Below is not a great picture but it shows the size of the bump 2 weeks ago, dare I say it is even bigger now.
Team Clarke in OC, California. A Brit-Swede Combination
14 November 2011
New week
Today started just like every week so far here - a visit to the doctor's office. Still think it is quite awkward the way it works at the doctor's here. I wanted to change my phone number, and was handed this quenstionnaire to fill in, insurance number, etc etc...to change a phone number! So I decided to stick with Gavin's phone number in their paper work instead. Not worth the hassle. However, bump is doing great, she is being very active but not making any signs of heading towards the exit, despite of all the walking I did over the weekend. Gavin is quite pleased that she will most likely not be born this week as he has lots to do at work and since he gets 2 days off work next week, timewise it would fit him better then. I on the other hand, wish it would be yesterday rather than tomorrow. I feel as if I have been pregnant for years and gaining 25 kilos is not fun. Here they let you exceed the due date by one week before starting the induction. So one way or the other, we will have a new family member in the next 3 weeks.
Below is not a great picture but it shows the size of the bump 2 weeks ago, dare I say it is even bigger now.
Below is not a great picture but it shows the size of the bump 2 weeks ago, dare I say it is even bigger now.
Weekend
We had such a busy weekend! Friday we decided to be a little lazy and got some food from the Kobi van http://kogibbq.com/ outside our appartment complex. Rented a film from iTunes - Captain America - and went to bed pretty early. Not a great movie, but watchable.
Got up early Saturday to watch the football, Spain against England (thankfully, England won) and we did some chores in the appartment before heading out. We had a couple of things that needed to be bought, armchair for the bed room, bar stools for the kitchen, book shelf for the lounge, side board for the dining room....Had Gavin known beforehand that I can still go shopping for 6 hours, I think he would have stayed at home that morning. Not bad huh, still being able to wear hubby out shopping while being 38 weeks pregnant!! We didn't get back until 8 pm, completely knackered and shopped out. We started at IKEA and the car park was full..once we found a parking space it was luckily an in and out job and then we continued to South Coast Plaza. Car park was pretty busy here too and it was pouring down so we took advantage of the valet parking. What a great decision! We walked around Crate & Barrel for a while but couldn't agree on neither a sideboard nor a book shelf so we continued to World Market around the corner. No luck there either, but we did see some Glühwein for $ 8. $ 8!!!!!! Didn't buy any - tempting but waaaay to expensive.
We headed to Pier I Imports to look at some bar stools and finally found some (we have been looking for months), they will arrive later on this week. There was no space left in the car since we already had bought the arm chair at IKEA. Popped in next door to the wine shop, and then Toys r us. This is where I capitulated and we decided to go home. I think Saturday was the first time I experienced rain all day. Not rain Cologne style, or Sweden style. It was still quite warm, not humid and even if it poured down, it didn't quite feel as bad standing outside in t-shirt and flip flops looking at the palm trees. Actually, I thought it was rather cozy.
Sunday started off really nice. Blue sky again and warm. Well, the locals wore jackets and said it was a rather chilly day but for us it was like any summer day. We drove to the Farmer's market at the Great park here in Irvine,
the market itself was quite unspectacular but it was the views surrounding the park are pretty amazing, you have mountains in the background it was a very tranquil place. Had some food, walked around and bought some fresh bread to take with us home. Unfortunately we didn't manage to take any good picures.
Before heading home again we had to stop off at Costco's,
Mental note for the future: never go to Costco's on a Sunday. Car park was full, the warehouse was full. Super busy. They have a lot of sample stations inside where they prepare food, drinks, pies and people can try it. Oh my, there were queues every where. A real nightmare. Needless to say, we were completely worn out Sunday, Gavin more than me I think.
We rented another movie from iTunes Sunday night, Bridesmaides. This is by far one of the worst films I have ever seen, bad actors, bad "jokes" and I am not sure how it even made it to the cinemas.
