Departure

Finally, after months of knowing since the tickets where bought long time ago, it was finally time to head out.

With no train trouble, or with check-in or with the security, we found ourselves inside the airport where they had Doolies, vodka and beer samples.

Since neither of us could sleep this morning we where at the airport in good time and spent some of it checking out the stores before sitting down with coffee.

And poof it was time for the gate and boarding. twelve hours later we got of that same flight in Singapore.

Here we enjoyed the Butterfly garden (terminal 3 and totally recommended).

Before we had more coffee and hung out with the fishes (fishes are friends not food).

Way on the back you can see our next plane…

…that took us all the way to Melbourne, where at 10 pm only wearing a t-shirt (and bottoms of course) was no issue.

Dead tired we checked in to our hotel and settled down with dinner. 

Now it’s time to zzz, guessing there’s gonna be a long and exciting day tomorrow. 

Peace out!

Ich bin eine Berliner

Sitting in the airport togheter with my trusted companion, waiting for my flight to Germany, not Berlin though.

The train Gods where surprisingly kind to me today. Not only was the train that was due before mine late and rolled into the platform just as I arrived, the best neighbor on the planet was also there so I had company across the bridge.
There’s a crazy amount of people travelling today, however when travelling from Copenhagen Airport that’s fine, their security check is very efficient and smooth running and I was through in a few minutes.
I also managed to fall for the “we put this on the counter to get people to buy it” trick, accidentally buying a book while getting my snacks.

It’s fine though, I can afford it and I’m already hooked. Maybe I can learn to be as happy as the Danes…

BBQ with the old gang

Facebook is a pretty amazing thing, all of a sudden there is an invite for a BBQ over in Copenhagen with the old crowd. How can I turn that invite down? Well, first I had to rearrange the arrival of mother dearest, I did invite her to come along however she opted for arriving a day later instead.

As the BBQ was on my first day of vacation, I was a bit late arriving but as the boys had had some trouble getting the fires started it wasn’t a problem. Both the train gods and the weather gods seemed in a good mood, so I arrived without hassle to blue skies.

I was a bit bad at taking pictures, or most of the pictures I took aren’t appropriate to share here. I spent the most of the time just chatting away with people I haven’t seen in ages. Apparently I haven’t seen some of them in two years!!

The BBQ ended with some fireworks, not that dark outside as there where children that needed to go home and sleep so you can’t wait until the Scandinavian summer skies are dark. Strange how many little people are now taking part of these get-together’s, times are a changing.

A Swedish Tourist in Copenhagen

My second week back working full-time was another short week, and after three days of eight hours of work a day, mother and the exchange student arrived in town. After a nice dinner out in Malmö on Wednesday night I woke up on Thursday heading out for a nice, yum hotel breakfast.

As the exchange student obviously isn’t from around here, she was really excited to head over to Denmark and even though I have been there for the past couple of weekends, it’s different to go with someone who haven’t been before. Sometimes I can remember the first time I went on that big bridge that take you to Denmark, after the years of everyday commuting you forget the awesomeness with the whole thing.

After trying both the train and the Metro we started our tour with Torvehallerne by Nørreport Station, and coffee with cake. This place is amazing, full of food displayed in such a way it’s hard to keep yourself from buying it. The also have restaurants serving anything from Tapas to Fish and Chips. I’ve been there to eat more than once before. If you find yourself in Copenhagen, it’s definitely worth a visit.After a slow start, we started our walk towards Nyhavn, a must for any tourist in this city. Rather than just passing by we took a tour on the canal boats, it never ceases to amazing me how different the tour is depending on the guide. I don’t know what I was doing during the tour, it seem that I didn’t manage to take a single picture. I guess because I’ve seen it all before, more than once – and I was in need of food and the ladies room, both which I got when we left the boat.

As we were being tourists we had lunch at one of the restaurants in Nyhavn, not the cheapest with the best service, sill there is a reason why they are always packed and that is the amazing atmosphere. I want to remember making mother once again wait for her food (think she might be getting a bit sick at it) so that I could take a picture, however the album on my phone disagrees. Neither do I have a picture of the view, I guess it’s all about priorities as I do have a picture of this;With beer and food in our bellies we got into hiking mood and walked down to the Little Mermaid, a cute little thing that for a while in my life I passed several days of the week. It’s a bit different when it’s been a while since last.The little Mermaid was as far as we went before turning back and started our walk back towards the train station and the train home. It’s not a short walk though as you manage to walk past some amazing Copenhagen-should-sees and the camera is getting hot from all the pictures.

