Copenhagen

Man, Copenhagen is a beautiful wee city! I am very lucky, most of the weekend has been sunny so far. It's all walking walking walking. A coffee break or lunch break, and I am back on my feet. The gorgeous canal houses, the palaces, funky Christiania surrounded by beautiful nature, the Quartier Latin and Nyhavn, I am loving it! Peeps seem chilled and friendly albeit a bit reserved. Loads of dudes drinking on the street, guess you have to with the bar prices here. My hotel (named '27') is great. Small but nicely designed rooms with a good shower, a god bed, a tea maker and free wifi. It's next to Copenhagen's Ice Bar and it's funky. And filled with 60+ loud Americans, funnily enough. Would defo book it again though. They throw in a decent brekkie and dinner too.

Tomorrow is for shopping, as shops were closed today (hello - is this a capital?! shops closed on Sundays?!). I already spotted a shop that sells my fav skandi brands (Bruuns Bazar, By Marlene Birger, Day Birger et Mikkelson and Designer Remix Collection). All in one shop. Dangerous. And I should really check out the vintage store around the corner. Chanel jacket and Marc Jacobs shoes in the window. The kinda stuff I can only afford vintage! Then again, this is Scandinavia. It might still bankrupt me... Ah well. Might check out Tivoli as well, time permitting.

Goss

Just when the papers here are starting to get quiet on Peter Andre and Jordan, a comparable Dutch couple (or comparable....she seems to have her own breasts still and he has had more than one hit) have broken up. Yolanthe and Jan. I can be certain we won't hear the end of it any time soon. Has she snogged newly single footballer Wesley Snijder or not? Do we care? In all honesty? No. But compared to reading the ins and outs on Michael Martin this week, it's fun. Dutch Goss. Big scandals in a small country.

New toy

Woohoo. I am writing this on my new netbook. A wee Samsung NC10. It's cool and funky and not too heavy and has a six cell battery. Once my photosoftware has finished downloading, my new citytrip / holiday toy is ready. As I already carry two cameras, four lenses and a range of chargers whenever I travel, I figured I might as well throw in another gadget. First destination: Copenhagen on Saturday. Three days, by myself. A hotel with free Wifi and the opportunity to play around with my pics straight away. Woohoo!

Just another weekend

Sleeping in till 8.30, 9 o'clock. Grocery shopping. A run on Saturday, aerobics class on Sunday. I may meet a friend for lunch or dinner, and spend time on the couch with a good book and the weekend newspapers (I heart Sunday Times especially). How different is Amelie's life. Since July we've said hi and bye at our Sunday aerobics class. This week, I got chatting to her. She works for a big Japanese (once American) investment bank. Not very newsworthy in itself. However, she does so all day and night Monday to Friday and a few hours Saturday and Sunday. Basically, all she does outside work is spending a few hours in the gym Saturday and Sunday before heading to the office. She asked me, knowing what I do for a living, if I had any time to see London or a museum or anything. Hell yeah. I didn't move here to work all the time. Surely, work can be a pain and some projects require round the clock attention. But mostly it's 40-50 hour work weeks. And nights off to go to the gym or meet friends. And the amount of work I've had to finish in the weekend has been very limited. Amelie is young, she only graduated a year ago. Will she learn what life is about when she gets older? Or is that me being judgemental and is she truly happy and fulfilled with her life as it is? The look on her face when I told her my working hours, suggests differently....

CLM*

Last week had been a bit of an ego boost. A workfriend mentioned how she often hears the phrase 'we need a Saskia' when people are staffing projects and I received - out of the blue - an email from the commercial director of my previous employer stating I was "the one and only finance mgr @UD that knew what she was doing". I am not sure what to make of this man, but a compliment is a compliment. So I had a glass of wine. And another. And I got overconfident. And had another glass. With colleagues, at the wine bar down the road. On a brekkie of fruit and a bagel and a soup for lunch, this is asking for trouble. And despite knowing better, I said 'yes' when my director asked if I wanted to go for dinner with him and a Scottish director I worked with on a previous project. Friday morning at 4am I woke up. Wondering a) what I'd had for dinner, b) if I left when the other two did, c) if I owed anyone any money for the dinner and d) if I'd said or done anything embarassing, which is quite likely considering the state I was in. On four or five glasses of wine, would you believe it. My timing was immaculate - Friday morning the final moderation meeting took place... Ah well, I am not up for promotion and salaries have been frozen anyway. The funniest thing? This morning I had a text from a male colleague. Asking if I could tell him if he'd done anything embarassing. He had no recollection of the night, other than ending up 50 miles from where he lives (which is two hours south of London). At least I got home on the tube without any further probs!

*career limiting movement

And a few more pics

Lisboa!!

Lisbon....what an awesome place!! Four days of sun. Four days of great food. Four days of walking like mad. The old streets, especially in Bairro Alto, were fantastic. The cute little bars in Bairro Alto where hipper than hip, or old fashioned fado. A lot of life music, people drinking out on the streets at night (including a HOT brazilian dude we got chatting to), just fab. The castle is a must see, and worth the entrance fee for the view alone. Cascais and Estoril are well known beach towns, where I walked along the esply and ate my first seafood of the weekend. We took a train to Sintra, a world heritage site 30 km northwest of Lisbon. We walked up and down so many hills that may calves are still sore. But oh, such beauty. Pena castle (that had a striking resemblance to Disneyland castles) and the Moorish fort were especially worth seeing. Belem, 15 minutes down the coast on the train, is famous for its tower and egg tarts. Good tourists as we are, we visited the factory and had one. Yummy. Though not as yummy as the chocolate cake we had at Fabulas, a cafe in Baixa. We managed to eat it there three times in four days. Day four I dragged Amsterdam friends Emily and Jackie (who happened to be there too on a romantic weekend away) there as well and they loved it as much. On the subject of food: Trang turned out to be as much of a foody as me. She had done her research, and so had I! So we ate in this fantastic resto specialised in chicken (fantastic food that is, in a setting of plastic chairs and paper table cloths), in a seafood resto that served us beautiful tiger prawns, lobster and clams (after which we took a taxi back to Fabulas for chocolate cake number two), and in a cool organic caf full of media types. Sitting in the BA lounge at the airport, Trang and I could only conclude Lisbon is the best. For food, for sightseeing, and for bars. Defo worth a repeat visit!