crisis

❆ i've had a mini-crisis, which, combined with lots of work, has kept me from my blog.
the crisis was not so mini actually. jerry's visa for australia was denied. i found out at work a few days ago and wanted to run and cry in the toilets but instead had to finish the entire shift, fake-smiling to customers. i fell asleep that night sobbing into my pillow so my housemates wouldn't hear me. jerry feels awful about it and told me that although he'd do anything to keep me, he would understand if i left him.

what am i going to do, you ask? ...stay with the person i love and give up my home and my family... or go home and give up the one i love....?

it feels like a dilemma from some jane austen novel, not my real life situation. of course i choose love... anyone who's ever really been in love would, i think. i can just hope that some day when we're married with kids and his record is further behind him, they'll reconsider...
it just feels so unfair that some person working in the office of a government department over the other side of the world is allowed to judge his character and refuse him without ever meeting him or giving him a chance. whoever stamped that letter has no idea what turmoil they've caused us. we have to make a whole new life plan!

it breaks my heart that i can't go home! i was feeling so ready to move back...
but life is full of these challenges and maybe it's the better for it.
and love will conquer all. :o)

the real christmas day!

'
















































MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!
i hope everyone had a wonderful day!!!!
since christmas is already over for the swedish, i somehow felt that i'd missed the best celebration of the year! after failing to convince my housemates that today is christmas, i decided to google some evidence... but it turns out no one's really sure that jesus was born on the 25th, theres just a few biblical references suggesting he may have been, along with a few other possible dates in january... so he may not have been a capricorn after all! i was pretty pleased thinking i had him on my team...

after having lunch in a cosy cafe, we went out christmas shopping and jerry bought me a gorgeous new hat which i loved so much that i wore it all day around town, then kept it on while hanging around the house and would have worn it at work if i could've...

even though i was working, i found a way to stuff myself with food all night, in accordance with christmas tradition... the chef asked if i was pregnant because of the volume of food i was gorging! he then told me he's pretty sure it would be high treason or some sort of crime against humanity to produce mini jerry's, to which there was unanimous agreement. i think we'd have really sweet and cute kids, but don't worry, it's not the plan for a while yet...!

;o)

merry christmas eve!

✬ jerry woke me up this morning with a wonderful breakfast in bed! and some hand-written vouchers for massages, room-cleaning and dish-washing to be redeemed at any time... what a sweetheart i have for a boyfriend! ♡

the swedish celebrate christmas today (on christmas eve) for some reason...but we're gonna buy each other presents tomorrow when the sales start (and when it's really christmas ;o)
its minus 12 degrees today, the icy ground is extra slippery and of course its snowing! my first white christmas!!! yay!!! we spent the afternoon sitting inside a cafe drinking 'glögg'; a swedish christmas drink which is like a warm spicy wine (really good!!) and then watched the townsfolk dancing around the christmas tree in the town square...
i love the happy vibe at christmas time!!!

meanwhile, far far away in shepparton, australia, my family are doing the christmas eve tradition; dinner out with my uncle, aunty and cousins, where the kids all get smashed on the parents bill and then ditch them to go out partying! ...to you guys, i miss you all and hope that you have a good night, but not quite as good as when i'm there! ;o)

merry christmas to all my readers!... although i don't know who you all are, i love you anyway!

xx

tipping is not a city in china

❉ its interesting how obsessed with tips you become while working in the hospitality industry. rather than being accepted as merely a kind gesture of thanks for good service, the tip is taken very seriously by the hard-working waiter. each donation is weighed up carefully according to the level of energy spent and friendliness shown to the customer and then judged accordingly. guests who don't show their appreciation in monetary form, walk out of the restaurant with no idea of the foul-mouthed back-stabbing they will cop from the offended employees.

