Long overdue posts

I have been wanting to blog about our trip to Stockholm, but gotten soooo lazy. Plus, we were busy cleaning up apartment, walking around in Toulouse, cooking for buka puasa (okay, im not THAT busy for this one), you know......useless stuff.

The old town with interesting architecture

Me eating my banana, we always packed our own lunch and eat it in the park

So yea...Stockholm. It was cold *d'uh*, pretty, clean, and the best is everybody speaks english!! Thank God for that because we were worried for not bringing swedish dictionary along. As you can see, we pretty much survived the daily life there.

Museum...something....forgot. Not a museum person I am.

In front of Royal Palace

Ryan Air was good. No delay no nothing, just a standard low cost airline. Somehow, eventhough we paid our tikets for 1 cent (42euro after tax), we had to spend for airport shuttle in Paris and in Stockholm, which came about 50 euros each. Huh!

Stockholm

Hotel was cute, an ancient boat abra kadabra-ed into a hotel located in waterfront facing the City Hall. Really lovely, except the part that they do not provide bed sheet! yea, laugh all u like... lucky we knew about it and brought our own. We are soooo not gonna pay 6 extra euros for stupid bed sheet.

Our hotel

Spent first day of course exploring the city which is made of 14 islands, so there are bridges everywhere. We even joined the boat tour together with all Chinese middle age tourists.

Cyclists are fierce!! They are serious when they ring those bells, means move away from the bicycle lane if you love your life.

However, everything is sooo expensive. Well, not much different from France but kinda confusing since they don't use Euros. We ate lotsa salmon and fish-like dish, one very good salad bought in the local market, tried the local pastries which did not deserve any shout out, even the coffees tasted weird.

Okay, back to the happy stuff. All in all it was a great getaway. I've always wanted to go to one of the skandinavian countries. There were definitely lotsa pine trees and cute-looking red houses on river banks on the way to the airport, lotsa blond people too. But the highlight of the trip was the ICEBAR!!! That was cool, literally. Everything made of ice, the bar, the table, the glasses, the wall, the floor, except the bar ladies. And we had to put this silvery-millenium eskimo outfit to fight the cold inside, since it's gotta be 0 degrees.

The ICEBAR!!!! And its curious bartender. That is pyramid of glasses.

Ice table

I was craving for hot dogs sold in those street hawkers like on TV, but booo hoooo, they are all made of pork. So there! I had kebab instead.sigh.....

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On different subject. Ifa finally made her way to Paris. Our meet was short and brief. She was tired and jet-lagging from the flight. She did not look so enthusiastic seeing Paris, quoting her "so this is Louvre museum, hmm ok, just another building" or "if your apartment is nearby I will be taking a nap or watching dvds" while visiting Eiffel Tower, mind you. Hehe.

I was not so sure whether she was tired or because she's just the kind of person who is not easlily impressed by something, or maybe she is just not a traveller....i dunno.

And we noticed (pierre-louis and I) that people do change with time and circumstances. Maybe we expected things to still be the same as in college 3 years ago. I guess we were wrong. As us, we have been through so many things here in France as well as Ifa in Maldives, I guess our lives have evolved so greatly that we did not realize it has changed us too. Let me just say that things are definitely not the same anymore. I could feel it from our conversation and behaviour, perhaps.

It was lovely seeing her, of course. But we should have expected the unexpected. And I am wondering now since Cecilia is sooo eager to come here, and we are both definitely sooo looking forward to meet each other, i miss her so much. Are things different now between us, has she changed, will she think I have changed, will we be close as we used to be. So many questions linger in my head about our friendship.

Let's just wait and see.

I am going back to class in 2 freaking days!!!!!!!!