This week I turned 41. I’m pretty happy with how everything is, love is good, home is good, career-wise could be a little better but I’m working on it; health-wise all good, apart from a rotator cuff injury that’s really bugging me. If I could say something to my young 13yo self it would be this: There is life after 35 and it is pretty good! In fact it is much better than anything you will live in your teens and in your 20s! My 30s was absolutely awesome, so many things happened. My 40s is only starting but looking promising. Can’t wait to see what this decade will bring, what experiences I’ll get to live :) 🎉
My mom and my mother-in-law are both staying at my home; mom for 3 months, MIL for 5 weeks. Mom speaks Brazilian Portuguese, MIL speaks Swedish. They are both 73, none speaks English, both complain about their feet quite a lot. It’s been only one week of this, having to translate every thing all the time, it feels like a fast descent into madness. I’m dreading the next 4 weeks, honestly. Luckily, my mom learned to use the conversation mode on the Google Translate app, and they’ve been using that a lot. The app mostly works. Sometimes one of them says a paragraph but only a single word gets translated. Sometimes the translation turns out completely wrong. Sometimes they laugh a little and the thing starts transcribing the laugh and saying it out loud “HA HA HA”, which makes them laugh even more, which in turn makes the machine go crazy, it goes “HA HA HA HA HA HA” hundreds of times. Humans and robots just can’t stop laughing. 🤖
There is not much I miss from Sweden, but I’m always happy when MIL brings a big jar of Melanders Skagenröra! I’ve tried so many internet recipes, I’ve tried reverse-engineering based on the ingredient list, I’ve tried buying from Swedish shops in Spain… Nothing comes close to Melanders recipe. It is simply divine. 🦐
For my birthday lunch, I made some delicious French crepes filled with grilled mushrooms and Valdeón, a delicious blue cheese from Northern Spain, accompanied by a nice burrata salad with fresh tomatoes and pistachios. NJAM. 🍄
For my birthday dinner, we went to a local restaurant. It was my first time at Saona, and I loved the vibe, the décor, the food, so we’ll be back many times. Since our favorite local place closed earlier this year, we’ve been searching for a replacement that we can go to by foot, have some good food and wine, relax. I think we found it. 🍷
Since my birthday was in the middle of the week, I also booked a tasting menu on Saturday at Memória Gustativa. Amazing experience! Delicious food, very creative, very well-presented. We had a lovely time! Afterwards, a walk in Valencia’s old town and a few glasses of vermut. 🍹
📺 The Movies & TV department here at home has been severely impacted by our mothers' presence. The only possible solution is to watch either Brazilian media with SV subtitles or Swedish media with PT subtitles. We started with season 5 of Love is Blind Brazil, LOL. All participants in this season are over 50, I think it was nice to see people are less dramatic as they age, they know better what they want, but they are all still teenagers at heart! :) 💞
After fancy lunch and fancy wine, in Valencia.The two mothers.
