I will KFC you to death - An American Horror Story by Claire Newton

***Disclaimer***

Before you start reading, let me clear one thing. This post has nothing to do with the tv-series AHS. Roger that? Nice. Keep reading, except maybe in case you are American. Then close your browser window, forget about this article and go play some Farmville on Facebook.

My name is Claire. I’m the one who wrote the letter mentioned in this (post/place link) and the one you probably blame for not letting Kostas abandon his writing career and save his readers from their misery. Just kidding. Go! Go! Kostas. Keep writing.

I should also mention that I’m a brit-greek, with a morbid combination of the worst qualities from each nationality which makes me a really difficult person. Don’t ask me where I got my honesty and self-criticism, cause I’ve no idea.

Now that I’ve (poorly) introduced myself, I’ll tell you that recently, 16 long days ago to be exact, a Turkish Airlines plane carried me away from home to a land of walking brain dead and moving fat. My 2 hours waiting time in the airport of Istanbul, where the security checked mostly non-muslim passengers and ignored the rest, was my last contact with civilization. My arrival at the Dulles International Airport was the beginning of a long journey in the zombie land.

Prologue

The United States have always been projected as the land of freedom, of democracy, of limitless opportunities. The American Dream is their main export product, the drug they sell and Hollywood is the dealer.

For many years, I thought part of this dream, was actually true and possible to obtain. I say “part of it” because my father made sure to open my eyes every time I was misled, but still, dreams are dreams, they are nice and lovely and pink and fluffy and you can easily believe them even when they stink like horseshit.

My first realization came back in 2010, with my first trip to the States which lasted exactly 28 days. I wrote 2 blog posts for my own blog back at that time under the titles “American Dream” (part 1 and 2). Now that I think of it, I should re-title them “28 days after”. I think it’s proper.

Now, 5 years later, my social experiment is in Phase 2, as I like to call those trips. This time, the unfortunate (crazy) scientist will have to endure not 28, but 88 whole days in this cursed land, where the only true god is Lord Dollar.

After already 17 days, I’m in position to share my first scientific observations with the rest of the world.

Firstly, Americans don’t know how, or what, to eat. They spent a massive amount of money or buying crap. Seriously, they have huge supermarkets where you can find long aisles full of pre-cooked or frozen or ready quick meals, cheap and easy. Cook in the microwave oven for 3’ and eat your shit. You can buy fresh meat of course but if I got it right, they don’t even know how to f***ing cut it! Like, most of the meat pieces were cut like steaks. FFS people.. There are normally, NORMAL people, who actually shop and cook their meals, which is the hard way, but from what I saw, the majority here, choose the easy way.

Secondly, you pay a handful of bucks for the cleaning lady once per week. And while you wait for the cleaning lady, with your dirty clothes making a pile on your fancy walking closet, your house stinks like the horseshit I mentioned. Especially those who have a pet, a dog or a cat, their houses smell like a stable, at best. A house in which if you accidentally hit the wall, you’ll open a hole bigger than your punch.

And don’t get me started about paying someone to do a 1-hour-gardening-job because you are lazy and want to sit in front of a TV for 1 more hour.

Also, people here spent their time at the mall. They don’t have what to do, so they go shopping, or window-shopping, or whatever in a mall. Go fuck yourself at the mall. Go fuck your cat at the mall. Are you bored?? Go to the mall!!! Don’t you have something interesting to do? Go to the f-ing mall!!! That’s where you go when you’re bored. That’s what you do when you have free time. Take your kids to the mall!!!! 

That’s all folks, I have 71 more days and a lot of venom to spit. Stay tuned if you want another sociology lesson.

P.S. I’m not sorry for the long post.

P.S. Sorry i kept you waiting Kostas. You can take an American potato.

 

McFat.

Smoothie rakas is smoothie

The past 20 days since the last post have been hectic and the upcoming week is about to get even worse but finally i found some time to write. Or i think i looked back and reflected and i finally have something to write.

We spent a lot of time in class building hydrological models and simulating various things such as net radiation or relative humidity but the most interesting part of these courses but also the most time consuming both physically and mentally was the field work. As usual the teams were completely random. And by random i mean the same people were in the same groups...It's hard to infiltrate groups of people that grew up together and studied in the same masters. So i was left with Fabian, Shahar and Paulina. Fabian is not what you would call my best friend but he is very smart, hardworking and efficient. I would pick him in a group any time. Paulina is more or less the same and she really likes her Excel files to be tidy and compact.

