Btw, what do you call a show that’s made for a streaming service? Netshow? Stream-TV?

Anyway, they have two Netflix-produced shows out (in my country anyway) and I’ve watched them both:

Lilyhammer

What happens when a New York mobster gets relocated to a small town in Norway? Well for starters hilarity ensues.
It’s not a serious mobster drama by any length, nothing like The Sopranos or the Godfather, this is much more lightweight and comical. The mobsters are very stereotypical mobsters and the Norwegians are very stereotypical, eh, Norwegians.

American Frank Tagliano goes under witness protection after testifying against his boss. He need to hide and chooses the least likely place he can think of (and also because he saw the winter Olympics) which is Lillehammer, Norway. There’s a clash of cultures to say the least, but slowly he gets back on his feet and start rebuilding his life. A life that, despite the location, actually isn’t all that different from his mobster career…

I enjoyed the first season a lot, it was really funny and sort of sweet in a way. I can definitely recommend it if you want some fun, easygoing entertainment.
Doesn’t hurt to have the stunning Norwegian landscape in the background either. Most of Scandinavia is pretty nice, but the fjords and mountains of Norway are on a whole other level!

Hemlock Grove

Maybe you’ve heard about this one? It’s received both praise and critique and everyone seem to have a rather strong opinion about it. They either love it or hate it.

Well, I love it.
At first glance it looks like the standard supernatural teen drama we’re so used to by now. People are getting killed and a bunch of supernatural stuff is happening and there’s a teenage werewolf and a teenage upir (vampire sort of) and we’ve seen this formula a million times before, right?
Wrong.
This is the weirdest and most disturbing show I’ve seen in a long time. It has some genuinely gory scenes and some genuinely psycho characters. This is an actual horror story, both visually and psychologically. It also has a feel to it, I don’t know how to describe it but it’s a sort of air that flows through every episode, that is both haunting and strangely beautiful.

After each episode I found myself just staring at the screen for a few seconds going “The fuck did I just watch?” It was hypnotising.

There are some weak spots, like some of the actors are less than stellar and the plot has some holes in it. Certain events are blatantly predictable while others are unexpected and unexplainable. In my opinion the beauty and the weirdness makes the show well worth watching anyway, but I understand it might not be to everyone’s liking.

Hemlock Grove is actually a book by Brian McGreevy as well, and I’m reading it right now. So far it’s equally, if not more, disturbing. Will be interesting to see if it deviates from the show.

The post Netflix shows: Lilyhammer and Hemlock Grove was originally posted on RockWitch.net.

Spring has officially arrived now, and even though there’s still a few piles of snow here and there it’s getting much warmer and plants have started to sprout.

The whole front lawn is snow-free now! Only a week ago it still looked like this.

The grass is still dead though, and now you can see that ugly patch of dirt in the lawn…
But wait, what is that?

Hey, something is growing! I wonder what it is?

When we moved into the house last fall we saw that empty patch of dirt and figured the previous tenants had a bush or something that they dug up and took with them when they left. I sort of forgot about it during the winter, but then when it started melting I begun thinking about what to do with it. Sow grass and just make more lawn maybe? Make an extra flower bed?

But now I have these sprouts sticking up. I’ll be watching them carefully to see what they’ll grow into.

I also found a small yellow flower growing in one of the flower beds. No idea what that is either.

I’m like Jack Skellington all over the place. “What’s this? What’s this?” I know nothing about gardening but I’m very interested in learning. This is so exciting, to witness our first spring in the house! I can’t wait to see what else has survived the winter!

The post Spring in the North was originally posted on RockWitch.net.

So we survived our trip to London. The weather sucked but the city was so amazing it didn’t matter!

I took a million photos but since someone *eyes boyfriend* messed with my phone settings they’re no bigger than 640 x 480 px. Although most of the photos are all dark and blurry anyway because of the crappy weather. Well… no point crying over spilled milk, this just means I have to go back there and take new photos!

