How NOT to prepare for a rock show

Friday November 13, 2009 was a day I’d been looking forward to for months and months in advance. It would be the day where I (along with my partner in crime, Tina, naturally) would finally get to experience one of my favorite, if not my favorite, up and coming metal bands – Five Finger Death Punch – live on stage in a rather intimate setting in nearby Aarhus, Denmark.

Now, there are a lot of different ways of preparing for a much anticipated concert experience. Coming down with a case of the H1N1 (aka Swine Flu) is NOT one of them. Which is why I, as I think you can imagine, got more than a little worried and pissed on the evening of Tuesday 10 November when I was sitting at work and suddenly started feeling heavy headed, queasy, sore throated and dizzy. Long uneventful story short, I went home, crashed on the couch which right now doubles on my bed and stayed there for a solid 60 hours straight, during which the flu hit full force and started a battle of wits and determination with my bodily defense systems.

I wouldn’t say that the whole H1N1 experience was that tough on me physically, I was mainly just tired, heavy headed and completely drained of energy. What was probably worst was the whole mental aspect of not knowing whether I’d be up and about on Friday or whether I’d have to call Tina and tell her that I’d have to cancel the date we’d so been looking forward to. Luckily, as it turns out I needn’t have worried as my determination to rock helped my immune system beat the last remaining germs and so, on Friday morning, I finally emerged from bed, nice healthy, well rested (after having slept most of two and a half days away), and ready to rock!

This fact seemed to really please the Tina as she herself hadn’t really know whether to get excited about the show or whether to fear that the entire ordeal would be canceled. Now that we knew it was on, we spent the morning (which is to say the early afternoon as morning to me is now generally somewhere in the 11 AM – 12 Noon area) making the final plans and arrangements for the day. Our plan ended up being reasonably simple. We’d meet up at Tina’s at around 3 PM, hang out a bit while she more than likely got the last few things done, walk down to the train station, catch the 4:20 PM train towards Aarhus and spend the one and a half hour train ride drinking a few beers. Then find something to eat, hang out a bit, go to the venue, get in and rock out.. Pretty simple, really..

And, of course, it turned out reasonably more complicated than that. For starters, I kicked things off being late to get out the door, when I finally did make it out and a few minutes down the road, I had to turn back as I realized that I’d gone off WITH my glasses on but WITHOUT my ear plugs in my pocket. Which, in the case of a hardcore metal show, is not the way you want to go, doubling back, returning on my way and sprinting a bit now, I made it down to Tina’s only fashionably late.. Only to realize that she, naturally, wasn’t ready either.. See, Tina was in the process of giving herself a decidedly more “metal”-like look for the occasion.. Ahem, yes, granted, a metal-like look isn’t really something you’d expect from a pretty, little, blue-eyed, innocent looking platinum blonde girl.. But as with so many other things in life, Tina went at it full force with loads of determination.. And a rather alternative approach.. Which, as with so many other things she does, you wouldn’t really expect to work.. Yet somehow it does.

So, when I found Tina, she was in the bathroom, applying her 20th layer or so of mascara to finish a prominently dark and smokey eye-makeup scheme which she claimed to be very metal and fitting for the occasion. I’m not quite sure I quite followed her, but I deducted that she looked great as always only with considerably darker (and albeit slightly scarier and more overwhelming) eye-makeup, so I didn’t argue. Having finished that, my wonderful and slightly deranged sidekick then launched into what must probably be the first ever heavy metal related clothing crisis in recorded history.. Yes, dear reader, I didn’t think that would be possible either. But apparently there was a lot of confusion as to whether the outfit of the evening should be all black, as pink a possible or a combination of both.. And what, pray tell, f’ing shoes should the poor girl wear?

I mean.. Honestly, babe, you know I love you.. But sometimes, just sometimes, I think you may be part of the reason why I’m losing my hair

After many considerations, a fair bit of teasing on my behalf and a lot of chasing about the house, trying various things on Tina’s behalf, we finally settled on a suitable outfit of black and pink. After I convinced Tina that heels probably weren’t the most suitable choice in a mosh-pit, we even decided on a plair of flat, pink (of course) Converse shoes.. And were about ready to head out the door.. Which was good considering we were now running so late that we pretty much had to head out the door in order to catch our train and such things.

Walking to the train, we chatted merrily, an activity we kept up through the ticket purchase process and subsequent wait for the train to arrive. We even kept up our conversation on the train, only this time with the added benefit of a couple of cold beers to keep us company.

The first leg of our journey ended in Fredericia, a near-by small town and major train hub where we changed trains and boarded an Intercity Express train for Aarhus. A very packed Intercity Express Train to boot. As such, we spent the first part of the journey standing up which left me more than a little queasy as I was standing right in the connecting joint between two train carts, so I was pretty happy when eventually Tina spotted a place for us to sit down for the remainder of the journey. The remainder of the train journey went without any major discomfort if you disregard the fact that I had to pee for most of the way.

We eventually arrived in Aarhus with a few hours to kill and since it was a pretty rainy, cold Friday evening, most of this time was killed in a major shopping mall located conveniently adjacent to the main train station. Here we spent a lot of time gazing at things that Tina really wanted but that she, thank God, couldn’t purchase as we were going to a rock show and had no way of bringing our things. As curtain call time grew closer, we eventually made our way from the comfort of the brightly lit, air conditioned shopping mall into the cold, rainy Aarhus night and, by way of a local Burger King, made our way towards the venue for the show..

And this is where things really started getting interesting..

Time Out!

My mom came to visit today. One of the first things she asked me was “So, isn’t it hard having so little to do all of a sudden?” And strangely enough, I found myself answering her in a confirming manner. For the longest time, all I wanted was some time off, now that I have time off, I don’t know what to do with it.. Granted, I try to make the best of it: I work some, write on my resume and am trying to piece together a “draft” for future applications, I’ve even taken to cleaning and cooking regularly.. But still, there’s just so damn much free time and I can’t help but feeling weird and/or guilty for spending it just goofing off when I feel like there should be something constructive I could be doing instead.. God I hate that feeling!

But, eh, like I said, I try to make the best of it and find things to do. As a result, I’ve cleaned out the pig sty that my home had become, I’ve started prepping my job search, I’ve cooked dinner for the weekend without knowing of the people I’ll be spending it with even wanted me to do that.. And I’ve been around, had a few beers, made a few plans, sometimes too many plans for myself to remember and I’ve been off my ass drunk a few times.. Usually some of these things have coincided, such as getting off my ass drunk and making plans I couldn’t remember. Like last Saturday at the Uboat where Michael and I may have had one or two beers too many and I start chatting Tina up very enthusiastically not only making plans about hanging out the day after,  but apparently also about hanging out on Monday and having dinner together and stuff. The first part of these plans I do remember and we did have a very nice Sunday hanging out at Dunkel’s, having dinner and watching movies.. It wasn’t till late in the evening when I was walking Tina home and she asked what time I’d be over the day after (Monday) that I got a little confused and went “Heh? What?”

Now, as much as I constantly tease Tina, I will have to give her a lot of credit for being damn cool about a lot of the really outrageously stupid things I pull off every now and then.. Such as, say, making great plans with her in a state of intoxication and blankly forgetting all about it. Now, I know a lot of people who would (rightfully) have been very upset about such behavior.. Tina, on the other hand just shot me a smile and started shaking her head and giggling at my being a dumbass. I do understand she cuts me a little extra slack on account of our special friendship, but still: kudos to her for not ripping my head off

As it turns out, the plans I had very enthusiastically proposed to  Tina involved us hanging out, getting some sushi and generally having a good time. Which, I must say, was one of the better ideas I’d ever gotten while intoxicated, and I wish I’d have remembered it well enough to be able to take credit for it! But since it was Tina who related the idea to me on a dark street on a Sunday evening, it all felt more like her idea. But eh, regardless, I was more than up for it and went home to sleep on it.