its a controversial and much debated issue, but in my opinion waiters and bartenders deserve tips if they do their job well. the salary is never high enough to make up for the fact that the waiter is working shitty hours and weekends, missing their chance for a social life so that they can serve others who are enjoying theirs...
i could be a dull and surly robot of a waitress if i wanted to be, and actually it would require less energy, but if i put in the extra effort of smiling, laughing, having a joke with and pretending to be interested in the guests, then it makes their dining experience even more pleasant and i expect to be rewarded for it.

i remember when i used to work at 'cougar bar' in the telstradome in melbourne, a sports bar at the arena where all the football and rugby games are held. there were about ten of us girls working there, in knee high boots, mini skirts and revealing white 'cougar' singlets. we made pretty good tips from the hoards of male sports fans who enjoyed coming in during half time and after the game for a drink and a perve. but we all knew who the tight-arses were and within minutes the word would spread amongst us so that the offending party received zero to bare-minimum of service.

my good friend and colleague sarah was the best at cracking down on non-tippers. once there were two suited guys standing at the bar continuing to not tip the sweet french bartender, emilie. she complained about them to us and next thing the beautful sarah was sauntering over to them, arms folded arrogantly in front of her cougar boobs...
'not tipping today boys?' she asked, frostily.
the men scoffed at each other. “we’re not in america!”
sarah responded, sharp as a tack; “yeah well we’re not in mcdonalds either. you know, we’re not wearing these outfits for nothing.”
“oh really? we hadn’t noticed” the men snickered.
"well, we might happen to ‘not notice’ next time you need a drink.” ...and bang, she walked away, job done.
the smiles dropped very quickly from the mens faces and a $20 note was sitting on the bar next time emilie served them.

:o)

skiing

yesterday i tried skiing for the first time ever! we hit the easiest of the kids slopes and as i struggled my way down the almost horizontal decline, falling on my arse every two metres, five year old kids whizzed past me in all directions, like mini professionals.

i was close to packing it in a few times and even cried from the frustration, but after a nice cup of hot chocolate with pear cognac, my bones felt a bit warmer and i decided to give it one more shot. the sushi-chef from work took over from jerry as my ski-instructor and next thing you know i was gliding elegantly down the next mountain (the 'difficult' kids slope) with a big smile on my face.

we have such a great working team at beefalo!
the sushi-chef, who they call 'reverend', is a real character and makes me creative vegetarian sushi platters for dinner each night. there are two blonde ken-doll waiters who are both really sweet and then there's the main chef, jonathon, a flirty 20 year old, who keeps me entertained with his continuous flow of double entendres and sexual innuendos. he tells me i look like a german porn-star and i'm pretty sure the germans are the dirtiest of all porn-whores, but he means it as a compliment... i have been the only girl (amongst 9 male employees) at work, which has created an interesting dynamic, but tonight another girl is starting..

i've gotta go get ready, i'm running late!
xx

gotta be in it to win it...

❅ not the winning photo, but same castle...












✬ the highlight of my night at work was serving three flirty 20 year-old dutch boys who spent $600 on dinner and left me a $60 tip! where do these kids get that kind of money??
i also found out at work that there's an Åre photography competition each ski season. you send in your best pics and each week the winner wins a digital camera, with a big SLR as the final grand prize. ... so i've found my new mission! my little old trusty digital camera packed it in while we were in spain so i'm due for a new one...

funnily enough i won the old one in a photography competition too! while i was living in japan, my boss went and got married in australia and brought me back the latest 'cosmopolitan' magazine as a souvenir. there was a little competition in there for the most exotic photo of someone holding a cosmo. so i rode down to the beautiful matsumoto castle with my mag and got someone to capture me posing in front of it. next thing, a brand-spanking-new digital camera arrived in the mail.

...you've gotta be in it to win it!

