First day in Norway is coming to an end

Sitting in my hotel room at the moment after a nice dinner at an Indian restaurant, "The jewel of India" I think it was called. The big boss brought us all out for dinner this evening and we got a mix of dishes, everything tasted declicious. I'm so full now and have a bit of a stomach ache, I was so hungry by the time we got the food so my stomach got a bit of a shock.

Staying at Rica Victoria hotel which is located in the city centre. Had to log on this evening since I'm month end responsible and need to check that all our orders have gone through and been invoiced. The internet connection is extremely slow so I wonder if I'll be able to do everything on time, we'll see.

Norway next

My bag is packed, I've just had a shower and a taxi has been ordered for tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I'm heading to Oslo, Norway. It has been a while since I was there. Lena and the gang flew over this morning and now it's time for me to join them. We're gonna work, work, work but I'm looking forward to it. Projects and UAT testing can be a lot of fun.

Have a knot in my stomach right now, I've dreaded this Monday for a long time. Was hoping to be able to agree on something tonight but didn't quite manage so don't know what's gonna happen. It's like a rollercoaster ride. I'm scared. I'm sad. I'm confused.

Mosquitos

Argggh all these mosquito bites are killing me, the f*cking mosquitos got me last night!! Better go to bed soon since I'm up at 6:45 tomorrow morning to do the laundry from 7-10. I'm wrecked from last night as well. On Tuesday morning I'm heading to Norway with work and there's gonna be a lot to do while we're over there so I need to charge my batteries big time.

Fantastic wedding

What a fantastic wedding yesterday! The sun was shining, everybody was happy, the wedding couple looked absolutely stunning, lovely people, fantastic dinner, nice views, memorable speeches and a lot of dancing. Everything went really well and I couldn't be happier for the newlyweds. Big congratulations to you both, you're made for each other!

On my way to Åland

Right now I'm sitting in the car, my parents and I are on our way to Åland. The ferry is leaving at 8pm from Kapellskär. Packed all my stuff in a hurry today at lunch time, so I don't have a clue if I have everything with me that I need. Actually, just realised that I forgot my hair curler - shit! :(

Tomorrow it's time for the wedding of Lisa and Kim and it looks like it's gonna be nice weather. I'm really looking forward to it now and can't wait to see them becoming husband and wife, they're just the perfect match!

Had the weirdest night last night. I'm still trying to find a way to deal with it all and I don't think I've ever experienced such a mix of feelings/emotions..

Lady Antebellum - Need You Now

Agree with Linda Andersson - this is a fantastic song! :)

Finally home after a long day

In the past few weeks I have arrived into work at around 9:30 every single day. I've decided that this needs to change so today I got into work at around 8:10, woohoo! Have been sitting in a meeting room all day working with loads of different files and trying to get everything organised for the testing that starts next week. We'll be in Norway doing the UAT testing, haven't been to Oslo since last year so I'm really looking forward to it!

Walked to Solna Centrum after work and Lena kept me company along the way since she was walking home to her place. She was gonna meet somebody from Expert, the company that she has had issues with for the past few weeks regarding her new microwave, fridge and freezer. Lena, I hope that everything will get sorted very soon :) At Solna Centrum I went to Systembolaget to get a few bottles of red wine since I had none left at home.

Sitting in the couch now and I need to start making this soup that I mentioned yesterday. Later on SYTYCD is on so I'm gonna watch that before I go to bed (the bad thing is that it is on quite late so let's see when I get up tomorrow morning ;)) Also need to pay my bills and stuff so I better get going!

ps. Lorraine - my dear CHUNKY BUTT - emailed me today and I was so happy to hear from her!! We're so bad at keeping in touch these days.. ds.

Tired car

Went to bed quite early last night so I woke up at 6:30 this morning feeling fine :) My brother had promised me to come and have a look at my car, it has been at Maria's for the past month since it didn't start one day in the middle of July. I had driven it several times that day and then we headed into town so I parked it where Maria lives. When we came back from town it was just totally dead :( Went back the next day to try it again but no luck then either. Since I've been on holidays I haven't really had the time to have a look at it properly but today we decided to give it a go.

Jens and I first tried to jump start it and I was really hoping we were gonna have no problems but no luck then either... We decided to tow the car to the nearest Mekonomen garage in Bromma. At the Shell petrol station we just wanted to try and see if the car started while one of us pushed it (picture me trying to push the car in a dress and high heels! ;)) - and it worked! We drove the car to the garage so now they're gonna have a look at it (tried to start it a couple of times after we had arrived there and it started once but the second time it was dead again). They're really busy this week but hopefully they'll be able to figure out what is wrong and I really hope it won't cost me too much!!!