Got up early Saturday to watch the football, Spain against England (thankfully, England won) and we did some chores in the appartment before heading out. We had a couple of things that needed to be bought, armchair for the bed room, bar stools for the kitchen, book shelf for the lounge, side board for the dining room....Had Gavin known beforehand that I can still go shopping for 6 hours, I think he would have stayed at home that morning. Not bad huh, still being able to wear hubby out shopping while being 38 weeks pregnant!! We didn't get back until 8 pm, completely knackered and shopped out. We started at IKEA and the car park was full..once we found a parking space it was luckily an in and out job and then we continued to South Coast Plaza. Car park was pretty busy here too and it was pouring down so we took advantage of the valet parking. What a great decision! We walked around Crate & Barrel for a while but couldn't agree on neither a sideboard nor a book shelf so we continued to World Market around the corner. No luck there either, but we did see some Glühwein for $ 8. $ 8!!!!!! Didn't buy any - tempting but waaaay to expensive.
We headed to Pier I Imports to look at some bar stools and finally found some (we have been looking for months), they will arrive later on this week. There was no space left in the car since we already had bought the arm chair at IKEA. Popped in next door to the wine shop, and then Toys r us. This is where I capitulated and we decided to go home. I think Saturday was the first time I experienced rain all day. Not rain Cologne style, or Sweden style. It was still quite warm, not humid and even if it poured down, it didn't quite feel as bad standing outside in t-shirt and flip flops looking at the palm trees. Actually, I thought it was rather cozy.
Sunday started off really nice. Blue sky again and warm. Well, the locals wore jackets and said it was a rather chilly day but for us it was like any summer day. We drove to the Farmer's market at the Great park here in Irvine,
the market itself was quite unspectacular but it was the views surrounding the park are pretty amazing, you have mountains in the background it was a very tranquil place. Had some food, walked around and bought some fresh bread to take with us home. Unfortunately we didn't manage to take any good picures.
Before heading home again we had to stop off at Costco's,
Mental note for the future: never go to Costco's on a Sunday. Car park was full, the warehouse was full. Super busy. They have a lot of sample stations inside where they prepare food, drinks, pies and people can try it. Oh my, there were queues every where. A real nightmare. Needless to say, we were completely worn out Sunday, Gavin more than me I think.
We rented another movie from iTunes Sunday night, Bridesmaides. This is by far one of the worst films I have ever seen, bad actors, bad "jokes" and I am not sure how it even made it to the cinemas.
10 November 2011
Tired
Think I slept for about 2 hours last night. Once hubby got home, we had to run some errands and it got pretty late so we decided to grab something to eat while we were out. We have alot of fast food joints around here and a few decent restaurants. Normally we´d never go to any of the fast food places but we decided to pop into Red Robin for a burger. It must have had some kind of energy effect on the baby because she was up all night doing summersaults. It felt like she was having a kick boxing fight with my stomach which made it imåpossible to sleep. Sweetheart, the only way out is head down so please don´t turn again. I had just nodded off when Gavin´s phone rang, at 4 am this morning. Can´t believe he actually picked up the phone, I will start dreaming about HIS work soon. No one will be more happy than me once that service tool is working. Last thing I remeber before falling asleep again is my naked husband hopping to the lounge to boot up the laptop. Needles to say, I am super tired today.
Yesterday was quite eventful. I did some excellent shopping at Sephora at South Coast Plaza, I still enjoy all the free parking and all the parking spaces here. A real treat! And if it would be crowded, or raining, there is always valet parking. Most upscale malls and restaurants have valet parking this American innovation can definitely come in handy at times. Not sure how I managed to spend 174 dollar within 10 min at Sephora but I did (and all ladies reading this can relate, I am sure). Next stop was Walmart. Now, I am not a big fan of Walmart but I wanted to have a look at the prices and at some baby formula. Took me about 20 minutes to get to Mexico City, (err, I mean Santa Ana, it sure felt like Mexico) and I have to say, this was, dispite the neighbourhood, the nicest Walmart I have ever been too. It was HUGE, clean and had a great fruit and vegetable section with some very decent prices. The hispanic section was also very impressive (probably because of the neighbourhood, about 90% of the customers were hispanic), my goodness, I didn´t know there were so many different kinds of dried chilli. The selection of spices here in general is very very impressive. I am still like a child walking in the super markets, looking at the spice and fruit & vegetable section. Now the food section in Walmart was only about 1/5 of the super store, so you can imagine how big it was. In the car on my way out of the car park I saw there was a pretty big Christmas section outside, I will have to go back and check it out some other time. Stopped by at Ralph´s on my way home and found some yeast - expensive but fresh! Will bake some bread over the weekend.