[Insert cool pictures here]

Again, I think it comes down to priorities, it was a hot dusty day, we did loads of walking, we needed a pit stop and I was thirsty.Not far from the pit stop we ran into a Frozen Yoghurt place, and since my sister got me hooked when we were in Stockholm, I just had to have one. Problem was that there was so much to choose from that it became a small one, I simply couldn’t make up my mind.After all that one could think that we would go home for an early night. Instead we headed to Fagans for dinner and my fav quiz night and did a pretty decent job, in my opinion. Then day came to an end, and what a day! It’s fun to have people visiting that haven’t been here before.

Ps. I sincerely apologize or the overuse of the word after in this post, I’m just too lazy to go back and change it.

May 1st

In Sweden, the first of May is a holiday for everyone, in Denmark only for blue-collar workers. This year I believe it was combined with some other holiday (not sure, my source not being the most reliable) and everything was closed and the folks was out on the streets, well parks mostly. I started my afternoon in a quaint little old fashioned bodega that served yummy things like Red Turbog and Smørrebrød.While I was hanging out there Da Teacher was hanging in one of all the Copenhagen parks egging me to join the gang, it was tempting but every time I finished one chapter and wanted to head out the rain just started pouring down. However, in the end I got bored with sitting still and the company so out I went and the rain kind of stayed away (only kind of) for the rest of the afternoon and the park. I did realize that I might be getting a tad bit too old to hang out in parks1212 drinking beers now a days, as I spent more time being worried about the drunken teenagers, having this urge of wanting to call their mothers so they could come and collect their little babies and take care of them. Next year, I might be more grown-up in my approach to this day, maybe…

Me and my trusted companion

Finally, the time is here for another trip! It’s an afternoon flight and those are annoying as I woke up before the alarm, sat and had my coffee, packed my bag, had a nice long shower, did the last of the dishes, threw out the garbage, exchanged money, and bought chocolate for mini-me Jr and still I was early.
I had planned with taking one train earlier than I had to, just in case! I ended up taking two trains earlier than that because I got bored being home.

Arriving at the airport way in time, having already checked in while on the train and in possession of a boarding pass on my phone, it was straight through security (US airports could learn some from the CPH airport, seriously efficient) with loads of time to spend. I went for the usual, and overpriced BLT and my “what I spoil myself with when in Denmark” magazine.

Now me and my trusted companion, the little backpack, and I are sitting at the gate waiting for our flight to Barcelona to start boarding.

I packed like a girl!

The aim for today’s travel easy to pack as little as possible, however I’m travelling to two different cities with differences in climate,  and I’m attending a wedding, thus I packed too much! There are some space left for shopping even though travelling on a student budget means that not that much shopping can be done.

It’s amazing how much easier it is to get up in the morning when you are going on vacation rather than to school and work, household chores also happen with a much greater speed than usual. So I manged to get up when the alarm went of, finish my packing and dishes and still be out of the house in time to make an earlier train.

The trip over to Copenhagen went smooth, so did check-in and security, so without stress I could get some breakfast and my second favorite magazine, that happens to be danish and something I treat myself to when I’m visiting.I now have a 17 hour trip ahead of me, the things one do to save some money on the flight. I also have a cold, which ain’t fun at all, fingers crossed my eardrum doesn’t feel like bursting today. All in all, can’t say I’m too unhappy about leaving this weather  behind. 

It could have been all about Irving

I have friends that post pictures like this on Facebook;

Books up for grabs and I was quick enough to get my hands on Irving, and even if the book was located in Copenhagen I managed to get my hands on it on Friday night, because yes! I got to go to Copenhagen for the weekend. So this post could be all about how I was reading Irving in Copenhagen, however it won’t be. My biggest fan came to town and managed to drag some of the old gang together, so Friday night was spent with them by the water enjoying a fab evening, and I didn’t manage to take a single picture!

Don’t worry though, the weekend didn’t end there. Saturday morning brought me to the tourist Mecca of Copenhagen, Nyhavn, where I had the honor of sitting on a wooden boat while enjoying the morning sun. I was sitting there, just hanging with Da Teacher while waiting for my biggest fan to show up. I had decided to be in charge of her Saturday in Copenhagen that brought us to a brunch date with a very lovely pregnant woman who is getting ready to move back to the US (Dear Miss Preggers, don’t think that you will get away, we will meet in October as long as the border people let me in).

