... turned out just fine. But man, was I nervous or was I nervous?! Yesteday, I couldn´t keep still, I was busy from early morning to late evening. I went up early (couldn´t sleep anyway) and went for a long walk. I did laundry, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the rest of the apartment, watched the Olympics and did a lot of other stuff to keep myself from freaking out too much...

And today was the day. I know, I know, I shouldn´t be nervous. First day, you´re not expected to know everything. After all, it is the first day, not finals... The information sheet said that the registration was in the assembly hall at 8 am. Since I know myself to be quite a time optimist, and really didn´t want to mess up on the first day, I left home really early.
When I got there, there was only one more student there, a nice bloke who should take the same classes as I. Then the receptionist told us that the time had been changed, the registration wasn´t until 9.30 Oookay, we thought. A coffee break later, a teacher came along and told us that they had been told the registration wasn´t until 11 am! Wot?!
In the end we did get registered, all 8 of us. 8 people. That´s the smallest class I´ve ever been in. Not surprisingly, I was the oldest student, by pretty far, and one out of two girls.

After the registration, I got busy again. I had been told that we would study one subject at the time, starting with Math C, so I had only bought the book for that class. Oh no, we´re gonna read all subjects parallel, so I was in desperate need of the other books. Let me tell you, those books aren´t cheap! Thank God for savings, since I won´t get my student loans until Friday, earliest.
So the rest of the day was spent chasing through the book stores of Borås. I managed to get everything I needed, except for a calculator. I´ll ask the teacher tomorrow which one to choose. After all, they´re exprensive, and if I´m going to university later, I´d like one that works there too.
To summarize, this day was pretty okay. Tomorrow the real deal starts, with Biology, Chemistry and Physics classes. This is sure going to be interesting.

After almost four weeks on the pure diet, I started the combined diet today. I just had to, since Mithlond had the August Picnic today, and I just wouldn´t miss it. So this morning, I weighted and measured myself. Good news indeed:
Weight: 65,1 kilos.
Waist: 89 centimetres.
That´s 7,6 kilos and 5 centimetres gone. Holy shit! That´s great!

Starting with the combined diet the same day as you attend a Mithlond event, turned out to be somewhat interesting. After all, most people in Mithlond enjoys good food, and there is a saying among us, that whatever happens on an event, running out of food is NOT allowed. Actually, we´re quite famous for our banquets. When moving from pure to combined diet, the advise for the first day is 3 bags of soups and 100 grams of fish, meat or chicken. Going to said picnic, I knew that wouldn´t work very well...
The picnic was a blast. It was wonderful to see people from Mithlond again, some of them I haven´t seen for a long time. Even the weather was in our favor, so we sat in the grass by the watertower (which looks like a miniature medieval castle, (don´t ask me why, but it does)), ate the food and played silly games. Oh, and tried to fight off the wasps... My contribution to the buffet was small cocktail sticks, with olives, sausages and cheese. Really tasty.
It was a weird feeling going to the store buying said stuff. I now have cheese and some sausages in my fridge! And I havn´t used a frying pan for almost four weeks!
Of course I ate more than 100 grams in the end, but I still think I managed acceptably. It wasn´t that hard, actually. After 2 sticks, 2 pieces of flatbread rolls, a slice of peach, a tiny bit of paté and some cocktail tomatoes, I got pretty full. And I stayed away from the chocolate biscuits, I ate a few grapes instead. I´m damn proud of myself! *smiles* And it was wonderful to actually chew on something, not just swallow!

Tomorrow I´ll be strict with the diet. 3 bags of soups and 100 grams of something, probably chicken. I´ve gotten myself a nice shiny kitchen scales now, so it will do just fine! *laughs*

Yeah, in two senses. One more week with Cambridge has passed, and one more week for me to work before school starts. I´m getting anxious about school. I´m not sure why; I´ve been granted study loans, my leave of abscence was granted (thank God) and next week I´ll buy the first batch of books needed. I shouldn´t be anxious, but I still am. I know fully well this year won´t be a picnic, but everyone I have spoken with says that "if you study hard, you get through it", so I guess I will. Still, we´re talking bloody Math, dammit! *shudder* Not my best subject in school... Ah well, if it doesn´t work, I have my job to go back to.

The Cambridge thing works just fine. With all flavors tried, I know this:

- The chicken soup tastes even better with some curry in it. Yummy!
- The vegetable soup is horrible, even made with the blender. I´m eating the last one today, and then never, ever again! Strawberry, come back, everything is forgotten...
- The mushroom soup tastes the best without any additional spices. Still my soup favorite!
- The chocolate shake is pure heaven. This evening I´ll mix it with warm water and add some chilli in it, and see what happens.
- Vanilla shake is divine. Vanilla shake with some cinnamon in it is even more divine. My new favorite! *drools*
- The mint chocolate shake was pretty nice. Much better than I thought.
- The cappucino shake was... interesting. I had one for dinner, brushed my teeth and went to bed, and when I woke up, I still had the taste of it in my mouth. Hmm...