Just got back from Barnes and Nobels. Got a couple of magazines with recipes. Need to find one to subscribe to. Subscription is the way to go here, so cheap instead of buying the monthly issues. Think I know nearly all the cooking magazines now, apart from Martha Stewart´s. Haven´t forgiven her for that really awful pea soup I made last year. I made it twice according to her recipe and even watched the how to video. It was the most disgusting thing you can imagine. Still dissing her for that.
Yesterday was quite eventful. I did some excellent shopping at Sephora at South Coast Plaza, I still enjoy all the free parking and all the parking spaces here. A real treat! And if it would be crowded, or raining, there is always valet parking. Most upscale malls and restaurants have valet parking this American innovation can definitely come in handy at times. Not sure how I managed to spend 174 dollar within 10 min at Sephora but I did (and all ladies reading this can relate, I am sure). Next stop was Walmart. Now, I am not a big fan of Walmart but I wanted to have a look at the prices and at some baby formula. Took me about 20 minutes to get to Mexico City, (err, I mean Santa Ana, it sure felt like Mexico) and I have to say, this was, dispite the neighbourhood, the nicest Walmart I have ever been too. It was HUGE, clean and had a great fruit and vegetable section with some very decent prices. The hispanic section was also very impressive (probably because of the neighbourhood, about 90% of the customers were hispanic), my goodness, I didn´t know there were so many different kinds of dried chilli. The selection of spices here in general is very very impressive. I am still like a child walking in the super markets, looking at the spice and fruit & vegetable section. Now the food section in Walmart was only about 1/5 of the super store, so you can imagine how big it was. In the car on my way out of the car park I saw there was a pretty big Christmas section outside, I will have to go back and check it out some other time. Stopped by at Ralph´s on my way home and found some yeast - expensive but fresh! Will bake some bread over the weekend.
Just got back from Barnes and Nobels. Got a couple of magazines with recipes. Need to find one to subscribe to. Subscription is the way to go here, so cheap instead of buying the monthly issues. Think I know nearly all the cooking magazines now, apart from Martha Stewart´s. Haven´t forgiven her for that really awful pea soup I made last year. I made it twice according to her recipe and even watched the how to video. It was the most disgusting thing you can imagine. Still dissing her for that.
09 November 2011
Sweet as a Kitten
Also, my iPhone has arrived! It still needs to be activated with SSN and the whole lot so I have to wait for husband to come home so we can drive down to the shop. Everything is a little different here :) Since have no SSN, I officially don't exist.
A couple of things on the agenda today:
- Buy a new hoover. A proper one. Not a monster a la American style as shown below
- Secondly, we need to find a pediatrician. I have been recomended a Swedish one in Laguna Hills and there was some kind of an information event held at her office last night. Unfortunately hubby was stuck in traffic and Tom Tom let me down. I drove around in circles until I decided to use myu last 4 euros on my German prepaid phone to Gavin to let him know, meeting was probably over and I was parked up on a dark parking lot next to the hospital. 10 min later he found me and we were able to find the office in a huge Taj Mahal building. Who names a building full of doctors offices Taj Mahal, seriously? I was more thinking of an export import company and would never have found it on my own. Anyways, it was closed and today we have to sort something out since time is ticking and the ob/gyn has asked us several times already about which pediatrician we have chosen. This pediatrician is not associated with the hospital we have chosen for the birth so she will have to choose someone who is to visit the baby once she has been born. If she is not bothered, the ob/gyn will pick someone at the hospital to do the first check ups. Lots of choices to be made here!
- Need to buy such an exciting thing as a bin, or trash can, as they say here. It is for the plastic which can be recycled. Best thing about this apartment complex, well, after the pools, BBQ areas and the gym,is the large bins. There a four HUGE ones, two for all kinds of rubbish, two for recycling, however, they mix paper, plastic and glass. There is always space and they are emptied at least once a week. Now, in Germany we had 4 bins, quite small, and e.g. the yellow (plastic) bin was only emptied every second week. We always had to calculate when to bin things and fight for space so the HUMONGOUS bins are much appreciated. Only thing I really dislike is the mixing of paper, glass etc. Coming back to buying a new bin, good citizens as we are, especially after being trained in Germany, we separate everything, hence we need more bins. Lucky us, we have a coupon with 20% discount for Bed, Bath & Beyond. LOL.
