The secret is out

I know who Sara dated, because I had a breakfast date in town with the very same person this morning! And later tonight we watched movies together, and had doughnuts and hot chocolate... Not so intimate and romantic though, we had company. (Guiltridden company.)

Last night I wasn't very nerdy either actually. Hannah convinced me to go out for one quiet beer, but that was far from the truth. Drunken adventures at the Crane Lane, including the line "Do you come here often?", the line "I like your back. It is perfect.", "Are you a local gal?", "do you live here in Galway?" and on top of that some guy tried to lick my arm. Not very pleasant. And lots more of course. The night ended at an "afterparty" with only goal being that Hannah wanted to make out with some random guy named Steve. (Reported from his kitchen this morning in my own blog.)

Right now I'm waiting for someone special to log on to msn. But maybe I'll just go to bed.

A Candlelit Date

I beg to differ - my night was not nerdy at all. I had a date, the good kind with candlelit dinner, a movie and some quality time in bed. And neither Kristina nor Maria knows who the mysterious date was and it is driving them crazy. As I said: the good kind.

Nerdiness

Sara was at work today, then she came home and started to study. Me and Maria has been watching Buffy aaaaall day. Now Maria is gearing up to raid in World of Warcraft, and I'm gearing up to sit on the sofa. Maybe eat some icecream. All of us, in front of our computers. (Exept that "my" computer is really Maria's old computer.)

My turn

to leave work early. For the first time. Iv'e been generally healthy for four months. But today, I don't know what hit me. In the head. Hard. But it hurts. My head hurts so much I feel dizzy and a bit sick.

The joy of a Easter vacation

I know how to spell harmony, or maybe it is happiness I’m thinking about. Being in my cabin up in the mountains in northern Sweden. Driving snowmobile, thinking a lot, sleeping even more. Driving my snowmobile in 100km/h over a frozen lake or up on a mountain in 40 centimetres of powder snow. It was about 80-100 centimetres snow and at nights it was very cold (like –30) and during the days it was around –10, but very sunny and nice. The snow was glittering, we sat in the snow-sofas we made for ourselves and talked, ate and had a very nice time. I managed to drive 200 kilometres in four days.

I wrote like 10 blog posts while I was driving my snowmobile (I seriously do my best thinking while driving snowmobile), but since it was very hard to write it down at the same time, I forgot almost all of it and this is what you get.

I made a list of things that are significant for being in my cabin for a couple of days:
Fall asleep on the sofa at 9.30 in the evenings, sleeping like 11 hours almost every night, sleep or almost sleep on reindeer fur in the snow in the sun (my dad and his friend was clearly sleeping, the sound revealed them), bruises all over (especially my right knee was very exposed to pain) and a back that hurts after a day with harsh driving, the fact that you have to heat up water if you want to wash yourself (since we don’t have running water, and especially not running hot water), eat, eat, eat and eat some more.

Going home also meant that I had the possibility to drive a car, not my own though, but one of my parents’ cars. I drove to my brother’s and his girlfriend’s house, and had a nice evening there. I miss driving…

Anyway, going home to Sweden was very nice, it was more than nice, it was great and worth all the time and money. But even better was going back to Ireland and realize that “I’m going home”. This time I arrived in Cork and knew where I was going, that I have a home and friends and that I like my life here a lot. Last time I came to Cork I was very nervous and hardly knew anything about how my life would turn out. Going home also made me realize that there is nothing I miss so much from home that I want to move back at the moment.

No more Dangling at the End of the Call Center Food Chain

Yesterday I had to go home from work because it is kind of hard to take calls when you are trying to keep your breakfast down. Instead, I started the project of formatting my computer. I hate computers. After having spent 6 hours formatting it (twice), installing windows (twice) and trying to find the right drivers to the bloody thing I gave up and retired to my bed, only to find that my obsessive mind could not let it go. After another hour of work I actually found the last driver and now (almost) everything works - yey for me, death to HP!

I have also landed myself a brand new job! Eh, or at least a 50 percent new job. As and from the 1st of April I will be a Technical Escalations Guy (the sex change operation is included in the benefits, among health insurance), meaning that I will be the technical support's technical support. I think and hope that this will be way more fun and much less brain dead than just answering the regular Registration-calls. And yes, it includes a raise - yey for me!

Maria has returned to Ireland after an Easter vacation in the snowy and cold parts of the world, and she has already started throwing (candy) chickens on me. Well, I love her anyway and it's good to have her back home (:

Bugs. Again.

Poor Sara just left work. Her evil tummy bug attacked her, again! I can't beleive it. So no dinner at Eva's tonight. I'm going to go right home and take care of her after work. So that she doesn't feel alone. Because by now we can be pretty sure that it's not contaigous.

So a nice night in with Buffy, and maybe some icecream for me (none for the squirrel, her tummy needs some rest. Tea, maybe).

She's already gone away

This weekend has been very slow and that was just what I needed after the crazy trip to Sweden; the Wednesday dinner with Eva and Carl and (of course) the pub crawling. I spent Friday to Sunday at home, watching Scrubs and msn:ing with Jojo - and God did I love it. We also ate loads of fast food, ice cream and spent the time with animated movies and But I’m a Cheerleader.