I woke Monday at around 7:30 AM. For the record, this may be the first time since Tina and I went to Brussels this spring that I have been up before 8 AM. It was a struggle, but it had to be done. Apparently we had a real estate agent coming over to take a look at the house and as such I couldn’t really be in bed sleeping when he needed to check my part of the house. Or, well, as it turned out, I could as he had apparently seen the house before and did not need to take a look at my quarters.. Happy joy!

Oh well, due to the bright and early start to the day, I managed to get a lot of work done even before noon when Tina and I stuck our heads together and figured out that maybe, just maybe, we should invite Zascha along for our sushi adventures of the evening. Which, of course, we did. Only Zascha couldn’t make it to Kolding, so in a split decision, we decided that if Zascha couldn’t come here then we’d go visit her at her parents’ later.. Later meaning at around 1 PM, about an hour after we’d gotten the idea.

So, at around 1 PM, Tina dropped by and borrowed my internet while my landlord and I plus a few of his friends finished thrashing around the apartment looking for things that needed fixing before the house could go on sale. We then set off in Tina’s little car towards the fair town of Juelsminde, blasting a bit of heaving fucking metal along the way. The drive was rather smooth and uneventful, with us only being in mortal peril like once along the way. We arrived about an hour later and was greeted by Zascha, her little dog, Micha, her mother and her grandmother.. All of which are great people, save Micha who is a great dog!

We joined Zascha and her mother in the kitchen for coffee while Zascha’s grandmother set off to mow the lawn. I kinda figured I should’ve asked her if she needed help, but on the other hand I was a guest and I understand she’d just been through a major operation plus recovery and probably needed to keep herself going. I hope no one was upset. Anyways, catching with the girls was nice even if I was a little outnumbered and had problems getting my point across in various situations because apparently I have a history of disagreeing with both Zascha and Tina for the sheer sake of disagreeing and apparently they capitalize and punish me for that when they have me outnumbered. This, of course, is hardly fair.. But there you go.

After coffee and discussions and heated arguments about this and that (including why I shouldn’t marry neither Tina nor Zascha), we decided to head out for a while and check out the sights and sounds. This led to a fun-filled trip around the town of Juelsminde by both car and feet and a lot of recollections of the good times that were had by all during our previous visits. As it turns out, a lot of drunken fun was had in a lot of different places and getting to revisit those places proved both a nostalgic and fun experience.. I’m not entirely sure why, but a lot of the stories seemed to revolve around Christian and I either getting really drunk or doing something really destructive in this or that place.. Ah memories!

We returned to Zascha’s parents’ place a few hours later and when we did, her father had returned from work and her mother had dinner at the ready. Tina and I had originally planned to return home and get sushi for dinner but since Zascha’s mother had already counted on us for dinner and we’re not really the kinda poor students to turn down free food, we decided to stay and have dinner with the family. Staying proved a good choice. Not only had Zascha’s mom made creamy tomato soup for dinner, she’d also heated some salmon/potato/leek casserole leftovers and made Zasha’s dad get a few beers out for us. Speaking of Zascha’s dad, have I ever mentioned that the guy is a complete riot? He really is the kinda guy that will give you all sorts of shit and hardships, but in no demeaning manner whatsoever. Since that’s pretty much how I work as well, he and I usually have a pretty good time together – mostly on my behalf, though, but that’s okay, I’ll live. This time around, we may have ganged up on Tina a bit, though, something that didn’t make her all too happy as she seemed to think that we should stick to just trashing each other. But regardless, I’m pretty sure a good time was had by all.

After dinner, Tina and one too many insults or instances of name-calling, Tina and I got ready to drive back to Kolding, made our goodbyes with Zascha, her parents and ye little doggie and got back in the car, homeward bound, singing along to Stone Sour as we drove. When we returned, we went to Tina’s, grabbed a beer, did some silly, crazy planning for next weekend, the details of which can’t be related here, had another beer and a few laughs and decided to watch a few episodes of “The Big Bang Theory”.. Good times indeed!

At a little past midnight, I was finally cracking under the strain of having been up way too early for my liking and excused myself seeing as Tina, too, was starting to look a little worn down and tired. I made my goodbyes with the little one and went on my way home where I arrived absolutely exhausted at around 12:40 AM, only to find that I (of course) couldn’t sleep as my mind was racing with all sorts of weird thoughts about the future.. Lovely!

It had, however, been quite a lovely day although I barely got anything constructive done. I guess I do owe it to myself to take half days off every now and then.. Right?

This is it, then?

Handing in a MA thesis has probably been one of the weirdest experiences of my life. Not to mention one of the more stressful. In a true Murphy’s Law kinda way, anything that could go wrong did go wrong and as a result, I only barely finished printing the damn thing at midnight on Sunday, some 9 hours before I’d planned to hand in the damn thing. Having done so, I pretty quickly made my way home and more or less passed out from exhaustion.

The next morning, I got up early, called for a cab and went down to uni to hand in my thesis. Sitting in the cab with the culmination of five years of university on my lap really was the weirdest feeling ever. You’d think I’d be relieved that it’s all over, and of course I was, but it’s hard to even grasp that it really is over, let alone feel joyful and happy about it as you’ve spent the last few weeks being stressed out and worried sick about everything.. And, well, the whole process wears you out unlike anything I’ve ever tried before, so when I did finally make it to uni and handed the thing in, I felt more zombified than I ever have in my life. It was an odd mix of happiness, relief, nervousness and sheer exhaustion. I honestly cannot remember ever having been this tired and worn out in my entire life.. Really.. And it was only 10:30 AM on a day devoted to celebrating me, Tina and Louise handing in our respective theses.

Oh well, as always the Johan soldiered on.. Having handed in my thesis and said hi to Louise and Tina who just happened to be at uni for some last minute printing or whatever, I went on with my day. Which first and foremost involved planning and shopping for dinner later that night.. Which turned out to be a pretty interesting quest considering how mentally and physically beat I was and bearing in mind that we hadn’t really had time to do any planning what with our theses needing writing and stuff. What little planning Tina and I had done involved throwing out a hell of a lot of invitations and figuring we’d just sort out the details during the day.. With the result that we now had eight people (ourselves included) coming over to Tina’s for dinner that evening and no real plans for food or anything.

We decided during our little meet-up at uni to just go with something simple involving pasta, creamy tomato sauce and chicken and to more or less just tell people to show up whenever they felt like it. This took a lot of the stress out of the planning, for everyone but a severely sleep deprived Johan who now had to do shopping and preparations for dinner for eight.. Which was fun, let me tell you. It involved a lot of walking between my place and Tina’s place, going to the store not once, or twice but three times in order to get everything I needed. And making not one, or two, but three visits to my go to wine guy. The third of which was caused by my own stupidity as I chose to drop (and break) a bottle of white wine I’d just bought on my way down to Tina’s.. Doh!

The entire process took about four hours total, cock ups and all which left me about five minutes to rest at Tina’s (having your own key does have its privileges) before moving on with my day, the next part of which was a lot more enjoyable. See, Zascha was in town for the evening’s celebrations but had decided to come early to do some shopping. Having not had the chance to properly hang out and spend some time together in ages, we decided that I should join her and we’d make a day of it. A pretty awesome day, really. It was raining pretty heavily that day so we spent most of it huddled together under Zascha’s umbrella while walking around town and picking up new clothes, accessories and boots for Zascha. I know I’m a guy and shouldn’t enjoy such activities, but there you go, we actually had a lot of fun doing it and we barely even fought, bickered, made fools of ourselves or walked into things in the process.. Ahem!

