Japunzel

As I had foreseen, this became a better day than the weekend (almost).
Sun was shining from early morning as I dropped off Elin (riding in her new baby carriage, much lighter than the old one).
Afterwards, the first thing I always do after leaving daycare (not struggling with a heavy child in a death trap on wheels), is put out my ipod and listen to rock music. No other genre does it for me quite as rock at that moment. Preferably Queens. It's fantastic.
So as I walk back to the metro with We are the Champions banging in my ears I feel rather good about myself. I have noticed how I love being around these kids. Taking care of them, feeding them, holding and comforting them. Wasn't sure I had it in me. They say that when the devil grows old, he gets religious. Maybe I'm growing old. I feel old.
I got home, took some money and headed out to explore the central parts of this suburb. Was really looking for shoes and jeans when I wandered around. Bought carbonated water in the supermarket, extremely cheap, compared to Sweden, 40 cent. and i didnt even buy the cheapest brand. And then I walked around. Ended up in another, HUGE supermarket, seemingly endless.
Sad part is that I found nicelooking shoes in there for 19,99 and I consider buying them. I take care of kids, read and I buy my shoes at the local supermarket. I AM old.
I bought blue plums and some kind of cheese snack. Old, old, old.
But people here (men between 15 and 35 and women 35+) call me mademoiselle, which is rather pleasant.
And another thought struck me at the huge supermarket. Instead of buying jeans I could buy black office pants. More comfortable.
It's official. I'm a lady.

Oh, and when I got home.. I sat in the garden to catch some sun, reading a book, eating my plums and drinking water.
This is terrible.
Thank god I got my Batman bag here with me. And the bag with the Rabies Kitten.
So tired, nighty!

The weekend is almost over, and I can't help but longing for monday.

I never did go out yesterday, I sat in and finished Hanteringen av odöda while eating soft orange cakes (of course there's chocolate on them).
Feels weird now on the weekend when I'm not working, but still live and eat in the family's house. Feel like a leech. But I know I'm here under certain agreements, and one of them is that I'm free during the weekend. But I still keep the kids calm before and during dinner and clean up after myself. However I do nothing else for them.

I didn't do much today either. Too rainy for another walk in the forest or the central parts of this suburb.
As a matter of fact, all I've done today is pärlplattor, some drawing and reading The Phantom.  At least yesterday I watched Wallace and Gromit.

However I'm not unhappy.
I realized today that the country I'm in is famous for:
*chocolate
*comics
*beer
*food

I'm basically in Paradise. Except for the weather.
But the book yesterday made me a bit homesick. I long for monday cause then the shops are open, and I got something to do.
I only brought two pairs of jeans with me (what was I thinking?) and ONE pair of shoes (again, what WAS I thinking?), so I clearly need to go shopping.
Off to sleep now, early morning tomorrow.
Nighty!

Hey, I'm back! With pictures, no less!
Internet broke down two days ago.

Yesterday I went to the Swedish Church for the au pair meeting. Around 25 girls and two boys :P
All dressed up everyone on their best behaviour.
One of the girls lived close to me, I'm gonna hang with her I think, she was a potential friend. So was also the girl I met on the playground the other day. Found out she was a fan of harder rock and metal. When she told me she saw Rammstein live in Copenhagen you could actually see my face turn green.

It was hilarous going out with these girls. Imagine 15 swedish girls in flattering outfits in a celtic bar filled with cheap beer and odd men. Beer was 1 euro/bottle until midnight. Crazy. It isn't even bad beer. Stella artois for example.

We're going out again tonight, I think. If I got enough energy for it. I lack that occationally. Feels like I do nothing but eat but I feel hungry constantly. I walk around, run up and down three stairs and walk around with a heavy kid in a carriage but seriously? Makes no sense.
And all the chocolate? You'll have to put me on detox when I get home. Seriously.
I feel baaaad. I want ruccola salad and whole grain carbohydrats. And tzatziki.

I have today off since it's weekend and I walked around in the forest, 10 mins from here. Not a sound but those from leaves. So peaceful. Felt better after that, but then I got home and ate (pasta and fishsticks) and now I feel bad again.
Breakfast bun with chocolate pieces. Have mercy.

