It's Esthers birthday tomorrow and even though she's officially celebrating it on saturday she still (quite obviously) wants to do something tomorrow as well. Like go for a drink and a chat.
Say no more!

I happily took it upon me to find something interesting. Preferably a new place that neither of us have ever heard of, but which is still fantastic enough to be known among the reviews.

I did a good job. I found a place with a dead poet, one which had exceptionally nice plants and one that "you would love so much you'd want to go to sleep".

But after a while i got bored and started experimenting with the searches.. Instead of looking for the "cosiest/best/nicest pubs in London" I began to type in alternatives as "worst/most annoying/dirtiest hellhole...etc".

And I found some hilarious stuff!! One place sounded so horrible I actually wanted to go and have a look! Not go there to actually sit down and be a customer, but to just have a look, like when you go to the museum. To see if it's actually for real!

Seems like there are others with similar goals! Found this advert while looking:

Worst Pub in London?

I need an awful pub, with drunk pensioners wetting themselves, football goons assaulting bar staff, used syringes on the floor in the gents, and poorly cellared (though fairly priced) beer. Something like the Red Lion and Pineapple in Acton but with a greater threat of violence. Acton/Ealing/Chiswick, Bethnal Green, Dagenham or Deptford areas preferred (that makes it easy, no?).

I am meeting an old girlfriend against my will on my next trip. I want a venue so uncomfortable that she will cut the session short, and I don't want to overpay for the (mis)pleasure.


And the replies were equally useful...


What you want is the archetypal pub. Populated by two people, sitting silently at opposite ends of the pub. Bored bar-person, who eventually deigns to serve you, accompanied by deep sighs and scowls. Foul, flat, stale beer served in a filthy glass. Last, but not least the chow-angle, "No food after one thirty!" barked in your face for having the temerity to want to eat a little later.Mind you, with the quality of food on offer in the average English pub, you may want to arrive at twelve thirty to order some 'food'. Get your ex to sample something dragged from the freezer and plunged into hot, rancid oil, served with a limp lettuce leaf, half a tasteless tomato and a scattering of cress.
You'll never see her again.

I emailed Esther immediately to let her know I was on to a winner and that the search was clearly over!

I think she is very close to changing her mind about celebrating her birthday with me... :DD

On Sunday me and Esther went to see ”The Seventh Seal” by Ingmar Bergman. I was quite surprised that she wanted to join me because my way of putting the idea forward probably wasn’t the most impressive.

-“Hey, I’m gonna go and see this film tomorrow. I’m really excited. It’s supposed to be the most depressing film ever made! Wanna come?”

Apparently she found that description appealing! It was a bit tough finding the motivation to go the next day since it was on in the afternoon and we had both been out quite late the night before (and had had a fair bit of wine..good night though!) but since it wasn’t just any movie we both managed to get out of bed.


The thing is that it wasn’t all that depressing after all! I don’t know where people got that idea from. Personally I found it almost uplifting. Amusing even. The film was about a knight who had gone on a journey to find out whether God really existed, but had only found misery, disease and pain. And then Death came along to take his life but agreed to play chess with him for his soul first. I don’t know how people could possibly find that depressing? :)

Ok, ok I guess I can understand that you might not find the message that “we all live in hell and then there will be even more hell after we’ve died” particularly cheerful. Not really worth celebrating. Might not make you want to dance or skip or whistle. But from a different perspective there can almost be a certain comfort in the fact that the same anxiety that we are suffering from today is exactly the same as it was in the 14th century, when the film is supposed to be taking place. Or in 1957 when it was first released.
It sort of makes me feel that if people were tampering with these questions 700 years ago, well, then it would be rather vain on my part to believe that I would come up with any new answers that they didn’t managed to find there and then!
But having said that, I guess we all start from scratch the day we were born, so we all have more or less the same prospects of coming up with some amazing new insight.

This made me think of the director of the film, Ingmar Bergman. He’s always been famous for being very deep and maybe a bit difficult. And he’s supposedly always been quite depressed. And even though a lot of people would say “Well, no wonder he’s depressed after insisting on working with issues like that…”, I think it’s more the other way around. I think it must have been his state of mind that forced him to go in the directions that he did and that gave him his creativity and purpose.

