

Flights to China went well, except that my computer didn't start, taking the battery off  and on a couple of times help. Then the internet is very on an off. 

We don't spent many hours at the hotel, only for dinner and sleeping.

I like the hotel, its ok. Xifei Hotel, in Xi'an. 5 star, I got 2 (!!) big beds, and more space than home almost ;) Beds in China are rock hard, but I solved it moving one madras to the other, so its double up! Cousy :)

First day here we spent at the hangar… well, as all days on airshows! Third time here and all feels as before, some new teams, some met-before-teams and friends. Think this show will be a great one! :) CATWALK (the wingwalking airplane I stand on) will perform twice a day, as the only display doing that! We have a tiny camera attached and will send live TV for 600 millions chinese!! Thats unrealistic…. Today we where interviewed by CCTV three times. Hope something good came out of it ;)

Benny making some adjustments on Python :)

Ever seen as tiny babanas?

Briefing in chinese/english.

First day here (Tuesday) was a bit rainy, yesterday (wednesday) was better and today (thursday) was warm and sunny, lovely!! And forecast for airshowsdays fri-sat-sun looks very good. The rain killed most of the smog for some days, much fresher air…

Food here is mostly great! But some is also bit more exiting than others. 

For breakfast:

To end....

This dude bit me! I still have a swollen mark on my thigh! 

Ok, not only his fault, I sat down him....

First showday today!

Speak later :)

xxx Hella

Time to travel again!

Summer has been really nice, I've spent most of my time at dz Skydive Stockholm. Not jumping like crazy, mostly packing parachutes.
Season is about to end, and now I will go with Scandinavian Airshow to China for airshow, third year in a row! :)

As always I try to see something extra, this time I will meet up with Linda after the airshow to see zhiangjiajie and walk on the great wall! Hopefully pass by Shanghai too.