29 november 2010

IKEA and Lunda spexarna

A night of girltalk, glögg, gingerbread cookies, blue cheese, saffron buns and a nice wine is underestimated. Saturday night was spent in the company of lovely Julia and Annika and it was a very cosy and nice evening. Am I getting old prefering these nights to drunken dancing on an overcrowded dance floor where people basically push you around to the rhythm of the music...? Luckily I have Annika to pull back my old-lady-tendencies ;)

Sunday morning my values were subjected to contradiction. I propagate the aware consumption, shop to your needs rather than your wants. However, being a member of Unicef I was to market their stuffed animal campaign at IKEA to encourage people to buy. For each animal sold IKEA would donate 10 SEK to Unicef and Save the childen, great... but what about sustainability? I struggled with giving out free balloons in order to make people buy something they don't need for a good cause. Does the  justify the means? I don't think so and I will probably not participate again because I think people should donate because they have the resources and agree with the moral obligation to help less fortunate... If you go to IKEA and want to contribute you can do it without buying unnecessary objects, there are several signs everywhere telling you how to.

Either case, it was a fun day and it was about to get much better!

I met up with Julia and Annika and went to boxing exercise and oh my gosh my legs hurt! Time to start exercising a bit more, this is tragic... Julia and I walked in pain to AF-borgen to see the best comedians in Lund; Lunda spexarna. Lots of political jokes, great singing and clever remarks, such a great show, can't remember the last time I laughed so much! Do not miss it next year!

This new course has really pumped up the pace, I actually study like a full-time job now to be able to read everything. It's so interesting though, talking about international and national law at the moment, it's going very quickly but our teacher is funny, inspiring and knows her shit.

In the cold winter my skin is cracking like the dry earth of the Sahara so to continue hand hygiene I need hand creme! I bought a metal jar from Nivea, might no be the best one but its easy to bring along and I'll be able to refill it constantly instead of buying the little plastic bottles...
Lots of snow!

27 november 2010

Flash mob

PILLOW FIGHT!



13.15 today Julia and I fought a pillow fight at Stortorget, Lund with loads of other people!

25 november 2010

Creative houses from reclaimed stuff | Video on TED.com

This guy is awesome, with his Texas accent, building houses from all sorts of material, including Budweiser cans!

Dan Phillips: Creative houses from reclaimed stuff | Video on TED.com

Carrying Capacity

If you ever took biology you've probably heared about "carrying capacity", how big a population can the ecosystem take. Well, how many humans can our earth carry?
This film is quite frightening, well worth watching.
http://svtplay.se/t/102814/vetenskapens_varld
(swedish) check out David Attenborough on youtube, plenty of videos...

Start thinking about ones consumer habits, water, electricity and food consumption. 1.2 billion people lack water at the moment, how will we sustain another 2 million, oh sorry Billion, people with clean water?

Email email email!

I hope that you are not forgetting what is going on in Taiji! Dolphins are being murdered almost everyday and the measures are becoming more brutal for the molesters to hide their shame! Popular measure now is to put a cork in a dolphins blowhole, that way it becomes more docile while they drag it to the gutting barge. Note that the dolphin is slowly drowning, that's why it's becoming more "docile.... So lets get to action! If you only write "stop killing dolphins" or something more it doesn't matter, what matters is that you take that 1 minute and let the japanese government have it!

political@japansamb.se


Get writing people!

24 november 2010

Working the christmas feel

Went into Lund today for our first real lecture, subject: Globalisation. Our lecturer is awesome. I'm not kidding he's the coolest teacher ever, I feel like a little kid on Christmas Day!
Skåne has snow!
 After class Lisa, my future flatmate, came with me home and we made famous swedish saffron buns: Lussekatter!
Dough was too big for my biggest pot =(
Glögg, pepparkakor and lussebullar!
Can't get much better...
We also went to a lecture by Amnesty on a case in Mexico. Two girls had been raped by the military, a big problem in the Guerrero region and close regions. Drugs, money, power... So sick of it. Back to christmas!

One of my favourite songs, despite everything is still this Mariah Carey: All I Want For Christmas is You!

