A Swedish XMAS

Sitting in "my" room in my parents house (which by the way made J and boyfriend shake their heads furiously in disbelief - it is even smaller than my London apartment), relaxing the day away. I've sort of gone into a zombie mode; spending my days watching awful films with my oldest brother (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, anyone?), eating far to much chocolate and cuddling the not-always-cuddly baby dog. It's sooo nice.

Christmas day was spent at my aunts (whom I'm still pissed off with after the disastrous London visit in November which I haven't told you about but anyway). Got presents, ate food, the usual stuff. No snow in sight, but still felt like a good old Swedish XMAS. Way too much meat for my taste - but it's all part of the scene.

London after New Years. Happy holidays everyone!

Lis xx

Sliding away

Where else but in London can you find a place that allows you to be incredibly childish while masquerading your immatureness as being cultural and arty? Tate Modern’s most popular exhibit at the mo is five gigantic slides; ranging in height from two floors to five. And you get to ride for free! Elbow patches and all.

Oh, London life is good.

Working in the dark

Office power is gone – we are tumbling around in the dark. Well actually – it’s not that bad; important machinery runs on generators and is business as usual – however, lavatory visits and likewise has turned into quite an adventure.

Somehow I like it; it has sort of a intensely Christmassy feel. Sitting in the edit suites with no light except the computer screen brings on thoughts of tea light candles, hot chocolate and ginger bread cookies. But that might just be me.

I’ve been well into The Christmas Spirit for weeks now – Xmas Campaigns is under production; leaving me listening to soft Christmas music all day long. Quite nice, but dreading the way I will fell in regards to All Things Christmas as the real thing draws nearer. There is a limit to how many times you can listen to “White Christmas” without needing to throw up.

Visit this weekend – little Lara; ex-dolphin volunteer just like me. Fun!

Talk to you soon, Lis x

Time has flown by in record speed...

Since last time:
- Had birthday; missed Big Company Kick-Off but lovely drinks instead
- Found out I’ve been lied to for over 5 months
- Lost some friends I thought I knew
- Found some new ones
- Re-kindled friendship with an Oz-ex, C; commonly referred to as “the Bastard” (but now is rather nice)
- Had visits from Johanna, Rouba and Tony & Caroline from Bunbury

Short and sweet. And probably rather confusing.

Otherwise - work is good; feel in control (most of time). Home is cosy – though shared involuntarily with a very annoying “little person” (read: mouse) called Henry.

New hobby also: go to free cinema previews (if that qualifies as a hobby). So far (no particular order):
- Devil Wears Prada (brilliant light chick flick)
- Children Of Men (beautifully ugly)
- Borat (no comment)
- A Good Year (zzzz)
- Little Miss Sunshine (fun & uplifting)
- Last Kiss (nah, quite crap really)

Coming up: Starter For Ten (on Wed) and whatever pops up in my inbox. Brilliant. Love cinema – have no money – free is great. I love London.

Feathers & Costumes

The Notting Hill Carnical has come and gone; leaving tons of rubbish in it's wake. Last night the partying and the music was heard all the way to my room with an astounding clarity into the small hours - and I live at least five minutes walk from the very very outskirts of the festival area.

Walking through town this weekend (or just trying to get to your front door), the most extraordinary random sights awaits you. My quiet little street had been temporarily turned into a stable; police horses and dung galore. The streets - even here in Queensway - are lined with litter in such an arresting amount it feels almost surreal. You could literally swim in it. I'm not kidding.

Sunday night I spent walking and socializing in Notting Hill with work colleagues; trying to navigate my way through literally mountains of dead chicken parts mixed with interesting unidentifiable masses of goo and horse shit (pardon my French). Finally we ended up having an improvised party in the middle of a street still in use by random vehicles; there were no place else to stand.

The carnival in itself was a welcome diversion but not too impressive. I imagined an overflow of feathers and costumes and glitter and dancing; and these things did certainly exist, but in a much smaller scale than anticipated. Some groups idea of dressing up for the carnival train seemed to be plainly wearing the same colored ridiculous and heavily advertisement-filled t-shirts. However, there were some notable exceptions; like one little boy dressed up as a butterfly (or something to that extent) happily posing for pictures in an adorable and confident way.

And these things; messy and noisy and trashy as they may well be (notable is the fact that seemingly all shops in Notting Hill and its surroundings had all their shop fronts and windows boarded up by plywood well in advance to avoid having their shops mugged/plundered/randomly destroyed) - is why I love London. How cool is it to walk into a massive and happily singing/dancing carnival train just five minutes walk from your front door? In my mind, very cool.

