"here comes the story of the hurricane..." ~ Dylan

First off, I am suddenly back to be constantly hungry all the time, all I can think about is eating food when I am not blowing glass for the last few days! What is wrong with me?!?  But, I try to keep myself occupied by reading recipes and finding fun, slightly healthy ways to feed myself.  I got overly excited about it being summer here (it snowed again today) and found this summery salad to make:

 

Chicken Salad with Feta, Corn & Blueberries!!  The picture if from Pioneer Woman, mine was more covered in sauce and so much less pretty but very good.  I was OK with having more sauce because mine was made with soy creme fresh instead of mayonnaise and half and half... not so heavy really.  It was amazingly good and all I missed was a nice glass of chilled white wine!!

OK, so now that I have gotten that off my chest... I am already thinking about eating it again!  Haha, so now onto glass!

 These are the glasses I worked on last week.  I think I made 5 good ones that I am going to keep and one day drink champagne out of!

 This is what I worked on with Thomas!!! A jug in a jug!  

 Apparently this video was seen

 and Thomas wanted to rise to the challenge.  He made a few, but needed an assistant since Swedish glass doesn't stay hot as long as American glass.  It was fun to help and I want to try it with Vegard one day when we are bored :)

I have also done some deep cutting on a clear graal blank that I had made as a practice for the colors.  My plan is to use it for ariel.  I will cover it with a clear bubble trapping air in the deep spaces I have carved making a cool design with bubbles!

 They are sort of firework patterns.

 And one on the tip, which will be the bottom of the finished piece, just to test it out.

 I like these two pictures, you can see the design through the design and below is the star on the tip through the hole on the end were I will attach it to a hot pipe.

 On Tuesday Vegard and I wanted to do some encalmo where you make different layers or stripes of color on a piece so we got to raid the color pantry at school!!  Look at all the colors we found!!!!

 So, while the colors were heating up we practiced with clear.  We had only seen this on the internet and had no teachers around to help us so it was a bit awkward and absurd but we did it!! 

 FIVE, yes 5, layers of clear glass!!  We both did the first two, then swapped back and forth making the next layer and adding it on.  It was super hard and confusing and I am sure there are better ways to do it then we did, but it worked, it is a piece of glass and could even hold water I think! It is pretty big but not too heavy because some of the stripes are quit thin (oops).  

I was really pleased and impressed with us, Vegard didn't seem to care too much, be he doesn't get excited about much. 

Then Vegard made a HUGE plate with three colors but we did it with the technique we have already been using with a cup of color, add clear and then just kept adding color.  His turned out super cool and HUGE but mine got messed up pretty early on and only made it this far:

But the colors are great, maybe I can do some cool facet cutting on it or something since there is so much clear glass around the colors?  I saved it just in case.  I will have to take a picture of Vegard's plate for you later.

At the end of the day I worked with Sigrid and we just couldn't do anything right, I am not sure but we seem to be bad luck for each other!  I finally made this bowl, but it was our 3rd attempt at making anything!

 It weighs a ton and has been deemed the "hurricane bowl" for when you are tired of your table wear blowing away while you are having tea outside enjoying the weather... this one will stay through anything!

 Haha, I guess this is why I am in school, to make weird stuff like this!

Today was much better though, we made BIG plates and I can't wait to see them tomorrow :)  After school I went to the gym with Sigrid, she did spin and I did medel but after that they were starting this "I'm On Fire; Dans Fuego" thing kind of like Zumba I think.  We watched for a while but it was hard to take serious because the dude teaching the class was this blond, floppy haired, overly tan, too good looking guy dancing in front of probably 30 woman!  It was pretty absurd, but maybe fun, I might try it later when there are less people interested!

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." ~ Shakespeare

So, this past weekend I went to Göteborg to visit my friend Rosanne who lives there, well just outside of the city in Kungsbacka.  And, because it took me SOOO long to get these pictures posted I am going to give you the abbreviated version of the trip... cliff notes.  I think it is odd that in English we say Gothenburg and in Swedish it sounds like Yetiboy.  Rosanne says it both ways which has led me to say it both ways also which is a bit confusing in my head at times.

