mál

blog

2008-01-03T17:13:00.000Z

Totally forgot about this blog...
I am blogging at www.jarnmadur.blogspot.com
mainly a training blog, but at least a sign of being alive :)

Sunscreen

2007-03-19T15:06:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRRKqhdotVI

This is a link to a video of an amazing song called "everybody's free to wear sunscreen" by Baz Lurhman, old song, still nice. here are the lyrics:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of 99...Wear sunscreen

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years youll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you cant grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked...Youre not as fat as you imagine.

Dont worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Dont be reckless with other peoples hearts, dont put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Dont waste your time on jealousy; sometimes youre ahead, sometimes youre behind...the race is long, and in the end its only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Dont feel guilty if you dont know what to do with your life...the most interesting people I know didnt know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still dont.

Get plenty of calcium

Be kind to your knees, youll miss them when theyre gone.

Maybe youll marry, maybe you wont, maybe youll have children, maybe you wont, maybe youll divorce at 40, maybe youll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary...what ever you do, dont congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either - your choices are half chance, so are everybody elses.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can...dont be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, its the greatest instrument youll ever own.

Dance...even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you dont follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, youll never know when theyll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, price will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do youll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Dont expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Dont mess too much with your hair, or by the time its 40, it will look 85.

Be careful who advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than its worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

At last

2007-03-06T02:02:00.000Z

Yes yes, rarely do you see a white raven but here I am...
Not quite dead yet if that was anyones wish :) quite to the contrary I have actually never had so much energy in my life.
This is going to shock my die hard sarcasm friends but I started using Herbalife. At first I had so much against these products, thought this was just another money ripping crap, but I was very low on energy and reading about the products it made perfect sense, I mean, you can´t find a healthier breakfast, so I decided to try. I didn´t tell anyone, it was a secret operation. I was half hoping to get the energy but at the same time half hopping this not to work so that I could crap all over it. But the weird thing happened that not only did I tripple my energy, I also lost 8 kilos, right away, built some muscles (there were non before), I started to sleep much better, both falling asleep and waking up, all in all it really made a huge difference.
Then I started to sell it and now I am making extra money by pointing people to a better life, how cool is that!
Anyways, don't take my word, go to www.heilsufrettir.is/tomask and read the success stories (If you understand Icelandic) it is amazing...
I am in love, but now it is finally not with a girl that will break my heart but a product... if anyone wants more information about it, either about the different products or the business opportunity this brings then just send me an e-mail or call me, you will not regrett it.
Hereby I declare this blatant commercial finished.
Live with passion!

Exams anyone?

2007-01-12T19:25:00.000Z

I stole this from my friends blog, it is just so good I had to share it with the world.

50 Things to do During Finals
1. Bring a pillow. Fall asleep (or pretend to) until the last 15 minutes. Wake up, say ``oh geez, better get cracking'' and do some gibberish work.

2. Get a copy of the exam, run out screaming ``Andre, Andre, I've got the secret documents!!''

3. If it is a math/science exam, answer in essay form. If it is long answer/essay form, answer with numbers and symbols. Be creative. Use the surface integral symbol.

4. Make paper airplanes out of the exam. Aim them at the instructor's left nostril.

5. Talk the entire way through the exam. Read questions aloud, debate your answers with yourself out loud. If asked to stop, yell out, ``I'm SOOO sure you can hear me thinking.'' Then start talking about what a jerk the instructor is.

6. Bring cheerleaders.

7. Walk in, get the exam, sit down. About five minutes into it, loudly say to the instructor, ``I don't understand ANY of this. I've been to every lecture all semester long! What's the deal? And who the hell are you? Where's the regular guy?''

8. Bring a Game Boy. Play with the volume at max level.

9. On the answer sheet find a new, interesting way to refuse to answer every question. For example: I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it conflicts with my religious beliefs. Be creative.

10. Bring pets.

11. Run into the exam room looking about frantically. Breathe a sigh of relief. Go to the instructor, say ``They've found me, I have to leave the country'' and run off.

12. Fifteen minutes into the exam, stand up, rip up all the papers into very small pieces, throw them into the air and yell out ``Merry Christmas.'' If you're really daring, ask for another copy of the exam. Say you lost the first one. Repeat the process every fifteen minutes.

13. Do the exam with crayons, paint, or fluorescent markers.

14. Come into the exam wearing slippers, a bathrobe, a towel on your head, and nothing else.

15. Come down with a BAD case of Turet's Syndrome during the exam. Be as vulgar as possible.

16. Do the entire exam in another language. If you don't know one, make one up. For math/science exams, try using Roman numerals.

17. Bring things to throw at the instructor when he's not looking. Blame it on the person nearest you.

18. As soon as the instructor hands you the exam, eat it.

19. Walk into the exam with an entourage. Claim you are going to be taping your next video during the exam. Try to get the instructor to let them stay, be persuasive. Tell the instructor to expect a percentage of the profits if they are allowed to stay.

20. Every five minutes, stand up, collect all your things, move to another seat, continue with the exam.

21. Turn in the exam approximately 30 minutes into it. As you walk out, start commenting on how easy it was.

22. Do the entire exam as if it was multiple choice and true/false. If it is a multiple choice exam, spell out interesting things (DCCAB, BABE, etc.)

23. Bring a black marker. Return the exam with all questions and answers completely blacked out.

24. Get the exam. Twenty minutes into it, throw your papers down violently, scream out ``Fuck this!'' and walk out triumphantly.

25. Arrange a protest before the exam starts (e.g. Threaten the instructor that whether or not everyone's done, they are all leaving after one hour to get drunk.)

26. Show up completely drunk. (Completely drunk means that at some point during the exam, you should start crying for mommy.)

27. Every now and then, clap twice rapidly. If the instructor asks why, tell him in a very derogatory tone, ``The light bulb that goes on above my head when I get an idea is hooked up to a clapper. DUH!''

28. Comment on how sexy the instructor is looking that day.

29. Come to the exam wearing a black cloak. After about 30 minutes, put on a white mask and start yelling ``I'm here, the phantom of the opera'' until they drag you away.

30. Go to an exam for a class you have no clue about, where you know the class is very small, and the instructor would recognize you if you belonged. Claim that you have been to every lecture. Fight for you right to take the exam.

31. Bring a water pistol with you. 'Nuff said.

32. Try to get people in the room to do the wave.

33. From the moment the exam begins, hum the theme to Jeopardy. Ignore the instructor's requests for you to stop. When they finally get you to leave one way or another, begin whistling the theme to the Bridge on the River Kwai.

34. Start a brawl in the middle of the exam.

35. If the exam is math/science related, make up the longest proofs you could possibly think of. Get pi and imaginary numbers into most equations. If it is a written exam, relate everything to your own life story.

36. Come in wearing a full knight's outfit, complete with sword and shield.

37. Bring a friend to give you a back massage the entire way through the exam. Insist this person is needed, because you have bad circulation.

38. Bring cheat sheets FOR ANOTHER CLASS (make sure this is obvious. . . like history notes for a calculus exam. . . otherwise your're not just failing, you're getting kicked out too) and staple them to the exam, with the comment ``Please use the attached notes for references as you see fit.''

39. When you walk in, complain about the heat. Strip.

40. After you get the exam, call the instructor over, point to any question, ask for the answer. Try to work it out of him.

41. One word: Wrestlemania.

42. Bring balloons, blow them up, start throwing them around like they do before concerts start.

43. Do the exam on your laptop. Make sure the simulated keyboard noises are on.

44. Play frisbee with a friend on the other side of the room.

45. Bring some large, cumbersome, ugly idol. Put it right next to you. Pray to it often. Consider a small sacrifice.

46. Get deliveries of candy, flowers, balloons, telegrams, etc. sent to you every few minutes throughout the exam.

47. During the exam, take apart everything around you. Start with your calculator, move on to your desk, your chair, anything you can reach.

48. Complete the exam with everything you write being backwards at a 90 degree angle.

49. Bring a musical instrument with you, play various tunes. If you are asked to stop, say ``it helps me think.'' Bring a copy of the Student Handbook with you, challenging the instructor to find the section on musical instruments during finals. Don't forget to use the phrase ``Told you so.''

50. Answer the exam with the ``Top Ten Reasons Why Professor Sussman Sucks.''

Life in Singapore-Smoke gets in your eyes

2006-10-18T16:01:00.000Z

From the city of Singapore, and the country of Singapore for that matter, I write this epic blog. Singapore is a very nice country, I just wish I could see it through the damn haze that covers the city... This haze comes from my beloved Indonesia, where farmers burn down forests to be able to increase their income a bit. Then the smoke blows over too Singapore and Malasia, who cares about them anyway.
As I am writing these first two paragraphs the song Wish you were here by Pink Floyd sounds in my ear and I can´t help missing all my friends from all around the world and specially my Icelandic friends, those who see me almost every day, even without my make-up!
As well as Pink Floyd (although it is now Stevie Ray that graces my awsome ears) there are two other voices that pierce my golden thoughts. It is the words of the girls living here, they are talking on Skype to some people, one in Cantonese or Kantonese or whatever, the other one in Chinese Mandarin... quite an international athmosphere, although these languages obviously don´t measure up to the magnificent Icelandic language which only the superior people in the world are blessed to learn.
Life here in Singapore is redicilusly (wow... that is spelled incorrectly, as many others probably, i am too lazy to run this through word or any other spelling check) expensive, but very nice, all the streets are so clean, no trash anywhere, the traffic moves smoothly, not the eternal traffic jams that charecterises Jakarta. Everywhere you can see signs threatening redicilusly high fines for smoking, throwing gum or any other behaviour. The best sign so far was in a back alley (don´t ask me what I was doing in a back alley in Singapore, too long story), there was a sign, red triangle which had an interesting picture with the text "no humping"!! brilliant!!
We have a new secretary general in the United Nation... a S-Korean guy no one has ever heard of, the same applied to Kofi Annan when he was chosen. I think the UN should re-think their selection a bit, it is under criticism by the public, so to become popular again they should elect a popular figure... lets say Justin Timberlake or someone like that, would also lighten up the mood a bit, instead of arguing over a little bit of nuclear power in Iran and N-korea they would dance to Seniorita and other classic songs... then they can sit down, the tension out of their body and they can throw away the nuclear plan... Also the pulic would connect more with UN and its leader like that. Imagine turning on the evening news and see George Bush and Kim "something" shake their asses together... great way to generate votes and build world peace...
Somehow Iam totally empty now, can´t think of anything to write about.. if you have some favorite topics that I should write about in my next blog, please comment... It can be anything from dwarf porn over to the foreign policy of Mali...
Untill then...

Singapore, country of... well, any ideas?

2006-10-09T07:10:00.000Z

Wow... been like two weeks or something, yes, it is me and my writing skills. First of all my writing skills are not that good to start with, then you add a random periods of time when I can not write anything, not even an e-mail and the conclusion must be that my dream of ever publishing a book must be remote.
What have I been up to, well, I promised my self never to become a "today I ate cornflakes" kind of blog. But I will give a brief summary of things now... football league has started, I am playing for a team called Jakarta Vikings, pre season went up and down, and we didn't really know where we stood at the beginning of the season. Our first game was against Do it (yeah, that's what I thought as well when I heard it, uncreative Nike rip of!) for you not so much of a footbal fans you will burn in the eternal flames for not liking the divine sport, but as I am chritian and don't judge people (right...) I will allow you to skip this part of the blog, just scroll down untill you see something else.

Do it-Vikings
The game started of well, we put the pressure on them, we had 3 corners and 2 shots in the first 10 minutes, my contribution was crucial at those beginning minutes as I warmed the bench with passion and committment.
Their team consists of middle aged beer drinkers with mood disorders, they kept yelling at each other (and not the "Honey bunny, shake your lovely ass" kind of shouts). But then because they knew they would lose every game of the season the hired 2 super Indonesians... ohhh... well... they aren't professional footballers (in a way yes, since they are paid) but they are just so damn fast that it doesn't matter what they can do with the ball, they just out ran us every time.
Our team on the other hand is a strong team led by a group of Danish guys from the age of 40 to 59 (or 69... I am serious... I remember he has a big birthday next year). They were once brilliant footballers, now they are very good (well, at least better than I am), but the years, Indonesian beer and the lack of excercise due to the privelage of having a prvate driver makes most of them stretch their uniforms a bit.
After 10 minutes we were finished, and 9 of the other guys were finished, the problem was those 2 indonesians, they didn't accept slowing down and playing the wonderfull game of banging
forward some long balls and see if one might get in... (kind of like playing a slots machine), no, they had to continue running like some rabbits in a mating season, it occured to me to go out there and aim a well selected Icelandic tackle to the knee of the faster guy, but decided against it as it would not be in the spirit of our team (and there is a lot of spirit there, whiskey, beer and all kinds of spirit). I came on in the second part of the first half and my performance I would rate as 9, on the scale of 9-20. I was shit! although my official excuse is that when I came on it was already 2-0 for the Nike rip off team. The game ended 2-0 for the two Indonesian guys... they scored both the goals, but we didn't care since we had beers with us, not them, so we could get directly to the more serious matters while they had to drive home first... loosers!