After having built up that much energy I spent it all cleaning - I was supposed to vacuum upstairs but then I found that I just could not stop. I also helped Kristina cook a wonderful Easter dinner for 9 Swedish and Danish people on Monday. The menu was as follows:

• Starter: Cheese pie with green salad
• Main: Salmon with mashed potatoes, asparagus and Kristina’s famous Hollandaise sauce
• Dessert: Homemade lime sorbet with raspberry sauce.

Yummy.

It was a very nice evening, and also the last one with Amalie. She left for Dublin this morning and will fly to Denmark tomorrow. The seat beside Kristina is empty and we no longer have anyone who beats cats and decides who should wear a hat. We miss you already, Amalie. We will have your toothbrush and your slippers ready for when you come back.

I have also started a new quest: Studieortsbyte! Please LU, accept me!

The Mafia goes Pub Crawling

Since Amalie is still under the impression that she is going to Denmark on Wednesday we had a last pub crawling to make sure that she would at least miss us as much as possible. The evening started of following all the pretty, pink balloons to Nancy Spains where she got a very pink, very sweet, very strong and all together very gay drink called Skittles (taste the rainbow) from me. It was the only drink the bartender knew how to make and it was so meant to be. The bartender also ran to the off licence next door to get some wine for Hannah - now that's customer service.

After Amalie figured out the tricky rebus we gave her we were off to Franciscan Well. There we ran in to Edwin and some French guys, who by the way accused me of not talking to them at work. Well... They're French? :P We also learned that in Denmark big breasts means sorry, we sang drinking songs about men’s reproduction organs and compared shoes.

To get to the next pub Amalie went around asking all the French guys in the place what "that's it" is in Irish and eventually she lead the way to Sin É. We were in a bit of a hurry; since no pubs are open on Good Friday everything closes at midnight, so after just enough time for Amalie to chug a beer we were off to Shelbourne. Kristina and I had the best road description prepared but Hannah kind of spoiled the surprise so we never got to use it. Just as well, I guess, since walking straight was challenging enough.

The Shelbourne part of the evening is a bit fuzzy for me, but at least I know that all the Danish Socs accompanied us. I also know that you shouldn't fall asleep at a pub, because people will take pictures and they are not flattering. Yeah, well, judging by the pictures Amalie and I slept quite well and the bartender said good morning rather than threw us out.

As you might imagine, our Good Friday has involved loads of sleeping and some effort has been made to recalling the previous evening. We have also had some take away, ice cream and an animated movie (Finding Nemo). As far as hangovers go, this was so much better than I thought it would be and the evening was so worth it. I am really going to miss Amalie (I still hope that she will change her mind) but at least now we have sent her off in best Mafia manner.

And off I gooo...

I'm off in a minute, because I'm going on an easter vacation to Sweden. I will arrive tonight and just repack my bag, take a shower and eat, and then go with my parents to our cabin in the mountains.

This is going to be a short post, I'm in a bit of a hurry. Have a nice week and everything.

Amalie, I will miss you.

Sunshine

Ah, tuesday. Sara is back from her trip to Sweden and Maria has'nt left yet. Untill tomorrow we are still all here. By the time Maria comes back Amalie will have gone to Denmark for good. But today it's just tuesday, the sun is shining, Saint Partick's has come and gone and wer'e back to normal.

I was drunk this weekend. Our sofa is fixed.

The Squirrel's Adventurous trip to Sweden

After a very nice Tuesday evening at the Oval I dragged myself up at 05:30 (the armpit of time), waited for a delayed taxi, traveled on delayed planes but eventually arrived in Gothenburg. Spent the night at my sister's and her boyfriend's apartment. Seriously, computer nerds are special, and if the nerd in question also has money enough to fulfill his dreams… quite scary, I assure you. We watched the porn movie 300 with warriors in Speedos, a transvestite Persian king and just a lot of naked skin in general. I’m sure that any straight gal or gay guy would love that movie.

Today I have once again got up at 05:30 (the armpit of time) to hop a train to Lund and Jojo and you know what? We’re going to see Tegan and Sara tonight! Happy squirrel! Happy squirrel! Extremely happy squirrel!

I haven’t quite adapted to being in Sweden yet, I’m just not used to people actually understanding what I’m saying so I guess I’ll be receiving loads of funny looks the next few days…

By the way, it didn’t take long for Jojo to discover the wonder that is Lumines and now she (too) has developed an addiction. PSP is the shit.

Good morning! Would you like a snail?

If you live anywhere Cork you could probably hear "IIIIIIIHH! IIIIIIIHH!" from our house this morning. Probably three different versions of "IIIIIIIHH!" The reason to this is that we found a snail in our house, making his way from somewhere to our washing machine. None of us wanted to take care of this snail, so in the end Kristina had to be the hero and take it outside. Considering how the snail looked when Kristina took him outside, I bet the snail was more afraid of Kristina than we were of the snail...

Weekend Rambling or Squirrel with a Gun

Tummy problems have lead to me not eating in a week, which lead to a very tired me, and a very tired me does not blog.