I am officially an airhead

Step one:
I purchase food from company canteen.

Step two:
I place plate on desk (main place for food consumption nowadays; qiute sad but that's deadlines for you!).

Step three:
I endeavor to check my emails. Computer decidedly not cooperating; exchanges sites randomly/creates self-made scroller texts/insistently bases the arrow cursor at very bottom of each application.

Step four:
I look very puzzled.

Step five:
I make slightly worried enquiry to my boss (THE main boss) regarding the state of said computer; requiring possible solutions.

Step six:
Boss One & Boss Two (yes, both THE main bosses) examines my computer.

Step seven:
Boss One contemplates v seriously; well nasty things these viruses... Quite frightening indeed. But on the other hand, it might help if you remove your plate from the space button on your keyboard.

Not-so-quick update

Oh have I been busy! Work tempo got put on over-drive two weeks ago; massive deadline after enormous deadline. But it's still fun, I still like it. Am settling in now, think I got it (mainly) under control. That seems to be the view of the management too; grand! Nice people, nice environment, feeling needed; cool.

Free time has been spent mostly arguing with more or less freakish customer service people re random missing packages/cancelled deliveries. 1) my hair straightener has disappeared while being delivered ("there is no record of it being delivered at your address yet, miss"; no shit!), 2) my docking/speaker set for my iPod was apparently cancelled and undeliverable "for unknown reason" ("the courier couldn't seem to find your address, miss, are you sure it's correct?"; "you delivered my iPod at exactly the same address two weeks ago"; "aha, ok, yes, but..."). Intriguing.

Liking my little apartment too. Eventual nightly visits to the "little ladies room" major inconvenience; get dressed/walk down big stairs/walk up little stairs/forgot keys/go back and repeat. But apart from that; feel comfy and relaxed at home as should.

J & boyfr visited in ultra-speed - arrived 19.30pm, left 08.00am - much fun! Very timed, very scheduled bayswater-paddington-edgware rd bar round finished up in old quarters; drinking with the Ex's best friends (as per usual it seems). Good old fun.

Sushi in the night

Had a v lovely evening w new work colleagaues Tuesday; in Soho - quick drink at Gay Bar, Sushi buffeet at Japanese rest, talking and mingling outside v English pub. Much enjoyable. Didn't even get killed/ridiculed for being food/vegetarian maniac.

Was walking home according to plan; when bumped straight into ex-K, old house mate (in fact room mate), sometimes bed mate. Almost crashed into while rounding corner. V strange but fun! So off for more drinks and catch-up. Probably meeting him next week for another drink or two, could be good.

Tonight; coffee w TopShop girl, P. She's sweet, good to keep in touch.

AND I've bought an iPod. Happy happy happy.

To throw yourself in front of a train

Walking into town today (yes I do walk, my butt's grown rapidly lately!), I ended up amidst a frenzy of police cars, ambulances and fire trucks outside Queensway station. 7/7-05 very easily pops into your head living in London, so I had to find out. "Well, love, someone's under the train you see - and it's a bit of a hassle getting him out".

I still feel sick. Why on earth would you do this? And I don't mean to yourself - if you really desperately want to kill yourself, by all means go ahead; but for God's sake think of the poor people who have to scrape you up! Same goes for people who choose to drive their car into someone random else's - what a cowardly way to go. Take a pill for heaven's sake.

However, this particular case might have been an accident/murder - I don't know for sure. But there's plenty of the "voluntary" ones going on too.

On my own and loving it

So the day has come - and gone, actually - I am now "on my own" at work. Of course, still have five million people to ask, and lovely R who's trained me is close by; but I am finally working properly and properly earning my salary. Slightly nerve-wrecking but pretty exciting!

So what do I do? Well basically, I'm the infamous "spider in the net" - I collect/receive information/material and pass it on; fixing faults and problems in between. Calling people, writing emails, fixing production finishing touches. Might not sound too exciting, but is rather fun and interesting. Compared to TopShop; it's a dream! ;)

Calm w/end ahead, unfortunately, most friends away/working. Tonight's lovely though - dining at Hampstead restaurant with A, A's sister and A's boy. Will be nice. And maybe I can score some partying tomorrow...? I'll work it out. I need a man.

My little hole in the wall

I have now officially received the keys for my tiny tiny studio in Bayswater, Princes Square. It is small, carpeted (yuck) and my private toilet/shower is situated on another floor, but it is mine mine mine, and it is perfectly alright for a while (for six months, to be specific - that's the contract).

So I'm off to Ikea (best place in the world!) this w/end buying essential necessities; nothing else unfortunately, will not have proper economy until end August w pay dates etc. But a quilt* and a pillow and a curtain and lamp would be nice. And Ikea has kanelgifflar.

