After a full five weeks away (from Walsall, not England), I returned on Sunday evening. Morten and his dad drove me out to the airport (it was a good opportunity for Morten to practice a bit of motorway driving at the same time), I checked in and got through security without any issues and my plane arrived at Gatwick ahead of schedule. There were no real delays until I was on the train to Birmingham, when we had to wait for half an hour at Watford Junction because one of the passengers needed medical attention.
Then they decided to terminate the train at Birmingham International, since it was so delayed anyway, and I got the next train to New Street. Following this minor adventure, I made it to Walsall with no further delays. Had some dinner, played The Sims, chatted with Morten and went to bed.
My last week before leaving home again was very pleasant. Monday I got my flu-shot and we spent a quiet night in. Tuesday we went to a pub quiz. Wednesday we went to dinner at my parents’ place, where we ate stroganoff. It’s been really nice seeing my step brother, Lars Erik, again. He’s studying psychology in Australia, but was of course home for Christmas (I think he’s still home; they have summer holidays there now), and was thankfully not around for the flood, as his house is in Brisbane and, incidentally, one of the few that didn’t get flooded because it was on pretty high ground. Lars Erik and I used to play a lot as children, before our parents moved in together and got married. Sadly, we drifted apart a bit in our teens… It’s so nice to see him now because it’s like that stuff doesn’t matter anymore and we can be friends again. I think Australia has done him a lot of good, too. Seems he’s found a place to belong and that’s really nice.
Thursday I hung out with Jen and Chris. We went over to Jen’s and watched Despicable Me, which I very much enjoyed. Chris had to leave a bit early as she had work the next day, but I stayed quite late and we just sat talking, mostly. It’s been a while, and was very nice. On Friday I bought a new MacBook, 15 inch. Oh my God, it’s so nice to be able to play The Sims without that infernal lagging all the time! Simply excellent computer, I’m so happy with it! Of course, it’s too big to bring about the place, so I’m gonna have to think about whether to get an iPad or wait a while and get a MacBook Air or something. I’m not made of money, so we’ll have to see…
After I’d set it up and begun to transfer everything from my old MacBook (never done that before, but it really transferred everything from settings and documents to the applications themselves; everything is exactly the same except for the upgraded iLife programmes) we went out for beers at Kristiania. Had a decent turn-out and a very good time. Missing everyone already!
Saturday, I had lunch at my mum’s. Then Morten and I went out to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which I have to say is my favourite of the Narnia films so far (of course, it is also my favourite book of the series, with the possible exception of The Magician’s Nephew, so I’m probably biased) and I really cannot understand what the critics are talking about. What a fantastic adaptation! After the movie we went to dinner at an Indian restaurant, and then we went home and I packed all my stuff.
Which brings us to Sunday morning, and I’ve already told you all about that. I had a lecture yesterday, in the module Employability and Enterprise in Music, which was fairly interesting, though I’m still not quite sure I understand the module… Still, I’ll probably get it eventually. After my lecture I went shopping at Asda as I had NO food at all. Now I have loads of food. So all is well.
Today I have done nothing constructive at all. Good day.
EDIT: A quick note about Humac employees. I asked in the shop when I bought my new mac if I’d be able to transfer everything between my old mac and my new one using Migration Assistant wirelessly, or if I’d need a cable to connect the two. The guy in the shop told me that the only way to transfer all settings and applications was via a Time Capsule with a Time Machine back-up. What utter nonsense! Don’t answer a question if you haven’t got a clue! In reality, there turned out to be three ways of transferring everything from my old computer: Firewire, ethernet and airport (aka wireless). I used an ethernet cable, and it took roughly two hours.