Beacon

I'm beginning to get a little bit worried about my dreams.

I've always considered myself very good at remembering my dreams, but lately I've been able to remember my dreams every single day for over two weeks. And the bad thing isn't that I can remember it all, but that I'm beginning to confuse parts of them with reality. They're all about my life here at university at the moment. And while some of the dreams are weird (like people competing in the Guiness World Records for the title of "World's Biggest Drinker" or asking me to make them green pasta), others are way more realistic.

Just this evening I dreamt I was reading in our cell biology book. And I remember what I read. It's scary, because I don't think what I read was actually true. It had to do with gene expression being connected to a group of Rho and Ras GTPases and kinases, respectively. I mean, come on, wtf is this. What kind of sick dream is that.. Ah, well, I guess I'm finally going insane?

On another note, I got a little further in Eternal Sonata yesterday. And I have my second Japanese class tomorrow that I'm really looking forward to! I've learnt half of the katakana (one out of two Japanese phonetic alphabets) already in just this one week by practicing a bit during lectures, and I'm quite proud of that =). I'm also going to the theatre this Friday with two friends, and that's gonna be really nice. I've never been to the theatre before, so I'm sure it will be quite an experience!

This Friday I had a huge dinner at my place with a friend. It consisted of entrecôte, french fries, bernaise sauce and everything. Quite exquisite. Afterwards I was invited to a concert by a group named Infernal. I kind of wanted to go, but because I had plans the following day plus a built-up lack of sleep I decided not to go.

The following day, Saturday, I went to that birthday party. I managed to get lost twice on the way there (I travelled by bike). And on the way home again (around 1 o'clock) my GPS had somehow lost its battery, so I had to go all the way on memory. And my visual memory sucks. But anyway, I made it spectacularly well. And because of that experience, I can now find my way there again without any help :D. The birthday party was really fun too. Got to talk to a lot of people and had lots of nice (free :P) food and wine.

On a more general note. I kind of feel like I'm moving in shadows. That is to be understood that time is moving without me being able to see anything. These days are kind of fleeting. The weekends disappear, and there are not that many days I can truly single out from the others. It's weird, because new, distinct things are happening every day. I hope it's not this way it feels to become old :P. Meh.

Merlin is a protein

Don't believe the title? Then look here. Kind of a ridiculous name to give a protein, but what the hell :P. I've seen worse names.

Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylalanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylglutaminylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalanylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparaginylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylserylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalyllysylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine for example is worse.

I couldn't even bother to colour all the 267 amino acids that make up this thing. As you can see, I gave up after colouring ten.
Luckily some clever people have decided to shorten it to tryptophan synthetase A. For which I am quite grateful.

Be happy I didn't write up the scientific name for the protein titin. That one has 189819 letters.

I've now been at university for one and a half week of my second year. And I've decided to go to Australia to Monash University for the first semester of my third year. It's quite a process to apply for this, and right now I'm going around asking teachers to write a letter of recommendation for me (which the universities need). So far I've gotten 1 out of 4, that I plan to get. By the end of this month I need to have gotten at least 2 as well as having researched exactly what courses I want to take at the university, plus writing an essay about why I should be the one to be accepted to the university. Meh.

I've also met the freshmen who started on my course this year. They seem alright, even though according to the tutors from my year, the girls (who outnumber the boys 5 to 1) are skanks. Yep. And they sure can drink :P. Last Friday I drank shots with two of them, and omg they're crazy :P. That night was generally pretty weird. I ended up missing the last night bus at 5.30 and had to take a taxi home. Never tried that before, and it wasn't especially fun. Luckily I shared with two other people, so it didn't cost me a fortune. I slept until around 4 the next day. Meaning my Saturday was kind of lost. And I can't really remember what I did Sunday. Fact is, I'm way behind with the reading. But I'm trying to catch up now.

