renate.nu

In the spirit of Barney, I have started making a “Get psyched!” playlist. The latest addition is Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. I listen to it a LOT these days, to, you know, get psyched. For studying. HELLS YEAH, STUDYING. WHOO!

I was going to write this post about something completely different, but then when I opened up the “Add new” window, I didn’t feel like writing about that anyway, because I caught a glimpse of my drafts, and wow. I need to finish some of those.

Here’s what you have to “look forward to”:

• The rest of the NYC posts (I’ve started writing NYC: Halloween).
• How I will prepare for a zombie attack.
• Confessions of a fangirl.
• On snuggling.
• Literary Maven Meme.
• TV Slave: Glee.

How excited are you!? :D

You know what I hate? Websites that take so long to load their AD SYSTEMS that it takes several minutes for the real content that I seek to show up.

I get that some sites have to make money for them to stay online at all. I get it. But please, please, choose a system that at least doesn’t take 2-3 minutes to load in the background, blocking the rest of the site’s loading until it’s done.

Thank you.

Because instead of studying ’round the clock, I also take time to browse the iTunes store:

If you know me, you know that I never pack until the very last minute. Before my trip to New York was no exception – I packed mere hours before we had to leave, and that was only because I wanted to catch some sleep before we drove to the airport. This of course led to a bit of stress (I never learn!), and I got only 2-3 hours of sleep before I had to get up again.

We arrived at the airport around 4:30 I think, only to be told that all of KLM’s flights for today have been cancelled, didn’t they tell you? And I’m like “listen, would I BE HERE before the frakking crack of dawn if they told me?”, only I was a bit more polite and just said “no, they didn’t tell me.” The lady was really nice though and told me that I’d been booked over onto SAS’ flights, but this meant that instead of going directly from Trondheim to Amsterdam I would have to change flights in Oslo. Not too happy about that, but even less happy about having to wait 1.5 hours extra at the airport for my flight to leave.

Thankfully I found some Dr. Who on my harddrive, so I kept myself occupied.

Anyway. The flights to Oslo and from there on to Amsterdam were both uneventful. Everything went as scheduled, and I slept most of the time.

Amsterdam airport Schiphol is huge, did you know? I got a map that told me that it would take me about 20 minutes to walk from where I was to where I needed to be. Halfway between those two points was the passport control booths, and the line? MILES LONG, I swear. It took forever, and then I had to walk walk walk walk walk to get to my terminal. Then I bought a bottle of water because I felt I might die from dehydration and heat, only to have it taken from me because WHAT DO YOU KNOW, there’s a security checkpoint AT THE GATE. Who does that!? Schiphol, that’s who, apparently. Security guy came up to me and said “Miss, is this yours? There is no drinking allowed on the premises.” Like I had tried to smuggle with me a bottle with booze. Honestly, it was JUST WATER.

Everything was forgiven when I had boarded the plane and we were in the air though, because let me tell you, KLM KNOWS service. Seriously. I have never met that kind of service level onboard an aircraft before. They fed us so much that eventually I had to say NO to another piece of cake, because I just couldn’t eat any more. Incredible.

I also got to watch 17 Again, which was… Not so good. Really. Much love for Matthew Perry, not so much for Zac Efron. Then I watched some old Big Bang Theory episodes, because they just never stop being funny.

Then I filled out a couple of forms and watched an informational video about how to proceed to gain entrance to the United States. Funny thing though – when they showed the video the first time, it was in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles, and everyone onboard just kept giving each other funny looks, like, “dude, do you understand any of this?”. They showed it in English an hour or two later though, heh.

Ok. New York! I CAN SEE IT! WE’RE LANDING. YAY! WE’RE TAXING TO THE GATE, YAY! NO. WAIT. We’re not taxing to the gate. We’re delayed ON THE GROUND because another plane is coming in with technical difficulties. Crap. I’m in New York but am not allowed to disembark. We waited for a long time. Long enough that I fell asleep again.

Then we were allowed to disembark, FINALLY, and it was a race and a battle to get off first and quickest. I lost. But then we got to the halls where you walk towards immigration, and well, quickest walker gets to immigration first. This one I won. Yeah, that’s right. Don’t let these short legs fool you, I can do a mean powerwalk if I feel like I have to.

So, immigration. Longest queue I’ve met all day. After an hour and a half I finally got to the front of the line, where an overly chirpy young woman was greeting everyone and saying stuff like “NEEEEW YAWK! THE CITY THAT NEVAH SLEEPS! AIN’T YOU HAPPY YOU’RE HERE!! WEAHLCOME!!!”. Finally, it’s my turn to step up to the immigration booth. They take my photo and my fingerprints, glance at my passport and my forms, and send me through, no questions asked. This, apparently, is where it pays off to be European and white and not looking very threatening at all, because others, especially those with Middle-Eastern or African looks (and probably passports) were being held at those booths for forever. I was in and out in 5 minutes. Win!

