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Allergic reaction
With Julie – my Danish friend from back in the days in Barcelona and University. Such great memories
Today I started my day with a dentist appointment. Not the best way to start your day but it had to be done. I walked in with confidence, I had only a check and a clean booked in. Did not think I needed anything else, my teeth are fine. Well, I was totally wrong. Instead I had a filling done and booked in again for next week. I don’t like the dentist, expensive and painful, of course nobody like going there!
After that I went straight into Surry Hills and spent rest of the day volunteering at Life Changing Experience Organization.
All day I’ve felt itchy, on my legs, on the back of my neck, on my elbows. I went back to the house, had a shower and during dinner I looked and it looked like I got a couple of mosquito bites on my arms. I go into the bedroom, take off my clothes and really start to look. I am covered in some kind of rashes. It’s like an allergic reaction from hell.It’s just past 9pm here now and we are thinking if we should go see a Dr or wait and see how it looks in the morning. The fact that its super hot here in Sydney right now is not helping the situation at all. Its most likely to be an allergic reaction from the dentist. But who gets a rash 11 hours later??
This was the latest news from down under. Not exciting at all i know. Promise I’ll have something good for you guys tomorrow. Now I am going to go have my fourth cold shower and then keep looking at old pictures from Spain. I am trying to keep my mind of the itchiness that almost drives me mad!
Ciao for now.
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A walk down social media memory lane
Last night, I found myself looking trough Facebook. Not the current stuff from everyone, but all the old pictures. It was like walk down the social media memory lane. And I especially found that the date was interesting me more than anything. Over the years I found myself more and more not being able to place when and where certain events of my life happened. Its been frustrating because for the last 2 years of my life, for our Partner Visa, I have been forced to state the dates and places on everything that I have been doing for the last 10 years!
Because it has been like an endless back and forth between Stockholm, Barcelona and Sydney, I just lost track on dates and placed where thing occurred so to speak. And in between these “homes” of mine, there also have been a couple of vacation of course.
Now, I know that on any of the social media available today, you can always go back and check dates and places. I just have not been using Facebook as much as before. I think the last time I made an album there was back in maybe 2013?
And Instagram is kind of new to me. Think I got my Instagram app sometime in mid 2017.
Guess that was why me walking through all my old pictures was just like a walk down memory lane – the social media version of it.
Here are some pictures that I found from each of my “home” cities – let’s do Sydney. first ….
The first time I came to Sydney. Its funny now but I never wanted to come here in the first place. Here with my friend Emma, a girl that I randomly met. This is the first month in Sydney, I was so damn sad that I ignored the fact that I had to find an apartment. I randomly slept at colleagues and friends places. I remember this night in particular, I had no place to stay, like many times before I choose to ignore it all and Emma and I went out for dinner and ended up partying all night. I had to spend the night sharing a room with 6 dutch at a hostel in Kings Cross.
I remember this period of just being so damn sad and ignore everything. I can see just how sad I am from the picture to the right.
My old flatmates Behnaz and Derek. Two very important friends to me. They were the guys who “saved” me from my sad place in Crows Nest ( where I first lived back in 2012) and I ended up staying with them in Bondi. This is after a couple of months living in Australia and because of these two and the friends they introduced me to, I started to understand why so many loved living here in Sydney.
After moving to Bondi in 2013, I started to meet more and more people. Everyone was so open, friendly and welcoming. I started loving life here, and not just missing Barcelona all the time.
Looking back now, I cannot believe how much we used to go out. It became clear to me that this was just like back at home. It was just hard because I was so far away from everyone and everything I knew and loved.
When I came back to Sydney the second time. I landed on my birthday and my lovely friend Amy took me out for a dinner to SAKÉ in The Rocks. If you have not been here, you have been missing out.
Amy, another person that became one of my saviors. I love her and everything she did for me when I was new here. Most beautiful person, inside and out.
Sydney after Ambrose came into my life. The first and only time I started to feel and to call this place my “home”.
Here we are with Bart and Kali, as usual – getting ready for somebody’s wedding haha
Nobody in the history has gone to as many wedding as Ambrose and his friends!
My fist Halloween party in Sydney back in 2012 or 2013. I was offered money for sex on the way to the party. I though I looked like a wonder-woman – clearly I looked like a prostitute. And I remember falling on the dance-floor in front of everyone in my very high stilettos that night. Fail on so many levels.
This is the old group I used to hang out with back in the days. Incredibly good memories from those days.
My fist Boxing Day here in Australia – maybe 3 years ago?