22 november 2010

Home safe and sound

So I eventually made it home, went straight to bed yesterday after meeting up with Madeleine, my first room mate in Paris (our of three) and my cuddle bear Manda, how I miss you! The hours disappear in the midst of our chatting too quickly... 


Had introduction to our new course today, so excited! Teachers seem great and the subject really interesting, globalisation, international relations and a bit of law with a human rights twist, can't wait!
Lisa and I discussed the new apartment today, contract is on its way, we're writing a contract in between ourselves, cleaning weeks set, food arrangements all that kind of formalities... I'm really looking forward to moving to Lund now! Glögg nights, game nights, preparties, being able to bike everywhere, it'll be great!


Wish you were here... 

20 november 2010

Fucking Fail

excuse my language but F* what a failure!

I left Soton at 21.30, got two hours of sleep on the bus to Stansted, got about another hour of sleep in the airport... Arrived at 1 am and checked in at 5. Went through security, tried unsuccessfully to get some more sleep before making my way to the gate. Was there almost an hour before take-off, massive queue so I sat down with a newspaper. There were three gates there and just one massive queue so I just waited for it to get smaller cause my bag was really heavy. They called out for other flights, and when the queue was short I got in. Realising that shit, this is for the wrong gate, my gate says closed, but oh they let a girl just four people in front of me through. I wave and 30 seconds later I was at the desk and they tell me it's closed. I'm like what?! I just saw a girl go through! 5 other people join me wondering what the hell is going on, how can the gate be closed?! They call the plane and they claim no one can get on. It's impossible because of paperwork and bla bla bla, come on Ryanair don't pretend you're a real airline! Bullshit business! I was like what about my bag?! Oh don't worry they took it off the plane when you didn't arrive at the gate. WHAT?! I'm HERE NOW! I'VE BEEN HERE FOR AN HOUR! Let us on instead of taking my bag off!!!

So we just had to make our way to the ticket desk, the girl (incredibly rude) said that she'd make sure one of the guys would pay full charge for being rude (I fucking understand why he was rude! To be fair all he said was that it was bullshit...). Well at the ticket desk, after getting my bag back(!), we found out that oh you'll just ahve to pay £246 to get on the next flight tonight. With a bag yeah about 300...!! I wonder what the "full charge" was......

Good thing was that I met a really nice and interesting girl from Sweden living here in London. We made company from the airport back to London, she'll go back tonight (booking online though, bit cheaper) and I'll go tomorrow morning. I'm going to be the fucking first perosn in that queue AND I will ask the staff about one hundred times if this is the right queue for Gothenburg... I realise it is mainly my fault but they should have called out for the flight and made it clearer which queue you were supposed to stand in, insted of having one massive queue for three gates.... Oh well, I get to hang out some more with my counsin...

Let's see if I'll get on the flight tomorrow!

18 november 2010

Southampton

So! Finally some time over... I have spent every day from 9 am to 5-6 pm at the Hart Library in Soton writing my f*ing exam. The first question makes me so annoyed that I will continue with the fun things I've done this week!
Remember everyone from Paris? Here's an update:
Phil "the irish" Chambers
Who can forget
 Joe "the mystery man" and
björnen Björn"?!
Sexy EnrrrriquE!
Great reunion!
Darling Anton
Let's not forget Jono and my reason for being here, Fynn... So I arrived Friday night to a big party in Anton's flat, dancing and drinking, some of us made it to the student club Sobar, where Fynn and I danced the night away. Saturday morning we visited one of the world's heritage sites: Stonehenge!



It was 9 pounds to get in and stand 10 metres from the stones so like cheap students we watched it from behind the fence... I sat on Fynn's shoulders to try to get  pic without the fence (if you are observant you'll see the fence and a man in a hat in the right corner...) Off we went again, destination: not quite sure, Avesbury, Ailesbury, ended up in Marlborough... A really picturesque little town where Björn and the swedes (+Enrique) got to taste their first Fish and Chips...
Happy and full we continued our search for some other random stones in what I think was Avesbury, by this time it was dark so once we got the the fields we couldn't relly see them anyway. Fail. With our spirits still high we continued to Salisbury, one of my favourite places so far in England!
Giant, very believeable, man.
Not many photos since it was dark,
this is definitely not the reason
it's on my top five places!
Dessert and coffee at a proper English pub
Sunday we played paintball! First time I ever play, must admit I was a bit terrified, especially when I found out that I was the only girl amongst 10 guys. Great. In the van there I got an overdose of manly banter, "walk of shame" yelling out the windows to random girls leaving houses and farts... My spirits were not high. We get to Delta Force and I figured, what the hell, why not right? I was mainly afraid of the pain of getting shot and you know what! I fucking ruled this game! I didn't get shot until the last game, and I managed to shoot at least five people out, hold my cabin and get fairly muddy. It was actually quite fun! As the wimp I am I got a bruise from the only ball that hit me....
Wet, sweaty and happy
The night we had a bbq in the freezing cold in Jono's house (which is a little cottage on the backyard, really nice!)



