stoff
Ullared is a very very small town in south of sweden known for one thing – “Gekas”, a huge outlet with very cheap prices on alot of stuff. I never heard about it until my girlfriend asked if I wanted to tag along when her mother, brother & his wife were going. “I guess…”. I didn’t know why considering we live just next door to an outlet that makes that place look like an anthill. But off we we went! At the very least I’d get a good road trip!!
So on saturday morning at 2 am (!!) we got into a rented car and drove 5 hours there to find a queue of around 100m. At 7 am!! And so the opened, we did our shopping and it wasn’t that good prices, except on jeans (but I’m waiting to find out what quality you get for that amount!). We checked out at a bit after 10 after paying $300 for stuff we never needed (and the others paid even more) and had a quick burger at BK and then I saw the queue that was well over 500-600 meters! It was huge!! And for what?? It’d take hours for the people in the back to queue there, and it wasn’t that cheap!?!? And then we drove home.
And I still don’t know why? I like road trips but if I’m gonna spend 16 hours in a car (3 hours to her brothers place and 5 hour down, and then the return trip) it’d better be worth it! And this wasn’t. But it was a good laugh and if it’s one of those things you have to do as a swede, I can now check that box.
Seems like the past 2 weeks have been total terrible for the global economy ever since a bank fucked up in the states and everything comes crashing down because everyone seems to think everything is crashing down. I love the psychology behind stuff like that, how it seems everyone is just reacting on doomsday analysis.
And unfortunately this time it is affecting me since me and my girlfriend were starting to look at houses but it seems getting a loan will be the tricky part today so we’ll just put that on hold for a while. We shouldn’t be complaining in our little corner of the galaxy, we’re happy as long as we have each other 🙂
Yesterday I was going about my daily life at my new home when for no good reason at all Helena threw me out. I was a big box of question marks but I drove to my old home a sad panda and called her and she answered the phone with “hey, wanna come watch a movie?” “.. huh?” “Oh it’s you..” CLICK!.. Me very sad panda. So I log onto my computer and start to write a sad blog entry when I say to myself “hell no, this can’t be happening! this must be a dream! I better wake tha hell up!!”… and I did.. and rolled over and held her tighter than I’ve ever done before!!
I hate dreams…
We had a few IT issues with our Brussels office a few weeks ago which proved just how much we’ve neglected that office so we decided to go down here and check it out. I’m here with a collegue from our Malmö office. As you may remember I was here about 5 years ago too (yeah, it’s neem THAT long!!) but it hasn’t changed much. The Vinge office is in the exact same building as the embassy so I’m familiar with the area and where to eat 🙂
What was interesting was the little 7-eleven like store in the “Sweden”-building (it’s called that because of all swedish business having their offices there + the embassy) and they had made it “their thing” and offer a whole shelf of swedish products, like “Dill-chips”, skumbilar, Stockholm-beer and stuff. Pretty funny stuff to see in Belgium.
Gonna be doing alot of cleaning in the server room and last minute “anything IT related I can help you with?”-questions to the staff before we go home at around 17.
I miss travelling, staying in hotels and eating at restaurants all the time. But then I also miss my girlfriend.
My and Helena went out with a couple she knows and we went to the movies, since all of us enjoy a good movie. But since we’re not entirely synced what everyone has seen it was decided we’d see Wall-e since noone had seen that. I went in with almost no expectations…
… but it was the best goddamn film of the year!! At some points I was laughing so hard I cried, it was hilarious! And “sweet” in a very cute way!!
What I found most fascinating, and this is my friend Ricki’s fault!, was how very little was said in ways of verbally but how incredible the communication was with body language and tone .. and they were robots!!!
It was awesome, go see it!
