The adventure begins
Jun. 26th, 2009 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livI haven't updated for a couple of weeks, because I have barely had time to breathe during that time. It involved two international moves and catching up with months worth of family time and quite a lot of headless chicken imitations!
Anyway, the culmination of all this was that I arrived in New York yesterday evening. I am here until the end of July, mostly studying at Drisha but I'm likely to be free to meet up evenings or weekends if anyone feels like it. Next weekend I am going to Montreal to see![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rysmiel. And the first week in August (after the course finishes) I might go on a long diversion to California, but that has to be finalized. Anyway if you are somewhere within a reasonable day trip of New York, let me know if you want to make plans.
Screwy made it to my place as planned, he got in late due to slightly unhelpful transport, but hey. I concocted a supper that tasted good and was acceptable for his dietary restrictions, and we chatted a lot. Then I had a really really depressing final day at work, where I had to throw away most of everything I've done in the past three years as nothing is complete enough to be worth someone else taking over. I saw Screwy again very briefly and before he headed off to catch a ferry to Finland; it was a lovely visit in spite of the rush and chaos that usually follow in his wake.
My goodbye dinner was also very nice. A few people had to cry off at the last minute, but those of us who were there had a good time. I was especially glad to see RS as we'd spent several months saying "we must get together" and then it didn't happen. We ate far too much, as usual with Hermans. Those of us who still had energy went on to Fenix for tasty cocktails (I had a mojito with an entire fistful of mint in it, which was glorious). But drinking alcohol when I was in that sort of mood made me a bit weepy.
The last day was very much an anticlimax. It ended up taking me all day to clean up the flat, so I didn't really get to go and have a peek at the Midsummer celebrations as I'd hoped. I spent an hour with SA and YF, eating reasonably tasty pasta in one of the chichi little cafés in Kungsträdgården. I did see a few people in traditional dress or wearing flower garlands in their hair, so at least I got a little taste of my fourth and final Swedish midsummer. Then I spent many many hours travelling home, feeling increasingly sad that I was leaving Sweden for good and not just looking forward to a brief visit. I reachedjack's at about 2 am, and he provided tea and hugs and made everything ok again.
We didn't really get up on Saturday morning, but spent the afternoon at two delightful parties. The first wasnumberland's astounding dinner party. The most amazing food, I literally lost count of how many courses we had, and they were all fantastic. And very very good company, mixture of people I know like hairyears and lizzip with fascinating new people. One person responded "Phwoar!" on learning that I'm a biologist, and there were multiple really fascinating conversations going on all round the crowded table, and I somehow ended up being spoonfed chocolate mousse by two tall, short-haired blondes. In spite of the "dinner" starting at 2 pm, jack and I had to leave while it was still in full swing in order to get things ready for his guests arriving at 8. Which they duly did; we ended up with over 30 people, all of them lovely. I spent the evening getting more and more hyper with extrovert energy, just a highly successful party. We threw people out at midnight, because jack was feeling a little under the weather and I had to get up early on Sunday morning to return to Shelford.
I had Sunday lunch with parents and Granny, and we spent the afternoon at the annual fête which the community run to raise money for the Israeli ambulance service. It was gloriously sunny, and there were lots of people, and I made a good start catching up with all the Cambridge community folk I hadn't seen for ages.
I spent Monday afternoon drinking tea and gossipping withpseudomonas, then joined jack, naath and some others for geek pizza. It's always lovely to do that, and we had much enjoyable conversation as well as tasty food. And finally managed to get the early night we both very much needed by that point. It felt very domestic seeing jack off to work on Tuesday morning, after which I went back to Shelford and pottered about a bit. I've ranted about this at several of you already, but the delivery firm, having promised that my stuff would arrive in the first part of last week, changed the plan at the last minute so it was going to be either Saturday or next Monday, with the result that most of the clothes and stuff I was planning to take to New York were packed in boxes in limbo between Sweden and Cambridge. So we made an emergency trip to the giant Tescos at Bar Hill to acquire some basic t-shirts and underwear.
Wednesday parents set off for a family reunion in the south of France, and P'tite Soeur showed up and we spent the afternoon happily nattering away. She'd managed to organize to see our cousins J and K and their 10-month-old daughter, so invited me along to join them. Thus I got to see my new cousin for the first time in her little life. She's terribly cute, and frighteningly advanced (can haul herself up to standing and nearly walk and understand complex sentences, though she doesn't speak much yet). So yay baby cousin.
jack had invited me to his work jolly Wednesday evening, which took place at The anchor, a very nice restaurant which is unfortunately in the middle of nowhere out in the Fens. jack's colleagues and their other halves are ever so congenial, and the food was among the best I've ever tasted. Not too elaborate, but really, really good. I had a salad with figs and goat cheese, tasty sea bass with green lentils, and the most amazing dessert which was sort of coconut batter with melted white chocolate inside.
