Santa baby

This is me looking festive:

Because we were going to a festive party. What´s more festive than a sequined vest I thought, and took an instagram of myself in a semi-public bathroom. Wearing salmon colored jeans because salmon is christmas food in Norway. Pablo wore christmas tree lights.

The price for cutest bottle of vodka went to this little man, who was wearing a tiny sweater his grandma had knitted for him. Seriously. How awesome. Don´t you just feel like giving him a hug?

Andrea was hiding behind the dessert, but there was really no need to do that as both she (her?)  and her apartment looked spectacular.

These berries made me very happy. Even though the berries here seem to be ten times the size of Scandinavian pick-in-the-forest-berries. No problem though. Everything´s bigger here. Including my ass.

Goodnight ladies and gentlemen!

Little Spain

Imagine how happy we were, walking around the farmers market and finding this!!!

Felt like an hour in la latina...

Don´t know if it was the olives, the jamón or the red wine (probably), but I started dreaming about finding that perfect house in Mallorca and opening my store... Just you wait and see!:)



Christmas Grove

Wanted to look at a real American christmas tree. So we went to the Grove. Yep, this was basically the only reason we went there. And I´d heard it was supposed to be "a European style outdoor mall". Everything European gets my attention.

Does this look European enough?

Maybe it sort of does. People were actually eating bread in the "parisian style" café down there to the left. Bread! With wheat! White poison! Refreshingly European.

This was the christmas tree. It was too tall to take a picture of, so Pablo had to lie down on the ground to capture its entire glory. As you can see, it was definitely worth it. What was even better:

Santa´s house! We didn´t go there because we weren´t invited. I paid a visit to one of my best friends Zara instead. Hadn´t seen her in a long time. Tried on approximately 30 tops but didn´t buy any. I don´t know what is happening to me, but I didn´t want to buy something just for the sake of buying (!?) I know, it doesn´t make sense to me either. As we were leaving, there was a crowd gathering around a stage.

I could be bluffing, but that´s Katy Perry. See if you can find her! Because I can´t. I do however remember her being up there when I took the pic. Wearing a very pink, very tight dress. American christmas tree/Santa/superstar day complete! Now some Modern Family.

It´s beginning to look a lot like.... ¿christmas?

Yesterday I got this feeling of winter and festivities. Which I guess you do if you start your day in a pub called Underground watching a soccer game and sipping beer. Right? And it was SNOWING in Hermosa! Look!

See, there in the background. Snowfest they called it. Snowboarders jumping around and kids marvelling at melting spots of gray snow. I´ve seen a lot of snow before, so we went to the pier and spexed around in the cold sun instead. 

I was pretending to be in a movie. It would have been called "Love boat: Don´t let the sun go down on me". Or in Spanish: "El barco de amor: La puesta del sol". Or something like that.

Then we looked at Santa and Santa´s little hooker, sorry, helper.

Nobody wanted to sit in Santa´s lap, besides me, but Pabs wouldn´t let me. Went to get another beer instead.

Don´t be fooled by the palmtrees and the sunset, it was getting very chilly. So we went home, had some more beer, and played Spotify-Scrabble. Christmas can come now, I´m ready. Oh, have I mentioned that we´re going to Mexico for christmas? I have? Ok.

Nobu

Ok, so I'll admit I probably knew about this place from reading about it in People or Star Magazine or something like that. "Gwyneth and Chris leaving Nobu after a pleasant evening with their good friends Madonna and Dalai Lama". But if it's good enough for Gwyneth... you know. Oh by the way you have to sign up for her newsletter goop, it's sometimes useful (if you're loaded), mostly just kind of entertaining. Anyway. We ooh'd and aah'd ourselves through salmon sashimi, a raw tuna salad, some tempura shrimp with aioli and lemon, a perfect ceviche, and this cod you see here which was de-li-ci-ous. I'm norwegian and have eaten a LOT of cod. I know good cod when I see it.

 

For dessert they had something exotic called Froyo on the menu. I was very curious about that. The waiter told me it was basically yoghurt with berries. I still didn't get it. When he came back I said, "I'll have the yoghurt. What did you call it again?" Leaning forward, very interested to hear about this japanese delicacy, probably pouting a bit. 

The guy is a bit perplexed. "Eh, it's froyo"

Me: "Follo?" (This is even funnier if you speak spanish)

Perplexed waiter: "No, fro-yo. Like, frozen yoghurt"

P was trying to sneak away under the table at this moment.

Well, I got my little froyo in the end.

This is how happy, full and fuzzy we looked when leaving.

Spex

“All it comes down to is this: We feel like shit but look great.”

"Listen, you'll have to excuse me. I have a lunch meeting with Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons in 20 minutes. "

“Greed is good. Sex is easy. Youth is forever.”

“And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there.”

"Not quite blonde, are we? More of a dirty blonde."

"This is not an exit"

Church&State

In the middle of the industrial area downtown, this gem of a restaurant is, maybe not hiding, but not exactly shouting out its presence, with fab french wines, rabbit, boullabaisse, moules marinieres, roast lamb, braised veal and other goodies on the menu. I always think ambience is more important than the food though, and here you get both. I'm a sucker for bare lightbulbs, I have to admit. Think it started in Tivoli in Copenhagen somewhere around 1989. I'll love any restaurant that has a stub of rope light hanging from the ceiling. So this place just couldn't be wrong.

Mouth-wateringly good steak tartare. With homemade aioli and pickles. I even had some french fries, woooo!

This is the petite assiette of boullabaisse. I think asking the question "how bloody big is the big assiette?" is not out of place here. We left very full and happy (in both the Norwegian and English meaning of the word. The wine was gooood).

All kinds of trucks

They're obsessed with selling things from trucks here. They drive around and you can find them all over the place, they even have a bunch of maps and pages for you to find out where the different trucks happen to be at a certain time. Like this or this. Or twitter.

You can get hotdogs...

cheesesteaks...

flowers...

Or Jesus! Yeah ok this is not really a truck, nor is it selling anything. But it can probably help you establish a relationship with Christ.

Dinner on the strand

Finally made it to the Strand House for dinner last night, it was a hectic Saturday night for them, but we got a nice little table outside, right under the warming lamps (or the pig lamps as I like to call them), and with a view of the dining room. I sneak-photo'd some of the guests so you can have a look at the fancy deco. You can't tell, but that's the ocean hiding out there in the darkness.

We had a reeeally good starter with rabbit and gnocchi and surprisingly good peas. Yes, peas.

The meat melted on our tongues as they say. And the peas popped. If saying that is allowed.

Then some beans with feta, an insanely tasty salmon with shiitake and sesame seeds, and the pizza we'd been dying to try, which was good but not worth dying for.

Being responsible people, we biked home after some vino. Maybe not that responsible, on bikes with no lights. Our shades were cool either way.

Fight on!

A tailgate is basically a pre-party to an american football game. It's called tailgating because they originally took place next to a tailgate which is, and I'm quoting, "A hinged board or closure at the rear of a vehicle, such as a pick-up truck, that can be lowered during loading and unloading".  Some still barbeque on their trucks I guess. People get really drunk on campus, and then some of them go to watch the game. Some don't, they just continue drinking. Everybody's wearing the team's colors, in this case, red and yellow, or should I say cardinal and gold. Entertaining!

I like my palm trees like my celebrities; super skinny with a wobbly big head.

Look, look at all the football fans wearing red and yellow

Corinne&Pablo working on their flip-cup skills, still not sure which way the cup should be flipped. Flipo!