;o)

the gym

jerry's car-salesman moustache








❆ my first day at work went really well! everyone was super relaxed and friendly and the place had a really nice vibe. it was pretty quiet all night which was a good ease-in. randomly, a group of 15 aussies came in for dinner and drinks and after my fantastic service, they didn't even leave a single crown of tips!... do australians not tip because we're not expected to back home or are we just tight-arses? i remember all the bartenders and spa-girls on the cruise ship used to get really angry at the aussie and english guests for never tipping... it is really irritating!

today it's minus 25 degrees outside!! on my way to the gym this morning my snot froze inside my nostrils! it was too cold to even go skiing, according to jerry. i don't know how the birds don't freeze to death in the trees!

but our gym is so cosy and nice that i could have stayed there stretching all morning! its not like the meat-market gym in marbella which was full of steroid-pumping macho wankers and show-pony strippers in pink leggings who spent more time prancing around in front of the mirrors than actually working out!

this gym is full of ski-junkies with facial hair, the Åre fashion, apparently. jerry has even grown a moustache to fit in for the season! it makes him look about 15 years older, and slightly like a sleazy 1970's car salesman, but i like it!

;o)

steak

❅ we spent the whole day yesterday exploring the town and joining the gym, which is directly across the road from our house! that makes working out so much more appealing!
then we checked out the restaurant and cocktail bar where we'll be working. 'beefalo', the restaurant is a really traditional log-cabin style steak-house with raw wooden benches, leather booths and a big reindeer head on the wall. the menu is pretty much steak, steak and steak. i have to pretend to not be a vegetarian when guests ask for recommendations. ....yes, i am morally lax. ;o)
the cocktail bar, 'nova', still under construction is a really nice lounge bar with low lighting and black and white nude photography all over the walls.
in 20 minutes i start work and i'm so nervous! having had as many jobs as i've had in my life you'd think i'd be over the nerve-factor by now. not the case...
wish me luck!
:o)

åre

❄ åre



















❄ after an entire day of driving yesterday, we finally arrived in Åre. i imagined that the eight-hour road trip was gonna be really fun, in our new cherokee, through the snowy swedish countryside with good music, a stock up of magazines and books and good company...
jerry hadn't slept at all the night before and was in a foul mood, the roads were icy and slippery and it turned pitch dark at three o'clock so for most of the drive we could only see ten metres of road in front of us through the pelting snow! ...scary!!!! i was on the edge of my seat the whole time!

but when we arrived, i was totally gob-smacked. Åre is like a Disney christmas movie! ..a really cute old log cabin village, totally wrapped in christmas lights, set between beautiful snow-capped mountains and a huge frozen lake. its really really pretty!!
jerry's friend daffy, who's also our boss and housemate, greeted us at the new apartment and we unpacked all our stuff into our cosy bedroom. today we have a day of settling in and exploring before we start work tomorrow! it's gonna be a good feeling working and making money again after three whole months of bludging!!

❄

elin

our 'first date'!












meeting at the pub










♡ now that i'm back from fairytale-land marbella, and into the real world again, it seems so hard to find time to blog! some people post 4 blogs a day! how the hell??!

its been snowing every day here and i love it! each time i grin up at the snow-filled sky, jerry laughs at me. snow is about as wonderfully exotic to me as sunshine is for swedes.

last night i met up with my friend elin for dinner at 'va piano' and we caught up on three months of gossip while stuffing ourselves with food, wine, dessert, coffee and candy.... elin's one of those bright sparks who's really positive and full of life and always puts me in a good mood...

i met her in a pub when i first got to sweden. i was actually meeting up with jerry at the pub and elin was sitting next to him at the bar. for some reason i assumed they were friends so i started chatting away to her until we were exchanging phone numbers and organising to meet for coffee. after about an hour of chatting i said, 'so how do you and jerry know each other?' she said 'we don't.. i met him for the first time right now'. i was so embarrassed! i was sure she must have thought i was some psycho lesbian, coming onto her at the bar! but we had a huge laugh about it on our 'first date' as we called it, at 'utekompagniet' where we got ridiculously smashed and clicked like two old friends who've known each other for years.

today i'm meeting her again at the shopping mall where she works for 'winter shopping for anna, take 3'....

;o)