In which I attempt to learn a language using Heath Ledger and Television!

Hej! Guess who just got back from Sweden? Well, obviously it’s me or this would be a blog about someone else, in which case I wouldn’t be here. And you shouldn’t be either.

I love Sweden. So much. I’ve spent a lot of time this year screaming ‘GAMLA STAN!’ in a manner usually reserved for bellowing ‘FOR GONDOR!’, if that’s any indicator of how much I like it there. Everyone is just so NICE. They really are. People smile at you in the streets and it’s not a precursor to a stabbing. And the food… so much cheese! And cake! So imagine my joy when I got to go back, only this time to Gothenburg (or ‘Gotham City’, as I like to call it).

Flew out last week with Easyjet, my first experience with them, and I was apprehensive. BUT NO NEED! It turned into my joint-first favourite flight ever. The flight attendants were ace, lovely, cheeky, charming and very whimsical. Not everyone likes a bit of whimsy when they’re 33,000ft up but I’m quite the fan, So thanks to Kevin for the best sales pitch of a bacon roll I’ve ever seen and thanks to Duncan for just being a sweetie. I giggled in an unseemly fashion for most of the flight thanks to them.

We landed and I promptly got us lost in the wrong bit of Sweden. So I texted our Swedish Liason for advice:

Me: Hi! Do we need to get off at Mölndal Centrum?

Elvira: NO! NO! It’s near Elisedal!

Me: TOO LATE! We’ve gone past that! We’ve committed to Mölndal!

Elvira: BUT THAT’S TOO FAR!

Me: It’s ok! It’s an adventure

Mikey: ._.

Eventually we found it, checked in and had some tea before heading into Korsvägen to meet Elvira for dinner. She took us to Skojarbacken, which is a restaurant near the Lorensberg part of Gothenberg. I loved it. I have a thing about quirky and off-the-wall places, I’m not one for chrome and clean lines and this had none of that. It did have a massive stuffed moose, lots of lace, wall-mounted tuxedos and fairy lights. And a disco ball. Perfect. After a delicious dinner, we went on a moonlit tour of Gothenburg before heading back to the hostel for a cup of tea and the Deathly Hallows audiobook.

The following day, we went to the Universeum and got to wander through an aquarium, see an octopus and some sharks, walk over a ray lake, meander through a rainforest, do some horse riding, race a cockroach and try and escape a laser maze. I can’t explain how much fun this was so I suggest you go. Leave your dignity and adult perspective at the door. This is one for your inner-child.
The afternoon brought a quick mooch around Gothenburg (including visits to 7 bookshops) and then Mikey and I went out for an amazing dinner at a local restaurant and got pally with the local mafia. Sorted. Then I took it upon myself to learn Swedish from the telly. Namely, the subtitles on Casanova. Here are my learnings:

Vad? = What?

Adjö = Goodbye

Nej = No

Latrin = Cesspit

Bok = Book

Drag = Pull

Tryck = Push

Bra = Good

More words later…

On Friday… I SAW A MOOSE! We went to a park with seals and penguins and deer and MOOSE!

And we worked out that one British penny = one Knut, and so the amounts of Knuts to Sickles and Sickles to Galleons is not the arbitrary use of random numbers, but something deeper. We should have known. Then we went shopping and on a boat. 

And back to Skojarbackan for dinner, where I ate moose:

Saturday: Mikey, Binbags and I broke into a beach so we could see the sea. This involved walking through a forest, climbing some rocks, scrambling under two fences, climbing more rocks and then finally getting caught by a man whose major concern was that we’d snuck there to kill ourselves. After hasty reassurance, he pointed a window to the sea out to us and left us to our non-suicidal business.