Since he just died a couple of months ago, I was thinking about that fantastic mind of his and all those insights he must have found during his life that had now died with him. Unless he’s written them down, that is. It should be illegal to die without filling out some sort of questionnaire beforehand about what you had discovered during your time here on earth!
Think about it! Everybody has had some sort of vision during their lifetime, some sort of wise thought or answer or revelation. As the human species it should be in our common interest to gather and save as much as possible from each and every person who has lived. It would be like building a gigantic puzzle, instead of us simply starting with a blank sheet over and over again.

Now I’m going to make it my mission to find whatever Bergman has written to see if he’s found some answers to the questions I’m asking myself. I mean, I don’t really know how old he was when he died, but let’s say he was in his eighties. Then he might have lived for about 55 years more than I have now, which means he’s had 55(365)+(55/4)=20088 more days to find something than I’ve had. Which could save me some serious time. I might even consider giving myself a break! :)

But then again, the reason he chose the 14th century as the settings to the film might have been a way to show us that the questions raised are eternal and that after 700 more years into the future, we’ll still be pulling our hair out in agony over the same sodding things…

Ah well…

Either way, it gave me some form of comfort and when I saw this miserable knight (see picture) carrying the world on his shoulders being exhausted by spending his life looking for the truth, I felt for him. He had some sort of unearthly beauty about him, that you normally only find in princes and princesses in fairytales.
And I felt that if I had seen him in the street, I would have wanted to run up to him and shake him by the shoulders, shouting “I understand you! We can join forces!”.
But unfortunately it happens to me very rarely that I run into medieval knights in the streets. I don’t know where you tend to spend your time, but personally I’d have to say that I can’t remember the last time I saw one even in the supermarket or the post office!

After the film, Esther wanted to show me a “secret treasure” of hers, which turned out to be a dark, damp and absolutely mesmerizing cellar in the shape of a wine bar.


Unfortunately she’s made me promise not to give out the address or even a vague direction of the place since it’s so popular already it’s almost always packed with people. Although the fantastic/annoying thing is that it’s so low to the ceiling, it’s virtually impossible to stand up among the tables, so if you manage to get one it’s possible to avoid the crowds for as long as you sit down.

Sitting there I suddenly realised that was probably one of the places in London where you’d be most likely to see a potential knight! I was almost beginning to feel hope, but sadly none popped around. But I’ve figured out why since then. Quite obviously they’re all hanging out in the Tower of London. Silly me…

Seems like Halloween is being celebrated during two weekends this year..which is a bit confusing, but fine with me! :) I love ghosts. The more opportunities to socialize with them the better..! :-D
But the real question is...where the ____ did I put my witch hat?!? It's beautiful. Got cobwebs on it.


Was just thinking of something I found quite hilarious yesterday. Was out for a drink with a group of people and ended up chatting to some guy. And on my way back I suddenly started analysing what we had actually been talking about! It's incredible what kind of weird conversations tend to pop up in pubs between people who doesn't know each other! Listen to this...:

Him: - It's a bit weird really, but I was just wondering earlier today when I was looking in the mirror if I see the same person others are seeing..
Me: - Umm...yes it's tricky with those things, really is.
Him: -Yes, like if others see you the same way you do yourself...cos I mean, we are so used to our own face...
Me (helping out): -...which others are not!
Him: -No, exactly!
Me: -You know, that is actually true! Earlier today, on the tube, there was suddenly this abstract reflection of a reflection of a reflection in the window...
Him: - Fascinating...
Me: -Yes. And there you could see the vague outlines of various faces, and...guess what?
Him: -What?
Me: (brief paus for added effect) - I recognized myself...almost.. immediately!!
Him: -Amazing!
Me: -I'd say!

Eh...say what??? SAY WHAT??? :-D What the hell was I SAYING? What the hell was HE saying? :-D Incredible... Couldn't help but to laugh when I got home later. Hilarious. :-D :-D :-D

No, it wasn’t the bugs that were my new, exciting challenge! They were merely a bonus, even if a grand one at that. No, what managed to capture me in that book shop, was a beginners course in Tai Chi. It was something that I had found myself thinking of on and off lately for no apparent reason, and wherever I went I seemed to hear or see something about it over and over again. Weird coincidences filling my life as so many times before. So I guess you could say it wasn’t my own choice really. I’m sure I was “supposed” to run into that course! Destiny had only used the bugs as bait to lure me into the shop in the first place. Know your victim. Clever trick, I’d say…