During the field we had to be in that farm for hours. Building, measuring, walking like little robots around the pumping wells. The Groundwater modeling course was completely disorganized. We had to improvise in order to measure things like water discharge and use crappy equipment but i guess it is a good thing as you have to be creative and get the job done. The first time the weather was crystal clear and warm. As i was moving the equipment back to the university provided van i stopped dead on my tracks.

Sometimes when i look around this country i am awed by what i see. Sweden is truly an extraordinary place to live both as a society and as a testament to Earth's natural beauty. And that is exactly what happened here. An endless sky of light blue with clouds in any kind of shape that looked distant and otherworldly. They stood there in formation like a thousand battleships straight outside a science fiction movie. I gazed there in awe with my jaw dropping while i caught myself saying "Wow dude, you live in an amazing place". Scenes i had only seen in movies, pictures or video games. And since then every time i look up i feel like we are in a little tiny ball and our town is shrunk and the sky and clouds reign supreme and massive like a juggernaut above us.

A friend said that the windows XP background picture was taken in Sweden. I believe that.

Good times. Then we entered the small abandoned meteorological station. A dusty old house with leftover equipment and signs of previous life. It looked and smelled like a bunker from World War II. It also had one of those old hippies Volkswagen vans that was there for years and you could see the stickers on it from its past travels all around the world.

The next week was even more stressful. Jasper, the dutch guy that wrote the previous amazing article about making beer from dinosaur bones was arriving and i promised to show him around. On the same time i had my essays. Not only that but i was also supposed to babysit Shila, Mr. Andrea's cute little beagle (flight ticket pun intended). She is totally the best person i have only met 3 times. Also my fox was arriving one day later which made for a really action packed schedule. But first things first.

Say hi Jasper!

I met Jasper in our department at the Geocentrum after class and i quickly showed him around. I learned he found an overpriced home to live but i guess it is a good start as housing is a real issue here. I also introduced him to our supervisor Susanne but none of the other classmates because when i tried, frankly they didn't give a fuck. Oh well. We headed for the Evolutionmuseet of natural history but it opened at 13:00. So we went to the cafeteria where i found a baboon, a guy that dresses like a woman recently, a guy that i was not sure he still existed, a guy with rotten potatoes for hair, a guy i had met but had no idea and a girl that had too many tequila shots in Snerikes last night. The baboon was no other than Holger and he made fun of my clothes telling me i looked like a sitcom guy from the 80's that wears this clothes to get laid.

"In that case i should lend you my clothes so you can get laid finally too". Always prepared to strike back. Everybody laughed except from the Belgian hangover girl that was sleeping on the table.

Afterwards we went to the Swedish and Scandinavian fauna museum followed by the dinosaur museum. I hoped to see more dinosaurs but there were these amazing Pentaceratops and T-Rex skulls that i could fit in their mouth and sleep it was scary and also awesome. Jasper took a thousand pictures it was like his favorite playground it was nice to see that. He also knew many of the bones names and anatomy so i am sure he will have a great time in the Paleobiology master.

We went to my place to check on Shila and take her for a walk as we were supposed to pick up a temporary nation's card for him. It was so funny when Shila was in the house for the first time she barked and the girl that lives across the hallway asked me:

"Kostas did i just hear a dog or did you bark and i am going mentally insane?"

Hilarious. Anyways we headed out and it started raining but i still had to show Jasper around. We went to the center, we ate some dirty food from MAX's and i showed him the student nations. Time passed, the rain was soaking my clothes and we were greeted by even worse news as it is virtually impossible to bypass Swedish bureaucracy. Jasper was denied a temporary nation's card as his evidence of being a student was not enough and he is admitted officially from this September. Understandable but bullshit if you ask me. He said that in Amsterdam you would be welcome with open arms. I had to get back home so he decided to hang out in Palermo where he met a retired Finnish professor and another guy and at least had his fun.

Back home Shila was like a wet cloth. I took the hair drier and cleaned her up. She fell on the ground like a dead cockroach enjoying the heat of the drier. I love dogs. I slept and slept and slept because the next day the fox was coming from Finland. In the morning i made a mistake and as usual i made a mistake and went out for a walk 1 hour earlier than i intended. That meant a huge walk in the park with Shila and the consumption of 2 ice creams and a bar of chocolate.

#Instabeagle.

Shila is not really fond of buses and i m surprised she was so quiet in the bus ride to Arlanda. As i entered terminal 2 there was a girl looking at me and Shila all the time smiling. So i did the responsible thing and let her pet her. She was really happy and then her boyfriend arrived. I said bye and waited for the fox. She had a terrible packed flight full of screaming kids so we just took the bus back home.

