We came to Rome on Christmas Day and had dinner with our friends a few days later. They were going to Toscana over New Year and since we didn’t have any plans (last-minute trip to Rome this year) – we decided to go too!
Toscana for New Years Eve!
Meet My Family
Hello!
I haven’t introduced my family, so I’m gonna do just that 🙂
First – my husband Andrea. We met in Stockholm eleven years ago. He’s from Rome, Italy and had moved to Sweden a few years earlier. We both were working at that time, but Andreas’ job had quite irregular hours so we met mostly during the weekends. After a few years we moved 600 km to the south of Sweden (back home for me) which I’d been longing for quite some time. Andrea also got a 9-5 job immediately which made our life easier.
Soon we became pregnant, and in the winter of 2014 our twin boys Emil and Marco were born! It’s funny now that I think of how we decided the names.
Emil was chosen for two reasons.
First: If we were to have girl, we wanted her to be called ‘Emilia’, such a beautiful name.
Second: I really wanted to have a natural birth. Towards the end of the pregnancy they do quite frequent checks, especially if you are to have twins. They keep an extra eye on the one closest to the exit, normally called “Twin 1” (head down = OK, butt down = not OK). But he seemed to change his position every other time! Even during the last days when one might think there was no space to turn around. So, we found Emil to be a fitting name – from the unruly character “Emil in Lönneberga” by Astrid Lindgren (Swedish author).
The other one – Marco – we just liked it 🙂 And it was the only Italian name we could agree on. (In Sweden we are very aware of equality, so it felt appropriate to choose an Italian name for him).
And the funniest thing – Emil actually IS the Swedish one while Marco is the Italian one. Emil is blond, and likes potatoes, rice and bread. Marco has darker hair and skin, and loves EVERYTHING! He’s always curious about tasting new food and often asks us what we’re having and grabs a bite.
And me – I’m Madeleine and I love to travel and see new places. I’ve lately grown an interest in the global climate situation and try to be more conscious about our choices. For instance we have reduced our meat consumption and it has also had a positive effect on my well being. It actually feels like I’m doing my body a favour. I don’t judge any meat eaters though! I think we are all different, and everyone does what feels good for them.
What else.. We live in a house in a suburb outside of Malmö. The twins will turn five soon. Living in Sweden is really great if you have kids. You have the right to work less hours so you can be with your family. This affects the salary of course, but it is partly compensated by the state. The only thing I can complain about is the weather. Cold and dark winters and rainy summers. Except for this year – it’s been crazy warm! And no rain. Mediterranean summer from May to September, fans were sold out everywhere. We still had strawberries in our garden in October! I wonder how this winter will be…
That’s all for now. See you soon!
Gran Canaria – Meloneras
Normally we leave the Swedish “winter” (we live in the south where there’s rarely snow, just rain and darkness mostly) for a week or two for a sunnier and warmer place. One of our favourites is Gran Canaria, Spain.
Sometimes we do charters and stay in a hotel, it’s nice to have everything served. But usually we prefer to book accommodation and flight separately.
The advantage is that we can spend our holidays at our own pace – having a car, doing grocery shopping, cooking, having breakfast on the veranda. We like to feel “at home”, only at a different location. We do quite a lot of research to find the nicest place for the best value.
This time we rented a house in Meloneras for 10 days. The place was very peaceful and we had a stunning ocean view from the balcony.
The place – Bahía Meloneras – which used to be a holiday resort with 3-floors chain houses, swimming pool, bar and restaurant is now owned by privates and companies. The guests are mostly Spanish who come for the weekends, so we had the beautiful pool area to our selves most of the time!
Fun story 🙂
The first time we came to Gran Canaria with the kids, they were about 2.5 years old and we had already made several attempts to get rid of the pacifiers, but with no luck. So we came up with the idea to tell them that pacifiers were not allowed in Gran Canaria! (How mean are we?)
The first night one of them woke up and we had to sneak the pacifier back in, but to carefully hide it again before they woke up the next day. But that was it! End of story.