I'm back!

I haven't forgot you. I know it seems like I have, but I haven't. I'm back bitches, and this is what I've been doing for the past 10 days!

SPAIN!

Playa del Ingles was absolutely amazing. The temperature was just perfect, it wasn't cold, but it wasn't so hot that we were half dying on the beach, secretly wanting to go back home. We had some days of less good weather, the day we arrived it was actually raining! However, I'm sort of glad it did because it gave us the chanse to walk around townand get to know the place a little before spending the rest of the week lying spread eagled on the beach. We also had a day where we could hardly see the sun for all the clouds, so that day I decided that sun cream was unnecessary. Do I need to mention that I was so sun burned that I didn't sleep much the following night? Probably not.

Yep. Sun burned, alright! Apart from the places where my sun glasses covered the skin, of course, making me look like a reversed panda.. Anyway! See the necklace I'm wearing? IT'S A DRAGON! I got it at a jewelry store in Playa del Ingles and his name is Norbert. He's a Norwegian Ridgeback and if that makes you think that I'm the biggest Harry Potter geek you've ever met, then that sounds about right.

We didn't actually do much, we didn't go on any excursions or anything, we just relaxed and recharged batteries, but that's really all I wanted to do, just get away from everything and not really need to think about anything at all. We ate a lot of good food, got tanned and read a lot. It really was all I wanted it to be. Happy with the way the trip turned out!

Outside the hotel, the day we left.

Since I came back, reality has given me a shock or two. I'm having some issues getting enough modules for next year, because I've already done three of them. However, if I don't do 8 modules next year, I won't get funding from Norway to study the year after and since I don't exactly have £10,500 to pay for tuition myself, that could be a problem. Worst case scenario, I'll have to take a gap year between next year and the year after to make enough money to pay for everything, and I am definitely not prepared to do that!

I've also kind of been let off from work. I haven't been fired, I haven't quit, but they simply don't have room for me anymore. I do understand it though, sales has quadrupled since september when we changed the consept of the restaurant and since I'm not home that much, my skills are a bit rusty. They have a team of people that work well together and that makes things run smoothly and I completely understand that that makes my boss reluctant to change things, since they are already running so smoothly. In other words, I'll get called in in an emergency when nobody else can work, but I can't rely on that for money until September, so I've started looking for something else to do. The plan is to apply at the store across the street, which is a food store like Sainsbury's and M&S, my boss where I've used to work knows  the guy who runs that store, so he'll give me a good reccomendation and I'll hopefully be able to work there! I'm also applying to a gas station in the next "town". They make fast food and stuff and I have a lot of experience in that area, so hopefully I'll get that as well and I can work my ass off all summer! I really do need the money because I think the money I get from Norway to cover tuition and rent and everything this autumn might be a little short, since the rent is more expensive and with bills and everything, I really need a buffer to fall back on in case it isn't enough. Grown up points? I think so.

Today, I'm taking on the role of telephone lady. I have a lot of stuff to work out and hopefully I'll get through them all today. The good thing is that since my brother is at school an my mum is at work, I have the house all to myself! Oh, and my dad comes home on the 30th! I haven't seen him since I drove him to the ship on the 2nd of January so I'm really looking forward to him coming home! I'll probably cling to him like a dog to its owner for a while, but I'm a daddy's girl, and I think he appretiates the fact that I like spending time with him when I have the chance, so that's alright.

Right, I think that's enough rambling from me in one go, don't you? Yeah, thought so.

First run in months!

I know people who constantly brag about their workouts online are annoying and shouldn't be allowed to have wifi, but I haven't been for a run in months, so I feel like I have an ever so tiny right to brag at the moment. It's 2.30 am and I just got in the  door, sweating and panting. I've been out for half an hour and my legs feel like they're made of led, but it's a good feeling. I mean, a 30 minute run at 2am is better than no run, right? I think so. I know 30 minutes isn't that long, but if I can get out and jog about 3 times a week, it should improve slowly but steadily. I also think that if I go all in and try to work out every single day, I'll get tired of it and quit. However, if I take it slowly, it'll become a habit and a lot easier to keep to. Everything in moderation, right!