I also had my first Japanese course yesterday. It was kind of fun. But it annoyed me that I already knew everything we were taught. And the next lesson we're having I know all the stuff as well (the use of the particle "wa" and the word "desu"). But I'll see what happens. Some of the people there were REALLY weird. So I don't feel so weird when I'm there, lol. It's also weird that nearly everyone there also knows some Japanese like me and watch anime. I'm really not used to that. And it freaked me out that an emo guy dressed entirely in black with black coloured hair who sat in front of me to the right, kept looking back at me during the class. Scary. I haven't really talked with any of the others yet, but I plan to do that next time. The trouble is that we don't really get breaks, so we don't have that much of an excuse to talk. Maybe group work will be introduced though, and that should be alright.

The first thing we had to do in the class was tell the others why we had chosen Japanese. The weirdest explanation came from a guy whose job it was to program. He told us that while he programmed he had a second screen beside him which would play television series. And since he had now watched about every long English series that existed, he had turned to Japanese anime. The only trouble was that he had trouble programming while also looking at the subtitles. So now he wanted to learn Japanese so he wouldn't have to look at the subtitles all the time. Yep.

As the last thing that I'm going to bother to recount, we had some quite weird lectures these past few days. We tested some kind of new lecturing system, where we're each given a kind of remote control, with numbers on it. During lectures, multiple choice questions suddenly pop up, and we have to press the button that we think corresponds to the answer. It's actually really fun, and makes you not fall asleep and actually listen. I really hope they're going to implement it.

Finally, I'm getting a bit tired of those annoying spam mails, that claim to give you such amazing "opportunity". I don't know how many people from Nigeria who have offered me millions, if I would just help them transfer money to some weird bank account. I've also won the British lottery about five times now, I think.

The Stranger

It's been a while since my last post. A few things have happened of course.

I've been (by bike again :P) to another friend's summer house in Northern Denmark. It was lots of fun, and some really weird moments occurred. I haven't acted that weird in ages, and it was really nice to be able to act like that once again. The people I normally talk to are making me more grown up, I guess. It's much more fun to be able to act completely random. Even though I probably should not make a habit of acting that weird xD.

Also went to a birthday last Saturday. Very casual and private, but I like that way much better than huge parties and wasting yourself.

Sunday was a completely relaxed day, and on Monday I departed for a three-day camping trip in Northern Denmark again. I've been there a whole lot, I realise :P. But this time I didn't go by bike. It was the first time I've ever slept in a camper. It was a good trip. These friends are different, so this time a lot of drinking was involved. I did indeed up getting pretty drunk the last day before we went home. The first day we were all kind of tired, so nothing major happened. We played a lot of frisbee, and had a really weird walk at night along the beach towards a lighthouse. Even though it was like 5km away, we reached it.

I've never seen a lighthouse like that up close. It had this huge old-fashioned rotating prism and a central light that shone in all directions. The huge, rotating prism then directed the light into three major beams that shone really bright. It was quite fun to watch.

On the last day I got introduced to a fun drinking game, where you're supposed to kind of bound a coin into a cup, and then the next person drinks what's in the cup (beer). I got the technique nearly immediately, but since the other two had been drinking whiskey (which I don't like) I kept making myself lose on purpose.

After a little while one of the two friends who were with me on the trip suddenly became very tired. It was only around 1 o'clock. He then pronounced loudly that he would go to bed. When the other friend then said "Fuck it, I'm not going to bed, I'll drink with you (he was referring to me)", the first friend suddenly (again loudly) changed his mind. I laughed so much because it was so failed. He's supposed to be older than me :P.

Later I got into an idiotic discussion with him concerning the ability to imagine a feeling by intensifying a feeling you had already felt. For example, if you had had a burn wound in the past, would it be possible to imagine amplifying that feeling many times? I believe that is absolutely possible. He didn't. And when I told him that we would never reach an agreement in this, and that we should end the discussion (which was not a fun discussion at all since he began taking it so seriously) he went as far as to say that he had "lost all faith in me". I was like wtf. Not surprisingly, I took that quite seriously. The next day he apologised and said it was just because of his "narrow view on the world" and that it couldn't compare to my "much greater perspective". Bullshit. I still haven't decided what to do about it yet. But this much is certain: A friend would never say something like that.