Had to put this picture in here
cause it represents everything
about Björn!
Monday I studied, Tuesday likewise, Wednesday studied and played squash for the first time, Fynn said I was really good and then he ruined it with: for being a girl... Gee thanks.- No I did actually appreciate it!
Today I finished my essays, which have been a pain in the behind! Honestly, I've used google docs cause I dont have word on my computer, and Fynn naturally doesn't have å,ä,ö on his so I had to write it, not knowing how many pages I wrote and not being able to do footnotes(!), transfer it to word in Fynn's computer and start adding all the footnotes. This, yesterday, is when I realise that I have 7 pages and I can have maximum 4. Great. Start cutting, it's only taken me three days to write this stupid too wide essay and now I have to narrow it even more?! I was in a complete break-down state. Today I finished the second and last question in one day. Difference was that this question you could structure and find things in the literature to support your claims... Whatever....
I've realised that we don't have enough pub quizzes and comedy nights in Sweden, it's awesome! Tuesday night I laughed my abs to soreness!
I shall go down and help my man make food. He's been very good writing his French essay...

11 november 2010

Jess, Urban Outfitters, Gauguin

Jess blessed us with her presence today and we went on our usual shopping mission beginning with Urban Outfitters! I bought a nice black dress, which is good, I'm been looking for dresses... Jess also bought a cute dress and Jemma invested in a pair of shoes. Continued on, walking through Covent Garden I found a pair of winter boots, which I decided to bought in the end. I did need them, so the only question was (is) bringing them home... Later problem...
Jess and Jem <3

I think you can almost tell that we
are cousins, no?

Lunch at Wahaca in Soho

Great Gauguin exhibition at Tate Modern
Jemma bought a pair of gorgeous shoes from Terra Plana, made ethically from renewable material! I'm quite happy with my shopping during this trip, I've actually only bought things I need, wellies, winter boots and two dresses... Well done I'd say.

10 november 2010

Landlord lunch, Deptford market and Greenwich

Slow morning, beautiful day...
Lulu loves her box
Promenade at the Deptford market in New Cross. Jemma found some cute wine glasses and she bought three dresses for £55 (of being a beautiful Dior dress) from "Rag n Bone" second hand shop. Worth visiting! I also bought Julia's present in here .....

Cool café in a train car
Train to Waterloo East to meet up with my new landlord at St Tomas Hospital. Lunch at a salad/sandwich bar not far from the hospital, good chat, really cool landlord, have a great feeling about this. He's a fan of "pay it back" so he wants to make it as easy and cheap as possible for us with the onyl condition that I pay it back to someone in the future. Like it! Contract nearly done and move in mid December, can't wait! He even said that I can't have a "little preparty, have a big party!". Great man.

Greenwich, Greenwich market, bought a top from Emma Nissim, made out of bamboo, ethical organic and all that =) Feel good!


Going to dance class now, interesting...

The Cove follow up

Out of the hundred dolphins that were held in the cove eight were captured for dolphinariums, two died because the trainers held them under water too long to make them more obidient and docile to handle, ending up drowning them instead... Another 40 were slaughtered and the rest were driven out of the cove... Not to worry though, there are still four more months before the season is over!
Who'd want to kill me? I'm so cute!

Oxford Street

Today I got on the flight to London town! I met Claire, an English girl, at the airport. Moved here for a Swedish boy, surprise...! Really nice girl, we ended up chatting away the entire delayed (!) flight, first time I didn't get to hear the victory song "you have arrived on yet another on-time flight, congratulations"... as if it something to brag about, should be obvious I think... 