So all in all a good week, which made up a lot for the melancholy of leaving Sweden.
So, if you were in New York for a month with fairly limited free time, what would be your priority?
Anyway, the culmination of all this was that I arrived in New York yesterday evening. I am here until the end of July, mostly studying at Drisha but I'm likely to be free to meet up evenings or weekends if anyone feels like it. Next weekend I am going to Montreal to see
rysmiel. And the first week in August (after the course finishes) I might go on a long diversion to California, but that has to be finalized. Anyway if you are somewhere within a reasonable day trip of New York, let me know if you want to make plans.Screwy made it to my place as planned, he got in late due to slightly unhelpful transport, but hey. I concocted a supper that tasted good and was acceptable for his dietary restrictions, and we chatted a lot. Then I had a really really depressing final day at work, where I had to throw away most of everything I've done in the past three years as nothing is complete enough to be worth someone else taking over. I saw Screwy again very briefly and before he headed off to catch a ferry to Finland; it was a lovely visit in spite of the rush and chaos that usually follow in his wake.
My goodbye dinner was also very nice. A few people had to cry off at the last minute, but those of us who were there had a good time. I was especially glad to see RS as we'd spent several months saying "we must get together" and then it didn't happen. We ate far too much, as usual with Hermans. Those of us who still had energy went on to Fenix for tasty cocktails (I had a mojito with an entire fistful of mint in it, which was glorious). But drinking alcohol when I was in that sort of mood made me a bit weepy.
The last day was very much an anticlimax. It ended up taking me all day to clean up the flat, so I didn't really get to go and have a peek at the Midsummer celebrations as I'd hoped. I spent an hour with SA and YF, eating reasonably tasty pasta in one of the chichi little cafés in Kungsträdgården. I did see a few people in traditional dress or wearing flower garlands in their hair, so at least I got a little taste of my fourth and final Swedish midsummer. Then I spent many many hours travelling home, feeling increasingly sad that I was leaving Sweden for good and not just looking forward to a brief visit. I reached
jack's at about 2 am, and he provided tea and hugs and made everything ok again. We didn't really get up on Saturday morning, but spent the afternoon at two delightful parties. The first was
numberland's astounding dinner party. The most amazing food, I literally lost count of how many courses we had, and they were all fantastic. And very very good company, mixture of people I know like hairyears and lizzip with fascinating new people. One person responded "Phwoar!" on learning that I'm a biologist, and there were multiple really fascinating conversations going on all round the crowded table, and I somehow ended up being spoonfed chocolate mousse by two tall, short-haired blondes. In spite of the "dinner" starting at 2 pm, jack and I had to leave while it was still in full swing in order to get things ready for his guests arriving at 8. Which they duly did; we ended up with over 30 people, all of them lovely. I spent the evening getting more and more hyper with extrovert energy, just a highly successful party. We threw people out at midnight, because jack was feeling a little under the weather and I had to get up early on Sunday morning to return to Shelford. I had Sunday lunch with parents and Granny, and we spent the afternoon at the annual fête which the community run to raise money for the Israeli ambulance service. It was gloriously sunny, and there were lots of people, and I made a good start catching up with all the Cambridge community folk I hadn't seen for ages.
I spent Monday afternoon drinking tea and gossipping with
pseudomonas, then joined jack, naath and some others for geek pizza. It's always lovely to do that, and we had much enjoyable conversation as well as tasty food. And finally managed to get the early night we both very much needed by that point. It felt very domestic seeing jack off to work on Tuesday morning, after which I went back to Shelford and pottered about a bit. I've ranted about this at several of you already, but the delivery firm, having promised that my stuff would arrive in the first part of last week, changed the plan at the last minute so it was going to be either Saturday or next Monday, with the result that most of the clothes and stuff I was planning to take to New York were packed in boxes in limbo between Sweden and Cambridge. So we made an emergency trip to the giant Tescos at Bar Hill to acquire some basic t-shirts and underwear.Wednesday parents set off for a family reunion in the south of France, and P'tite Soeur showed up and we spent the afternoon happily nattering away. She'd managed to organize to see our cousins J and K and their 10-month-old daughter, so invited me along to join them. Thus I got to see my new cousin for the first time in her little life. She's terribly cute, and frighteningly advanced (can haul herself up to standing and nearly walk and understand complex sentences, though she doesn't speak much yet). So yay baby cousin.
jack had invited me to his work jolly Wednesday evening, which took place at The anchor, a very nice restaurant which is unfortunately in the middle of nowhere out in the Fens. jack's colleagues and their other halves are ever so congenial, and the food was among the best I've ever tasted. Not too elaborate, but really, really good. I had a salad with figs and goat cheese, tasty sea bass with green lentils, and the most amazing dessert which was sort of coconut batter with melted white chocolate inside.So all in all a good week, which made up a lot for the melancholy of leaving Sweden.
So, if you were in New York for a month with fairly limited free time, what would be your priority?