Anyway, then he sort of passed out. And I sat up talking with the other guy. It was seriously nice. We opened up a lot, and before we knew it the sun had risen and it was around 6.30. Insane :P.

Next day we were all tired and pretty smashed. Me and the guy I had talked to all night were still quite tipsy. So the return trip home by train was sort of hazy. I had a bit of a hangover and I ended up having to lie down, and then I promptly fell asleep and woke around midnight. I hadn't had any breakfast, lunch or dinner. Not so much fun. And all milk I had was too old.

Then came today. Where I got my package from Sweden :D! I went up at 9:30 just to not miss it this time. And the package came. And in it was a completely new Guitar Hero controller with even included batteries. I nearly couldn't believe it. I mean, I got it completely for free. I just had to send a mail saying my controller was broken and they send me a completely new one? Without even asking me to pay postal fees or returning the broken one. I wonder what would happen if I made another request, and said the new one was broken :P. Would I get a third for free? Such a Guitar Hero controller is normally quite expensive in shops. Ah yes, the world is full of mysteries.

After receiving that package from on high, I cycled to my university to meet up with a friend and buy the third book I needed for the next half year (goddamn it I'm tired of buying expensive books). We spent some time researching a bit about what university to go to abroad for our third year. It's between Canada and Australia right now. Universities in the US require a lot of really weird information, and are really a pain to get accepted into. It's a pity, because I really wanted to go there.

I also got to see the freshmen which are starting on our course this year. It was quite fun to remember back at how it had been when I myself was a freshman. Got to say hi to a few of them and talked a bit with a guy who apparently is 18 and comes from France where he also went to an international school. Just like me. He actually reminded me of myself. When he learnt I came from Belgium, he even asked if I wanted to speak French. I would have asked that a year ago too :P.

And here I am now. I think I've done alright. The future right now looks a bit meek, but I trust that nothing is entirely what it seems.

Darkness of white

I've been reading a lot lately. Some Discworld novels actually. They're quite fun to read, and I love the random "breaking the norm" way they're written in.

I've also been working a lot (and so earning money, yay :D). On Tuesday I went down to the main office to fetch some special envelopes which I needed as part of my current "tasks" (which consist of sending approval letters to patients, who've been accepted for early examinations before operations - it's not as easy as it may sound :P). Well, I was approached by my boss who told me: "We would like to ask you to do some more difficult work for us." I was like: "YEAH!!". And it turned out I was FINALLY to start the translating job, I had applied for at the very beginning. It consist of "translating" from medical terms into layman's terms. For example, I translate such terms as "nerve root blocking", "cerebral palsy" or "neuropsychological examination" (it's all in Danish of course). It requires a lot of research, its very much relevant to my study, I learn from it and I get paid for each and every minute I use. I love it. And I still keep my much easier (in comparison) side job of sending patient approval letters. Which I, of course, also get paid for.

On a more annoying note scale (once you've played Eternal Sonata for Xbox 360 for a while you seriously start thinking about every annoying thing that reminds you of music - seriously, the characters you can control in the game are named March, Salsa, Allegretto, Beat, Falsetto, Polka, Claves, Viola, Jazz, Crescendo, Serenade and oh yes, Frédéric) I got a ridiculously huge heat bill this month. Believe me, it's blown out of all proportions. I normally pay a little bit each month towards the heat bill, and at the end of the year (which for some reason seems to be sometime in july) they check to see if I paid too much or too little compared to how much I consumed. And it seems that during the winter I heated enough to raise the temperature worldwide by a degree. It's ridiculous, and I've also sent a complaint to the company to get them to check this. I was very, very careful with how much heat I used. I nearly only used my bedroom heating system and not the one if my living room. And guess what, the bill shows that my living room heated over three times as much as my bedroom. Make sense? No. Anyway, I hope this all gets sorted out.