The first time I watched the cd I was very close to falling asleep. It’s a pretty calm sport, let’s put it that way. But when I gave it a proper go and concentrated as fully on every move as would ever be possible, it began to intrigue me.
The thing is that when you’re focusing on one single thing, you’re emptying your mind of everything else, which is why it works so great for reducing stress. In a peculiar way it almost felt like an indulgence, allowing your mind to let go of all its preoccupations and possible worries and just letting your body and soul unite and develop together. I found it had a similar effect on me as meditation, which when done right also tends to give you a sort of enhanced feeling of awareness and control. And clarity, I guess. At least I found it was easier to reason with myself and make decisions just after a session. I’m genuinely happy I started doing this! Am going to join a group practising in the park! :) And, well, it isn’t exactly a problem that the instructor is a virtual look alike of David Duchovny…

I used to do ballet for quite a while a long time ago, and for some reason ballet is one of those things that somehow gets programmed into your DNA after you’ve learnt it. Even if you wouldn’t have danced for half a century and then spent three more being frozen in a laboratory in order to be reborn in the future – you would still be able to get into the main ballet positions or do simple pirouettes within minutes after woken up. You don’t even have to think, your body is just doing these things by itself.
So when doing something vaguely similar, as in Tai Chi, it’s quite hard for me not to use the basic ballet movements, turn my hands in certain ways, look in a specific direction in relation to my ankle… These things are just automatic.
It’s a bit like learning new language. Since you’re new at it, your own language shows through when you speak in the shape of an accent. So I guess in a way I’m doing Tai Chi with a bit of a ballet accent… :)

I think for me the best time to do this, or any other vaguely spiritual exercises, is in the morning just at dawn before the sun has come up properly. It’s still so quiet and it feels like the world is yours alone for just a little while.
I normally put my alarm on 07:25 (and no, that doesn’t always lead to me waking/getting up straight away. Since you asked..), but this week for reasons unknown, I’ve continuously woken up way before 7 to some of the most extraordinary sunrises I’ve ever seen.
It’s seemed as if the whole street, my curtains, me had been wrapped up in huge silky apricot drapes for something that seemed like ages. I guess if you try to find spirituality - it finds you.

Since I’m sounding like a hippie now anyway I might as well take the opportunity to tell you about my latest “invention”. I came up with it in Portugal but didn’t have access to the internet at the time.

You know how something you see or hear suddenly can remind you of something, maybe an emotional memory or experience, in an instant. It can be a photo, some old ticket or odd piece of paper or a certain melody. And it can bring back some pretty vivid images in your mind straight away. But I thought to myself that that mostly happens even more intensely when it comes to smell! To me every town or city has got it’s own unique smell.

When I was little, me and my family used to go travelling for quite a while every summer. And every year when we came back, always late at night, I could always tell immediately the minute we drove into Malmö even if I’d been asleep and still had my eyes closed.
I think it was something about the trees since there are so many big lush trees framing the roads and each of the gardens along them around where we live. If I try, I can smell that same scent within a second, wherever I am and whenever I want, and it means so much more to me than any picture.
I’ve got so many examples of nostalgic personal memories of scents throughout my life that I could go on for hours. Probably weeks.

The thing is that people always use their other senses for various ways of stimulation or entertainment, but never their sense of smell. People go museums to watch works of art and they call them beautiful. They go to concerts and listen to music and let themselves get completely absorbed in the experience. We go to restaurants to enjoy our sense of taste and we hug and kiss each other, or our pets (and some people even trees!) to share a sensation of touch. But the sense of smell seems to be completely overlooked!

Pretend there were an equivalent to a museum only or partly based on smell! Imagine entering small completely dark rooms with mixtures of scents from specific places around the world that allows you to freely use your imagination of how it feels to be there, right then and there.
It wouldn’t have to be dark though, it could be accompanied with light effects or pictures or various sounds. Even the temperature of the rooms could match the smell!
If you’ve been to the London Dungeon you must realize what an important impact the smell has got on a place like that. It really smells of a rat infested dungeon filled to the brim with disease and death. It makes up for a large part of the fear. Makes it so much more real.