Game two came along...
Vikings-Lions
Those are two old teams in the league, normally warming the lower half of it, historically Vikings have the habit of beating the Lions and we came there full of spirit (no, this time not the one measured in %) only problem was that we had so much spirit that 25 guys showed up for us... ohhh... well... random substitutions and flowing schoolground formation became reality.
The Lions had lost against Do it in a friendly 6-0 and then they had betrayed the spirit of the league and hired 5 african guys. Again, unfair in my opinion to hire people to play in an amateur league... again these guys were so athletic that it didn't matter if they were good or not. I had a good game though, after the horrible performance the week before I stopped trying playing skillful football and turned on the Icelandic fighting spirit, ran like a devil, tackled everything that moved and pushed anyone in close range (yah... advise to you guys, don't push the referee, they don't like it). The game was played at night and even though the floodlights illuminated the pitch it was rather dark and with 5 african guys it was sometimes hard to see them, specially since they kept playing sheeps the whole game, we came close to them and the jumped in the air, started screaming like some C-class porn stars (yes, it did turn me on) and fell to the gras, there they lay, biting grass like some lazy sheeps... I told one of them to stop acting like a C-grade porn star and when he tried to be cool and turned to me, pressing his chest out I cowered out and admitted that ok, he could make it as a B-grade porn star. His poetic abilities were awsome because he replied, "you are going down" oofff... I was so afraid, next time he touched the ball Iwent for his ankle, and ignored the ball, fortunatly the referee didn't see that and awarded us a throw in. He was then substituted and I never got the chance to go down... too bad... but well, the game it self ended 1-4 so, another defeat....

Well, that's football so far, I'll keep you posted on the progress of our dazzling football team as time goes along. The squash league has started as well and I have won all my matches there, unfortunatly there are no african porn stars or Nike rip offs there so not much to report on that.

Now, a travel story... Due to a fuck up in my visa situation in Indonesia I only returned from Poland on a tourist visa which only gives me one month, that month finished on sunday, so on tuesday last week I booked a ticket to go to Singapore... the plan was, come here on sunday, apply on monday morning, get back thursday or friday, but... Indonesia and Indonesians are a very special people and on thursday I was informed that my application was not ready and would not be untill late next week, so I had to cancell my return ticket and it is clear that I have to be here at least 10 days... not good!!
Anyways... Sunday morning comes, I had been watching the England-Macedonia with a group of english guys, which meant alot of beer, and yes, I got pick pocketed!!!! arg!!! I had just withdrawn 500.000 rupiahs (sounds more than it is), I paied my bill, 200.000 but then as I went to the next place and was going to pay for my beer there was no money in my pocket... bastards!!! yes, well, sunday morning came and I was really sleepy, I had to ;leave the house around 1 o'clock to arrive to the airport in time but the time flew and it was 12:45 when I got up and started packing which I had not started yet... For a change nothing remarkable happened on my way to the airport or at the airport it self. In the plane to Singapore there was though a bit weird situation, I has an isle seat and the two seats next to me were taken by a couple, they just couldn't stop touching each other and I felt kind of like a third wheel there, like the guy that nobody wants there, just crashing the party.
Singapore airport is simply amazing, the best I have ever been to (and those that know me, know I have spent a considerable time in many different airports), although Gatwick will always be my home airport Singapore airport has to be my favorite one to visit (lets define it as me living in Gatwick, visiting Singapore). There is free internet all around the airport, everything clean and spacious, so many shops and restaurants truly amazing. I had an adress of the place I was going to stay at and in the direction of how to get there there was a subway I had to take, so I found the subway and got a map and everything with explaination as to how to get there.
I went out on the station I was supposed to and lets state that the time was already 11:00 o'clock... I went to the taxi line, I was second, still I had to wait for 15 minutes for a taxi, the taxi driver didn't know the street I was asking for, so I had to exit the taxi and wait for another one, another 10 minutes passed before i got another one. He knew the street but said my address (which I had written down) was incomplete and that I would never find the house or appartment I was looking for. I told him to drive to the street anyway, so he did. I went out in the street and what I had as an address was St. Francis rd. #08-04... I started asking people on that street but they all said I needed a block number or name... they pointed to two apartment buildings and told me to try apartment 08-04 there... in the first building I went to the 8th floor and knocked on the 08-04, no answer, I put my ear on the door and heard some voice so I knocked again (it was 11:30 by this time), I heard footsteps and the door opened. In the door there was a person that didn't look like an AIESECer... naked middle aged Indian guy (he had a towel, small one), I still tried, and asked him if he was Emil, he didn't answer so I excused my self and walked away with him staring after me... interesting thing... the second apartment had no answer and I heard nothing from within so I went to the main road again where I had to wait for almost 20 minutes for a taxi (it is impossible to get a taxi in this country) I asked him to take me wherever there would be an internet access at this time of night, the driver drove off and drove me to a shopping mall, I ponted in and asked if there was internet there, he nodded and told me to go the second floor, there was internet. The shops in the mall were closed but there were 5 or 6 kareokee bars that were open, but no internet. One guy wrote down a name of a plce he said might be open. I walked out and started walking that direction, because again, it is impossible getting a taxi here. after walking for around 20 minutes I found an open internet placem I walked up and they were turnig off the computers, the allowed me to check hostel.com to find a hostel. I picked the hghest rated (by visitors) hostel and asked them if the street that it was on was close. He gave me a map and showed me where it was, only 2 streets away so I went there, but alas... they were closed, only way to get in after 22:30 is with a door code. I had written down another address and asked a guy where that was, he said far far away, very expensive in a taxi... so I continued walking around Singapore, looking for that place I had been told about in the shopping mall. As I thought I was getting close I asked a guy where it was, he laughed and told me it was closed at this time... I cursed my luck and asked where something open with internet was. He directed me to an Indian mall, but alas, the two internet stores there were both closed. I have spent many nights in airports and I have never bought a night in a hotel but this time I gave up, I walked into a fancy hotel, paid an arm and a leg for a room, went upstairs, watched ESPN untill I fell asleep...
This was my first day/night in Singapore... I'll keep you updated on my stay here,
Cheers,
Tomas

Tell me cuando, cuando, cuando

2006-09-22T09:27:00.000Z

Yes, yes, he is alive... unfortunatly the world couldn't get rid of me so I am still lurking around waiting for the right moment to take it over. I had a very slow week the first week after I got back, the medicine made me really drowsy and my energy level was equal to my laptop (the battery lives for around 10 minutes). Although I went on the tuesday (3 days after the accident) and played in the Indonesian squash league... not a good idea I'll tell you... but hey, sometimes you have got to take one for the team. I lost 3-0 to a middle aged man which didn't look like a very mobile creature, but in the court he managed to move all his mass very elegantly... but the shame was no less of loosing to him... and I didn't want to excuse my self, so I didn't tell anyone that I could barely breath and that everything was going in and out of focus in my head. The week after (this week) I played again and now, feeling much better I won 3-0 against a really nice guy, CEO of a country club here in Indonesia, he invited me over for several of their events so it was really nice...
Now I am in Bandung doing an LC visit which, for those of you non-AIESCers is a visit to a local committee of AIESEC which I am responsible for, so I am coaching the board here and motivating the members (or at least trying).
Chelsea is ofcourse doing very well and seeing them beating the bloody Liverpool was very gratifying and proved my previous post after the community shield about the superiority of Chelsea over distinctively avarage Liverpool team.
That's it...
I'll wirte again before Rammadah (or however you spell it) finishes,
Tomas

Stuck at Gatwick!!

2006-09-07T17:53:00.000Z

No, no, do not fear, you are not going insane. You are not experiencing deija vouz ir how on earth that is spelled. I am indeed stuck, again, on Gatwick... the same airport I got stuck on when I went to the Philippines 5 months ago. To add on the irony I am again flying with Etihad, just to perfect the ressemblance. I´ll start my story on the 6th of september, the day I wa flying out of Poland. Well, the organizing committee had already left the scene so I had no idea how to get a taxi. I walked to the gas station with all my luggage (believe me, if you want to win the award, te most popular guy/gal in the gas station, do not bring all your luggage). The employ there spoke no english, yes, just as an extra point I was amazed at the incredibly low level of english spoken by polish people, even young university students, felt like being in a developing country. Well, there was a big guy in a leater jacket with long hair that walked up to me and asked, in a deeper voice than I can describe, "you need taxi?" I was mortally afraid of that big man in leather clothes and wondered if he was going to sexualy abuse me or only kill me. After not saying anything for 5 seconds I saw that he might not be such a threat after all and I nodded slowely, keeping a safe distance between us. He walked outside and as I cautiously stepped outside, preparing for a siege of big leather guys that would sell me as a sex slave in Lithuania, he pointed towards the taxis. I breath out (can you imagine holding the breath for so long, I was really red in the face) and went to the taxi driver that ofcourse spoke no english, except one word, airport... beautiful word it is.
He drove me to the airport and in I walked looking for the Easy Jet check in desk. I saw no Easy Jet desk so after waiting for what felt like forever in the line for the help desk I got there to be told that Easy Jet was in another terminal, so I had to walk for another 10 minutes to another, much smaller terminal. There all the airlines had just one line all together so the line was incredibly long and it took me 1 hour and 10 minutes getting through that line, they don´t have a luggage belt there so I had to carry the luggage with me to another place. In the plane I had a Polish couple sitting next to me, as soon as the guy sits down and he laughs and points at my feets and says something in Polish. I ws not in a good mood so I asked in a very polite english what the fuck he wanted, he pointed again to my feets and made a gesture that they smelled (which was true, I just took of the shoes that were wet, having been waring them for the last 5 hours or so, but again, I wasn´t in a good mood so I pointed at his crouch making a international sign for a very small penis and laughed my self ironically. He sent me some well chosen Polsih words which I smiled at and said: fuck you, and fuck your small dick if you can. He didn´t understand and after talking to his girlfriend that I suspect understood a bit more he glared at me for the rest of the flight. So yes, I made a good friend in that flight.
In luton airport I had to wait for 3 hours before getting a bus over to Gatwick, to make that wait worse the bar was closed... a disgrace, total and shameless disgrace.
The busride was fine and I arrived at Gatwick at 4 o´clock in the night. Apparently people is starting to pick up on my reccomendation that Gatwick is a great place to sleep because it was all full. I didn´t get my famous 2 leather sofas next the electric plug, i thought that sofa had my name!! But I slept on a common chair... way below my dignity... that night i had couple of chest pains but didn´t really think about it. In the morning when I was walking up to the check in I started getting serious cramps in my chest, stopped being able to breath and became all dizzy, i asked for a doctor and then there were paramedics putting flaps on my chest giving my oxigen and talking to me, shortly afterwards I was carried out of the airport in a bed to an ambulance. That´s my first ambulance ride. At the hospital they were a bit perplexed, nothing they tried worked, in the end they guessed that the space around the heart had expanded or something like that, caused by to much stress, to little sleep etc... they gave me some pills and told me to stop working so much or I would get a real heart attack... very cheerfull group of people :) When I was picking up my medicine I met a old guy who had been to Iceland in 1969, he gave me ride to Gatwick where I sit now, wondering when I get out of here...

When in Poland...

