Something that amused me lately

Another for the Why Sweden, Why file:

This post bought to you by prompt 5 - Blogging for Scrapbookers

Amazing Days

For our 2nd prompt Shimelle asked us to think about the amazing days of our lives, and prompt 3 talks about lists (I'm sorry but there are many more than 5!)...

I have had so very many in the last 18 months or so that it's difficult to choose:

The day at Iguazu Falls in Argentina:

The day at Perito Merino Glacier in Argentina:

The days of trekking the Inca Trail in Peru and arriving at Machu Picchu:

 

The day we went parasailing over the Sacred Valley (very amazing for 2 so scared of heights!):

The day we went white water rafting - no photos from this day!!

The days on our cruise around the Galapagos Islands and being so close to the wildlife:

Our night out in Paris for my birthday:

Getting to see London and Stonehenge:

Having the opportunity to live an work in a foreign city (with snow!):

More recently though my amazing days were spent doing things like:

Meeting a girlfriend's (not so) new baby and spending time with her and her other son:

Dinner with family and friends:

  

Catching up with friends and family in Mildura:

A concert with mum:

Playing in the sunshine in the park after a haircut:

Coming home to SO:

Hmmm, I guess there'll have to be more on all of the above sometime (soon-ish!).

Gotta be startin' something!

Well, as I've mentioned I've enrolled in an on-line class blogging for scrapbookers and as yet, I've not nothing but faff about reading class notes and surfing other people's blogs!!

In my defence I've been sick, so I haven't wanted to be doing much of anything - but am feeling like I'm on the mend now, so look out - I may now overload you with posts today!!

Shimelle asked us to think about the goals for our blog - I was always quite clear about this, I wanted an easy way to be able to keep in touch with friends and family with the on going 'stories' of what we were up to...  After being away in South America for almost twice as long as we'd originally planned in the end - and trying to keep everyone up to date-ish on FaceBook, and the -very- occasional bulk email to family and close friends...  When after only being home for 4.5 months we were off again - on holiday (I was to be gone 4.5 weeks) and J was going to work in Stockholm for 12 weeks, I waved everyone farewell with a very casual 'see you in a month'.  Hmmm, that was mid July last year...  After I was signed on to work for a while - I decided that I might test my toes in the world of blog - and so here I am...

I never expected much that too many people would take an interest - that the friends and family who wanted to keep up with what we were doing would have a cursory read now and then as they had the time...  I have been reading only those blogs of a few friends (only one another 'expat') and stalking about the posts of a few scrapbooking blogs...  I was a little taken back when so many people from the class were talking about reading the whole class full of blogs (on a fairly regular basis) and that many of them had made friends over not just the duration of the course but since then (2009) as well - I shouldn't have been, on reflection - but initially I was...

I have often found myself nodding in agreement, empathising, sympathising, etc with the blogs that I read - and not only those of people that I know personally.  On reflection it didn't really surprise me at all that many of these classmates had made lasting friendships - when they are 'talking' to each other regularly about their day to day and sharing interests, etc - is that not the very definition of friendship?  Of course there would be lasting relationships develop where you can associate to other people and their lives that you're 'hearing' about - especially where you 'click' with what the other is 'saying'.

And so, I'm enjoying more people stopping by to comment and join in and having new blogs to read - and can see that I'll likely loiter around them on a much more regular basis!

As for aligning the blog to my scrapbooking goals - I think that I probably need to work much more at it being able to help me when I'm looking for the words for my pages - I blog less when I'm down or feeling homesick (or just plain sick) and there are plenty of words from days in the recent-ish past that I could be talking about - almost none of the South American trip has been put on pages, and those photos that have were for a kit for a girlfriend's scrapbooking shop, so there was no journalling on them - they were just 'showcase' photos I guess you'd say...  And then my recent trip back to Melbourne - where there were so many highlights that I could have been getting down...  *sigh* So anyway, be prepared to see more 'blast from the past' type updates before I forget everything around those events!

A very long blog post for prompt 1 - but I've had it all turning over in my head for a few days!!

My 'scrap table' (SO keeps telling me it's the table in our lounge room - but there's never anything else on it and I've kind of taken up the real estate!) last night after I'd finished a layout:

My blogging happens generally in my lap - either on the couch or in bed, as we don't really have the space for the computers to permanently live anywhere and we're both on laptops...

Back, again...

I have been terribly lax here, once again...

I had a whirlwind trip home, had the job of packing up our much loved and hardly lived in apartment, had the absolute joy of catching up with friends and family who took time out of their own busy lives and schedules to arrange dinners, drive 5 hours cross country and just generally make the time to add an hour or two of me into their time...

I have returned to a clearing snowy landscape, that seems almost ready to give way to spring and some sunshine - although not sunshine in the sense that we know it as Australians, because there's still not a lot of warmth in it.  And of course to SO, who by all accounts seemed to somewhat miss me while I wasn't around...

I have also managed to pick up a bout of what is likely just a bad case of gastro - but after 13 days of semi regular vomiting and diarrhoea, a day of excruciating tummy pain and being able to hold nothing at all in sent me off to visit the doctor...  A couple of hours, a couple of blood tests and a testing kit to bring home with me saw me collapse into bed halfway through yesterday afternoon from where I have only moved to run back and forth to the bathroom and go and wander aimlessly around the kitchen, looking for things that might last for more than 5 minutes in my tummy...

