World Water Week 2015 summary - The Phantom Pain

Hej everyone!

Don't be tricked by The Phantom Pain mentions as I will not talk in detail about the latest Metal Gear game. It is about some of my own thoughts.

It has been a while since the latest post that featured my involvement in the amazing World Water Week 2015 as a volunteer. The last 2 days of that week were way more relaxed compared to the huge influx of people that flocked in the venue in the first 3 days. It still had a lot of standing still and smiling and being helpful and having an awesome time while people said hi on your way back to the train station while not on duty simply because they recognized your face.

On that last Friday i worked in the closing ceremony. I had prepared a small handwritten letter that was for everyone in the SIWI staff to read along with some greek pasteli, a very famous, healthy delight from Kalamata. I still remember how Sofia Widforss hugged me that day with a huge smile on her face. I want to personally thank Irina, Erik, Adrian, Darius, Gabriella, Yvonne for this awesome opportunity.

What was the result of all of this? Well for starters i don't think there is a better opportunity to meet and network with people than such a conference. I met important people from all over the world, CEOs from Sweco, i got invited to the Finnish Environment Institute and hopefully that will lead to work one day.

This past week has been a mixed bag. I started my new courses and that marks an important period in my life, since it is the last academic semester where i will have actual courses, not counting the master  thesis as one. Some of them have become increasingly weird and involve a lot of drawing and sketching.

Well, that is a course about sustainability.

On the positive note i had quite some fun, i met many new people, students that i have been contacting through the phone to welcome them in their new master's, working a bit in student nations wearing pink shirts, going out for amazing food and walks and a lot of shopping. A lot of shopping. I also visited Jaime's family and they invited me for dinner and they scared another certain individual that got scarred for life from over-socializing Mediterraneans :D

When it comes to the pain, i have actually been watching Big Boss's latest adventure. In fact i am watching the uknighted twitch stream right now with Drk whining about the conclusion to the series. Please support them if you like the series. They are running an awesome 500+ hour marathon which is completely insane!

Other than that i have had several internal conflicts i had to handle this past 2-3 weeks. I can only imagine how hard it is for the other affected people as well. It is that fragile point where you don't want to hurt anyone but it happens whether you like it or not. And then all that trust and integrity goes to hell and it all spirals down in a ghostly pain that eats you from the inside.

It will all be fine. I just wanted to keep writing a bit today. I am alone at home now. Hopefully now that i am starting to recover i will have more interesting things to say or do. I was hopping to make a tour of all the student nations and write a small review about them. That will depend on my workload and my mood really. I still wonder how i keep going but whether i like it or not this blog has survived for 1.5 year now.

Until next time, stay tuned! En stor kram dear friends!

Road to redemption

Sitting in front of my computer burried 24 inches under the screen i wondered what would my next title. Thinking of what happened yesterday, what will happen tomorrow and the events of the past month.

After i came to Greece for a week of vacations i did what i expected to do. I got a new ID card (finally i look good in a card!), i prepared my bank account so i don't have to rely on others to withdraw my hard earned money and i also got a new passport that will help me be a proper swedish citizen. I will be able to finally get my personnummer.

I also remember my father telling me when i was about to move in Sweden not to tell any of my customers because "Nobody would give a damn about you, they are just customers". However everyone was so happy to see me when i went to work to help him for a couple of days. It did felt good and was some sort of reward for my hard work all those years.

Other than that i will do a recap like the old times.

In Tuesday i went for a haircut in order to look like a proper man again after 3 months and in the afternoon i met my lovely friends Aggeliki, Katerina and Athina for a coffee and to catch up. They also brought another girl i didn't know but between me saying dirty jokes and fighting with her boyfriend she was a social zombie looking at her smartphone for the duration of the night.

I do miss times like these.

Wednesday was casual as well. I slept, i ate, i pretended to study a bit and then i ate some more. In the evening i sat home doing nothing. I watched some champions league and slept some more.

Which brings us into Thursday that looked more like when i was actually living here permanently. I met two Canadian-Greek friends Angie and her sister Fani and my beloved salsa dancing Aggeliki. I was speaking in perfect anglo-greek which led to general confusion and me making a ridiculous amount of silly jokes. During our coffee adventure i also met Niki, an old acquintaince of mine and a very good girl that had lost her precious father's setter doggie last week (more on that later). They had a campaign to inform about AIDS and they left a bunch of DUREX condoms on the table. I got all of them to give them to other friends of mine.