We also took time out to visit a new downtown cafe for what we hoped would be a quick, easy lunch.. Which instead turned into a bit of a waiting game as they took forever to take notice of us, get our orders and eventually put food and drinks on the table.. But they did serve me my first beer of the day, so I’ll forgive them. As far as food was concerned, we decided to share a plate of nachos which would have been a pretty good idea, had we not been terrible at sharing. It all went reasonably well until I, as any guy would, implemented the universal “if they’re stuck together, they count as one nacho” rule, a rule that ended up working out in Zascha’s favor as she was able to lift almost an entire layer of chips stuck together by molten cheese. This, naturally, pissed me off so while she was happily and joyfully munching away at parts of her loot, I ripped the other half right out of her hand, dipped it and ate it like the bastard that I am, causing Zascha to shoot me a look of surprise, anger, disappointment and just plain disbelief.. Well, I’m sorry, sweetie, it had to be done!

I spent the rest of our lunch date wondering whether Zascha was about to kill me and or kick me in the shin, but to her credit, she did neither, though she did spend most of our subsequent walk down to Tina’s complaining about my manners. We arrived at Tina’s at around 5 PM, I think, and when we did, Emelie and Louise were already there, too.. I think.. At this time, I’d reached a point where my brain had started shutting down and not even registering the most basic things. The fact that Zascha (bless her) had brought a Cuban sipping rum for us to enjoy wasn’t really helping my cognitive process either and I can’t for the life of me relate any details of what happened during the next few hours. I know that Tine and Christian eventually arrived and that a lot of talks and laughs were had.. As for my part.. I was merely just there, trying to take part in the conversation, trying to get dinner on the table and trying to be somewhat coherent.. And I failed pretty miserably at most of those tasks. Judging by the reactions of the others, I made some pretty weird, out of place comments and had some pretty strange answers to pretty simple questions.. But I did get food on the table.. Eventually. And after forgetting pretty basic things such as adding cream to a creamy tomato sauce. The others assured me the food was still good, though, I wouldn’t know, I’m not sure I registered how it tasted, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t say so if it wasn’t. And I guess that goes to prove than even when tired to the point of exhaustion, slightly drunk and barely aware where I am, I can still cook a mean pasta dinner.. Yay me!

We spent a lot of time eating, talking, sipping good wine and having a general good time. Getting some food (and wine) in my stomach helped me wake up a little and start registering what was going on around me which made me realize that I obviously wasn’t the only worn out, tired and incoherent person in the room. Actually, I think that most everybody, save perhaps Karsten, Louise’s boyfriend, who arrived near the end of our dinner were in a totally different place mentally which quickly became evident as we went for a Trivial Pursuit after dinner which had to be abandoned after a few hours on account of no one being smart enough gain an advantage, let alone win.

Sadly, Christian and Emelie had to leave the party rather early and once they did at around 10 PM, fatigue quickly set in for others. Karsten and Louise were next to leave on account of Louise being exceedingly wrecked and Tine, too, took her leave at around 10:30 PM. Leaving just Tina, Zascha and I to sit around, enjoy ourselves, sip some of the remaining wine and actually managing to finish a quick round of Trivial Pursuit.. Amazing! We even made it through a surprisingly long and heated game of LUDO which literally lasted for hours.

We eventually admitted defeat at around 1:30 AM when we were all basically too tired to stand, or even sit up for that matter so as the girls started getting ready for bed, I made my goodbyes and started on the long, hard walk home which I honestly don’t even remember taking, but I must have done so as I woke up the next morning in my own bed feeling utterly discombobulated and not knowing what to do with an entire day off..

Being done is such a weird feeling, I hope I’ll get around to enjoying it one of these days..

Everything, apparently, tastes better when well-deserved

Y’know, it’s kind of ironic. I pride myself on being a man of good taste who would rather spent a little extra on something good and enjoy it all the more. Over the course of the years, this has caused me to spend borderline obscene amounts of money on quality foods, wines, spirits and beers. I have a fully stocked wine fridge within reaching distance to my right and a collection of single malts and rums to my left that would wow most students my age.. Not to mention a collection of some of the most exclusive beers in the world stocked away at the back of the basement..

Yet, all that aside, and bearing my supposed good taste and fondness of quality in mind, I am, at this very moment, sitting here and having one of those really memorable beer experiences.. At 2 AM on a Friday night while drinking a mass-produced “Tiger” lager beer that I picked up at DKK 5 a pint at the local supermarket earlier today. I’m sure a lot of beer aficionados would kill me for admitting this, but there you go.. It’s not that the beer is that damn good or memorable in itself. As far as a branded lager beer goes it’s like all the others: Heineken, Bud, Carlsberg, the like, which is to say not overly bad.. But not overly good either.

I guess what sets this beer apart is that it’s fucking well-deserved. After a 13 hour work day on a Friday, I feel like I’ve fucking earned it and that alone makes it taste all the better and all the more memorable. Funny how that works.. But I guess that means that from now on I don’t necessarily have to break out the good stuff on a Friday night, I just have to wear myself down before popping the lid on anything. Apparently the more tired I get, the more my standards degrade. Which means I must have been REALLY tired yesterday when Tina and I shared a goodnight beer in the shape of a Cave Creek’s Chili Beer and thought “hey, this is pretty good!” only to look it up online and find out that it’s supposedly one of the worst beers in the world as far as beer geeks are concerned. Ouch. That did, sorta somehow make me feel dirty for liking it, but it does prove the point I made in the title of this post.. That everything, apparently, tastes better when it’s well-deserved.

And well-deserved it is. It’s been an absolutely crazy week. Two shifts at work, and at least 8 hours of work on ye olde thesis per day to add to that. I’ve gotten a fuckload of work done, but I’m also absolutely wrecked. But it’s been worth it. I’m keeping up with my schedule! I’m actually ahead of it. Tomorrow is dedicated to writing a 1-2 page English summary of my entire thesis and then I am actually officially DONE with the writing process. Only proof reading and minor adjustments to go! I’m hoping I’ll be able to write that whole summary thing pretty quickly tomorrow and be done in good time, then put my feet up, kick back and do fuck all all day, save maybe get some good food and a good glass of wine or something. Sunday will officially be my only full day off this week which I’m looking forward to immensely as it’ll give me time to catch up with everything I’ve otherwise neglected. Then it’s back to work on Monday morning with the hopes of having everything done and ready for printing by next Friday evening..

I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it’s not a freight train coming my way.

It’s not so bad at all..

Wow, so can I just say that I spent almost ten hours working on my thesis today? Which I don’t think is anything I’ve ever done before.. In my time at uni.. On any assignment I’ve been given there.. Ever.. For real! So, yeah, that was new.. And interesting.. It really has been a tale of blood, sweat and tears, well, minus the blood but with a fair bit of cussing and frustration thrown in for good measure.. Along with a tiny Tina, some food, Big Bang Theory and a beer!

I kicked things off at home, at the crack of noon.. Because.. Well, I’d had some real trouble sleeping the night before so I got up a little late. I don’t know why, but sometimes when I’m really busy and have a lot of shit to worry about, I just keep pushing it ahead of me until I have time to sit down and worry.. Which, when I’m busy, usually coincides with when I find time to lay down and go to sleep.. Clever, huh? Either way, as a result, I spent the entire night and some of the wee hours laying awake and thinking of challenges to come.. Which is pretty dumb considering I could be spending my time sleeping and resting as to better face the challenges to come. Either way, that’s how I roll, and as a result, I didn’t get started on my thesis until noon. But hey, I did, then pull all the way through, working non-stop until around 6 PM when I had a “date” with Tina.

