Today we took a long, looong walk through the city going to alot of shopping centers and hi-tech stores and stuff. Took 7 hours. And I hardly bought anything. I’m not too comfortable with the small stores that as soon as you get within 5 meters of someone comes at you offering you a special price, just annoying. And the fact that most things don’t have a pricetag tells me that it’s haggle-time. And I don’t like that either. But I would have bought a new computer case, if there was any way of getting it home. And an internet router, if I wasn’t gonna be travelling over the next months…
Jetlag is a funny thing. I’m writing this at about 5.30 am. This place is 6 hours ahead of swedish time which I thought would make it hard to fall asleep early and hard waking up at 7 am. But it’s the complete opposite – I’m falling asleep at 10 pm and now I woke up 4:45 am and I can’t sleep. It’s not causing any problems or anything, it’s just weird. But considering I went from Guatemala (swedish time -8) to sweden to Singapore, that’s 14 hours adjustment – the “wrong” way! Meaning the one that makes you lose alot of hours, it’s supposedly be a lot better the other way since you gain 6 hours on the flight. And about that flight – I’m lifting off at about 11 pm next wednesday, and touching down at 5.30 am. And that’s WITH the 6 hours I just “gained”, so that’s a 12 1/2 hour flight. And then I should land in Stockholm at about 9 am. And what do I do then?… GO TO WORK! 🙂
So here I am in Singapore. I haven’t been here for more than 4 hours and I’m already loving it! We took a stroll down the high street (Orchard Road) and I loved it. This city is amazing! And pretty cheap too, I was expecting everything to be expensive since we get $80 per day that we’re here for food and stuff. Don’t know where all that is gonna go since a normal BK meal is only $4…
Here’s hoping the work will go as easily as it did in America!
I’m about to head out the door to Arlanda, to Frankfurt then landing in Asia tomorrow afternoon. I don’t regret signing on this mission… YET! I’ve only done one job, and that was a team effort. This one I’m doing solo. Atleast the technical part, there is a guy tagging along but he’s not the techie of this mission. I am. “OH GOD THE PREASSURE!!”. But ask me in August, that’s when the first wave is done, and all the money have been payed in and out, then I can say if I regret anything.
Wanna here a new “this is life!”-comment? Cruising through downtown Stockholm on a warm sunny day, windows open and listening to “Brown Eyed Girl” while drinking a Cola. That was nice.
Finally home! It was a very very VERY long flight here. We lifted off from Guatemala at 6 pm and landed 9 pm on the day after! Stopping in Miami and Madrid as well! But I don’t think my bed has ever felt better (with the exception of the few times I’ve actually had company in there).
Going back to Sweden today. And it’s been fun, but it’ll be nice going home, seeing some friendly faces, enjoying my bed and my local pizzeria! But as job goes, this has to be one of the best ones a computer tech like me can get!
It may have taken me a while, but I’m really starting to appreciate the beauty in hispanic women! They are nice. Especially the eyes and they have female curves, not that bone-like hungry looking anorectic thing..
I was able to upload some picture from Guatemala, enjoy!
Did you know I studied spanish for 2 years in high school? Well I did, I chose it because it wasn’t as complicated as French when it comes to pronounciation, and the grammar wasn’t as complicated as german. I was suckered on both, spanish even has a twist on verbs that occur regularly! Anyway, I got like a D becuase I was so charming (lord knows what I would have gotten otherwise) and I never thought I’d have to use it. Well, here I am in sunny Guatemala with 100’s of restaurants, 99% of which only have menus in spanish and spanish speaking waiters. And it took me a couple of days but now I can deal with that too!!
We went on a guided tour of the old guatemalian city of Antigua today. It used to be the capitol of Guatemala until the big quake of 1773 (I think?) when some of it was destroyed and the rest damaged. Because the spaniards didn’t have that much consideration or experience building things to stand for an earthquake. Fortunately I had my digital camera with me so you can expect alot of photos as soon as I can upload the pictures.
When in a strange country – try the local beer! Took me about 3 hours, but it’s “Gallo” (pronounced “gayo”), tastes like… well, beer. Not unique in any way, I prefered Kenya’s “Tusker”.