I watched Godfather I yesterday, since I had never seen it before. I hadn't expected it to be so long, but it was really, really good. I'm going to watch the other two over the next few days.

Have you ever heard about a plant called Salvia Divinorum, or Sage of the Seers? I just heard about it today. It seems it's this really weird plant that can give you some very special hallucinations and experiences if you smoke/chew it. And it's totally safe. There's no side effects, you can't get addicted and you can't die of an overdose or anything. It was used in the past by Aztecs and Indians for spiritual insights and experiences. It's said by a lot that it's the only herb in the world which is termed "existentia" meaning that it somehow provides experiences concerning the very act of existance. I'm not exactly sure what it means, but I heard of a guy experiencing a white room, where a machine kind of "stapled" reality to a globe which was supposed to be our Earth. This plant is also unlike the other hallucinogens that exist. It's not for parties, not made for groups and not a "fun" drug as such. It's said that you will respect the plant after having tried it the first time. The real high of taking the plant starts after 5 seconds and lasts five minutes if you smoke it, and starts after 30 minutes and lasts up to one hour if you chew the leaves. That's not long. But it's said that the experiences are well worth it anyway. While under the effect you normally simply let yourself lie down with your eye closed in a half-dark room. It's said that light will make the experience quite confusing. If you get the most vivid experiences, which are said to be the best, there's a chance you might walk around the room a bit like a sleepwalker, and that's why many suggest having a sitter with you the first few times. They're supposed to help you by gently guiding you around the room (so you don't collide with stuff) if you start walking around.

Anyway, it's a pity that the plant is beginning to become illegal. It got banned here in Denmark as of 2004, so it's relatively new. It's still legal in the UK for example. It seems that some people tried driving while under the influence of it (wtf..). So yeah, it's a pity. It sounded like quite a harmless thing, that yet could give some quite profound experiences. I've always wanted to try something that wasn't dangerous or addictive that could give you an experience out of this world (they say that the ultimate effect is the feeling of becoming one with the world and knowing Everything). I've also always wondered how it might be to hallucinate.

The closest I've ever gotten was when I was sick. Although that was quite a horrible experience that I never, ever want to try again. It had to do with feeling feelings like pain in a sort of 4th physical dimension which was swirling all around me, while I felt like I was continuously falling sideways and thinking that medicine would not work on everyone because of displacements of that 4th dimension, since noone could ever get close enough to the same locations in that dimension. Yeah, it was fucked up, and scary.

Now I'll go and play a bit of Eternal Sonata. I'm currently in Aria Temple waiting for prince Crescendo of Baroque City to reach a decision about whether or not he will support the resistance group of Andantino in an attack on Count Waltz. Because Count Waltz is distributing mineral powder (mineral powder?) mined from Mt. Rock which turns people into mindless soldiers to fight for him, so his nation of Forte can become supreme. Oh, and by the way, that guy on the right is Frédéric from the game. And guess what? His weapon is a baton stick. You know, the thing you use for conducting symphonies. Yep.

/Care

Well, it's Sunday today. The week went by quite rapidly in fact. Work is starting to get routine, and I'm busy all the time now. It's quite nice being busy actually.

Summer house thing was actually quite fun (although the bike ride of 55km each way was a little challenging), even though I was a bit surprised at first that there was going to be a third person my age there. I'd only met the guy once before, but he was quite fun actually, although I didn't always agree with everything that happened. But that's bound to happen with three people.

