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Monday, May 30, 2011

The continuing adventures with Swedish hairdressers...

Another Swedish hairdressing experience...

*deep breath* Well, About a week and a half ago I had another 'interesting' hairdressers visit.  I had decided to go dark - a big change from my normally blonde-ish tones...  I'd been thinking on it for a while, which speaks to me that it's something I really want to do.  I called my hairdresser at home - she'd done a dark colour for me a couple of years ago that I was really happy with and was hoping to replicate, so I got some instructions and colour numbers from her.  

I went into a hair salon and discussed my idea with the hairdresser, and even showed her a photo of me with a similar colour to what I was looking for to show her that dark hair is fine on me - when I'm blonde and so pale I can understand that might freak a hairdresser out!!  Ok, so she repeats back to me - in broken English - that she's going to tone my hair and then put the final colour in it.  This is all sounding like a good start...  Here's the photo:


And where we were starting from (not the best shot - I was playing in the park):



She sits me at the basin and tones, then applies a colour before plonking me back in the chair to wait for the processing time...  We get to the end, rinse, wash, etc and return to the chair in front of the mirror...  She starts moving around to get styling products and I'm looking at this extremely bland in-between coloured hair.  
Me: So, just to check - is it going darker??  
Her: No - that's it now...  
Me: Ah, no - it's not
Her: You don't like it?
Me: No, I don't like it - it's a shitty in between colour, I'm not happy with that (mind you  - it's this horrid in between colour, and it's still wet - so it's getting lighter before I leave the salon - not happy at all)...
Her: Well, you were blonde when you came in...
Me: I don't care - this looks nothing like the photo (show her the photo again)
Her: But, with your skin tone...
Me: The photo is of me - I have the same skin tone
Her: Well, I don't think that photo was good looking
At this point my head almost explodes with the desire to tell her I don't f-ing care what she thinks, I didn't come to ask her opinion I came for an expert who had the ability to achieve the look I wanted - and I was certainly not hoping she was going to pick me up, etc...
Her: If I make it any darker, it will go ashy and black
Me: It can't stay this colour
Her: Ok, well if you want it darker I can make it darker, it will only take 10 minutes
Me: Yes, please - I would like it darker

Ok - so she trims it and dries it off, then goes to mix the darker colour - which she proceeds to slap onto my head in a worse job than - I don't know, maybe a 5 year old might do - I have colour on my face, on my ears, on my neck...  And informs me that will be about 10 minutes.  No problem, and I sit in to wait out my time...  About 2 minutes later I spy her and one of her hairdresser friends walk past - handbags on shoulders, and I'm thing - no, couldn't possibly be...  And yet, yes - she's left for the night - no explanation that someone else will look after me or anything - no even glance in my direction as she struts off into the sunset... 

I was kind of flabbergasted at this point, but after 10 minutes or so passed one of the other girls washed my hair out - and then scrubbed my face, ears and neck to remove the colour before another blowed it dry...

The end result now I'm happy with - but man, getting it there!!  And yes, I'll try for a photo of the outcome - meanwhile here's a windblown one with my hair up (oh, and SO!)...


Sunday, May 29, 2011

Some scrapping has been going on...

Here's my scrapping efforts for the last two weeks.  Sorry about the bad photos, I'd already packed most of the layouts away into an album and didn't pull them out of their sleeves:

Aunty love:
 

The girls:
 

True beauty:
 

Family:
 

All together now:
 

Sisterly love:
 

Old friends:
 

Family reunion:
 

Thanks for stopping by...

A lot has happened...

In the few weeks since I last blogged...

SO's parents came for a visit - it was wonderful to see them (the last time was about 14 months ago) and even though it was only for a long weekend (they're travelling around and Stockholm was a late and somewhat unexpected addition) it was wonderful to have a touch of home right here with us.  We did some sightseeing, and SO and his dad played handymen to stop the new toilet from leaking all over the floor.  We drank a lot of tea (they're English - they drink a LOT of tea!) and had a lovely, if far too short catch up.

