Christmas!

Quiet Christmas holiday with family. Full house and all brothers and sisters at home. It doesn't happen often nowadays.

I also had the MOT just after Christmas and the car obviously failed. Furthermore, I was not so happy when I found out that the winter tyres I got when I purchased my car didn't fit (they had a 5-lug fit instead of the normal VOLVO 4-lug). I have never been at home with the car in winter before so have never tried to fit them. Surprise.

SNOW!

This was the perfect weekend to travel to Sweden on. On the Friday, same day as I left, northern Europe was covered in thick snow. From Basingstoke all the way to Margate (the ferry port) and snow was lying thick all the way through Belgium, Luxemburg and Germany. Driving in those conditions just makes it extra difficult. And moreover, it was very cold and I could not stop at many of the places I had planned to see because I was freezing too much outside the car. I only took some breaks in Luxemburg and Copenhagen before crossing the Öresund Bridge to Malmö, Sweden.

Southern Sweden was chaotic when I arrived with enormous amounts of snowfall last night. Many villages were isolated for hours, ambulances could not reach rural areas and they were instead driving tracked vehicles around with rescue personnel. Fortunately, all the motorways were held open at all times and I could finally cross the country, although with some difficulty from not using winter tyres(!).

My Last Day

This title (and content too by all means!) sounds like a Scrubs-episode or something but it definitely isn’t.

My last day in the office was not so relaxing as I had thought. It started in the morning: the car was covered in 20cm snow. I started packing the last items and cleaning the house out early in the morning. Unfortunately my car didn’t start and I had to get help from a guy with jumper cables. After an extra lap on the ring road to charge up the battery, I arrived to the office at 10:00.

It didn’t become better of the fact that one of the models I've written during the past few weeks had bugs in it and I had to fix it before lunch (I only had a half day). I also suffered through an embarrassing leaving presentation and was given a gift I've already downloaded on the Pirate Bay. Perfect. I hurried to the bookshop to return it and just about finished my work before having to depart for the ferry. I may have forgotten a dozen things and didn't have time to clear out my desk properly but hopefully there is nothing valuable left in there.

South America

So now I also figured out what to do in January. I will go to South America for a while and I have found a bargain-ticket to Lima, Peru. Compared to my last trip, this will also be much more economic and thought-through. Now I also know what to see and do and how to avoid the tourist traps.

Arriving and departing from the same airport also saves hundreds of pounds so I will travel a shorter circuit. I also found a cheaper way to get to Madrid than using Ryan Air so now I am really happy. Instead of 15kg luggage for £10 I can now bring 25kg for free with Iberia. I wish Ireland, the country where Ryan Air was born, all misfortune in the world.

Well done Henry with your hand-ball.

The Mess

I have created the worst mess ever. First I sent a message to my landlord telling them I was moving out.

They replied asking me if there was something they needed to address. I said all was fine, only sometimes people didn’t clean up after themselves in the kitchen. Which is true.

My landlord then mistakenly thought (or played on that by purpose, which I don’t know) that I was moving out only because of the mess in the kitchen. He then sent a text message to my other three housemates

saying she would send a cleaner and charge it from the deposit. The girl I was sharing with thought

it was unreasonable (which it was!) and immediately submitted her notice, intending to move in with a friend and refusing to pay anything. Another housemate called them up and was very rude on the phone. My landlord apparently didn't accept that tone and immediately gave him notice to move out. After a week he moved into a colleague’s house.

The third and last housemate knew he could not move out as he only planned to stay in Basingstoke another couple of months and moving house normally involves signing up for at least six months. He rode the storm out and suddenly was the only one left in the house. As no one else would move in before Christmas, he is now bound to pay for internet, TV, phone and gas himself, costing him at least £20 extra per week.

But what do I care?

Quitted

So now I have official quit my job. I think they were a bit surprised and so was I. I came to the conclusion that if I don't quit now, will there ever ever be anything that will make me quit? Probably not. Carpe diem.

Imi'n'Ifri

On a pleasant distance from the bustling Marrakesh is Imi'n'Ifri, a cave-formation that creates a natural bridge over a small stream. Inside and under the bridge is an amazing landscape with cliff formations, stalactites and bats, amongst other things. We went to this place by renting a taxi for the day in Marrakesh. Not at all expensive and a good way to get outside the city and relax, after dodging motorbikes and donkeys on small . On the way back, we passed through a Berber town to have lunch and also stopped at some waterfalls just before nightfall. The most dramatic part of the journey was that the taxi broke down on the way home and could only drive on the second gear. Fortunately, it happened only the last kilometres before Marrakesh and we only had to drive 20km/h the last bit approaching town.