Back home from work now, chilling out on the couch. Have just had dinner and thinking about going out for a walk, I need to get back into a healthy life style again. Have been working away with several Excel files in work today so I'm quite wrecked and need to clear my head. Need to head to Citygross to buy some ingredients for the soup I'm gonna make when I get company on Wednesday evening. I went to Ica Maxi after work but they didn't have everything that I needed. Anyway better let ya go for now but hope your Monday has been good!

Pics from yesterday

Hens party for Lisa

Had organised for a hens party for the lovely bride-to-be Lisa yesterday. She had been so occupied with the plans that the lads had made for Kim's stags so she didn't have a clue ;) It wasn't easy to get her to come into town but in the end she decided to meet up with her sister-in-law to meet for a coffee and to do some shopping (that's what she thought..). We all surprised her at Slussen and she was shocked, she even had to sit down on the curb for a while :)

Brought her to the amusement park Gröna Lund where we all had lunch together. Ordered a big jug of beer for Lisa and she also downed some shots. Two of the girls had brought ouzo in a bottle that she drank during the day while we were doing different games and went for rollercoaster rides :) Lisa is extremely afraid of heights and she had said before that she would never go on "Fritt fall" (=free fall) - the thing that makes you go up 80 metres in the air and then you're going down in full speed all the way down! But I think the alcohol made her re-think and the girls persuaded her to come with them. I couldn't believe it! When she was back on the ground she was laughing away and was so proud that she had done it, we bought the pic for her as well so that she has proof ;)

Anyway - back on the ground she needed a wee so we went to the ladies and my God, when she came out from there it was like she had become a different person - she was WASTED!!! The poor girl could hardly walk and we all felt a bit bad for her, took the ferry over to Slussen again to try and get her some coffee or something. Quite soon we realised that we weren't gonna make the dinner at all, we had booked a table at Koh Phangan. She had never been there and really wanted to go but she wasn't able to last night :( Her brother came to pick her up and I followed her to her house in Vallentuna and stayed the night. She slept from 7pm until 9am this morning so today she's in good form and she said she really enjoyed the day until she started feeling really sick so that's good anyway! We're gonna go out for dinner with her when she's back from her honey moon instead :)

Kims stags was great apparently and he had lots of fun, he also managed to make it to the dinner ha ha ;) Really looking forward to the wedding now, it's on next Saturday in Åland!

Saturday

Getting ready to head into town and Slussen where I'm gonna meet up with the rest of the gang. Don't wanna tell you what we're doing yet, just in case, but I'm looking forward to a good day and night :) Need to get some breakie into me before I leave. Have a good weekend everyone!

Disappointed

It's so disappointing to find out that somebody you did trust really isn't trustworthy at all :( Why is it so bloody hard to keep something to yourself? People just loooove to gossip...

Friday

There are good days and bad days and today is not one of the better ones. Had a good start this morning but it went downhill from there. Have a lot on my mind lately, it's tough on you. Wish there was something I could do but I don't think there is. I will just have to wait and see what happens and it's killing me..

Had a lovely lunch with Lena today though, went to the Thai restaurant and had a chat. I love the fact that I'm gonna be working closely with her from now on, we get to spend more time together. It's crazy but we're both so busy in work that we hardly get to talk even though we work in the same building!

Still tired

Still feeling tired every day, is it that hard to get back into things with work and everything? I'm feeling better than I did earlier on this week but it feels like I'm not getting enough sleep. Before lunch time everything is ok in work but then about an hour after lunch or so I'm starting to get tired again. Have had a bit of a headache today as well and I suppose that it doesn't help.

What's good though is that I'm gonna spend most of my time on projects in work and that is what I like doing the most :) I think that I will work together with sweetest little L soon which is gonna be fun!

Gonna have sushi tonight which I'm looking forward to. Was gonna have dinner around 8pm but like so many times before it will more likely be 8:30pm or later now. Everyone can't be good at being on time ;)

I reckon that some wine is in order too, it's Thursday and the weekend is around the corner so why not!? :)

Tidy up

Tonight I really need to tidy up the apartment again. I don't know what I'm doing but I always manage to get it so messy within a couple of days. I'm really tired but at least it's Thursday tomorrow and I'm looking forward to tomorrow night..

Haven't had dinner yet so better go and get something. At 22:00 it's SYTYCD on telly so I'm gonna watch that after I've done the cleaning. I don't have much energy these days, don't know what it is. Can't believe the summer is over and that it's all work, work, work now. Things better go my way now, I can't take another bad autumn/winter. Fingers crossed and it will all work out in the end..