- Need to post my application for the work permit. No worries, I am not planning to apply for a new job, but without this piece of paper I cannot get a social security number. And without the SSN, I am pretty much a persona non grata here. No credit card, no phone contract on my own, no car lease..The only thing I can and need to do without it is to apply for a Californian driver's license. Which I also need to do this or next week.
- Last thing on the agenda, South Coast Plaza. Still need to do some walking, there is no better place than inside a cool, large shopping mall! Might even pay a cheeky visit to Sephora!
07 November 2011
Weekend
A little hard to concentrate at the moment - I have the LOUDEST dish washer on in the background. But turning it on during the night was definitely not an option.
Weekend started off well with going out for Mexican food Friday night, so nice but not so healthy. We always manage to overeat. I know I will get stuffed by having a starter, and still, we usually order chicken wings to share. By the time my salad arrived I was ready to fall asleep, Gavin too I think, he didn't finish his quesidilla either, which is unusual.
Saturday turned out to be a super busy day. We got up around 8 to watch the footie but unfortunately Liverpool was not on so Gavin watched another game before we got ready to head down to Lake Forest and the hairdresser. Once we were there, we ended up going to the barber's instead and that was certrainly a trip to the past. Sweet little place. After Gav's makeover we bought some EXPENSIVE bits and bobs at the Indian-British supermarket and then headed up to Los Angeles to Olsson's, a Swedish little supermarket owned by three gentlemen in their best years...they were in their seventies..or eighties. Very cute. Not a cheap place but oh so necessary. Paid 80 dollars for this and that and ordered the most important thing - THE Christmas ham! 5 kg!!! I forgot to ask how much it is but no doubt, this will be the most expensive Christmas ham ever.
Husband took me out for lunch, a small panini place around the corner where we contemplated where to go next. Felt silly to drive for an hour to do 20 min shopping and then drive back again. We decided to go to the Grove. The Grove is an outdoor shopping complex with cinema, farmer's market and restaurants. Turned out to be very nice. It felt a little weird seeing this smashing christmas tree in the middle of the complex while still walking around in a t-shirt.
This was the view from the car park. Spot the Hollywood sign in the background.
The farmer's market turned out to be a little gem and now we know where to go for lunch next time. Even if the paninis were tasty..it is nothing compared to what the food at the market looked like :)
Sunday started off well and ended in disaster, in Sunday roast disaster to be more exact. We took a nice walk along the trail in the morning, watched a few video clips on youtube how to fit the baby seat in the car when we got back (turned out to be a a little trickier than expected, luckily I am married to an engineer!) and then ventured out to babies r us for some baby necesseties. As usual, NO customer service in there and as always we needed forever to make our minds up what to get. Which pampers, bottles, wipers...
Came back and started cooking what was meant to be the first SUPER DELICIOUS ROAST DINNER AT THE CLARKE'S...but instead turned out to be a complete disaster.
We are pros when it comes to roast dinners, especially the yorkies and the spuds turn out to be crispy and perfect. Beforehand I had been reading up how to roast a chicken in a gas oven, bought these Thanksgiving magazines for tips...and yet, we broiled it instead of baking it for the first hour. I miss European owens. After a while we (Gav, Alan, me) felt this strong smell in the flat and noticed something was melting in the oven. Plastic. While Gavin gav me the blame for not taking the plastic label off the new chicken tray Alan noticed it was not just plastic covering the the inside of the oven, but something looking like ash..
My very expensive Himalayan rosmarin sea salt, bought in Sweden. Somehow that little devil had attached itself to either the potato pan or the chicken tray in the oven and melted. Off with the oven, get the screwdriver out, open up oven and hover up all the sea salt..oven back on, in with the food, and one hour later but 2 hours delayed we could sort of enjoy the overcooked and reheated roastie toastie..Doubt Bratton will be over for food any time soon.
Watched the new episode of The Walking Dead and then went to bed after watching Gavin nodding off several times.
