Huh

I just checked the Christmas weather on a major news site - it lists 6 locations in the shortlist that will be relevant to Swedes on Christmas. The Big 3 of course (Sthlm, Gothenburg, Malmö), two locations to represent the northernmost 60% surface area where hardly anyone lives (Östersund, Kiruna), aaaand - Phuket.

Well. That's probably pretty accurate. I still can't quite get that so many Swedes would want to celebrate Christmas there. Christmas is the only time of year the snow serves a purpose!! In January, fine, I'd love that. Oh well. That's my country, anyway. Thailand probably houses the largest group of Swedes outside of Sweden at any one time. I'd love to visit Asia but that kind of puts me of Thailand. Oh well. There's no scope for transatlantic travels within my budget in the near future anyway!!

The day the earth moved

Literally - today I woke up to my first and probably only earthquake (assuming I will not fulfil one of my notions of some time living in San Fran). 3 minutes before my alarm went of I found myself jumping out of bed, awakened by a rumbling sound along with some pretty heavy vibrations of my surroundings, lasting only a moment. I got pretty freaked out, and prepared to go and wake my kombo as in WTF. However, she seemed to be sound asleep and within a few moments I had convinced myself I had imagined it all (or watched too much sci-fi, or maybe it really was just a very heavy truck on the motorway outside our house). A small aftershake while I was slightly more awake and just standing in the living room, alert and on edge, convinced me to at least turn on the news. And indeed!!! Sweden's 'biggest' earthquake since 1904, at 4.7 on the Richter scale, had woken me up. It took a long while for me to wind down! Espeically as I kind of squealed to wake up my kombo but she just mumbled something about wanting to sleep... well, if you can't wake up your flatmate for an earthquake I don't know what would be sufficient reason. I didn't see anyone moving about though so I just went about my business.

I'm glad it woke me up though!! I would have been so pissed off if I slept through it. I can't remember people on the bus trying so desperately to hear the radio since 9/11, really. Also, the newspaper seemed completely useless - there wasn't going to be anything about the event you really wanted to know about since it only occurred an hour earlier!! Freakiness!!

Almost there!!

4 work days and 15 mins until Christmas vacation!!! Gifts, food, and family aside, it also means 16 days of sleeping in. Even if I only sleep in til about 8 or 9 nowadays it's still fantastic not to have to get up anywhere near the figure 6. And forest time! I am sooo bringing my running gear and making the most of the fact they've threatened/promised a green Christmas this year.

Weekend - different. I was dogsitting Linus, which was pretty much a full-time occupation. Even when he calmed down from hysterics and nervousness he was still restless. I am so never getting a dog while I live in an apartment. Besides taking him out pretty much every 3,5-4hours, he also woke me up at 1.30 and 5am Saturday night. This meant I had to get dressed and go fully outside at 1.30 and 5am Saturday night. I did get to then sleep until 7.45am before taking him out for the actual morning walk. It's nice to have him around but that's a full-time occupation! Next time I'll dogsit at my parents house methinks.
Still!! The house got incredibly dirty and I can't even begin to express the satisfaction and pride I felt after I cleaned up this filthy abode Sunday evening. I had to rinse out the bucket twice to get rid of the sand, and the floors, by comparison, practically sparkled.

Apart from all the walking, cleaning, and breathing fresh air, I spent most of the weekend with other matronly activities such as baking and doing crafts. I've made gingerbread and lingonberry muffins, fudge and an untranslatable chocolate cookie with nuts (for Christmas, of course). I'm going home now to continue making paper hearts this evening, inspired by this webpage: http://permo.homepage.dk/
A truly amazing webpage and nostalgia heaven for those of us who also dabbled in web design circa 2002 (when the page was last updated). He appears to have made the specs for the various heart designs himself, and they are advanced! I'm eager to see if I can actually accomplish something similar to his finished results... The fact the main purpose of the page is for his Golden Retrievers, one of which was named Caroline, just adds that extra edge of freakiness.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Did someone slip a roofie in my 11am coffee or what? Probably not. Still, an explanation for my fits if seasickness (on land) would be very welcome. I actually looked up a specialist because maybe it's something you can actually fix - but you can only get an appointment before noon. Oh well. I'll have to wait a few months probably but might as well try.
It's not making me very nautious today but it's incredibly disconcerting. It's kind of like being drunk - unsteady on your feet, feel like I might waver into a wall when walking the corridors. And using a computer is awful - any and all browsing and shifting of windows (kind of inevitable) makes my head spin. Blurgh.
In fact, I'm going to stop writing, now. Laterz.

yeah, that didn't work

I've been itching to update you for several days now, but I've started thinking that it really is a bit unprofessional to be blogging at work. But! At home, often the last thing I want to do is go on the internet and inspiration never strikes me because my brain has shut off. So if I follow up on that promise I would never blog and well, we can't have that can we?

So. Company party last Friday. Pleasant, but completely devoid of scandals (yes, that includes from my side). The part which I thought would drag on, the dinner consisting of 7 courses and lasting 4h, was actually the best part. One Michelin star so yes, the food was amazing and yes, the portions were very small but it was still better than last years hors d'euvres and continous refill of your champagne glass which had me off-my-head drunk at 9.30 (by which time, incidentally, I was off to see my flatmate's band play - just one of many tube rides I couldn't recollect the day after. This was a new place too, I still can't believe I made it in one piece and on time to meet my very sober (and amused) friends!!)

Anyway. After the amazing dinner where I had very pleasant and comprehensible dinner partners (as in, two were Swedish and one spoke Danish I understood 95% of the time), the DJ took over. Oh joy. Danish 80s classics, anyone? 'Rocking around the xmas tree' was the musical highlight of the evening. Also, I don't understand how a restaurant serving such fabulous food (and the wine! I'm not a wine drinker but I loved it all (but no, didn't finish it all!) and none gave me a stomach ache) could make such awful drinks. They served two drinks: mojitos and strawberry daquiris. Sounds fantastic right? Not. The mojito tasted like T-red and the daquiri like. Jam, maybe. Yuck. I called for a taxi at 12.40, it promptly didn't show up and so I got a lift with a Swedish consultant and his wife. The most humiliating moment of the night was having to borrow their toilet before the taxi drove on with me because I was just going to burst. Then I just kind of ran back to the taxi because it was waiting for me and he'd already paid for my last travel so I might have made a bit of a rushed exit but on the whole? I don't think I have anything to be embarrassed about *phew*

So. It's Friday, 11am and I've already eaten my body weight in Danishes. I was however at the gym for a full hour yesterday because I was acting as moral support for my friend J (henceforth, 'the gym buddy'!!) and waited for her introductory session to finish. Tomorrow I am going Christmas shopping, funnily enough, with mum (I mean, not with with, we'll do lunch I guess) and I love, love Christmas shopping. All the people isn't that much of a problem because hey, you don't have to try anything on! And then I'm going to chill, chill, chill on Sunday and try to work in a few comp hours so I can take off early one day and have a browse in Copenhagen. They have some lovely decorations here and I suspect Ströget looks amazing, so I wanna check it out.
laterz