But smell could be used in so many other ways than just help you fear for your life. Even just simple concepts could work fantastically! Like a room with a strawberry field. Or a room full of wet dogs. Or one with the sound of a gentle spring rain with a matching smell. That’s some serious aroma therapy!

And just imagine how much money you could do if you’re in marketing. Let’s say you put sensors in a shopping centre that occasionally spray a mild scent of Fanta into the air. Surely it would work in the same way as subliminal pictures do when they trick our brains into believing we’re thirsty? Probably works even better! You’d go buy a Fanta! You really would!

One day it will happen.

Ok, so it’s Sunday and my latest epiphany told me Sundays are great for doing healthy stuff, partly to make up for the unhealthy things that might have occurred over the weekend but also because it gives you a lot of energy for the next week. Great. It's almost as if I've grown up.

I decided to go hiking for a few hours and complete another part of my latest trail. But nothing is completely unproblematic, is it? Look, all I really wanted was to have a cup of tea among trees and birds, reading a book. It’s not a lot to ask if you think about it.

Earlier this week I bought a thermos. Really nice. Black and sort of shiny. I thought the prospects were looking great and were convinced we were going to get along perfectly and share a lot of exciting moments together.

Today when I opened it I found a leaflet with instructions of how to use it. I was almost about to not bother reading it, because how many instructions can you possibly need to make a cup of tea… Apparently life is not as easy as I thought!

As I said, all I wanted was a cup of tea. I normally tend to drink tea with sugar and milk.


Instruction number 1: Don’t use the thermos for sugary drinks!

Instruction number 2: Don’t put milk in the thermos!

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Instruction number 3: Don’t drink straight from the thermos!


Yes, yes I know that you’re probably thinking “but, Evelyn, this is not really what I would call a problem – it’s quite easy to just bring some sugar in a box by itself, then a tea spoon so that you can stir the sugar into the tea and finally a handy little bottle filled with milk to add by itself and then drink it out of your mug that you will have brought separately”.

Yes, yes but why…like..why would I …..why should I…….why…..oh for the love of God – this is my version of handling this problem:

I AM going to put a sugary drink in my thermos and I AM going to mix it with milk. And I was actually planning to bring a mug but just because I feel childish today I won’t, which means I WILL drink my tea straight from the bottle. This means I’ll now be challenging the thermos people on three points out of three! That’s what I call living on the edge…

This is gonna be fun!

Have felt a bit guilty since I know there must be a disgustingly large amount of people bristling with nervous excitement and anticipation, wondering how my Portuguese course went. Did I finish it? Did I pass? Was I the teachers pet?

Yes, yes I did finish it! Although my optimistic schedule of completing one week a day didn’t really work out in the end. It started off being as easy as a walk in the park. But then again, language courses always do. “This is Spot. Spot is a dog.” But my problem wasn’t that it was too hard, but that I suddenly didn’t have as much time on my hands to study. During the days when we were on the beaches of Tavira…

…and Praia da Rocha...

…it was relatively easy to pick up the book and start going through the texts and grammar. A few words here, a few there, forcing Joanna to participate in rewarding conversations containing my new nouns (“are this spot on me shoe an dog?”).
After all, most of the time it only involved a few simple hand and eye movements while being quite horizontal. Easy life.

But then after reaching Lisbon, things got harder. It turns out to be relatively tricky walking around in a heavily trafficked capital, reading instructions about how to complain in case your cod cake is not warm enough! I would even go as far as calling it dangerous! And also, we had a very large amount of stuff to see in a quite small period of time. But during the last day, in Porto, before taking the flight back to the UK, I managed to catch up a bit. And even if I didn’t manage to finish all the exams before the plane was back on British ground, I made up for it the next day!

Well, did I pass? Did I pass? Well, of course I bloody passed! Doesn’t anyone have any faith in me at all? Then again it’s usually not to your disadvantage having yourself correcting your own tests and giving yourself your own grades. But I mean, as in all universities, the most important thing is that the teacher is to be trusted to put the most appropriate grades to his or her students. And to be honest, I thought about this quite hard, before designating myself, and I reached the conclusion that, yes, I was the most fair candidate! In fact I’d proved to myself over and over again that I was seriously good teacher material! As an example, I would never give myself a lower score than I deserved. I would never ignore myself or put another students needs in front of my own. And every time I’d had a question, I’d always answered myself almost immediately!