2006-08-28T13:25:00.000Z

Well, the best blogs (according to people that do the uncomfortable thing of talking to me in person) on this site are the travel stories I have, in part because traveling is interesting but also because I normally manage to screw them up in some catastrophical manner (who cares about spelling).
This time the travel plan was, like usually in 3 legs, Jakarta-Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi-Gatwick, Luton-Warsaw. But to start my story I must go back to tuesday almost two weeks ago (yep, it is one of the long bastards... you better brew some coffee or open that whiskey bottle), my ticket was booked on monday the 21st but my visa expired on the 17th so after geting required documents I, accompanied by Grace (the president of AIESEC Indonesia), went to the immigration office, it is probably a lovely office although at that time there was about 1000 people in there and there was no aircondition, only fans (just for a frame of reference, I am born in a town in Iceland that now has the population of 300). Indonesia loves there beurocratic system, it gives them more jobs, one person gives you a paper, another person receives the paper, the third charges for the paper, the fourth gives you a folder which you give to the fifth person, which stamps it and gives it to the sixth person. In my dictionary this is inefficient (then again my dictionary is a bit blurry as can be seen by my spelling) but would be all right if they would sit next to each other and you would work your way as in an assembly line, but no!! you go back and forth, up and down, all around (wow, it rimes!!) and finally we were told, thank you, it will be ready on tuesday next week... we were shocked... the problem was that I was leaving on monday and I needed my passport back before that, the extension process should only be two days but this guy said it would be ready in 7 days, and here is the explaination: on the thursday there would be the independence day of indonesia so they also gave friday of since they didn't think it would be worth coming back to work for one day, then the weekend comes, and since they had 4 days holliday already, why not give the monday off as well??? So in short (not my strong side), there was a 5 days holliday because of this day... but the guy suggested a solution, if we would show up on wednesday morning and bribe a guy there he might be able to take it through the system in one day, oops did I say bribe... I meant, paying an extra money. We did that, showed up at opening the next day (wednesday for those of you still not totally lost in the timeline), but the guy there had obviously not had any sex with his wife or his numerous girlfriends (government guys always have a wife and 2-5 girlfriends) for weeks, or even years because he just stared into infinity and declined everything we said, even when we asked if they were supposed to be there to help he declined, what a great customer strategy that is. I asked what I should then do, but again he declined, you may wonder how he can decline a question, I am stilll wondering, he didn't say, I don't care or not my problem, he simply shook his head and said no. So we found a taxi and were going to the office but on our way back home we got stopped by the police because the driver was going the wrong way and he had to take a funny curve in the middle of an intersection, so the driver had to bribe the police officer for not giving him a fine, oops, did I say bribe, I meant, pay him a little money to avoid getting a big fine.
Well, as I am a very optimistic (some people say careless or disorganized, but I prefer optimistic), I decided to not bother about it, let the visa expire and see what happens. Went to Bandung (another city in Indonesia for those of you lacking any deduction ability) on wednesday evening and staid untill friday, I could write about a great stay there, but lets stick to things relevant to the trip.
On monday (21st) around lunch I took a taxi to a bus stop where the airport bus leaves from, there I got harrased by so many taxi drivers really hopeful that I would come with them for 5,5 dollars when the bus is 1,5 dollars, I told them in a very polite Icelandic way (translation: fuck of, leave me alone) that I was not interested in their expensive service, after I broke from the group that had surrounded me at that time a man approached me, I looked at him and he smiled and asked, taxi, sir, taxi. He obviously thought that despite declining the other 12 guys I really wanted to take taxi, it had only been a fluke that I had denied all the others, you got to admire such a positive believe.
As the bus took off I began wondering if I was going to the right airport, apparently there are two airports in Jakarta and I hadn't checked which one I was going through. Thankfully I found out that it was the right one and I entered the terminal building which looks like a carpet marked in arabic nations (as seen on old movies). Crammed with people, no apparent organization, people shouting and pointing in 10 different languages, the whole spirit of the place almost had me shouting as well, I pointed my finger in the air and opened my mouth before realizing I had no idea what I should shout about, as I stood there with my mouth wide open, intensive look on my face, finger pointing agressively into the air a mosquito flew into my mouth and snapped me back into reality of sweaty travelers trying to make their ways.
My check-in didn't start for another 45 minutes so I decided to get something to eat (although the mosquito was a good and nutricious I wanted a bit more), while I was sitting I was offered a "genuine" rolex watch, belt and perfume (I pointed out to the person that living organisms with penises would not use perfumes) so, in only 45 minutes I had three people offering me some illegal stuff, either I look like a very poor person or a criminal (maybe both).
The check in went good until he saw my visa, he starting looking franticly for an extension because they really don't like arguing or telling people bad news, especially white people, when I told him what had happened he told me that I needed to sort it out before check in, that there was a fine of 20 dollars for each day, but as he had already printed my boarding pass I asked if I could get it and then sort it out he reluctantly agreed and showed me where the immigration office at the airport was. I walked right past it and went to the security thing where they check your visa, stamp your passport etc. he also noticed that it was expired and told me that it would be 80 dollars (4 times 20) I nodded and said, ok, as long as you give me a receit (how the fuck is that spelled?) he started looking very unhappy but then looked at me and said that if I would pay him 50 dollars without the official paper I would get through, I paid him happily and had no shame in bribing an immigration official, oops did I say bribe, I meant, paying him for overlooking the date.
Here comes an interesting thing, asian people (no generalizations there :)) do not know how airplanes and flying work. I have been flying 4 or 5 times in asia and there is always problem with people going to their seats, people do not follow the number on their ticked but just sit wherever they want, so in my seat there was a woman fully covered in a black veil, I ask a stewarrdess where I should sit, she said that that woman and her family should had been in the middle seats, in the middle there were 3 seats and just the seat, right in the middle was free, on both of the sides were arabic guys in the withe thing with the circle thing on their head (oil prince look alikes). When I made it clear that I wanted to sit there they starting to protest to the stewardess which after a short argument in arabic seemed to win because one of the guy stood up to let me in between them. As I sat there they both started laughing, and they laughed for around 15 minutes before starting to inspect this curious little white thing between them. The flight went well except for the annoying fact that the giys were always throwing trash at the floor, getting newspapers and then just throwing them down (and yes into my footspace as well). When I arrived in Abu Dhabi I went straight to the bar, as a true icelander. I knew where it was as I had already been in this airport twice before. There I sat for 5 hours or so listening to German guys discussing pants (well it might have been politics, but my german is bad), the flight to London was nice first I sat next to an arabic woman but her husband made her switch so that he and his son sat next to me and she went sitting in the next row with some other woman, I don't know why, but maybe he realized how sexy I was and didn't want to tempt his wife, who knows. Well as we took off they covered their tv's in their seats but I dug into the movies in the system, managed to watch three of them before landing, brilliant, brilliant.
I landed in Gatwick and realized that I had no idea which aiport I was flying from, and since I hadn't printed out the confirmation I had to find an internet booth to see the e=mailed confirmation which said I was flying from Luton. Took a bus to Luton where I again, like a true Icelander went straight to the bar, which again I knew exactly where was located. I sat there for 8 hours and drank beer, only stood up for getting some of the beer out to be a able to put in more. I don't really remember who sat next to me over to Poland, I fell asleep as soon as I entered the plane (I hope I got the seat first). Now I am in Poland attending the International Congress of AIESEC, I could write something about it but nahhh... I might do it later, who knows.
This is it for now, if you are still reading I am amazed, you either are a good friend or you have really nothing to do now.
Cheers and beers,
Tomas

Cynical Meanings

2006-08-20T11:08:00.000Z

Cigarette: A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool on the other.

Divorce: Future tense of marriage.

Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through "the minds of either."

Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.

Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.

Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine will-power is defeated by feminine water power...

Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.

Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.

Classic: A book which people praise, but do not read.

Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.

Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.

Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.

New week, new opportunities

2006-08-14T06:49:00.000Z

Good news, I´ll be gracing the mediocre nation of Poland with my presence in the end of the month. Things changed down here and now I have to go to Poland... not a bad thing, not at all... although I worry a little bit about what to eat... I heard they are still canibalism out there... but hey, at least there will be McDonalds, I just hope they haven´t changed their menu to Polish standards like they did in India, that would mean ManNugget, and Big Mac would really be a poor Scottish traveler that dissapeared out there in the wilderness.
Standard weekend, football and partying, on sunday I went to Michael's appartment (a danish guy, brilliant guy) to watch the community shield, Chelsea-Liverpool, he is one of the people that have the Liverpool virus, if I would be interested in science I would try to find a cure against it. But yes we (Chelsea) decided to let Liverpool take this Community thing... we will take the League and the Championship League instead... we are so humble and good, Liverpool doesn't stand a chance in any other competition and we know we will win so many cups this season so we let them take the smallest one... I think this should once and for all show the true greatness of Chelsea. This week I´ll be trying to sort out my visa stuff (otherwise it is a kick in the ass back home to Iceland :)) and then beginning of next week to Poland, I also have a squash tournament on friday and saturday (I think I´ll pull a Chelsea and let the other guys win).
So... untill my next post, try to stay cool, I know it is hard to reach my level but it is good to aim high, and maybe one day you will almost be as great as the humble, modest, Icelander

Behold, Tomas has graced this site with his divine presence!

2006-08-10T05:20:00.000Z

The world is falling apart!!! Run for it!!! (Specially if your name is Lola!!) Israelians have decided to go further into Lebanon, Norwegian oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria, bombings in Kabul, Robin Williams even started rinking again after 20 dry years. Ashley Cole is probably not coming to Chelsea, Daniel fucking Craig is Bond, no hot water in Breiðholt (Icelandic ghetto) tonight, new outbreak in the civil war in Sri Lanka. Australian baby sitter put a 14 month old girl into the dryer (for er entertainment!!!). But behold everybody, you can relax, I am updating my blog... I know, I know, you have all these big guys, Annan, Bush, Blair and Chiraq (how the fuck do you spell these blody french names?!?!?) are doing nothing, traveling between fancy hotels for meetings that are nothing but cover ups for big drinking parties. But at least here there is one person doing something about it. I am updating the only website on the internet (except my favorite midget porn site) that has the potential to solve all of the worlds problem. If only the Hizbola leadership and the damn Jews (I know, I know, I am too politically correct) would only read this website they could stop hating each other and join forces in hating me... problem solved...
In other news... (maybe I shouldn´t had started with the huge world issues, now it doesn´t matter what I will write about it will sound so trivial...) I went to a meeting in Lufthansa today, me and Damy (Nigeria) dressed in full suits, something people here don´t do at all because of the excruciating heat that constantly plague this country. So in we walked two very foreign looking guys, one whiter than the purest cocaine straight from Escobars ass, the other one blacker than... (hmmm... what is extremely black...) well you get my point, black!
In full suits and both bigger than the person we were meeting with (no, I haven´t grown, still as small as always, why do you think I visit the midget porn site?) but te people here is just so small, makes you want to poke them, but I restrained my self and watched the horror on the face of the poor person that had to talk to us. Anyway, the meeting went fine and we tried to hold back the laughter until we got out of sight from the shaking little marketing manager... poor little thing...
After staying here I am becoming increasingly more nationalistic, more and more Icelandic flags and stuff are finding their way to the office, I also control the music here since I have the largest collection of music and increasingly I torture the ears of my fellow MCers with Icelandic music. Don´t misunderstand me, it is a torture not because Icelandic music isn´t good, nono, it is divine, the uniqu combination of notes and lyrical words, on the other hand the other were so unfortunate not to be born in Iceland so they haven´t grown acostumed to such a pure magic, so their ears just need training... I will help them through it.
That´s enough of sarcastic bullshit for now,
all the best,
Midget

Monday bloody monday

2006-08-07T06:26:00.000Z

yes, yet another monday sneeks up the horizon. Why do mondays have to be the first day of the week, think how nice it would be if after sunday came... let´s say thursday or friday... that would be sweet. But no, the horrible combination sunday-monday is a worldwide fact, with the pleasant exception of Uzbekistan there the lovely dictator (he doesn´t like that title, wants to be called the nations father instead) re-named all the days to his liking. Much better... get rid of fucking mondays.
This weekend was the largest party weekend in Iceland, most of the people I know were going somewhere or doing something cool this weekend... I went to football... no Þjóðhátíð for me... But football went fine... I scored 4 goals which would had been great, amazing in fact if my fucking team hadn´t lost 4-6 but it was a good workout and the beers afterwards were the true prize.
It is incredible in fact that it has been more than two and a half month since I got here... it has been like 2 weeks... time is going by way to fast... 11 more months, and as much as I love being here and look forward for these 11 months, even want it to be more than 11 months than at the same time a weekend like this makes you miss some normal stuff you have at home, I have spent the last couple of Þjóðhátíð's with Gunnar, having nerd parties, watching movies and playing Pictionary or something... ahhh... good times, good times.
Well, fuck it... this is only one year... Gunnar has been stuck with me since the age of 3 I guess it is fair giving him a break for one year. Another person I wanted to meet this weekend was Gummi, there are many empty Jack Daniels bottles that can tell the tales of our friendship. But yet again, Jack Daniels will still be there in one year, so will Gummi!
So all of you Icelandic people, I miss you quite a bit, but enjoy the summer where ever you are (lucky Davíð and Fjóla in Florida). Looking forward to meeting you again in 11 months.
Adios mother fuckers (have to end it like this, I was getting to sentimental for a moment)

Use the force...

2006-08-02T05:18:00.000Z

Yes yes yes, so I continue my tale of nothingness. I will tell you one thing about this country, they are obsessed with cats. There are cats everywhere, the problem is that the streets are full of them as well, and they are dirty and wild, prawl between houses and search the trash... but because they are so many, food for each is very limited so they are very, very small. So small that the rats here (there are so many rats in the street) are actualy bigger than they. The cats either don´t like the taste of rats or are afraid of fighting those bastards because you can see them jog, side by side. The rats here are so big that you can see patterns in their fur. I was walking home yesterday and a rat starting running besides me, it was a gray rat but it had brown spots, if a rat can have several spots it is to big!!! And it wasn´t running away from me, ohh no, it just calmly ran besides me until I had to turn to go into my street, bastards.
Not much in the news here... Me and Ewa got attacked by mither nature the other day. We were coming out of a bookstore and there was no rain, we walked less then a block and then suddenly the sky simply fell on top of us. Such a riddiculus rain I haven´t seen. And I lived in Dominic Republic where there is monsun rain... fuck it! Well we managed to make a movie style jump into a café that was next to us, we were exposed to the rain for approx 10 seconds and we were all wet... not good... I orered a beer of the bar and then he tells me that there is a happy hour now and that I can get two beers for the price of one. I smile and say, "great," and he stills look at me and asks, "so you want one or two beers." I am getting confused at that point so I ask him. "two beers cost the same as one beer, right?" and he nods.. what kind of question is this??? of course I want two beers if they cost the same, this would border a crime in Iceland, never have I seen an Icelander pass the opportunity of a free beer, that would be an attack on our national integrity. But ya... that´s all...

