Norwegians can be funny!

Hello! The film festival is currently going on in town and I am delighted to announce that I have made a new discovery, Norwegians it seems can be funny after all! After all of those bleak, depressing (though excellent) crime shows to come out of Scandinavia the comedy 'Chasing Berlusconi'  really bucks thee trend, It is the story of Bjarte, a harness racer who has lost his winning touch and comes upon bad times financially, The final  straw seems to be when he is issued the horse 'Blackie' a pathetic looking horse that consistently finds itself at the back of the pack. Keeping his cool, Bjartie hatches a plan to resurrect his career and finances, He is  going to drug Berlusconi - the favourite for the big race, put his blind faith in the 2nd favourite and reap the financial rewards. Things don't go quite to plan however, as when his partners in crime go to drug Berlusconi, the horse falls backwards, sitting on and trapping the hapless criminal! Things really go downhill from there for Bjarte and the end sequences had us in absolute fits, I am still chuckling to myself now, 3 days later! I was going to include the trailer for you to watch but I can only find it in Norwegian with no subtitles however if you ever happen to be in Norway or come across this movie I highly recommend it :)

Here is a picture of Bjarte the harness racer

It has gotten really cold again, it had been warming  up nicely but yesterday the temperature dropped to -8!! Mustn't grumble however, as Wednesday will be a high of 15 degrees, how are you supposed to arrange to do anything when the weather is so changeable? I suspect all of April will be  like this then in may we can finally start relaxing in the long overdue sunshine :)

Cleveland is a beautiful city to visit however for the longest time has been the butt of jokes among the American media and public - not helped by the terrible sports teams and that bright and sunny morning of June 22nd 1969 when Clevelanders awoke to find all the oil and debris that had collected on the surface of  the Cuyahoga river as it meandered through Cleveland alight in a blazing inferno. just checkout this picture, I love the way the picture combines the old with the new. Environmental progress really has come a long way since 1969  and many people say the river fire was the event that triggered a national change of conscience towards environmental issues. Maybe we could do with another river fire now!

Anyway it seems that finally Cleveland is getting some decent national press and I though I would share a recent article published in the Boston Globe, the content is a little expensive for my taste, but I like the pictures and the positive vibe the city receives.

Cleveland in the Boston Globe

For Christmas this year I was delighted to win a certificate in the raffle at work for a free weekend stay at a hotel in Cincinnati, however my enthusiasm for the place is slowly starting to disintegrate and collapse under the weight of the amount of entirely one way correspondence it has taken to attempt to get it booked!!! I have now called up 7 times, each time to be told the same thing, that the department manager has to confirm the weekend and that he will get back to me later that day. It has been over two weeks since my first call and I have left the manager 5 voice-mails yet I am confident that the tides may finally be changing, Yesterday I actually had a missed call from them, I was cycling to work, heard my phone ringing pulled over to answer it, saw it was a Cincinnati number and got super excited by which time it had stopped ringing. it rang once and no voice-mail was left. I don't undrstand what the problem is, why is this guy incapable of making a 10 second phone call? Anyway he has until tomorrow morning when I shall escalate the situation so if you are reading this My Dooley the reservations manager please give me a call back today... or else! :)

I am off to work now but I shall keep you informed with  the Cincinnati hotel debacle and we shall catch up soon no doubt!

P.S Don't forget to vote on Britains National Bird!

Vote for your favourite bird!

How to get yourself banned from the Post Office

Happy St Patricks Day!!!

I am delighted to announce the snow seems to have gone and is a thing of the past! February was terrible in every way (hence no blog posts), the AVERAGE temperature was -9 degrees celsius, I couldn't ride my bicycle and our heating bill was extortionate. Needless to say I am pleased February has passed and I never want to hear mention of it again. The snow melting is a wonderful thing but does create a quirky little issue - it has been  sitting on the ground for  so long (around 3 months) that now it has disappeared all the rubbish or 'trash' which has been deposited in the snow over that 3 months has suddenly reappeared and everything looks disgusting, along every road there is piles of trash and as for the field next to our school - 3 months worth of frozen dog poo has suddenly magically appeared on the grass!!

I havn't taken any decent pictures for a while but as it is St Patricks day I thought I would include some pictures of  Amanda and myself in Dublin and some animals from the Dublin Zoo!

Animal at the zoo.

