Hej!
We've finally moved out of the hotel! YAY!
I celebrated by exploring our new neighbourhood by foot with the camera around my neck. I thought you might want to have a look.
But first, here's a photo of David just before we left the hotel room yesterday:

One thing I'm incredibly drawn to is this kind of street with large trees on each side, meeting in the middle.
This was the first one I saw on my walk. But not the best. I'll show you the best soon...

It was a very sunny day today but not too warm. I stopped to take some photos of flowery trees.

And alleyways with electric wires crossing the sky.

And then...

Aaaaaaah! So beautiful!
I hunched down in the middle of the street, when no cars were around, to get all the green loveliness into the picture.

More alleyways. Apparently I'm rather fond of them too.
I also very much like the mountains surrounding on all sides here. It makes me so amazed that this view is everyday for people who live here. How they don't just stop and stare, amazed towards the mountains, at least twenty times a day boggles my mind.

More trees. More mountains.
Those trees, guys! Such fluffy green goodness! I have many photos of fluffy green trees in my camera today.

Some trees get a little fence around them.

The streets in this country are so wide. I think it looks weird, like a movie set. And it kind of makes the streets feel less alive. There's too much space between shops and houses; everything is so spread out that it gets a little cold and impersonal. People here drive wherever they go so the town isn't made for walking around leisurely. I think that's kinda sad.

And then, suddenly, there's a very cute corner!

America. Guns Direct. Ugh.
I hate guns more than anything in the world.

Then there were only auto repair shops left of the street, so I crossed the road and walked back in the other direction instead.

Have a look down a Southern California flowerbed.

And here's a weird looking flower thingy.

Some spooky roots!

And a very American looking doughnut shop. I took this photo to show David, the donut freak, that we have this place in our neighbourhood. One of the first things he said to me this afternoon was "Is there a donut shop?!?" -Yes, David. See, I took a photo for you, hahah!

Another kind of tree lined street that caught my eye.

And then. Oh, then. I found this place! Bearded Lady Vintage and Oddities. Such a fun and cool shop! I peeked around in there for quite a while because there were just so many interesting things to look at!
The owners directed me towards a couple of other nice shops on the same street, and I realised I have arrived in vintage store mecca. There were vintage shops everywhere! With amazing clothes and things. I could happily spend all the money in the world on this street, I think.

After an hour or so the sun was taking its toll on me and I needed froyo! Felt like such a fool when I couldn't work out how the machines were working and had to ask for help. I just "Erhm, I'm new to this country, HELP?"
Regular, water melon and raspberry froyo. Yummy!

After energy in the form of froyo and free wifi I walked back home again. Through this beautiful parkway.

Even the shadows are different here. Plants that make feather shaped shadows.

STOP! I'm almost home now.

(Look at the flailing human being to the left. Haha, I can't stop laughing, he just looks so silly!)

Walking past the cutest house I've seen all day.

And the mountains again in this photo that I think looks exactly like I imagined American suburbia would look. Including basket ball hoop.

When David was free for the day we went to a laundromat for the first time ever! I had planned to take fun photos but I got a migraine (from too much sunshine, I think) and the photos didn't turn out good at all.
I had to go home and just lie and breathe for a couple of hours before I could think again.
And now I'm back and sitting here blogging! Yay!

Hope you liked following along when I explored our new neighbourhood. I think I already have started to get a hang on the photography issues I mentioned in my last post. And that feels so great, you won't believe!

Anyways.
Talk to you soon, OK?


/Lotta

Hej!
So I'm finally feeling like blogging again after we arrived here in LA last week. We are still living in a hotel, but hopefully that will change some time next week.
Anyway, yesterday I brought my camera with me all day long because we had fun things planned!
Wanna tag along? OK!

First we went to the Aeirloom Bakery that has turned into an absolute favourite this past week. Wonderful, organic food, cozy atmosphere and really friendly staff.

We both ordered the English Salmon. We've had it a couple of times this week, it's so tasty!!!

The wifi on our hotel room is beyond crappy. It only works if you're sitting on the toilet or leaning against the bathroom door. So when there is free wifi on the café that makes us love it even more! Here's David checking up on his social media.

Heeeej!

After a nice breakfast we were ready for our next stop for the day: LA Zoo! It's super close to where we stay so we were there quite early, before the crowd.