In the end I gave myself a 4 out of 5. But somehow I just haven’t felt totally satisfied with that, and I’ve been wondering whether I should complain to myself about it or not. Somehow I feel I deserve getting a distinction, a first class pass, since after all I did complete a six week course in not much more than a week. I think maybe I should grant myself a higher score.
Hang on, guess what? I think I just did!! :-D

Either way, I felt that I had completed my latest “weird thing to do” (for a definition of my “weird things to do”, please check earlier posts), and that the time was now ripe for a new odd challenge. As I’ve mentioned I live in Notting Hill. Notting Hill is full of tiny little bookshops (as I’m sure you can easily imagine after seeing the movie “Notting Hill”…) Most of these have stands outside with stacks of second hand books for 50 pence, or at the most 1£. Sometimes when I pass them I feel compelled to walk up, close my eyes and pick a book at random and go in and buy it. Somehow this makes sense to me. This is a way of letting the forces of the universe, or as I prefer calling it (him), Cosmo, talk to me. If I’m thinking about something, pondering on a question, or just need guidance in general, well, then this is a simple way to let IT give me sign. This is one of my ways of letting, let’s say God, showing me a few steps along the way of the incomprehensible maze that life really is. It’s all pretty much common sense really.

Sometimes it works wonders, sometimes it can leave you feeling quite bewildered. Trust me when I say that I’ve got a very, very confusing book collection. Sometimes when people visit me and spend a few moments looking through my books, it’s hard to ignore the look of confusion mixed with upright concern (and perhaps, a little bit of fear) in their eyes! Well, I can’t possibly blame them after finding stuff like “Great Victorian murderesses”, “142 ways to tie your shoes”, “BIN LADEN – the man who declared war on America” (it was for a university thesis in Political science! But you can imagine the faces at customs at Heathrow airport finding that in my hand luggage a few years ago…) and “Tinkerbell – the diary of Paris Hiltons dog!” stuck in between Shakespeare and Hemingway! That’s simply not a normal book collection of any sort of psychological profile!!

Well, either way, I was walking down the road in Notting Hill, wondering what should be my next weird challenge. I was out of ideas and thought of my old friend Ullis that I’d met when I was in boarding school in Sweden. She’s got a similar spirit to me, and has also always been attracted to (…let’s not call them weird things..oh, what the hell, let’s be honest…) weird things to do. She’s the girl I went to Malaga with studying Spanish, ending up backpacking through Granada, Gibraltar and Seville rather than studying “soy, eres, es, somos…” She later ended up in Miami dreaming of starting a Brazilian orphanage on a beautiful beach.

Today during my stroll, I found myself thinking of her everlasting optimism and excitement over small insignificant things in daily life. And I found myself missing her and wondering what she would have chosen as a “weird-thing-to-do” had she been in my shoes right there and then. She told me, not that long ago, about a new hobby of hers, that included going to Miami Beach each morning doing “fire dancing”! Basically it involves a fair bit of fire and a few ropes and…fire. Supposed to make you feel really in tune with yourself spiritually. Ehum. I thought of myself practising that as my new hobby in Kensington Gardens, or Hyde Park, trying to explain to the Fire Brigade that I meant no harm, really didn’t, I just, I just…just wanted to find my inner yin (or yang) and that I didn’t mean to burn down Lady Diana’s children’s playground, or the Italian Gardens, I just…I just… I was just contemplating the fact that I didn’t think London was quite ready for Ullis hobbies....when I walked past one of the many Notting Hill bookshops…

Obviously, as I said, I ran there, hand over my head, picking up a book that turned out to be about life on Mars (oh, but it was from the National Geographics! It must be taken seriously!) and a shart book about bugs! (We already know that I’ve got a soft spot for bugs…who doesn’t?) It was a book that asked you a lot of questions about all kinds of bugs (more kinds than you would like to imagine!) and then presenting you with a secret bonus chart…come on, who would not be fascinated by that?!
I ran into the shop, as if I was scared that someone would find out that I accidentally just caught the book of the century and would try to rip it out of my caring arms (no one actually did by the way). Anyway, pleased as I was, I got into the shop, presented my bug-book to the store owner with a smug look on my face and asked how much he wanted for it. I expected to pay a lot. This was not just an ordinary book. I love bugs. Surely so does everyone else. I was convinced that the shop was filled with eager buyers just standing there waiting for me to give my bugs away. It wasn’t going to happen.