I have been off work for the last two days and have had a great time! Yesterday me and Amanda went out to the zoo and purchased for the brilliant price of $60 (about £40) a years long zoo membership, meaning we can now go to the zoo for free whenever we want instead of just on Mondays when it is free to local residents and as a result is extremely crowded! It gets so cold here in the winter time that they have to send a lot of the animals on a long  vacation down to Florida till the  weather warms up so sadly we didn't get to see any bears or Zebras but most of the animals were still hanging around including all the lemurs and my mums favourite Fossa (which eats lemurs). It always makes me chuckle that the fossa is in a cage right next to the lemurs and is completely oblivious to all that tasty food hiding just a thin wall away, god help them the day the zookeeper leaves the connecting door open!

The talking parrot, just look at his beedy eye!

In other news my mums big 21st birthday is coming up at a rate of knots and although this is exciting news I am going to have to have a little grumble. I am having terrible trouble posting her present! Yesterday I managed to get myself banned from the local  post office over a pathetic little matter in which I am completely blameless. On my way to town I decided to stop off at the post office quickly to post mums present, there was nowhere close  by to lock up my bicycle and as it  is new I decided to take it into the post office with me - as with most things in America the post office is large and there is a lot of space so this was and should not have been an issue at all. Well having placed my bicycle in the corner of the store away from everything I joined the queue only to hear the one lady behind the counter nagging at me that I am not allowed to leave my bicycle in the post office, it has to go outside. I gently protested but to no avail so I left the post office and cycled it around to the extremely large car park at the back  (it had about 50 spaces) only to discover that there was nowhere, not even a tree, to lock my bicycle to.

USPS take note - here is a cycle rack in Dublin.

This annoyed me so I took my bicycle back into the post office, cunningly left it behind a door where I thought the lady wouldn't see it and rejoined the queue. I ignored several calls of 'sir' before the pressure of everyone in the large queue looking at me was too much to take and I looked up. She informed me that I wouldn't be served while my bicycle was in the building as this is a federal building and it is a health and safety hazard. I asked where exactly was I supposed to put my bicycle and how can you ban bicycles form the building without providing so much as a simple post for me to lock it too? she reiterated the same thing she said before. I asked her about the pushchair that was currently blocking the exit, maybe the children should be left outside too? she reiterated the same thing again. Well the argument escalated and to cut a long story short I am now banned and was informed that if I did not immediately leave the post office the police would be called and I would be chased out the building by an angry mob as I had been holding up the queue for about 5 minutes. when I made my escape I still had mums birthday package in my hands.

A cute red panda smiling, unlike me at the USPS!

Well, today (next day) I decided to try again to post the package but this time in a different post office and armed with a car and not a bicycle! I parked in one of the ample spaces no problem and while entering the building noticed yet again the complete lack of any facility for a cyclist. however things went quickly downhill in this post office too. I picked out a padded envelope with  which to post the present only to slightly rip the top of the seal while putting the present inside, undeterred I carried on to the front of  the queue where I asked the guy if he had some tape I could borrow  to seal the package. Unfortunately apparently this is no longer possible at the USPS(at least  according to the guy at the Lakewood post  office), they will only give you tape if you send something by special or next day delivery, regardless of whether you are spending $20 on postage. He also said that in any case he didn't have any tape but I could buy some for $7. I refused to buy any  and asked him to  look a little harder for some tape. grinning, he refused again. I backed down (keen not to be banned from yet another post office) and suggested that if he could just price up the package I will take it home, tape it up and bring it back tomorrow. This he did and then proceeded to give me about 3 sheets of stamps to put on it. The stamps would clearly not all fit on the envelope so I asked him for a barcode sticker instead but of course there was an issue with this too, "I cant possibly give you a barcoded sticker if you take the package out of the store" at which point I yet again stormed out of the post office, I still had mums birthday package in my hands.

Another weird animal at the zoo.

It seems the gentleman from the Lakewood post office makes quite a habit of being as awkward as possible. Amanda recalled a time the same guy had refused to allow her to send chocolate to me as apparently you cannot send chocolate through the post (huh?!?) she took it to a different post office and posted the chocolate no problem. I have also had an issue with  the gentleman before, my Dad is a keen stamp collector and likes to have stamps (not a barcode) on the front of the package, I was informed by this guy about a year previously that it is in fact not possible to post an international letter with stamps on it. I took it to a different post office, asked for the same thing and posted it no problem. oh wait! was that the same guy who just gave me 3 sheets of stamps to put on an international package? why yes it was! argh!

I apologise for the rant however I am pleased to have gotten it off of my chest! On a happier not did you know that in Chicago on St Patricks day they dye the river green? it looks really cool!

link to watch the Chicago river turn green

P.S A big shout out to Nanny Hart, who has now reached the grand  old age of 90!!! Happy Birthday :)