Located my luggage, was told off by security guard for using my cellphone in the luggage hall (geesh), got through customs, out into the airport, found the toilets (note to other unware travellers through JFK: their toilets flush automatically, so do your business QUICKLY, or, ew.), found an ATM. Then I was asked 1000 times if I needed a taxi, but thankfully I’d read the information telling me to NOT say yes to those because they are gypsy taxis (or pirate taxis as they would be called here). Finally made it to the REAL Yellow Cab taxi waiting line thing, where a uniformed guard person found a cab for me. The cab driver was Indian, and we didn’t understand each other at all, so we just drove on in silence for the most part. And then he dropped me off at some street corner and said something about how this should be sort of where I needed to be, just down the street or round that corner or bla bla, and then he drove off.

So I called Faye, and she came and found me, and YAY NEW YORK! FOR REALS!

Finally. One of my improvised meals turned out good. I’m a little limited in what to make for dinner these days, because Tor broke his wrist on Friday and so hasn’t been able to eat a meal that requires both a knife and fork since then. I suppose I could cut up his food for him, but for now we’re just trying to come up with meals that don’t require any cutting.

Anyway.

Today, I thought, I’ll make taco soup. So I went to the store to buy minced meat and taco spices. But then I thought, why not put chopped tomatos and basil in there? And then, why not add chili beans? And corn?

And suddenly, it wasn’t really taco soup anymore, but more of a strange taco chili stew, and it was GOOD. We crushed nacho chips and put those on top. Yum.

I’ll give you the recipe, but the truth? I have no idea how much I used of everything.

Taco soup stew…thing

Ingredients:

• 1 litre of water.
• 2 cubes of meat broth
• ~300 grams of minced meat (I used the swine variation because I prefer it)
• 1 can of brown beans in chili sauce
• 1 box of minced tomatoes with basil
• 1 box of corn
• Taco spice mix
• A bit of white rice (I used Jasmine rice).

What I did:

• Brown the meat, add taco spice mix and however much water the mix calls for.
• Boil 1 litre of water with the 2 broth cubes.
• Add the meat to the broth.
• Add the tomatoes, the chili beans, the corn and the rice.
• Stir stir stir stir stir and wait for the soup to thicken and become more stew-like.

Serve with crushed nacho or tortilla chips. Shredded cheese might work too, but we didn’t have any cheese. Maybe some sourcream too. Mmm, sourcream…

My exam is December 1. Until then, I live and breathe studying. Seriously. I get up in the morning, read a bit if I have time before I have to run to the bus, then go to work, study in my lunch break (ok, haven’t done this yet, but will starting tomorrow), work some more, go home, study, make dinner, study, shower, study, sleep. Repeat repeat repeat.

Obviously I’m also taking the time to write this, because I JUST NEED A BREAK, OK?

Anyway. After December 1, I will be free. FREE! Whatever will I do with all that spare time?

Here’s what:

• Play video games. I’ve got a few unfinished ones.
• Go to the gym. Because I need it BADLY.
• Read for pleasure.
• Watch movies.
• Decorate for Christmas.
• Bake!
• Buy Christmas presents.
• Start reading next term’s literature… But I’m actually looking forward to it!

If you want to know what I’m doing this weekend, here’s the list of what I’ve Googled so far today:

• 1848
• Russian serfdom
• Ukase
• Treaty of Vienna
• Dialektisk
• The communist league
• Hiprex (I may be studying, but I also have an infected bladder…)
• Dual monarchy Austria Hungary
• Revolutionism
• Blog icons sketched (because I got distracted…)

Last week, I went to New York City. Today, I suffered the consequences.

I’m back from New York, and I am going to make a longer post about it, but right now I just wanted to say that I am back. It was all kinds of awesome, and where usually I am totally ready to go home from wherever I’ve travelled to after 4-5 days, I was not quite ready to leave New York when I did. I could have stayed on longer without tiring of it.

Now, like I said… A longer post is coming, but I want to take some time to write it and include pictures in the post, so it’s not something I can just do in 5 minutes. Maybe some people are able to do it in 5, but I’m not. I just want to do it justice, because this was such a huge adventure for me, and it all seems so unreal now. I just…need to some time to digest it all.

Until then you can take a look at the photos I’ve put up on Flickr so far.