I arrived Thursday, Rosanne and I went to this club called Sticky Fingers.  Here she is getting ready, wearing pants too tight to easily bend over to do her shoe... a scene a lot of us girls can relate to I think ;)

 We had a great time, the place had 3 floors of music: basement/smoking lounge = heavy metal, middle floor/ normal bar = rock, top/ intense dance floor = dance your ass off music.  We left there and I left my phone in the taxi by accident and the taxi driver called half the people in my phone I think looking for me!  Luckily we got it back the next day, Rosanne met him at the main train station and he had it safe and sound.  

While Rosanne was retrieving my phone I got my hair cut at Temple Lounge by this really awesome guy (he did Rosanne's new hair above earlier in the week).  So, here we have a before:

 And after:

 I went for a short bob for the summer!  It was light and easy.  He also super cleaned my hair getting rid of all the left over red I put in in the winter, so now it is much lighter.  I love it and feel super fun in it!    Then we walked ALLLLLL over the city looking for somewhere to eat... this is apparently a famous church.  But, according to Rosanne everything is famous... I think she just means well known.

 The square where all the trams come together, a bit chaotic.  

 Then we had some Indian food for lunch, went back to Kungsbacka, only after she got me lost driving home and I had to drive through the busiest part of Göteborg right when everyone gets off work!  I have never been so anxious driving in my life, I was sure we were going to get run over by a tram or run over a pedestrian!

The next day we went to a beach a little ways from her house, a beach onto the OCEAN!!!

 It was so warm we were sweating sitting still so we thought about going for a dip...

 But this is as far as we got, I am only on the edge with my feet barely in!  Then suddenly, out of no where, two huge swans swam up!

 After that is was back to Göteborg to see the First of May parade.  The University there puts on this parade with floats that represent different things that has happened over the past year.  

 Marching bands and baton twirlers where abundent.

 This is float about yogurt.  Apparently at one point the Turkish yogurt pictured a Greek man on the label of their yogurt, or the other way around or something... it became a huge deal of course.

 Here is a ship attacking Gaza I think...

 People bathing in poop water... yuck.

 An awesome horse!  

After the parade we went back to Kungsbacka to go to a birthday party of a friend of Rosanne's in a local bar.  We got there and realized that Rosanne didn't really know that many people and they were all quit young.  Luckily we ran into a guy she used to date and hung out with him and his drunk friends.  Then we went to the club across the street which was horrible.  We payed money to get in a be pushed around by strangers and luckily we left soon.  I felt a bit bad because that place is Rosanne's favorite place in that town but it was so full and crowded.  BUT!!! On the way home we nearly stepped on a HEDGEHOG!!

 Do you remember it was one of my goals for Sweden, to see a hedgehog?!?  It was so cute and adorable, Rosanne actually touched it!!!

 The next day we went to see the Arla cows get released into the fields.  The dairy cows have been trapped in the barn all winter and this is their first trip outside!  It is a huge marketing thing, and happened to coincide with the first of May festivities.

And now, prepare yourself for a TON of cows!!  Here are the first ones, the favorites the farmer said:

 This one is even mid jump!! So cute!

 These guys stood right in the way and constantly got ran into by cows coming out at full blast.

 Strangely they all seemed to want to go right back into the barn once they had a little run...

 Here is Rosanne diligently watching the cows/fearing for her life when they came too close.

 Here is the barn they had been in all winter!

 And, they had baby cows for you to see and pet!

 This is Robby, Rosanne's Mom's boyfriend petting a cow that was one month old.

 And here is Karin, just one week old!!!

 So tiny and adorable!

 Here is the barns... how picturesque is that?!

 And, after a day of packing, going grocery shopping and finally a family dinner we headed back to Orrefors. And, just as we were leaving the big city area there was a rainbow.

 You could see BOTH ends! I felt it was a good sign but Rosanne is too cautious of a driver to look properly at it... which I guess is good for me.

I took the rainbow to be a good sign, the end of a great weekend and the beginning of a hopefully very good week at school!  We made it back around 11, Rosanne slept the last hour and both even made it to school on time the next morning, though we were very tired.  I am so glad I went and I agree that Göteborg is a beautiful city and Kungsbacka is also, and good people :)  

Now, back to the regularly scheduled program of glass!!  .... starting tomorrow... haha, sorry