We celebrated 6 months yesterday me and my Helena. I think that’s a record for me.. but everything is going so good now, even better after our trip to Gothenburg!! We’re just all kinds of cute and cuddly right now…
And then Warhammer Online comes along and risk driving in a wedge between us 🙁
What a lovely day 🙂 And what a kick ass weekend I’ve had! Me and my girlfriend Helena packed the car on friday to drive down to Gothenburg (6 hour drive!) on saturday morning to meet her brother, his wife and their son for a weekend of Liseberg, zoo, botanical gardens, shopping and eating. Things got off terrible with my alarm not working, switching cars but we made it down there at noon and we started off with lunch at a steakhouse. Then off to Universeum, which is like a small little zoo next to the theme park Liseberg which was just perfect cause then we spent hours there and by the evening Helena didn’t feel that great so we went back to the hotel. Then on sunday we went to the Botanical Garden where we just hanged out for a while and enjoyed some coffee and then into the car and back hom, stopping by Gränna which is a really small little village famous for their candycanes and arrived home on sunday evening when we went out… jogging! (seriously)
Awesome!!! And this week looks like it’s gonna be awesome too!.. life is good!!
Pictures are here, but you will need to login. Username is “guest” in swedish and password… well that shouldn’t be too hard to the people that know me 🙂
Still enjoying the good times here. It’s all good. So good that I forget about this place sometimes. Over the summer I’ve been working mostly with the occasional break for sci-fi convention and a 24h cruise with my sisters & brother and last monday me and my girlfriend woke up and after stating we had nothing what so ever to do that day we got in the car and drove 2 1/2 hours to Söderköping to enjoy the icecreams at Smultronstället. Absolutely awesome icecream!! Well worth the drive let me tell you!!
Click here for pics.
Took one more step to adulthood the other day. We went passed Ikea and just said “lets buy a bed”. And so we did. Even had to hire a car to load everything in from the gas station. Almost made me feel like a grownup. Except grownups wouldn’t have decided to buy a bed for $2000 right there and then like we did 🙂
Since summer 2005 World of Warcraft have been a big part of my life, for almost one year it basically was my life. Doing big raids with 25-40 people that lasted whole nights was something I did every day. It’s hard, if not impossible, to explain to people who hasn’t been that into a game like this how fun it was, they just think you’re nuts. Then I met my Helena and ofcourse everything changed and I pretty much stopped playing for over 3 months. Then I started playing a bit when I wasn’t with her and it was great. But now that we’re living together I don’t have that time by myself and the other day I had to say “I can’t cuddle up with you in the sofa and watch this silly romantic movie, the boys need me in Warcraft” and I really felt how hard I fell from grace in her view. She was so disappointed. And I was disappointed too. But it’s fun, I’m good at it and I only get to play with my friends that often. Ofcourse I would always chose her above a computer game but I’m trying to have both and she’s awesome for not making me choose. Totally love her 🙂
This saturday I did something I’ve never done before. I officially moved in with my girlfriend to her place north of stockholm! It’s nothing definite, I still have my old apartment in working condition so I can always do a rollback on this if it doesn’t work out but so far it’s going really well 🙂 Had someone said in february that I’d meet a woman and move in with her within 6 months they’d been crazy all over! But here I am. And loving it!
Yesterday I saw a movie that got me.. emotional. In many ways. It was called “Sharkwater” (IMDB link) and was a documentary about sharks, but not in the average way. It began by dismissing all myths about sharks being evil and human-eating killing machines and did a pretty good job of that. Then it went on about the food chain in the ocean and spent a large portion of the movie dealing with illegal shark fishing for the fins going to the asian market. It got me pretty damn pissed off seeing it. I’m not the most environmentally friendly person and even though I make a few contributions to Greenpeace but I’m not that into it. But I still got pissed at it. If we won’t stop simply for the humanitarian reason of dismembering sharks and throwing them back into the ocean then do it for the very environmental reason of them being so vital for the oxygen production in the oceans! Never knew this was such a big thing and I really don’t know if I should take everything in this movie at face value but it still got me going.
But it was all done with some incredible underwater footage that was just awesome!! Go see it!!
For years now I’ve been driving by a place called Flottsbro without bothering to really check it out but this saturday me and Helena decided to check it out. We packed a Subway lunch and headed off! The weather was ok at first but got a bit cold so we couldn’t do all the activities they had there but we played some crazy golf and just walked around enjoying the scenary and having our lunch on a small pier. As usual when we’re together – a kick ass weekend! And if you wanna see some cute pictures, go here!
I guess I forgot all about this place again! Everythings been so hectic recently, have had a full schedule for weeks now. Not that I’m complaining really. But me and my Helena are getting along nicely, I’d think that by now we’d start to see the bad sides of each other and just say “maybe this wasn’t meant to be”. But we’re not, and it is! Seriously, everytime I’m around her everything else just goes away and I can’t think straight. Love it! 🙂
And two weeks ago we went to see her brother and his family, what a crazy hilarious bunch that was. Loved that too.
