rose's random rambly writings

WOOO!
* I finally got me a new phone. After having had my SE Z610i for well over two years, it was time to let it have its well deserved retirement. So - I got a HTC Hero and man! is it a world of difference! (Yes yes, feel free to laugh at me! I never knew how smart smartphones really were... ) I love it, and I've only just begun discovering it!

* I have a ton of work these days. The WOOO part is that some of it is very fun and challenging. I like that... makes it feel less stressful. The fun part involves things I've never done before which makes the challenging part. On Monday I'm going to present a bit of my labour - keep your fingers crossed!

* Coffee moccha is one of the greatest inventions of all time. I love living 50 metres from the closest coffee bar (and around 70 metres to the second closest)!

* I have Swedish dill and chive crisps! :yum:

BOOO!
* I got the mother of all paper cuts yesterday. It stretches over almost half my left middle finger and IT HURTS! It was actually cut by some of the documents I've prepared for the Monday presentation so now I have both sweated and bled over it. Let's hope there won't be tears! *knocks on wood*

* The weather we're having is really depressing. I'm so eletrical I keep getting shocks when I touch metal. Also, my lips feel like sandpaper again a couple of minutes after I've moistured them.

* A downside to the presentation on Monday is that I have to catch a flight early in the morning which means I have to get up über early. It has kind of ruined the weekend for me, as I keep thinking on how early I have to get up.

The last few days in other smilies...
It was Mik's birthday on Thursday. I missed it here, but I've had "Happy Birthday Stubbles" as my status for three days so I hope that makes up for it . I hope you had a grand day!
While walking off the tracks in the woods on Saturday, it very quickly went dark. Lighting the way with a small flashlight, there suddenly was a loud growl 5-6 metres to the right. I stopped and my first thought was wolf. Another growl, and the flashlight was turned towards the sound. Two eyes were flashing back and I thought that it probably was time to pick up the pace and head towards the trail (which wasn't far away now). But then - a small little brown head materialized between to tree trunks. A little brown dog head. Although it didn't growl more, it didn't seem to want to be disturbed so we left it there. I wonder if it was a wild dog or if it was just lost so close to the trail...
A week ago it was the big cinema day in Norway. I don't go to the cinema very often, but tickets to half price and free candy managed to drag me out.
This last week has been all about Berlin in the media. For those of you who have missed it, on Monday it was 20 years ago they teared down the wall. Seeing all the reports, happy people and documentaries had me longing back there. Ich bin ein Berliner!

Last but not least - a big to you! I hope you have a great weekend!

John Cleese has divorced (again).
Normally, there's nothing funny about divorces, but this one is going to cost Cleese $20 million. That's still not funny. At least not to him. The rest of us, however, can get some really entertaining moments out of it. You see, Cleese has decided to raise some money by going tour and, in his own words: raise a few thousand there and a few hundred here.

The world premiere of the "John Cleese - How To Finance Your Divorce Tour" took place in Oslo on October 2nd. Afterwards he went on to visit some other Norwegian cities, before returning to Oslo for a second performance on October 10th.

I'm not going to call myself the world's biggest Monty Python fan, or John Cleese fan, but I do love some of the stuff he's done.
I've seen him here once before, but that was a lecture on creativity. Having heard that this tour was supposed to be something completely different (*snicker*), I decided to go and see the show.

After having done the expected bitter bit about his ex-wife, he went on telling anecdotes from both his personal- and professional life, supplemented by pictures and video clips. He even got to show some rare footage, which apparently was wiped from the tapes at BBC but found again by a Swede, from pre-Python years.

At the end of the two-and-a-half-hour show (including a 20 minute intermission) Cleese invited the audience to ask him questions. And none of those California kiss-ass questions as he so gently put it. No, he wanted som rude and unexpected questions. A couple of people even got to go up to him on the stage. I think that shows a man in touch with his audience. A man who might only do the show to raise enough money to pay off his ex-wife, but also a man who seemingly enjoys meeting and interacting with fans.

So... If you do enjoy the humour of John Cleese, and he's touring near you, I can really recommend a visit. My cheeks (yes, the ones in my face) really hurt from laughing when I left .