The idea was to get together, have some dinner, do some more work, then relax with a beer and some random activity.. And things did, sorta, work out according to plan.. Kinda. Well, to be honest it kinda went off track from the get-go. Both of us were pretty over-worked and pouty so when I met Tina, she was lounging about on the grass outside her apartment complex and catching a much needed break, we then retreated to her apartment to do some work while cooking some dinner.. Which really didn’t go according to plan because in the middle of things, I got entangled in a bitter fight with Microsoft Word which really didn’t want to do things my way and if there’s one thing that really rubs me the wrong way, it’s things designed to work in one way that suddenly choose not to work in the way they were intended with no apparent explanation or remedy for their actions. To put it mildly, I was fuming.. Like scarily ticked off in ways that were by no means good for my blood pressure, let alone.. Well.. Sane.. So dinner got pushed on the back burner for a while with the result that some things got a little too hot and others a little too cold.. A potentially dangerous predicament when you’re working with poultry. But luckily for our health it was the turkey that got too hot and the veggies that were a little on the cold, under-cooked side.

This, of course, did nothing to improve my mood.. But, luckily, I had Tina around to go “look, chill, we’re hungry and over-worked, we’ll just eat things like they are and then do over some other time” Well, not exactly in those words, but that was the essence of her words and gestures. And she was right of course.. And dinner wasn’t bad! We consumed the first half of it with each of us fuming or sulking for our own separate reasons, an activity that lasted for all of five minutes or so before the first joke was thrown and a few laughs and smiles emerged, it went downhill from then and pretty soon we were both laughing and smiling. I even managed to crack a joke about the absurdness of me getting so worked up over a piece of software.. But that’s still not to say I like you, Microsoft Word!

After we’d finished dinner and taken care of most of the dishes, we each went back to our separate chores for the evening. Tina went back to her thesis and her research for said thesis and I went back to cussing and fuming at Microsoft Word while trying to both make sense of it and get it to do things my way.. All while evidently stretching it to the limits of it capabilities.. My task of the evening was to add various bits, pieces and appendices to my thesis which apparently was to turn out to be somewhat of a nightmare. With my thesis already clocking in at over 200,000 characters and an even larger number of characters in the shape of code, scripts, documentation and various odds and ends being added.. Well, simple tasks such as cut and paste seemed to be too much for ye olde word processor in the end. It first ate my memory, then it started giving me weird error messages along the lines of “your document contains too many spelling errors for the spell checker to function” (umm.. kay!), then it ate a whole bunch of my virtual memory as well, and started responding very sporadically, meaning that many tasks had to be completed several times, paragraphs pasted in needed to be redone and reformatted and what have you.. In short, a two hour nightmare which stretched my patience beyond what I thought possible.. But was somehow completed in the end.. All to the tune of Slipknot which Tina, wisely, had put on after dinner.

The end result was a monster of a document spanning 345 pages, 565,611 characters, 56,567 words.. And other measurements as well!! And it’s not even quite done yet, it still needs a conclusion, a bibliography, some captions for various illustrations.. Oh, and proof reading of course.. Which should be a lot of fun considering that spell check has apparently decided to stop working. The document itself, apparently takes up 2.5 MB of disk space and should you be interested in opening it, you need about 1.2 gigabytes if memory. In essence, I’ve come pretty close to either breaking or severely confusing Microsoft Word! A task which in its own way, along with the troubles it had given me along the way and the mind-numbing statistics was enough to make me suspend my Macbook and go “Fuck it, I need a beer!” a statement which Tina luckily agreed with.

So, she put her work away as well, and I took out the treat of the evening, the famed Chili Tripel beer I’d gotten from my dad for my birthday which, like so many other things that day, was to prove interesting. Tina’s first words were something along the lines of “My God” followed by a some form of declaration of the beer being cloyingly sweet, but then, she does react to sugar even more violently than I do – which is admirable in its own way. I wasn’t too inclined to agree with her, the beer was sweet but not cloyingly so. To me it tasted more like a Tripel with all the characteristics of a Dubbel, the alcohol level of a Belgian strong/massive ale and close to no trace of chili which made me assume that somewhere along their way to innovate and impress, Danish micro brewers have gotten a little confused. It wasn’t a bad beer persay, it just really wasn’t what I’d expected. I was expecting something light in color, crisp and fruity with hints of chili, and I got something darkish brown with clear hints of dark sugar and spice, but close to no chili.. Huh! I was more surprised than I was disappointed, really. Either way, it went down pretty well after ten hours of thesis work.. And Tina, I’m sorry, I know it wasn’t your style, but then it clearly wasn’t the style I’d expected either. I’ll find something more fitting next time around.

Still, beer is beer, so it still made a nice side dish for the few episodes of The Big Bang Theory that we watched before I, completely destroyed by lack of sleep and long hours of fighting with Word saw myself defeated and turned my old, aching legs homebound. All in all, despite all the hard work, it hasn’t been that bad of a day. Apparently even thesis work can be bearable if done with good company, food, beer and a few laughs.. It’s been a long day, though, and it surely has rendered me completely spent.. And, for once, I say this before 2 AM! Maybe I should take advantage of that and get my ass to bed. It would appear that I have a long day of thesis AND work at GLS ahead of me tomorrow.

I has a wine cooler!

It’s been a pretty quiet weekend in Johan-land.  Actually, most of it has been dedicated to working on my thesis (90 pages down, baby, ten to go!), but some epic stuff has happened such as my mom and Klaus dropping by somewhat unexpected with a birthday present.

When I say somewhat unexpected I mean that my mom did warn me on Friday that they might drop by on Saturday morning, so I did get some fair warning and I did manage to get up at 8:30 on Saturday just in case.. Not that I’d heard anything further or anything, and not that I did hear anything until around 10 AM when my mom called and was like “Yeah, we’ll be by in about half an hour’s time. Cool, I said, and put down my work for a while and started waiting.. Which I did for all of an hour until my phone rang again and my mom informed me that they were running a little late which, I told her, I’d kinda figured out after they didn’t show up after that half hour. My mom then started rambling on about how I’d misunderstood what had been said while I could hear Klaus in the background trying to press along down a totally different track as far as excuses went.. I never really did figure out what had happened or why they were running late, in fact, I’m not sure they even THEY know, but it’s nice to hear that they’re already at the point where they’re starting to disagree about things and bicker on like an old married couple.

Either way, long story long, they eventually arrived at around noon-ish and called me out to meet them in the drive way on account of them having difficulty getting my present out of Klaus’ car. Which is no surprise given that Klaus drives a classic, lowered, aerodynamic sport car kinda thing and they arrived with a box large enough to fit a fully grown Tina.. And about as heavy as a fully grown Tina as well.. Which, admittedly, isn’t really all that big or all that heavy but what with Klaus being close to retirement age, my mom being female and the space being rather  tight and narrow, it was understandable that they were having a bit of trouble.. And since it was my present and all, I figured I’d better come lift it out the car and carry it inside.

So, what all went into this giant, heavy box of doom? Well, since they hadn’t really bothered (or been capable) of wrapping the huge ass box, it was kinda easy to tell from the beginning. Yet, not really believing my own eyes, I still carried it inside and opened it to confirm that it did in fact contain a 15 bottle electronic wine cooler! Or, if you happen to be from America and think that a wine cooler is something you drink, we might also call it a wine fridge.. Either way, it’s a small cooling unit with adjustable temperature settings and enough room for fifteen bottles of wine.. and it’s f’ing awesome! In fact, I pretty quickly declared that it was the perfect gift for someone like me.. And at the same time a really bad gift for someone like me. See, given the recent string of birthdays, more or less expected dinners with Tina and what have you, I’m down to five bottles of wine in my personal collection.. Which leaves me with ten empty slots to fill and an already run amok collector’s spirit.. The fact that I now have substantially improved storage conditions for my wines also means that I can now buy substantially better and more expensive wines without necessarily having to drink them young or worry about the effects of changing temperatures in my basement.. As you can probably tell, it’s all a bit of a predicament! But even so, I think it’s an awesome present and I’m sure that the five wines that I do have are quite happy to be chilling at a cool 16 degrees rather than the pretty hot and humid comfort of our washing cellar at this time of year.