After the yummy brunch we returned to the Mecca with white wine and crayons. Thus the afternoon was spent on first the little boat, then a bigger boat, together with wine and fun random people.

And of course there was drawings on the ground, don’t think me and Da Teacher will ever stop painting the world a happier place (not sure that dead body outlines make people happy, but whatever!).

I headed home early to crash while my biggest fan and da teacher continued their evening out, that story is not for me to tell though!

Once again a fab weekend on the other side of the water, thanks my peeps for making it happen!

Snapping out of it

It has taken me some time to bounce back from my total downer, and with the suspicion of it being my hormones going amok a doctor’s appointment have been made to see if that is the case and something can be done. At the same time, I’m not the kind of person that lets a downer hold me down for long, for me it’s not acceptable to allow it to go on for too long and I learnt years ago that how simplified it may sound, snapping out of it is the only way to deal. The longer you sit at home, feeling sorry for yourself, letting the bad thoughts take over, the worse it get and you will in the end reach some point where you wont be able to manage to sort it out yourself.

So I set myself I a deadline, deciding that no matter what, Thursday morning I was going to be out and about. I went to work, focusing on something else make it easier to wake up the next morning, and the next morning, and the morning after that. The sadness wont go away completely straight away and you need to be patient.

However, making it home after work this friday past there was no way I was going to spend the evening home alone, I could feel the bad thoughts and sadness returning, and I didn’t want them to take over. Then with some luck, I got what I wanted, which was an evening at a Danish Bodega. There’s plenty to say about Danish Bodegas, the clients can be questionable, you are still allowed to smoke in them and the beer is cheap. What I like about them is that you can be yourself, the pretence of the beautiful world stays at the door. Anyhow, I digress, I texted Da Teacher checking her plans for the evening, and it turned out that she was in the Bodega mood as well. I then sent a message to my favourite latte mum, wondering if she was in need of her train pass, she wasn’t and no, she didn’t mind letting me borrow it. I love my favourite latte mum! With all this done, I was out the door, picked up the pass and headed to the train station where the train gods, for once, was with me, having the train waiting for me at the platform and then again when I had to change trains in Copenhagen. That doesn’t happen often so I saw it as a clear sign that I was doing the right thing.

Me and Da Teacher had a pretty awesome evening, having fun with random people, not overspending our own money and still hitting the sack in a decent time and when we woke up the next morning the sun was shining on us. Me with fingers crossed that latte mum wouldn’t need her monthly pass on that day either, headed out in town (together with DT of course) where a half marathon with 30000 runners took place. After a long walk we sat down in the sun with a nice cold beer watching the people run past. There was live music (quite annoying to be honest) and other friends coming and going, just a chill saturday in the sun, can you ask for more? Well apparently you can. As Miss T reached the goal she gave me a call and invited me to join for dinner that same night together with her and a bunch of my old colleagues, not in the budget at all but what the heck.

We ate so much food that I needed to go into a food coma afterwards and all I wanted was to head home to my bed, the gang wanted to go for one more drink so we did, one more cold beer for the road.

When I woke up Sunday morning, I woke up with a smile on my face and a boost of energy that I haven’t had for a long time. The effect of the weekend is still lasting with some extra help from today, as the sun was shining still and we had a big break between the morning and afternoon class. I had my first proper outdoor ice-cream of the year 🙂

Let the celebrations begin!

It’s that magical time of year again, my birthday time! For loyal followers of this blog and my IRL friends you all know I absolutely LOVE to celebrate my birthday. Me inviting pretty much everyone I know for celebrations have become something of a tradition down here in the south (invites go out to people in the same area as my, not globally), and this year was no different. Since I don’t get to spend that much time in Copenhagen nowadays I decided to enjoy the dinner over there (and no matter what people say, the people living in Copenhagen are not always that keen on travelling over to Malmö, so I belive I get a higher attendance over there) at a nice little place Miss Legal introduced me to last year.

It started out with quite the eventful trip over to good old Copenhagen when our train got delayed for an unknown reason, and after a light jog up the escalator I made a very nice last-minute entrance on the metro while the doors were closing. I was so focused on not getting stuck in the doors that I totally forgot that I had Miss T behind me, so while the train was leaving the platform with me on it, she was still standing on that same platform. Of course I got of at the next station, waited for five minutes and then got on the next train where Miss T was waiting. The positive side of the whole excursion was the travel snack that Miss T brought;

The next challenge of the night was to find the right bus stop, right now a quite large renovation is taking place where we got of the metro, and one can’t say that the signs indicating where our bus would leave from were very clear. We saw a sign pointing in one direction, we walked in that direction and instead of finding the bus stop we found another sign pointing in the opposite direction. Turns out that we were supposed to turn down another street somewhere in between the two signs (kind of think they should have added one more sign in the middle).