And yes, you heard right - the new toilet was installed - badly, but the landlord...  He seems to be the absolute king of "near enough is good enough".  The toilet was installed and this time attached to both the water and the floor (although it's still a little unstable) but the seat and the lid were not attached to the toilet...  I'm sorry - what the..?  So, SO called the landlord back and pleaded "elderly mother coming to visit" and the landlord came back and attached them while we went off to the airport to pick up the parents - again, badly!  The greater problem came from the fact that something wasn't attached to the water pipes properly and so the floor was soaking wet for 2 days.

Now, I love SO and can't imagine life without him - but he is (even he will admit) about the least 'handy' man you could meet.  His dad on the other hand is very handy - and so they spent some 'boy' time together fixing the leaking, then balanced the washing machine, and replaced the tube connecting the shower head to the taps as that was splurting water all over the show...  Fantastic for me - I now have a bathroom that's working much better than it was before - and for both of them I think, being able to just grab some 'boy' time together.

I had another 'interesting' experience with a Swedish hairdresser...  But that's probably a whole post on it's own...

We had a lovely day yesterday at an 'Aussie' bbq (well with a bunch of Aussies as well as a Canadian, a Spaniard and a couple of Swedes - at the Swedish home of an Aussie)...  A beautiful day out on the balcony of his apartment - with a lovely view, marred only by the fact that the wind was up and it was ABSOLUTELY FREEZING!!  Still, it was a brilliant day and we were there from lunch time until 11pm.

Oh, and there's been some scrapping going on - again, probably another post...

And now, we're counting down the days until we have a trip home to Oz...  Already by this time next month we'll be there - we've been trying to schedule in all the catch ups with people we need, as well as the appointments for the things we need - doc and dentist appointments (bleh)...  But, I'm so looking forward to having a good dose of family and friends for a few weeks.  A fabulous girlfriend of mine is even hosting an all day scrapping day - I can't wait to be back in the company of a room full of women, talking, laughing and catching up while sharing ideas and crafting together - it's one of the things I really miss about home, about once a month or so - getting together and scrapping.  In a country where you don't speak the language, even if there was a scrapping shop to compare to the ones at home (there isn't by the way - the best shop I've found is fabulous for shopping in, but the scrapping room is literally carved out of the bedrock and looks like a cave - a very small cave!) then I would feel like an invader (as I often do in conversations involving only Swedes) which is not really the point of scrapping with others...  So - all in all, I simply can't wait...

Sunday, May 8, 2011

A whole month... how did that happen..?

Wow, a whole month - it's been a while...

There's been a bit going on - I had a bit more of a battle with salmonella, we had dramas at home with the internet, went off for a holiday over Easter to Malta, packed all our stuff, moved apartment and unpacked everything again...

While I was feeling better after I got smacked with salmonella while I was at home and resting and not eating much - I'd go back to work after the weekends and gradually (or suddenly depending on the week) decline.  I'd had the lovely stabbing pain that came along with the salmonella for almost a month in the end.    :(  I got a phone call from the Disease Centre chasing me up - obviously here as in many other places a doctor who discovers salmonella has to report it through.  The woman at the Disease Centre told me that there'd me about 20 people in this outbreak of a salmonella they've not seen here before (it had an indian name, but I can't really remember what it was!)  and had I eaten cashew nuts in the week I'd contracted it.  Well, I almost certainly had - I'd gotten a mixed bag of nuts from one of the supermarkets near work the week I returned from Oz and in fact I've been eating them on a regular basis (picking out the 'nice' ones like cashews) right up until that morning.  Well, of course a couple of days after I stopped eating contaminated nuts I started to feel much better!!

We were obviously in the middle of having found a new apartment to move in to and the landlord at the old place had started to get ready for some new tenants at our old apartment.  For some reason, part of this was ordering a new modem (although there were already 2 there - not really sure why!) in the process of this the company providing the internet (and modem) had decided that because there was a new modem on order the old one wasn't working - and so stopped the internet coming in on it...  Not very helpful to us when we still had something like 3 weeks left there.

