Booboo Magoo

I own an iPhone 3G. It is sadly locked to a carrier in Canada, so needs to be jailbroken and unlocked in order to work with a UK sim. It’s kind of a pain, but since iPhones are so freaking mainstream, it hasn’t been too hard, and everything has been working pretty well.

That is, until ios4 came out. OH. MY. GOD. Slowed my phone down to a crawl, apps crashed regularly, phone actually needed to be reset TWICE in one day (and prior to ios4, I could probably count on one hand how many times I had to do it in the entire time I’ve had it – > 1 year). Mike spent a good portion of yesterday evening trying to roll it back to ios3, but the evil overlords at apple have made that pretty much impossible. I ended up reinstalling and then jailbreaking ios4 again, only this time with no multitasking enabled. I used the instructions and tools found here, if anyone else is having the same problem. Fingers crossed – it’s been pretty well behaved so far today. It’s definitely slower than it was on ios3, but at least my apps aren’t crashing, and it only takes 10-15 seconds to open SMS, instead of the 30+ seconds it was taking with multi-tasking enabled. I am hoping it can hold out and not be a useless piece of crap until November. We’re going to Vegas then, and iPhone 4s are SO much cheaper in the States than they are in the UK. Like the equivilant of $200 Canadian dollars. The plan is to pick one up in the States, so I am crossing my fingers that my trusty little 3G can play nice til then.

This month is going to be CRAZY BUSY. This weekend we are trying to get a crew together to go check out The Great British Beer Festival during the day on Saturday, then come back to ours for a BBQ and more… beer sampling.. for the rest of the evening. This Sunday there is nothing official planned, but I think I am going to do my best to convince Mike that we should go see Inception. Next weekend, we both took the Friday off, and we’re headed to a cottage in Scotland for our anniversary (Mike asked me out on a Friday the 13th, so we celebrate Friday the 13ths rather than the actual year anniversary). Tonight or tomorrow night we need to call Mike’s grandparents and see if they are interested in having some weekend visitors for the 21-22, and if they are, we are trying to arrange Mountain Biking in Wales for that weekend. And then on Wednesday the 25th, my mom lands here for a week of sight-seeing. I took off the days when she is here and we are going to SEE STUFF and HAVE FUN and DRINK WINE! It’s gonna be rad.

I decided to just completely restart Couch to 5K. Although my endurance has inproved IMMENSELY since I first started this a year ago, I never really got any good speed going. Also, I’ve been hanging around week 5 for forever. I think if I restart and get some good momentum going, I’ll be motivated to move on to week 6.

On that note, I did Week One, Day One this morning. I remember the first time I did it, I would be almost DEAD by the time I got to the one minute mark of each run, but they actually went by pretty quickly this time.

Here is what my intervals looked like:

In order to do 5K in under 30 minutes, I need to have the running paced at less than 6min/km. I only acheived that for ONE running cycle (the ones marked fast) this time, and I was assisted by some negative elevation. So that’s the goal for the other two runs this week – get the pace down to under 6.

Okay, I get to preface this by warning everyone that it is probably going to be all over the place. We are interviewing roommates off and on tonight, so my train of thought is going to get even more derailed than it usually does. Also, I have the trusty camera and camera card reader back, so there is a mish mosh of photos to share.

LET’S BEGIN!

Okay, so I didn’t empty off the camera before Mike took off, and I found some pictures from 3 Sundays ago where we hung out in the common and listened to the live band. Apparently, Mike was a ninja that day, and I completely forgot.

Also, I am apparently a complete slob on weekends. I really need to step up my game! Ugh! I’d wonder how Mike could stand it…but seriously, I am fetching him beer in this picture, which ANSWERS THAT QUESTION BEFORE I EVEN ASK IT!

The next couple are from Mike’s trip to Vancouver. Considering he was out there for over a week, he really didn’t take that many pictures! He mostly used it as a poor man’s mobile Google Maps, so there’s a lot of pictures like this on the camera:

Also, Mike acts super relaxed and non-ego about the stuff he works on, but he seriously gets super excited when he sees something he’s worked on being advertised. I could understand if it was something cool, but Sorcerer’s Apprentice? Really? What a nerd.