We began our day with a much needed lunch before we headed in to Oxford Street to check out some of the big department stores, Debenhams, Selfridges and Liberty.

Giant sparkle shoe in Selfridges new shoe department
          
Liberty
Designer vintage section at Liberty's

Love her being wrapped in fabric
SHOES
Jemma tried on her first bridal dresses! 
At Selfridges, as in many places, you ahve to book an appointment and pay to try on dresses but here we were just able to waltz in and poke around among these designer dresses (on sale though). We looked and looked for the staff and when we finally found one and asked if Jem could try it on she just said yes but you have to go in to the dressing room... Well, daah? Three gorgeous dresses, one winner. The hunt is only just beginning though...
Carnaby Street
proudly holding my Liberty bag

Finally found Wellies!
I bought Wellingtons, a dress and an adapter from tie rack, who knew tie rack would stock adaptors?! I'm happy though, got my British number as well, getting into the society one piece after another. After a successful, bit expensive round we met up with Jethro (Mr Fiancé) and went to an Italian restaurant in Soho, I won't tell you which one partly because it was shit and they tried to rip us off. It is a really cheap restaurant, not really known for their amazing cooking but rather their amazing prices. We decided to splash out on a "green planet" bottle of wine for £16 but got the house wine, yet when the bill came and I had a quick look I saw they charged us for the more expensive one... Honest mistake? Don't think so...

It was a really nice day rounded up with Hazelnut baileys with swedish oboy and vanilla ice-cream in lush cocktail glasses in front of How I Met Your Mother. Does it get any better? Doubt it....

08 november 2010

100 dolphins are condemned to die!!

100 dolphins are captured and held in the Cove waiting to be slaughtered in the morning!

Voice your opinion to the Japanese embassies and let them know that you know what is happening!


Japanese Embassy, Washington D.C.: (202) 238-6700
Japanese Embassy, London, United Kingdom: +44 (0)20 7465 6500.
Japanese Embassy, Ottawa, Canada: +1 613 241 8541.
Japanese Embassy, Canberra, Australia: +61 (0)2 6273 3244.
Japanese Embassy, Pretoria, South Africa: +27 (0)12 452 1500.
Japanese Embassy, Dublin, Ireland: +353 (0)1 202 8300.
Japanese Embassy, Wellington, New Zealand: +64 (0)4 473 1540
Japanese Embassy, Stockholm, Sweden: +46 (0)8-579 353 00
Call them, your voice will be heard! Boycott Japanese produce if you want to make an even bigger impact, Japan gets tax for each product bought and some of it is used to subsidise whale hunting and dolphin slaughter!
You can also email your embassy, as long as you make your voice heard!

Change the system

Buying organic food is a luxury few of us can afford. As a student my wallet feels the burden of organic products. I prioritise eco and sustainability but it simply isn't possible to only buy organic in our society, or at least most people aren't willing to make the sacrifice and neither am I. I want to have some money left for shopping, travelling, going out with friends, to simply have fun!

Jeffrey Hollender presents an idea "How to make Organic Food Cheap", now this is not a new idea and quite obvious really but I think it needs to be emphasised. This is a quote from the interview you can find at Bigthink.com:
How I think that if you’re going to do bad stuff, if you’re going to be a farmer and use pesticides that pollute the groundwater, you should have to pay for all of those negative impacts.  And if that was the case—if traditional growers of food paid the full cost of soil erosion, water pollution, adverse health affects on their farm workers because of exposure to pesticides—something quite amazing would happen; organic food would cost half the price of what traditional food would cost.  And we wouldn’t ask consumers to make a very difficult decision, which is do the right thing, make the right choice, buy the sustainable product, but don’t get any financial benefit for making that choice
As consumers we can only do so much, it is also up to the government and companies to make choices that promote a sustainable future. I don't want pesticides in everything I eat and I think the producers should have to pay for the costs on society and inhabitants.