My mom and Klaus stuck around just long enough to witness my childish fascination with my gift and then raced on, excusing themselves with having a ton of stuff to take care off. I found it all a bit odd, but hey if they didn’t want to stay.. And I did have work to get back to, aside from assembling my new toy and re-stashing my wines,  so I guess it was all good.

I worked on my thesis till around 4 PM when I hit the 90 page mark and was like “fuck it, let’s celebrate!” I’d heard Dunkel was back in town so I headed down to him with a few beers and other interesting drinks, and so we pretty soon found ourselves in a pretty good mood watching some clips on Youtube and throwing down a few cold ones. We eventually got to talking about dinner and I’m not really sure how, but somehow home-made Chicken Cordon Bleu turned up.. As so oft before, when alcohol is involved, one thing let to another and before we knew it, we were on our way back from the store carrying DKK 255 worth of purchases including chicken breasts, emmentaler cheese, air cured ham, cream, a bottle of vodka and some extra strong lagers.. The last few items were mainly for inspiration as neither of us knew how to make Chicken Cordon Bleu, so we figured there’d be some discussion and planning involved.

As it turned out, when we got back, there was indeed very little planning involved as I did as I so often do and jumped gung-ho into the whole thing and started butterflying chicken breasts, thinking that was the way to do things.. It’s apparently not.. Apparently, you’re just supposed to pound them flat and then roll them around the filling, but I hadn’t bothered to do my research so I ended up with some really large, thin pieces of chicken. My main fear now was that they’d break or tear if I tried rolling them around the fillings, but luckily at this point drunken logic came to my help once again as we decided that rather than making two small Cordon Bleus and go through all sorts of worries.. Why did we not just make one GIANT Cordon Bleu, sandwiching ham and cheese between the two breasts and then not having to worry about rolling or folding anything? As an added bonus, we’d get a ridiculously large, unhealthy and in many ways revolting abomination of a Cordon Bleu in the process!! Genius!!

This all turned out to be not that bad of an idea; it certainly was easier to work with, it didn’t disintegrate during cooking (possibly because it filled the entire pan), that and there’s basically no end to the pride felt by two drunken idiots who get to make ridiculously large servings of unhealthy foods.. Especially not when they in another moment of sheer genius decide to top the masterpiece with some left over ham and cheese.. It really was beautiful. In a messed up kinda way

The whole thing was served with beerm roasted potato wedges and a sauce whipped up from roasted garlic, pan juices, chicken stock, nutmeg and cream.. Simple, filling, heart-attack inducing.. And surprisingly good for a first, drunken attempt.

Having thusly celebrated our own sheer genius, we kicked right into an extended movie night featuring.. Uhhh.. Dodgeball, Top Secret, Idle Hands and Zack & Miri Make A Porno.. I think.. I got confused.. At any rate, there was a lot of laughter, a lot of Jessica Alba, a lot of beer, some Offspring.. And I may have missed a few details along the way because at one point during Idle Hands we decided that it’d be fun to blend vodka, strawberry slush ice, brown sugar and more vodka and serve it up in tumbler style glasses.. As a result, we ended up splitting 2/3 of a bottle of vodka during half of what was essentially not that long of a movie.. Ah, good times! Which isn’t to say that a movie featuring Seth Green, Jessica Alba, music by Rob Zombie and cameo appearances by The Offspring wouldn’t have been pretty good times to begin with, I’m just saying that five shots of vodka in the process probably didn’t make it worse.

The whole beer/movie/vodka adventure lasted until about 1:30 when Dunkel had to forfeit which was probably, come to think of it, in everybody’s (all two of us) best interest. So I ended up walking home right around then, carrying the last half bottle of beer with me to finish once I got home which I of course did, coz you shouldn’t let good beer go to waste.. And I’m, come to think of it, quite happy that it all ended there because it allowed me to get up the next day, albeit late, without a hangover and actually get to enjoy my one full day off this week which was quite a nice experience, thank you very much. It’s been a long week but what little time I had off has been spent well, I guess now since we’re once again getting frighteningly close to 4 AM, I’d better get my ass to bed so I can get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow and get back to working on my thesis..

Sigh.. It’ll all be over soon.

Celebrate good times, c’mon!

As you may have heard from my ranting and ravings, yesterday was my 28th birthday and I think I may just have had the longest birthday ever what with me being awake for 22 out of those 24 hours that made up my birthday.. But how’d that come to be? Well, it’s a long story, but eh.. Here we go..

I kicked things off by celebrating my birthday at work since I was lucky enough to be working on the night of the 28th and as such spent the first hour of my 28th year sitting at my desk at GLS. Due to this fact, I’d picked up a small cake on my way to work to share with my fat fucking bastard colleagues because as far as fat fucking bastards go, they’re actually a bunch of nice fat fucking bastards.. That and they’re always offering me pieces of cake or whatever whenever they bring anything along, so while I don’t eat cake, I brought some along anyways because I’m just that good of a guy.

Of course, it all turned into a bit of a stealth mission. See, there are a lot of people at work, some of whom I’ve worked closely with, some of whom I kinda know and others I just don’t know and care about. Of course I wanted to share my pretty, little cake with Torben I work with now, but I also wanted to get a few slices down to Tom and Christian, my ex co-workers down in the terminal.. Preferably without everybody else finding out about the fact that I had cake and was sharing. So, I stashed my cake away in a small tea kitchen upstairs and at around 11:30 snuck out to cut off a few pieces, stash them on a plate which I stealthily crept down the stairs with, snuck down a few hallways, into the main terminal building and up to Tom who quickly stashed it away and/or ate it before anybody else noticed anything. I then ran back the way from whence I came, returned to my seat, plopped down and waited things out for about half an hour, waiting for various people who I knew to popping by the office at midnight to do so.. And when they did, I then snuck back out into the kitchen, retrieved the cake, cut off slices for Torben and I and wished myself a happy birthday. Torben did the same and then went and retrieved a grotesquely oversized flag and planted it behind me. I guess from then on the jig was up.. Oh well!

Having thusly celebrated the first hour of my birthday at work, I walked the long, hard way home, treating myself to a couple of hotdogs and a beer from the Shell station along the way which I consumed once I returned home while watching a few episodes of some random cooking show.. Good times! I think my previous post already details what happened then, so I’ll just skip right to my heading to bed at 3:30 AM and trying to catch a good nights sleep.. Which I, of course, failed at completely.. Mainly because of my mom deciding to call me and wish me a happy birthday! Now, let me just say that I have no problem with people calling me and wishing me a happy birthday, I do, however, have somewhat of a problem with people doing so at 5:30 AM on a night where I’ve been working.. I know she means well, though, it’s not her fault our daily rhythms are fundamentally different.