Click the “read more” to see the rest of the post. It’s quite image heavy and I didn’t want to put them all on the front page due to loading times.
I’ve also uploaded a set to Flickr if you want to see all of the photos.

St Paul’s Cathedral by night

The first thing that happened was that British Airways lost our luggage. It never showed up on the luggage belt and after waiting for almost an hour we went to one of the help desks where a very nice man arranged for our bag to be delivered to our hotel… as soon as they found it.

Apparently the bag hadn’t even made it to Heathrow at all because later that night (Thursday) I got a text message saying it had been located and was estimated to arrive at Heathrow the next day (Friday). Ok?
We got our bag Saturday morning… It had been delivered to our hotel during the night so I was able to fetch it from the lobby when I woke up.
We only had clothes and toiletries in there, so nothing truly important had been lost, but I was still relieved to get it back. I also learned my lesson: keep at least one change of clothes in your hand baggage when flying. You never know what might happen.

Our hotel was only a block away from Tate Modern and thus pretty central in terms of tourist attractions, with Westminster to the west and the Tower of London to the east.

Friday we decided to head west and ended up seeing the London Eye, Big Ben, Whitehall and the Horse Guards, Trafalgar Square and Soho.
I was impressed by the Town Hall in Munich, but I think Parliament and Big Ben is even more impressive. That whole area is just… all the buildings are so huge and ornamented and… wow. Trafalgar Square too for that matter. I had to stop every two meters just to scrape my chin up from the pavement.
We skipped taking a ride with the London Eye since we didn’t have pre-booked tickets and it was LOTS of people there.

Soho was very cute with the narrow cobblestone streets and small shops. We headed up to Oxford Street too, but the shopping was much better along the smaller streets – and much less crowded for that matter. We found many quirky little places selling all sorts of stuff. I also found Illamasqua’s store! Yay! They’re one of my favourite make-up brands, but they have no resellers in Sweden…

Saturday we walked over to Tate Modern and walked around in there for a while. What an amazing building! I barely looked at the art because I was too busy marvelling over the HUGE old turbine hall. I think I spent more money in the Tate gift shop than in any of the other shops we visited. They had a large selection of paper goods, art supplies and lots and lots of books about art and artists.

After Tate Modern we walked east along the paths by the river until we came upon HMS Belfast, a warship from Word War II now serving as a floating museum. Of course we couldn’t pass up on that, and Markus is such a WWII nerd I think that was one of his favourite things about the trip.
Almost the entire ship is open for visitors and we were free to explore the different areas and levels however we wanted. It was pretty unusual, and very interesting.

Sadly I missed the Tower of London… It took a lot of time and energy to climb around HMS Belfast (The ship is several floors high. Or deep? How to you say when it’s a ship?) so when we got off the ship we were completely exhausted. By the time we had walked all the way to Tower Bridge and AROUND all of the Tower to get to the ticket booth we were even more exhausted and it was getting late.

So we just stood and looked at it for a few minutes before deciding that it’s really cool, really really cool, but it would take too long and we were too tired. And then we walked away. :/

I didn’t buy as much as I thought I would. There’s no shortage of shops so it’s not that, but I think I was to busy just looking at everything to really focus on shopping.
What I did buy was a couple of books from Tate Modern + a pen shaped like a brush, a t-shirt from David and Goliath, a scarf from Primark (hell on earth according to Markus ), nail polish from Illamasqua, a plastic owl filled with hand cream from a shop filled with rainbow coloured items, a Union Jack bag and a Union Jack umbrella.

Overall London was fantastic! Crappy weather but I still loved it. I’m already planing to go back as soon as I can. I HAVE to go back actually, I need to take proper photos and visit the Tower and I still haven’t seen Nothing Hill or Camden Town or Stonehenge. In fact I’ll start saving right now.

The post London 2013 was originally posted on RockWitch.net.

Aww, look how cute they are sleeping next to each other on the couch.
(Of course the cat got the blanket.)

Huh?

Was that the refrigerator door!?

*ZOOM*

Silly creatures…

The post Pets. was originally posted on RockWitch.net.

