Knots

I've gotta learn to do proper knots. This is extremely difficult for me. And 9 different ones. I who have trouble putting IKEA furniture together. Yikes.

Vroooom

Gosh it was fun on the boat course. The boat was a beauty and had 80 horsepowers compared to my 8. Perhaps there is something to speed after all. Unfortunately most of my 2 hours today was spent trying to park the boat in narrow harbours, which I managed rather well if I say so myself. So not only do I have to learn all of these new things, I also have to do it in German. There's a whole new vocabulary, but more on that later. The only downside was that the teacher today was a woman. I was expecting some blond hunk with big muscles and a leathery face after spending much time on water. Ah well, you cannot have everything. Cannot wait for next lesson tomorrow!

Flint

Had the pleasure to watch The big one tonight by Michael Moore with a guy who actually comes from Flint, Michigan. As does Michael Moore. This place has apparently approx 150K inhabitants. Basically a village. Every 5 minutes he pointed out "I've been there", "I was there" or "there's where I went to university". Endearing. No matter how much we like (or in my case dislike) our home towns they hold certain values to us. Whatever they are :)...

Air mattress

Am about to go to bed, considering I have to get up at 6 in the morning! Boat school remember? Anyway, when we got home from the lake I asked my friend to help with my air mattress. He has an automatic pump. Good. Tiny problem was that it was connected to his car battery (lack of adapter-problem) but we solved it through having him bring the air mattress to the car. Easy. So there he was. Pumping. It took some time but finally it worked. Imagine our disappointment when we 2 hours later realized air was seeping out somewhere. Located the problem (or so we think!) to one of the plugs. Friend suggested to manually pump it up again and asked me to step on the mattress to check. I giggled rather loudly. Only to realize flatmate is sleeping. Ouch. Friend said: "he probably wonders what we do". Told him that I would tell him the true. We're just pumping away...

Quickie

Just a quickie to tell you I'm still here. Was out yesterday until the wee hours, and spent today brunching and then going on the lake. Tight schedule. Will be back next week with more...

Fun

This'll be fun. A new friend of mine will come to Zürich over the weekend. The guy who got green in the face on the boat, remember? And tomorrow we'll be on the lake again. Bet he's praying that there'll be no wind :)

Americans cont'd

Thinking about Americans reminded me of when I was working in Norway. The company I was working for was having a really important presentation for one of Norways biggest banks. So important so that a few Americans from HQ were flying in to attend. Now, since Norwegians are (rightfully :) sceptical of Americans the Scandinavian team had made clear that they were doing the presentation, and the Americans were to sit in and keep their mouths shut. About 5 min into the presentation one of the Americans flew up from his chair, grabbed a pen and started to scribble on the whiteboard. Or so he thought. Turned about to be an extremely expensive painting called "Snow". It was beyond repair. And needless to say we didn't get the business...

Change

When I told my aunt about the good-looking gay guy I met the other evening she asked if I couldn't change him into being hetero. HAHAHAHAHA! Good thing I don't belong to the "older generation" (and pls refrain from witty remarks here :). Let's just say I don't want to waste my energy on battles that cannot be won...

American mentality

With the risk of being called judgmental I throw you this bone. Americans are different. And fairly easy to predict. Like in a meeting with an American (if you want to make an impression) all you gotta do is to keep your mouth shut, let them talk, throw in a few clever remarks and they'll love you. What they don't realize is that you learn much more about them than they about you. Americans don't like silence. Anybody who has ever watched CNN knows that :)

Ping

I'm a user of computers. That means I don't know shit about what is going on behind the screen I see, and I would like to keep it that way. However, this ping thing I would like to know more about. I know that at least one of my readers have ping on me, since I can see that one reader always goes on my blog as soon as I posted an item. Can this reader please tell me how you do? I would like to recommend that to others...and increase my visit stats :)

Mamma Mia

Hurray! We have tickets for Mamma Mia. Only have to wait until September! I remember being in London on business. Had hinted to my boss that tickets for Mamma Mia would be a good entertainment for our team. Turned out that he thought it was too expensive and had therefore booked us tickets for the Comedy Store (I think it was called). This was also fun, but the thing was it was located opposite of where Mamma Mia was playing. So at least I've been outside :) This time I will see it in Zürich. I only hope they are not translating the songs to Züridutch!!!