After the bike ride to the summer house, I was met by two grinning faces congratulating me on a good job biking all the way there, as well as about 12 different beers, which apparently were for me to drink that night. And drunk both me and the beers got. We drank it in this huge holiday centre that had all kinds of cool facilities, but everything was kind of deserted at night. so we had it all for ourselves. It was quite cool actually. There was even a piano. And I discovered that it's actually not always so easy to remember all the notes when you're drunk. Even though I think I did alright. The next day I can't actually remember what happened other than I ate a huge ice cream which was really cheap. And that we went and found a geocache with a flashlight in the night. Quite fun. And the next day we went up early and swam in the sea (which was surprisingly not so cold after all). And then the bike trip home, which took three hours because of a strong headwind. Once I finally got home to my apartment, I was smashed.

The following day I had to get up a 9 o'clock for a badminton game with a girl my age, her younger brother and my younger brother. It was actually really fun, and me and the girl got invited to play a double with some older people, who were training that day. They won, unfortunately, but they were really good. They told me afterwards though, that they could see by my playstyle that I was really good as well, and I was quick as hell :). I was really proud of that. And I asked them for a rematch some other Saturday with my usual playing partner, and they agreed. I look forward to it.

In the afternoon a friend from university suddenly came around, and we ended up drinking a couple of beers. We had fun talking and suddenly time had passed quickly. There was this reunion in the evening with people from my old Belgian school, and I missed the train I was supposed to take. So I was 40 minutes late. But it wasn't a problem. I managed to find them in the park where we had agreed to meet. And it was loads of fun. There were quite a lot, and it was really fun seeing them again. And there was, of course, more beer. I stayed for dinner, but I didn't follow some of them to town, because I was simply exhausted and had another appointment the following day. I was home a bit past midnight.

Sunday, today, was sunny, and meeting up with two people from university, we went on this kind of tourist barge that tours the canals in Copenhagen. It wasn't very impressive (at least I didn't think so). There was, inevitably, also beer present. In nice quantities. But we had fun and the hours disappeared quickly while we hung out. After having lunch we decided to go to the cinema in the evening. So after a bit more time (and beer lifespan) had passed we went and saw The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. I really liked it. We had dinner at McDonalds afterwards. Quite a lot of money was spent this day.

Some other stuff was also planned for later in the holidays, but it's not finally decided. A canoe trip, a birthday party and a camping holiday in the exact same town as the one I biked to to visit my friend's summer house (this camping trip would be with other people, though). I don't know if they'll happen or not, but we'll see.

Tomorrow I have nothing planned at all. And I'm happy for that. Except for a bit of work in the evening, I can relax completely. And there will be NO beers :P. I do have one beer left from today in my refrigerator, but it will have to be lonely in there for a little while longer.

That'll be the end for today. I'm going to watch Brüno tomorrow, I think. Or maybe tonight. I haven't decided yet.

"Where we learn how our hero fares"

Wow. That wasn't fun. Food poisoning. Yep. And that was not fun. I cannot stress how not fun it was. But I think it's over now, finally. And I can function normally again. And eat normally again. I won't go into any more details about this five-day period of extreme dread and malaise, other than to say that during this time I managed to read two books, eat 200g of yoghurt and a few bananas (and nothing more during those five days) as well as drink about 50L of water (and gross salt solution thing, that was supposed to help me not die of dehydration - yay).

Yesterday I was at some friends' house for dinner. First day that I managed to eat alright again. I also bought a new Xbox 360 game called Eternal Sonata. It has the potential of becoming a really good game later on, although the story and constant reference to music seems absolutely ridiculous to me at the moment. And today I had a friend over, and it was lots of fun. Tomorrow I'm going to a friend's summer house for two days.

I also started work yesterday. And I'm actually beginning to enjoy it. It's not that boring at all. And I like that I have so much responsibility =). Also what happened yesterday, was that I went for a bike ride. And right when I'm about to turn around and head home, my pedal falls off. Yes, it somehow managed to dislodge itself completely and fall off. And OF COURSE you need some special kind of umbraco key to turn it back on. Which I went out and bought hastily today, and finally used to fix my bike. The bike trip tomorrow to that summer house will take more than two hours tomorrow. I seriously dread how much bad luck can be managed to be squeezed into such a huge timespan of opportunities. We'll see, or rather NOT see, I hope.