The next 4 days were simple really. Take Shila out, watch a movie, go out to Storken's for fika, leave Shila to the next babysitter, watch some more movies and eat ridiculous amounts of candies. Ahhh the perfect life. It is also worth noting that we went to the O'learys Irish pub in Uppsala and had the best fish and chips and cheeseburger with BBQ sauce ever. It is expensive and you will pay an arm and a leg but every once in a while or even if you are just a sports fan its a great sports bar.

Don't mind me just taking my Shila out for a walk.

On Monday the little coconut left so i was back to square one with my only company being Twitch, the death of Murllll in the Outer Heaven Network that streams only Metal Gear games relentlessly and my essays. Loads of essays. And statistics. Gah. It is also my name day and it was heartwarming as usual to see how many people that never talk to you just send you a random message or tag you in a post with another 350 people and say happy name day. For the rest that actually sent me a message thank you very much, even if we don't talk a lot i appreciate it greatly.

Other than that i don't really have any other news. I guess a fun fact is that Marta, the old woman that rents me my room forgot once more what i study and what nationality i am. I live here for a year but its ok. I also told her that i liked this winter and it was not so bad. Her reply was "I don't remember how this winter was". I wish at times i had such a bad memory about some things.

Well, wrapping it up it has been a busy and interesting May! I am still looking for more writers! Please if you live in any place in the world and you feel like writing about anything sent me a message or leave a comment! It is really a great way to express yourself and a relief.

Until next time, bye Sweden! Bye world!

The Flesh Grazer

The Flesh Grazer

~How drunk ideas can turn into something awesome~

God morgon!

These are actually my very first written words in Swedish; such an achievement! I am proud of myself. From August 2015, I will be a new Master’s student in the vicinity of Uppsala, following the Palaeobiology program. After my admissions, I had a good Skype call with Kostas, who further introduced me to this awesome-sounding city. He mentioned that he occasionally writes in a blog, and that he might need more writers. So here it is, my first contribution.

For my first article, I will refer to an awesome project I had last year. Together with a group of friends, I managed to brew a beer from real dinosaur bones. This may seem a far-fetched sci-fi story, but it is actual science. I won’t go deep into stuff, but to understand the process it is necessary to realize that yeast kind of eats calcium and magnesium for breakfast. The number of these ions affects the fermentation and taste of the beer; so that the water source is dependent of the beer’s outcome. Some brewers mash up oyster shells to alter the chemistry of their water, and we… yes, we mashed up dinosaur bones. Real dinosaur bones (and a sniff of ground tooth enamel).

How did we actually get to such a crazy project? One of my closest friends, by the name of Thomas Hermsen (picture), is a -semi-professional- beer brewer. His beers and liquors regularly have some sort of unexpected extra ingredient. Examples include, but are not limited to: bacon, bananas and chili peppers. During one of many drunken nights, we were speculating about a next beer. Somehow, somewhere, sometime, the question “Is it possible to brew a beer from dinosaur bone?” was raised.

Which actually isn’t that weird of a question, regarding my affinity to paleontology. At that time, I was a volunteer in the Museon in The Hague, in the process of establishing a new exposition of close-to-real dinosaur electronics. Though the Museon is generally a broad museum, having exhibitions ranging from far-away cultures to the Roman history of The Hague, from law to space exploration, one of their top pieces include a fairly complete specimen of Allosaurus fragilis (nicknamed Cubone).

So at a certain point I asked my supervisor if we could perhaps have some pieces of dinosaur bones to brew a beer with. What followed was him laughing at me for like fifteen minutes straight. When I said that I was serious, I actually received a few pieces from a box in a forgotten part of the depot. They were collected from the Hell Creek formation of Montana (some 70 million years old), and heavily fragmented; and thus are of no scientific importance. Just good enough for beer, then.

The cherry on top of this fossil cake comprised of ground tooth enamel from Cubone. My Bachelor’s thesis, which took place around the same time, focused on stable isotopes of this critter’s tooth enamel. I won’t go deep into stuff here either, but it has to do with migration patterns and trophic level (sometimes, you literally are what you eat). Regardless what the results may have been, one of the samplings ‘accidently’ went wrong, contaminating the enamel with dentine. Throwing it away would be a waste, so why not add it to the beer? This way, we are confident that there is at least some dinosaur material dissolved in the mix.

June 3^rd, 2014. Brew day. For those of you who are not familiar with the process of brewing, it mainly consists of having loads of free time. At certain time steps, the brew has to be heated, stirred or completed with additional ingredients. Rest of the time was filled with playing Mario World. Classic.

