rose's random rambly writings

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Ramblings!

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So, I took some time off from everything. Nice battery charger, I must say. Not very exciting, but nice and restful.
And when the nice, sunny days outnumber the rainy ones - well, that's me happy! bigsmile
So much so, I could even appreciate the beauty in a typical late-autumn foggish day in the woods after I came back to Norway...

And - other happenings through selected smilies.

yes Got a new, very much longed for and well overdue, laptop. Now, on to the other things on my list of things in the household that has pretty much their best-before-date and really should be replaced (take notes, Santa!): fridge/freezer, dishwasher, kitchen table + chairs, living room table and last, but definitely not least, bed.

zzz Speaking of bed, I can't seem to manage to sleep past nine o'clock in the weekends anymore. It's really getting ridiculous how I always wake up at almost exactly that time. Sometimes five minutes before, or ten minutes after, but almost always at nine sharp. And I don't feel well rested when I wake up either.
The girls at work tell me that it's age related and that they've had it like that for ages (which, I suppose, makes it wrong to call them girls). So, I guess it's official - I'm old. Next weekend I might try melatonin before going to bed to see if it helps (and I miraculously get younger).

bigsmile Christmas is settled. This year, it's back to Sweden to celebrate with dad. Last year was the first time ever I spent Christmas in Norway and although it was nice and all, I noticed that I really like Swedish Christmas food better.
Although I suspect it will get a bit boring on Christmas Eve, I am actually looking forward to going this year. I don't feel stressed about it, but I'm sure that will come as time comes closer.

down Speaking of Christmas, I haven't got a single present sorted yet. Last year, most of them were taken care of on the autumn vacation in Morocco but since this year's autumn trip wasn't as exciting, I didn't get anything to anybody. Oh well, I do have some ideas - at least that's something.

up Excited about getting a new colleague. Not that I'm not sad about seeing another one go, but to be completely honest - I couldn't work with her. Really like her personally, but when it comes to working... hell no! I think it'll be a whole different workday - in a good way.

cool I love how it's December in a couple of days, and I'm still wearing my autumn jacket! No snow, no frost, no ice. Not yet, anyway. People are starting to mope about how they long for snow, but I'm happy with the weather as is. Yes, it is gloomy but I think I can handle that better than heaps of snow and ice.

wizard I have a good feeling about actually being able to pick up blogging again. Although it might not exactly happen this side of New Years, I'm getting there.

But - before I do - as always there is plenty of stuff to check out on my watch list first...
See you around!

Vacappetizer

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It's been quiet from my end lately, and that's for a (good?) reason.
See, I've just returned from a mini-vaca. Nothing fancy schmancy, but a trip up to the coastal place in the mid west.
According to Google maps driving time from here to there is a bit over seven hours, but if you include stops it's fair to say that it takes a more or less a whole day. (Or at least a couple of hours extra, making a whole day go away on driving.) That's pretty boring, so this time, a stopover was planned en route.

On the way up north, the road crosses a mountain area called "Dovre". Those of you who know your Grieg will know that this is where you can find the hall of the mountain king:
Although I wasn't particularly eager to meet him, the plan was to go for a little hike in the mountain. The weather looked pretty much ok to begin with, but I packed rainwear anyway, knowing that you never know.
That's good knowledge to have, as it turned out...(The white wall there is fog, quickly heading towards us.)
But if we were to try to escape the fog, the option was climbing down here. (The grey line is a road.)Back through the fog it was then.

I had a track application running during the hike - I thought it could be fun to see the course on the map later.The green line is elevation. I was rather surprised to see it was about 150 metres stopping at an altitude of 1300 metres. (I wasn't as surprised seeing the blue line (showing my so called speed) pointing the other way.)

With hiking and outdoorsy life done, the rest of the week was spent relaxing as much as possible. The weather was up and down, but there was some really nice time that could be had outdoors.
Now it's back to work for a couple of weeks. Just enough time to work up an appetite for the next vacation... wink

I miss the statuses!

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I didn't think I would miss it, but I do.
It's not statuses in general I miss. If it was that, I could just simply log into Facebook more often and drown in them...

No, it's the lack of being able to read your MyO statuses, as well as being able to communicate my own to you I miss. I think.
Therefore, I have made a short list of what might have been statuses from me from the last weeks months.
As a bonus they almost sort of sum up some of what has been going on, or rather has not been going on, on my end lately too.

