It has been a few busy months but here we are. Finally settling into our new, yet temporary, apartment in the Mission Bay area in San Francisco.

It's such a relief to finally have arrived. The past few weeks have been intense. Throwing out, donating away and not the least giving away so many things. Organizing the VISA. Saying goodbye to our friends until next time. Working my last few days at Squarespace. And inevitably, teaching my last yoga class in Ireland.

We spent a little over a year in Dublin which is really not that long. At the same time, it has been an intense year full of work, traveling, and not the least wedding preparations and celebrations. All while getting to teach and practice yoga around the city. I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people I have met. For my beautiful colleagues and fellow yogis. The friendships you form in a place is truly what makes your life there. And the toughest part with moving country has to be the goodbyes.. 

At the same time, I'm super excited to start our new life here in San Francisco. While we've been here for holidays before, I just can't wait to explore the city further, study and practice with the local yoga community, and enjoy all the things that SF and and California have to offer.

Talk soon! With love,

Karin

Last weekend I went to my first Californa festival. I was pretty excited about it. Some of my favourite bands were playing. Need I say that I was not disappointed? I arrived quite late after a full day of yoga history, not to complain, I loved it, but I felt pretty exhausted. The low evening sun beamed a magical light over the festival area. The young crowd was welcoming with their smiley faces. In the ticket line I felt the excitement spreading throughout my body and as soon as the bag search was over I started started to jog towards the stages. Only to be stopped by a final security guard that apparently wanted to scan my ticket first. Oops, I almost started my festival experience by being run after by security. Nice!

The first performance was Tv on the Radio, which I have seen before. But that was some time ago. In a completely different setting, or let's say forest, in nothern Sweden. It was, as you can imagine, a very different experience. The performance had a Tv on the Radio-like intensity to it, and they played a nice mix of old and new songs. As they were playing the sun went lower and lower, and there was a golden glow over the heads of the swaying and at times dancing audience. As the the last palm tree lost its touch of golden we headed to the second stage for Poliça.

I was standing on someone's picknick blanket and I got lost. The transfers between each song were mezmerising. Instead of falling in and out of the songs, the rythmic transformative flow in each song emphasised their relationship to one another. Like seeing someone combine ten different outfits with some reoccuring pieces, getting to love these pieces more and more, seeing how they come out so different each time.

As for all concerts, there is an end. Which made me kind of sad, so we decided to take a little break for touring the festival area. I'm glad we did, because we found an awesome silent disco, the DJ was really great. He almost convinced me that silent disco is better than a conventional disco. I thought about it as we headed to the food trucks for some food. They sold healthy SF green juices, young coconuts with a straw and American style pizza. I had to take my latest obsession, a warming naan bread burrito filled with garbanzo stew.

As Alt-J finished his performance on the main stage, we headed to the smaller stage to wait for Washed out; the guy from Georgia who wanted to become a librarian but didn't secure a job and instead moved back to his parents and began to create music. He told us Washed Out has been touring for one and a half years and this was there last performance of the tour. It was brilliant. As it happens on festivals, we had to leave before the last song to make our way to Massive Attack. We found a very good spot just in middle and quite at the front. Damien had seen them once before in Lyon in the early 2000s. And they had the same pictures streaming in the background. Come on? But apart from that, I really enjoyed it. Especially when our hopes were fulfilled and Tunde Adebimpe from TVOTR entered the stage to sing Pray for Rain. Pure magic, and a perfect fit for the California drought. They must have thought about that.

And best of all, it worked, because when I opened my curtains the day after, it was raining.  Thank you Treasure Island, I'll be back!