I hope this will be a short one, my posts are just getting longer it seems.

Had a short day for once. Dropped off Elin at kindergarten and payed for my french class (not with my own money though) and then took the metro to the university to show my receipt.
This country loves administration. A paper for everything. A rubber stamp to verify the paper. And if you're lucky: A water stamp or a sticker. They took my papers and gave me a new one, and I start the 15th. I'm a bit excited!

I picked up Elin again at noon and we went to the park. There I met a girl my age talking very fast to a little girl and she looked at me pushing Elin's swing. Her protege wanted to swing too and we stood their, looking and laughing at eachother while swinging "our" kids. I asked the au pair where she was from but she didnt understand. She eventually explained, polish.
Half an hour later Elin still wanted to swing and then I heard people talking swedish. Another au pair enters with a tiny blond boy. When she looked at me i yelled to her in swedish:
"Where are you from?"
She gave me the intelligent answer in swedish:
"Sweden!"
I asked her what city, and it turned out we originate from the same town.
Guess I'll see her tomorrow, cause that's when the swedish church hosts its first (for this season anyway) au pair meeting for swedish au pairs in Brussels.

I didn't get a bank account. Next week.

And Ted said he'd buy a card reader so we finally can get some pictures up in this blog. Speaking of him, today's exactly one month since we met. Feels like a lot longer.

I try to learn one french word and one dutch word every day but i probably learn more than that.
Today's french word is ici which I believe means "here".
Today's dutch word is klant, meaning client or customer. I laughed when I saw it on a commercial poster, in swedish klant means some who's failing at everything.
Former french words of the day: demi (half), malin (clever. pity it's not the same in sweden) and dans (inside, in)
Former dutch words of the day: sap (juice, lemonade), aangelaangd (diluted, I think)

Yes, the only dutch I learn is from the juice package :(

I'm off to wash my hair now, and then go to sleep. Even though I got the house to myself for tonight. Too tired. Nighty!

I'm off to London the 10th October and somewhere later that month I should be in Sweden. And any weekend now I'm going to Gent.  When should I come to Amsterdam?

And Ted comes here soon :)

Today could have been fun, but it wasn't.

After going to the community administration office to ask for permission to stay and work here, I had to get to a distant metro station to get a monthly season card, which was impossible yesterday. Too many people standing in line.
But today I was on location early, so this should be easy I thought. I mean this is the third day that they are available.
I get my que ticket and it read 117.
I look at the board on the wall.
It announces that the fortunate person with nr. 21 is welcome.
I decide to go for a walk, I see others with Harry Potter-sized books reading outside the office.
So I walk for quite some time but then get nervous and head back. On the way I meet a man and he wants to swap ticket with me. He's got nr 77 so I get suspicious. But we compare them and it seems valid. Even more nervous I return.
Is it walid? Have they already passed my turn? Is that why he wanted to change? I can't come up with any logical reason. I enter the hall just to find that the number has, after at least 30 mins changed into ..22.
I go for another walk, another direction. I find a lot of stores and return a while later. By the station I meet the man who wanted to swap. He tells me there's no use in going down, they're only on 23.
I think "fine" and start exploring some more.
I ate a delicious burger at McDonald's (yes, I am ashamed of myself) with fried chicken, salad and herbs on the bread instead of seeds.
And I went into Leonidas store, Jonatan has strongly adviced me to taste their pralines. They had uncountable amounts of them and I couldn't decide what I wanted, so they gave me a praline menu. Rather cute, but I found not one, but three pralines with my name on them. They were literally called Louise, so how could I choose anything else?
I realised that the queing couldn't have gone very far so I simply took the metro home, picked up my ipod and my book (Hanteringen av ododa, av John Ajvide Lindquist) and read outside the ticket office, like the others.
4 (FOUR!) and half an hour after I took my ticket, it was my turn.
Imagine if I still would have had 117.

After that I intentionally got lost in the city. Took me quite some time to find the place where I started and I ended up in some dodgy parts of the town. Then picked up youngest one, she was behaving really well.