Flamingos!

Cute Koala!

Fancy Zebra!

Extremely cool mountain goats!

The cutest giraffe ever had a long stick to chew on

Happy elefant in the waterfall!

It was very green and beautiful.

I'm having such problems adjusting to the light in LA when I'm taking pictures. It's so difficult because there's so much bright sunshine that creates a lot of shadow so it's impossible to get good photos!
I hope I learn over time because it makes me so sad and frustrated to not be able to take good pictures.

When we had seen all the animals we were in great need of ice cream!

So we drove to a place that looked a little bit like a dentist's office when you looked through the window, but sold really delicious ice cream!

Found a bench across the street. Not very cute surroundings though...

I picked the flavors Peach yoghurt and Horchata coffee. So tasty!

After a few hours of rest in the hotel room we went to a mexican place and bought burritos to go. I had the brilliant idea to drive up Mulholland drive and eat our dinner infront of the view. So that's what we did.

So beautiful!

Our hotel is the white box to the right with red letters on top.

A rapper dude was filming his music video up there. He stood by the edge, raising his arms in a pose to tell everybody he owned the land and everything else below. Such a clichéd theme. I'm on top of the world! I own this city!

This photos is super blurry, I know, but you can see the rapper and photographer in the background.

When it was starting to get dark, and quite cold, we went back to the car to drive down the long and winding road.
And that was our saturday.
I hope to get back more to blogging soon, when we have a more permanent place to stay.
I can't wait!

Until next time:

Hej!
I thought since it was forever since I blogged about my day to day life it would be appropriate with a little catching up, right?

So let's start in november when David and I went to Los Angeles.

In a plane somewhere over Utah. Earth is quite extraordinary, don't you think?

Tall and shiny buildings. Things we don't have that much of in Sweden.

Sunshine in november. Things we don't have at all in Sweden.

Good for me then that I bought a pair of white rubber boots (I call them my "Storm Trooper Boots" for obvious reasons) that I got good use of straight away when we came back home to Gothenburg.

We went to our hometown Jönköping over the weekend to visit our families.
The weather was rainy and dreadful. Reststop posing is not David's main sport.

We went for a walk one evening.

And I danced a little at a rainy skate park.

One of the reasons we went to Jönköping was because I had a birthday present to receive. I had wished for a fleamarket shopping day with my mother and I found so many great things! This wonderful green tweed coat, for example.
Here I am, all happy, outside the office supply store because I had lots of stuff to buy before my week at the christmas fair!

At the christmas fair in the shopping mall Nordstan! I was there every day the week before christmas with my jewelry.

Arranging things before the customers arrive.

On december 22 David and I celebrated 8 years together and I dressed up accordingly. This is the dress I bought from a Lights Out fan in Los Angeles by the way. It will forever be called the Lights Out dress because of that.

Awww, don't we look cute?!
We went to a really lovely restaurant and had a nice dinner.

And then we went home to our families for christmas.

The snow arrived promptly before christmas dinner.

And everyone was happy with their christmas gifts.

It was very cold on christmas day. David and I went for a walk.

To the lake Munksjön in the centre of Jönköping. The moon hung prettily in the sky.

Oh, Astor, you silly bundle of fluff!

Back in Gothenburg again we got a visit from my sister and her kids. David and my niece Hilda made this drawing together. Well, Hilda told David what to draw.

I got the itch to clean (happens once in a blue moon) and sorted though all my jewelry and knick knacks sitting on the bathroom floor, drinking coffee and listening to podcasts.

It was super foggy in Gothenburg around new years. Our neighbourhood looked a little bit like Hogwarts.

A few hours later when the snow had turned into grey mush Gothenburg looked miserable again.

One weekend our friends (and wedding witnesses) Aili and Jonas came to visit us. It had been so long since we last saw eachother and we had a couple of great days together. Visited the enormous antique store Antikladan. Aili and Jonas found a great lamp for their new place. David and I were broke though so we only looked. That place is huge so it's an adventure in itself just to find the way through it without getting lost.
And it was sun that day! Wonderful!

And I found a girlfriend!

This coat had been missing a button for a long time and then the other day I found it! When I sewed it on I noticed that the coat had an extra button sewn into the lining so I hadn't really needed to search high and low for the missing one. Well, well.
Happy to be able to wear this lovely coat again!