This morning the scales said 66,7 kilos. I´ve lost 6 kilos in 3 weeks. I´m so satisfied. I hope I´ll make it down to 66 sharp until Wednesday, when we´re seeing the advisor again. Also, my waist measurement is now 90 centimetres. Finally some progress on that. And best of all; my boobs are smaller! Victory!!!
OMG, I´m starting to sound like a weight loss commercial, don´t I? *laughs* But it is great, to see that something actually happens with your body.

And now for something completely different. kseenaa  told me I was evul, giving her ideas with my use of RoS icons and links to youtube videos. Can´t have that, can we? *schoolgirl giggle* So, these links are totally innocent, I promise you. No handsome outlaws, no murderous barbers, just some fluffy, feathery things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT6oD7SriOg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rhV5nlpNno&feature=related

Cute, huh? I know I got addicted...

Tomorrow I´m going (walking, to be precise) to town to buy a kitchen scales. I´m gonna need it when we start the combined diet. No way I can measure 100 grams of fish with my eyes, so I´m getting one. Also, I´m gonna look for the Twilight books. There has been a lot of talking about the series on ff.net, and I´m getting curious.

*** edit*** Chocolate with chilli was quite allright. Gonna try it with cold water next, though, and a tad more chilli...

Just finished my "dinner"; chocolate milkshake. Hello, pure bliss... This morning, I was in shock. I couldn´t stay off the scale, and holy crap, it said 67,3 kilos!!! I couldn´t believe it, tried again, and yes, 67,3 kilos still. O.M.G. *faints*
I was so happy! I haven´t weighted like this for 7 years. In fact, last time I made an attempt to loose weight, a friend dragged me to the Weight Watchers, and 67,4 was the least  weight I had until I gave up. I never liked it there, it felt so pretentious and the advisor always sounded like a hysterical preacher. Not my cup of tea, really...

Weighting less than 67,4 kilos was actually one of my goals, so achieving it, I decided I deserved a reward. Since Wedin´s shoe sale started today, and a girl can never have too many shoes, I went there. I got out with 2 pairs for a total cost of less than 300 SEK. Yay for shoe sales! One pair was black suede, almost ballerina style and the other one was black leather with heels, very classic style. Will do perfect with my grey woolen skirt.

That woolen skirt, bought back in 1998, is my favorite one. It´s long since I fit into it, but I have always had my hopes I´d fit into it once more. So that skirt is my next goal. It´s gonna take a while, cause it´s a size 40, but I´m hopeful! :-D

Woohoo! The triumphant trio has survived another week on the Cambridge diet. Woohoo again! :-D
Routine has settled by now. Mushroom soup for breakfast, chicken soup for lunch and milkshake for dinner, drinking lots and lots of water and running to the bathroom all the time... Our plan is to do the pure diet for another two weeks, and then start to combine the soups with real food, a little at the time.
This morning the bathroom scale showed 68,6 kilograms. I´ve lost 4 kilograms in 2 weeks. That´s not bad!!! *performs a happy dance*

Yesterday turned out to be a nostalgic day. The weather didn´t really invite to take a long walk, which I´d hoped. So I stayed inside mostly, doing things I have to do, and doing lots of things I normally don´t do. Hence the nostalgia.

I checked out youtube for Robin of Sherwood clips. There were lots of stuff. Funny stuff. I turned 14 again and had a great time. Then I found the clip where Robin dies. *sob* Then nostalgia really kicked in! I love that scene, it´s so sad and quiet, and Michael Praed and Judi Trott rocks in it! After all these years, the series are still among my absolute favorites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z53KjQJM6cA

I also found a trailer for the upcoming Rose of Versailles movie. The new anime one, that is. It seemes to have been postponed until next year, but a Japanese trailer was there, in all it´s glory. The quality was quite lousy, but the style seems to be more like the later part of the anime. I like that, I always liked the last chapters best, being a lot darker and more adult.
I also found clips from the non-anime movie, starring Catriona MacColl and Barry Stokes as Oscar and Andre. RoV fans usually laugh at it, but it seems to have it´s moments. I wanna see it. Hey, I even wanna own it! :-D
Watching all that, I wanted to reread Melissa Farell´s wonderful arc of RoV fics; Destiny of Roses, but she had taken down her site from the web!!! Aaargh!!! I checked if the fics were stored somewhere else, but no luck. *cries* Her fics were absolutely stunning, and it was finding her site that started my interest in the series. Not to mention, her lemon fics were to die for. Holy shit! *griefs*