One little interesting thing about this place is their traffic system. The capital is devided into Zonas, and the streets are a grid, like Miami’s, with horizontal “Calles” and vertical “Avenidas”. And most streets are one way, the first one in one direction, the next street in the other. And nobody respects pedistrians and there are hardly any traffic lights, everbody just honks when they approach an intersection. And funny enough – it actually works 🙂 And I just got asked if I wanted to do a special job in July in South America… poor me…
I had an update ready to post but I simply didn’t have enough time before I left for South America. And we just got the communication up with Stockholm so I thought I’d post a little “Greetings from South America” thing here!
The weather down here is just perfect for me, not too hot and humid enough for my skin to love it. And the food is excellent. Everything is pretty nice, although we haven’t had time to go out much for some tourist stuff, but hopefully we’ll go to Antigua or something this weekend.
My departure to South America seems imminent. I’ve got the flight tickets in my hand, valid passport and my dollar$. And I should be very excited, right? Hm… I didn’t even wanna do this thing because I saw all the practical problems and the risks. And even before I’ve boarded the plane there are big financial problems to solve, as well as a slight clothing-problem. I don’t have a suit that I can wear with a serious face, and they pretty much ordered us to bring one “just in case”.
So, as usual, just when I’m about to get my economy together something like this pops up. And today we had a good talk about security and some “Do-s and Don’t-s” “just in case you have a gun pointed at your head”. That was really exciting. NOT!
But I’m certain I can see past all these problems and turn it into something amazing!
I think this is the first time in my life that I can take the blame for a failed relationship! This woman I just started dating finally decided it was over after keeping me in a state of limbo for 2 weeks. When we started dating, this travel-the-world thing at work was only some project I had signed up for , but it wasn’t anything certain and I didn’t have any specific details. When I finally did get it confirmed and the details, the first thing I did was talk to her about it. And she was pretty disappointed I hadn’t let her in on the loop at all. And she’s right – I hadn’t. And it hadn’t slipped my mind or anything, a colleague at work pointed out that “how does your new girlfriend feel about this”, I just never mentioned it because I didn’t really know what was going on either with the project or our relationship. But she didn’t appreciate the fact that I had hidden it from her, and the fact that I was barely gonna see her for the next 2 months wasn’t a good start to the relationship. So that’s over. Which is really sad ’cause this woman was someone special. First girlfriend to disprove the “women hate it when the guys watch sports on TV”-point in my “Bad things about girlfriend”-list.
Unfortunately she added a new one to the list when she couldn’t decide if it was on or off, took her 2 weeks and hours and hours on the phone to come to that conclusion. I don’t like not knowing, and I dislike it even more when there’s nothing I can do about it.
You know I don’t take alot of things in life seriously, right? As a matter of fact, there are very very few things in life that I can’t joke or laugh about. I’m not sure if that’s a good trait or not. But I saw the inverted versions on the TV the other day. People that can’t take a joke. People that enforce the political correctivness-rules. It was another E! “True Hollywood Story”, this time about the Dice-man, Andrew Clay. You know, “Ford Fairlane”, “Dice-man Cometh”, “No Apologies” etc, one of the most hilarious people on the planet, one of the few comic acts than can sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row. His jokes are … well, vulgar, extreme and coarse. But he does it in a hilarious way. How many people can get away with a comment like “Sorry I made you clean the bathroom, but who did all the work in bed?”. And then there are the people who can’t take jokes like that, who think it’s immoral. One woman even, quite seriously, said that you can’t listen to his act and NOT be influenced. Riiiiight.
Just when I think I can’t dislike J-Lo more than I do, I flip on MTV and … well, I’m shocked! It was her latest video, “I’m glad”…. have you seen it? I’ve never, ever seen any worse cover or rip-off of something I like as much as this! I happen to like “Flashdance”, ALOT! I’d put it right up there of the “10 best movies ever made”! Even after a little bit of the magic disappeared when you realised Jennifer Beals wasn’t dancing, still loved it! But this is far worse than Nikki French’s attempt at a dance-version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (a song I’d put right up there of the “3 best songs ever made”).