We got on the bus and made it to the restaurant, only 25 minutes late, arriving to a small chaos – I’m not a party planner! Someone, me, had accidentally booked a table for six people rather than the eight that had said they were coming. We also became one more, so in total nine people, just a few hours before the appointed time. Guess what, the waitress wasn’t to fond of me at that point. It also turned out that there was a time limit on the table, we only had it until 20:15 (it was now around 18.30) – oops! Miss T has kindly informed me that next year, she will take care of the whole planning thing, I find that to be a brilliant idea.

After squeezing down, four on one side, three on the other due to late comers, we ordered some cava and the gifts came out! Whoop, whoop! One beautiful homemade card, a book that seem real interesting and a bottle of Moet. Do I have good friends or what?

My choice of food for the evening was tiger prawns and crayfish with some chips on the side, yum, yum!

The rest of the bunch had dessert, I skipped it and enjoy them all devour their pancakes! Looked kind of funny, especially since the latecommers (will not mention any names here) had now arrived and went for some pancakes as well.

After a rather stressed dinner (my fault, I know) we all went for a short walk to a lovely cocktail bar recommended by Miss T (yeah, yeah, she will do the planning next year) where we spent the rest of the night enjoying awesome drinks and splendid company.

It ended up being the perfect evening where friends come together and spoil the birthday child (me) rotten with laughter, memories about the good old times when we were young, and ridiculous pictures that compare Miley Cyrus butt with that of a chicken. I was home at two in the morning feeling happy and woke up this morning with a smile on my face, just the way it should be.

So thanks again my peeps for the good company, birthday gifts, the dinner, the drinks and loads of laughter! See you all again next year, same time – different place.

Me and my trusted companion

Sitting at gate C32 at Copenhagen airport waiting for my flight to board, joined only by my trusted companion that travelled the world with me for ten years now;

I decided to travel lightly in this trip, that will take me to sunshine, warmth and cheap beer, so there’s no checked-in luggage, just me and my little backpack. I was also very happy as I left home, that I could leave the heavy winterboots behind and instead wear my “I can’t wear flip-flops then this is the next best thing” shoes, today I opted for the red ones.

Converse are awesome for leaving winter and going to summer, they just work at all times!

While waiting fot the flight I’m enjoying some dinner, could have eaten before I left that would’ve been cheaper, for some reason though, I had no food at home. Instead I’m chewing down some baby bite, spicy chicken toquito and a small Tuborg, curtsy the local 7-11.

I hope you won’t miss me too much, oh wait they have internet in Thailand as well, guess I might be blogging some sunny beach pictures over the day’s to come.

And oh yeah, Mr Burglar, no point of trying to break in. Not only is there nothing of value (unless you like dirty laundry and piles of old travel memories in the form of tickets and brochures), a friend of mine is crashing at my place while I’m gone please try to not scare the shit out of him!

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Date no 2

The train arrived only two minutes late, and on the next stop my sister with family also boarded the full train.

The bastards are going for two weeks of sun and warmth in Dubai. I’m not the slightest bit jealous! And since I was already planning on going to Copenhagen this lovely Saturday I figured I might as well go with them to the airport and wave them. Any opportunity to get some quality time with the family.
After they checked in their bags we sat down for a snack and the first Christmas beer of the year.

And now, as they are making their way towards the gate I’m on the metro, on my way to meet miss legal, that will have such fun stories to tell about her latest adventure.

Later peeps!

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She went to Copenhagen!

It’s been a bit quiet this week, mainly because I went to Copenhagen for a mini vacation before school starts, just to catch up with people who I haven’t seen in a while. Da Teacher was nice enough to act as hotel, and she did a real good job at it, Miss Legal now have some competition for “The Best Hotel In Copenhagen” title.

There could also be more pictures, I’m still trying to stick with not taking pictures of everything I eat and do, instead I’m trying to enjoy the moment, so some random pictures are included – enjoy!

The adventure started on Tuesday where I met up at the old After-work beer place for a couple of cold ones with the old after-work crowd, to then head to one of all the big nice parks in Copenhagen. Not for a quiet afternoon but to cheer the brave runners in the DHL race on. This is a yearly event that I actually participated in last year, 5k running in front and together with all your co-workers and other people’s co-workers. After cheering a little bit there, me and Da Teacher had some us time before she hit the sack and I moved on, ending up meeting a Scottish guy that is now unfortunately back in Scotland, however we are still e-mailing with each other, how knows!