Anyways, once I’d been stirred awake, I absolutely positively just plain couldn’t get back to sleep and when other birthday wishes started pouring in from 7 AM and onwards, I thought fuck it and just spent some time laying about, doing some reading and whatever. I then slowly got up, showered, ground up some top notch coffee beans, heated some fiber rolls and sat down to have breakfast while checking the news.. I then spent the rest of the day just chilling, taking a break from the computer, doing the last bit of shopping for dinner and just kicking back getting things ready and running the dinner drill through my head. At around 2 PM, my mom dropped by to say congratulations and have a cup of tea. For my birthday, she brought me a small batch of Asbach Uralt chocolates which I found really considerate seeing as I love me some brandy, and kinda weird seeing as she knows I don’t eat sweets. She stayed for a little over an hour and we actually had a pretty good talk which is kinda surprising but nice.

At around 4 PM, I seriously got started on dinner preparations, the idea was to get things as far ahead as possible in advance so I’d just have to get the timing part right and throw things together once the guests arrived.. Which would turn out to be complicated enough, but eh.. I’d tried to keep the menu simple with focus on seasonal ingredients: For starters, we’d have an omelette with sauteed onions, fresh tomatoes and fresh basil, served with steamed green asparagus topped with smoked, dried ham, garlic, parmesan cheese and lemon juice.. Oh, and mine and Tina’s home-made garlic bread which we now have everybody hooked on. The main course would be medium-rare beef tenderloin topped with high quality olive oil, cracked pepper and more parmesan cheese, served with a warm potato salad of fingerling potatoes, cherry tomatoes, basil, more olive oil and grilled marinated artichoke hearts.. To that a green salad of rocket leaves, pears, walnuts and even more parmesan cheese, dressed with even more olive oil and some lemon juice.. Oh, and more garlic bread!

The guests – Tina, Christian, Emelie and Zascha – arrived at around 5 PM right as I was getting ready to sear the beef tenderloin and from then on the timing just sorta worked for a change. I got them seated, had Christian help me pour an aperitif in the shape of a Belgian inspired quality ale, which was both tasty and calming and I then seriously got cracking on dinner.. Sorry, I mean WE then got seriously cracking on dinner. See, I’d tried something new for a change and actually recruited the help of Tina with various tasks and we ended up dragging Christian in as well.. So I got to feel like a head chef for once while watching pots and pans and overseeing the general process while I had Tina doing garlic bread and various prep work while Christian beat eggs, took care of the wines, plates, wiped up after me when I’d occasionally spill a liter of two of boiling water over my feet and what have you.. I gotta say that despite grim expectations on my behalf it actually worked out pretty damn well and Tina was both proud and happy to help – not to mention proud that I actually let them help.. And while I was a little stressed out with having five people in the kitchen, three of them doing the cooking and two providing entertainment, I didn’t snap or yell at anybody.. Not even once! Even if Tina thought I did once, I didn’t, I swear!

Good times, and the timing actually was pretty good on most thing so we got dinner on the table without mentionable delays and decent timing between the dishes.. And it turned out rather good, I’d dare say. I thought it was delicious anyways and that the wines to go with it were superb. Tina even claimed it was the best dinner I’d ever cooked and while I somehow doubt that, it still made me feel all warm and happy inside At any rate, it certainly wasn’t a bad meal and it seemed to be joined by all, even Emelie, our vegetarian gone carnivore who was treated to beef tenderloin as one of her first tries at beef in 15 years.. Not a bad start, I dare say!

After dinner, Christian and Tina insisted on doing the dishes at which point I insisted to help in order to speed up the process. This created some amount of friendly arguing and bickering, but it was eventually decided that I could help hang out, drink wine and put things away as I knew (more or less) where they went. Eventually we ended up all five of us in the kitchen with Christian doing dishes, Tina and I bickering about various stuff and drying things off as well as putting them away and Zascha and Emelie once again providing entertainment, good advice and starting off a small spider scare as they discovered a few of my little friends that always seem to hang about my apartment even if I go hunting for them before having people over.. It was good times!

With dinner and dishes out of the way, we sat down to chill a bit, the girls (sans Zascha who was driving) had some more wine, Christian and I had a bit of rum and a few beers and we basically just hung out, talked and had a good time for a few hours. I got a present, too, in the shape of a stainless steel wine/schnapps cooler which hugely fascinated me, not so much because of the wine cooling feature , but more particularly because it actually said schnapps cooler.. Thank you guys.. This is awesome!

Zascha was the first person to give in, which is understandable as she’d have a long, tiring day, and decided to drive home, she took Tina with her who was too tired and hurting to walk home and decided to catch a lift. Emelie and Christian stayed back for a while, waiting for the next train before leaving at around 11 PM. With an hour or so left of my birthday, I decided it’d be terrible to let the last bit of wine go to waste so I sat down and enjoyed one last glass of Roodeberg Red, checked out my insane number of b-day greetings on Facebook (like, thanks!) and listened to a bit of music, winding down completely for a few hours before crawling to bed at around 2 AM.

Another awesome birthday is in the can.. Thank you guys and girls for making it a great, special day for me! And thank you everybody else for the heart-warming birthday wishes..

Bah.. Thesis, schmesis!

It has been brought to my attention that working on one’s thesis does not necessarily have to be all bad. It’s all just a matter of creating the right settings for the experience. See, we’re still facing some unusually high temperatures here in Denmark, so work is probably the last thing on peoples’ list of things they’d love to do at this moment.. Which probably goes to explain a rather whiny status update of mine on Facebook which read something along the lines of me being much more in the mood for mojitos in the sun than thesis and work.

Well, as could probably be expected, it took Tina all of ten minutes to pick up on it and make a comment that she thought that mojitos in the sun and thesis writing would compliment each other nicely.. And, well, one thing begat the other and suddenly the comment threat warped into us setting up a “date” for the next day – that next day being Friday – involving thesis writing in the sun, sunbathing and, of course, mojitos! As if it were the most reasonable combination ever.. Honestly, I thought it sounded like the best idea ever and didn’t really think much of it until later when I came to remember that my dad frequently reads my status updates as his own little way of keeping in touch. I then realized that me planning a serious working effort involving cute blondes, sun, rock n roll and alcoholic beverages would probably render him either very upset, very confused.. Or just plain proud! I’ve really no idea, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Whatever people may or may not have thought, Friday arrived soon enough and I (having worked the night before) got up at an (for me) unreasonably early hour to pack up my laptop, myself, a bottle of rum, mint sprigs, limes, cane sugar and other necessities to head down to Tina’s for a serious bit of work. I arrived there at around 11-ish and as part of my new lifestyle of not doing more bodily harm to myself than necessary started out by applying a generous amount of sun screen, I then suggested we headed out into the sun.. Which Tina plain refused.. Not until I’d had my morning coffee! I, being pretty uncomfortably hot already, tried to refuse but she’d have none of it an was already in the process of making me up a cup.. She’s right, of course, I get tired, semi-grumpy and more importantly develop strange headaches if I don’t get my morning coffee. Tina knows this and as such she insists and makes me coffee.. Talk about knowing each other too well?

Either way, after a not so enjoyable cup of coffee which however served its purpose, we grabbed our stuff, a few blankets and headed downstairs and outside onto the community lawn to set up camp, boot up our laptops and get cracking.. I set the mood with a summer playlist I had lying around on my iTunes and we had a pretty entertaining time of chilling and doing some work, only interrupted by our constant shifting around caused by the baking sun and our constant chase for at least a bit of shade. We were soon joined on the lawn by some bloke who was apparently out to chill and looked at times more than a little confused by the rowdy youngsters who had now taken to listening to Slipknot and Rammstein while chilling happily and working away. A strange combo, admittedly, but hey, that’s how we roll!

