Hallå!

Notice anything different around here?
Larger photos, new links on the side, new font and so on.
I am also working on some bigger changes of this place, but we're taking it slowly so it won't be a big reveal, you'll just notice new stuff happening over time (maybe a little reveal, if I can't contain my excitement).

Anyway! David and I have been scoping out forests lately. We were in a hunt for the perfect location for some filming, and we think we have found it!
Then the snow came and destroyed our weekend filming plans.
So instead of spending the sunday filming we've been fixing with this site and eating pancakes. Not too bad, but lets hope the snow melts away soon so we can get to work!

First location to check out was the nature reserve Ängsgårdsbergen right next to the Botanical Garden here in Gothenburg. I had read that they had a group of Japanese pine trees that looked incredible on the photos I managed to google my way to.
So on tuesday we went in search of those.

We found them! And O'boy were they beautiful!

Such a great, moody feel to this place.
Sadly the area was a little bit to small for the project we had in mind. But we're definitely filing this in the "must film something here" part of our brains.

Slow dancing with a Japanese pine tree. Hands on its ass, of course.

When we happened upon a little stream I had to try my rubber boots in the water. They're doing their job perfectly!

And then there was an area of Japanes birch trees too. Also very filmic looking but way too small a place for what we have in mind.
But a neat spot for photos!
I made a cute little GIF that you can see here .

And then, on wednesday we went half an hour by car outside of Gothenburg, to Iglekärr Gammelskog that is one of the really old forests in this part of Sweden. We had decided that this was the place we wanted so we packed our car with camera equipment and I dolled up accordingly and had my cape on.
We didn't know what was waiting...

We knew beforehand that we would have to walk for a while.
This was the easy part.

Soon we were starting to get tired becuase the roads were very steep, it had started to rain, and we had a lot of things to carry (I hide everything under my cape).

And then it turned even harder. The trail pointed upwards, at many places the path was completely covered in water and we had to walk over rocks, roots and through thick vegetaion to reach the place we had read about.

But then, when we were so tired that we could hardly take another step and our arms were sore from all the carrying we started to get deeper and deeper into the woods.

We decided that Yes, this is the place where we're going to film but not today. It was starting to get dark and the wind had picked up around us. We needed to walk the long trek back to the car before it got dark because it would be impossible to find our way back without light! (Plus, my perfectly combed hair had turned into a more wet and wild style and that is NOT what we're after for this project!).
But first things first: Fried egg sandwiches and coffee!

We sat on a fallen tree trunk and ate our own packed excursion food, and I said to David: We have become "outdoorsy"! When on earth did that happen?!

The way back to the car went fairly quick because it was all downhill. Plus, we had the added strength from fried egg sandwiches and coffee!

So, let's hope for some mild weather in the coming week! We will not be able to make that trek with ice and snow underneath our feet, it was difficult enough as it was.
But that place, it was just magical! You'll see...

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

Hi!
I thought about blogging this yesterday but it was election day here in Sweden and my mind was way too focused on that for me to sit down and blog.
It turned out to be a very depressing election because the racist party became Swedens third largest party and the feminist party that I voted for didn't make it into the parliament.
It's just so awful.

But let's focus on something else entirely for a while! Something interesting and weird and hauntingly beautiful in its ugliness.
The car cemetery David and I visited during our road trip a couple of weeks ago. This day was our wedding anniversary and we filled it to the brim with amazing adventures. (For part one of this day click here )
This place is situated far into the woods close to the Norwegian border and people go there to look and be fascinated by the surreal atmosphere.
There are said to be a couple of thousands of old cars (some of them go as far back as the 1950's) in this car cemetery and the land is owned by two people who live on the property as well.
I've read that people in the area think of it as a sort of cultural heritage that needs to be left as is, but at the same time nature is not really loving it; the trees are not healthy and the ground must be filled with toxic waste.
No matter what, it's an extremely interesting and strangely beautiful location and the entire experience made a huge impact on both of us.

It's a place that get's the imagination going and we felt like we were thrown into a post apocalyptic world where everyone else was dead except for the few of us walking around the remnants of a long ago destroyed planet.
Fascinating, scary and very exciting!
I hope these pictures can give you a little bit of that feeling.

Nature takes over.
Imagine the years it must have taken for the trees to grow this big, that's how long the car has just been lying there untouched.

Mossy license plate numbers.

Indecipherable.

Almost melted together.

Cars almost entirely eaten by nature.

Forever queuing.

I stood here for quite some time just staring, my mind reeling with fantastical movie scenarios.

The moss intrigued me to no end. I have so many photos from here of cars covered in moss. It just loks so beautiful.

Really really old cars. But the grill is still shining.

Old signs from local businesses.

Can you feel it? That deserted, surreal feeling of being all alone in a far away future?

Sooooo, new week! Monday means theatre rehearsal for me, but before that I'm going to be working on my etsy shop for a while. New pretty things to be added soon!

Until next time:

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Hello hello hello!

So sorry for my week long absence! It was not how I planned it but work and a stupid cold came between me and my photo editing.
I'm back now though and thought I'd finally share the photos from our last day of our road trip.
This will have to be split into two posts because we did so many fun things on this day and visited extremely cool places so it's just not possible to squeeze it all into one single post.
So! Here's part one of our Anniversary Road Trip Adventure!

We had read about an old railway bridge in the little town of Jössefors so we went in search for that first thing in the morning.

David made it all the way down the steep, I was not as brave.

David made a friend.

Such a beautiful place!

Me trying to look like a character in a Wes Anderson movie.

Stopped at a gas station for some (incredibly disgusting) coffee.

We were heading for a car cemetery in the middle of the woods close to the Norwegian border but on our way there we spotted a building that we just had to look closer at.

The jacket still hanging on the wall. I think that made the most impact on me.

The entire second floor had collapsed.

Peekaboo!

Outer wall.

After this we were already high on adventure but little did we know that our next destination was going to be even more incredible!

The Car Cemetery!
I will show you around this extremely weird, and even beautiful, place in my next post that hopefully will be up on sunday!

Until then:

Tjingeling!
/Lotta