Last week I was a month early to a meeting. Silly me.
It was early in the morning and David and I had decided to eat breakfast at a café after my (non existing) meeting. On our way there the largest snowflakes I've ever seen started to fall from the sky. Some of them landed on David's eyebrows and eyelashes.

A view from our balcony the day the storm flew in. It was quite scary actually. It's hard to sleep when the windows are rattling and the entire walls are trembling. They closed off the street below ours because a roof had flown off a bulding. Storms are scary.

Just a self portrait in the Lights Out hallway to capture the outfit I wore that day.
It was one of those days when you don't really think things through, but it turns out alright anyways.
The white cardigan is an old thrift find that I keep in a plastic bag in my wardrobe because it's so fuzzy and fluffy. The skirt is my velvet skirt that I use almost every day.
Fluffiness and velvet is not really a good match, but it worked out fine because as it happens there's not much fluff left in the cardigan anymore.

Yesterday I had a little conversation with myself.

Oh, and I made a thing. Go follow me there if you aren't already!

I'm off to bake banana bread now because a friend is coming over for tea later!
Talk to you soon.

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

HELLO!!
Back to blogging and it feels so gooooood!
Hiiii! How have you been?
I have been busy busy busy and realised a few days ago that I haven't blogged about when David and I went to Los Angeles in november! Oh no!
When I looked through all my iPhone photos (I only used my Nikon D7000 for two days, I'll show you those photos some other day) I found at least 100 photos that I wanted to blog. Well, that's a little bit too much, so I made up a little list for myself with everything I wanted to include in a post from our trip.
Here it is:

BEST BREAKFAST:
I searched instagram and yelp for the best breakfast places both before we went and after we arrived in LA, and since the breakfast at our hotel wasn't very good and also not included we went to a lot of breakfast places during our two week trip. One of those restaurants I found was bld. We sat outside in the sun and I ordered the eggs benedict because that had looked really nice on the photos I found on internet taken by customers.

It was so very tasty!

MOST INCREDIBLE STORE:
I had a lot of time for myself during the days because David had meetings with Hollywood people, so just like with the breakfast places I had looked up interesting spots that I wanted to go to. One of those was The Last Bookstore where I could have easily spent an entire day if needed. It was just so amazing!
Fantastical, creative and filled with books, of course! I found myself in front of the Stage/Film/Scriptwriting shelves and was very impressed with myself when I left with only two new books.

BEST MOMENT:
One day I was walking along Melrose Avenue checking out the vintage shops there. I had just tried on a fabulous 50's pencil dress that looked absolutely fantastic on me if it wasn't for the fact that it was a tad too small. When I walked past a store that made new clothes in 50's style I went in there in the hope of finding something similar.
The girl in the store was super helpful and nice and we talked a lot while she helped me find the perfect dress. When I was going to pay for the dress she asked "So, why are you in LA? Work or play?". I told her that my husband and I made a short horror film that went viral and now we're in LA because of the attention the short has gotten in Hollywood.
Oh? What's the name of the horror short?
When I said Lights Out her eyes almost popped out of her skull.
OMG! OMG! OMG! I LOVE Lights Out! OMG OMG ITS YOU! OMG it's been everywhere, on Imgur on reddit- EVERYWHERE!- OMG you could have said "Brad Pitt is outside" and I would have been like- "Meh"- but this- THIS is something I care about and OMG you were so good in it! OMG OMG! She had apparently seen Lights Out a lot of times and talked about the best parts and I was so shocked I just giggled.
Her colleague walked in from a room behind and was wondering what the hell was going on. Ha! It was absolutely wonderful.
Right when I left she called after me Come back soon so we can talk more! and then I heard her tell her colleague about how she needed to see Lights Out because it was AWESOME!
Best moment ever.

BEST WALL ART:

BEST VINTAGE FIND:
This velvet dress that seems to be made after my body, the mint belt, a red sweater and a pair of shoes was all found in a thrift store that I happened upon while looking for a coffee shop and I bought it all for almost no money at all.