After the yeast was added to water and heated, the dinosaur bones were the next ingredient. Jelle Heijne was in charge of this unorthodox task. On the streets outside, he smashed the bones with a hammer, leaving only little shards. These were added in the mix, and yes, some parts actually dissolved.

At the end of the day, a small flask that contained the precious ground tooth was emptied above the cauldron. The base for an awesome beverage was finished. Now, we need to wait.

We wanted the beer to be a ground-shaking one; sweet with the honey from pine trees (which were quite widespread at the time), with a powerful bite. As such, the name ‘Flesh Grazer’ was coined, after the proposed hunting method of A. fragilis. Scientists picture it as the animal running towards a much larger prey, such as Camarasaurus, tearing loads of flesh from the poor creature’s soft belly, and running away with it. This way, the prey doesn’t die (unless fatal organs were hit or the wound becomes infected) and recovers. Unlimited supply of food, prehistoric sustainability 101. We could learn from them.
In addition, we wanted the beer to be 15,0%, as a reference to the 150 million year old animal. However, the liquid gold turned into an even more powerful liquor, sporting a whopping 16,2%. Beer for those who can take a hit, and really want to enjoy what their senses can take them to.

The beer was finally bottled on September 3^rd. It can be drunk now, but the longer it stays inside the bottle, the better it gets. I might drink one bottle when I get to Sweden, and save some to celebrate the next awesome achievements that undoubtedly will follow.

Cheers!

Jasper Ponstein

Drink with me friend - It's time to get Valborged

Alcohol is interesting.

Alcohol can offer you a getaway from a hard day in the office. It can take you to the clouds and then drag you down to the depths of Tartarus. It is one of the banes of humanity and the destroyer of men. It destroys people, men, women, kings, crusaders, families and empires.

Yesterday it was Valborg here in Sweden. It is a fairly important day, as you can see people of all ethnicities enjoying themselves, being social and outgoing all day long. It is actually a national holiday that spans across the cold north in countries like Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Netherlands. Going deeper into Valborg (or Walpurgisnacht) you will see that it is also associated with LaVeyan Satanism and the foundation of the church of Satan. In short description its a form of "religion" that believes in a materialistic egocentric individualism and that every human is his own god and that there is no room for another god. Interesting.

However here it is associated with the first of May and the coming of spring. And something that follows celebrations is high amounts of alcohol. Why do i bother to write about all this first rather than talking about my day during Valborg and trying to give you an idea of how it feels to be there? We will get to that soon. But let me first say what sparked me into starting this conversation.

I was at the bus stop in the city center waiting for some friends to arrive and have a beer before i go home. Something casual nothing really fancy like dancing like monkeys. They were a bit late "cough 20 minutes" so i started looking around trying to read people and guess what they were up to. Next to the bus stop i see a girl slipping down and two of her friends trying to support her. She was completely smashed. I haven't seen a person so drunk since i was at Flogsta on New Year's eve. She could not walk, she could not stand, she could not drag her body and her friends looked a bit drunk too. She leaned forward like Michael Jackson and she managed to hold on for dear life on a little box where they put those free newspapers. Her friends held her head, opened the box and there, in all her glory she started vomiting uncontrollably inside the newspaper stand. Then after 5 minutes of vomiting she stood there with her legs shaking like those liquid dancing guys on YouTube or those newborn deers you see on animal planet where their legs shake and they can't walk. Her friends crashed her on the bus bench and after a while the police came.

But but lets take things from the beginning again.

I was supposed to wake up and meet Dimitris around 9:20 in Stora Torget. I woke up at 8:30 and was unsure if i had the mental and physical power to do that and i stalled and stalled until the end. I mustered some strength and dressed myself and prepared for a long, long day and night. Oh boy i was right...

It was a bit cloudy and i was afraid of rain so i work a grey blouse that was warm enough and hopped on the bus. I met Dimitris right outside Storken which is a nice Fika place for anyone that visits Uppsala and actually is owned by a Greek. Right there was a girl bending over on a stand showing us her butt. I almost said something funny but i am glad i did not. You shall see why.

Dimitris comes and it turns out that that girl bending over was his Greek friend. Hilarious. Sofia is pretty cool and likes my ridiculous, sexual, gossipy style humor and she always complains that i need to stop joking because her tummy hurts. Well i did promise her abs of steel from laughing...

We head out to the Fyrisan river and we are greeted by thousands and thousands of people flocking to see the self-crafted rafts going down the river made out of foam. People of all ages, women, kids, men with picnic baskets and food and drinks trying to get a glimpse of what is happening. We found a place and we were like sardines. I have never felt so tight since my army enlistment day.