His wonder probably only grew by around 12:30 PM when I loudly proclaimed “Fuck it, I need a drink” and went up into Tina’s apartment to pick up some glasses, some ice, and a makeshift cocktail shaker that I fabricated from a half gallon plastic pitcher (having actually forgotten my own shaker at home). With these things in hand, I returned to our base camp (which may or may not have shifted location in the time I was gone), started muddling lime with the bottom of a soda bottle, added the sugar, mint, and ice, shook best as I could without destroying myself or the drink.. Then added soda and served us up a couple of beautiful mojitos.. Which turned out to be just what we needed on this Friday afternoon at 12:40 PM! I mean, honestly, when do you NOT need a mojito?

With these drinks in hand, we managed to keep our spirits high and the creative workflow going  for another few hours before hunger set in instead of thirst. As it turned out, Tina had the perfect solution for this problem – and even more spoiling in store for us – as she went and reheated some of last night’s dinner which had consisted of salmon, pasta, ricotta cheese, rucola and other good stuff all mixed up and served in the sun.. Yum! You’d think this would be a pretty damn good working day already, and you wouldn’t be wrong in assuming so, but it actually got better as we managed to squeeze in a bit of sunbathing before both of us eventually had to head off to take care of our day jobs (or night jobs so to speak).. Well, fast forward a few hours and this is when the story warps into a tale of how spoiled of a bastard I really am..

See, at around 11:20 PM, I’m stuck at GLS, doing god-awful, boring sorting of various papers just for the sake of having something to do on a really, really slow night when a text ticks in from Tina saying “You’re not off for a while, are you?” I reply that “No, I’m not really supposed to be, but I was thinking of seeing if I could get out early since there’s nothing to do.” – “Well,” the kind girl informs me, “I’m heading home from the theater, how about you find out?” .. It was all really simple from there, I asked her for two seconds, finished up what I was doing, dashed upstairs to where Torben was sitting and asked if there was any chance he could manage the rest of the night alone as sweet Tina had just offered me a lift home. His reply was something along the lines of “Fucking go.. Go for it!” which I told Tina, and exactly seven minutes later, I jumped into the passenger seat of Tina’s little car and together we set off towards downtown.

“Here’s a crazy thought,” Tina said, as we were sitting there in the car homeward bound, and by then I already knew what was coming: “How’s about we drive by a gas station or whatever and get us a goodnight beer?” – “Awesome,” I merely replied, “I think you owe me one anyways!” “Yup,” the blonde merely quoth and pulled the car off the road and into a gas station, disappeared for about five minutes and returned with proof of just how good a girl she really is.. She’d gotten of course not only a single beer, but a six-pack, that was somehow to be expected with the two of us. But not only that, she’d gotten Carlsberg because she knows I prefer that over the Tuborg she usually drinks. I’d have gone with Tuborg because I know she usually plain refuses to get Carlsberg if faced with options, but apparently she wanted to please me. and make me happy, so who the hell am I to complain?

With beer in hand, we continued on, chatting happily of things to come. “Oh, I need something to eat, too,” Tina remarked, “but what.. I’ve got pasta.. Tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, rucola, etc, etc, etc.. Can’t you just get free access and use your imagination?” – “Well, I was gonna say,” I replied.. “Give me five minutes with your fridge and I’ll see what I can do. It’s the least I can do in return for bailing me out and giving me beer.. Well, that and share the jägermeister I’ve stocked in there with you!” – a statement that merely made Tina go “Ohh!” and beam with more happiness than I’ve seen out of her for ages.. The adorably retarded girl sure loves her food and her jäger!

We arrived at Tina’s not five minutes later where Tina quickly popped open a beer for each of us, popped the rest in the fridge and set about doing the dishes while she let me search the fridge and pantry for suitable ingredients for some midnight pasta (which is bordering on becoming a tradition for the two of us). I settled for some whole grain pasta and a sauce of sun dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, garlic, fresh chilies, thyme, balsamic vinegar and sugar.. And a bit of vodka and cream thrown in for good measure.. And fresh basil.. And, of course, loads of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.. Which must have turned out quite successful because while it’s not uncommon for me to hear Tina go “Yum!” and smile, it is in fact rather unusual for her to do it after EVERY bite! So I guess I did well, there was even some talk of understanding of Klaus once having licked the pot after eating one of my dishes.. Anyways.. Glad you liked it, babe

Having gotten our full of pasta with creamy tomato goodness, we sat around for a few hours just talking, drinking beer and being merry.. And had our jäger shots of course! After some bickering and arguing about who would get the miniature bottles from the fridge.. We eventually decided to settle over a game of rock, paper and scissors which eventually made me go fuck it, forfeit and get the damn bottles after Tina started playing random, unknown wild cards such as “fire”.. But who cares. There were no real losers in a game of “whoever loses, gets jäger shots for the table!”.. Eventually, at around 2:30 AM (which is ironically shortly after when I’d originally have been home, had Tina not come to my rescue), I decided I was getting old and tired and needed to get home.. Which I then did, arriving home a little later than I usually would after a Friday work night, but a lot more full and a little more happy faced than usual  after three beers and a shot..

So, who says working Fridays have to be that bad.. Honestly.. I could come to enjoy them if they were all as awesome as this!

In all honesty, it was to be expected..

Bit of a confusing, unplanned, unscheduled but still pretty awesome day today. I kicked things off doing something I haven’t really done in a long time; getting up to start the day at 8 AM. Not that this is something I particularly wanted to do, but I had a thesis meeting at 10 AM, so I figured I’d better get on up, get showered, shaved and have some breakfast before heading off.. A combination that I usually forget at least one aspect of on Monday mornings, be it shaving or eating or both. But not this morning! No, this morning I was up early and apparently so was Tina as I’d barely been away for a minute before getting a text from her.. Which spawned a bit of a conversation and eventually the idea that I pop by her place for a working day once I’d finished my meeting..

Or well, once I’d finished my meeting and spending about an hour walking around town and enjoying the sun. Because, well, as is apparently the new tradition, my meeting lasted all of seven minutes.. Apparently my thesis is still on track, my mentor still likes what he’s seeing and what I’m doing and my questions are easily answered.. So, our meeting was pretty much just a matter of me pulling up a chair and him going “So how are ya.. Got any holiday plans? Oh, you’re already over this. Well, as regards your progress, it looks fine, and here’s the answer to your question..” – That’s basically how it went down anyways.. So while Tina spent some time getting her place and herself tidied up, I spent some time walking around downtown and killing time by browsing various specialty stores and delis.

I then, once I got the okay, headed down to Tina and did my best to spread some creative spirit.. Something I failed at rather miserably.. Or well, it went well for all of an hour or two, before I started wandering around restlessly and proclaiming every odd hour or so that it was “time for a fucking break!!” – Eventually I decided that I was probably becoming such a nuisance for Tina that I’d better go blow up some steam on my own.. So, while she’d offered to provide dinner, I offered (after some arguing and convincing) to go shop for some sort of salady side dish.. A quest that went somewhat well.. In that I got several kinds of salads, greens and veggies, I also got the liter of milk she’d requested.. And several other things as well.

Long story short, I came barging in the door an hour or so after leaving, packing a bag full of salads, various greens, a liter of milk, a liter of hot sauce (which I wasted no time in pointing out to Tina had a picture of a rooster on it), an open can of Carlsberg beer for myself and an unopened chilled can of Tuborg for the Tina.. And a couple of jägermeister miniatures in my pockets..

The entire visual impression along with my out of the blue enthusiasm and pride in myself may have just been too much on the little one because as I watched her, shock turned into uncontrollable fits of laughs and giggles, turned into head shaking, more giggling, questions regarding the state of my mental health.. Until she eventually just left the room to regroup and consider things for a while.. I spent the next five odd minutes or so trying to explain the completely rational pattern behind my actions of being on my way back from town and stopping to make a few harmless impulsive purchases, but I’m not quite sure it all went through to her as she’s still, an hour or so later, either shaking her head at, or tipping her beer can to, me. As well she should, the latter at least, because I feel I did a really good deed – and did my best to raise her spirits and creativity as well..