“-How much?”
-“Ehhm…, that one you can actually have for free. Has been there for months now, can’t get rid of the damn thing…” “You actually WANT that…err.. thing??”
- “Well…yes!” (I was trying to talk quietly so that no one else in the shop would hear me and automatically start bidding for my catch).
- “Hehe, well I’m just happy to get rid of it, love!”

I have no words. I feel numb. Did I mention that it was about bugs?

Nevertheless I can almost hear all the thousands (possibly b/millions?) of readers who were earlier worrying sick about my language classes, now screaming in unison – but what happened to you finding a weird thing to do? What did you find? Evelyn, what did you do? We need to know!! Did you end up finding a mysterious challenge in that shop? What happened? Did you? Did you?

Well it’s Friday and the evening is approaching rapidly which means before I know it I’ll end up being in a hurry. Again. As usual. So I’ve got to go…
But let’s put it this way for now - I’m going to become a weird, wise Chinese man, standing with his eyes closed on one leg in the park! How cool is THIS!!

Weird things happened yesterday.

I went to IKEA to get a shower curtain, a lamp and a few other bits and came home with christmas scented candles, christmas scented shower gel, christmas scented washing up liquid, christmas flavoured crisp bread, christmas flavoured tea, christmas flavoured ginger bread (how the hell can ginger bread have a christmas flavour? As in opposed to what exactly? Easter flavoured ones?!) and swedish glogg (which is similar to english mulled wine or german gluhwein - but better! Although it's NOT similar to the disgusting belgian version of a glass of hot red wine with a couple of lemon slices swimming around in it...oh lord! Brrr....)

There were christmas carols and santa clauses and somehow I lost my sense of reality and perception of time and found myself starting to worry about where I could get a christmas tree and if maybe it would already be too late? I almost had to slap myself back to reality when I began to wonder wether I should get myself a reindeer or not - a real one!
But then I got a text message and caught a glimpse of the date on the display of my mobile phone...the 17th of bloody october!!! How surreal was that?!?

Speaking of surreal - weird stuff continued to happen...
On my way to the bus I saw a shop selling "bubblegum flavoured sweets"! I had to try them. I just couldn't believe it! And I was also quite surprised that there was even a need for this product to exist. Bubblegums usually, no actually not usually - always, come in flavours. Flavours like cherry or banana or mint. I've never in my entire life seen bubblegum flavoured bubblegum! And if THAT doesn't exist, well, then what are the bubblegum flavoured sweets based on? Do you see what I mean? Stuff like this can't just be accepted, they have to be investigated! Taken care of.

So I bought the sweets. Ate them. Guess what - turns out they taste of bubblegum! What do you know...

Am in a ridiculous hurry! Meeting a friend outside the cinema in...ehh..soon, and according to my experinence cinemas are a little bit like trains and planes and stuff like that - they just don't wait for you! The cheek...

Quick update...

Big difference today! In my perspective and everything that comes with it. Have spent the day on a deserted beach that I think I fell a little bit in love with. Oh, what the hell, that I´m now having a full blown crush on! A "totally deserted beach"! With white sand as soft as a babys peachy cheeks. With waves of azur emerald green couloured blue water caressing the shore. How can you not fall in love? It was a long time ago that I saw a beach even slightly similar to this one, and I´ve been absolutely ecstatic since the minute I got there! It´s not even a normal beach in the sense that it´s on the shore of the land itself. You have to take a boat to reach a (deserted, that´s right!) island...and there is THE beach!

I´ve been swimming four times today. The first time was in the pool in the morning after waking up. (Is there a better way of starting your day? Really? Show me!) Then jumping into the jacuzzi before having breakfast. Then going for a swim in paradize beach for about half an hour with Joanna. And then, finally, having another swim in the sea for about 1,5 hours (yes, seriously!) while Joanna was having a nap in the sand...then joining me for a swim...and then getting out before me! I´ve been thinking about it quite seriously, there, in the waves, and I came to the conclusion that it must be connected to me being a piscean. It just must. I love the sea. I love water. It just does something to me! It makes me happy beyond belief! And as I said to Joanna during a quite serious discussion today - I think I would make a very happy fish. (And as I said, these were things that I´d been thinking through properly.)