Hopefully, I'll be able to work out at the gym where my mum works when I get home for easter and I'm thinking about getting a membership at my old gym for summer holiday. They do group workouts that are really good for your whole body and I kind of miss that! I honestly don't think I've ever been so out of shape as I am now, so it's really time to get my ass off the bed and start doing something. The ones who followed my blog at the beginning, will perhaps remember that I did a 30 day challenge. Well, that went south. I kept going until Kristine came to visit and then I forgot about the whole thing. Hopefully, I'll keep going the way I have for the past week with less sugar and soda, more water and a bit of exercise every now and again, and my summer body should be fit and trained for 2054 (not setting too high hopes for myself, haha)!

One reason why I'm looking forward to going home is that food is expensive. And I don't mean annoyingly expensive like diesel is, but fucking EXPENSIVE! I've always heard grown-ups complain about it (I don't count myself as one yet, no), but I would have never thought that food was this expensive until I actually moved out. However, what I'm really, really looking forward to is fish. My dad works at a fishing boat, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, and we get all the fish we need and more, for free and I can't wait to have a proper fish meal!

Maybe it's time to go to sleep now? Me and Liva are going into town tomorrow and then going to the library. Again. It'll be the 6th time in a row, but I think we're getting close to the end of our workload now. I have about 800 words left on the essay that I'm working on and then I have another one at 2000 words that seems like quite an easy one, and then it's easter! I don't know if I've mentioned this on the blog before, but I'm going to Spain with my mum and brother during easter, so I'll hopefully be nice and tan when I get back!

Definitely time to go to sleep now. Hoping I won't be too stiff and sore tomorrow!

My days with Kristine!

I know I haven't been writing a whole lot lately, but I don't have that many readers anyway, so I hope not too many people have been upset.

Anyway! the last few days has been a lot of fun. Kristine and I went to Southampton to shop, we went out drinking (she and Liva drank while I watched haha) and we've been out to eat, a lot. As I've already said (I think), we went to Southampton to shop on wednesday, which were a lot of fun, I think we probably cleared out about a quarter of all the clothes in Primark, haha! We went to Nando's for dinner that day, and if you read this, Sharleen, you are right, Nando's is heaven on earth!

In Southampton I also had my Conch pierced (I think I might have mentioned  this before), but because my phone has decided to act like an idiot, I can't show you a picture, unfortunately.. Some day, when I get a phone that works properly, though!

Wednesday night, we had a quiet night in my room with some girl talk, facials and other stuff. Lots of fun and the sort of thing I wish we had the time to do a bit more often, just hanging out looking horrible together! 

Thursday, we went to my lecture. It was fairly interesting, to be honest. It was about female criminals and how they are treated very differently to male criminals. The bad thing about the lecture was the fact that the lecture room was so hot you could fry an egg on the chairs in there.. Anyway. Afterwards we went home to mine to get ready and go to the pub. Kristine got to meet some of the very, very special people that hang around in there sometimes as well as some of my closest friends. All in all, a good night, I think!

Me and my ginger before hitting the pub! 

We also went to Southampton saturday night for a night out. We started at the Hobbit, a bar that's inspired by the Lord of the Rings. They have 8 pint sized drinks named after characters and such from the movies and it seemed like a really fun place to hang out! I had a Gollum, which was really good! I'll write down the recipe for it in the end of the blog post. We then went wandering around looking for a couple of places that Live had been reccommended, but we couldn't find it and ended up getting the bus to the train station and then we went home to Winchester. Finally back, we headed down to Alfies, one of my favourite pubs in the whole world! We had a lot of fun and I love that Liva, who's one of my best friends in England and Kristine, who is one of my best friends in Norway, went along with each other so well! I love them both to bits and being able to hang out with both at the same time was amazing!

At Alfies, you can buy these wristbands (the pink one was for last semester, the blue one is for this semester) that gives you a lot of great discounts if you show then to the bartender when ordering drinks! I'm collecting them, haha!

From saturday when we went out in Southampton. 

This is the dress I was wearing! Got it at Primark in Southampton, 

think it was £7 or something. 

