M.I.A, having so much fun in Geneva!

Will update more when I get back to Dundee tomorrow for yet another ramapant thumpingly happy evening!
I arrived in Geneva on Monday, Annuka showed me the ropes of the town, we bought awesome pistachio macaroons from Manor, my favorite ginormous compartment store ever!
Things aren't expensive here compared to Sweden because the Swiss franc is rather low, but it is compared to the Scotland.
Then later that evening we went to Café du commerce and had cheese fondue with Flo, one of Annuka's awesome pink friends. Later on others joined, they were ace! Momo is probably one of my favorites. Daniel is rad too! The language barrier is a slight problem because there is an overload of French language that otherwise wouldn't be a problem to understand, but it's just a lot, and I've been ill, my sinuses are swollen and nasty, my body has had a hot sweaty feverish glow. So, with some I speak to through translation. Quentin speaks as little English as I speak French, or probably less.

On Tuesday, Flo drove us to Verbier, we were joined by two friendly blokes (skiers) so I wasn't alone on skiis. Annuka and Flo Snowboarded. Need I say it was amazing? I have missed skiing so much! And the snow was far better than when I visited Verbier last year. When we went home we went to Café du commerce again, and probably had the best night ever, a lot of "brilliant" expressions were coined.

On Wednesday we had amazing sushi with one of Annuka's smartest close friends. Annuka values peoples intelligence according to how many points they got in the IB. I bought pistachio milkshake at McDonald's! Then we met up with Momo and Sarah to go to Mamco, the modern art museum, bumbed into Zito (who's in the Postmen). It was good fun but mainly because they were acting silly. After this we bought macaroons, Sangria, white wine, and raclette cheese at Manor to prepare for the party!
At the party yesterday evening I met most of Annuka's good friends and had some great conversations and endured lively festivities. It ended rather late, everyone but us had to get up early the next morning, so Annuka and myself felt raher lucky.

Today, we've just walked the dog, freshened up, and now were ready to hit the town for dinner and a Postmen's concert, how awesome!!

I'll post the millions of pictures when I'm back tomorrow
Cheerio!

Reunion with Claudette

It was awesome. I haven't seen her for ages.

We had beers at GP with Glenn, 0ur old art teacher, scribbled down citations from Yeates, strolled around in town, stayed up late, woke up, walked into town, ran into an old classmate turned super-polished like silicon in between the tiles, ate lunch at K&co café, looked at the ice breaking in opposite directions as the boats cleaved their way through, said good bye for today.

Tomorrow evening yet again we will have good times in Copenhagen before I scurry on to Geneva on Monday morning.

Here is the photo summary:

At the bar for some more Crush cider

At GP again, the best pub in town

Where Glenn is a regular, and we stayed after closing

but got kicked out soon enough:

Walking the scenic way home, reliving old memories!

Heavenly stairway:

After waking up today, eating lunch at K&co:

Have you ever seen paninis like these?

They were seductively delicious

I was content, and more alert than this implies:

Beautifully hypnotising movements of ice, helicopter platform-sized ice.

Glögg & Semlor

The fat man's path:

today's semlor

new planner bought at the museum and the pen I accidentally brought home from a party:

and yesterday's glögg (at Alexandra's)

Gym: 1745

Hidden Camera & Modern Art

Today I went to Lousiana (the Danish Art Museum) with my ma on her day off, to go check out some jazzy fluffy stuff in the cold harsh weather.

Anselm Kiefer was half great half pretentious laziness. He made a big book "as a symbol of knowledge" and "you can know so many conflicting things" (yes, I love paraphrasing). Well, yes and your point is? It was very self centred only exploring himself and his heritage, obsessing about Nazi's, power and what is German (he's German), just incredibly egocentric. He had a series of pieces that he called "Herioc Symbols" where he travelled around to different cultural places in the world taking photos of himself doing the Nazi gesture of raising your hand straight out in the air, and made paintings of this. Horrible sloppy paintings of himself "heiling" in different places.

You see my point...

This is how it the lazy filler-pieces were justified:

"When the artist stands in the bathtub, as if walking on water, with his hand theatrically raised in the Heil Hitler salute, he picks away at a past of which he has no first hand memory. And at the same time the work carries the past and the tainted gesture into the present, to where we stand now. It was crucial for the young artist born on the losing side, in 1945, not only to confront the future, on which so many were taking out patents, but also to create a kind of living memory of the past." Overall valid points, but yeah right the author was working from this perspective...

The Walton Ford exhibit on the other hand, ticked all my boxes! Stunning larger than-life sized water-coloured animal portraits! Yeah it may sound daft, but it was incredibly well thought out, such great detail, made to look antique in style with relevant literature referencing (in the style of James Audubon), reflecting human acts and traits, and finally, grotesque up close when you realised what was going on.

The day in photos:

Before going to the Museum we got some pizza,

because the museum food is too healthy

Mom drinking some of my 10.6% beer

The walk from the train station is full of fancy trees

More fancy plants at the entrance:

The classiest "sale"-sign I've ever seen in my life:

I was so sneaky with the camera, I knew it wasn't allowed

Hence the awkward angles..

Anselm Keifer's cooler stuff, worth sneaking around for:

After this photo, security told me photos weren't allowed:

Cheeky intermission art, in between the galleries:

Walking through tunnels and down stairways looking for the second show

"I don't look at art, I am art"

Finally after walking through this labyrinth we got to Walton Ford!!!

Again, a very spacious exhibition layout

And I thought I'd wrap up with a full-stop.

Artsy Fartsy vs Violent Apathy

Came home from town, here's my fancy schmancy outfit I was wearing:

Aphex Twin?

Tomorrow we're going to Louisiana (in Denmark) to check out the ace exhibitions and eat really healthy museum food. Last time I was there everything had a low GI-index and it was all fresh spinach and arugula (I just learned a new word in English! The other day I learnt Jerusalem artichoke - yeah most British folk probably don't know what that is, avoiding crazy healthy vegetables as they do)! And you're wondering why Scandinavians tend to be more fit than Dundonians! Yeah only eat food that will do something good for you and your body.

Fish and chips = not the answer.

I want to go cross country skiing before the snow disappears! It's scary though. My mom's good at it, but we only have one pair so it's all a transfer of theoretical knowledge! Soon I'll be testing the slopes in the Swiss Alps - hey, alpine skiing I can actually do!

Anyway, this evening my eyes were burning, maybe from last night or maybe because I'm not exercising enough! I walk to and fro the pub though. It was quite cool but there were distractions other than an eye on fire: adhering to bathroom girl-code (which means: forced in the room with someone you don't know well enough), and pervs that call you shy but really you just don't want to talk to them or look at them at all.

I was fairly pleased with the decision of not going to the nightclub Tempel. Save it for Saturday.

But I got dressed up and that, I was wearing a tight Karen Millen dress after stuffing my face with tacos, it was uncomfortable since that dress is so tight it makes you feel full on its own accord.

Let's go to bed! Goodnight!

At the pub GP once again (photo James R)

Beer Time

Yesterday's pub time met up with my childhood neighbour first:

Stella in the blonde. Emma in the brown, Johanna the redhead.

Mike:

Then we went to Utposten with Maja and co.

Old school friends and met Maja's British boyfriend!

Maja Miss Business Woman, Chris and Mike:

Old, old school mates,

Gustav (who studies in Uppsala and Jenny in New York)

Then we had to leave as the pub closed at 1,

the lovely couple walked and myself walked home

It started snowing again!