In the evening we went out to Frölunda to watch the Wizard Wrock, where we were treated to acetastic performances by The Pumpkin Pasties, Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons, Solitary Snape, Lockharts Beundrarpost, The Deathly Hallows and Siriusly Hazza P, all of whom had the crowd jumping around like nutters. Except for those of us who’d broken into the beach, who were knackered from the law breaking. Instead, we sat down nicely like the X-Factor judges and viewed it. Still danced in my chair though. I also fell hopelessly in love with Solitary Snape. They had me at the immortal line 'Stop biting kids'. I want them to play my wedding.

The next day was Sunday. Home time. I don’t want to talk about that. Except the bit where I was allowed to have a look in the cockpit of the plane. Easyjet rule. It was a den of debauchery in there though, all the controls are called things like 'thrust' and 'flaps'. This made for ten minutes of hilarity and 'that's what she said' jokes as they explained to me how the plane worked. 

Here are some Swedish swearwords I learnt:

Fan  = Fuck

Slampa = Slut/Whore

Sat Mara = Bitch

Fjant = Twat

Din Javel  = You bastard!

Tjenare snygging = Hey good-looking (not a swearword but needed just in case)

And there you have it. Sweden. I love it.

In other news:

I saw Iron and Wine in Shepherd’s Bush and they were amazing;

I booked tickets to go to Leavesden Studios on opening day

I’m going to a Labyrinth Masquerade Ball and film showing next month

I have started making jewellery… whether this turns into a money-making thing is still up in the air but it’s fun.

And that’s all for now.

Are you jealous?

From Stoke to Stockholm

Greetings and Salutations! I am KNACKERED. For the past few weeks I've been indulging in one of my very favourite things to do - MOOCH. I like mooching. I'll pretty much mooch anywhere too. I live for invitations and opportunities to pack a bag and bugger off. Urban Dictionary would have you believe that 'mooching' means taking advantage of someone. WRONG URBAN DICTIONARY. It means 'going for a wander.'  That told you.

Who looks stupid now? You do.

Anyway... so yeah... mooching. On the Tuesday night I went on a brilliant date with two of London's foxiest ladies, the lovely Caitlin and Asma. We watched Your Highness and then went out for waffles and milkshakes. The film was ace, not my usual taste at all but funny as you like. And Rasmus Hardiker is in it! Rasmus Hardiker is currently number one on the LL (Lick List for the uninitiated). He was one of the stars of the zombie film I did a few weeks back and I thought he was yummy. And then he rocked up in Your Highness! Not only did he rock up, but he stole every single damned scene he was in. He was brilliant. And I'm not just saying that because I want to lick him. He's funny and beautiful - my favourite kind. Although, it's hard going to watch the man you currently like best get dry-humped by a minotaur...

Ignore the silly haircut. I promise he's lovely. And talented too. Totally stole the show. 

The following day, whilst still recovering from any and all things involving minotaurs, I hot-footed it to Stoke and spent three glorious days hanging out with Emma G. And Neily B came all the way down from Scotland to see us too! Emma and I drank a lot of wine, fangirled the cast of Merlin and watched Harry Potter. On the Friday, we took Neil out, originally planning to go to a gay bar as Neil had never been to one... sadly after luring us in with Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, the music went all weird and dancey so we staged a revolt and covinced Emma to take us to an indie rock place... where the drinks were 'buy one get one free'. Get in. We danced and talked and it was all very cool. A boy bought me a drink and danced with me. Lovely.

Emma and I pre-clubbing. With a ghost. Definitely a ghost and not sunlight. Ghost. Fact.

Then I nipped into work for a few days before heading off to Sweden! Here's how that happened.

[Twitter]

James: I need an adventure

Me: I'm your woman!

James: Ok... where shall we go?

Me: Don't care as long as we go on a plane

James: When shall we go? Are you free 6th-7th May?

Me: *checks diary and realises that is one of the two weekends she has free before September* YES! 

James: Skype?

Me: YES!

So we went on Skype and decided that seeing as flights to Norway were cheapest, we'd go there. And then there was that awkward moment when you discover that your flights to Norway are actually taking you to Sweden... yeah. 