Wallmans, Cardinal and E-korren

Saturday offered cold, sunny weather in beautiful Helsingborg, very charming inner city from the little I've seen. Can't believe I've worked there for two months and haven't seen anything but the central station and Wallmans until now! Oh, well..
Wallmans offered many special guests among who one old man called me fat. Thanks. No, he wasn't joking, but his friend tried hard to recover from it by laughing hysterically. Really felt like spitting in their coffee but I didn't have time. Not that I would've done it if I would have.....
After a good but weird night, the staff took a well needed drink, lots of singing and dancing at The Cardinal. Going out is always better when you know the bartenders but I must admit that I still feel hung over... I stayed with Mia and Bimbo (her cat), fell asleep 7 am and took the train at 1230...

Sunday I prepared some packing for today before I went to Annika in the E-korren to chat, eat and hang out. She got home from Athens and she's been missed!
We played Bezzerwizzer with some people from the korridor and ended up going to bed way too late, no wonder I was feeling so tired at the end of it.... and didn't succeed very well with the questions...

Today I went to a subject council meeting for my programme, the coffee and sandwiches were very appreciated... Lecture on the world wars, visit to a second hand shop on the way to the bus with Annika. Who, by the way, has just got a first-hand contract on a room at Krischans nation! Woooooooh! (watched woo-girls HIMYM yesterday...) She's signing the contract tomorrow and I'll be discussing mine and Lisa's on Wednesday! Don't you just love when things just worked themselves out?

Time to finish packing and get on the train to Gothenburg...
London tomorrow!

06 november 2010

Family-time at Wallmans

Today I met up with my dad's side of the family in Helsingborg and we went to my workplace, Wallmans to enjoy the food, company and show!
I must say it was great to sit in the audience for once and not run around like crazy missing the show. I also must say to my colleagues; respect. The show was great, despite having worked there so many times I thouroughly enjoyed the show! And so did my family and their friends...
The siblings
Bedtime to get some rest before work tomorrow, wish I could just sit and enjoy the show encore....

05 november 2010

04 november 2010

The Studio

After class I met up with my dear mother, we had lunch at Njutbar when I suddenly see that the second-hand shop across the street just lit up. Now, this shop I pass constantly but it has never been open. So naturally I grabbed my coat and rushed across the street and before she'd even removed her coat I knocked and stepped in with a smile of a child on christmas... As I suspected this little vintage boutique stores a selection of little jewels. I finally, finally found a that perfect hat fit for a cat like moi! I've been on the look for so long! I also found a leather backpack, which I have also been on the hunt for.... Score! It doesn't stop there though... She has the most amazing fur jackets. I tried one and she wants 500 for, that's nothing! Well, it's a lot but for a fur coat of that quality it really is a bargain... I could probably have spent an entire day in there and still not be done.... It's a little treasure room right on my street! (Stora Nygatan, in case anyone wants to know...)
I love my old-man's hat!
At one point we simply had to get going since mum had booked time at The Studio for a photo shoot. My mum, who hates standing in front of the camera, she runs from the camera quicker than I run from spiders... But, well, one has to face ones fears at some point. (and no I am not facing any spiders...)
It all started well, we registered and yeah, that's were the "well" stopped... No place to sit. Half an hour later, two chairs are free... We sit down and I figured that I'd try to read a bit but I gave up as soon as I opened the book since half of Malmö's small-children families had decided to come and do a family photograph... Children were crawling about all over the place like little cockroaches leaving traces of cookies, sweets and drewl wherever you looked. See cockroaches you can step on and they die, children you can step on but the kid will scream loader and you have to deal with an angry mother so it's simply not worth it... As the child-loving person I am (often!) this was simply not the time and place for lots of the little creatures... It was hot and we had to wait 2 hours, 2 HOURS, to get into make-up, and that was done in less than 15 minutes... So we had to wait another hour!!! to take the actual photos... Done in 20 minutes maybe, then we had to wait 20-30 min to look at the photos! Out of the five hours experience I think we waited away four... 
Here is the result, the very expensive result.....






There actually were a lot of good photos but honestly it's not worth paying that much for simple photographs... I love having two good photos of me and mum together!

When we finally could leave the Turning Torso and The Studio we met up with Sven and had dinner at the Rosegarden not far from Gustav Adolfs Square, big buffee for 229:- loads of really good food, well worth the money! 

Time to get ready for bed,
have a good night!