The Studio

Last night Maria and I went to the Studio to have some photos taken by a professional photographer. We have been to the Studio before but that was a few years ago and we weren't very happy with the photos back then so we decided to give it another go yesterday. We had to bring 3 outfits with us, they did our make up and we had to do the hair ourselves. Then a photographer called us in and the photo shoot began :) I wasn't sure about how it was gonna go, but we had a lot of fun and at the end of it when we went through our photos, both Maria and I were happy with a lot of them. Ended up buying 20 photos each - woops, I'm spending money again! Below you can see some of them:

Sofie Zelmani @ Gröna Lund

Lying in bed with the laptop in my lap, I'm soooo tired. Had plans to go to bed early but it's not so early anymore ;) Went to Gröna Lund after work today to watch Sofie Zelmani play, I really like her music. Listened to her a lot before I moved to Dublin but then "forgot" about her for many years. In the past few months I started listening to her again and she's doing the same type of music as before. She played before Lars Winnerbäck's concert last weekend but didn't hear her very well then, tonight was definitely better :)

56:03

Woke up this morning when my dad rang to tell me my result from last night's run. 56:03 is not bad considering the fact that it was so hot and humid last night. The first 5km went really well and I felt ok but as soon as we came to the hill at "Sofia kyrka" my energy level was declining.. Passed by a man in his 50's that had passed out along the way and by the looks of it his heart had stopped. Found out today that two people died last night and he was one of them. It's so sad and I'm thinking about the families..

Luckily I felt fine throughout the run but I couldn't go as fast as I'd hoped for, I just didn't have enough energy. I enjoyed the run very much though, it is such a brilliant event and so many people are cheering you on along the way :) One thing that pissed me off though was the fact that they had run out of cups for the water so when I had finished the run and got there to pick up a cup there was none left, people were desperate to get some water. A lot of us ended up picking up cups from the ground to be able to fill them with water. I don't think I've been sweating as much as I did last night so I needed to drink loads afterwards. My brother had started before me so we just met up afterwards and took a taxi home, he beat my time of course (got 53:31).

Next year both of us will have to go for a time under 50 ;)

Midnattsloppet

The time has come for "Midnattsloppet" (=midnight run) again. This year it will be my fourth time running it. I have to admit that I'm not so prepared this time, I haven't done any training at all for the past 5 weeks and since I cought a cold this week I'm not feeling the best. But I'm gonna run anyway, we'll see how it goes :)

Went to Kista galleria and Stadium earlier today to pick up my t-shirt, it's neon yellow this year. Have just had a plate of spaghetti bolognese and I'm trying to drink as much water as possible, it's very hot today. Luckily the start is not until 22:00 for the first group and since I'm in start group 7 I will have to wait another while. Hopefully it won't be too crowded (I know it will be but it's wishful thinking), I like to be able to pass people running at a slower pace ;) I've said that I'm gonna take it easy tonight and I probably will but then there's this competitive part inside of me that want to run faster ;)

My brother will be coming over to me and then we'll head in together. I reckon he'll beat my time, if he does I will just have to train better for next year so that I can beat him then! Wish me luck :)

Orangeriet

Have had a lovely evening with Jessica and Louise at Orangeriet, Kungsholmen. Had rose wine, some sushi and carpaccio (it was actually the first time I tried carpaccio ever)! Finished work early today since I had an appointment with my hairdresser Emma. I really needed to get my hair done and she did my hair lovely as always :) After that I walked around in the shops along Drottninggatan and waited for Jessica to finish up in work. She's now on 3 weeks holidays - don't envy her at all!! ;) Orangeriet is a really nice place to go to if you want to go for an AW drink, we chatted away and had a great time. Still have a bit of a cold though so now it is time for bed. I'm not gonna set my alarm for tomorrow morning at all, I'm just gonna sleep until I wake up - can't wait!

Favourite pics from Italy

Took so many lovely photos in Italy but can't upload them all here. However, I will share my top 10 with you, see below:

Getting a cold?

Have just come home from the "Iform" run that took place in Sundbyberg tonight. I had decided to do the 5km run and not the 10km one since I'm gonna do a 10km run on Saturday when it's time for "Midnattsloppet" in Stockholm. I had decided to take it easy tonight, I was just gonna consider it as a training session (otherwise I have a tendency to give it loads every time I do a run, I'm so competitive). But after lunch today I felt a cold coming on and I was sneezing away and felt a bit feverish :( So I decided to just walk the 5km in the end but that was ok since Lena was walking as well so she kept me company :)

Right now I'm watching the football on TV8; Sweden - Scotland. Saw loads of Scottish people in kilts in Sundbyberg when I was walking home :)

Unpacking

First day back in work completed, I'm really tired now. Trying to unpack my bag from Italy but tend to just fall back onto the couch every other minute so it's taking me a looooong time. Should go to bed early tonight as well so that I'm not feeling as tired going into work tomorrow.

Have tried to upload some photos from Italy for the last few hours but I can't seem to get it to work, it's so annoying. Will have to try again another night to see if I'll be able to share some pics with you. Good night!