But it was fine! We figured out the nearest town to the airport was Nyköping and they had a hostel so we booked some rooms. Job done. We flew out on the early-bird flight on the Saturday morning and were there by 9am (after a very tense moment at airport security when I realised I'd misspelled my own name... Fail). We went off and had a look around the town... it was a nice town! So clean and quiet! And I think I can add Nyköping to the list of cities I'm attractive in as EVERYONE stared. I'd noticed I was getting more than my fair share of glances but it was confirmed when James pointed it out too. 

List of places where I am considered attractive:

1. Cork City

2. Nyköping

We had a look in the shops; I bought a copy of Deathly Hallows in Swedish. James and I marvelled at how the TARDIS was translating the book for us... only to realise we weren't suddenly fluent in Swedish but had read it so many times we knew it off by heart. We then went and played mini-golf and I won! Not really. Of course I didn't bloody win. I got my arse handed to me on a plate. But in my defence it was my first ever go. 

Then James chased a goose off a jetty and we sat by the water for a while before deciding to go and check in. And on the way back we saw a bloody Arctic Tern and a hare! An actual hare! It was amazing. I love nature. They have jackdaws over there in the same way we have pigeons. I’d never seen a wild jackdaw before. We then sat by the train tracks for a bit, marvelling at double-decker trains before going up town to some pubs. We had a quick drink in English pub Oliver Twist’s (seriously) followed by one in Cocktails and Dreams and another in a place I’ve forgotten the name of. Then we went to the supermarket and got some beers before heading back to the train tracks to drink them there, James in his hoody. English people are dead classy.

Day two! We got the train to Stockholm and spent the entire journey peering out the window for moose. Sweden have a lot of moose, apparently (at least according to the gift shop at the airport) and we were determined to see one in the wild. We did not. We arrived in Stockholm, had a mooch about by the City Hall and the river and then headed into Gamla Stan (that’s Old Town to you lot). Gamla Stan is NERDTASTIC! Within seconds we’d stumbled across a toy shop, a comic book shop and some underground (literally, in vaults) coffee houses. Out came the Krona… 

An elusive Swedish Moose. You would think having a population of between 300,000 - 400,000 would increase the chances of seeing one. Well, you'd be wrong if you thought that. 

Gamla Stan is a beautiful medieval town, full of windy avenues and tall buildings. It’s so incredibly picturesque and cool that nothing I write here will do justice to it. I could quite happily spend a couple of days just wandering around and stopping for coffee. In fact, I’m going to. We also found the Swedish equivalent of Forbidden Planet and spent a good hour marvelling at stuff. I bought a copy of Ali Shaw’s The Girl With Glass Feet (and my very favourite book) in Swedish and marvelled again at the TARDIS’s ability to translate for me… To celebrate I ate meatballs with cream sauce and lingonberries. Like a native (or someone that visits IKEA regularly. Weirdly, my friends and I used to go to IKEA just for daytrips as we liked it so much. We referred to that as ‘Going to Sweden’. And my bed in the hostel was made by IKEA. Hmmmm…)

Then it was time to get back on the train and head back to Nyköping to get the flight back home. All we wanted was a double-decker train and to see a moose. Well… WE GOT THE TRAIN! We got to sit upstairs on a train speeding through some of the most beautiful countryside on the planet. No moose though. We saw some deer but no moose. Next time…


And then we had a few brief moments back by our train tracks with the last of the beer (which James manfully opened without a bottle opener) before it was time to come home. Sadface. I hate the bit where you have to come home. Luckily, I've learnt that the best way to get over the heartbreak of one adventure ending is to already have another one lined up for the future... more on that later.


And that was my week. Yesterday I met my lovely friend SophieSoph for burritos and margaritas and secret dress-making plans... I've 'commissioned' a dress for Deathly Hallows Part Two and SophieSoph is my master seamstress on this endeavour... but I'll say no more... Spoilers, Sweetie...