I also had my brother come and visit me from Belgium (mind you, it was not my choice - I had no say in the matter whatsoever). But we have a weird relationship of extremely weird humour (I wonder who he got that from :P) and mutual understanding and misunderstanding. So it's alright.

About that package. My guitar hero replacement. The one which apparently had been sent all the way back to Sweden, but I really hoped hadn't. Well, turns out it has. I contacted lots of people, but they all confirmed it had been sent further and further away. I of course watched all of this with the smile of beginning insanity. That guitar is seriously mocking me. As a last resort, I wrote another mail explaining my situation to the ridiculously stupid help-desk. I did that Friday. No answer as of today (Tuesday). I'm thinking about resending the mail again. 50 times. Then they ought to notice it. But I'll wait until Friday and hope.

Until then.

Spirit of the Hawk

Home, sweet home. Yep, finally home. After carrying that sickingly heavy shoulder bag which was my luggage. But I'm not complaining.

After a rather uneventful start of the day I got to the airport. And as usual weird stuff happens to me. An older man in front of me suddenly turns around while we're both descending the escalator. He says something I don't understand. I ask "what?". He says again: "What does the thing on your shirt mean". Me: "Napapijri?". Him: "Yep." Me: "Dunno." Him: "Ok, so where are you from?". And from there the conversation started. All the way to the security check it continued. We got over such varied subjects as Italian influence on Croatian architecture (he was a diplomat from Italy on his way to Budapest) and weather change in Southern Europe. I've never really had people strike up random conversations like this with me in an airport. Only with the people I sit beside on the plane. It must have been because of my very nice shirt.

While walking towards the gate later on a person suddenly walks really close to me. Really close, I see out of the corner of my eye. Actually brushing up against me now. I'm like "ok, wtf, is this person sick or something". But nope. It turns out to be one of the kids from the bus I took every morning while I lived in Belgium. He was kind of annoying, so luckily he wasn't on the same plane to Denmark as me. But it just proves that it's a small world after all, or I just know a lot of people who are likely to travel a lot, as well as on the same flight routes as me.

I come home to a surprisingly pleasing (but later evil mail) box. Just the day before leaving for Belgium I had placed a "NO ADVERTISEMENTS please" sticker on my mail box. So it was delightfully spacy even though so much time has passed.

The only thing I didn't like was a meek, innocent-looking letter from a transport company lying stealthily on the very bottom of the pile of mail. My fears are confirmed once I open it. It's dated the freaking same day that I left for Belgium (remembering that I left for the airport in the morning before the mail had arrived). And in short it basically says this:

---
Hi there,

Remember last time you heard the door-bell at 7 o'clock in the morning, and you thought it was just the regular paper boy, who always rings everyone's doorbell to get inside the main hall with the newspapers? Well, this time it wasn't. Oh no. It was us. With a big, nice package for you, that couldn't fit in your mailbox. It was probably something really nice. Something you had waited a long time for. Like the new Guitar Hero controller, that you used hours and hours to get sent to you, by talking for hours with useless online help desks. Oh yes. It probably was that.

But now, you see. You didn't answer the door. Because you still had your night clothes on, you were tired and didn't know who it was, since you expected no visits that day, and definetely not that early in the morning. Well, that's just too bad. Because when you didn't open we just left. And waited a nice few days before slipping a letter into your mailbox telling you that you now have five days to get back in touch with us regarding a new delivery, or we will return your package to sender. Yep, you heard that right. We'll return it. What you probably used ages to get, we will now send back. Just so that everything will be completely messed up.

But hey? Now it's not our problem anymore.


Greetings and happy wishes from
General Logistic System Denmark A/S

=)
---

I had three options after having read that.