...on a Friday.
Waffles are huge in Norway. I don't mean they're physically huge (although you might get that impression from the picture below), but a lot of people enjoy them and I don't think I've met somebody who can't make waffles.
I remember the waffles I had as a kid... We didn't have them very often, but when we did, I would only powder them with cinnamon and some sugar :yum:.
Nowadays, when we're blessed with waffles at work every Thursday, but no cinnamon, I've had to re-think my topping which has resulted in a small amount of strawberry jam crowning them.

Many Norwegians, however, put all kinds of different things on their waffles. Extra butter, sour cream and brown cheese are probably the most common things.
I have a colleague who enjoys mixing all that together.
Here's the waffle she had yesterday:On the top two hearts theres a touch of sour cream on a bed of strawberry jam. On the bottom two hearts there's brown cheese covering some more strawberry jam.

So... Do you eat waffles often? And what do you have on yours?

As I have mentioned before, I saw lots of things on my latest vacation that reminded me of my good friends here on My Opera.
Some of the times I saw such things, I was lucky enough to have my camera or mobile with me so I was able to document them. Now I thought I'd share some of them with you.
A beautiful flower alone among weed. A mountain of five litre Nutella jars. A basket full of Spongebob-, Hello Kitty-, Pucca- and Emily purses.

A bag containing something that translates to cat's tongue. A demon of some sort, carved in stone. An old drum.

A werewolf. A musical booth selling LPs in a nightly market. A Powerpuff girls backpack in a nice, brown colour.

And these were only the things I was able to photograph!
So you see - although you weren't with me physically - you certainly were with me in my mind!

Here's my second attempt to post this.
When I had posted this earlier, I noticed there were four instances of the post saved. Believing that the one on the top would be the last, most updated, one I deleted the other three. Of course, the ready, published post wasn't on the top and so it was deleted .
I couldn't find it in the cache either, so I had to write the whole thing over again
Here goes...

First of all, I must admit I wasn't very sorry for leaving this country.
This is the view from the airport as I was waiting to board the aircraft on what should have been a nice, sunny summer day in July:
However, my mood switched swiftly as I set foot in Rimini in that boot shaped country further south in Europe. As I landed in the evening, I decided to postpone the martini search and decided to go out and have a drink instead...

During the next couple of weeks I...

• ...got a chafe from a pair of my flip flops! I didn't even know that was possible!
  
• ...took a bus to the world's oldest sovereign state. Extra bonus points to the whoever can guess which one that is...
  
• ...was amazed over the number of items with pictures of despots sold in said state. I mean, selling wine and beer with pictures of Hitler, Lenin, Che, Mao... not to mention all the items with Mussolini and some of his catch phrases. That's just not a gimmick anymore . If anybody has an idea what that's all about, please let me know as I'm really wondering.
  
• ...slept on what shall only be know as the concrete slab hereafter. I woke up every night, numb on the side I was sleeping on. One night I woke up on my back, having lost all feeling in both my hands !
  
• ...switched stupid concrete slab to a one-room suite in a really cool design hotel in the old part of the city. I slept like a baby there .
  
• ...bathed many times in the ocean. Funny waves .
  
• ...once again had to realize that my school Italian isn't good enough for longer conversations, but it does make it a little easier to be understood.
  
• ...saw lots of people riding on electrical bicycles and now I want one too!
  
• ...wondered whether there were more doves or Russians there.
  
• ...stumbled upon a market in the city one night. It was pretty cool - like a flea market mixed with arts&crafts. Among other things, I noticed there was a booth selling furs. It was 28° out and I wondered who on earth would want to buy a fur. Especially on a hot midnight in August .
  
• ...took a train to Ravenna - once the capital in the Western Roman Empire. This was the one day it rained, but it was still a nice day with lots of walking around/sightseeing.
  
• ...ate lots of heavenly ice cream!

These things didn't make me less observant, though. Keeping my eyes open made me find a poster of a Martini circus that was coming to town (unfortunately I didn't manage to take a picture of it), Martini bicycles and Fiat Sartinis (obviously a bad mis-spelling ) among other things.
But lo and behold! Searching does pay off, and on the last night I finally found it!I rewarded myself with an appletini :yum: .

Of course, all things must come to an end and when I got back... well... it sort of felt like the circle was closed. Weather wise, that is .
There really isn't much to say about the second part of my vacation. It rained the whole time, and the most exciting thing that happened was when a couple of deer ran out in front of the car while driving on a narrow mountain road on a dark, rainy night.

In a way it's good to be back, though. I missed you and I'm eager to see what you've been up to .