Summer in the French Riviera

Summer in France is pretty awesome I have to admit. However, summer in the French Riviera takes you to a whole new level. We’ve got the sun, sea, sand, mountains and much more. Everything becomes so lively and animated. People are more outdoors, carefree and laid back. There are more and more visitors to this region each year. My summer in Nice has been an eventful one. I’ve picked up a new musical instrument - the guitar. It just seems so appropriate for summer.

My summer days are also filled with tasting different gelato flavours and have discovered that I simply adore Bacio, which is in fact two heavenly mixtures of chocolate and hazelnut flavours and coincidently means kiss in Italian! I’ve also been having countless barbeques and Mojitos with good live music (most of the time with Jake Hall playing bien sûr) at bars . Mojitos are such a summer drink as it consists of delicious Rum, mint, lime topped with Perrier, so gratifyingly refreshing on a hot summer day and night.

As I mentioned earlier, summer is when you see people go out. You see people wearing summer outfit, the skimpier the better. If you’re someone who is completely fine and comfortable with your physic – Pas de problème ! But for someone like me who loves to eat and is quite conscience of appearances, in other words, I don’t want to look like a total idiot wearing a tube, I need to work out.

So I’ve been hitting the gym 3-4 times a week getting a good 1 ½ hours workout per session. I attend numerous classes – Body Pump, Body Jam, Fat Burner, Yoga, Maxi Gym, Culture Physique, Step and Stretching. My instructors are excellently qualified with a sense of humour, which makes all the difference! I usually, in summer of course, attend classes in the afternoon, which basically means you have a lot of “grannies” coming in for a workout. At first, I thought to myself, “This is a piece of cake and I’ll show these “neneks” how it’s done!” Oh how so grossly wrong was I! These “neneks” have been training for years and what seems to be heavy weight for me, is in fact light weight for them! And we’re talking 5kgs in each hand. These are the real super grannies! Well, what can I say, I’m still young and I’ll catch up with age? Anyhow, all work and no sports make Helena a dull girl!

What else? Salsa. Have I told you that I’m in love with this dance? No? So here it is, I heart Salsa! Dancing is another famous activity here, Salsa in the streets in particular. Every aspect of it is fabulous - in my eyes at least. You move and you groove to the beat of Yuri Buenaventura while dancing with a male partner. People come to these soirées for many reasons. Some simply for the love of this passionate Cuban/Porto Rican dance, some to meet new people, some to meet their special someone, some to get a good workout while having a good time. I go for all the reasons above and to have a smashing time! I have to say though that it’s very easy to be the female dancer as opposed to a male dancer as he needs to do all work as he’s the leader in this sexy dance. But all is good when you’re dancing the night away under the stars!

Could life actually get better than this?

Another part of me

Every 3rd person in the world plays it, it looks facile. I started having the urge since my piano days and I've always been fascinated by it - the beautiful sound that comes from strumming a few strings together and the most modest fact - it's a completely mobile stringed instrument.
Let me introduce you to my latest craze - learning to play the guitar.

Who would have thought that playing the guitar would be hard work. I never knew one could bend fingers that way! And it's confirmed - my left index, middle and ring fingers are sore. The consolation is that they are now slowly but surely developing callouses! It should be well on its way as I put in 3 and more hours of strumming. It's quite easy to give up but what keeps me inspired is this piece delivered by John Mayer at MJ's memorial tribute - Human Nature. That's what I'm aiming for and if all goes well as planned, I should be strumming to that tune in no time *wishful thinking*.

I love music. I love everything about it. I've always been musically inclined. Inside my head, there's an on-going radio that does not switch off. It's quite easy for me to shut everything out by filling it with music. Music gives me passion, it de-stresses and balances life.

I cannot imagine a life without music, so let the music play on!