Iceland, planes, and friends

Sleep is good. I love sleep. I love sleep almost as much as I love not missing planes.

There was one thing I was craving last night, and that was sleep. I flew to Iceland on Wednesday for work, and had two fairly long and busy days – busy with customers during the day and then catching up on emails and working on a few documents in the evenings (along with the mandatory few beers with my colleague).

I must be getting old, because a couple of beers along with slightly late nights have left me feeling slightly zombie like during the days. I admit it though, I usually start reading when I know I should be sleeping, so there's only one person to blame, and I don't think I can blame them pesky kids because I don't have any.

It's always nice to go to Iceland, and this time was no exception. Although it's still winter, I was greeted by a beautiful sunny day with white puffy snow everywhere – not even diminishing over the next three days into the usual grimy, sandy, half-melted ice-snow that I am used to. Nope, the weather stayed that way for the entire time I was in Iceland. I really needed to see the sun and blue skies.

Even better yet was the chance to meet so many of my friends. Life is hard in Stockholm right now for me, there's a severe drought of familiar friends + cafes. Work is fine, and keeps my mind busy enough, but like most people I know, having some friends around is always a blessing.

I got to meet and spend plenty of time with lots of my favourite people , so despite being tired a lot of the time I was quite happy J. Cheers all you fullas!

Right now I'm sitting on the plane back to Stockholm after a small mishap at the airport in Oslo. I almost missed my connecting flight – completely unbeknownst to me we were late from Reykjavik.

I see an International "this way" sign, and a Domestic "this way" sign. I see a lot of people going the domestic way.

"Is travelling between Norway and Sweden considered international or domestic?" I think naively, they all sound the same to me..

So I walk into the International security pass (seems stupid to have to do that again for a connecting flight), and 3 people with absolutely nothing to do look at me like I have something on my face.

"Err.. I need to get to Stockholm?" I say, at the same time as I glance at the board and see that the gate is closing for a Stockholm flight (not sure if it was mine at that point).

"Sure, put your stuff on the conveyer belt. You better hurry I think they are about to leave".

"Crap! What do I do!?"

"You had better run.." – replied one of them, with, I might add of all things, a smirk

What's a man to do? RUN! As I started running, I heard one of them call out after me:

"Run Forest, Run!"

Thanks a bloody lot you mean bastard! Anyway. I managed to get to my gate, which was already shut, but the lovely lady was waiting for me. She said that she had been waiting for me for… quite some time now, Mr. Ander… Smith. I was by far the last one on the plane, and as I walked on I could see everybody looking at me. You kept us waiting you a-hole, they were saying with their "hitting me with laser beams, frickin laser beams" eyes.

So I slunk to my seat, hurriedly put everything away, gave a few apologetic looks to the ones that were still shooting me with their 'friggin laser beam eyes, and sat down with a few gallons of adrenaline pumping through my veins. At about that time I realised I should check that I had all of my stuff, and thank 'friggin somebody, it was still all with me.

Home alone tonight, yippee. And yet another week of travel coming. Yippee. /sarcasm.

This post has been brought to you by the words "'friggin", "yippee", "Forest Gump", and "bastard".

fat women are not allowed to drink alcohol in Sweden

So, I was out at a restaurant the other night with Kat. I was drinking a beer, and I noticed a piece of highly provocative instruction.

We are, after all, in the land of rules and regulations, be they social or law. I thought I should bring this shocking news to the world:


Yes, that's right. A symbol obviously proclaiming that fat women should not drink beer.

;-).

EDIT: BAH, the karma police just got me. I thought I was going to go and get some beer for tonight but it appears that the afore-mentioned rules and regulations have thwarted me yet again (can't buy alcohol on Saturdays after 3 or some such bollocks). GRRR.

The ultimate public transport

I finally did it. I went out there, and I bought myself a brand spanking new bicycle. It's blue, although I wasn't too sure about the colour, it seems alright.

It has 5 gears, a push back peddle brake, wheel guards/flaps, a carry tray, and a front brake :P.

There's nothing too special about it, except that it's the first bike I have bought since.. well, ever! I always had bikes given to me as they were modus operandi ruralis where I grew up (read: my parents couldn't be assed driving me around all the time), and were integral to getting to school.

I've used it a grand total of three times now, once to cycle home from where I bought it, whereupon a snow storm decided to start JUST after I bought it. I had a huge mission getting home, being a complete retard doesn't help at the best of times, but this time was even worse as I got lost and even went in circles several times. Just like in the movies, I actually wound up right back at the place I started at. I blame the snow. An hour and a half later I managed to make it home, with my frozen ice cube feet stuck to the peddles.

So anyway, here's a map (may or may not be exaggerated), showing my path home (click to see the comments):


Taking it to work today was cool. No people to dodge, just cars. It's also much faster albeit colder than the bus/train, and felt like good exercise.

Oh, and you have to have one of these to deal with the pesky pedestrians!



:)

don't forget your keys

Funny how the simple things can make you feel like somebody downtrowed you in front of a large crowd, all focused on you.

The Honey Badger (HB) - currently in Karlstad. In the Honey Badger's possession: 1 security key for the Honey Badger Den (HBD).

The Dumb Ass (DA) - currently in a hotel room in Stockholm. Not in the DA's possesssion: 1 security key for the HBD.

Approximate cost for being a DA: 1 night in a hotel room, 1.5 wasted hours freezing said DA's ass off calling locksmiths (the security lock would need to be drilled out and replaced for a cost of approx 450 euros), 1 healthy dose of embarassment and stress wondering if the security key will make it via courier to Stockholm tomorrow so that the DA can get into the HBD.

The words "OMG" were physically emitted several times upon realising that the security key was not on the DA's keyring.

DA.