We stood there next to some friends from Dimitris's faculty of chemistry. Two of them were a couple and that annoying blonde midget kept telling me to move so she can see. I politely told her to fuck off in Greek and i stood there. How on earth was i supposed to move when there was not even an inch of space? She irritated me as she complained about everyone around while they were hugging and kissing and i felt sick from too much syrup (famous greek phrase).

After countless delays of "15 minutes until we start" and people wearing jeans, swimming suits and flippers the first boats started to arrive. They represented many different stores around the city. What was more interesting was that the first boat was an inflatable one driven by the two same people that started this tradition 40 years ago. Everyone cheered for them and they looked so lively and happy. Everyone was hoping the boats would fall apart and they would fall into the water when traversing the waterfall. Most of them actually made it, some fell apart, some others forgot about everything and started tossing candies to people. Others started throwing water and flour to the rival boats and others used a selfie stick to take pictures. Interesting start to the day really.

Then after countless complaining about cold and that couple by Sofia we regrouped to go to the park behind the Ekonomikum where there was a party like atmosphere. A swedish cute girl with freckles called Belinda greeted me and told me my zippers are a bit down.

"Nice to know that you have been looking down there already" i said.

Everyone giggled and we started walking towards the park. Ridiculous conversations ensued with Dimitris and Sofia and we got to the park. It was like a rock festival. So many people sitting down on the grass, light music playing and loads of food and the smells of grilled food. We found a place and went to the nearest ICA to buy some beer and supplies. I got a six-pack of Lapin Kulta (Kulta = gold in Finnish), chips and a big bag of candies. Sofia was on a diet so she could not decide which cookies or unhealthy chips to buy. Good job.

We were back at the park and we sat down and started drinking and eating. It was like a virus of Greek people as at least 6-7 of us were in the group and more arrived later. Hilarious scenes ensued as me and Sofia spent most of the time looking at a British girl that was so drunk and was directly hitting on a guy that kept pushing her away. She then passed out on the grass and that guy kept throwing plastic bottles at her head. She woke up for a brief moment each time and then died again.

The hours passed and the sun was shining. It was great coupled with the light breeze moving along the area. I could just fall asleep. The internet was clogged from all the people using it so i could contact anyone. Soon i became bored and i also had to go to the toilet. Never ever ever go to a public chemical toilet in a place like that. I haven't seen something so disgusting since i was in the army and the toilet was clogged :D

Hello handsome.

Then just as i was about to leave we witnessed the best scene ever. The British girl was alive again and she jumped on the same guy throwing him to the ground. She immobilized him and started kissing the grass probably because she was too drunk to see where his head was.

The head, where is the head?!

After that i knew that i was complete as a man and i had to leave. I sent a text to Jaime and told him i will drop by his place. In the meantime another friend would arrive later and i would join them for a beer in the city, the same ones i mentioned waiting for when i saw the smashed girl in the center.

After watching Jaime play Sniper Elite 2 again with the hands of a Parkinson's disease patient we went to grill some chicken in the yard. His little sister tried to turn me into a dog, a horse and then a boxing bag.  Jaime managed to overburn the chicken a bit but it was so tasty and we served it with rice, spicy courgette and ketchup. Yum.

He had some of his own issues though so i kept him company until late and we also tried to go see the bonfire that was supposed to be lit around 9pm. Jaime's dad was not much of a boyscout and saw no smoke or fire so we relied on GPS and a map. Then we found it but ehmmm there was no fire at all. Gah.

Back on the bus towards the center waiting for my friends. You already read what happened. So fast forwarding to the part where my friend arrived. She had another friend with her and her boyfriend. Both of them were really cool and happy but had some sort of hidden romance due to cultural misunderstandings. We ended up in Terrassen, a nice bar/restaurant to drink socially and chat.

Waiting in the line with my friend in line a black guy with a hilarious afro turns around and starts talking to me saying that he is the annoying guy in the bar that talks to strangers. I play along and when he asks me what are we doing here i tell him "I am getting married with this girl". His eyes almost pop out and says that he is sorry and he will go fuck himself. Touche.

Then the guy at the bar talks to me and tells me that the bartender is the best in town.

"Nice i hope he can really make my drink because it is very complicated" i say in a fairly serious voice. And i order a beer. He looked confused.

We sit down and start talking. More weird guys join us. Some speak english, some don't. Some start talking me about Serbian prostitutes and places you can get laid in Prague. I already feel more intelligent from those conversations.

Time to go home now. It was a long day. Please drink responsibly. And do not vomit in newspaper stands.

Goodnight Sweden. Though i am not gonna sleep, as Pacquiao vs Mayweather starts in 4 hours! Puss och kram!