1. Cry about the futility of it all.
2. Pretend I hadn't read the stuff about the package being returned after five days, and send them a nice mail asking to have the package delivered the next day, hoping desperately it would still be there or somehow remotely returnable.
3. Kill.

I chose the onyl truly sensible option. No not 3, even though it was briefly considered. I chose door number 2, and hope that it will lead me to some vanishingly small speck of hope.

Ah well. I have quite a few things to look forward to though. And that's more than enough to keep my spirits up. It will just require a lot of planning and initiative to get everything started and done, and with work every weekday, I definitely won't get bored quickly.

Right now, I will perform a weather control trick to get nice(r) weather for Thursday, where there's a picnic for my old classmates from the school in Belgium. Let's see if I've still got a bit of that stuff left.

Decision

Tomorrow I'm going home to Denmark again. I arrived here in Belgium yesterday night after having stayed a whole day in Southern Germany in the weirdest town ever.

All their houses were so huge and weird. Really. It's tough to explain. Nothing there was normally sized. I felt like a small doll in some huge weird Austrian yodelling fantasy. Every house was in the typical Austrian style (imagine very square house with huge V shaped roof with overly flower-decorated balconies). And the smallest houses were about 40m wide. Yep. And to add to it all, everyone was dressed in traditional beer festival clothes. There was even a frigging HUGE Maypole in the town square. It must come as no surprise that when I asked for a small coke at the restaurant, it was only a half a litre. The big coke was 2 L (and oh yes, it came in a 2 L glass).

It felt so ridiculous (but funny) to be so small compared to everything. That didn't mean that there were no details. Oh no. Every little nook and cranny was decorated. With flowers, teapots, draperies, you name it. Here's a picture my brother took of the Maypole together with one of the smaller houses (at first we thought it was a place we could stay, but when we went inside, the man told us that it was merely a small café - I ask myself what the hell a small café needs four floors for :P).

The following day on our way through the rest of Germany we were 1 minute from a huge accident. Suddenly all traffic on the motorway stopped right in front of us. Then came multiple ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, emergency doctors and even helicopters. It was quite alarming. I'm not sure what had happened, but it must have been quite serious. It took about half an hour or more, before we could finally drive on. It was a bit weird being able to walk around in the middle of the motor way with everyone having stopped their cars and gone out as well. This kind of complete stop also happened once on the way to Croatia, but it didn't last as long nor was it as serious I assume (due to lack of before-mentioned pleura of siren-equipped vehicles).

I will end this entry with a picture of the promised blue water from that nature park in Croatia (there were other, more aestetically pleasing photos of lake pleateaus and waterfalls of course, but the showing of the blue water was prime objective here). Following that is a picture of the sunken ship we could dived at. And lastly a picture of the town we stayed at on the island. And note: Although it may not look it, all these pictures were taken by my younger brother with his own camera. I hate to admit it, but he may be good at this kind of stuff. Notice the picture of a cool sigil we found on the docks of our small town, which I will be posting in the next post.

"OooOOOoo"

Leaving Croatia tomorrow early morning. The drive through Slovenia, Austria back to Belgium is waiting for me. This time it will take us two days to get home though. I hope to get to visit the town of Pula on the way home (even though I doubt it will happen) as I've recently found out it has its own huge coliseum. Weird, huh?

I went snorkeling today for hours in a coral reef about 20 minutes swim (exhausting, bwah) from the beach. There were loads of cool fish and not-so-soft sea urchins. And in place of my sunburn my skin has turned very very dark. Especially concentrated on a spot only on my left shoulder. It looks like someone dabbed it in dark brown paint while the rest is only lightly coloured. Yes, it's very wtf.

I tried a long island ice tea yesterday, After having heard so much about it. Either it was made very well, or the cocktail just normally tastes great. I really liked it. It is therefore recommendable to try it out. (!)