He did also take a few pictures of him and Bryan kayaking though, so it was totally worth him taking the camera for an entire week.

Anyway, Mike is back and over his jetlag, so we are back to having ADVENTURES. Friday night we were having drinks with Mike’s work friends, and one of them mentioned that he was going paintballing with friends, and there were a few extra tickets, and would we like to come? YES, THIAS, YES WE WOULD!

We had to get up super early to meet Thias and friends at Wimbledon station for 8:15am so we could be on time for the paintballing, which turned out to be a bit in vain as it was around 2 hours after arriving that we actually got started. Here we are when we first arrived at paintball. You can tell we’ve just arrived because we don’t look irritable at having waited for 2 hours in black protective gear for stuff to start already. Left to right is Thias, Jeremy, Jake, Hayden, and me. Mike was taking the picture. Oh, and a girl named Cat joined our group a little later

We got grouped with some other people in the purple team, and were paired against the yellow team. The yellow team was comprised of mostly cheaters. We busted them blatantly wiping paint off of their overalls instead of going to the dead zone multiple times, and they would continue shooting at people after they’d yelled that they were hit. One of them also shot a girl on our team point blank in the back. Anyway, we lost all rounds pretty miserably, partly due to poor skill on our team, and partly due to their poor sportsmanship. I did take an opportunity to shoot Mike once though, which made it totally worth it.

Once we were done with paintball, it was time for refreshments. Hayden, Cat, Jeremy, & Jake approve.

As does Thias

Mike and I also approve. Mike displays approval by biting my ear mid-picture.

We had to head home pretty early to meet roommates, which was kind of a bummer, but it’s important we get the right sort of person in, so it’s a sacrifice that’s worth it. Speaking of which, time to interview another. We have a busy August coming up, which I will do my best to faithfully document. Also, need to take up running again. Also, also, need to stop eating everything in sight.

So it turns out that Mike read the itinerary wrong – he leaves today, not yesterday and arrives Monday, not Sunday. Which kind of sucks because I was super looking forward to seeing him. I even made a sign to greet him at the airport with. I won’t be able to use it now because I’ll be at work when he lands.

Luckily (?) it’s random enough that it can be hung in the kitchen as a silly/stupid decoration. Andrew and Laura got a kick out of it, so I don’t think anyone will mind.

Buddy and Leia are safely back in Canada, and Leia’s been uploading photos like a madwoman. I stole some to post here (she said it was okay).

Me, Buddy, & Mike during our walk around Bayswater:

It was a hot day. We soon required refreshments.

Then we walked to Paddington Station.

They were really jetlagged for the first few days, so we didn’t really do much other than that. Once we were back at work, they did a day trip up to Manchester where Leia, super Coronation Street fan, met one of the stars of the show. She was super excited about it – I think it was one of the highlights of the trip for her!

They also did a day in Brighton, then took off for Dublin and Paris before making their way back to London to catch their flight home. I took off last Thursday to give them a tour of London. London Bridge, which I think was a bit disappointing to Buddy as he was expecting the much more iconic and prettier Tower Bridge.

We saw the Tower of London. Here’s me and Buddy at the Tower, a picture I am mostly uploading for Mom. Buddy is her best friend’s son – Buddy and I (and his brother, Cody) grew up as cousins, pretty much. She loves both of the boys like nephews, and I don’t think there are any pictures of us together since the school Christmas Concert days.

The plan was to go to Covent Garden and do some shopping, then walk down and see the sights – Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament Buildings, etc. Unfortunately, I forgot that not every body is used to walking everywhere all the time! Buddy and Leia were pretty bagged after shopping, so we hopped on the London Eye, and I pointed out the big landmarks we could see. Then we headed home and ordered a pizza and vegged out.

I’ve been pretty low-key this weekend. I probably would have gone somewhere if we’d realized earlier that Mike’s flight didn’t land until Monday, but we didn’t. I’ve been very domestically productive – laundry, vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, sweeping, mopping, dishes, etc is all done, but I’ve mostly been staying home and reading. I can’t wait til Mike gets home so we can go on MORE ADVENTURES!