There's no place like home

So, after 10 brilliant days in beautiful Italy I'm finally back home safe and sound! Arrived to Skavsta airport at around 00:30 last night, jumped on the transfer bus as soon as we received our bags and then took a taxi from the "T-central". Was home at around 3 o'clock in the morning. Got ready to go to bed and I must say that it was so nice to sleep in my own bed again! :)

Had a brilliant stay in Rimini with a trip to San Marino, which is located up in the mountains. You can imagine the views from up there, absolutely gorgeous!! Will have to post some pics to this blog when I get them ready. Before we went up there we were on the beach but we had to leave the beach early afternoon. Luckily we picked that particular day to go to San Marino because it was quite cloudy in the morning and before we jumped on the bus it started lashing down. At the time we arrived to San Marino the weather was quite nice again though :) Had about 4 hours up there so we were strolling around and had our dinner up there. Caught the sun set that evening when we were waiting for the bus so took some photos of course. Had an early night when we came back to the hotel but woke up early in the morning as the room was shaking and there was this loud sound of the rain and the wind. The weather was dreadful, I can't remember the last time I experienced such horrible weather! It was so windy that a lot of (big) branches from the trees broke and there was thunder and lightening as well, mad! Our last day in Rimini was brilliant, the sun was out all day and we had a nice loooong day on the beach!

After our stay in Rimini we had planned to go to Florence so that is what we did. Arrived in Florence around lunch time and it was raining - again! Not a few drops, it was raining cats and dogs!! (ha ha had to write that - remember that saying from school) We had an idea of where the hotel was but it was not that easy to find and I got really cranky as we walked through the streets with our luggage and umbrellas...argggh! Finally got there and when we went out again to discover the city the raining had stopped :) Walked around for the rest of the day and had a lovely dinner at a small little Italian restaurant near the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore. Hadn't planned to do any shopping but bought a nice pair of beige shoes in a Geox shop - woops! Our second day in Florence, we walked around the shops again and did some more shopping (I can't stop!) and then we had booked a wine tasting trip in the Chianti region at 2pm. The bus took us to a lovely little castle where they make the Chianti wine and that is where the wine tasting took place after a guided tour around the castle. The group consisted of a lot of mixed people and we were seated with a couple from New York that was there on their honeymoon and another older couple from England. We got to try the Chianti classico wine, the Chianti Reserva wine and another dessert wine. With that we got some cheese and bread, very nice! After that we went to two small towns; Chianti in Greve and Castellina in Chianti. Maria and I had some lovely Italian ice cream, you just can't have enough of it ;) Later on it was time to go to San Donate in Poggio for a typical tuscan dinner. I wasn't too impressed by that though since we (besides two lovely pasta dishes) were served sausages and beans with chips and also pork (!??). Oh well the dinner was finished off by a classic Tiramisu dessert and although I don't really like Tiramisu this one was quite nice. After the dinner we went back to Florence again, we weren't home until 10:30pm I think so it was nearly a 9 hour trip.

Our last day in Italy we spent in Pisa, there wasn't that much to do there except for visiting the leaning tower of Pisa. Took some photos of it and walked around in Pisa for another while, then we headed to the airport as it was time to go home. Our flight was delayed about 2 hours so it was a loooong day but we finally got home in the end. Feels good to be back home but I'm not exactly looking forward to going to work tomorrow :( Oh well, I guess it will have to be done.

Before that though, I'm gonna enjoy a Lars Winnerbäck concert at Långholmsparken tonight, looking forward to it! :)

Next stop Rimini

Wow, I'm loving it here in Italy. Our holiday has been amazing so far. The weather wasn't great the first couple of days and we had a very rainy day in Venice but it didn't matter as it was such a beautiful city and we enjoyed every moment of it anyway :) Took loads of photos in Venice and I hope some of them are good, still getting to know my camera ;) The hotel we stayed at was quite a crappy hotel but we were right in the middle of everything so it was well worth it!

After our two nights in Venice it was time to take our first train journey up north towards lake Garda. We had booked two nights at a lovely little family owned hotel at Sirmione. Lake Garda is really amazing as well but it started raining our first night there as well and it was very dark. Yesterday we stayed all day on the beach doing some sun bathing and the evening was warm and very enjoyable. We had pasta at a lovely restaurant that the hotel owner recommended, very nice! Last night at around midnight Marcus, Andreas N and Andreas V arrived so we walked over to their hotel and had some drinks with them before it was time to go to bed.

Today has also been great weatherwise and we had time to go to the beach for a couple of hours before it was time to head to Rimini. We arrived here in Rimini at around 5pm and have just had dinner and wine :) Tomorrow it is definitely time to head to the beach again as we were stuck on a train for most of the day today. Have to work on my tan! ;) (the weather forecast looks good for the rest of our stay)

Have just been to the shop where we bought different types of cheeses, olives, salami etc. We're gonna have it all on the balcony tomorrow with some wine that we bought in Sirmione. Can't wait. Hope you're all good. Ciao!