OCEANS AWAY

My strategy is lots of napping, hot showers, and fake saunaing

Filed under Daily Life

I left home without a bag today. My trusty H&M purse broke a few days back, and this morning I decided to just grab my wallet, my cell phone and screw everything else: chargers, pens, Moleskines, lipbalm, gum, camera, bobby pins. I left it all and walked from my subway stop to the office like I was on a Sunday afternoon walk, hands tucked into the roomy pockets of my winter coat (-10°C this morning!).

Work is still only ok. Most of my co-workers are in Holland for a big stakeholders meeting and general updates on the future of the organization so things have been calm and relaxed but- the other intern, my only true ally here, is off work sick all week AND it looks like we will be stuck with manning the customer care center until the end of days even though the boss promised to just shut it down when the original call center ladies were fired last year. It’s a little frustrating to spend so much time on the phone with agitated tourists when that’s not at all what I’m here for. The press and PR department is buzzing with activity because the vacation season for the Netherlands is approaching and yet, here I am, stuck in customer care, explaining to customers why they are no longer receiving care as of: TBA. So frustrating.

(At the same time, there are still some issues with my new apartment that I can’t cross of my to-do-list because I’m waiting for some paperwork from a state agency which- we all know what that usually means. I’ll get it about three months after I needed it. Plus, I need to organize the whole move and it’s proving to be difficult.)

Today was better than yesterday, though, so I’m not REALLY complaining.

I’ve been sleeping a lot lately; sleeping and napping and keeping my apartment comfortably warm and taking extra hot showers. Also, I’ve been snacking on nuts and raisins, both of which – while devastatingly calorific – are super healthy. And so I’ve been feeling better physically and, most notably, my skin and my hair look so much better than before. I haven’t been dieting in any way, shape or form for months now and I’m still eating like a maniac and snacking at night – I’m doing everything wrong, basically – but additional naps and vitamins and fake saunaing have made a pleasant difference. Also: the cold, clear air out there and long power-walks on Sundays.

I’m going to have to spend a fortune on the new public transport ticket for February tonight. And I might stop at H&M. Not to get a new bag (even though I was just handed last month’s paycheck and leaving the house without a bag doesn’t seem so practical anymore)- but to get a new dress slash really long sweater. You know, one I can wear with tights and boots and no pants and still look cute? It’s a little Mission Impossible of me to look for such a thing but tonight, I just might. And then I’ll go back to hot showers and naps and worrying about All The Things.

I’ll pretend nothing stressful is going on in the meantime

Filed under Daily Life

Pasta for dinner, mango ice cream for desert. A red sun over the horizon. Getting home from work and it’s still light out. A relatively calm day at the office. Daily Show episodes. Freezing cold outside; more days of the same, only more sun. A free weekend ahead.

These things make me happy today. I’ll pretend nothing else stressful or annoying and upsetting is going on at the same time.

Ah, ignorance is bliss.

A busy life is a happy life

Filed under Daily Life

I’m on the train back home right now, and I’m typing this in Word because German trains, unlike Swedish buses, do not have free easy-access wi-fi for everyone. It’s freezing outside, below zero, and ugly. Temperatures are supposed to drop even lower; there may be snow. So: I’m mostly content with life at the moment.

Last Thursday night I, along with my boss and my two press and PR co-workers, went to a fancy work event in Düsseldorf. We were hosting a fancy press dinner for the most important journalists of the state to introduce to them our ideas for the upcoming year, and kiss their asses a little bit in the hopes that they will cover anything Holland for us in 2012. I was gratefult to be taken along but had dreaded the evening for weeks because I KNEW I’d feel uncomfortable and in the way of things. And yeah, that pretty much came true but the night went by quickly and relatively painless, and I felt EXHILARATED in the car back into downtown Cologne to have made it through.

I also felt exhilarated because I’d been waiting for it to be Friday all week. I took the afternoon off and ran straight to the the train station from the office to take the intercity express (fastest train we have, and first class at that!) home to my parents’. My brother just finished his traineeship and the official “gradudation” event was held that Friday afternoon. My surprise visit worked out perfectly! My brother apparently suspected nothing until the moment my dad stopped at the train station on the way to the ceremony!

After the ceremony, we went for coffee at a cozy little café called Alex and just chatted away. Around 6pm we moved to my favorite restaurant slash skybar back home, the Bernstein. We had reservations and got a surpremely awesome and exclusive table, surrounded by plush benches and candles and flowers and the other tables, and the view over the city beyond that. While waiting for my brother’s girlfriend to join us, we ordered drinks and my brother unpacked a small gift from my parents. The Bernstein is the perfect mix of cozy-comfortable but somewhat fancy, yet young and innovative and so on. I could LIVE there, really.

It was perfect. I hope he felt the same – it was his day, after all. It was a LONG day for me, that’s for sure. We got home around 11pm, well fed and possibly a little tipsy. Heh. — Sunday was spent at home, for the most part. The parents and I went for a long walk, and we went to Ikea for food and general browsing in the late afternoon which resulted in me building a nightstand for my brother later that night. I love building Ikea furniture. I should probably look into doing it for a living somehow.

So now I’m on the train back to Cologne. Back home again. Here’s something I’ve been noticing: I keep going home and home and home again. Home to my parents’. Home to Sweden. Home to Maastricht. Home to Cologne. I can’t say that one of these places feels the most home to me. Which is why leaving my parents’ and traveling back to Cologne today makes me feel just as happy as I felt on Friday.

Next week is SUPPOSED TO BE pretty easy-going because most of the office is at HQ in Holland for a weeklong event concerning the future of the organization. Not so fun for them but probably a quick work week for me which, on a Sunday, is a good thing to look forward to. Heh.