It’s been over a week since I updated – shameful, but we haven’t really done much since Denmark.

My hip is recovered, and I plan to get back to the running tomorrow. We also had friends from Canada up – Buddy and Leia. I took pictures, but then neglected to get them off of the camera, and now Mike is gone to Vancouver for a week’s vacation (and also to get some necessary tasks done – renewing his passport and other such tasks that are just easier for him to do from Vancouver). He took the camera, so I have no recent pictures. Here is a picture that recently cropped up on Facebook of me, Mike, and two of his old nerd school friends. It’s only two months old. Same thing, right?

Anyway, Buddy and Leia got super screwed over by jet lag, so we didn’t get to do much with them over the weekend. This week has been a whirlwind – busy work, plus getting Mike ready to go. He left on Friday. Katy came up to London last night and slept over, then we spent today exploring London. We went to Borough Markets, then I took her through central London to see the Parliament Buildings and Big Ben and the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey and Soho. Lots of walking, but also lots of chatting and relaxing. She’s a relaxing person to hang out with. It’s nice. Due to tube issues, we barely made it to the tube station in time for her train. Like.. movie-level running to meet the train sort of shit. Luckily, she made it.

I hung out with Andrew and Laura (roommates) tonight, and now I’m chilling out in the too-empty bedroom. I’ve been making lots of comments about sleeping in the middle of the bed and eating lots of fish (which Mike doesn’t like), but I actually really miss him. I basically need to get a life and stop checking my phone for new emails every 5 minutes. Right now, I KNOW he’s on an epic bike ride with all of our friends, and then they’re having a massive BBQ/drink-a-thon. Insult to injury. Not only is my very best buddy gone for a week, he’s having a blast with all of our Vancouver friends. Totally jealous.

I realized today when I was looking at my kindle that I read too much. I got the kindle in March, I think. Since then, I’ve read over 20 books. I much prefer a work commute spent reading on a train than one spent stressing over traffic, and the kindle has made it that much easier. Highly recommend the kindle. I never thought I’d be an e-reader person, but now I can’t imagine going back to regular books.

Anyway, this was kind of a rambly, pointless post. Buddy and Leia are passing back through in for a few days on their way back to Canada, and I took Thursday off to take them around. Should be a good time. I’ll try to get some pictures going

First thing Sunday morning, I got up and went for a walk/run. Mike had pointed out that Kastellet was shaped like a star, and well…IT NEEDED TO BE DONE!

After that, we showered and had some free hotel breakfast, then packed our bags and checked out. The hotel had a luggage room, and was nice enough to let us rent bikes for the day, so that’s what we did. We rode around pretty aimlessly – Copenhagen is amazingly set up for biking. I think I mentioned before that pretty much every road has a bike lane, and all of the drivers are super aware and super friendly to cyclists. It is pretty much the only time I’ve ridden on streets without being super nervous. The only problem I had was that the bike had back pedal brakes, and I appear to have a bad habit of backpedalling when I just want to coast, so I ended up accidentally stopping a few times. I actually managed to throw my hip out pretty badly by accidentally backpedalling. The good part of that was that it was still comfortable to sit and bike. Walking sucked though.

We managed to find Hans Christian Anderson’s grave. Lisa, lover of books, enjoys this.

Mike uses it as an excuse to rock out.

Then we went to the zoo. We tried to blend in with the monkey biography pictures. I am apparently a constipated monkey.

And Mike is a special-needs monkey.

We got bored of the zoo after a while, so we grabbed our last amazing Danish hot dogs, then went to check out Christiania. We don’t have any pictures from here because there are enormous signs that say NO PHOTO. Christiania…smells like Vancouver. I hope I’m not being too vague when I say that. It is very well known for smelling like Vancouver, but they are not fans of photographic evidence. We enjoyed a drink in Christiania, bought a super ugly sweater for me, and it was time to head back. We dropped off the bikes and grabbed our bags, then made it to the airport with plenty of time to wait in the long Easyjet line up. Only…there was no line up. We made it straight to the counter and checked in, then went through a security (Mike got extra screened for not having the sunscreen in a plastic bag). We sat around and enjoyed beers for a while. My back/hips were getting progressively worse by this point, so I tried to keep them loose with walking and leg swings and gentle stretching. I also took a painkiller, which I usually try to avoid.

