Olga

My great grannie Olga turned 98 years of age yesterday. She is still the prettiest lady at the old people's home. Happy Birthday in arrears, grandma.

Dublin

Day two: I am currently in the capital of Ireland. Dublin is lovely. I'm surprised that people don't go here more often. We arrived yesterday somewhere around noon, and then we went by double decker bus (which I've never gone by before) to the Trinity College. Trinity College is by far the most beautiful college I've ever been to. It was like straight out of Harry Potter. The teachers even have a common room that look exactly like Gryffindor's with a huge chandelierand an even bigger fire place and all of these amazing paintings (all originals). Another part of the college is a library of Kells, which was filled with old books all the way up to the ceiling and staircases that looked too disney to be real. After the tour of the college we went to eat and then to have "coffee" at the famous Bewley's Café. After that lovely cup of cocoa with marshmallows we met up with Ailbhe and went to see the house. The House, with a capital H, is such a lovely home. It has the feeling of the Burrow from (you've guessed it –) Harry Potter. Dinner with the family plus a couple of cousins was the perfect end to a wonderful day.

Day three: Yesterday we slept in. We walked around, along the canal, had lunch at the national gallery (which currently has an Edvard Munk expo), then went along to a Georgian museum. A house that was built in 1794. There I saw even more portraits of people that I've studied. At the museum we met up with Caitlin, and headed along to Starbucks. Decaf gingerbread latte and a gluten free brownie with whipped cream. Lovely. Some window shopping later we walked home and had dinner with the wonderful and most entertaining Noirin, which was followed by movie night.

Day four: We slept in yesterday morning again. We had brunch and then went out for shopping. Some serious shopping. About three hours later we were back home and by then dinner was ready. Ailbhe is an amazing cook! Her mother, brother and sister also came by for dinner. They were such lovely people. The brother even thought that i was 22-23 years of age (thank you very much), while he thought that johanna was 18. That means a miss by 7 years of age difference. Ailbhe's mother is about 94 years old and such a character. If I ever write a movie or book she's gonna be in it. When we were so stuffed with food that we could roll out of there, me, johanna and Cathleen went to the pub up on the corner. Murphy's. How irish is that? Lovely pub! So finally I've been to a real Irish pub, and not just the one in Portugal that we call the Irish pub.

Day five: The day started with fry (which basically is Irish brunch) and then we went on to the mountains. About 20 minutes from home there were these beautiful mountains with beautiful paths to walk. The only bummer was the wind, which wasn't very merciful. Strangely enough we met a couple of Noirin and Caitlin's cousins when the walk was over. We decided to go to a pub, which also was up in the mountain, called the blue light. It was so Irish it was almost ridiculous. Like it's exactly the way your stereotypic imagination has thought of it to be. There was live music, loads of nice people, brick walls and a fire that everyone took turns on standing by to defrost. We went back home and I pretty much just studied for the rest of the night.

Day six: We had breakfast, packed our bags, hugged and kissed Caitlin, Ailbhe and Noirin and waved the wonderful Burrow goodbye, jumped on the plane and flew home. Such a great trip.

Gotland

I have been terribly inactive lately. I do have my reasons, though. There hasn't been much time. For one, I was in lovely Dublin visiting my lovely "step relatives" with grandma and Johanna. Then I was home for about one whole day, on which we celebrated Sara's birthday, and then I left for Gotland with Amanda, Moa and Jojo. There we walked around in Visby, gift shopped for christmas, baked a lot of pastries, made fires and me and Amanda ran the Lucialoppet race, which is 10,6 km (6,59 miles). First we cycled there (which was 6 km) then we ran the race - our legs already worn out - and Amanda came in fifth place, on 50 min and 19 seconds, and me at 61 min and 33 seconds. It's the best I've run so far. Then we cycled home 6 km again. I don't think that I've ever been so tired before, but it felt really good. We'll be back on Gotland soon!

This is morning in all it's glory: I began this day with putting on anti-inflammatory cream on my ankle. Seconds after, I wisely put one of those recently dipped-in-cream fingers in my eye. It hurt. Like Listerine and toothpaste. Desperately, I ran up the stairs to my bathroom to rinse that constantly swelling eye. Since I was in quite a hurry (to avoid looking like a one-eyed pirate), I came up not too dressed. While screaming a bit, I hear the poor cleaning lady greeting me good morning. Poor woman. What a morning. Fortunately the rest of the day made up for it.

Pain, pain, I know your game. I've spent the entire day at Alexander's place, on his couch. Cramping like hell. I tell you, it's god's greatest punishment to women. And all the anxiety, the dizzying blood loss and the extra eating and crying doesn't really make up for the pain. All women should get some sort of award or some kind of reimbursement. Or at least a free ticket to New Moon.

Sunday was a good day. It began with brunch at Clarion Hotel with near and dear ones. But the biggest event of the day was of course my man turning into an old man. 23 years of age. Like a liquor that only gets better with age.

Oh well, duty calls, studies awaits.

Guess who's going to New York in march to run the half marathon?

Long time no see! Friday night and I'm sitting on my couch with family watching this weeks episode of Idol. And writing an essay on a silent movie from 1927. But that's a-okay since I had a an awesome night last night. Me and some of the girls went to see the movies and saw Twilight followed by New Moon. With the risk of sounding girly: I LOVE TWILIGHT! I brought ginger snaps, candy, a thermos of coffee, water, blankets, slippers and so on. Five hours later, out of the theatre, we all remembered what the fuzz with mr Pattinson is all about. grr.