Marrakesh

After having been cheated by Ryan Air once again with newly invented charges, I arrived in a sunny Marrakesh after a couple of weeks with the typical dull English grey sky. The old town with all its preserved buildings in Arabic-style, mosques, narrow market lanes and grand guesthouses is a top-tourist attraction itself but the biggest tourist trap is the central square, all sorts of attractions, activities and people gathering during the day. In the afternoon and nights the place converts to a huge eatery by over a hundred mobile restaurants, arriving at nightfall. Marrakesh has also a modern part built by the French, just next to the old town, but for a genuine experience, a stay in old Medina is essential.

Harddrive

Have just purchased an external back-up USB disc with capacity of 1 terrabyte. It was actually quite economic if you consider the storing cost per gigabyte. I think in one years time, you will be able to buy a disc of at least 2TB for around £50-60 only so if you haven't got yours yet, better times are coming!

DVDs

I don't think I will ever buy a pack of writable DVDs anymore. After having stored away my digital photos on duplicate discs (for safe copy) I tried to retrieve some of them just now. I realised that although it was not too long ago (certainly much less than the three years you would expect a DVD disc to last) I found out that one of the discs was unreadable and the copy of it was only barely readable in my laptop (desktop refused to open it). A piece of sh*t. Luckily I didn't lose anything but I am not going to gamble with DVDs anymore. It is safer to store things on harddrives

so that will be the way forward from now on.

No ants

It appears that the ants only came back one day and since then, have disappeared completely. Voodoo??? But I am not complaining.

Pattaya

Pattaya is a seaside city on the , kind of on the way between Cambodia and Bangkok, so I decided to spend a day or two of my short holiday to see something of the Thai beaches. Pattaya is however more famous as a party-place and streets are lined with countless bars filled with young thai girls. May not be the ideal place for families on holiday.

Angkor Wat

So then was the goal of this trip reached: Angkor Wat of Cambodia. I purchased a three-day ticket and toured plenty of temples over several days around the huge ancient city of Angkor. Angkor Wat is only one of the complexes but the most impressive and magnificent.

Crossing the border from Thailand was another adventure with touts trying to cheat tourists with "inofficial" visa offices, offering visas for inflated prices. Between the borders, there is a perfectly fine working official desk where all torists should apply for visas and it is always open during border times so if you are attempting this, never listen to guides, travel agents or transporters claiming otherwise. Even better, get an e-Visa online to save money and take immune to all cheats.

Bangkok

Well then I have arrived in Thailand, home country to almost half the population of Älvdalen, Sweden. Not very bad here at all actually, even though in the beginning of the rain period. Bangkok is modern and offers plenty of sights. I could stay here for a while, if it wasn't for the fact that I had to get back to the office and that I want to see a couple of other things while still in this part of the world.

A little note is the security. Comparing to travelling in South America, South-East Asia is like Fort Knox. Are there a single million population city where you can walk around almost anywhere, almost any time of the day (or night), without having to worry about being robbed? I would be surprised. Watch and learn, Mr Chavez of Caracas.

Ants

We have ants in our kitchen. One day they were all over the floor and noone knew where they came from. All doors closed, no openings or nothing. Very strange indeed. My housemate used the vacuum cleaner to clean the floor up and since then, the landlord has been here and put a white powder in strategic places. I assume this is some kind of ant-poison (or at least poison) although it looks suspiciously much like flour. I don't think its a good idea to taste it so I am going to just leave it there.

My Endless Weekend

My blog, named 'My Endless Weekend', has returned. When my trip ended last April, and I had to start work again, I figured that the endless weekend finally had come to an end.

I didn't blog anymore until today, over three months later. So that’s it? Everything is just as before? Well, almost. I have since then developed the site www.fnasse.se and the blog is now advertised from there (which I assume that you already know, otherwise you would not be reading this). Also, it is probably not going to be focused around travels as much as before either, although I am currently getting ready for a shorter trip to Southeast Asia, how great isn’t that? Anyway, that’s all for now. Big news. Not dead.