We’ll arrive on Heathrow on Thursday evening (April 11) and our plan home leaves just after noon on Sunday so… that leaves us two full days (Friday and Saturday) + one Thursday evening.
Cathrine warned me of not having enough time to get back to the airport, so I assume most of Sunday will be dedicated to getting ourselves back to Heathrow.

Tate Modern – our hotel is just a block away so we’ll definitely go there.

London is huge so I don’t expect to see even a quarter of what there is to see, and I don’t want to stress.
I rather see just a few things and have plenty of time to stroll around, than rush to see as much as possible. The city has survived this long, I think it’ll last long enough for me to go back later if I want to.
Most of all I just want to be there, to walk along the streets and see the buildings and the people and just explore. That’s what I’m looking forward to most.

It’s difficult to determine how much time you’ll have as I don’t know how much time anything takes. Google Maps tells me most of the main tourist traps are pretty close together and many of those things, like Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, are just walk-bys.

On the other hand I don’t have many “have to”s, the only things I feel like I ABSOLUTELY NEED to see are Tate Modern and Tower of London.

Churchill War Rooms and HMS Belfast will probably get a visit too since Markus is nuts about military history.

(Love this post by Sarai btw, I feel even more inspired now!)

Tower of London – there’s no way I’ll miss this!

Another issue will be figuring out what clothes to pack. Up here it’s still pretty much winter in the beginning of Apil, but down there I assume it will be more spring-like? An umbrella is a must though, in England rain is to be expected.

So… any last minute tips or advice?

The post London calling was originally posted on RockWitch.net.

In celebration of Easter and the upcoming spring, I doodled a rooster. Although he looks a lot more menacing than intended…

Whatever, happy Easter!

The post Easter rooster was originally posted on RockWitch.net.

So, today is my 30th birthday! There’s no denying it now, I’m an adult.
As long as you’re a 20-something you can sort of hide behind your youth, like it’s ok to not have everything figured out because you’re still so young. I always thought that by the time I hit 30 I’d have my shit together, for real… but I don’t know. I’m less confused now than I was at 20, but I’m still not feeling very grown-up.

I was afraid I might develop a 30 year crisis, but honestly it felt worse last year when I turned 29. Then it was like “OMG my last year as a 20-something! My youth is over!” Now that I actually am 30… it’s no big deal.
I might still colour my hair purple and get a bunch of tattoos, but that’s something I’ve always wanted but never could afford so it’s not a crisis. More like a “yay, I finally have money” thing.

Anyway, I had a nice day.
They sang for me at work (sweet but awkwaaaard!) and when I got home Markus had made me a cake:

Chocolate cake filled with bananas and chocolate mousse, covered with whipped cream and white marzipan. Yum!

I wasn’t expecting any presents as we’re planning on going on a shopping spree in London, but he had bought one anyway: a wooden wrist watch from WeWood! They make beautiful watches made entirely from wood, and they also plant one tree for every sold watch.

As if that wasn’t enough Markus took me out to dinner on Saturday night. We had a seven course dinner at what is probably the fanciest restaurant in town.
I didn’t think to bring my phone or camera so I didn’t take any pictures of the dishes, but it was quite an experience. They specializes in Nordic food so their menu is pretty special. Among other things they served salmon, Icelandic lobster, fried boar and ice-cream made of Arctic raspberries.

This birthday celebration has been really drawn out, it’s like it goes on forever. I already celebrated with Markus parents, then again this weekend + today, and next weekend I’ll probably go to my parents and celebrate once again. I’m about so set a record for number of birthday cakes received.
But I’m not complaining, one can never have too much cake, haha!

The post Turning thirty! was originally posted on RockWitch.net.

Plenty of snow as you can see. It’s been really cold too, with absolutely FREEZING winds. The real spring warmth probably won’t be here for another couple of weeks. But I’m in no hurry. My only problem with winter is the darkness, and now that that’s out of the way I can be outside and enjoy the snow a lot more.

