2007 in pictures

very American, but not bad nonetheless. check it out on:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22200921?gt1=10645

xocolate

for my first drink in Barcelona, i ordered 'xocolate'. hot chocolate. or so i thought... instead of milk with chocolate in it, i got this: liquid chocolate. really. like they'd just melted it. and it was very heavy to drink. but hey, an experience!

(thanks for the pic, T.!)

in case i hadn't had enough car trouble...

after 3 weeks of waiting for the code for my car stereo, and calling again and again, i finally got a code out of them. just not the one i remembered. and what do you know? didn't work... called back, told them it wasn't the right code. they told me i could come up, maybe Friday, they could check out the serial number and get me the code for sometime next week.

that was then i told them, again, that i was driving 800 kms on Friday. ah. yes. well, could i come over right away and maybe they could get me a code for Friday? so up i went, and after much waiting, eventually got home again, with yet another promise that i would have the code before the big trip. big trip that i'm actually flying, but it seemed to be the only way to get them to do what i asked of them. unbelievable.

Barcelona

i was in Barcelona over the weekend. two months ago, Mr. J. decided that's where he wanted to celebrate his birthday with us (me, T. and N.), his closest friends. so off we went!

we got there Friday morning (well, more or less), got lost between the station and the flat we were renting, but eventually made it. nice, big place right bang in the middle of town. great. we didn't do a hell of a lot after that: strolled around the old town, La Rambla, had a nap then met another friend for some delicious tapas (now i understand what it is!).

as for the rest of the weekend, it can be summarised as follows: freezing shower for me, shopping (Mr. J.'s suitcase had never made it to Barca), the long-awaited birthday dinner in a nice and very sought-after restaurant, visit of the Sagrada Familia, no visit of the Miro museum (it closed just as we got there), walking around. then i took off as my plane was leaving a day earlier than theirs. and while i was starting to feel a definite need for some personal space, i now miss them as if i hadn't seen them in days. funny world, heh?

green facts 2

just three chosen facts for today.

apparently:
- 500km is the minimum distance from which taking the plane is going to pollute less than the car or the train
- taking the train instead of a plane on the same distance is 35% less CO2 per passenger
- reducing the indoor temperature by 1 degree Celsius reduces the heating bill by 7%

oh, the drama! the drama!

for Mr. J.'s birthday, his girlfriend and i had planned a surprise dinner with his closest friends. well, until he decided to take her for a nice weekend away, that is. but the plan was back on track once he decided he didn't want to go on a weekend after all (issues of time, money, and huge Xmas party probably had something to do with that). so i went ahead and booked a table at the best cheese fondue restaurant in Geneva, for the 5 people who could.

in the meantime, the surprise became a non-surprise so as to avoid him changing his mind again. no problems there. until a misunderstanding made us 7 for dinner and the restaurant, being fully-booked, couldn't change the reservation. and finding this out at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon is not ideal, as all the places we could think of were booked-up. it is, after all, the pre-Xmas season.

many phone calls later, the plan had changed several times: pizzas at my place, at Mr.J.'s, then fondue as his place, then pizzas as his girlfriend's. in the end, he cancelled it all. apparently, the extra 2 people had thrown some kind of a wobbler and the girlfriend had burst into tears 3 times. so i called her to check she was ok and what she wanted to do. it had, after all, been her idea and she was the one suffering. i offered to come over with pizza anyway, seen as i was ready, dressed in my glad rags for Xmas party that was to be held later, and another guest suggested the same, so off i was to buy pizzas and wine for our dinner. we even had some of the birthday cake she'd made for him.

after all the drama, we all ended up at the party as planned and the story ended well.

being nice in a virtual world

it's a long and complicated story, so the very short version is that i have an online friends' list but that unlike many others, my aim is not to have a very long one but to have one that reflects the people i hang out with and like (this doesn't mean they're all really good friends or anything). so i regularly update it by deleting people i haven't seen in months, or who haven't bothered replying to me for a while. and so i deleted this girl, who had a habit of saying she would show up to a party or whatever and not actually show up, or show up hours later without explanation. it got on my nerves so i took her off my list and sent her an email to explain, although admittedly, i didn't say i was pissed off with her - i just said i hadn't seen her in months and i wanted to keep my list up-to-date.

last night, i saw the girl in question. i was actually happy to see her, cos it had been about 6 months, and while we were never really good friends, i wanted to know how she was doing. but within minutes she asked me was i was being nice to her. i asked her why i wouldn't be. she said that by taking her off my list i'd made it clear i wasn't a nice person and she couldn't see the point of me pretending to be nice. i didn't know what to say. i tried to explain the rationale behind what i'd done, but her retort was that a nice person would have sent her an email to ask how she was doing, not to inform her she was no longer wanted.

i saw her point and thought maybe i should have explained the whole situation in the email instead, because she'd obviously really taken it to heart. but on the other hand, she couldn't possibly believe that all the people on her list were actually real friends. i would understand it in a normal situation, where you have really good friends, etc. but here we're talking about a loose network of people who randomly meet, that you know more or less not very well, although sometimes some of them become friends, and even good ones. but let's face it, in the days we were on each other's lists, she kept adding people she'd barely met once and she even told me she'd added people she'd never really seen, simply because they'd chatted online and the person had asked her to add them to her network! as far as i was concerned, she was taking this too seriously.

there are other people i've taken off my list, some people i haven't even added, despite their various hints and comments, but i'm still cordial. i don't go around ignoring them just because of that. i say hello, talk a bit, find out how they are. so that's what i had wanted to do with her too, especially as it had been so long since i'd last seen her. but i guess i wasn't to be.

overworked

everything's relative, of course, but since last week, i've been working a lot. i was given two new private students, one of which wanted to come twice a week, which added 4.5 hours to my otherwise comfortable workload. i know it's really not the end of the world but i was shattered when i got home after work, and at the end of the week, i wasn't a pretty sight. this week's slightly worse, as a couple of my lessons had been cancelled last week. and to top that off, loads of people have been sick so i've now caught something new, because as we know, i'm one big virus/bacteria magnet! the holidays simply can't come fast enough!