The nostalgia continued when I found out that "Cry-Baby" was on TV3 last night. Very late, unfortunately, but that movie is so... cute... and I hadn´t seen it for years, so I just had to stay up and watch it. So I pinned together parts of E.´s toile and finished a green hobbit style handkerchief while watching. Being nostalgic and creative, not bad. Howcome I´m always more creative at night? *confused*

Darn, I forgot to put in the ticker in the last post. See? -2 kilograms! I´m so proud! I´m not sure why it doesn´t show decimals. Ah well...

Yeah, pretty much. One entire week on the diet, and I feel just fine. Really fine, actually. Last Sunday I was sceptical, to say the least. I know myself very well, so the thought about me being on a diet for more than 10 minutes? Yeah, bloody likely... The stories I´d heard from kseenaa´s mother and aunt wasn´t helping either. Comments like "the second day I was screaming "give me FOOD"" and "the first four days, I´ve never been as hungry in all my life" doesn´t actually lift your spirits...

But, despite my fears, this week has been incredibly smooth. I haven´t had those hunger feelings. Not one single time. Cravings for sugary things like cookies and candy, yes, but hunger feelings, no. I´m amazed! And I love my handblender! It´s a wonder. Bloody shame I can´t bring it to work though. The soups tastes so much better with the blender than just "shake in the can"...

Today I faced the bathroom scale. It said 70,5 kg. Yay! That´s 2 kilograms since Monday! I also measured my waist, it was 93 centimetres instead of 94. That´s good too! *smile*

To summon this week; these are the keys that makes it work for me:
- routine with the food. Mushroom soup for breakfast, chicken soup for lunch and chocolate/strawberry milkshake for dinner.
- an (more or less) empty fridge. Take away all possible temptations. Not even the worst of cravings can make me eat pure broth and tomato sauce...
- peptalk from kseenaa and Peting. It´s good to know that we are working together, all three of us.

Next Wednesday we´ll see the advisor again, to talk about our progress and buy more soups. This time I´ll try the vegetable soup. And I´ll buy more milkshakes. The chocolate is pure heaven, and I have to admit that the strawberry one isn´t that bad. If I mix it with really cold water and use the handblender, it´s quite edible... kseenaa recommended the vanilla, and I guess I have to try the mint chocolate, at least one bag. I´m sceptical when it comes to mint chocolate, but you can´t judge until you´ve tried, right?

Damn, that was tough! But damn, that was fun! Even though I´ll probably regret it tomorrow...
The class wasn´t a standard medium class, but a "medium strength" which means lots and lots of push-ups and lots and lots of sit-ups. With either; I officially suck... Somehow, I still managed to survive. The instructor was great, and it was wicked fun to do aerobics to Markoolio´s "Ingen sommar utan reggae". Afterwards, I walked home through the Annelund park, enjoying the nice evening.

My new paid account LJ is improving too. Added some more userpics today (I OWE you kseenaa) and got a new layout. This is fun. This is so much fun. *giggle*

Yay, I got meself a ticker! I´m so glad! Thanks, KSeenaa for your excellent guiding through the scary world of html! *grin* I couldn´t stay off the scale this morning, and there was actually some progress since yesterday. Not much, but still progress. Yay again!!!




This day has been quite all right. No soups on the floor, no headaches and no snickering colleagues. My last task is to persuade myself to go to the outdoor aerobic. Unfortunately for me today´s class is "medium". Ough, that´s gonna be tough...

My Cambridge experiences this far...

My weight: 72,7 kilos. Ehh...
Waist measure: 94 centimetres. Ehh again...

Monday:
Breakfast: the mushroom soup was tasty, but it took a while until I figured how to shake the damn thing. I shaked and swore while my way older colleague laughed and told me it was obvious I had never made gruel... How observant, dear!

Lunch: chicken soup. Very tasty too. I had learnt a thing or two since breakfast, so I managed to get the soup almost without lumps. Yay!

Dinner: strawberry soup. Absolutely disgusting!!!! It tasted like chemicals, like Fun Light lemonade, just thicker. Groose! I had to force myself to gulp it down, "child taking medicine" style. *spit, cough, choke*

Conclusion: Except for the strawberry, this tasted far better than I had dared hope. I had the headache from hell, which I guess is due to NO sugary things for an entire day. My body is not used to that; having eating cookies and candy almost every day during my vacation.  *blushes* Also I´m not used to drinking this much water. You´re supposed to drink at least 3 litres a day. That´s much more than I usually drink a day.