BEST WALK:
Apparently people don't walk in LA. Well, I'm not like most people. I walk everywhere.
One day I walked from downtown LA through poor neighbourhoods, through Korea town and all the way to Los Feliz. It took maybe three hours. When I told people about this afterwards they just gaped at me like goldfish before exploding in a You did WHAT? Everybody told me that I have probably seen more of LA than they have. Even the ones that had lived in LA for forever.
No big deal. Haha!
My heel says otherwise though. I'll spare you the photo of the ginormous blister I got...

I ended up outside this 7Eleven for an hour waiting for David to come pick me up during rush hour. I sat on that concrete divider thingy eating fresh fruit and watching the sun set.
A woman parked her car nex to me and when she came back with a cup of coffee she sat in her car with the door open and enjoyed the sunset with me for a while. It's nice, isn't it? she said.
I agreed.
Great weather; not too hot, not too cold.
-Just perfect I said.
She smiled towards me and said It was very nice to meet you before she drove off.
Sometimes it's the small things in life.

BEST RAMEN:
The Bold Ramen at Tatsu. Might not look very tasty but oh, it was!

BEST OUTFIT PHOTO:
Taken with self timer on our hotel balcony. My absolute favourite vintage dress got to come with me to LA. The "Flowerbed dress", as I call it. Perfectly matched with mint cardigan and tights and I was a colour explosion ready for the day.

BEST WEATHER:
The two tiny clouds over Santa Monica fighting an impossible battle.

BEST SURPRISE FIND:
On the weekend we went to friends who live close to Santa Cruz. On our way there we had to stop because David had a conference call. We found a little road where we could park and I walked off with my camera and my iPhone to check out the surroundings. I found an abandoned trailer and took a gazillion self portraits. Here's a few of them.

BEST ROADTRIP:
The trip to Santa Cruz was great and our friends live at an absolutely amazing place in the Santa Cruz mountains. The sun sifted through the fog and redwood trees. It was magical! I brought my camera with me on this trip so I have a post planned with all those photos.

CRAPPIEST REALISATION:
One thing I felt very acutely during this trip was how USA has a long way to go in regards of gender equality. I have never been treated more like a child in my life. It was quite awful actually.
Every day I got called Mrs Sandberg even though my name is Lotta Losten and nothing else. In Sweden that doesn't happen. Never has anybody taken for granted that my name is anything before asking me. I may be married to David but I am not his property. It's really weird to realise that what I am used to back home, what I think is absolutely obvious and doesn't need explanations is apparently extremely new and controversal in a country that looks at itself as the Best Country in the World.
It's not very hard to see women as people. To see them as individual human beings and not jus a Mrs to a Man with a full name. Well, apparently it's not that easy for some people.
It makes me furious.
My name is Lotta Losten. I don't answer to anything else.

BEST VIEW:
From our hotel balcony one evening when the moon looked just perfect.

MOST BORING THING:
I got the worst cold of my life the last week in LA. I was completely out of it for a couple of days. Here I have gathered enough strength for a self portrait showing just how bored I was.

MOST WONDERFUL MOMENT:
I was standing in the Starbucks line waiting for my order. In front of me in the queue was a woman in the most beautiful Niqab I've ever seen, it was black with golden embroidery on. Her eyes are the only part of her face showing and they are gorgeous.
When she has her coffee and is about to pass me she sees me, put her hand on my arm and says You are absolutely beautiful. I can see in her eyes that she's smiling warmly and then she sweeps her hand up and down in the air infront of me, all the way from my blue and neon green tights covered legs to my Sgt Pepper Jacket to my long hair and repeats Just beautiful before she leaves the coffee place with the niqab flowing behind her.
I was left standing there smiling with heated red cheeks when the barista called out A Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte for Lottie!.

BEST RESTAURANT:
The Commissary at The Line Hotel. A restaurant situated in a beautiful greenhouse on top of a building in Korea Town with wonderfully weird menus and really good food.

As I mentioned really quickly earlier in this post we went to LA because of Lights Out. David has managers and agents there and they are working on making Lights Out into a feature film. It's exciting times, dear friends and readers! I hope to be able to tell you more in the not too distant future.
Bring on 2015, I say!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday if you celebrate that.
I had a couple of great days with my family, and after a few really hectic months I'm now ready for a new year with my head filled with lots of new ideas.
Talk to you soon again!

Tjingeling!
/Lotta