Easter we jetted off to Malta - we spent the long weekend with a couple of other friends/colleagues and although we didn't have the best weather (can you believe it was warmer in Stockholm the weekend we were away?!!) we had a great time all together and a relax away from the project for such a long weekend.

The remainder of the week once we got back from Malta was spent packing - most of which was thankfully covered off in one 3.5 hour session.  Then we had the help of our friends/colleagues and a couple of trips in a rented station wagon to move everything last weekend.  One of the problems of this lifestyle is that you have to live with someone else's furniture (and often ugly things!) in your house.  It's great from the point of view that there's no furniture to move, but from the point of view of your everyday life that's the easier thing sometimes!!  The place we were in needed quite a bit of new furniture to finish it off, but there were lamps in both the bedroom and the lounge that were ok for us to live with - so we had the famous big trip to Ikea funded partly by the landlord.  But there was no pictures on the wall or ugly things around - this new place has ugly pics everywhere and ugly lamps in the lounge (none in the bedroom).  So, the last week has been spent trying to hide most of the ugly, trying not to kill the landlord (we were to have a washing machine installed in the bathroom - that has only worked since Friday just gone, and some more internet issues just for good measure!).  The whole trying to negotiate things when you don't share a first language and trying to get someone with a different work ethic to your timetable - well, let's just say it's less than easy!!

So, we currently have two toilets sitting in the bathroom - well, one sits - the other is actually kind of attached to the water anyway - not so much to the floor, while we wait for the landlord to install the new one.  And the washing machine - installed and looking pretty in the bathroom since we moved in on Saturday, got plugged in on Friday so we could use it - with a long extension cable into the lounge room!  Anyway - at least it works, and I've spent a bunch of time since then trying to work through the gianormous laundry pile that has accumulated since the day before we went to Malta.

So, that's been my last month - oh, apart from missing joining in on the live run of beyond blogging for scrapbookers and looking in any way at my reader with everyone's feeds in it - I'll be working to catch up on that sometime soon.  This week SO's parents arrive for a weekend visit, so we're counting down the days in earnest and getting excited to see them...

Monday, May 30, 2011

The continuing adventures with Swedish hairdressers...

Another Swedish hairdressing experience...

*deep breath* Well, About a week and a half ago I had another 'interesting' hairdressers visit.  I had decided to go dark - a big change from my normally blonde-ish tones...  I'd been thinking on it for a while, which speaks to me that it's something I really want to do.  I called my hairdresser at home - she'd done a dark colour for me a couple of years ago that I was really happy with and was hoping to replicate, so I got some instructions and colour numbers from her.  

I went into a hair salon and discussed my idea with the hairdresser, and even showed her a photo of me with a similar colour to what I was looking for to show her that dark hair is fine on me - when I'm blonde and so pale I can understand that might freak a hairdresser out!!  Ok, so she repeats back to me - in broken English - that she's going to tone my hair and then put the final colour in it.  This is all sounding like a good start...  Here's the photo:


And where we were starting from (not the best shot - I was playing in the park):



She sits me at the basin and tones, then applies a colour before plonking me back in the chair to wait for the processing time...  We get to the end, rinse, wash, etc and return to the chair in front of the mirror...  She starts moving around to get styling products and I'm looking at this extremely bland in-between coloured hair.  
Me: So, just to check - is it going darker??  
Her: No - that's it now...  
Me: Ah, no - it's not
Her: You don't like it?
Me: No, I don't like it - it's a shitty in between colour, I'm not happy with that (mind you  - it's this horrid in between colour, and it's still wet - so it's getting lighter before I leave the salon - not happy at all)...
Her: Well, you were blonde when you came in...
Me: I don't care - this looks nothing like the photo (show her the photo again)
Her: But, with your skin tone...
Me: The photo is of me - I have the same skin tone
Her: Well, I don't think that photo was good looking
At this point my head almost explodes with the desire to tell her I don't f-ing care what she thinks, I didn't come to ask her opinion I came for an expert who had the ability to achieve the look I wanted - and I was certainly not hoping she was going to pick me up, etc...
Her: If I make it any darker, it will go ashy and black
Me: It can't stay this colour
Her: Ok, well if you want it darker I can make it darker, it will only take 10 minutes
Me: Yes, please - I would like it darker