The flight itself was pretty awful because of the backpain, but our luggage made it to the carousel quickly, and we had no problems with security. I ended up calling in sick on Monday and seeing a chiropractor. She popped my hip back into place. Since then, I’ve been in pain, but not as bad as before I saw her, and it’s been getting better and better all week. I hope to be able to be back to running again next week. Mike’s rash has all but vanished (thank god). We also came home to the news that my cousin/family friend/whatever Buddy and his girlfriend are coming to London and are going to stay with us for a few days, so hopefully we’ll get some interesting blog posts out of that. Viva la weekend!

We had decided that there wasn’t a band playing on Saturday or Sunday that we wanted to see more than we wanted to explore Copenhagen, so after we got up Saturday morning, we packed our stuff. Mike needed room for the gas masks, and we decided we could sacrifice our air mattress to make the space. I gave it to a group of guys who were still lying in their tent with no mattress beneath them. They seemed pretty stoked. We also had about 8 beer left that we didn’t want to haul, so I put on my grass skirt and leopard-ear headband and played beer fairy to a bunch of confused Danes. Their English was very strong, but they kept trying to reaffirm in different ways that the beer was, in fact, free. This was a baffling concept to them, but once they were sure they understood, they insisted on giving me hugs. Basically, dudes in every country can be won over quickly with beer.

We did the short walk to the busses, and made our way back to Copenhagen. We hung out for a bit until we could check in, making use of the hotel’s public computers to book and extra piece of checked luggage (tent) and check email/facebook. Then we had a brief nap. I’d slept pretty terribly the night before because I kept waking up convinced that my sleeping bag had pulled the skin off of my legs. Bad combination of sunburn and hot sweay, lotiony legs. It would only take me a brief second to realize that my legs were fine, just sunburnt, but still a terrible, panicky way to wake up. We cleaned up, then made our way to Tivoli Gardens, a rad ass amusement park. What can I say – Mike knows the way to my heart.

We don’t have too many photos because we put most of our stuff in a locker so we could RIDE THE RIDES. The rides were pretty awesome. It’s not the largest park I’ve ever been to, but the rollercoaster was awesome, and they had this plane ride that is all fast and loops around like you’re an insane WWI fighter pilot that was super rad. Here is one of me by the little garden on one end. You can KIND of see rides in the background.

Before moving on, we stopped for a relaxing beverage in a super ritzy looking patio. I had the most delicious chai tea latte I’ve ever had. It was so delicious that the first thing I did when I reached English soil and had mobile access was text Katy to tell her how delicious it was. So good.

Then we decided we needed a few couply photos.

It was right about this time that the man in the tutu started running around and swimming in the fountain behind us while all his friends cheered. In North America, that sort of behavior gets you evicted from theme parks. Not in Denmark. No security showed up. People just watched and clapped, and when he was done having his fun, he got out. We also noticed that the security restraints on the rides were…somewhat less restrictive. The really dangerous, upside down, crazy ones had 5 point harnesses and locking stuff, but we went on one roller coaster that was seriously just a lap bar like you’d see on a kiddie ride. No real danger – it didn’t go upsidedown or anything, but it just struck me that we are sometimes a little overzealous with the safety in North America. No one got hurt, no one did anything stupid. Was just fun for everyone.

After Tivoli, we went for all you can eat pizza and salad. Apparently all I can eat is two pieces and one salad, but that’s okay because it was pretty cheap. Only 89 Kroner! I loved the prices in Denmark. 100 Kroner is about £10 or $17 Cdn dollars, so you’d get bills for dinner that were comically large numbers – 180 Kroner for two people to eat pizza and have a soda, or 100 Kroner for a t-shirt. Also, you feel pretty rich carrying around bills with numbers like 500 on them.