That or, well, as one store attendant along my way remarked: “This is probably what you get for sending a guy to pick up greens and salad.”

Quest For Fire

Have we talked too much about strange, Danish traditions? I think not! Let’s talk a bit about the wondrous, anarchistic night of mayhem that is Midsummer’s Eve in Denmark.

As far as this humble writer is informed, Midsummer’s Eve is the celebration of the longest day of the year and the sad realization that things are now heading in the opposite direction. Either way, for hundreds of years now we’ve had this tradition of getting together, singing songs and lighting songs to ward of evil spirits, witches and other creatures of the night.

Well, as with so many other Danish traditions, hundreds of years alcohol consumption, friendly competition, and a plethora of twigs and wood at hand coupled with the usual Danish do or die attitude, this wonderful tradition has now warped into a bit of a yearly arms race as to see who can put on the best BBQ, the best show, and, most importantly, the biggest fire.. And I think this year my team won!

Well, okay, so it wasn’t really my team.. But I was ON the winning team.. By accident! See, I’d headed back from Nyborg Monday night thinking that someone (namely Tina) might want to do something on Midsummer’s Eve Tuesday. Luckily someone (namely Tina) had had about the same idea and on Tuesday morning invited me to spend the day/evening with her, her parents and friends at her parents’ place somewhat out of town.

Not being one to usually pass up free dinner, free drinks and, most importantly, good company, I quickly got with the program, packed my stuff up and jumped on a train to hopscotched a few stations to meet up with Tina who picked me up at the station along with her parents’ dog, Frida, aka the cutest little thing ever.. Or.. On par with Zascha’s parents’ dog anyways, together we – having struggled a little to convince the dog to jump off Tina’s lap and let her drive – we drove back to Tina’s parents’ place to do a bit of work on our respective theses before allowing ourselves to goof off and take the night off.

As if by some stroke of luck, we actually both managed to get a fair bit of work done, sitting around her parents’ kitchen table and listening to some music – including lots of Nick Cave and Johnny Cash who Tina, much to my approval noted that she might well become fond of – good girl! We struggled on valiantly till around 6 PM when the whirlwind that sometimes is Tina’s mother arrived  home and started a frantic attempt of getting things ready for the BBQ that we were apparently heading out to before the evening’s bonfire, all while bickering slightly with both Tina and myself. This went on well for all of five minutes before I somehow managed to get myself stuck on both women’s bad sides and discovered just why two front wars is such a bad idea.

Having failed at bickering and fighting with two women at once, I decided to make myself useful instead and helped Tina and her mom pack a pickenick basket for the evening ahead. Tina’s brother, Kim, had arrived in the mean time and gone straight for the shower, but did eventually join the rest of us in the kitchen where he took the time to complain a bit about Tina’s new computer and our taste in music before the lot of us headed a few houses down the street. To where we were apparently supposed to meet up with the other families from town, enjoy a community BBQ and light a fire or two. Tina’s poor dad was stuck at work still, so he wouldn’t be joining us before later in the evening. This, Tina’s mother remarked to the neighbors, would be no problem, though, as she’d brought all three of us to compensate. “Hah,” a wise neighbor ventured, “you lot better start talking, then” – which I did, because it’s generally hard for me to keep my mouth closed for more than two minutes at a time.. Something Tina remarked on within a minute of me opening my mouth.. To which I replied that I’d actually been asked to speak and that I could just shut up and not mingle if she’d prefer.. And to otherwise just keep her mouth shut while the grown-ups were talking

Tina opted to not reply to this with more than a slight grin and instead decided to go look for her sunglasses.. That were conveniently stuck in her hair, something I found great fun in pointing out to her and everybody else within earshot. Tina, however, didn’t think this anywhere near as funny as I did, so she decided to shot my mouth in the quickest and best way she knew; by suggesting we go find a place to sit down and have a beer.. Smart girl!

Having found a place to sit and a beer to sip (or a glass of Verdi in Tina’s mothers case), we now only needed to get something to eat, so we unpacked our food, put salad and potato salad on the table, then headed off to the grill to fry some sausages, get some smoke in our faces, talk a bit with the neighbors and crack various jokes.. It was all great fun and resulted in some nice food as an added bonus which we happily consumed while I entertained Tina and the table with tales of my recent (agave related ) battle scars. This mildly amused and mildly scared some onlookers while Tina merely shrugged and went something along the lines of “you should see him when he really gets going.”

After a second round of sausages, of which I had the most as I decided to fry up a bunch not really realizing that only I wanted more (eh, too bad, it’s a tough job eating for three, but someone has to do it), Tina’s dad finally arrived, took one look at the food I’d prepared, then decided against it and went to fry up some sausages of his own. The rest of us, minus Kim, decided to join him for more community laughs around the grill. Tina had, at this point, discovered a stash of free wine (she has a nose for these things, I swear!), so her and I were pretty happy and chatty, mingling around, seeking out the sun and chilling in it with some more wine.

We talked a fair bit amongst ourselves, but also with a lot of other friendly people. We once again did a banging job of introducing myself as Tina’s friend, even going as far as choosing the most neutrally laden synonyms for the word friend.. And once again, nobody seemed to get the picture.. Apparently while it’s hard for city dwellers to understand the concept of boys and girls being just friends, it becomes downright impossible for dwellers of smaller communities to understand this. It’s amusing, really, that I stress three times in front of people that we’re just friends and walk by two minutes later overhearing something like “Well, Tina’s other half there..” – So much for trying to set things straight. At least Tina can laugh it off unlike others who have gotten downright upset over the assumption

After a bit of sun, a bit of wine, a nice talk and a lot of categorical denying various assumptions, we were finally at the highlight of the evening: The lighting of the bonfire.. Or, whatever the hell it was It looked more like a contraption out of a horror novel that must have taken weeks if not months to complete. The thing was literally several meters tall and even wider than it was tall, At the very top towered a life-sized doll version if a witch – another piece of tradition that I’m not too sure of – and the whole thing was set ablaze by the help of several liters of an unknown, flammable liquid.. Add tp this the steady supply of beers and reasonably dry surroundings, and in many cultures this would be considered a brilliant example of how NOT to do things, in Denmark it’s a yearly tradition., usually accompanied by the singing of various hymns and cheering.. Oh how I would love to at some point bring a bunch of foreigners to one of these events and just watch them go “Wait… You’re doing what now?!”

For such a huge fire, the whole thing actually burned down rather quickly.. As in the time it took Tina and I to steal a few beers of the locals and consume those while snapping a few pictures of the spectacle. Oh, and for Tina’s dad to drop by our little group, give me a caring squeeze and once again inform me that I wasn’t right in the head.. Something he’s come to enjoy doing and something I’ve come to interpret as his way of saying that he cares. But all in all, it was probably a good thing that the whole thing was over rather quickly, it was a standard Tuesday night after all and most if not all of us had work in the morning, so people slowly but steadily started disbanding. Tina’s parents, too, eventually said their goodbyes and left, and not long after, Tina, Kim and I followed.

We first dropped Tina off at her parent’s house, and I’d then been lucky enough to score a ride with Kim to the local train station where he dropped me off a few minutes later, sadly just minutes after the train had left.. But hey, that gave me the opportunity to walk around town for a little, reflecting over the evening and feeling rather buzzed from the beer and wine while listening to some good music and killing the hour or so I had to wait for the train to arrive.

It had all been a rather good experience. I of course love spending time with Tina, but I really like her family as well, we have a lot of fun and crack a lot of jokes.. And I may not be right in the head.. But, hey, neither are they, so it’s all good!