Ok - so she trims it and dries it off, then goes to mix the darker colour - which she proceeds to slap onto my head in a worse job than - I don't know, maybe a 5 year old might do - I have colour on my face, on my ears, on my neck...  And informs me that will be about 10 minutes.  No problem, and I sit in to wait out my time...  About 2 minutes later I spy her and one of her hairdresser friends walk past - handbags on shoulders, and I'm thing - no, couldn't possibly be...  And yet, yes - she's left for the night - no explanation that someone else will look after me or anything - no even glance in my direction as she struts off into the sunset... 

I was kind of flabbergasted at this point, but after 10 minutes or so passed one of the other girls washed my hair out - and then scrubbed my face, ears and neck to remove the colour before another blowed it dry...

The end result now I'm happy with - but man, getting it there!!  And yes, I'll try for a photo of the outcome - meanwhile here's a windblown one with my hair up (oh, and SO!)...


Sunday, May 29, 2011

Some scrapping has been going on...

Here's my scrapping efforts for the last two weeks.  Sorry about the bad photos, I'd already packed most of the layouts away into an album and didn't pull them out of their sleeves:

Aunty love:
 

The girls:
 

True beauty:
 

Family:
 

All together now:
 

Sisterly love:
 

Old friends:
 

Family reunion:
 

Thanks for stopping by...

A lot has happened...

In the few weeks since I last blogged...

SO's parents came for a visit - it was wonderful to see them (the last time was about 14 months ago) and even though it was only for a long weekend (they're travelling around and Stockholm was a late and somewhat unexpected addition) it was wonderful to have a touch of home right here with us.  We did some sightseeing, and SO and his dad played handymen to stop the new toilet from leaking all over the floor.  We drank a lot of tea (they're English - they drink a LOT of tea!) and had a lovely, if far too short catch up.

And yes, you heard right - the new toilet was installed - badly, but the landlord...  He seems to be the absolute king of "near enough is good enough".  The toilet was installed and this time attached to both the water and the floor (although it's still a little unstable) but the seat and the lid were not attached to the toilet...  I'm sorry - what the..?  So, SO called the landlord back and pleaded "elderly mother coming to visit" and the landlord came back and attached them while we went off to the airport to pick up the parents - again, badly!  The greater problem came from the fact that something wasn't attached to the water pipes properly and so the floor was soaking wet for 2 days.

Now, I love SO and can't imagine life without him - but he is (even he will admit) about the least 'handy' man you could meet.  His dad on the other hand is very handy - and so they spent some 'boy' time together fixing the leaking, then balanced the washing machine, and replaced the tube connecting the shower head to the taps as that was splurting water all over the show...  Fantastic for me - I now have a bathroom that's working much better than it was before - and for both of them I think, being able to just grab some 'boy' time together.

I had another 'interesting' experience with a Swedish hairdresser...  But that's probably a whole post on it's own...

We had a lovely day yesterday at an 'Aussie' bbq (well with a bunch of Aussies as well as a Canadian, a Spaniard and a couple of Swedes - at the Swedish home of an Aussie)...  A beautiful day out on the balcony of his apartment - with a lovely view, marred only by the fact that the wind was up and it was ABSOLUTELY FREEZING!!  Still, it was a brilliant day and we were there from lunch time until 11pm.

Oh, and there's been some scrapping going on - again, probably another post...

And now, we're counting down the days until we have a trip home to Oz...  Already by this time next month we'll be there - we've been trying to schedule in all the catch ups with people we need, as well as the appointments for the things we need - doc and dentist appointments (bleh)...  But, I'm so looking forward to having a good dose of family and friends for a few weeks.  A fabulous girlfriend of mine is even hosting an all day scrapping day - I can't wait to be back in the company of a room full of women, talking, laughing and catching up while sharing ideas and crafting together - it's one of the things I really miss about home, about once a month or so - getting together and scrapping.  In a country where you don't speak the language, even if there was a scrapping shop to compare to the ones at home (there isn't by the way - the best shop I've found is fabulous for shopping in, but the scrapping room is literally carved out of the bedrock and looks like a cave - a very small cave!) then I would feel like an invader (as I often do in conversations involving only Swedes) which is not really the point of scrapping with others...  So - all in all, I simply can't wait...