We then went back to the hotel and crashed. Hard. The air mattress and tent were good as far as camping go, but it’s hard to beat a real bed.

We woke up on Friday and Mike’s rash had just gone insane. Bright red, all over his body, terrible, ugly rash, so we decided to get it looked at by the First Aid Tent. Consensus – sunburn heat rash. Apply Aftersun. He has asthma and breaks out in full body rash at the first hint of sunshine. HE’S TAKEN LADIES!

Anyway, we got him his aftersun, then did a whole lot of…nothing. Wandering around looking at stuff, and stopping to relax and read/watch stuff on iPod.

We walked around the main festival area too. Mike bought 3 WWII gas masks from a random tent. This was apparently a necessary purchase. I bought a grass skirt and a leopard-ears headband…so not exactly in a judgment space here. We seem to have forgotten that we had a camera, which is kind of okay because we didn’t really do anything. I did find this picture of us taken by a random Australian chick that tagged along with us for a while. I have no idea why Mike is being so creepy.

A little bit more hanging out (it was a vacation, we were RELAXING, yo), and it was time to see NOFX, the highlight of the whole festival for me. They were amazing and funny and awesome. We stayed mostly outside the tent. We weren’t scared of death – 9 people died from being crushed in 2000 at Roskilde, and the event was being super strict about not pushing and no body surfing and basically NO UNSAFE MONKEY BUSINESS. It just was way more relaxing to sit outside and enjoy the show and not get our ear drums blown out. Anyway, NOFX was amazing. Highly recommend.

After that we went back to the tent for our second night of tenting it.

After our fabulous sleep in the amazing hotel of awesomeness, we woke up bright and early and enjoyed our last civilized showers for a few days. We had noticed the day before that the hotel had bikes available for rental and decided to take a couple out for a spin. They are not the most amazing bikes ever, but they did the job. We rode around for about 2 hours taking in the sights of Copenhagen.
Here we are by another fountain.

All of Copenhagen looks like a real life Disney movie. Makes sense, it is the home of Hans Christian Anderson, who the Danes are pretty obsessed with. There are statues and whatnot of him everywhere.

Finally, we decided it was time to go to Roskilde. We caught the train at the Metro to the town of Roskilde, where I made Mike pose under the train sign. He was not terribly thrilled, but I maintain that someday, he’ll be happy I made him pose there.

From Roskilde the town there was the option to take another train or a bus to Roskilde the festival. We picked the train. We should have been a little bit suspicious when we saw that the train looked like the WWII trains used to haul people to concentration camps, but it was all nice and cute on the inside, even if I did have to use a luggage strap and a case of beer to keep the window open.

WE SHOULD HAVE PICKED THE BUS. It turns out that the train takes you to one entrance, and the bus takes you to a completely different entrance. On the opposite side of the festival. Where the tenting area is. Which is where we needed to be. Roughly 3.5 km if you know where you’re going, but if you’re us and DON’T know where you’re going, it’s more like 5 kms. Across uneven terrain. In the baking sun. While carrying all of your clothes and camping gear. Basically awful. Really and truly awful.
By the time we made it to the tenting area and got set up, we were ready to just chill the eff out. So we grabbed the bedsheet and headed to a nice grassy area near a lake and spent the afternoon drinking (me: coke zero, Mike: beer, both of us: water) and hanging out. I read Emma. Mike watched stuff on his iPod. Super chill. Super necessary.

After a while, we ventured off to get some food. Here is me by tent city, which was relatively close to the food. See how tent city looks shitty and terrible? Imagine that in food form, and you have the festival food. The best meal I had there was cheese and jam on a bun. I wish I was joking.

We found a human-sized hamster wheel. Mike tries it out.

We also notice that the small rash that started appearing the other day is getting worse. Here is the back of one of his arms. This was also on his legs and stomach, and was apparently very itchy.

Mike takes some antihistamines, and we go back to the lake, where we find some woman’s birth control. With one pill left. Are we seeing the start of a new little Roskilde Dingus?