And now I’m loving being on vacation, having time to catch up on movies, tv series and gaming. Unfortunately I peaked 98 kilos two weeks ago so I went out and bought me a copy of Civilization : Revolution for the Playstation3 and got up on my bike again. Down to 94 again but I really should try to get below 90 for the first time since my teens.
Not much to report right now. Things are going on nicely at work and I’m falling more and more in love with my Helena! The only one little thing is I’m wondering where tha hell all my free time went!? When I could play Warcraft 6 hours per day, when I could lame about or have a Star Wars marathon!? Right now I don’t know when I’m gonna have time to ever to the raids that I used to do in Warcraft or stuff like that. But I’m not complaining, not at all! ‘Cause I’m crazy in love! 🙂
Think I may just have had the greatest weekend of my life. It was just awesome! Had the party animal in me been in charge I would have gone to a party on friday and although that may have been fun it would have ruined so much more! I still remember a birthday a few years ago when I was so hungover it was embarrassing. So friday we had a BBQ premiere on my balcony (after checking up I was actually allowed to!), and on saturday we went home to my parents for some stuff and alot of birthday cakes and then back to my place for even more BBQ and on sunday it was time for the Eurocup warmer sweden vs. Ukraine that I went to see live thanks to my sister and then fell asleep holding the woman I love and even better – woke up when she served me breakfast in bed. Thankfully I didn’t have to be at work until 12!!
Thanks everyone for making that weekend the weekend to remember! And happy birthday me!
One of the coolest jobs in Sweden has got to be person planning state visits in Stockholm. Right now we have an international delegation here in Stockholm, spearheaded by Condoleezza Rize, to talk about the Iraq issues (as if there’s any new issue there, it’s getting really old!). And how cool is it to sit in a comfy office chair with a layouot of greater Stockholm and plan what parts of the town to shut down, what roads to block, how many hundreds of police to put where! It’s gotta be great cause no matter what, everyone, and I do mean everyone (short of the military) just falls in line and do whatever you can come up with! Even the thousands (and I was there so take my word for it, it was thousands!) of people stuck in the morning rushhour traffic when they blocked off a few blocks in Stockholm city because their motorcades where leaving, and we all just put up with it!! And they even opened up the emergency roads that are suppose to be used for ambulances, police and firedepartment, not a problem! That one day I had decided to take the car to work cause I was going to Ikea straight after and it took me 2 1/2 hours to get to work when it usually takes me 1/2 hour.
That has got to be the coolest job! Just saying “let’s block off Klaraberg at 7-9 am” and noone there to tell you “dude, that’s gotta be shit for thousands of people driving to work!” or “technically that road is only for code 3 response vehicles…”
Everyone who’s know me long enough knows that I can’t keep a relationship going for more than a few months. But this is quite something, I can’t seem to go wrong in this one! No matter what I’ve done so far, even those times when my mouth keeps talking and my brain yells “shut up!” she just smiles and says she loves me. So now I’m trying to get comfortable in this relationship cause it’s gonna be a while I hope! ‘Cause yesterday was weird. For the first time in ages I was home alone and it felt great, I could finally catch up on this and that, great!, then she texts me and asks if she can come over. Initial feeling was “so much for that evening of looking after number 1” but when she actually got there it was like there was no other place I’d rather be, no other thing I’d rather do than to lie there in my couch watching the Eurovision song contest qualifying holding her. And this morning was really sucky when I had to get up to work and here I am and the only thing I can think of is that I have the most amazing woman ever waiting at home for me!… I don’t wanna work…
As most people understood yesterday’s little post was an internal joke, I really don’t mind those teacups even if I have no idea how to play teaparty, I must’ve missed that bit of my childhood. But it feels pretty good that we have now reached the point where it’s no longer “me and you”, it’s “us”! I like that.
My girlfriend really needs to grow up of that little bubble she lives in ’cause if she pulls out that tea set with those cute flowery teacups again I’m going bananas, enough is enough! I really do feel too old to play teaparty, jesus H christ woman, get some friends to do that for you cause I can’t take it!!