National Conference 1

2006-07-24T04:47:00.000Z

Over the last week alot of things have happened, we have had 3 earthquakes over 5 on Richter Scale, we have had a Tsunami which killed over 600 people, we had another violent outbreak in Timor. We had new cases of bird flu but what I´ll talk about is the really important stuff, that´s National Conference 1 in Surabaya. We arrivet to this amazingly hot city on Tuesday after 12 hours of a cold, cold train ride (I caught a cold there, seriously). Then we were driven right to a food place, I will not call it a restaurant because that would degrade that beautifull word. It was just couple of tables by the road, an open fire and some pots and pans (and they are surprised that the bird flu spreads??) when I was offered a chicken brain soup, I, for the first time, drew the line and decided to swallow my pride and just order some regular food.
In the night we stayed at Fadils place which is a guy I know from a conference in India last year. His house was inhabited by his family but more importantly thousands upon thousands of blood thirsty mosquitos, I got 13 bites just in the evening before I went to sleep. I had seen a mosquito poison and had been defending my self bravely against the swarm of incoming troops, when Fadil told me, "ahhh... while I remember, be carefull with that spray, it has been banned from the stores because it is also poisonous to humans." Great to know after you sprayed all your surroundings for an hour.
The next day the conference started, and what a conference, I will not even try to describe the athmosphere at the conference here because those who have not been to an AIESEC conference can never understand the feeling by reading some shallow words. But I had an amazing time and all the delegates inspired me greatly.
I held trainings on Leadership, Team Management, Project management, for my people (company people) on negotiations, and then 2 functional sessions with my vice presidents, all in all a huge success and after the conference when reading the messages we write each others on these conferences I became so touched (not in a Michael Jackson way) by how inspired many people were by my trainings, it makes all the hard work worth while, so thank you guys!
So now it is back to work, coming back to Jakarta was nice, finally getting back into the traffic jams and endless pollution, it is starting to feel like home.
That´s it for now.

Tale of the shivering spider

2006-07-14T09:51:00.000Z

Just a spider that shall not be discussed.
Anyway, a week gone by and what has happened?
For one, I got one year older, or well, obviously I am one week older than last week, but I passed that silly day which suddenly makes you a whole year older, interesting day, it's like we don't aknowledge any growth over all the other days, but this day... ahhh.... this day we suddenly experience a one year of maturity (or in my case, not so much maturity).
The day started of weird, you am used to having your family to congratulate you from the moment you wake up, spending the day with friends and the phone going off all day with friends and others greeting you, nonono... here I woke up, quite alone (no females of any species there :) spent the day quite alone... started listening to Icelandic christmas songs (no, I did not listen to Celine Dion, All by my self, I promise... or do I?) and at 7pm I had not had any birthday greeting, not personal one, through sms or phone, I went to the internet cafe to see if someone sent me an e-mail, nope... but then something great happened, my mom and dad called me, yay!! It was so nice talking to them! Then I met Ewa, the Polish girl working in the national commitee of AIESEC with me, she also wished me happy birthday. We went to this bar I know, a friend of mine from football was playing there with his band, the whole night untill the final match of the world cup. It was so great, I kept giving everybody beers (they are very cheap) even started giving an old man called Walter who sat across from me. He tried to stop me but I kept pouring into his glass, after giving him 5 beers he told me that he was driving home :)
Then Youssuf my Indian friend came over and it turned out to be a very good ending of a weird birthday.
Week went by without major incidents, we are preparing for National conference 1 which will be held next week. Alot of preperation going on, then me and Grace, my lovely president of AIESEC here singed a partnership with one company today!!!
yaa.... think that is about it...
I´ll write something on monday, but then I´ll be out for around a week.
Cheers,
Tómas

Mistery of the singing cat

2006-07-07T03:23:00.000Z

Hey... yeah sorry... I have not been to the office the last two days, nor on friday last week, so the 2 days in between I had alot of work. I have been a bit sick, some fever stuff, but nothing serious (let´s hope). One little story... I was sitting in the common area of my boarding house at 3 or 4 am and was trying to write a little story I am working on. Then suddenly I see this black beast coming fluttering down from the ceiling. It lands quite close to me and takes the aim at me. Then I see this is a cockroach, and not an ordanary cockroach but a huge mother fucker. I am an Icelander and we don't have these beasts in our paradise island (interesting enough, a cockroach is supposed to survive a nuclear war, but they can´t survive Iceland... wussies) so I am not used to them, and in Dominic Republic they were many but rather small, so you would shudder a bit but then kill them off quickly. This was another dimension, the beast was almost as big as my palm and as I ran out of my seat (very manly I must admitt) the cockroach starting climbing the wall behind my chair. He climbed all the way up and then he did this kind of para gliding thing. He flapped his wing and flew around me as I stood in the middle of the floor. I reacted by running out of the room and watched the monster closely. He crawled back to my chair, up the wall, except now a lizzard (not Sheva, one of his friends) attacked the monster, but the cockroach as I explained was a super cockroach so he turned around and snapped at the lizzard (or gecko for those who care) and the lizzard ran away like a scared baby (not like me, who was hiding, out of the room). It crawled all around with occasional leizure flying sessions. After around 15 minutes I decided to be brave and when it was in the far corner, I ran in, grabbed my laptop and dived into my room. The whole night I kept imagine the beast getting into my room... not a nice thought... that would had been a bloody battle.
That´s todays story...
The world cup... what the fuck!!!?!?! Italy-France... did I wait 4 years to see this... pfff I spit on this... I like alot of teams, England, Sweden, Argentina, Holland, Spain, Ghana, Ivory Coast... is it to much to ask for one of those nations to get to the final? apparently, and we will have a final of the Italian machine (I wonder if the corruption of the league has gotten to the international level and that is the explaination of their success?) and the retired French team. And as the matches are played at 2 am here I really need some entertainment to stay awake. But hey... we only have to wait for 4 more years to get a decent world cup final!!! I´ll be watching the game in my favorite bar, and I guess I'll take my Icelandic scarf and viking helmet and cheer on Iceland in the match, as a protest of this bullshit, in 2010 I am sure Iceland will make it to the finals in S-Afrika so it will be like a warm up.
Chiao for now...
Deeply shocked and battle wounded,
Tómas

Adventure of the Komodo dragon

2006-06-23T10:18:00.000Z

Once again, absouletely no connection but for you information the Komodo dragon is the world's largest lizard species. It is found mainly on the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rintja, Padar, and Flores. There are only an estimated 1,000 to 5,000 of these monitor lizards living today. Reaching lengths of up to 3 m or more, and weighing up to 126 kg, these reptiles are swift runners and climbers with great appetites for deer and wild boar.
Although often regarded as pests, they are not a serious menace to humans. In order to protect the dragon, the Indonesian government has made the islands of Padar and Rintja into nature reserves for both the lizard and its prey. Commercial trade in specimens or skins is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Interesting isn´t it...

But yeah... life is so good... we are well on our way to finish national planning, I am in a football team and a squash team, I´ll move to a cheaper room next month, Chelsea players are doing great at the World Cup, perfect.

This weekend I´ll be playing football with the standard beer encounter afterwards, then on sunday I might be playing paint ball, we´ll see if that works out... so I am as happy as I have ever been, although I am missing all my friends and family from Iceland. But hey, I´ll be back next year with a whole year of an incredible experience in my luggage.

Have a nice weekend, don´t stay to nice.

African or European swallow?

2006-06-21T06:15:00.000Z

So the weekend was quite interesting, friday night Mexico was playing and since Adrian was leaving on Sunday we had our little party with grilled chicken (the guy promised there was no bird flu in it, just before he picked it up from the street), Beers, chips, coke... it was awsome, to bad Mexico didn´t win, but hey... you can´t have everything.
On saturday my head was a tiny bit heavier than usual but that soon dissapeared when I remembered that we were playing football, and more importantly that I would have a hot shower afterwards. When we came to the pitch there were some other guys there so we decided to play them. So our team consisted of 40-59 years old (I asked who was the age president and it was a danish guy, 59 years old), ex-athletes that had drinken to much beer in the last 20 years of their lifes, so we stretched quite a bit our uniforms. The other team consisted of skinny and fit 16-18 years old Indonesians, so we were confident of success. After only 5 minutes I happened to score a goal, this stunned the Indonesians that expected an easy match, 2 minutes later we scored again, at half time I was substituted for a 45 year old spanish guy with 2 bad knees and excessive beer resources on his belly, I was not sure what to think about that, but I decided to take it as a praise. In the second half it showed that maybe our team didn´t quite have the stamina to play full 90 minutes against such a fit team, I came on again and had two assists but actually played quite horribly, I was getting tired so I kept fouling the other team, the good thing being that they became scared of me so I had more space. Still we won 5-2 (half time 3-0) and according to the guys this was the first time in more than 10 years that the Jakarta Vikings scored 5 goals in 1 match. Afterwards an amazing hot shower (you are having sexy mental images now, I know you are, yes, you too), then beers and some talks. I found out that one guy played in a squash team, and he invited me to play on monday.
On sunday Adrian left, it was weird I had been with him since the moment I came to Jakarta, we watched football together, went to the office, to the movies, always Adrian there, and now he´s gone... weird, weird... anyway...
On monday I went playing squash... ohhh what a nice feeling, it is amazing... now I just have to get my technique refreshed before the league starts in September.
now we are doing national planning in AIESEC so every day is really packed, that´s why I hadn´t posted anything, but now my lunch is over, so back to planning...
Talk to you guys later,
Go Chelsea players at the world cup!!!!1

Day of the yellow rat

2006-06-16T08:49:00.000Z

So... friday´s here, what a quick week this was...
Yesterday we went to this place where they have created a map of indonesia in a lake and then along the lake there are areas dedicated for each part of Indonesia, with their style of buildings, music and crafts etc. It was really cool, especially when me and Ali went to this bikeboats in the shape of a swan and we started sailing into alot of Indonesian people which looked at us like we were mad (which we were9 then we were called in by the boring supervisors who don´t know how to have a little bit of fun.
But we spent the whole day there and in the night I want and had a dinner with 3 Germans, 1 Indian guy, 1 Dutch girl, 1 French guy and a Chilean girl, quite an international dinner and it was alot of fun making contacts with so many new people.
The world cup is going its course, of course Chelsea players are key players in every team, so it is a pure enjoyment watching.
Now I am sitting at the office not really wanting to any more work today, listening to Stevie Ray... what a nice life...
Yeah... about the title... there are always alot of rats on the road that have been squashed by cars, today I saw one that was kind of yellow... interesting isn´t it?

Day of the humping lizzards

2006-06-14T05:33:00.000Z

Ok, ok, I have no idea where this title came from, maybe my sub-conscious mind has a fettish for lizzard porn, I don´t know... Although I have heard that it is a growing industry in Vietnam.
Anyways... These last couple of days have bee quite cool, on monday we lost the electricity 2 times so I had no internet most of the day, and my work is alot about sending e-mails, writing proposals with stuff I get from the internet, so it was not my most productive date but that was not what bothered me about the lack of electricity. The absolute horror of no electricity here is that the divine air condition simply refuses to run without electricity, even when I asked it really nicely... and not when after 30-40 minutes I started throwing things at it, in hope it would react with a blow of cold air. The office became this sauna chamber and even though I know how incredibly sexy my sweaty body is, then I would prefer avoiding this experience for a while...
So we left an hour early from the office and went to the cinema and watched Omen 666... Behind me sat a guy that was always kicking my seat, and finally after around 40 minutes of my godly patience I turned around to ask him to stop, but he was so focused on the screen that he didn´t see the bold white man turn around and staring at him, so I hit his legs which he had put on my seat, he was so shocked that I though he would start to cry, but for the rest of the movie he didn´t bother me.
I´m not going to talk about the movie since it would be waste of words, only that it has many scenes that make you jump in your seat, I liked that, and only that.
Yesterday was fine, my standard office day, episode of Lost, then I started translating page 2 og Harry Potter, I did in front of the TV to watch the football, and it took me 3 hours... that´s quite a while, but it felt so good afterwards, then I watched all the games, the last game finishes at 4 am (damn time differences)... so this morning wasn´t the freshest of all mornings, but due to my awsomely fresh personality I managed to drag my self to the office and with a big smile I bluffed everybody, I even had some comments on how happy and alive I looked. With my frosen colgate smile I laughed, but inside of me i snorred.
So tonight Germany is playing at 2am to 4 am so I have to wake again... but hey it´s football, and how could the World Cup proceed if I wouldn´t watch, the players would miss me to much...
So from the modest Icelander,
Cheers and beers,

Jakarta

2006-06-12T06:28:00.000Z

So... what has your favorite Icelander... ok ok... amongst your favorite... ok ok... some Icelander with a big mouth, been doing in Jakarta for those 2 weeks?
Well it is a stupid question really, since I know the answer and not you. Why does people ask questions when they know the answers?? I should stop that, makes no sense.
So... First of all I can´t believe that it is already 2 weeks... simply amazing. But I have been realativetly busy, which is great. During the weekdays I am working in AIESEC from 9 or 10 untill around 6 pm. Then I get home, cook noodles, make some bread or a soup, something extremely simple. Then I watch one Lost show before I start reading some self development, project managment or change management books and taking notes. Afterwards I start translating Harry Potter, that´s alot of hard work since I have to look up every word. In the end it is some sit and push ups, shower and sleep. This has been every single work day for me those 2 weeks.