We spent the rest of Thursday relaxing and exploring at our own relaxed pace, then crashed around when the sun went down.

There is just WAY too much stuff to say about our trip to Denmark for one post, so I’m gonna break it down by day. Here’s Day One!
Wednesday, June 30
For some reason when we booked the flight to Copenhagen, we thought 8am was a great time to fly out of London. And on paper, it sounds great, but when you actually do the math – be there minimum of one hour prior to departure, train from London center to Gatwick takes 30 minutes, it’s a 15 minute walk to the train station…it basically means getting up at 4:30am to catch the flight. Which is the SUCK. We flew Easyjet, which is pretty much known for being cheap but not exactly awesome, and that was pretty much our experience. We got to Gatwick, and the line to check in was about a bazillion years long. Basically, nobody made it to the front of the line in time for their flight. Everyone just stood in a line that moved super slowly, and when it got close to your flight time, an Easyjet employee went around yelling your destination city, and everyone going to that destination stepped out of line and was served next. The flight itself was pretty uneventful – it is a budget airline with seats that don’t recline and no in-flight entertainment, save for the comedy-show stylings of safety announcement attendant.
Easyjet is super proud to announce that they’ve gotten us into Copenhagen an astounding 5 minutes early. Unfortunately, there is a snafu with everyone’s baggage, and the baggage is another 90 minutes later hitting the carosaul. So, we got to wait 95 minutes instead of 90 for luggage. The highlight of the airport wait is listening to a woman chastise her son, Dingus, for playing with the luggage carosaul. Yeah, you read that right…Dingus. There is a 3 year old child somewhere named Dingus. Ha ha. Dingus.
Anyway, once we had our luggage, we realized the second bit of folley to our GET TO DENMARK SUPER EARLY PLAN – we can’t check into the hotel until 2pm. We take the Metro to central Copenhagen and walk around for a bit. I get to experience Danish drunk food for lunch, even though it is only noon and I am nowhere near drunk. Basically, Danish drunk food is a bagette with one end cut off and a hole cored in the middle. Then they squirt in your choice of toppings and jam in a hot dog. A bacon-wrapped hot dog, if that is your wish. I approve of this.

We kill a bit more time taking photos by a fountain in the main square. We tried to get a couple picture, but people kept walking in front of the camera right before it snapped, or Mike was too slow getting it balanced, or it fell over…basically, couple photo just wasn’t meant to be at that time.

Finally it is time to check into our hotel, and we love our room. It is lovely and has a huge big king-sized bed that is super comfy. It’s also done in a purple and white color scheme, which I love. We had a quick nap and a shower, then hit the town again, this time without big heavy bags.
For some reason, we decide to eat Mexican food. In Copenhagen. It is gross. Advice: don’t eat Mexican food in Copenhagen.
We walk around a harbour area. It looks like pictures of Newfoundland

After a while, we stop for a drink (I have water. Mike has beer). We also buy a bag of the local delicacy, salty liquorice. It’s actually pretty good!

We walk around some more, then finally settle in to a pub. Mike has a beer and gets me to try the local party shot, sma gra, which is salty liquorice dissolved in vodka. I know, right? Sounds vile. I love it and decide it needs to be poured over ice and sipped like scotch.

We ended up sitting with a middle-aged guy from Texas for a while after this, shooting the shit. His name was Mark. He worked for an oil company who had offices in Denmark, and was out on business (read: alone). Seemed like a nice guy.
Danish people are, in general, all tall, thin and blonde. I think it’s because they bike everywhere. Pretty much every street in Copenhagen has a separate biking lane, and even young children (think, like, 6) bike on city streets. They also all speak English, in general, and all of the signage is in both Danish and English, which is handy, because I don’t speak Danish. They all seem to know that Mike won’t speak Danish and address him in English, but think I am Danish, which is weird because although blonde, I am not tall and thin.
By now it was night, and even though we’d had naps, we were still pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel. The square was much quieter though, and we managed to get a couple photo by the Fountain.

I read for a while at the hotel while Mike watched stuff on his iPod, then we crashed for the night.