Sunday, May 8, 2011

A whole month... how did that happen..?

Wow, a whole month - it's been a while...

There's been a bit going on - I had a bit more of a battle with salmonella, we had dramas at home with the internet, went off for a holiday over Easter to Malta, packed all our stuff, moved apartment and unpacked everything again...

While I was feeling better after I got smacked with salmonella while I was at home and resting and not eating much - I'd go back to work after the weekends and gradually (or suddenly depending on the week) decline.  I'd had the lovely stabbing pain that came along with the salmonella for almost a month in the end.    :(  I got a phone call from the Disease Centre chasing me up - obviously here as in many other places a doctor who discovers salmonella has to report it through.  The woman at the Disease Centre told me that there'd me about 20 people in this outbreak of a salmonella they've not seen here before (it had an indian name, but I can't really remember what it was!)  and had I eaten cashew nuts in the week I'd contracted it.  Well, I almost certainly had - I'd gotten a mixed bag of nuts from one of the supermarkets near work the week I returned from Oz and in fact I've been eating them on a regular basis (picking out the 'nice' ones like cashews) right up until that morning.  Well, of course a couple of days after I stopped eating contaminated nuts I started to feel much better!!

We were obviously in the middle of having found a new apartment to move in to and the landlord at the old place had started to get ready for some new tenants at our old apartment.  For some reason, part of this was ordering a new modem (although there were already 2 there - not really sure why!) in the process of this the company providing the internet (and modem) had decided that because there was a new modem on order the old one wasn't working - and so stopped the internet coming in on it...  Not very helpful to us when we still had something like 3 weeks left there.

Easter we jetted off to Malta - we spent the long weekend with a couple of other friends/colleagues and although we didn't have the best weather (can you believe it was warmer in Stockholm the weekend we were away?!!) we had a great time all together and a relax away from the project for such a long weekend.

The remainder of the week once we got back from Malta was spent packing - most of which was thankfully covered off in one 3.5 hour session.  Then we had the help of our friends/colleagues and a couple of trips in a rented station wagon to move everything last weekend.  One of the problems of this lifestyle is that you have to live with someone else's furniture (and often ugly things!) in your house.  It's great from the point of view that there's no furniture to move, but from the point of view of your everyday life that's the easier thing sometimes!!  The place we were in needed quite a bit of new furniture to finish it off, but there were lamps in both the bedroom and the lounge that were ok for us to live with - so we had the famous big trip to Ikea funded partly by the landlord.  But there was no pictures on the wall or ugly things around - this new place has ugly pics everywhere and ugly lamps in the lounge (none in the bedroom).  So, the last week has been spent trying to hide most of the ugly, trying not to kill the landlord (we were to have a washing machine installed in the bathroom - that has only worked since Friday just gone, and some more internet issues just for good measure!).  The whole trying to negotiate things when you don't share a first language and trying to get someone with a different work ethic to your timetable - well, let's just say it's less than easy!!

So, we currently have two toilets sitting in the bathroom - well, one sits - the other is actually kind of attached to the water anyway - not so much to the floor, while we wait for the landlord to install the new one.  And the washing machine - installed and looking pretty in the bathroom since we moved in on Saturday, got plugged in on Friday so we could use it - with a long extension cable into the lounge room!  Anyway - at least it works, and I've spent a bunch of time since then trying to work through the gianormous laundry pile that has accumulated since the day before we went to Malta.

So, that's been my last month - oh, apart from missing joining in on the live run of beyond blogging for scrapbookers and looking in any way at my reader with everyone's feeds in it - I'll be working to catch up on that sometime soon.  This week SO's parents arrive for a weekend visit, so we're counting down the days in earnest and getting excited to see them...

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