On the plus side - I might actually get to catch up with some FaceBook gossip, I have finally gotten around to making a blog post, and I am finally starting the reading for an on line course on blogging for scrapbookers that I have signed up to blogging for scrapbookers.  I have even managed to find a different template for the blog, and think I've successfully attached it - not sure if I'm loving it yet, but I'm happy to know that I can do it - so, even from the pre-course material I've learned something from my course already!!

I guess that's about all the sharing for now - probably more than anyone wanted anyhow, but that's the goings on lately!!

On my way...

So, this morning I headed off from ‘home’ through Stockholm and our snowy, alien landscape – past the forests full of evergreens wearing their white coats, and the others wearing nothing but the ice and snow…  In a lovely minus 5 degrees, in jeans and boots, a hat and coat and was freezing…

To the airport with the runways covered in snow, where de-icing airplanes is a regular thing.  Through the check-in counter and security, the stores that litter all international airports.  Through passport control and up to the gates near where the plane will depart…

A normal morning when travelling, up and ready and out to the airport, getting through all the normal checkpoints – with nothing out of the ordinary.  Except this time SO is not with me…  We have spent all but 2 (separate) nights together in the last 16 or so months – and most days too, between travelling together for almost 6 months and then a while where we set up the house on our return from overseas, and now back to how we started - in working together.

It’s a weird and surreal experience to look up at the fairy floss clouds as we pop out of the top of them into the bright sunshine and smile, without being able to share it with him…

I’m expecting the temperature in Melbourne to be something cooling down from a 30 odd degree day when I arrive tomorrow, which I’ll lay odds on won’t be in the negative temperatures – nor have the snowy landscape that I’ve gotten so used to recently.  The coat has come off for getting in the plane – although I always find planes so cold I’m huddled under the polar fleece blanket they provide anyway…  I expect the boots and socks, as well as the singlet under my top will have to come off – if not before Melbourne, at least by the time I’m in the airport there… 

I expect that my body will be warmed in the sun, my head and heart will be warmed by catching up with the people there that I love and miss so much so regularly.  I also expect that everything will feel just a little less warm not having SO with me…  

Coming home...

Well, I'm getting to make a quick trip home...

It will be a busy one with packing and moving out of the apartment that SO and I moved into oh so briefly 11 or so months ago and putting our things into storage.  It's a real mixed bag of feelings - we were only there for about 4.5 months in the end and we've paid all this rent for nothing, but it was our first place together and it's a really lovely one...

Living away from home - as I've mentioned in previous posts brings mixed blessings, the opportunity to experience a different culture and country and people - not just from a tourists point of view - but from a living it, breathing it, working it, sleeping it 'local' kind of view...  and then there's the whole missing home and family, lifestyle, regular haunts, and as a wise friend said recently just your ease of being disappears...

I'm beside myself excited to be able to be coming home to see some people and have the opportunity to sort out some of the things that we want to have with us before I come back over.  I'm also so sad not to be bringing SO with me, sad that we'll be apart for a time (even if only for a few weeks - it's the longest we'll have been apart since we've been back together), sad for him that he doesn't get to make the run home - doesn't get to catch up with people, doesn't get to see our first apartment together one last time...

So, with my excitement right up there - I head off with a slightly heavy heart on Wednesday morning to get through some heavy, hard things - with some help, hugs and support from my peeps on the home front...  Before heading back to Stockholm for this life that has somehow chosen us for the next 12 to 15 to ? months.  Wish me luck!!

Snow...

Snow...

It's such a foreign thing to us as Melbournians - I mean, I've made the 5 or so hour trek to Falls Creek and the shorter 2-3 hours to Mount Bulla for boarding a few times (albeit a couple of years ago now)...

But, living in it - day to day, walking through it to get to the train station, to work, and home again each day - that's something altogether different...

It creates a really alien landscape, beautiful, eerie, fresh and crisp...  I love the way it makes everything lighter - and here that's a really big thing.  Without it here it's very dark and grey a lot of the time...  Thankfully the days are getting longer - so the sun's up before 8am and setting after 4pm these days, the darkness - much more than the cold is a really hard thing to get used to...

It snowed yesterday, snowed and stayed for the first time in weeks - we really thought that winter seemed to be coming to an end, but yesterday it came back again - and today it was sooo beautiful...  Looking out the window this morning, the courtyard in all full of fresh snow, and the trees and street out the front all white and pretty...  And it was deep when we stepped out the front door this morning, there'd been something like 15cms overnight - and walking across the square to work it was cool that they hadn't thrown the grit in it yet that they normally do - and the path through was not from some artificial source - but was just there because people had walked there and everyone that came through just found it easier to follow in the footsteps that had come through before them...

It made me smile today, to see it all white and pretty and fresh - you kind of forget how white it is - when it's fresh like that...  After the cars come through on the roads (not so much today as they were mostly snowed in!) and the grit gets thrown down to make it easier to walk through, it's grey and then when the days are dark and grey, it's a really grey feeling...  But today, white and light and bright...

I'm glad it came today, and glad that it was such a big fall overnight and that there wasn't yet the time for it to be grey and we got to see it that way - I go home to Melbourne in a few days, just for a quick trip to pack up our apartment and put our lives into storage before heading back over here for the next 12+ months - and while I know that I'll see more snow, if not this winter (which we're no longer kidding ourselves is coming to a close) - certainly the next one but it was nice to get this fix before heading home for a couple of weeks...

I even got to make a snow angel finally (was getting worried that I'd missed my chance!!)...