My first weekend I didn´t know what to do. It was quite weird not being busy like every weekend for the last 2 or 3 years. I had no one to go to and nothing to do... so I kind of did nothing for the whole saturday untill the evening I went with Adrian (Mexico) and Yousuf (India) to some bars and clubs, that was great, I even found Icelandic Ice Tea in one bar, I didn´t know that existed. In my joy I felt I had to share this amazing coincident with the bartender, but he had no idea what I was talking about, I guess he didn´t know Iceland is a country.

This weekend I went playing football with Adrian and the Jakarta Vikings, that is a really cool team that consists of 40-55 years old foreigners, mostly managers, lawyers, importers etc. We had an amazing time playing football where I showed them how football is played in Iceland, I had the most goals, but as well the dubious honor of fouling the oponent most often... It was quite funny tackling down a 50 years old CFO of Multi million dollars company, felt quite good actually. Afterwards they explained that the football was the secondary objective of meeting every saturday, the real reason was to drink beer together. We went to the club house where I had the first hot shower since I came here (so nice!!!!) and then we drank some beers before going to a bar to watch the world cup, there those guys kept buying huge ammounts of beer, so no matter how hard I tried to finish my glass it never got empty... on the other hand since I never emptied it I insist that I only had one beer that evening.

Otherwise not much to say, I found out that Sheva (my bathroom lizzard) has a brother, a bit smaller and darker version of Sheva, I think he was on a vacation when I arrived, but now he is always around. I haven´t given him a name yet, any suggestions?
Ahhh... yes, one thing... my Visa card got copied when I was somewhere and suddenly there started to be 300Euros withdrawal every day, always in a different country... And now I have to proof that I was not in these 9 countries on those 9 days. People who do such a thing should get their lazy ass up from their mothers bedroom, stop eating McDonalds and get them selfs a real job or burn in the everlasting flames of hell for doing such a thing to hard working (or in my case, not that hard working) people... at least I haven´t stolen anything!!!

So now I´ll return to my schedual, I put an objective to post 3 times a week now, lets see how that goes. Untill next time, try not to miss me so much, couple of tears are ok but be strong :)
With all my love (very platonic)
Tómas

Forget Asbos. Australia uses Barry Manilow

2006-06-06T05:08:00.000Z

Just encountered this great news story... You just got to love the Australians, how on earth will you have a gang fight wile Copacabana is blasted??? It would just be silly :) brilliant idea

In Britain, the Asbo is wielded to curtail the antics of hooligans. In Australia they have a different, though not necessarily more humane, means of control: the music of Barry Manilow.

For the next six months the ears of the youth of Rockdale, a suburb south of Sydney, will be subjected to the sounds of the singer's back catalogue after the local council resolved to get tough on antisocial behaviour. Councillors hope piping Manilow hits such as Mandy and Copacabana through a loudspeaker into a car park troublespot will kill the atmosphere and force the youths to move on.

At long last

2006-06-02T07:38:00.000Z

Finally, earth has shaken, continents have been crossed, internet access has been achieved, and now it is time for a blog (audience goes wild). I have not had any internet connection untill two days ago, and then I had a lot of stuff to do, then it took me a day to write this long list of bullshit, so please enjoy J

I woke up at the day of departure with two guys in my bed... sounds bad... it is bad... no but seriously it was my friend Sindri and my cousin Gummi which had been helping me formatting my computer and re-arranging stuff on my external hard drive untill 6 in the morning. Well I woke up and went upstairs and decided it was about time to start packing, so I started packing all the stuff and soon I saw that I had to much stuff since the limit is only 20kg so the classical trick of putting everything heavy into the handluggage was used, and ohhh... my god... my hand luggage sure was heavy. I had a nice farwell lunch with my family at a local restaurant (for further details I had a pizza with chicken, onions and pepper cheese and black pepper). After saying goodbye to my family at the airport I walked around the duty free stores, bought some batteries and a one liter bottle of Black Death which I could fit with a big struggle in my overloaded hand luggage.
my CD´s were buried deep into the hand lugage so I knew that for the next 2-3 days I could only listen to one CD, luckely for me the CD was Tom Waits- Closing time, so I could enjoy listening to him around 50 times in a row.

In the airplane due to my late check-in I got an isle seat next to a guy around 40 which had wild gray hair, he looked like a mixture of a crazy scientist and a mad director of a symphony orchestra. The common denominator though is mad or crazy. We were seated next to an emergency exit so the stewardess, true Icelandic beauty, came and explained to us in english how we would open it in case of emergency, i made a couple of humourus comments about that, which she did not find funny at all, and she spent 10 minutes stressing that I was not allowed to open it if there was not an emergency.
After she had gone I asked the crasy gray haired guy where he was from, and he answered me in english, I am German but I have lived in Iceland for 12 year, and you, where are you from, Iceland I answered and after looking at each other uncomfortably for a minute we realized we had been talking english for no reason... all the stewardess fault, I would like to think that she thought the crasy composer was a foreigner not me.

Anway, so my last moments in Iceland were spent sitting next to a crasy German/Icelandic graphical designer. The perfect thing to say goodbye to my lovely rock in the atlantic ocean.

In London I arrived to Stansted airport in the evening and my first objective after getting my luggage was to find a bar... now now... calm down, not for the beer, but to see the final between Barcelona and Arsenal. I asked a guy how much was left and he told me, 15 minutes, so i ran to the bus ticket office and bought a ticket for a bus leaving in 25 minutes. I went and watched the game and right at the final I ran away to catch the bus, I had just witnessed Arsenal win the European championship 1-0. It was not untill a day later that I found out I had only seen the end of first half and that Barcelona had won.

So I took the bus to my lovely airport Gatwick, the memories that came over me when once again I came in there were lovely. I obviously knew my way around there but after a short trip around I took two chairs and created my lovely bed, listening to Tom Waits.

In the morning I woke up at five thirty and after a quick airport shower in a fortunatly wanker free bathroom I went to the Etihad ticket desk to see if I could go straigt to check in or if they needed to print my ticket.

When the answer was, I am sorry Mr. Kristjánsson you do not have a reserved seat on our flights today. My heart stopped, my blood pressure went up souple of knots but the irony of it all was to much so I started to laugh (isn´t that a sign of nervous breakdown?) i told her to wait a second while I would go downstairs to the internetbooth they have there to check my mail for the confirmation number. I opened my mail and there it was a confirmation, flight on the 18th in the morning to Dubai... I wrote down the confirmation number and just as I finished and was about to close the window I saw a minor detail, I was flying with Emirates, not Etihad.

I went upstairs, talked to the Etihad girl and apologized to her and went to the Emirates desk, there everything went smooth and I was on my way to Dubai, the flight over there was nice, half empty plane so I had 3 seats all for my self which is nice… watched couple of movies, played some chess in the in-flight entertainment system and watched Family guy. In Dubai I had over 10 hours wait, so the most natural thing for an Icelander is to search out a bar where he can hang out, so I did. Hidden in a far corner of the airport was an Irish Pub, god bless the Irish. I took over a corner and set up my little office, laptop and external hard drive, all the luggage around me, ordered some fish and chips and a beer. Anyway, I could not get the internet working because I needed to install drivers for my network card and the CD was deep in my hand luggage. So I started writing some stuff for my friend Woodsy, a little interruption to the story here, just want to say a couple of words about Woodsy, he is this jolly good Australian guy that has high ambition, is interested in the human mind and has a big passion for AIESEC, I have only spent 2 or 3 days with the guy but already I count him as a good friend and I know we will meet more than once more in our life, this is a proof of the amazing things AIESEC brings you, anyway after writing some 8 or 9 pages, having a couple of beers, I started to watch Contact. My friend and cousin Gummi had recommended me to watch it, and since I have a very similar taste of movies as he does (except for the movie Equilibrium, I will never accept that as a good movie) i decided to check it out, and yes, I admitt I was wrong (i had said it was not that good) it actually is a quite a good movie and the thought is quite cool. So as the end was coming a group of guys sat in my corner, i finished the movie and then started talking to them, it turned out that they were coming from Afghanistan and were in the Canadian army. After saying a couple of poor jokes about Canada I noticed that they didn´t like it so I said couple of worse jokes about Iceland, they loved it and we had a really nice conversation after that.
On my flight ticket it only said Dubai-Jakarta but in reality this plane went Dubai-Colombo (sri lanka)- Singapour-Jakarta. During the flight I had two guys sitting next to me. I had the window seat and the guy in the middle was from Sri Lanka (I think, at least he got out there) and on the leg over there he slept the whole time with his head on my shoulder (seriously, not almost on my shoulder, or on my side, nono... on my shoulder) I tried to push his head over to the other side but it always fell back on my shoulder... The other guy was from Saudi Arabia and spoke no English, I talked to him in sign language for a minute but then I gave up and watched some movies. When we were closing in on Jakarta we got some immigration stuff to fill out, the poor Saudi guy spoke no english and no Indonesian so he had no clue what to do, in the end he gave me the paper and his passport and I filled out everything I could fill out, and made some parts up... hope he didn´t get in trouble for that.

Well in Jakarta two lovely girls were waiting for me, Goody and Kenny, and they drove me to the guy where I spent the night, thanks Ara for that. In Jakarta there is a constant traffic jam where ever you go, for them an hour drive between places is short, for example the office is in south Jakarta and Ali lives in south Jakarta, it still takes him an hour to drive here.

Anyway the next morning he drove me to this bus company, or mini van company which would take me to Bandung where the national planning meeting was taking place. I was supposed to go with an Indian guy named Yousuf and I called him 20 minutes before departure and he said that he was coming. Then it was 9 o’clock and he ws not yet there, everybody else was in the car and they were trying to get me aboard so they could go, I tried my best to raise some trouble over the ticked succeeded to delay them for 5 minutes but then we went without Yousuf. When we had driven for 5-10 minutes we turned around and picket up Yousuf... Yousuf my man, what´s up with Indians and being not on time??? Anyway, we talked the whole way to Bandung and Yousuf which will be here until April next year as a trainee turned out to be a great guy. We arrived in Bandung, I lost my phone, and I had a doughnut with cheese!!! Weird thing, it really is weird…
We went to the conference and met all the amazing members, the spirit in the plenary was enough to lift up the house and move it to Iceland, but since that didn´t quite happen I was melting like mad, and when they told me Bandung was the cool city and Jakarta would be much hotter I almost fainted. After a great conference I stayed behind in Bandung to get to know the AIESEC people and the city. I stayed at Ferry´s place for a week; he and his family were very nice to me in all ways so big thanks goes to him. We went and saw some tourist places and some museums and I managed to spend some time with the AIESEC people, was present at the planning day for them and it is good to see the ambition and spirit they have, now it is just to turn that into action. While I was with them I tried chicken legs, and no I am not talking about the meaty leg sold at western restaurants, really the leg, the claw it self… that was an amazing experience.

On Monday I got back to Jakarta and stayed at Yousuf´s room for two nights before I got my room. My room is cool, has air condition and a mattress that´s about it, but that´s all I need. More interestingly the bathroom has a Chinese/Indonesian style toilet, so basically a hole in the ground J and no hot water and no shower, to shower I must pour cold water into a bucket, and splash it on my self… interesting, interesting… in the bathroom there are a lot of ants and flies as expected but what I love about it is that there is this little lizard who lives there, I am going to call him Sheva in honor of the excellent signing for Chelsea, Shevchenko. Sheva is a bit shy, he always runs into cracks in the wall when you enter the room, but the funny thing is if he is not close to any cracks he will freeze and be absolutely still until you exit, just hangs there on the wall trying to blend in with the wall… I like him.

Anyway, I will be writing more regularly now that I have internet access… Hip hip Hoorey!!!

Thanks for all the e-mails regarding the earthquake, and the conversations I have had with some of you on msn and Skype, I really enjoy staying in touch with you all.

Some update

2006-05-03T23:05:00.001Z

So... Some people have been bothering me alot, asking me why I don´t update my blog. On one hand I am glad that someone reads it, and even more glad that they like it, or at least pretend to do so in my presence.
The reason why I have not updated my blog is simple, I´m in Iceland...
I realize that since most of my readers are not Icelanders that is quite cool, and stuff I am doing here, like 2 mountain hikings this week, can be interesting for you. On the other hand it is not very interesting for me, and therefore I can not find the urge to write about it. I have no problem writing a detailed description of a man masturbating in a public bathroom at an airport, because that fascinates me (is that a worrying sign?) but writing about my daily life here does not fascinate me in the same way. Also, when I write things I write them in a sarcastic way and if I do that here in Iceland the same people probably knows me since we are a very, very small country so writing about some events here is not such a great idea anyway. But one unnamed friend of mine said that he enjoyed reading my bullshit, that it was like drinkink a cup of strong but funny coffee (I think his cofee machine is broken) and I can tell you that this situation will not last long... I am moving to Indonesia in exactly 2 weeks!!! yes in two weeks the white little nordic boy, raised in a society of no religion will move to the largest muslim country in the world... and boy o boy, I have a hunch that I will find alot of things to write about there. And on the way I will again have to spend a night (lets hope it will only be one) in London and another one in United Arab Emirates so I will keep you updated on that trip.
My preperation is going fine, I finally have my flight tickets, I don´t have the visa yet, but it should be arriving, so things are going good. My first exam is tomorrow, so I am going to play some computer games tonight. I think people misunderstands these exams things... they sit sweating reading some books, not sleeping or relaxing, then they arrive in the exam room, not having slept or eaten for days, over reading them self... it is funny, I have used around 12 hours studying for this exam and I am sure I will do fine, ok true I didn´t attend but 1 class in this subject, and true I have only read the first 3 chapter of the book, and true I am not using these last hours to study, but hey I am over confident and it works :) it´s also more fun like this. University is so easy and dull if you study, it is created for people with minimal brain activity and no independent thought at all. But by not studying or doing anything these exam things become so cool. You have never even seen some of the concepts and you have to think what they probably mean. I love it and normally I score amongst the highest so it works as well. Anyway I will start recommending songs and movies because I´m sure you all want to experience the masterpieces I watch and listen to (or you have free time on the internet and need some ideas about material to illegally download) So the movie I will reccomend is Waiting... brilliant movie, describes the life working at a restaurant so well, believe me, I have worked in those kind of jobs for a long time.
The song must be Letter to my penis http://static.hugi.is/video/swf/dearpenis.swf here you can see this master piece.
so live in peace and leave me alone!!!

