Jakface in the UK: God Jul + Happy New Year!

Not a day passes where I don't feel guilty when I don't post in this journal. Gomennasai!

So Christmas was a success! In Sweden they have food and presents on Christmas Eve. We had so much food, it was ridiculous. We started eating at 1 pm and it didn't exactly stop until about 8pm! We had different pickled herring dishes, ham, potatoes, leverpastej and bread, moose tongue, swedish meatballs and jam, cloudberries with cream for dessert, with random cookies and tea, Julmust (the awesome Christmas drink they have that tastes like coke, beer, and spices all mixed together) and glogg. We watched the Donald Duck christmas special at 3pm that everyone in Sweden tunes into, apparently! Hearing Disney in other languages was pretty cool! :D

I got some chocolate from Linnea's family, and Linnea got me a Portal shirt that says "THE CAKE IS A LIE" on it multiple times. It's a great shirt! I got Linnea some key earrings and got her mom and dad some chocolate, and her brother an iPod cover, and her grandmothers some blueberry glogg and strawberry honey! It was a good exchange. :D

Christmas day itself was more of Christmas Eve hangover where we ate leftovers and just chilled out. It was super grand! Linnea and I made a delicious Strawberry cream shortcake covered in chocolate icing and marzipan decorations, and bananas and whipped cream! It was DELEEESHOUS! Pictures below! And it wasn't a lie!

Boxing Day consisted of just CHILLING OUT (haha no crowd surfing for me!) and also BEING COOL (noticing my Mr. Freezisms?!) since Linnea and I went out into the freezing cold of the barren Swedish wastelands to try our hand at WINTER GEOCACHING. In case you are wondering how that went, it failed. We tried looking for one at this Church (the 70's prison one I told you about earlier) and we got stared at by people at the bus stop as we ran our hands all along this metallic pole looking for this tiny magnetic cache. Sigh. :( After noticing the police car parked across the road we decided to high tail it, and try our hand at one in a park, where we decided it was WAY TOO COLD and it was ridiculous because the GPS that Linnea got from her father was freaking out and would say we were 2 meters to reaching the cache, then would all of a sudden say we were 30 meters away.. SIGH. So after going up to a tree, molesting it until it had no snow left on it, we quickly withdrew and went back home for Fika and drawing times. Ahhhhh much better.

On the 27th, Linnea, her friend Åsa and I went shopping and had some Fika at a really tiny cafe where I had a chai latte (which sucked, needed like, 5 spoons of sugar) and a thankfully delicious piece of gingerbread cheesecake. :D I managed to score a rad scarf I had wanted before Christmas at this store called Monki (has a lot of really adorable clothes!) and I got it at 50% off and it was the last one! It was meant to be. Also got a rad purple touque, a slinky soft bunchy grey shirt, and a pink tank top with a hippie pattern that goes perfect under loose fitting casual tops :D

We also went to see Avatar, which would have been so totally boss all the way through, except the fire alarm went off 20 minutes into the film, where everyone was confused and tried to evacuate, then when the alarm went off and everyone went back to their seat still confused, the lights went off and we had missed 15 minutes of the movie. :| Also, the subtitles for the Navi language were in Swedish so I had to ask Linnea to translate it. And there were huge yellow Swedish subtitles in the way of everything so it would have been so pretty if it wasn't for that. I think I have to see it again without the interupptions, but yes, Fern Gully in Space with Smurfs of the Future = awesome. It just was missing a Hexxus. That American military guy did not live up to Tim Curry's sexy voice. :|

I've been having trouble with SharkRobot.com in getting the geek shirts that I had ordered way before Christmas, but they finally arrived on the 28th (Except for one, I'm still dealing with that right now) so I took a bunch of pictures with me in my awesome shirts! :D I'll upload it for you all to see!

Linnea and I were also around for DeviantArt to reach it's 100,000,000th deviation, which isn't SUPER exciting, but we were just waiting for it to be a picture of naked lady, yet we were hoping for a stick figure or a furry. XD It turned out to be a gay themed prose though, which was pretty cool.

The next couple of days before I had to leave consisted of Linnea and I hanging out and watching movies, Japanese/Korean dramas and finishing Ouran Host Club, drawing our Christmas comic, and having lots of Fika. I kept being spoiled with amazing food from Linnea's family. I don't think I ever disliked anything I ate! It was all tastylicious. :D

On the 30th, we got up early and I had to say my goodbyes and leave Umea, Sweden, I started my long 3 plane journey back to Glasgow. At the end I was extremely tired, tired of going through security and immigration and customs lines, tired of getting turbulence scares, tired of walking and being hungry... I finally got back to Glasgow where Kody had picked me up (<3) and brought me back where Caz and their friend Kurt was waiting and we ate Cheesy Fries and Buffalo chicken. OMMMNOMNOM. We watched a Harry Hill DVD which was hilarious, and we laughed all the calories away. The next day we prepared for H-Con, HOGSMANAY! Which is New Years in Scotland :D Sounds like something from Harry Potter... But yes, people trickled in all day, we were playing Halo 3 and Worms, eventually the party got started and much fun was had. Met all of Kody's awesome friends and made a lot of great friendships :D Got a bit tipsy, ventured out with people in the Silent Hill fog outside to find a food place that was open (the only one was a 10 min walk away and I had the best sausage and chips I've ever eaten, probably because I was drunk, oops!) , enjoyed Kody lopping the tops off of champagne bottles with a katana, drank champagne and sang Rock Band songs, and watched gorgeous fireworks amidst the fog! All my pictures from H-Con you can find on my Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43711291@N02/sets/72157622990842243/

The last few days have been New Years Hangover™, which consisted of the stragglers - Loki, Mika, Junpei, Kurt - and me, Kody and Caz, all hanging out and just sitting around eating, watching stuff... in fact I don't even know where the time went, but whatevs! We braved the outside more than once, on the slippery icy sidewalks, surprised no one did a faceplant! We did go to Dim Sum where I was ripped off, however we did enjoy some freaking awesome dessert! Mika showed us a visual anime horror novel he was translating, which we promptly dubbed awesomely, and he showed us his skills in Bullet Hell games.

Yesterday consisted of ordering pizza, watching Father Ted, dropping off Mika at the train station, Kody and I going to the hardware store in the middle of nowhere to get bits to fix the shelf I destroyed under the TV (ahahahah sads) .. now hopefully I will be more productive if I finally manage to update this thing. Hooray!

Soon I will be planning for my Edinburgh trip so keep updated for that business! :D

And here's a random bit of info about what's going on in creative-enhancing land!

Shows I'm into/watching/watched:
__________
Glee
Ouran Highschool Host Club
Hagurashi
Father Ted

Current Music Playlist!
_______________
Kwoon (new album)
Chopin
Vocaloid
Me First and the Gimme Gimme's
The Knife
Pogo
Neverhood OST