One of my favorite pictures. First because as a non Australian, this is exactly how I imagined Australians looked like. By the beach, easygoing, super friendly with an accent that nobody really understands, surf:y-looking, their love for washed-out colored clothes. those hats. All of it! I looked so misplaced in the picture hahah
And the funny thing is that all of it was exactly like that in real life. Good old Australians, just like you see them in the movies back in Europe.______________________________________
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Putting Mel Robbins tip on How to Stay Focused into practice
Have any of you heard of a woman called Mel Robbins? Chances are that you have because she is apparently huge all over the place, a best-selling author etc.
I on the other hand had not heard about here and just happened to accidentally come across Mel and her work. I don’t really believe in the word “accidentally”, as a matter of the fact I believe we are given whatever we need in that particular moment in our life. But that’s a whole different story haha.Back to Mel and what I learned from her, which is a lot. But for now let’s have a look at 3 simple tips she shared on “How to Stay Focused”.
#1 Don’t sleep with your phone next to you. Most people wake up and instantly scroll through their phones. Facebook, Instagram, emails. In other words, checking what other people are doing in their life instead of getting up straight away and start your OWN day. By having your phone distant from you, you don’t go on autopilot and check your phone.
#2 Mel said she keeps a Post It notes in the bathroom. As she brushes her teeth in the morning she writes down the top priorities for her day. Tasks that she needs to get done in order to reach her goals. Then she sticks this post It on the back of her phone. Why? because most of us have our phone with us throughout the day and this will make our priority tasks visual all day long. Harder to avoid doing your tasks for the day if you see them all day long no?!
I like this tip a lot because there is a lot of ideas going on in my head as I brush my teeth in the morning. But often I forget all about them as the day goes by.#3 Mel calls the last tip on how to stay focused; “30 Before 7:30”. This one is about taking 30 minutes before 7:30am, to just focus on getting your day organized and getting a couple of your top priorities either finished, or further down the field.
Tomorrow is my day off and I am going to try Mel’s tips on How to Stay Focused straight away. Hope I (and Mel haha) have inspired you to try it out too.
HERE is some more information and tip from Mel Robbins
Ciao for now friends.
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New glasses
A couple of days ago my glasses broke, well no its been more a couple of weeks now BUT I have finally ordered a new pair. For the first time in my life I ordered a pair of glasses online. So great! I just popped in my prescription details, choose the frame’s I wanted and boom, just like that they are being shipped to my front door as I am writing this.Initially I went to the optometrist to pick out a new pair of glasses when my old one broke. I tried maybe 50 glasses and could not decide which one to pick. Ambrose tried one maybe 5, picked one of them and within that same time picked out a pair of prescription sunglasses as well. It took me about 3 weeks longer that him! You would think this is an urgent matter since I have – 6, so pretty bad vision.
What I am trying to say is that there is always something, a habit, a personality trait anything you can learn from others, and add that to yourself and how you do things. And I am definitely adding “making fast decisions” from him. Such a waste of time taking almost a month just to pick a pair of damn glasses.
As Ambrose said to me, “it’s not the end of the word, you’re not going to wear exactly those glasses for the rest of your life.”
So true.This picture taken with Snapchat will have to do because these glasses look exactly like the ones I ordered. Round and Brown/Orange:y. Hopefully not as gigantic though.
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Recipe for a Bowl of Tuscany
Not much excitement has been going on today to be honest. Besides this bowl of delicious pasta that I “invented”.
I am still so close to be getting sick and I just know that if I rest and eat and drink a little more of the good stuff such as ginger tea and such, I can get past this flu. So this morning I had alot going on but I have spent most of this evening in bed, watching all kinds of crazy stuff on YouTube.Our friend Mike and Lucinda are getting married in a few weeks so Ambrose are away tonight and tomorrow for Mike’s bucks party. So I took the opportune to just hang out and watch stuff on my laptop. It’s very rare that I allow myself to watch just random stuff. For some reason it gives me anxiety and I always feel I should be doing something more useful or productive while I watch for example trash TV. Resting to prevent getting sick is a perfect time to just give in and binge watch without feeling bad about it, at least this works for me. Weird I know.
As I said before, my only productiveness of today resulted in a recipe we can call a Bowl of Tuscany.
Start with your base sauce:
2 large carrots
2 medium yellow onions
5 cloves of garlic
Chicken salt/ black pepperI put all the veggies in a food processors to get them into finely diced pieces
Sweat the veggies in a big pot with some olive oil until softened.
Poor over 2 large cans of diced tomatoes
About 15 cherry tomatoes cut in half
Let it simmer for 1,5 hours
Add 2 dl of cream and 2 dl of sour cream
Add your meatballs in the pot
Add fresh basilServe with pasta, fresh Parmesan cheese, fresh black pepper and basil
And also a piece of garlic bread to scope up the sauce.______________________________________________
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One tiny piece of document left
Thursday evening and it feels like its been one of those very very long weeks. I am actually ready to have the weekend so we can sleep in a little bit. Well, sleeping in for us usually means until 8am, but still better that these 5 and 6 am that we have had.It has been alot to do this week and on top of everything else, our Partner Visa is about to be finalized. Only last tiny bit left – A Police clearance from Spain. I have not lived in Spain for many years but one of the requirements is that you need to show police clearance from all the countries you lived in for the past 10 years.