The metro played "In his kiss" and "sexyback". Felt slightly embarressed standing next to 100 unknown persons in bright light hearing Timbaland half moaning, half asking me to "come to the back" and "come here child".

Oh, one more thing. You can get drunk in the supermarket here. They do wine samplings.
Tomorrow I'm getting an bank account. Things are moving.
Tata!


buildings close to where I got lost.

Today's been interesting.

I was released from all my morning duties, such as taking the 2 year old to kindergarten, and instead given a special assignment: To await the delivery of a computer.
So I ate a huge breakfast (man, I really love suburban homes with several fridges) and cruised on the internet. Also managed to get a skype account.
Now, this computer was a Dell, and to be delievered from L'easy. Every swede who has watched tv in the last 5 years knows that PETER delievers everything from L'easy, but this isn't Sweden. At around eleven the bell rang, and there stood Pieter and Dieter, with nice shaving and nice posture and looked like they just emerged from Hitler jugend.
They made me sign an electronic note and it looked terrible cause I didn't write hard enough.
After that (and messing around, inspecting the house and finally doing some house work) I called the mother and informed her that the package had been delievered.
My new task was to buy myself a month card for the metro/bus but this showed to be impossible. Too many people stood in line, so I'll try again tomorrow morning.
My new phone lacks a SIM card, so I can't use it, and so my only way of contacting the mother was by walking into the building for European Commission and tell the receptionist that I needed to borrow a phone to call the mother of children whos father was working in the building I was standing in.
I didn't even have to finish my sentence, I was immedeatly shown to a phone. People are so helpful here.
After that I bought a waffle for lunch (tasty indeed!) and picked up the kids. It was the first time I did it alone so I had to tell the guards (yes, guards, this a very high security kindergarten) and show them my passport etc.
I had made sure a few days ago that I was in the database (of those allowed to pick up kids) so after a little searching they found my name and let me get the kids.
We went to the park and they played for an hour or more and it was rather nice.
They behave rather well.

And I've learned how to ride with a baby & baby carriage in an escalator. It's difficult as hell, but I got the skills. And sometimes the escalators are broke. That's when the real trouble begins. But people are so goddamn nice here, EVERY person that walks by offers to help lifting the carriage up/down. An old lady apologized for not being strong enough to carry it for me. The next person, a 40 something man immedeatly helped me out.

I still like it here.
Getting up at 7 generally and tomorrow isn't an exception. So, nighty night!

1. They like music. Everywhere. And they like it old school. The supermarket plays It's In His Kiss. The metro station plays Dancing Queen and Walking In Memphis.

2. The city is clean. Hardly any garbage at all lying around. And their metro stations are spacious (dunno if that's even a word but you get what I mean), and decorated with nicelooking modern art, with actual shapes and motives, not just random stripes.

3. The "belgian waffle" thing is true. I saw a waffle stand on a metro station. And I went grocery shopping today (absolutely the best way to get to know a new country's culture, isn't that true, Ozzy?) and I saw SHELVES of waffles. And chocolate.

4, They have plenty of organic stuff. The nature friendly trend is even bigger here than in Sweden.
Which brings me to the most awesome thing today: The organic cafe! We had lunch there. Delicious bread, divine mint tea (made out of fresh mentha), sandwich with parmesan and grilled aubergines and everything was organic. And beautifully served on top of that.
But the best thing there was no doubt their chocolate cream (think nutella, but without the nuts and made of belgian chocolate!). I think a part of me will die everyday I live without eating that on a piece of bread. Gotta buy that in kilos when I head home. My kind au pair mother bought a jar for me, standing already opened in the kitchen.

But I have yet to try their pralines. And waffles :P
I'm off to bed soon (I get up early nowadays you know). You people can still text me on my old number, I use my old phone as alarm clock.
And I need to tell you that all of you people reading these words warm my heart. It means you miss me, sorta :)
Right then, nighty nighty, I'm off to dream about chocolate in various shapes.

Ps. There's a huge spider in my bathroom somewhere. Please kill it when you get here, Ted. Thanks.

All this cause I asked for tea.