Weekend started off well with going out for Mexican food Friday night, so nice but not so healthy. We always manage to overeat. I know I will get stuffed by having a starter, and still, we usually order chicken wings to share. By the time my salad arrived I was ready to fall asleep, Gavin too I think, he didn't finish his quesidilla either, which is unusual.
Saturday turned out to be a super busy day. We got up around 8 to watch the footie but unfortunately Liverpool was not on so Gavin watched another game before we got ready to head down to Lake Forest and the hairdresser. Once we were there, we ended up going to the barber's instead and that was certrainly a trip to the past. Sweet little place. After Gav's makeover we bought some EXPENSIVE bits and bobs at the Indian-British supermarket and then headed up to Los Angeles to Olsson's, a Swedish little supermarket owned by three gentlemen in their best years...they were in their seventies..or eighties. Very cute. Not a cheap place but oh so necessary. Paid 80 dollars for this and that and ordered the most important thing - THE Christmas ham! 5 kg!!! I forgot to ask how much it is but no doubt, this will be the most expensive Christmas ham ever.
Husband took me out for lunch, a small panini place around the corner where we contemplated where to go next. Felt silly to drive for an hour to do 20 min shopping and then drive back again. We decided to go to the Grove. The Grove is an outdoor shopping complex with cinema, farmer's market and restaurants. Turned out to be very nice. It felt a little weird seeing this smashing christmas tree in the middle of the complex while still walking around in a t-shirt.
The farmer's market turned out to be a little gem and now we know where to go for lunch next time. Even if the paninis were tasty..it is nothing compared to what the food at the market looked like :)
Sunday started off well and ended in disaster, in Sunday roast disaster to be more exact. We took a nice walk along the trail in the morning, watched a few video clips on youtube how to fit the baby seat in the car when we got back (turned out to be a a little trickier than expected, luckily I am married to an engineer!) and then ventured out to babies r us for some baby necesseties. As usual, NO customer service in there and as always we needed forever to make our minds up what to get. Which pampers, bottles, wipers...
Came back and started cooking what was meant to be the first SUPER DELICIOUS ROAST DINNER AT THE CLARKE'S...but instead turned out to be a complete disaster.
We are pros when it comes to roast dinners, especially the yorkies and the spuds turn out to be crispy and perfect. Beforehand I had been reading up how to roast a chicken in a gas oven, bought these Thanksgiving magazines for tips...and yet, we broiled it instead of baking it for the first hour. I miss European owens. After a while we (Gav, Alan, me) felt this strong smell in the flat and noticed something was melting in the oven. Plastic. While Gavin gav me the blame for not taking the plastic label off the new chicken tray Alan noticed it was not just plastic covering the the inside of the oven, but something looking like ash..
My very expensive Himalayan rosmarin sea salt, bought in Sweden. Somehow that little devil had attached itself to either the potato pan or the chicken tray in the oven and melted. Off with the oven, get the screwdriver out, open up oven and hover up all the sea salt..oven back on, in with the food, and one hour later but 2 hours delayed we could sort of enjoy the overcooked and reheated roastie toastie..Doubt Bratton will be over for food any time soon.
Watched the new episode of The Walking Dead and then went to bed after watching Gavin nodding off several times.
04 November 2011
This & That
It is raining today! The normal blue sky has turned grey and finally, finally I can open some windows to get some fresh air and turn the air con off. I really like the sunny weather every day, but to be able to put the kettle on, light a candle and have soup for lunch feel kind of cosy too. I might have to postpone that walk to the dry cleaning though and take the car:)
The cleaning compay tunred up on Wednesday, even if an hour late. Pretty happy with the result, not AMAZING but ok. Will keep them for now until I find a better option.
Also made it to the hairdresser. Somehow my hair is darker than before (I had highlights done) so not sure if there was some miscommunication but it will also do for now. Not sure if I will go back to the same place, but I will make an appointment for Gavin there tomorrow (with a different hair dresser) since I received a gift card worth $25. You have to love all the coupons, gift cards etc. here......
Went down to Laguna Beach yesterday to have lunch with a friend. LB is probably one of the prettiest places I have ever seen and this would most likely be my choice where to live. This photo shows the main beach
This photo was taken another time but yesterday was just as pretty, we could even watch some dolphins and seals playing in the water while having lunch!