I've acquired a certain taste for an old Danish band I had a few tapes of when I was little. It's called Shubidua. Click here to listen to one of my favourite songs I remember from when I was small. You probably won't understand it if you don't understand Danish (and if you can without knowing Danish, then I want to know your secret). Anyway, most of their texts are really clever. Those understanding a bit of Danish politics might also like their song called "Folkeparty no. 179". I unfortunately can't supply a link for that song, as it's apparently not uploaded on Youtube (quite a shock!).

I'm looking forward to meeting friends in Denmark, and getting the hell away from my family. They get very much on my nerves. Very much so.

And it's fun reading people I know's blogs, and being referred to. Right, friend ^^?

Repeating pattern

Lots of things have happened since last time. Lots.

I managed to get a sunburn (sob), but it wasn't too bad, and it should be pretty much gone by tomorrow.

We went on this cool boat trip as well, where we visited random islands. One of the islands was this huge nature reserve. And we got to swim in this magnificent lagoon with a big sunken ship in the middle og it and loads of fish swimming around inside it. Rich opportunities for snorkling and scuba diving!

On our way home with the ship we chanced upon a group of wild dolphins. That was more cool that I can describe. I've never seen anything like it. It's so much different than just seeing them at some show. They were doing all these cool tricks in the water and it looked like they were genuinely having fun. They liked getting close to the ship and riding on the ship's wake. Nice :D!

Today we went to this magnificent (yeah, I know I'm using a lot of grand words here, but it truly was :P) nature park in the middle of Croatia. It was extremely splendid :P. It had these really, really blue lakes and huge waterfalls and everything. You can see a picture of it by clicking here. I realise that this is some promo photo shot, but it really did look like this. I'll show you some pictures of my own once I get home. It was also really cool that you sort of walked on the waterfalls on these wooden walkways (you can sort of glimpse it in the top part of the linked picture). And the colour of the water was indescrbable. If I hadn't seen it myself I would have said it was coloured that way in Photoshop. It was THIS blue. We were told it was because of some chemical thing in the water. Carbanic something. But it was perfectly healthy. The drop pools and lakes were full of fish (and ducks!!). I can quite highly recommend visiting this park should you ever suddenly wake up in Zagreb or similar area situated in the general vicinity of the Plitvička jezera park.

And I've had weird dreams these last two days. My first dream was simple enough. I knew how to save the world. In three easy steps. And I actually formulated those steps to the UN. And I could clearly tell people what those steps were and how they would work to save the world. This normally never happens in dreams. It's ok to think you know how to save the world in a dream. But actually formulating the necessary steps is a bit weirder. Anyway, my only problem is that I can't remember steps 2 and 3 after I woke up, and I only remember very little of step 1. I was awoken in the middle of me formulating the three points to the American president.

I remember the 1st point consisted of advancing technology to a sufficient state, and it only required a very simple iteration sequence. And it had to do with a mathematical formula or method or something like that. And I remember thinking "heh, that was really close to what my friend once told me, it's just an expansion of that..".

I apologise to the world for the fact that I can't remember any more details of that dream.

The second dream I remember more of. For some reason I was in Japan and could only speak to people in Japanese. And I suddenly had to take the plane back to Belgium to do a Danish exam concerning a particular bird which I don't recognise. It was kind of stupid. But weird :P. And so, interesting.

Tomorrow we'll finally have a bit cooler weather (34 degrees celsius today..). There's going to be a thunderstorm tonight and so we'll have at least a tiny bit cooler weather for a single day. And then the temperature will skyrocket back to normal once again.

And I got really started with my work now. And I have the responsibility of sending answers about medical insurance to loads of patients now. So I'll get paid nicely :P. It's so nice I can do everything from home.

I'm looking forward to playing a certain game of cards (I've optimised my own collection now) and a certain board game once I get back to Denmark. I'm also looking forward to the canoe trip, the visit to a friend summer house and bike trips to faraway living friends in Denmark ^^!