Time flies...

when you're having fun it is said. Guess that's why I haven't been blogging as much as before. Been busy. But here's a question for you apropos that I was having a discussion with a friendgirl of mine. She's smaller than me. Although she claimed that she has gained weight and I have lost a bit, and therefore we are the same size. Wrong. But in order to win the conversation (competitive as always :) I claimed that bigger bodies have bigger personalities. Right or wrong?

New bridge

Remember the letter from the authorities re maintenance? Turns out we're getting a new bridge where I have my boat. It is really cool (but only half-finished, and they were supposed to be done by now!). It is not really wood, it's some other material which I've never seen before. Good thing I plan to do some renovation on the boat. We can't have old dilapidated boat at a new bridge!

Faithful

Ok, so have to come up with some topics under the new category. Here's a question for you. Are hetero's more faithful than gays? I'm ambivalent re the answer, but think it depends rather on the person than their sexuality. Comments?

Dinner

So the three of us had dinner. Normally I meet my gay friend once a week for dinner and gossip. And equally normally we don't drink much, we just catch up. Tonight though we had a few more drinks than normal. Saw lotsa pics from the boyfriend who lives in NY and it was kinda a get-to-know-each-other-type-of-evening. Different. Made me think of that as soon as you introduce a new person into a group (even if it's only a group of two) you change the setting. I like. Change is a good thing. And you always learn something new...

New category

Somehow I feel the need to introduce a new category...gay. Already told you about my education watching "Queer as folk", which I loved. Was very funny. And I cannot believe they left a cliffhanger with Justin. Yes I know why, to make me watch the second season of course but still. I would've anyway. So as you may understand I had dinner with gay friends tonight. My "usual" gay :) and a new friend. New friend just has to learn not to walk into the room wearing a suit and tie, and looking all straight :) Goodlooking guy and seem to be nice too. Deadly combination, which is scarcely uncommon amongst straight people. Just my luck :) But he was nice. I think we really got along. And best of all, he doesn't mind if I blog about him!

Partner

Got an email today from a guy. His work email. And you know with work email you have a signature that automatically comes with your mail. His said Partner. Of course along with company, address, tel etc etc. I responded with "Annika, No partner". HAHAHA! Sometimes I'm really funny.

Multi-purpose bucket

Was on the lake this afternoon. Fu...fantastic weather. According to Radio Zürichsee "sachtzundzwansk" grad, which in normal language means 26°C. Very few boats out (why?) and practically no waves. Fab! But of course with no food on the boat, just drinks, you have to do the deed once in a while. I have a bucket on the boat which has followed me since at least 25 years. It used to be a wine-making bucket back in the days when I couldn't afford to buy alcohol. The stuff we made was more like sherry, a sweet kinda alcoholic drink. Quite disgusting actually. But cheap :) Then the bucket has been used for cleaning (not by me obviously) and storing things in. Right now it is used as a peeing bucket. And for cooling wine. If this is not multi-purpose, I don't know what is?

Course

Very proud of myself. Have now booked a course to take that boat certificate and get a license. And did the booking over the phone all in German. By myself! Monday next week I start... Extra plus is that this license will give me the right to drive boats in all of Switzerland, not just in Zürichsee. Excellent!

How is it possible?

How is it possible to not like to communicate? Ok, any men reading this blog can stop reading now. Unless you're gay :) For the rest of us, how is it possible not to want to say what you think? To express feelings? To want to know what is going on? To want to dissect topics? To share? To understand that shared pain is half pain, and shared joy is double joy? I just don't understand...