Blues concerts

2006-04-15T16:01:00.000Z

I went to these awsome blues concerts yesterday,
what an experience...
First a guy called Fruitland Jackson sang 3 songs, this was such a cool guy, doing old style blues, just him sitting there with his guitar, because that´s how it all started. Amazing to see the passion in this guy, his songs were not that complicated or spectacular, but with the passion he put into it it became magical.
Next on the stage came three amazing ladies from Chicago, Grana Luise, Zora Young and a woman that has visited Iceland on many occasions Deitra Farr. These women are really big, any really like the steriotype of big moma blues singers... they were so big that they always had to sit between songs and it was such an amazing thing listening to their voices, such a strong voices capable of going to the highest tones down to lower notes than I could ever go to.
They sang gospel blues, which is very lively and fun, playing for them were 4 Icelandic musicians, 4 top guys coming from some of the most famous bands of Iceland... it was so nice to see that the house was full and it must show that there is a huge interest for blues in Iceland, even though we don´t have much of it in our culture. but hopefully that will change.
After the concert I met some guys, at my cousins place and we watched Blues Brothers 2000... a must watch for those who haven´t done so already... The movie it self sucks.... but such a great music, and such an amazing artists performing in that movie, you can see B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Erica Baku and more artists that I have forgotten now, but this should be enough for anyone to go the video rental and see this classical movie.
That´s it for now, long live the blues.

Organizing my life!

2006-04-02T17:30:00.000Z

After I got back home from the wonderfull APXDLS it was time to face reality again, and to tell the truth I didn´t quite like what I saw, I am doing way to many things to keep any kind of control over them, I like to think that I am doing fine job in everything I am doing, but fine is not my aim, excellence is and has to be the aim.
I have less than 50 days untill I move for Indonesia for a year, I realized that I had so many unfinished businesses that I could never finish them all if I continued the same way I have been going.
So I decided to see what are the essentials that I absolutely must do before I go out, my first target on the list were finances.
My finances are fucket, I got laughed at in the bank when I said I was moving away for a year, they said it was no way. But after some negotiations we have found a solution but a key factor in that is that I receive my student loan, and to do that, I must pass my classes, which brings us to the second target, school.
My university studies have been remarkable for the fact that I haven´t studied, I know this is what most people say, but my closest friends can verify that I haven´t studied at all, I have never had the books that I am supposed to have, I have never been to more than 5 lectures in a single subject etc. still I got through semester of psychology.
But with the financial doom that hangs over me if I do not receive the student loan, I really must reconsider my study habits and I am forced to not only show up for classes but also do a horrible thing called studying... I know, I know, for some people this sounds as a death announcement of Tómas, but I would like to look at it (maybe just so that I can lie to my self) as a birth of a new Tómas.
When I was 15 years old I took a very conscious decision to strive for excellence from that day onwards and that I was not going to be, avarage, not going to be good, I was going to be excellent in whatever I did, and that I would grab all leadership opportunities that would come my way and strech my abilities in all directions I could possibly see. Year later I was the president of the student council, captain of the debate team, was one of the top 3 students in the class, trained handball, football and even did piano lessons. Since then the ball has not stopped rolling but the problem is that the ball has long ago started running wildly, out of controlle, and no longer rolls in the direction that I set out with, to strive for excellence.
I have been sacraficing my university studies for AIESEC which is wrong, I have been taking on to many diffent councils and boards so now I have no time attending to any of them, and only do what I must do in each of them, and with that strain my time spent in AIESEC is not focused because I am to distracted by all the other stuff on my mind, and also letting internal AIESEC things bother me while I should step above them and leave them behind.
But how to change a thing like this... that was my main problem, and since the day I lost the presidential elections of AIESEC in Iceland, I have been working really hard on finding the path to excellence, creating working and lifestyle habits that lead to excellence. Read and listen to everything I could find about leadership, excellence and succesfull people, because there is a reason why some people succeed while others not.
After all this and with the trip to the Philippines as a turning point, I have formulated a new direction which in short changes what I eat, on what I spend my time, how I spend that time, why I spend it and what I want to get out of it. You can kind of say, that everything you do, be it to speak a word, write a letter, relaxing, sleeping, anything you do must be a step to excellence and improvement of your self, if you are doing something that is not leading to excellence, stop it.
Like eating sugar and drinking sodas... does that lead to excellence... no... so stop it... does unregular sleeping patterns lead to excellence... no... so stop it... does skipping classes and neglecting school lead to excellence... no... so STOP it...
So yes, that were a couple of thought on excellence and how I want to apply it to my life... then the big question is... why am I writing it here, why don´t I just write here, today I went to the countryside, I saw a sheep, it was a brown sheep. The reason is the same as above... does this lead to excellence... yes... how? by writing this down and sharing it with you guys, my friends, the people that matter the most to me in the whole world, I have made this of a much larger committment, so now, if I feel like giving up, I can´t, because then everybody would know I gave up. So, if somebody is still reading, then wow, you are a very patient person, you really care about me or that you have really nothing to do with your time and you should really be doing something else right now.
That´s it for now.

The rest of the travel story

2006-03-30T16:19:00.000Z

Hey everyone,
The reason for the long delay between the last two blogs are that I was in the Philippines at an amazing conference and that i simply couldn´t spend a minute writing a blog (especially since I arrived 3 days late).
Last time I wrote I was stuck at Gatwick trying to decide if i should go in the morning to Abu Dhabi and be stuck there for a day or if I should wait one more day at Gatwick and take it all in one go. Well, in the morning I simply couldn´t stand it no more and I went to the ticketing desk and said that I wanted to go to Abu Dhabi this day instead of tomorrow. Obviously due to te fact that there is a service company doing their ticketing the person at the desk had no idea what had gone on before and started saying that I really couldn´t just pick a date to leave if my tickets were for tomorrow I had to leave tomorrow, I really didn´t have time nor patience at that time to update her fully so I just told her to call Kevin and ask if Mr. Kristjansson could leave today even though his tickets are published for tomorrow. She looked at me partially stunned, obviously not used to have people that knows who her superior is but she picked up the phone and called, maybe because she was so surprised or possibly because I looked quite grim after 3 days stay at the airport. Well, Kevin obviously told her to issue new tickets for me and everything looked ok, but ofcourse, as we have seen throughout this account lady luck was not yet satisfied and decided to put in another hurtle. For one reason or another she couldn´t issue new ticket on my name, the computer system simply didn´t feel like it... then she tried what we all do when computer systems fail us, she tried pressing the keys harder and harder and to her great surprise that didn´t work either. In the end Kevin came over there, told me to go to check-in and when I was at the desk I was to tell the girl to call him, that I did and he probably told her what to do, at least I got to check in. Then I noticed a notice at the check-in desk saying that if a passanger felt that his right had in anyway been violated he should ask for a printout of the passanger rights at the check-in desk or at the gate. I decided that it would be a nice reading during my flight so I asked the girl about a copy of passengers rights, she looked at me quite puzzled, the passengers rights?? she asked me... but I didn´t do anything and the flight is on time she said surprised, well, my flight is 3 days late I answered. She didn´t have a copy (surprise, surprise) and she had to call Alex, the bitchy girl who told me they had closed the gate 2 days before, she asked to speak to me on the phone, and told me that Ethiad was not responsible for the things I had gone thorugh, "well, if that´s true you won´t mind me reading my rights, I simply need something to read in the flight, so I don´t get bored" she said that, yes it was my right but that she didn´t understand why I would want to read it, Ethiad was not responsible. I still insisted on getting a copy and she told me that it might take 10-15 minutes to get it, clearly hoping that I wouldn´t bother to wait. I said that was great and tat I looked forward meeting her. She hung up without even saying goodbye :)
Well, I got my copy in which she had highlighted the parts where it said under what circumstances Ethiad was not responsible, I thanked her for her personal interet in my case but told her that it was not her job to put highlighted parts into my reading materials. For some reason that really got to her and she started a long speach where she talked about liability and that they did nothing wrong, she got so upset that I started laughing at her, and told her that she didn´t need to worry I was not thinking about suing her, but her company, this stunned her enough so I could get away and on to my flight.
About the flight I can not say anything since I fell asleep before take-off and didn´t wake up untill landing in Abu Dhabi. In Abu Dhabi airport i went to the bank to change money but there was no one in the bank so I walked to the informatin desk to ask why the bank wasn´t open, but the person there insisted that te bank was indeed open and that I should just knock on the glass, when I got back to the bank there were group of 4 Scottish people there (you can always smell them) they looked as confused as I was, international airport and the bank closed. So we stood there knocking on the glass with no success, after around 20 minutes a girl,not a year older than 17 came there looking at us like we were a group of maniacs knocking on the window of her empty booth. Well, after after getting my United Arab Emirates (UAE) money I went outside to scout the situation, after 15 minutes of walking and talking I found out I had three ways of getting into town (city) first one was which all the tourists took, the airport taxi, highly organized, english speaking, fast but expensive, the second choice was city taxis that actually are not allowed there so they would drive past in rows and if somebody flagged them down they would stop and pick you up unless a cop (there were alot of them) would start walking towards them, then they would speed away. The thirth option was individuals tanding outside the airport asking you if you needed a taxi and they would take you in their own cars. I am a very stubborn person so ofcourse I didn´t want to pay the highest price as the tourists so I decided to talk to one of these guys offerering their service on the pavement, I found this guy, quite a good english speaker and told him that I wanted to go to Abu Dhabi and how much it would be. 30 Dirhams (UAE currency) he said, that´s half of the airport taxis fare so I considered my self quite lucky and that I had made a good deal, the guy took my bag and started carrying it away from all the cars. I asked him where he was going and he pointed to the end of the car line, as we reached the end of the carline outside of te airport he continued walking and I became quite nervous and asked him again where we were going, over there he said, pointing towards a dark parking lot, had I not been robbed 4 times I would probably have walked with him, and I would say that there is 80% likelyhood that he had his car parked there and that he was going to drive me to Abu Dhabi but these 20% made me nervous, walking into a dark parking space with some guy, and when he asked me if I was alone, I freaked out, said that, no I had 3 guys coming in an hour nd that I hould wait for them, grabbed my bag from him and half walked half ran back to the airport. There I found one of the local taxis, their ride is 40 Dirhams which is quite god as well, I jumped in and the guy took of quite fast to avoid the cops, but as we drove towards Abu Dhabi I found out that he didn´t understand a single word in English, not Hotel, hostel, central nor anything else I tried, he kept insisting on getting a written address (or that´s what I think he was asking for) but i didn´t have any, and just wanted to get to the centre, so after intense 10 minutes of actionary/pictionary i decided to let it go and just see where he would drive me. He stopped in front of this huge hotel, and I just got out since this seemed to be fairly central, judgung by the ammount of lights, traffic and people (I might still have been in the suburbs, who knows). At the hotel I asked a very nice english speaking guy where I could get a hostel, he didn´t know but pointed me to a cheaper hotel, they were full so I just walked around Abu Dhabi for hours admiring this amazing city. In the end I sat down in an internet café and checket hostels.com (very good website, when in need of hostels around the world), but this time it failed me, apparently there are no hostels in Abu Dhabi, the only hostels in UAE are based in Dubai. So as i sat tere contemplating on what to do, I started to chat to the manager of this internet place, he was this really friendly guy and we spent a long time teaching each other words in Icelandic and arabic and getting facts about the countries, then he denied taking any money for my time and called me a taxi to get back to the airport (it was the only solution). So once more I would spend my night at an airport, the airport in Abu Dhabi is a bit special, yes, it is open 24 hours a day, but nothing is happening there during the night, still they have the same ammount of peple working day and night, so as I sat down there starting to read and listen to music i had around 20 people just staring at me for the whole night, it was quite disturbing but at the same time fun (since I like attention). Mid day the following day I got to check in and finally get into the real airport where the shops and bars are, after walking a quick round I settled down at the only bar there (that´s not surprising for an Icelander) and at that bar I met two great people, Caroline and Michelle. Caroline is 21 year old English girl that for the last three years has been traveling around the world, at each place working as bartender and stuff to get money to go to her nexxt destination, now she was going to Nepal, she had so many great stories and I loved listening to her. Michelle (I think it was Michelle, but I am horrible with names) was around 45 years old, working in Kabul training lawyers and judges in the fight against organized drug dealers, sounds like a fairytale but it´s true. before that she had been working in kosovo, she was the real deal, she had even had a rocket shot at her, amazing woman. So my night was spent in a really cool conversations with this amazing people. So I flew to Manila and again I slept the whole way (you get tired of this airport living), in Manila I went throught the slowest immigration process ever, there were around 15 lines there, but they just didn´t move at all. When I finally got through I started looking for some AIESEC people but no one was there, so I bought my self a phone card and called one of the OC girl (organizing commitee). She told me that they had all left Manila, and that I would have to get my self over to the island of the onference my self, that was fine so i took a taxi to the other terminal where i was told I could buy tickets, but there I got two bad news, first of all, there was no flight in that day (they had been earlier) to Bohol (where I needed to go) and that the morning flight was booked so I had to book a afternoon flight. The second bad news was that the flight on the 29th was fully booked so I had to book it a day earlier, the 28th. With those tickets in my pocket I found my self a Taxi and told him to go to Malate pension house. He nodded and drove off, but as I tried to speak to him, I came to realize that he understood no english so I just waited to see where he was going to drive me, he stopped in front of a church. I just took my stuff and walked out, not bothereing to try to explain to him where I actually wanted to go. I started to ask local people and after around 20 minutes I was in the lobby of this pension house (hotel/hostel). I got my room and the first thing I noticed was a large ammount of ants crawling everywhere, to top I noticed a cockroach sprinting accross the room under my bed, nothing like a cockroach to make you feel good in a room. So I took a weird shower in cold ater which barely ran out of the tubes and then went for a walk around Manila, what an amazing city it is, so full of life and people, I absolutely loved it, I travele around in these long type of jeeps where 16-20 people could sit in the back and people just jumped on and of on every intersection. In the night I checket out the nightlife which was quite fun, Philippines girls are verybeautifull and being white there makes you very attractive but I decided to go home quite early since I had not slept in a bed for such a long time and I slept for a good 10 hours. The next day I took a flight to Bohol, in that airport i met this Philippino fisherman which had travelled all around the world, he told me so man cool stories of things he had experienced, quite a reamarkable life he had had. In Bohol i thought someone would pick me up, since I had sent an e-mail the day before telling them when I was to arrive, but when got there, there was no AIESEC people there. I looked for a payphone and when I finally found one he didn´t work, o after asking an amployee for confirmatin I found out this was an aiport without phone and internet, but hey, who needs that when you can send a letter?
I fought my way through a group of taxi drivers which were on the verge of panic attack over the white boy with no transportation. I ran (they were litteraly chasing me) over to this Japanese restaurant. I got to call from there, a waitress let me use her cell phone, but just to top it nobody answered. I started negotiating with a taxi driver over him driving me to a internet place and then to the conference place when I saw a van clearly marked AIESEC driving into the parking lot, I was so glad and walked over to him, he on the other hand had no idea who Kristjansson was or that he was to pick up some delegate, he was here to pick up some OC girls from the ticket office, so finally I got lucky in my unluckyness. When the girls came out of the ticket office we went to the conference site and what a site!!! big congrats for the OC for organizing and booking this place, it was so amazing, this rsort with many small houses facing the sea, an absolute paradise. The conference was great and I met so many great people and learned so many cool stuff that I can´t wait implementing in Indonesia, being part of AP will rock... or like we say... AP hot to go, H-O-T-T-O-G-O a úúú hot to go, a úúú hot to go!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can´t wait getting to Indonesia and working with the people there and with this awsome AP people, so full of vision and passion. Any way, the trip back was cool, have been talking to 6-7 people at the airports, spent 4 hours with an Indian girl here in Standsted, a really nice girl that I will without doubt keep in touch with. I came here at 10:30 and my flight is at 21:00 so that´s a very brief wait on my standards. Looking forward to getting home, finishing my work there and then... Indonesia in the end of May!!!