Weekend is nearly here! Friday night is Kobi night. Most Fridays there is a small truck parked outside our apartment complex, it is the Kobi truck serving Korean BBQ food. It is more like a mixture between Mexican and Korean and so far we have never made it. Last week we were too late and ended up trying a new Mexican venue out which turned out to be a good choice but perhaps tonight. These food trucks seem to be very popular here.
Tomorrow we might head up to LA to buy some Swedish food! There is a small deli which sells all kind of stuff and I need to find out, what kind of Christmas goodies they will have, e.g. do I need to order the Christmas ham? Luckily for Gavin, the hairdresser I went to has a British/Indian food mart next door, they have an excellent supply of Indian spices etc and a lot of British food, Bisto, pork pies, mushy peas. I asked the owner where you can get a good curry in Orange County, he looked at me as had he never heard of OC but then pointed me towards the back to the food corner. So take away it was that night. Unfortunately half of India walked in at the same time and it had probably been just as quick to make the curry myself but it turned out to be quite a half decent curry. Even got a freebie - another coupon which gave us 10 $ discount if we spent more than $40. So he added something from the menu to reach above 40 and then I paid less then I would have initially. I told you - welcome to the coupon country!
I have started subscribing to LA Times. Wow, it is a lot thinner these days then I remember it being. It is cheap: $1,50 a week for 4 issues a week, Thursday to Sunday, but the paper is nothing compared to what it used to be. It is very very thin, and you know how thick the Sunday edition normally is (any newspaper would normally require half a day to read it), well, no more..not so different from any other day. Coincidentally, it has been covering a topic I am only too familiar with lately. How hard it is to find used cars here, AFFORDABLE used cars. Very interesting articles, but I am still wondering..what happens to all the used cars?
Another thing we are now subscribing to is Skype. We purchased a Skype phone last week, bought two phone numbers in Europe, one in Sweden and the other one in the UK. Now that part is working fine. But we are also subscribing to unlimited free phone calls in Europe and this part is not quite working yet. I have contacted the customer support and all I get is some very general answers and not much help (is it a mobile phone you are trying to call? No. blah blah). So we will see if it will turn out to be a good idea or not.
Basically friends and family can now phone our Swedish or English numbers and we can pick up the phone here, which is is connected to the router. I think we pay around 20 euro a year for each number. The subscription for unlimited calls Europe is about 60 euro, so all together, around 100. Now, that sounds a lot better than 20 dollar landline per month excluding the call charges. I'll keep you posted about the outcome.
The cleaning compay tunred up on Wednesday, even if an hour late. Pretty happy with the result, not AMAZING but ok. Will keep them for now until I find a better option.
Also made it to the hairdresser. Somehow my hair is darker than before (I had highlights done) so not sure if there was some miscommunication but it will also do for now. Not sure if I will go back to the same place, but I will make an appointment for Gavin there tomorrow (with a different hair dresser) since I received a gift card worth $25. You have to love all the coupons, gift cards etc. here......
Went down to Laguna Beach yesterday to have lunch with a friend. LB is probably one of the prettiest places I have ever seen and this would most likely be my choice where to live. This photo shows the main beach
This photo was taken another time but yesterday was just as pretty, we could even watch some dolphins and seals playing in the water while having lunch!
Weekend is nearly here! Friday night is Kobi night. Most Fridays there is a small truck parked outside our apartment complex, it is the Kobi truck serving Korean BBQ food. It is more like a mixture between Mexican and Korean and so far we have never made it. Last week we were too late and ended up trying a new Mexican venue out which turned out to be a good choice but perhaps tonight. These food trucks seem to be very popular here.
Tomorrow we might head up to LA to buy some Swedish food! There is a small deli which sells all kind of stuff and I need to find out, what kind of Christmas goodies they will have, e.g. do I need to order the Christmas ham? Luckily for Gavin, the hairdresser I went to has a British/Indian food mart next door, they have an excellent supply of Indian spices etc and a lot of British food, Bisto, pork pies, mushy peas. I asked the owner where you can get a good curry in Orange County, he looked at me as had he never heard of OC but then pointed me towards the back to the food corner. So take away it was that night. Unfortunately half of India walked in at the same time and it had probably been just as quick to make the curry myself but it turned out to be quite a half decent curry. Even got a freebie - another coupon which gave us 10 $ discount if we spent more than $40. So he added something from the menu to reach above 40 and then I paid less then I would have initially. I told you - welcome to the coupon country!