They are in no particular order (except for the last one wink).

* I'd give my left arm to play with Def Leppard.
* Weather: good. Wine: good. So is life. happy
* Why does my news icon keep telling me there are two more news items than there really is? And why can't I edit it? irked
* Celebrating Norway's national day at Oslo's geographical zero point. Turned out to be in the middle of the woods. Not many flags, bunads and marching bands here yes
* Current bugging: Excessive use of exclamation points and question marks. No matter how much you want to know, it looks stupid!!! Ok??? (Exception: full stops can be used no limit...)
* :martini:
* Me? Participating in the world's largest relay race? Ummm... left
* Stupid zombifying medicine! knockout
* I want a house.
* Some days will be hell and others will be heaven // still, in a week there always will be seven.
* Gah! Pollen is coming! ACHOOO!
* Long weekend is here. I am not. #travel

Ahhhh! It really felt good getting all those trapped statuses out!
Try it yourselves! wink

Delegating music

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Three days.
A couple of hundred artists plus other acts.
Loads of venues.
One pass.
Time to head out and see what the music business has to offer in 2011! headbang

Vacation (part three)

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Ok, so it is a bit late to post this, but I wanted to show you a tiny part of the last part of my summer vacation.
For my last week of summer vacation, I went up to the mid-western coast of Norway. The weather was surprisingly okay (you can never know in this country!) and made for some nice hikes up the mountains.
As this was in August, it was cloudberry season. Or actually, I suppose it was in the end of cloudberry season. Not sure what cloudberry is? I'm not surprised, as it's a very choosy berry when it comes to where it wants to grow. It only grows in the northern hemisphere, and also here it's very scarce. The favourite places for a cloudberry are bogs (oh ha ha!) and meadows and acidic grounds. Dryness is not for the cloudberry.
Thanks to this, it's considered almost a delicacy here.

So... anyway. It was late in the season, and most cloudberries had most likely been picked by fanatics, but during one of the mountain hikes I struck gold:Left: It isn't always easy seeing a single cloudberry in the terrain.
Right: A nice and ripe cloudberry.
And that was only the first. The meadow hid quite a few of these little ones, and I ended up with about half a litre. That's not much, but it's the most I've ever picked. p

Now, to be completely honest, I'm not particulary fond of cloudberries. I like my berries sweet, and cloudberries can be tart. However, this year it will be the first time ever I'm going to spend Christmas in Norway and tradition is to eat cloudberry cream with own picked berries for dessert, so it will be nice to actually be able to contribute with something bigsmile.

Anyway - this then concludes my summer vacation 2010!

*tap tap* Is this thing on?

I owe you an explanation! I'm not expecting everybody to understand or condone, but I want to give you a glimpse into my last month-and-a-half.
First... when I got back from Dublin, I had completely forgotten that we were having a whole big bunch of colleagues over from Denmark. Since I was one of the hosts, the following days were hectic and long.
There's also been a crisis in my family. It's still not over by far, but things are looking much brighter now.
To top all things off, I've had problems with my computer, as well as with the internet connection.
Ah - and the cherry on the cake? Problems with My Opera. A few weeks ago (give or take) I got in and wrote a post explaining stuff. Only I realized it wasn't published, or even saved... (the status I wrote, however, was...)
Following a couple of unlucky attempts to log on I didn't try again for a week or two, and then - success! However, I wanted to be able to be online for a while when I first came on here so I decided to wait.
And then - more work: We had a huge deadline on Friday and to be quite honest - the computer was the last thing I wanted to use when I got home from work on the weeks leading up to said deadline. And I know it sounds like a cliché, but I can't for the life of me figure out where these weeks went!Oh, I'm not liking the new feature on the watch list - you know the one that only shows 25 posts per page or something like that. I now have 5 pages and over 200 news items to go through. And the order of the posts seems to go completely bananas after 200 items...
Needless to say, I'm not going to manage to get through them before my next vacation (which is in a week's time). Also, I'm tired of always being behind, so I've decided to start getting through the newest posts first and, when time is willing, I'll work my way back.
If there's something you want me to see among your posts, please let me know.