Freedom of speach

2006-03-22T19:17:00.000Z

So, I am being pressed to change some parts of my travel story, some individuals or organizations are unhappy about my opinion in them and want me to change my blog.
I am being pressured by my own president, it feels so great when your "leader" stands by you.
The funny thing is that I am willing to forfeit my right of opinion and freedom of speach if the person involved just asks me to do it, instead they have went around my back and choose to let other people pressure me and threaten me. I just want your opinion, so please leave a comment on whether I should change it or not.

Gatwick- part two

2006-03-22T02:42:00.000Z

For those who haven´t read the first part kind of have to scroll down and read that. As for those who did read the first part, wow, you really were patient or you had nothing to do :)
So, now it´s 3 am and once again find my self in the sofa which has become strangely familiar, I guess I will miss it after I leave. And when will I leave and end this interesting experiment on living in Brittish airports (I wonder what Martha Steward would say about my set up here). The answer, I don´t know, I have stopped assuming things and will simply see what happens, I might take a plane tomorrow to Abu Dhabi, that would happen at 9 o´clock, but then I will have to spend a day in the airport there (or more accurately 28 hours, which are peanuts for me now). If I do not then I will spend a day here (or actually not here, I´ll come back to that in a bit) and take a plane in the morning of 23rd the problem then is a tight connection flight to Manila in the night. So my plan now is to check out if they let me aboard in the morning, and play it from there, at least I would be half the way then. I just finished a long chat with Mike my friend that lives in the UK (Manchester) and is partially from the US and his mind is partially Afghan, so a bit of a messup like I am. Anyways he offered me to come to his place, and I thought... wow, I´m not going to Manchester, that´s out of the question, but then he told me that the train takes only 2 hours (2 hours and 6 minutes to be exact) and suddenly it became much closer. Had I known that I would had gone there right after the first fuckup, but then again I woudn´t have had this experience and you guys wouldn´t have had the long long blog, which I know entertained some Maltese girls that either fist fight or laugh at blogs describing other people misery, or both :)
My dear friends Fjóla and Davíð (luv you guys) were so shocked by the fact of me eating at McDonalds that they sent me some money so I had an actual dinner, and ohh my god, it felt sooooooooo gooooood, I am still very full, feel like I don´t have to eat for the next week, and no McDonalds for the next month.
I have been talking to so many weird people here, but they are kind of to small to mention, but amongst them is the Scotch man that stands up every 10 minutes and does something that appears to be Mullers excerices, without the naked part fortunantly (I think Muller excercises are an Icelandic phenomena), ahh... one guy worth mentioning, there waas a guy jerking off in the bathroom... and not in a private stall, no sir, right in the main room where the standing things are. He stopped quite quickly after I came in, but thise 3-4 movement I saw were quite enough, and then the fumble to try to get his "guy" into the pants while he was so full of blood and energy proved to be quite entertaining. But guys just remember this, if you have an urge to release some pressure in an international airport, go into one of the private booths!!!
I seem to be fresh out of thoughts, so I´ll let it stand at this, never use Expedia, never jerk of in the toilet, never leave the country without your visa card, never forget your Football manager 2006 CD at home (when I realized tat it was the first time in this trip that I almost started crying), never assume that Manchester is far away and never throw a glass of water on a strong boxer (this one is for Malta).

Gatwick blog

2006-03-21T14:06:00.000Z

Here is what I have written on my laptop since I got stuck here, it should explain everything:

When I am writing this it is 5 am, and I am sitting in Gatwick airport having been awake the whole night. I will now shortly summarise quite an eventful last 18 hours or so.
For those that do not know why on earth I am in London now I will begin from the beginning. I am on my way to APXPRO in the Philippines which is an AIESEC conference for those unfortunate enough not to know AIESEC and our wonderful conferences.
The plan was like this fly on Sunday afternoon to London, go and pick up my tickets in central London, spend a night at Gatwick (I quite enjoy spending nights at airports, you meet such an interesting people), fly to the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi) on Monday morning, arrive in the evening, fly to Manila, the capital of the Philippines in the night, arrive there in the middle of the Tuesday, take a flight there to the island where the conference take place and arrive there Tuesday night. This is a long, long trip and things started going wrong even before I left from home.
First of all the flights to UAE and Philippines were not possible through e-tickets, so paper tickets needed to be sent to an UK address, I got permission to use the AIESEC UK, address and my tickets were sent there, but then the problem was, I was arriving on Sunday evening when nobody would be at the office, and I would be going so early in the morning that nobody would be there yet. So I sent the girl that had received my tickets an email 4 days before but she didn’t answer, so 2 hours before my departure from Iceland I had no idea how to reach my tickets, second problem was that because of an absolutely hectic week I forgot to pick up my new VISA card and therefore I didn’t have a VISA card, I had some money but just enough for everything to run as planned, as if that was not enough of uncertainties I had not been able to book the flight within the Philippines because of an internet problem at home.
Well, hour before I left from home I called the AIESEC office in the UK and a really nice guy answered, he said he knew about the tickets and that he would take them to Scott (president of AIESEC UK) which was facilitating some sort of a seminar at LSE (London School of Economics).
I breathed easier, got Scott’s cell phone number and started packing (you guys know me, no need to start packing until hour before departure). So at 14:00 on Sunday my journey began, and it didn’t get a flying start, as you might know I screwed up my legs in sports 2 weeks ago, the pain was reducing but the last two days it had been coming back strong and I could barely walk to the car, I was already starting to look forward to walking around airports with my luggage.
The flight to London was extremely uneventful and no need to waste words on that, but when I landed walked (or as close to walking as I could) through the airport, luggage claim and went straight to information desk where I asked what would be the easiest way to get to LSE, the lady at the information desk, which had a horribly British face (no offence British girls), had no idea where that was, great information service, so I tried to call Scott, I got no answer and after several calls with 5 minutes intervals I decided to go to central London and work my way from there. I took the Standsted Express to Liverpool street and in he station I reached Scott, I don’t know if I called him in the middle of some act or what but he was very irritated and it was quite clear that he didn’t want to talk to me. I got straight to the point and asked if he was at LSE or where he was so I could come and pick up my tickets. What tickets he asked, well my flight tickets to the UAE and the Philippines I answered hoping that this was a sample of the British black humour, but not reality. He said he didn’t have any tickets and no one had talked to him about it, he gave me the number of another guy who he thought I might had talked to about the tickets that day. With that our short conversation ended and I was standing in the middle of the station starting to wonder what the heck I had got my self into this time.

I just want to stress that I really do like Scott and I believe he is one of the best AIESECers in the world right now, and he is a very intelligent and nice person, I must have caught him at a bad moment, but if Scott ever gets into some trouble in Iceland I promise him that I will treat him a bit better and with a little more interest than what I got from him that evening.
Well, I called this other guy, Mark or Mike, and he answered me and that was not the right person, so I got another number of a guy called Henry which was at the office this day. Henry had his voicemail on so I didn’t reach him and anyway my phone had only one bar of battery left.
I was still quite calm, I am not the type that stresses my self over some minor issues and I am used to getting my way around in different situations, so after a minute of thought and analyzing the situation I knew I needed to get to an internet, find the number of my travel agency, call them, tell them I don’t have my tickets and see if they couldn’t fix it with the airport. So I exit the station and walk to this juice bar and ask the guy where the next internet café would be. He shakes his head and tells me that there are no internet cafes in this neighbourhood but that I can go on-line at the next McDonalds. So the search for the yellow M began and no surprise it was not far away, even though my legs which at this time were screaming with pain felt it quite long enough. At McDonalds my luck continued, the internet was not working and there was no open McDonalds in a walking distance an employer told me (one observation, all of the employers, including the supervisor were Indians, I felt like being back in India). Still, no panic, I had my self a dinner and continued my walk where I met this very cute Russian girl which was also lost, I managed to help her with some coins for a payphone and she helped me by pointing in a direction where she had accessed the internet at some bar called Viper. After this cultural co-operation of two lost people in London I continued walking after her direction, maybe because of her limited vocabulary in English or because of my blindness I got lost and after 30 minutes of walk I found my self in some sort of an industrial neighbourhood where there were no people walking around and the street was not exactly the brightest one you could find. Since I am regularly robbed I became quite nervous but to my relive I saw a little supermarket open up the street, in there two Indians were working (at that point of time I had seen more Indians than Brits in London) and one of them was kin enough to call his friend who ran an internet café across the street that had closed at 17:00, he agreed to open for me, and even though the thought of walking into a locked building with two strangers was not a very exciting one, I had no choice and I followed them into a room where I could access the internet, get the number of Expedia where no one answered. Another point of luck in my trip, I went out again and hailed a cab, I told him a short version of my story and that I wanted to get to Gatwick airport, after him looking at me as a madman and telling me that I was really in a deep mess (I love the support and reinsurance you get from them) he dove me to some train station where I could take an express to Gatwick. As I entered the station they called in the speakers that the Gatwick express was on platform 14, I ran over there and jumped in, thinking that it was about to leave. But, no, it wasn’t and so I sat there waiting for 20 minutes not daring to leave and buy a ticket if it would depart. Thank god, the ticket guy was quite understanding and I just paid him the price. As I got to Gatwick around 23:00 everything was closing so I got my self comfortable (I am lying in two leather chairs, quite comfy actually) and plugged my laptop in the wall and for the last six hours I have been watching Reservoir Dogs (a must see for those who haven’t seen it at least 30 times) Coldplay life and Dave Matthews band life, and playing an intense game of eye contacts with a girl named Sofie who is sitting in front of me (if learn how to put photos in here I will add a photo of her). So at 6:30 I will be going to the office of the airline trying to get into the plane without the paper ticket they said they needed. That is it for now, I will write another up-date from Abu Dhabi (if I get there, that is) and I will put this on the blog as soon as I can get this computer on the internet.