Light the trees please.

The night ended up smoothly with no indication what was about to come on Friday and Saturday. On Friday i went to work again and decided to go for one more coffee with the usual suspects from the other night. After refilling my car and listening to some hideous greek music on the radio it took me 45 minutes to get into town and actually find a place to park my car. Why? Because they closed down the main street so the pedestrians can see the lighting of the christmas tree. Minutes of swearing later i got to the coffee place and started cracking jokes as usual. We ended up eating classic greek Pita and souvlaki from the famous traditional Jimmy's Cantina. If you ever visit Kalamata definately try it. More info here.

Traditional souvlaki and wine.

After that we went to Aggeliki's home and we had some amazing conversations jumping topics like a wild horse ranging from world of warcraft to fat women crying "meow" and little kids having smartphones. We also drank wine that was so bad and old that reminded me when asked my grandma for headache pills and she said "I got some i bought last year" when in fact they were expired since 2001.

Which brings us into Saturday. I woke up multiple times. Once i woke up with bread next to me. Then with kinder bueno. Then with food. Then it was 4 pm and i actually had to get out of bed. Yay for being a lazy bum! I dressed up and went to a greek tavern to eat and drink. Illidan would have told me "You are not prepared".

I sat there sad with a gloomy face waiting for my friends for 30 minutes as they were late. I should call them 'the reliables'...

We started consuming massive amounts of greek food, french fries, real feta and then the wine started coming in. I cracked more jokes than i could remember, everyone was laughing and the band was playing live songs for 3-4 hours. However in the end my friends became so drank i was embarassed. They started swearing and saying stupid things and could barely walk so i left them and sat in the car for 10 minutes to reflect what is going on.

Good times.

And we conclude with today's ride so far. I got a call from Niki who was mentioned earlier and she told me her dog was seen in the beach. I took my car and went to search for her for 2 hours in bushes and streets. We ended up finding her and the poor thing was so thin and shaking after 8 days alone in the wild without food. I felt really happy and i was reminded when Ippu was lost and i wanted to grab the first plane to Finland and search everywhere. It's tough losing a part of your life.

I am also pissed of with my presentation partner. Actually more than that. I send her messages and she reads them but does not reply for a week now. She might have a reason but really i don't care right now. We have to write our presentation report and i am the only one trying. I despise group work in universities sometimes.

I will be out today again and tomorrow and in thursday i will be in Finland to start my amazing trip to the cold north, where dogsleds and frostbite and mooses and reindeers await me. It's going to be great. I also decided i wil ltry to make an effort to have private lessons and continue my russian classes as well as maybe start learning proper swedish this time.

Lastly, because i am a small Clash of Clans addict lately and i am getting my sister's old iphone 4S i might start a mini series here that will serve as a guide to some people.

And this brings me to the last part of this post, which is a continue from last post's dreams section. It was so strange and for me to say this is weird, because i usually see strange dreams. I was swimming in tropical waters being chased by an underwater wooden ship, such as the one in the pirates of the Caribbean. I was almost naked and i was carrying small C4 charges. I had to swim a huge distance and get on top of a real ship that had white structures like real houses. It was occupied by nazis and i had to sneak in there and plant my explosives. I remember seeing every product inside having a hitler mustache, like a bucket full of white paint and a green exterior. What was also interesting is that while i was sneaking through the white corridors two nazis talked to me normally in the beginning, i think because i stole an outfit to blend in. And the exchange was the following in some point:

"You look pretty nervous like you don't want to be here i can see it from your legs it's all about psychology"

"If i wanted to leave you would have seen my feet facing the direction of the door and i would slouch and body rock towards the exit. So don't you try and play the psychology game with me", i replied.

What was even more interesting is that i saw the same dream over and over again 3-4 times. Each time i was caught or captured but the next time i took it a step further.

What could that mean? Anyone has a potential explanation? I would love to hear it! Or you can send me a message or a mail with your dreams and you could future in one of my posts one day.

Until then, Goodnight Sweden!

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