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*throws up hands*

Monday, 19 September, 2011

I give up. I can’t swatch here in Sweden. I don’t have a fast drying top coat.

What brought this on? The manicure I had started at noon…and thought it was all dry at 4pm – even using the “fast drying” top coat from Face Stockholm. I was quite happy and thought that it would hold out until tomorrow morning when it it forecast to be a cloudy and sunny day.

8pm I made dinner…and noticed my nails were THRASHED. Then I remembered I scratched my scalp at 7pm as I was reading. C’mon – three hours and the stuff still hadn’t dried?!

So no more swatches until at least October 6 when I get back to the US.

Until then, you will have to endure food pictures and everything else I take pictures of with my camera and iPhone.

Home life

Pancakes! With Bacon!!!

Sunday, 18 September, 2011

 


This was our breakfast today at Cafe Sirap. We split 2 different orders, ok, who are we kidding? It was 3 orders we split. I didn’t take a picture of the third order because it was a breakfast wrap – scrambled eggs, bacon, lettuce (*gags*) and American cheese.

I decided the first picture you should all see is…BACON…on top of pancakes!!! How can you go wrong with that? Well, if you’re expecting American style pancakes, you may be disappointed. These were three pancakes that were a bit bigger than your standard silver dollar pancakes. Also, these were a bit more dense. For some reason, it reminded me of potato pancakes or maybe they were made with potato flour. At any rate, the bacon, the syrup…Mmmmm.

The name of the place we went to is on the pic – it’s called Café Sirap. Sirap in Swedish (I had to look it up) is syrup…this was very close to sarap in Tagalog, which means tastes good. Everything tasted good, but in a very Swedish way. It’s not bad and I love the food here in Sweden – they’re not afraid to use seasoning. The place is close to our house, about .3 miles away according to Four Square. 😉

This is the sandwich Colin and I split – it was a Club. Well, as Club as it can get for the Swedes! I’m used to a sandwich piled high. This had the right elements – chicken and bacon. When I saw the yellow sauce on it my mind went, “Oh, FFS – not béarnaise sauce, please!!!” It wasn’t. It was a curry mayo thing. Tasty! See the bacon? Mmm…bacon. As I took a bite of the breakfast wrap Colin got for us to split, I realized – everything we had contained bacon.

It was a great way to start the day and week. Hope you all have a wonderful day and week.

I do have nail polish to show you. I, uh, went a little nuts at Face Stockholm and Make Up Store. I did buy some extras to have a giveaway for when I return to the US. YAY! Swedish nail polish giveaway. Stay tuned!

Home life

Je me souviens…

Sunday, 11 September, 2011
Face Stockholm 84

I didn’t put up a Friday Red, instead I put it off for today in memory of September 11, 2001.

I had tussled with the idea of not addressing the issue here on my blog because it’s been said and re-hashed so many times in the past ten years by so many people. The last thing I wanted to do was write about it. Yet, here I am. I guess I feel the need to because I’m out of the country.

But before I go on, this is the color I am featuring today is by, you guessed it, Face Stockholm!

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Home life

Tourist Day Out, Part 1 – Moderna Museet

Thursday, 8 September, 2011

When an old friend from college showed up in Stockholm for a visit (and a Dolly Parton concert a couple of weekends ago), we did some sightseeing – most notably the Swedish Museem of Modern Art – Moderna Museet. Before going there, we got on a boat!

BoatRide1

This was a shot of Moderna Museet from the boat. Looks kinda cool, right? That’s the best picture I’ve taken in my time on boats here.

More pictures of Moderna Museet behind the jump – this is an image heavy post.

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Home life

Face Stockholm 107

Wednesday, 24 August, 2011

I saw Face Stockholm 107 in the store and grabbed it so fast. The girl who helped me claimed that it was part of the new fall line…

While not a dupe for Illamasqua’s Jo’Mina, it’s still a pretty damn good color.