As I write these words it is 20:30 the 20^th of March, right now on local time I should be landing in the UAE, and in real time I should be in the air on the way to the Philippines. The big question then is, why ain’t I in the air, or well, maybe it is not such a big question after all the bad luck I have had around this trip. Soon after I finished writing the first part I went and refreshed my self and put my self in a good state which is always needed when you have to try to get people to bend some rules. Then I went up where all the check in action takes place and went to the Ethiad (my airline) ticket counter. They saw my tickets in the computer but said they couldn’t re-print them since I bought them through expedia.com (to hell with that crappy company, BEAWARE everybody, never ever buy anything through that company of evil!!!!). After being sent back and forth from incapable staff that never seemed to have the authority to do anything I got to speak to the executive manager on the phone while I had the station manager next to me. The station manager claimed that I had to buy new tickets and the liability was mine for not having the tickets. I claimed that under the new European laws on the right of airline passengers it was the liability of the issuer of the tickets that they reach the hands of the passenger, and that was the reason why everybody else used e-tickets.
Then when Expedia finally opened at 8:00 (my flight closed at 8:30) there started fierce negotiations where both sides insisted on that the other had the authority to issue new tickets for me (so Expedia said Ethiad had my money and should issue new tickets, and Expedia said Ethiad had to do it) finally a solution was reached at 8:45 and it looked that I could go, but no!! the damn plane had left the hatch and was on the runway, so sorry for me, no flight. Then another bizarre argument started, they said that since I “missed” the flight that was my responsibility and the tickets were lost and that I would not get a refund.
After threatening lawsuits on the airport (I got to speak to a PR person from the airport it self), Ethiad (for obstructing me on getting on board of a plane I had paid for and they had that knowledge and information in their systems) and Expedia for not fulfilling the agreement of the payment (which included the delivery of the tickets) they suddenly seemed to see that there was a way to change the tickets (I still have to pay a changing fee… well, you can´t win every battle), and then yet another luck came my way, there is no flight until 22nd or 23th… I will get to know tomorrow. So since of lack of money I cant even go into London again so I am living at the airport, it is actually an interesting study, living in an airport for 3 days… kind of mini experience of the movie Terminal. I went downstairs to my sofa and tried to get some sleep, 2 hours was all I got so the whole day I have been playing Risk and watching family guy. Except for two interesting people I just got to write about. As I was trying to sleep There was a guy behind me (our seats were back to back) and he started to sing, or singing is actually not the right word, started making sounds is a more accurate description. He started yelling “ohh, baby, I´ll be yours, I´ll be there for you girl, I love you so” this he repeated again and again, I thought he was singing to his girlfriend so I peaked through the seats as to see if this girl was worth waking me up for, and what did I see… A guy serenading his girlfriend, no, what I saw were two guys, except the girl would had been a professional body builder and ate steroids like Cheerio’s. I sat up to examin further because I thought he might be listening to a cd player, that would partly explain why he might be so horribly out of tune, but no, there he sat singing this to the air, while his friend turned on and of his phone with the irritating Ericson sound coming every 30 seconds… great… The other person I wanted to write about was a bit more, or actually a lot more pleasant, her name is Susan and she is around 65 years old, she and her husband were coming home from a cruise on the Nile, that is so incredibly cool, this is what I will be doing at 65, going to Egypt and just places I want to see. Susan comes from the island of Jersey, ringing any bells? No, not for me neither, she had to explain to me that Jersey is one of the Canal Islands, between France and England. Shame not to know that, I knew about the Canal Islands, even knew they were four, but that one was named Jersey… nope, not a clue. But she knew about Iceland and two years ago they red quite a lot about it when they were deciding between Jamaica and Iceland for their honeymoon, unfortunately they picked Jamaica, but she promised to consider Iceland again next year. That’s an update about this day, I will continue watching family guy and try to get some sleep this night, I have a meeting with Kevin (the Ethiad station manager) tomorrow at 11am and then I should get my flight times confirmed, I just hope I can go the 22. and not the 23rd, I just can’t stop thinking about all the things I am missing while I watch the time pass by slowly!!! I decided only to spend 15 pounds for those two days so it is one McDonalds each day (you don’t need more to eat when you sit on your ass the whole day) 4 pounds for internet so I can reply to the must urgent e-mails, and right now I bought a small beer, if I have ever deserved a beer in my life it is right now, so I end this update with a beer on one hand and under the theme song of Baywatch… I’ll be there, I’ll be there… I thought that was quite 90’s but apparently the people of London are still big fans.

Quick update now that it is 8 in the morning, I haven’t had the meeting with Ethiad people yet but something funny just happened, after a night of horribly little sleep I fell asleep around 3 and woke up at 6 due to traffic of people, not human trafficking but you know what I mean. Well I put on Coldplay and their familiar sound made me quite sleepy so as I was in some sort of a middle stage of sleep and wake somebody touched my shoulders, then again and with the words, excuse me sir. I opened my eyes half confused and saw two police officers, not the friendly street police officers but the bullet proof vested airport type, one of them had a dog that enjoyed sniffing my luggage. I noticed they didn’t have but a small handgun gun so I looked around and saw an officer with a semi-automatic rifle standing around 5 meters away looking intensely at me.
”Sir, the reason why we woke you up is that I noticed you have been here two nights, what are you doing at the airport?” J
I explained in a quick fashion and found out that the officer had just been from Abu Dhabi two weeks ago, so we talked about Abu Dhabi, Iceland and after a brave attempt in writing my address he gave me a receipt for their visit… so that I could prove to any other dog sniffing, semi-automatic maniacs that I am ok. After this they went along and started harassing some black people, and I say this without the slightest prejudges but the fact of the matter is that they stopped by 5 people me and four black people so I must wonder if the airport is giving me some serious tan. Around 5 minutes later a guy in a neon-yellow security vest (with the word security written on the back) sat like two seats away from me, he still sits there, I wonder if his job is to watch me, that would be awesome, well, if e wants to play the waiting game I’m up for it my flight should leave in 24 or 48 hours, if I can see it correctly he is doing Sodoku or Soduko or how ever you say it, the number brain twisters. I have started to grow weirdly familiar with the speaker system and their announcements, last night a guy named Ruis was supposed to be picked up by a representative from a company called Thermomax, they called for 3 times for the representative of Thermomax for Mr. Ruis. I wonder what happened to the poor chap.
These kind of announcements come around 5 times a day, then they call up a lot of people flying to Dubai, it’s always Mr. ??? or Ms.??? Travelling to Dubai, please come to the information desk.
The most common announcements however are the routine ones, played of the tape (I wonder if I could get a copy) my favourite is: “due to security reasons, do not leave your luggage unattended, unattended luggage will be removed and may be destroyed.”
It actually turned out to be quite nice pickup line, I needed to go to the toilet and didn’t want to pack all my stuff which I had spread over my sofa so I asked Sofie if she could attend to my luggage so that it will not be removed and may be destroyed, put a little drama into the word destroyed and it works fine. Well, enough of pickup line lesson which today is dedicated to a crazy Maltese girl, Becky.

So, now I continue writing this bizarre update… lady uck has not exactly been on my side this trip, o no, o no… As I wrote above I had a meeting with the Ethiad people at 11 o’clock, it started great, the transit that takes you between the north and south terminal (it’s a little train) broke down while I was in it (it is starting to be scary how unlucky I have been) and we sat stuck in there for around 10-15 minutes so when I finally got to the south terminal I was way to late (around 11:30) and the guy was gone for a break!! Since I didn’t have anything else to do I decided to wait, and so I waited until 12:05 or there about. He told me he had good and bad news, I asked for the good ones first, I really needed something to sooth my mind. “Well you will have a ticket” he said, I mean common, is that good news, he had already told me that the day before, it was a very stupid good news and I hoped that the bad news would be equally trivial.
”The bad news,” he continued, “ are that there is no flight tomorrow to Manila so your flight is not until the 23^rd” Come on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that means I don’t arrive in the Philippines until the 24^th in the evening… then I have missed 2 and a half day and 2 evenings… just because the fucking AIESEC UK couldn’t get my fucking tickets to Scott and Scott was to damn important to look into it.

Right now AIESEC UK, Expedia and Ethiad are not on my friendly list… An observation I made today while waiting for this man is that almost all airlines (including Ethiad) do not have a ground staff on the airports, the people that introduce them self to you as employers of Ethiad really are employers of large service units like Service Air, or Sky break, these companies train their employees to follow a standard textbook procedures which has resulted in the staff not knowing shit about the airline they “work” for, them not having the authority to do anything if people are not like customer A on page 4 in their manual. It is ridiculous that these service units, which were created to give passengers better service, are actually making things much more complicated. At least there should be a person at the place which has the authority to do something, and if that is not possible, at least have someone that has a clue about what he or she is doing. It would be like for the supermarkets (a job that most people look at as a job that needs no skills) only taught their employees to punch in the products and receive payment by card or money. What happens when someone wants to return something, what happens if a product is flawed, what happens if they ask for assistance to find something, what if they complain? Of course in the bigger supermarkets the employees do not have the authority to do all this, but at least they are told whom they should speak to in each of the above examples. The employees of these service units on the other hand do not have a slightest idea what the fuck they are doing or what they should do when a problem arises. Now I am not only talking about my example, there was a scene I witnessed while observing the people today that struck me as harsh and increased my dislike for these “service” units.

A field employee (just made that name up, she doesn’t work at a desk but walks around the check in area and helps people) brings this Ukrainian girl to the service desk and hands her over to a clerk, she asks the employee that brought her what was the Ukrainian girls problem, the field employee just makes a weird face shrugs her shoulders and walks away. The Ukraine girl was crying and asking “please, please, I need to get aboard” and the service clerk asks her about which plane, if she has tickets etc. and in short here is the deal, yesterday this girl missed her flight, she is studying in the UK but is from Ukraine, her mother was taken to a hospital 2 days ago and the girl had booked flight right away unfortunately se missed it and had to buy new tickets yesterday for the flight today, she stayed at the airport hotel (she could had stayed in the sofa next to me J) and when she arrived today, a hour before the flight she had to wait in the check in line for quite while, when she got there she was told that she needed printed tickets and she should get those from the service agent of her airline, then she had to find which of the service devils was working for her airline, when she got there the employee sent her away with a receipt of some sort, the girl went to the check in desk and surprise, surprise, this receipt was not what she was supposed to get and the check in desk was closing, apparently that ws the point where this poor girl started crying, she asked if they couldn’t let her in, she had bought the damn ticket the day before, but no, they sent her back to the service desk, she was accompanied by this field employee of which I told in the beginning of this little tail. When the girl had finished telling her story the clerk had no idea what to do, she started asking the other 3 clerks behind the desk, no one had an idea what they could do. “If the check in desk has closed then you have missed your flight, but you can buy ticket for tomorrow” the clerk suggested, this made the girl cry even more and she explained that she had no more money and that she needed to get to her mother as soon as possible, after a moment of confusion the clerk started making some phone calls and asking what she could do, after she finally acquired the knowledge she should have had from the beginning she did the first smart thing, she called the boarding gate, when she called they had just closed it, they gave her the number in the pilot pit and as she called there he told her that he would not wait (nota bene she did not explain to him the urgency, just said she had a late passenger wanting to get aboard). So they sent her away, without even a word of sympathy or a suggestion of a solution. So may all these “service” companies crash and burn. That’s it for now.

!!!!!!

2006-03-20T20:28:00.000Z

Hey people, right now I should be in the air flying from United Arab Emerates to the Filippines, but I'm not, I'm stuck in London, when I get my laptop online I will publish the whole story.

How well do you know me?

2006-03-16T03:36:00.000Z

So, I took the challange of my very good friend Rafael Despradel and created a quiz about my self (is that being self absorbed?) :)
So now people go to this link below and answer 10 questions about me, do you really know me???
Find out.

http://www01.quizyourfriends.com/yourquiz.php?quizname=060315223349-969519&&a=01

One more go

2006-03-16T02:13:00.000Z

Once more I will make an attempt to write a blog, now in english so everybody can understand me, sorry guys, no spanish, Icelandic nor Indonesian blogs will appear, although once in a while you might see some frases etc.
I write this to keep my friends around the globe updated on what I am doing and where in the world I am located at each moment in time. There are several exciting things coming up in my life, in 3 days I will be leaving for APXPRO, in the Philippines, what an opportunity that is. I have to act like a little drama Oscar actress and thank AIESEC in Indonesia for this opportunity since I will be their delegate, and the Icelandic export council that pays the bill.
Speaking of AIESEC in Indonesia, that´s another very exciting chapter in my life that will start in late May, I will be moving to Indonesia for one year working in AIESEC Indonesia for a whole year.
I will be writing updates from there throughout the year, but that is it for now, I will try, with emphasis on try, to keep this updated regularly.