The only issue is that I have a Swedish nationality and I live in Australia. And to get a police clearance from Spain, if you are not a Spanish means well, basically they told me to fly 30 hours to Spain to get a piece of paper and come back.
If any of you wonders how my feelings are about the whole Partner Visa process? Its something like …ZZZZzzzzzzzzz
2 years have past !! Hours of putting together documents. Even more hours proving we are a couple. Thousands and thousands of dollars have been spent. And it all comes down to ONE tiny document. Which just happens to be across the planet.I know I know, It sound like I am complaining. Actually I am relived and grateful that its only one tiny piece of document left. Like everything else in life, it depends on how you look at the situation. Now, red wine and take away dinner out on the terrace. xx
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The cultural clash reunion
One normal picture. And that’s because Javier took it on his phone and sent it to me. Dinner at the Greek restaurant Xenos. Very charming place in Crows Nest. Always vibrant which I like.
We could not stop laughing. My camera keeps making these weird pictures where everyone looks, well not great….
After drinks comes dinner and after dinner comes Gelato. A must if you are hanging out with Ambrose.
But this is not your ordinary ice-cream place. This is heaven in you are into ice creams. Or any sweets, they have cronut’s or croissants with ice cream inside…just saying. The place is calles C9 Chocolate & Gelato. Just go there.
Last night we had a proper reunion with some of the old Barcelona crew. Started with an after-work in Crows News and I could not help but t feel like its was like the good old days in Barcelona. It’s such a cultural thing, and of course it helps when you live in a country where the weather actually “welcomes” you to make plans and do something after work.
Yesterday during drinks we were actually discussing the cultural differences we experience.
For example the difference between Swedes and Australians. Swedish people tend to be more direct. In Sweden it is socially accepted to answer your phone with a ” Hello”. Not in Australia. I remember Ambrose being so shocked when he heard me answer my phone. Australians answer more like ; ” Nicci Speaking”.
Another example was asking for something in a store. In Sweden you go to the store attendee and you can say; Hi, shoes? with a smile of course. That means Hi, please tell me where I can find the shoe section in this store. In Australia life is not this easy. Here you have to go; G’day mate! How y’a going?! I am interested in maybe buying myself some shoes. If there is no troubles, would you please help me to find where your shoe section is located bla bla bla……I mean, who the F*#@k has the time and energy for these kinds of conversations?? Am I wrong? Or have I perhaps too many years in Sweden, becoming a cold and too direct person. I don’t know. Somethings I actually think I moved around too much so now I have a little bit of one too many cultures in my brain. So I am not good in any country!
Okey, back to our evening. Ambrose came after work and so did Ninnie and Javier. I used to work with the two of them back in Barcelona when I worked for TMC. Great memories so it was really great to get a full night with them, just like back in the days.
I can’t wait when we get this whole partner Visa done and we go visit Europe. I am trying to convince Ambrose to do a summer trip this time. I want to show him my favorite spots in Europe, and visit new places that neither of us has been too. Like Croatia and Turkey.
And of course Barcelona. That city will forever be one of my favorite homes in the world.
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Two shadows at Pearl Beach
Pearl beach. One of my favorites up here at the coast. I like the glow of the sand, makes it look like tiny pieces of gold.
This was on Sunday and whenever Ambrose has time off we are basically on a hunt for waves. And this Sunday was no exception.I don’t mind it usually because I am normally swimming around and body surfing anyway. The only time it gets annoying is if I am done with the whole beach thing and I cannot get a hold of him because he is far out in the water. And I have the car keys, his wallet, both our phones so it’s not like I can leave, how would he find me ?
Might leave a note in the sand from now on; “Got bored, at the cafe on top of the hill. See ya”The normal solution would be to learn how to surf……I tried teaching me one time and it was like I was in the army so I quit. I did not even understand half the things he was talking about. Did you guys know that in Australia you get down on your knees and grab hold of the sand with your hands when a big wave comes over you?! What?
I miss the good old beaches in south of Europe where there is little or no action. Here its a constant fight for survival in the ocean. Don’t get me wrong, I think its much more fun to be in the ocean when there is a bit wavy. But not those that you need to know trick in order to escape death… just saying.
As I was saying a long time ago, Pearl Beach is beautiful, golden and often quite.We were there in the afternoon but there were no one there. We had the whole beach to yourself. There is not alot of surf here usually, so if you are after that Avoca Beach might be a better option.
Ciao for now. xx
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