I only work mornings and afternoons/early nights and I'm free during the holidays. And I might follow the family back to Sweden in October.
And yeah. I get to travel to plenty of places. Just wanted to brag.
Laters!

Ps. You know I'm getting decently payed for this, right?
(In four weeks I'll be crying, feeling homesick, let me have my moment of pride.)

And so I have arrived.
Been a day packed with events.

I got up too early, got dressed and put the last stuff in my bag before closing it, took the cab with Ted down to the station where nothing had opened yet, and jumped on a train to Kastrup, Copenhagen Airport.

After we managed to get my bag checked in, me and Ted had a final breakfast together (mmm, bacon....) and then it was time to head for security. Ran into an old school mate (I keep doing that at Kastrup) and then boarded the plane (got a window seat woho!). I tried to figure out which parts of the land below belonged to what country, but I fell asleep. A maximum of 4 hs of sleep per day for a week does that to you.

Woke up as the plane was lowering itself over a tiny landscape. Got out, waited for my bag in what seemed like an eternity. I immedeatly discovered the family waiting for me and we walked to their car, and drove to their place (front seat woho!).
I was given a test as we left the car: to unbelt the youngest one, Elin, and carry her into the house. This was harder than expected but I adapted, improvised and overcame.

A part from that I've been hanging with Elin alot. I have changed her diaper once (went smoothly), we had a pillowfight, she bit me in the neck and she tries to get into my clothes. But she so damn cute. I also walked with her baby carriage to the nearby forest (we simply have to stroll there whenever you, my friends, visit).
Her brother is highly intellectual and 5 years older, that is to say 7. He reads a lot of comics and is very observing.
Tomorrow me and the mom is gonna get me all the things I need to work here, including a licence (greencard or whatever, the right to work here) and a card for the metro.
Sooo tired, and we're up to an early start tomorrow as well.

.Shortly said, things are good so far. Got a nice room too, I'll put up pictures of that another day.

Just realized I didn't bring my cam USB cord with me, but I'm certain I can get hold of one, either by buying one or by someone bringing one.

I think I'm slowly starting to realize that I'm actually leaving.

It seems so scary my mind keeps denying it'll happen. People keep mentioning events and I go "Yaay.. Oh, wait. I'm not in the country at that time." Like birthdays. So, yeah. I wish happy birthday and happy autumn for y'all.
Cause I won't be there.

10 days, and counting. Shhhh.

I'm going to Brussel (and London in october, YES! Sure missed my second hometown). Should I start packing already? Should I get some kind of supercard? What should I do?


Arthur helped me with some packing advices though.

Lin Dan says (15:20):

you should find a way to get more then 20 kilos with you

Lin Dan says (15:21):

some people stop cocaine into condoms and swallow then, thats an option for some extra stuff

Lin Dan says (15:23):

they might check for that though

. Luni . says (15:23):

i can wear like 10 shirts and 3 pair of pants

Any other suggestions?

my blog is up.
I know. I hate the blog concept. To write a public diary, just begging for attention, to be seen and to be somebody.

Well. I was asked to do this, by friends and family, since I'm trading safe Sweden for probably even safer Belgium.
This is the deal: I'm off to au pair a family in Brussels. So I'll stay there for like nine, ten months. And I'll be lonely. And I trust you'll miss me.

So I write this for both your sake and mine (I like win-win situations), and I'll keep you posted on what's going on.
Take off is early morning 31st August.

Why did I create this blog now?
I'm not leaving for another two weeks.  But last night, the first step of my journey was taken, the mandatory going-away party.  And though surprisingly many of you showed up, a few weren't able to come, for various reasons. So today my phone's been beeping all day, texts from people really wishing they could be there, and say good bye.

This blog was created today cause I wanted you to know how things are going, preparations etc, and for my swedish friends to know that THERE IS STILL TIME.
And despite what I think of blogging, I have been looking forward to this. After all, you have to try anything once.

Ps. I know I'm giving you hell, trying to spell that french name. Sorry about that. But it's so damn catchy! Just make a bookmark or something. :)
Oh, and I'm writing in english for my non-swedish friends and family.