Had to take all day off work though to organize all; feel horrible about it but got assured it was alright. And guess, now all is settled, can devote myself full-time to work. Which is good.

Need my address? Sending kanelgifflar/letters/post cards/random gifts? Of course - drop me a line through e-mail and it will be instantly yours! No hidden charges!


*Did actually have a pretty cozy and pretty sky-blue quilt b4, however got lost by friend in transfer between apartments - seems to have been substituted into a torn and ugly pink rose-patterned towel oddly enough - but guess these things happen when you leave your stuff shattered all over London.

First day & more escapades

So, it's been and gone - my first day. It was good, lots of info, tons of new faces, millions of names, etc. Think it will work out great. V slow yesterday apparently, not too much going on. It's the quiet season - everybody's on hol. Good for my warm-up.

More drunken weirdness saturday, joined D's flatmate + friends out (w/o D though), went to bar (including Nobu, v nice) and had one and then two and then three glasses of wine. Ooops. Well, it was fun anyway; ended up getting cosy with the flatmate's cute friend (what's up with me and these Brits?), thereby securing a gentlemanly delivery of myself at door step (no, nothing else) late night - no walking alone drunk in central London in heels, brilliant! Maybe this is the way to go.

Did however text the gentleman in question yesterday asking him out for drinks later on, got no answer. Well well.

The Celebration Day

Oh my god. Yesterday was Celebration Day in Lisa's world. Quite an experience.

Firstly; shopping. Of course. Managed to motivate myself into spending a staggering £200 in approx two hours. "I'm worth it" was the theme of the day. Later on I lost both shopping bags in a drunken daze, containing not only the new outfits (two pairs of shoes, a coat, a cardigan and three tops) but ALSO my favorite jacket. Woohoo. But more on that later.

After a few celebratory Starbucks Banana Caramel Frappucinos downed with British gossip literature at hand, I made my way to the old neighborhoods to meet up K. The Ex was there. Not entirely surprising though; it is, in fact, his local. Anyways.

Meeting went well, slightly chilly breezes from one part but hey. I do miss him, I do still care for him. A lot in fact. But, and it needs to be said, I do not want to get back together, it's not in my mind. What we had was lost in confusion and outer circumstances, irrevocably so. I do however want him in my life. I am not the kind of person who simply excludes people I care about from my life, that's just not me. I think that he also wants me there, but I might be mistaken. We'll find out. So far, a drunken seal on drugs could easily show more enthusiasm seeing me than him.

Anyway; fast forward around two hours and three (!) glasses of wine. Me and K are at the local keyboard bar, slightly drunk and very happy. We make the apparently fatal mistakes of 1) doing a dance in front of The Keyboard Man 2) "accidentally" touching his precious instrument (yes, I'm referring to the keyboard, nothing else) with our fingertips 3) stealing a "Reserved" sign from a table and moving it to ours (why? not a clue, probably very logical at the time). We got thrown out and barred. My social life will never be the same again.

Sometime during all this merriment, the bags disappeared. Didn't discover this until 1am, safely resituated back at D's flat. What to do? Well, of course; put on shoes, grab keys and phone but no money or coat and go looking. In the middle of the night. Seriously, I shouldn't be let out of the house while drunk - better yet, should have a one glass limit and hot male single guardian at all times. At least the guardian.

If I had a guardian, I probably wouldn't have busted into my newly non-accessible keyboard bar twice snooping under tables, neither would I scream and play charades with a Summerfield’s guard trying to mime (yes, seriously!) "one yellow bag from Selfridges and one white bag from TopShop", nor would I have called a sleeping and, quite rightly so, annoyed Ex at 2am requesting immediate assistance (which I of course didn't get). What a night.

This morning (or rather late afternoon), the bags where safely returned to my hands, and got to once again travel through most of London City and spend a few hours at Starbucks. They were happy and undamaged, and so am I.

More celebrations!

Oh so happy - my dream job

So it's finally happened; the one thing I've been secretly hoping and waiting for since deciding to make the maybe-not-brilliant career move of leaving the continent and go travelling for a year and a half directly after graduating from university instead of gaining work experience. I've got a job! And not just any job, THE job I've lusted after since persuing to put my career on track again two months ago.

It's a production assistant job, it's in television. More than that I'm not gonna say, not gonna become a Rachel Mosteller and loose my new job haha. But no, it's not glamorous and not celebrity-oriented.

I'm so happy right now. So what to do now? Go shopping ofcourse! Like any proper career girl in London.