Face Stockholm 107 label

Application was smooth and absolutely quick drying. However, when I put the “fast drying top coat”on and went to bed four hours later, I woke with minor indentations in the polish. Grrr…I hate that.

Face Stockholm 107 bottle

Sorry it’s not all in focus, but I had to put that color on there. Bottle shot because I’m so boring. LOL

Face Stockholm 107 sunlight

Please pardon the grubby hangnails. I had completely brain farted and didn’t bring anything to do manicures with. I wanted to get a mani/pedi and found a place near my house…and nearly passed out at the price for a basic mani/pedi – 650SEK. That’s about $100. I’d rather chew my own toenails off, thanks. Ok, gross visual. Sorry. Excuse me while I gag a little.

I love Face Stockholm 107 – it’s a bit darker and slightly more muted than Jo’Mina. It’s almost falling into periwinkle territory. I think I’m going to have to get a back-up bottle and get some Face Stockholm stuff for a giveaway when I get back to the States! This would definitely be worth getting, don’t you think?

As for the picture below…there is a story behind it.

Here in Stockholm (and the rest of Europe), when you buy cheese, you have to slice it yourself. I tend to pre-slice cheese for the day/week. In this particular instance, when I was making a grilled cheese sandwich for Mr Carinae, I wasn’t in the mood to slice more cheese…plus, the cheese cutter was in the dishwasher and the dishwasher was running. So Mr Carinae ended up having a very sad pathetic “cheese” sandwich. Mr Carinae took it to mean, “ONOS NO MOAR CHEEZES IN DA HOUSE!” The next night when I sent him to the store, this is what he bought…I had to put it next to my iPhone so you can see exactly HOW big this block o cheese is. Yes, I am still slicing cheese from that big block.

Moral of the story? Always have enough pre-sliced cheese on hand.

cheesevphone

 

Last, but not least…it takes so little to make me happy. I was tired of having crispy undies when they came out of the dryer and Colin’s co-workers were kind enough to purchase some Bounce dryer sheets for me. They are here in Stockholm on business, so it was no trouble at all. I’m grateful and thankful because now we have fresh smelling clothes when it comes out of the dryer!s Ah…I’m so surprised Stockholm doesn’t have dryer sheets.

bounce

That all said, I’m saying nighty night!

Home life

La Pluie

Monday, 8 August, 2011
Beef Bolognese

Before I run off to bed, here is what I did today on my Sunday…day of rest and all that.

I had some small plans to go out, but that was quickly negated by the big fatty clouds in the sky. I knew what it was. Then I heard some noise and looked out the window.

Rainy Day

Onos. La pluie. There went my idea of spending the morning out and about picking up stuff. However, the rain gave me an excuse to make an impromptu French Toast with the baguettes we picked up while shopping yesterday. No pictures of the baguettes or French Toast, but I’ll be making the baguettes into bread pudding and I shall provide pics of that!

I had put aside five hours of my day for making some bolognese. It was worth it. Doesn’t it look pretty?

Beef Bolognese

I even included the recipe in the post, too. It’s at the very bottom. I decided to do step by step pics. Yea, rainy days get me going like that…

Word to the wise: this post is picture heavy behind the jump.

As always, click on the thumbnails to show the pictures in their original sizes.

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Home life

Fun rainy Saturday, Part 1

Saturday, 6 August, 2011

This is my first weekend in Stockholm where I wasn’t fully jet lagged and pissy. Normally I’m just pissy, but throw in jet lag with memories of a screeching child? Yea, I’m not a happy camper.

We roamed and had Indian food. Not quite like back in the US or in India. This food had a bit too much sweetness to it. For me to complain about it being sweet means it’s really sweet.

Anyway, we roamed and kept hearing all this crazy music. Saw floats and from a distance I kept seeing a rainbow flag…

I moved closer but the rainbow flag had moved on. I wanted a flag shot, so I got one of the Swedish flag instead.

By the way…That building behind the flag? That’s where Colin works.

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