To the serious stuff... My portuguese course is going well! My second week (day) has passed and gone with splendour. Even Joanna was a bit impressed. Well, fair enough, she hid it well, but I could see pride in her eyes of the sort that can normally only be detected in a mother who has just had her first born child. You should see her. Almost in tears. (Or at least she will be when she´s reading this ;-DDD)

Now jumping into bed to fall asleep to the sound of a thousand crickets. Loving it. Life is not bad.
xxx ..........ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Ola!

That´s portuguese for `Hello`!

I´m in a tiny village outside a maybe not tiny, but very small town that is well known for being quite unspoilt by tourists. "One of the few places left", the rumours go. And the rumours are absolutely true, in a narcissistic, warped kind of way. The rumours all come from British magazines, British websites and British advertizing in general. You can spend the whole day walking around, visiting places without seeing one single german, american, japanese, italian, brazilian, eskimo or swede. What you do see are brits. Swarms of brits! Why do British people ALWAYS have to go to the same places? It´s been like this since the beginning of the 20th century! Then they flooded the French riviera. In the 90:s and the 00:s it´s been Ibiza.
When I was living in Sweden I had a hard time thinking of anything more boring than going to a place full of swedes. Nowadays I´ve got the same feeling about the brits.

Nevertheless, it´s nice. I mean, you can´t possibly complain when you´re by an Algarve beach, swimming in an illuminated pool, drinking sangria under a bamboo hut! Doing so would just be like asking Karma to hunt you down in order to bite your ass! No, trust me, I´m not complaining at all.

Before I left England I accidently ran into a portuguese "do it yourself" language course in the library. "Learn portuguese in 6 weeks"! Well...

I´ve studied a lot of languages in my days. English, french, spanish, italian, german and please, let´s not forget my oh so serious courses in danish and norwegian at Lund University. Oh, and I tried to learn polish for 1 day. An finnish for another. And japanese for the impressive duration of a whole night when I couldn´t sleep and got stuck watching BBC learning zone (Mushi Mushi!).

So, surely, surely I could do 6 weeks in 6 days? Surely?
Well, Joanna was correcting my exams from week (day) 1 just before dinner, and even though SHE (quite obviously!) was more than happy to point out my insignificant mistakes, I´m very pleased to say that I got most things right. (Pretty much everything if you ask me...which you probably wont do. I suspect you would prefer to ask her.) All the nouns and all the grammar. Only a few ridiculous prepositions and pronouns were wrong. And for those I blame Portugal! Why create a language so similar to spanish, or italian (or catalan#)? Suit yourselves!
But I´m doing good! In 5 more days I´ll be speaking portuguese like there´s no tomorrow!. Try me! ;)

ATÉ LOGO!

# Don´t get me started about catalan! When I was living in Barcelona, just coming fresh from France, I was trying to make up for the lack of motivation I´d had when studying spanish in Malaga a few years earlier. The catalan seriously screwed up my whole learning process by shoving a whole new language in my face, mixing french, spanish and a whole bunch of unexplicable X:s! Just for the sake of it!

There´s no language that scares me anymore...

Ok, summer was shorter than expected this year, because we’re clearly back to winter again after just a few days of sunshine. Or autumn. Or whatever way “it” prefers to be referred to. But it doesn’t matter today because it’s Sunday (and I love Sundays) and it’s raining (and I love rain).

Since I came back to London on Thursday, I have barely been still for a minute! Each day I’ve been roaming around either trying to sort out stuff for next week or I’ve been in the library with Tristan trying to get some work done. Then every evening I’ve been meeting up with various friends to catch up on important gossip. Thursday – Joanna, Friday – Patricia and Saturday – Esther and co!

So today, Sunday, I’ve spent the whole afternoon in my sofa with endless cups of tea, playing Killer Sudoku, listening to piano music while the rain has gently been drizzling on my window. It’s sometimes hard to understand how something so simple can suddenly become a little piece of heaven! It’s like wrapping your soul up into a giant cashmere blanket and serving it honey and grapes! You’re charging your batteries.