Yesterday we didn't really do much. We ordered some food for breakfast and then we slept for another 2-3 hours. I was really tired since we had been up all night and Kristine was really hungover, so it took a while before we were able to function properly. However, when we finally did, we went down to Queens to ask Liva if she wanted to hang out and then we went to Wetherspoons to have dinner. They have the most amazing double bacon cheese burger and I know that I'm supposed to be eating healthy and all, but I really needed that! When we finished dinner, we went down to Alfies again just to hang out and wait for the coach that Kristine was getting to Gatwick to get there.

All in all I've had some really great days with some of my favourite people, so I'm very happy at the moment! Really looking forward to visiting Kristine for a few days in Oslo before going home for easter, we are going to see Oslo Ess live at Rockefeller, it's going to be AMAZING! We've been to see them once before and they have jsut come out with a new record, so that's going to be one fantastic night!

Today I've been trying to be a bit productive. I've cleaned my room since two girls in a single room creates a lot of mess. I started taking all my clothes out of my closet to fold them so that they'll be easier to find in there when Liva sent me a message asking if I wanted to go to Cyber Italia with her around half 5-6. I then abandoned the clothes on the floor and went to make dinner. I thought I'd post the recipe for this amazing little dish on here, so that you guys can try it out for yourself, because this is simply too good to keep to myself!

Looks amazing, right? It was! 

Chicken stirfry with mango chutney sause

What you need (2 portions):

Stirfry

1 pack instant noodles, chicken flavour
4-500 g chicken filet
300 g oriental stirfry mix (peppers, onion, sweet corn, bean sprout, sweet peas)

Mango chutney sause

2-3 tbs mango chutney
4 tbs soy sause
2 cloves of garlic
1/5 lime
rosemary
ground cumin

What you do:

• Put on the noodles like it says on the package.
• Dice the chicken filet. When you're done with this, the noodles should be done (especially if meat knife is as dull as mine..)
• Cut up the garlic and mix with mango chutney, soy sause, the juice from the lime and spices in a bowl. Put the vegetables into the bowl as well and mix it all.
• Fry the chicken in two batches in a frying pan until it's brown and crispy. when the chicken is done, put it in a pot.
• Put the vegetable mix and noodles together in the frying pan to mix it and heat it up a bit. When you've done this, if your frying pan is big enough, put the pieces of chicken back into the frying pan to mix with the sause and vegetables. If your frying pan is the same size as mine (too small, that is), put the vegetable/noodle mix into the pot with the chicken to mix it.
• Serve! 

If you want to serve it with a really cool drink, here's how you make a Gollum! 

This is what you need:

Bols blue

Orange juice

Sprite or lemonade

Ice

Here's what you do:

• Put ice in a big glass (pint)
• Pour 2 oz (or as much as you want really) of bols blue into the glass.
• Throw in some orange juice until the drink has a lovely green colour.
• Top it all with lemonade or sprite.
• enjoy! 

Right! I'm heading down to Cyber Italia with Liva in a little while, so I'm going to put my face (mu make up) on and then go do some real work. 

TGIF!

Hi!

It's friday, it's nearly weekend and it's a good day. Not that I'm really that desperate to have the weekend off, I only have lectures mondays, thursdays and fridays, so I can't complain, really.

Todays lecture is Key thinkers and themes in conceptualicing Crime (or something like that). It's a fascinating lecture, but they all pretty much are, so I'm lucky in that sence. When I went to VGS in Norway ( the last three years of school you go through before being shipped off to uni), we had classes all day, every day. Some classes were a bit interesting, so those were worth going to, but take for instance the teacher we had in Norwegian. She loved hearing her own voice so much that she once spent 20 minutes explaining that she "didn't talk that much, really" I think we agreed after a while that the most likely explanation was that she had a broken fuse or something, but I can tell you this: Norwegian class made the week seem three times as long as it actually was.

Anyway. It's nearly 1pm, which probably means it's about time that I get out of bed and make some breakfast, my stomach has started making noises.

This is my favourite breakfast in the whole entire world!

1 Banana
1 Apple
1/2 Mango
10 Grapes
6-7 Strawberries
3-4 tbs low fat vanilla youghurt

Cut the fruit into pieces, put it in a bowl, cover in vanilla youghurt and pour yourself a glass of orange juice. That's more than your 5 a day covered in one meal!

Right. Time to put on some clothes, splash some makeup on my face and start the day!

- Hannah