I managed to find some birch branches to decorate for Easter too. Now that I finally have a house I can start doing all that fun decorating stuff I’ve never been able to do before. You can put branches outside your apartment door too but… it’s not really the same.

I probably could’ve found prettier branches, but these were already dead and laying on the ground so I picked them anyway as I don’t like cutting of living branches. If I’m making a fire or something, then sure – but not when it’s only for decoration.

Does anyone else put decorated branches on the porch like this, or is it a Scandinavian thing? And do you have spring yet where you are?
Or fall or some other season maybe? Sorry, I tend to forget about the southern hemisphere.

The post Spring equinox was originally posted on RockWitch.net.

We spent the weekend at Markus parents and did some light celebration of my upcoming birthday.
It’s still 2 weeks early, but who cares?

I got a beautiful flower in a vase with pink sand on top and what looks like pink jelly at the bottom. Hopefully it will survive for a while, but I don’t feel very confident. The prettier the flower the sooner I kill it usually…
I also got some bed linen, a cook book (muffins and cookies), a card and a fat purple chicken. I’ve talked before about how my birthday and Easter usually are connected.

See what else I got! Me and Markus were doing a little shopping in town and since we’re adults (*snort*) we of course visited the toy store. In the LEGO section we noticed they had Lord of the Rings sets. And The Hobbit sets. HUGE sets with whole castles and dungeons and everything! Star Wars sets too, but LOTR is cooler than Star Wars in my world.

After a rather silly debate about whether or not it’s ok for grown-ups to buy LEGO just for themselves (would it really be such a bad idea to have children for the sole purpose of being allowed to buy and play with toys?) he decided I should at least have a little LEGO Gandalf. Just for display. Just because I’m such a nerd and LEGO Gandalf is disturbingly cute. So he bought me this little set from when Gandalf arrives in The Shire at the beginning of the first movie!

See the red thing? It’s the dragon firecracker!

So silly, but really cute too, and it was fun putting it together. I think I’m gonna take it to my office so I can roll the carriage back and forth over my desk when I need a break.

The post Pre-birthday celebration. With LEGO. was originally posted on RockWitch.net.

Max, Dave, Jane, Brad, Penny and Alex

So this is my new favourite sitcom: Happy Endings

Normally I don’t care much about sitcoms. They can be entertaining, but I don’t get very invested in them and don’t really follow them. If I turn on the TV and The Big Bang Theory is on I probably won’t switch channels, that’s the amount of effort I put into it.
Happy Endings is different though. I’ve watched all of season 1 and 2 in one weekend + the first 5 episodes of season 3 and I CAN’T WAIT for the rest!

It’s hilarious. Like, really hilarious. I can’t remember the last time a show made me laugh like this. Not the polite little snickering I usually do at the TV, but real actual laughter!
They have the adorable characters and real-life issues mixed with complete randomness and physical comedy, add some razor sharp, witty dialogue and there you have it. It’s the perfect blend of realism and hyperbole! It’s as if How I Met Your Mother, Friends, Gilmore Girls, and Family Guy had a love child.

Did I mention the characters are great?
They’re all funny but my favourite is Penny Hartz. She’s always single, always chaotic and crude and weird and she abbreviates at least one word in every sentence. Or just pronounce them so that they sound like completely new words… I’ve caught myself saying “ah-mah-zing” out loud in real life, so whatever it is she has I guess it’s contagious. Penny is perfect.
Speaking of ah-mah-zing: Max is probably the least stereotypical gay guy ever seen on TV. It’s refreshing how his love life is handled no differently than the other straight characters and the cheap jokes that are usually thrown around are nowhere to be found. He’s also one of the funniest characters on the show.

There’s also Tyler the Racist Parrot. Yeah, it’s exactly what it says on the label…

To my horror I read about the show being moved around by ABC a lot and people seem worried they might cancel it altogether. Hopefully there’s no truth in those rumours because I really want to keep Happy Endings.
So, um… please watch it a little bit and give the show some support?

The post Happy Endings was originally posted on RockWitch.net.