I have started subscribing to LA Times. Wow, it is a lot thinner these days then I remember it being. It is cheap: $1,50 a week for 4 issues a week, Thursday to Sunday, but the paper is nothing compared to what it used to be. It is very very thin, and you know how thick the Sunday edition normally is (any newspaper would normally require half a day to read it), well, no more..not so different from any other day. Coincidentally, it has been covering a topic I am only too familiar with lately. How hard it is to find used cars here, AFFORDABLE used cars. Very interesting articles, but I am still wondering..what happens to all the used cars?
Another thing we are now subscribing to is Skype. We purchased a Skype phone last week, bought two phone numbers in Europe, one in Sweden and the other one in the UK. Now that part is working fine. But we are also subscribing to unlimited free phone calls in Europe and this part is not quite working yet. I have contacted the customer support and all I get is some very general answers and not much help (is it a mobile phone you are trying to call? No. blah blah). So we will see if it will turn out to be a good idea or not.
Basically friends and family can now phone our Swedish or English numbers and we can pick up the phone here, which is is connected to the router. I think we pay around 20 euro a year for each number. The subscription for unlimited calls Europe is about 60 euro, so all together, around 100. Now, that sounds a lot better than 20 dollar landline per month excluding the call charges. I'll keep you posted about the outcome.
02 November 2011
Busy Days
Since getting the new car I find myself being quite a busy little bee. The whole day just disappeared yesterday and I have really no idea where it went. I went down to South Laguna in the morning to the Brow Boutique http://brow-boutique.com/BrowBoutique/Welcome.html, such a neat little place. I discovered it back in February and they treat your eye brows as they wre the last drop of water on earth.
Continued to Costco, Whole Foods..and whoops, it was already 4 pm. Completely failed in Costco's, I always try to spend less 100 $ in that is a promise I rarely can keep. Hubby came home last night and complained it was a little chilly outside. Chilly? I needed a second shower when I came home. Remember what we left behind us, my dear. November in Germany is not fun! Weather forecast on Sunday showed some cooler temperatures for this week, well, we are back to 26 C today so it looks like it is going to be another beautiful day. Funny thing is, when I was looking for new flip flops the other day at the mall, all they had were winter shoes, boots etc. Hm.
The cleaning lady should be on her way soon so I am frenetically trying to find something to do for the next 2,5 hours. I do need to find a hair dresser, the sooner the better. It took me years to find a decent one in Cologne so I expect some research will be needed online first. And some idea of the prices here. We tip at the hair dresser's in Germany too (not in Sweden) but I have a suspicious feeling, the tip might be a tad higher here though. I'll let you know how it goes. Last time I searched for "Best xxx in Orange County" (I think I was looking for a facial) I did not end up happy with the result, even if the location I picked had loads of good reviews. I'll let you know how it goes.
Continued to Costco, Whole Foods..and whoops, it was already 4 pm. Completely failed in Costco's, I always try to spend less 100 $ in that is a promise I rarely can keep. Hubby came home last night and complained it was a little chilly outside. Chilly? I needed a second shower when I came home. Remember what we left behind us, my dear. November in Germany is not fun! Weather forecast on Sunday showed some cooler temperatures for this week, well, we are back to 26 C today so it looks like it is going to be another beautiful day. Funny thing is, when I was looking for new flip flops the other day at the mall, all they had were winter shoes, boots etc. Hm.
The cleaning lady should be on her way soon so I am frenetically trying to find something to do for the next 2,5 hours. I do need to find a hair dresser, the sooner the better. It took me years to find a decent one in Cologne so I expect some research will be needed online first. And some idea of the prices here. We tip at the hair dresser's in Germany too (not in Sweden) but I have a suspicious feeling, the tip might be a tad higher here though. I'll let you know how it goes. Last time I searched for "Best xxx in Orange County" (I think I was looking for a facial) I did not end up happy with the result, even if the location I picked had loads of good reviews. I'll let you know how it goes.
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