Friday was Team Dinner-day. All the people at work went out and had dinner at a really nice Mexican place - because Mexican food is great for people who are allowed to eat only tasteless, boiled food. So, when the rest of the team set out to Shelbourne to get drunk and stuff I went home and crawled up to a ball of tummy ache (but I did get to Skype a bit, so it's alright).

Yesterday we had another Swedish Song Contest evening. Ida and Hannah made yummy veggie burgers and after we’d watched the Swedish people vote the wrong songs through to the final we looked at the Devil wears Prada (with Merryl Streep as a brilliant bitch :D).

Today I've been a very good girl who cleaned the house ‘til it shone so bright you had to wear sunglasses. And after all that hard work I deserved some fun, so we went to LeisurePlex, equipped ourselves with laser guns and killed loads of annoying kids. WE RULE! YEAH! After some more fun with fake motorcycles and a dancing thingy I was exhausted but an extremely happy squirrel inside (: We ended the day with great food, the Cake of Doom, lit candles and maiHIME.

Conclusion: It has been a good weekend.

The rain passed by

Yesterday I got a comment that I don't write here often enough, so I will try to be better with that from now on. As Kristina wrote, we had our team dinner last night, we were almost 20 people. It was fun and food was good. We had beer at Shelbourne before and after the dinner (and yes, I had beer too, I think I really will learn to like it. Believe me, I've had doubts about it). The truth to be told, I was really tired and wanted to go home quite early. In the end, me, Kristina and Amalie went home at the same time. Although I was tired, I watched an episode of L Word before I went to bed, and now I have to bribe Sara to get some more episodes I think.

It's been a good week, the days pass by really quick and suddenly it's Saturday again. Not that I'm complaining... It was raining when I woke up, but it has stopped now. I'm planning to go into town for a bit of shopping, but first I will try to get out of bed and get some breakfast.

Update a few minutes later: Just because I wrote that it had stopped raining, it started again! Stupid me...

Go team go!

Tonight we're going to team dinner! Yay! Mexican food and a lot of beer... Awesomeness. And tomorrow I'm going on a date... And Sara's working and on sunday we're going hiking. So yay.

Weekend tripping

We have gotten loads of hatemail from angry fans for not writing about this weekend. So I will. It was kinda slow. Sara was home, me and Maria had a few beers thursday and friday, saturday we stayed in and ate food that wasn't very good, but would have been if we had a better oven. We all went to bed early and woke up early the next morning to go to Limerick. The bustrip was almost two hours, and we arrived in a sunny Limerick where we took a cab out to a mall and had a shopping orgy. Then we went back home.

Personally I bought:

• pj's
• a kimono
• a fancy jacket (all very cheap!)
• socks
• a necklace and a bracelet
• lipgloss
• shoes

Oh, the shoes. Beautiful beautiful shoes. Sara left earlier and then she realized that she did'nt have her keys with her. The rest of us went to see Be Kind Rewind, had some chinese and then we went home. Sara spent her time waiting for us watching the same movie.

So that's our weekend... And personally I had a date on monday night, with a very nice fellow called James. We had quite a lot of beer, a little bit of rum and a very good time. And we're going to see the Sultans of Ping on saturday. Romantic, huh?

The one about the Strange and Mysterious Swedes

Tonight we've all been watching one of the preliminaries for the Swedish Song Contest where the Swedish people (eventually) decide who will go on to represent us in the great and extremely important Eurovision Song Contest. This circus goes on for months, and usually you don't really want to be a part of it but the thing is: I've never been as patriotic as I've been since I arrived in Ireland. Seriously, Swedish food, music and fika, so of course I get all worked up about the Song Contest.

Another Swedish thing: all of us are going to Limerick and H&M tomorrow. Really, it's kind of mental: we're going to another town by bus for 2 hours just so that we can go to a clothing store. The only way for me to explain it would be that we're a bunch of Swedish girls who just got paid - the Mother ship is calling out to us!

Mr Bean and I

I've just had the conversation of the day (and yes, I am very much aware of the fact that you need to be working on a Saturday and therefore be utterly bored to find this as amusing as I do):

- May I have your name, sir?
- It's Bean
- And the first name?
- *******
- Alright, so, how may I help you Mr. Bean?

Didn’t realize it until I said it, and then I had to put the poor guy on mute since I could not stop laughing :D

The story of Maria and the beers

Thursday and Friday we have been out and drinking beer, I have been drinking beer! I have probably been drinking more beer since I came here than I have in my whole life. For you who don't know about me and beer, the thing is... I don't like beer. But I guess that if I continue drinking beer every now and again, I will start like it or something. Last night I had a Guinness, which, according to my brother's girlfriend, is something I had to do before I'm allowed to come home.
Speaking of things that I don't like but that I want to learn to like, I need to learn to drink coffee too. That is next on my list... (Yes, I have loads of lists, because I'm Swedish!)

Yesterday was payday, and tomorrow is shopping day and we're going to H&M in Limerick. Today might be shopping day too, since I need some bits and bobs and it's lovely weather outside, and what can be better than go into town and buy some stuff?