How to save money

In Sweden
At the tourist center:
A 3 day metro pass is 200 CHF (~<20 euro)...unless you are 19 or under, and then it's only 120 CHF.
"Oh darn we're 20!!! but we're Asian we look young so no one would care hmm what should we do."
*much discussion about which metro plan to do*
Finally:
"Would you sell us the 19yr old pass?"
"Yeah."

At random train station candy store:
"Wow this chocolate covered marshmallow thing is 3 SEK less than at the real candy store!!!"

In Switzerland at a MAMCO:
"How much to get in?"
"8 SEK (~>8 USD)"
"Is there a student discount?"
"That depends...what do you study"
"Ummm art. . .of course!"
"Ok it's free then!"
("Do you think he knew I was kidding?" "It's hard to tell! He actually checked our IDs!")

Peanut Butter

First jar in Europe.. (they don't eat it here! it's very American apparently! IT'S SO YUMMY, IT SHOULD BE GLOBAL when I grow up I'm going to work for a pb company and globalize it =P but then it won't be as American...anyway)

4 days
2303 calories
shared maybe 300 of them?
2000 calories = a day's worth of calories

That's like me eating nothing but peanut butter for one day and "normal" food all the others.

XP gg

Cycling

I really like biking around now!!!! When I'm not biking, I feel that walking is just so slow, like my legs are SO SHORT and why are they just plodding along when I could just be spinning down this hill. My bike also makes lots of noises, so it's good company ya know haha. Andd, I love the way the headlight works! There's this little thingy and you press it against the wheel and when your tires spin, it generates energy and switches on your headlight! SO COOL, I KNOW. It also makes a nice whirring sound, more friendly noises haha.

In Belgium, or at least here in Leuven, they're very strict about traffic rules, and you HAVE to have a bell (ding!) and a headlight/backlight. But, no one wears a helmet, ever!! Not even the profesh bikers! In Sweden I don't know the rules, but the majority of the bikers had helmets. I wonder why...and I wonder why Swedes like black licorice so much while everyone else hates it.

In other news, I think I have finally closed the window properly after weeks and weeks of cold draft in the room. Except my roommate is still always like...why are you blasting the heat? *glare* She just needs to adjust to the tropical temperature in here!! It's faster to adapt to warmer weather than colder weather which is why she should change her habits and not me. hahaha. :D

Sweden!

It's my last night in Sweden and I'm using a super ghetto computer to type this, although the one next to me is more ghetto. It's REALLY cold here!! And it's only the middle of October!!! And I forgot my scarf lol.

There's candy bins here at every single grocery store and random street. And then there's also flavored cashews aka sour cream and onion aka the best flavor ever!!! So needless to say I've been eating waaaay too much. We went to this ice bar last night and you had to present your receipt to get your drink (mine was a non-alcoholic apple cinnamon juice, it was yummy and you get to drink it out of a square-y ice glass!), and I could not for the life of me find my receipt because I just pulled out one after the other of all the little tiny treats I had bought myself in Sweden so far lol.

Okay people are waiting to use the computer sooo, more later on Sweden! (The subway system here is my favorite everr!)

Vroom vroom

Hiiii guys! My lovely compelled readership of 4 :) The half-marathon was splendidly disastrous haha I felt like a Titanic survivor afterwards!! They wrapped these foil things around everyone, so that's like the blankets ya know, and then they gave us water and these [gross] honey cakes (doesn't that sound so good though?? I was super excited!until I bit into it >.<) aka provisions, and thennn, everyone, or at least >I< felt like I had gone through a traumatizing experience. I was so tired the whole way! I wanted to stop!! Except for the couple kilometers when I was eating a banana that came before km12 I think. :D (most people only got like a 4th but I was able to snatch an entire one ^___^). Ya so..no warmup (I waited too long in line to use the porter potty, aka toi toi here, lol.at least there was toilet paper!) + I am not a morning runner = SLOWWW! Finished in barely under 10min/mi which is rather shameful buttt, I finished yaaay!!!!!!

Today I ate at least 10 mini-plates of pasta from a "career brunch" event, along with at least one of each of these little assorted trays of cookies/chocolate-covered biscuit type thing you know what I'm talking about, where there's either 3 or 4 each and there's form-fitting cubbies for each type. I also talked to representatives from ABinBev (beer company), L'Oreal, ING, and Ernst&Young. They were all nice! It was really nice because I have nothing to lose from this like if I had spilled pasta all over someone then it would have been fine eventually right? I also got a free coffee mug which you can write on with chalk (orange chalk included), a tiny vial of perfume, a 5-color hi-lighter, and a bottle opener with a built-in...USB drive! (didn't see that coming, didja) Now can you match each item to the respective company? (It's very easy if you know anything at all about each...)

Also really exciting, I bought olive oil today! And, Melange de France! Which is a mix of herbs! Which means by default there's gotta be a lot of healthy little bits in there right? Yeeeah.

Hm lots of parenthesis in this post. I guess today is just a side-note kinda night. :) In the past few days I have killed 2 blood-filled mosquitos! Bahaha my poor roomie has a bite on her nose! But I think she accidentally left the window open at some point so it's prob her fault? =P She left to spend the night with her mama 2 days ago and that's when I was bitten. T-T Otherwise, she is very good insect repellent! :D (from my point of view at least hehe)

Tonight I biked to swim practice, even though I left my bike at one of my classes, and I borrowed a bike from this redhead on my hall without noticing that she is more than several inches taller than me so it was rather hard but I managed!

What else, please note: making tiramisu does not require use of an oven! I've made it 3 times (or participated in the making of it) and still, I forgot this the other day lol. Okay well that is all, byeee!

Chocolate Class!!!

Hey guess what! I took a chocolate class with 7 other people today for only 12 euro :D

And ate waaaay too much ie had it for dinner .. basically all I could eat (which is a lot..I actually continued eating after everyone else was starting to be like wow didn't know this was possible but I think I've reached my chocolate limit. In fact I would probably still be eating it now if it weren't for my iron will. hah not.) Then later I had cheese with crackers (need some saltiness to balance it out!). Today is a very healthy day.

I found out these tiny waffles I've been eating are actually 250 cals each lol I was guessing like 100 >.< Ohhh well 8 more left to go XD

SO, chocolate making: first you must melt it at 45 degrees C, then stir in chocolate chips until it's at 32 degrees C. Then you make a little carrot thing that you squeeze chocolate out and make little circles :D

And then the other thing the creme is 150 g heavy cream mixed with 300 g chocolate. Alright well that's all I need to remember.

By the way, today I took a Korean class in Dutch. It was very confusing to say the least.

Do you ever feel like...

You've been let down by everything you counted on happening? As in none of it worked out like you wanted it to somehow? You know which outcomes you wanted but real life refused to follow the script. What are you supposed to do? Curl up in your bed with some chocolate. Or just keep going and just keep hoping, and possibly keep getting disappointed.

Today was another beautiful day outside, until now - the weather here is like a little kid: okay I've been good all day, time for some rain! XD

Not even my hair will cooperate with me.