And last, but definitely not least, I want to send out some special love to Kitty. Thank you! It really warmed my heart! heart

Now I have a little time to kill (thanks to being back on standard time I feel I've won an hour!) so I better get on with some posts then!

Thanks for reading, guys!

*uncrosses fingers, hoping this will be saved*

Vacation (part one)

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Take my hand and join me on the first part of a short three week tour...

For the first part of my vacation, I went to Italy. More specifically to the north western coast - also known as Versilia or the Tuscan riviera.
I knew beforehand that there wasn't very much to do in the tiny little town I stayed in, but there are lot of things to see nearby. The weather forecast had said rain, thunderstorms and generally not so good weather, so I was prepared to go on several outings to the Tuscan countryside and other places worth visiting during these ten days.
However, the forecast were about as off as possible (with the exception of one day) yes, and the weather was hot and sunny. Not much else to do then than to laze around and maybe hang around the beach, looking at the beautiful back drop of the Apuan Alps...Oh, do you see the white on the mountains? That's not snow, but marble!

On a small place like this, where everything closes at around midnight (when you've just finished dinner or a digestive bigsmile), it's easy to get a little bit bored. Or no... bored isn't the right word. But maybe you find your eyes beginning to wander around and you start noticing little things around you...
Anyway. One night at dinner, I noticed a strange looking ornamented flower pot. Have a closer look and tell me what you see left
I lived about a 15-20 minutes walk from the town centre. Italy isn't exactly famous for its sidewalks - especially not in small places like this one.
Getting to the centre could be a bit hazardous - especially during the evening when it was darker outside. However, that wasn't the only dangerous thing on the way... At least so it seemed.
Here's a sign I passed a few times every day:It says: "Watch out for the dog. And the master." lol
And just around the corner from the trigger happy patron, I saw something that must have been a bullet hole in a mirror bigeyes:Uh-oh... Maybe time to move on!

To be continued... wink

Merhaba!

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Hey guys! happy

Boy, one week flies when you're having fun. I've had a really interesting, fun and relaxing vacation but - as always - way too short.
Here's a couple of things I've experienced:
* Visited Petra. I have a lot of superlatives about this, but I think it requires a post of its own.
* Had an outing in the Wadi Rum desert where I visited a bedouin camp. cool
* Was asked to dance (belly dancing) by a bedouin in said camp.
* Also got a traditional dinner consisting of lamb that's been buried in the sand for three hours at this camp.
* Last Friday marked the beginning of Eid Al Adha. This turned the hotel from being a rather silent place to absolutely simmer with life.
* Speaking of which - this is the only hotel I've stayed at that's actually given me presents. On Friday, there was a box of cookies and a gift bag with incense sticks and an incense holder. Although I'm not a big fan of incense, I loved the gesture. And the cookies! bigsmile
* I also got to keep the slippers!
* I'll never get used to people calling me Ma'am.
* I bathed in the Red Sea - the saltiest body of water I've ever bathed in. I felt like a cork. Of course, I didn't go to the north of Jordan so I never got to swim in the Dead Sea. Next time... wink
* I could see three countries from my hotel balcony: Jordan, Egypt and Israel.
* I saw the world's second largest free standing flag pole. Heh. I've been too lazy to google where the largest one is.
* Insect bites! I stopped counting when I got close to 50. From the knees down. faint

A brief scrolling through the watch list shows there's been some activity here too! wink
Right now I'm preparing for a two-day work seminar in a castle in Scania (plane leaves tomorrow at 7. Yes, in the morning! knockout ) and later in the week there's a Christmas party but bear with me, and I'll get through this watch list sooner or later!
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Ramblings!

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up WOOO! up
* 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... o) 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:

down BOOO! down
* 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...
party 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 wink. I hope you had a grand day!
yikes 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...
bigsmile 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.
awww 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 heart to you! I hope you have a great weekend!

Mission accomplished!

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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 sad.
I couldn't find it in the cache either, so I had to write the whole thing over again doh
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... wink

During the next couple of weeks I...
  • ...got a chafe from a pair of my flip flops! bigeyes 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... wink
  • ...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 yuck. 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 scared!
  • ...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 happy.
  • ...bathed many times in the ocean. Funny waves bigsmile.
  • ...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 faint.
  • ...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 rolleyes ) 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: happy.

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 awww.
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 bigsmile.

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