But my spiritual haven was abruptly interrupted when the phone rang in the middle of my Sudoku.
Ok, hang on here for a minute. There’s something I feel I need to point out. When I’m saying “Sudoku” I’m not referring to the version where you simply have to check the numbers that have already been put into the grid for you in advance, to figure out which numbers the remaining empty spaces are supposed to contain. I’m talking about the ones with no numbers whatsoever, and your only clues are the total sums of various clusters within the grid itself. THAT is an addictive game! After you’ve started playing this, you’d never go back to normal Sudoku ever again. I laugh in the face of Sudoku after Killer Sudoku was invented (a few thousand years ago by some Tibetan monk…)
But, let’s try to move on!

So basically, there I was, pen in my hand, tea in my mouth, when my phone rang. I briefly considered not taking the call unless I was sure it would only concern either tea, Sudoku or piano music. Or rain, ok, fair enough – or rain! But it’s hard to get guarantees like these nowadays, so I took the call.

It was nothing wrong with the phone call per se, Patricia wanted to chat about her neighbours towels and quite obviously I found that incredibly interesting! But then she said:

- “You know that new law about getting a £50 fine for throwing cigarette butts in the street, that you believe exists…"
- “Err..the one that was all over the news for several days, yes.”
- “Yes, that’s the one. That no one else has heard of…"
- “The one that the police had put up posters about all over the city?”
- “Yes, that one."
- “That was on the side of pretty much every single London bus for a month?”
- “Yes. I was talking to my friend and her boyfriend about it and, well, they claim you must have imagined it as well!”

This has got to be cleared up once and for all! Before I’m loosing my marbles! London went smoke free on the 1st of July this year, which means you’re no longer allowed to smoke in public places. This has happened in several countries already, so it didn’t really come as much of a chock. But what I did find somewhat surprising, was that it had also become illegal to throw cigarette butts in the street. You’re allowed to smoke in the street, but not put the cigarette out on the ground. You’re supposed to put it in a bin or an ashtray. There has been quite a substantial amount of money put into this and the police has employed people to function as undercover cigarette officers who, if they catch you, will flash their badges and demand a £50 fee. Yes, it’s a bit harsh, but nevertheless true. People don’t believe me.

Joanna is even worse (and even more illogical!)

- “Have you actually been fined yourself?”
- “No, but that’s mainly cos I haven’t thrown any butts on the ground.”
- “Hmm, so that means you can’t really say you know this to be true for sure, can you, since it hasn’t happened to you in person?”
- “Well, I saw it on the news! Several times! They even showed people with badges and gave numbers of how much money had been dedicated to this in every part of the town…”
- “Ahh, so you saw it on the telly, did you! Come on, you know you shouldn’t really believe everything you hear on TV!”
- “But it was on the BBC News! If the nation is being informed of a new legislation via the news – we should choose not to believe it’s for real? And the police, what about the police? What about the posters?!”
- “Advertising? Oh Evelyn, you really shouldn’t pay all that much attention to advertising…”

- ”Made by the police!!!”

I mean, I haven’t personally been charged with attempted murder either, but I’m still fairly suspicious it could be somewhat illegal to commit one!

But I’m really looking forward to the next time me and Joanna are in the airport. Joanna is always worried that we will have to much luggage and claims they will force us to rearrange our stuff and pay loads of fines even if we’re only a couple of kilos over the limit. The next time I’ll pretend I’ve got much more than I actually have and insist on her letting me put some of it in her luggage. When she starts fretting about the limit I’ll just ask her:

- “Honestly, how do you know for sure that there even is a limit?”
- “Well, they send out this email with information about baggage allowance and…”
- “Ohh, Joanna Joanna…”(here I’ll shake my head in a patient but yet nonnegotiable way) “Please don’t tell me you believe everything spam is telling you…”
- “But it says on that poster over there…!”
- “You mean the advert?” “Let me just ask you this – have you actually ever been fined for you luggage yourself? I thought not. Now, be a good friend and let me put a few of my books, portable TV and 7 kilo DIY tool box in your luggage. If you would just step over here, please…”


PS. Talking of smoking… When I was in Copenhagen a week and a half ago I saw a “No Smoking” sign in the central station. It was in one of the corners with arrows pointing at a designated area of about a few meters! I couldn’t believe my eyes! I thought it would be forbidden to smoke in virtually every train station in Northern Europe by now, but clearly not. But if that little square is all you get as a non-smoker, well, then what’s the point? There’s not even a bench. Even less a screen telling you which platform your train is supposed to leave from. Or showing the time… Would be fun to let the British undercover fag cops loose in there!