Day two meant me sleeping in a bit, hanging out a bit at Da Teachers place (unfortunately she had to do something called working) before heading back to the park to cheer on a former colleague. I couldn’t stay that long since Miss Legal had the decency to have her birthday the week I was around, so we could meet up for dinner together with her boyfriend. In celebration of us meeting each other six years ago over pink drinks, we also had to have one of those (I promise, it’s pink!)

Day three, guess what! I slept late, hanging out at the hotel for a bit before heading back to the park! This day it was my old company running, so I got to chat with plenty of my old colleagues. It’s nice for your ego to hear how missed you are because you did such a good job! It was also a good way of meeting loads of them, it’s impossible to squeeze all of them in just five days.

Day four, not that much sleeping in, depending on what you compare with, as I was meeting Miss Paraguay for lunch. It was nice to have a little sit down. Then the plan was to find a cafe, have a coffee, read my book and just enjoy being in Copenhagen. Smart me, of course forgot the book at home and simply just returned there while waiting for Da Teacher to finish work so we could meet up for another session. This session ended in a possible return to my old quiz mistress career. There was some so maybe not politically correct pictures taken of me. An art opening where I fell madly in love with a painting that with my current status can not for the life of me afford. Another dinner again with Miss Legal and her boyfriend (that’s twice in one week, awesome) that unfortunately made me blow my Copenhagen budget, before heading home to crash.

Saturday and day five started with me being a tad bit spoilt as apparently the hotel come with weekend breakfast served. Then there was chill time with pizza before the time had come for me to return home.

And awesome week with good friends and just fun times. Today is spent recovering and preparing for tomorrow, school is starting and I’m quitting smoking – both take some planning and mental preparation, and yes there is also a job interview in the afternoon.

Roadtrippin, again!

Since Sunday turned out to be such an amazing day, we decided to make a second go at it on Monday, this time we went north from Malmö having Helsingborg as our goal. It’s a bit harder to find the scenic route in that direction, however we managed it, and started the day with stumbling over an amazing spice shope (and yes, I now have an interesting collection of teas and spices at home). The place is called Borgeby Kryddgård and they also take part of local markets, if in Sweden and want to check out what they can offer  you can follow them on Facebook. Keep driving north, or maybe more like north-west, we ended up in Barsebäck, which is mostly known for their Nuclear plant. However, they do have a really nice little harbor restaurant (like probably every place on the cost has) that served excellent pancakes with a lovely view.

After touring the country side for a bit, going down mother dearest memory lane, or next big stop was the metropolitan Landskrona, where the first thing that caught our eye was a real beautiful church called Sofia Albertina. For some reason I didn’t manage to get a picture from the outside, I did get a few from the inside. The last picture contains a quote from the bible, and even if I’m not a believer I can appreciate the message.

You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.

Ecclesiastes 11:9

Landskrona also contain old memories from when this part of Sweden belonged to Denmark, and it was interesting how clearly you could see the resemblance to Kastellet, found in Copenhagen. The only thing that disappointed me a bit is how boring it was. It didn’t look like it was well taken care of and I probably would have opened a cafe in the courtyard and maybe and another little nice shop or two, that’s just me though. Leaving Landskrona keep driving north, trying to hit as many scenic routes as possible. When we entered Helsingborg we drove past a sad little shop that had a Taco sign in the window. Kind of expecting a Taco Bell like place, it turned out I was totally wrong. It was an old Burger King restaurant re-made into a pizza place with a Nacho dish on the menu, thus the taco sign. However, I have now eaten at the first drive-through pizza place in Sweden (at least that’s what they said). Fun as it was, we didn’t stay there for coffee instead we made our way to the more central parts of Helsingborg and did some more window shopping, well I might have bought a carpet that’s a different story though. Still dying for after lunch coffee we walked into pretty much the first cafe we saw. And seriously, I have never seen anything like it! The cakes and cookies were from a different world. The place is called Ebbas Fik and is most definitely worth a visit, just make sure you don’t eat 24 hours before sitting down. Me and mother dearest shared that cookie and we still didn’t manage to eat it all.

Another awesome day was coming to an end, and we jumped on the high-way to get home in a faster phase. Who could have guesses that Sweden had so many random cute little places to go to.