Thuesday:
Breakfast: the plan was mushroom soup, but the vile can slipped out of my grasp, sending the soup over the sink, the floor and the stove. And over me. Looked like vomit. Being pissed and hungry, I went for a second try with my (supposed) lunch soup; chicken taste. It worked much better.

Very late lunch/ early dinner: mushroom soup. Warm and nice, and stayed in the can...

Supper: Chocolate! Yummy!!!

Conclusion: Much better day, well except for the breakfast accident... The headache is much better too. I also went for a long walk. I can´t afford a gym card until Friday. Tomorrow I´ll try to persuade myself into going to the outdoor aerobics in the town park.

So, it´s been two very interesting days. This far, I´m very optimistic. It´s hard, of course, not to eat real solid food, but I´ll get by.

Oh, and thank you kseenaa, for letting me using your icon! *hug*

This has been a... weird... day. Last day with normal, real food. Tomorrow hell the new life of Cambridge diet starts. No more homemade meatballs with potatoes and lingonberry jam. No more chicken stew with mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes. No pepper beef with deep fried potatoes and garlic sauce. Not even a plate of  "pyttipanna"! At least not for a looong time... *sobs* Oh god, I sound like Pippin in FotR; "What about second breakfast?!" *slaps myself*
Well, no kidding myself, I really need to loose weight. When I graduated from college 12 years ago, I weighted 52 kilos. This morning, the bathroom scale screamed out the ugly truth; 73 kilos! The horror!!! I know it´s all my fault. No-one to blame but myself. Eating way too much crisps and candy, eating non healthy food and exercising waaay too little.
Earlier this week, kseenaa, her boyfriend P and I went to a Cambridge advisor. We left with our spirits lifted, and a lot of Cambridge food. Powder soups, that is. You eat those 3 times a day, and drink at least 3 litres of water a day. This sure is going to be interesing... To quote kseenaa´s mother: "The first four days, I´ve never been so hungry in all my life".
Nice to know what we´re facing... Well, I guess the trick is to keep oneself busy, so you don´t think of food all the time. That shouldn´t be a problem, with all my projects! *smirk*

This week, I´ve emptied my fridge, and today, I made myself a kick-ass dinner. My colleague Maire gave me a recipe on breaded chicken. You bread chicken fillets in egg and a mixture of even breadcrumbs, grated cheese and some black pepper. Fry them and then add cream and some broth and let it boil to a nice smooth sauce. Delicious. I also finished the garlic bread and fried the last potatoes to go with the chicken.

Now, my fridge is an echoing void. Almost empty save for some tomato sauce, apple juice and a bottle of broth. And my nail polish. I guess it´s safe there... *nervous giggle*

Oh gawd, I´m so not looking forward to tomorrow...

TBC...

Saturday night, and I´m enjoying the last of the Archers peach schnapps I bought in London last year. After next Monday, I´m not allowed to drink that stuff. In fact, all I´m allowed to eat/drink are soup and water. Lots and lots of water. Yes, I´m going on the Cambridge diet. kseenaa´s mother and aunt tried it and it worked very well for them. So kseenaa thought she would try it too. She didn´t want to do it alone though, so after talking a lot about it, both her boyfriend and I signed up for it too.

Today was kseenaa´s birthday, and she invited family and friends to celebrate. I got her a pirate style piggy bank and a book; "Låt den rätte komma in" by Johan Ajvide Lindqvist. I was amazed that she hadn´t read it already; it´s about vampires after all, and the (probably) first Swedish vampire novel sure wouldn´t had gone unnoticed... And the best thing is; the movie version comes this fall! I´m so gonna see it, even though it´s a  horror movie.

When I hear the word "cosplay" I either think of kids in poorly made anime outfits, or reeeeally serious costumes. This one certainly comes from the later category. Holy shit...
http://www.cosplaylab.com/cosplayers/costumes/details.asp?costumeid=165839
...and some more pictures of the same costume, from another gallery...
http://www.acparadise.com/acp/display.php?c=16200

And no, I am not jealous. *grinds teeth* Not at all...

Today´s the last day of my vacation. To noone´s surprise (not mine, at least), it´s sunny outside... How typical!
Four wonderful weeks came and went, quick as lightening. The weather sure could have been better, but I won´t complain. I´ve had a lot of fun; visiting my parents and my grandmother, getting myself a nice red sunburn, finishing some "textile related" projects *cough* and of course started some new ones... *cough*
Mum and I went to Stockholm for one week, on a combined vacation/ taking care of grandmother trip. My grandmother turns 89 this September; she can´t remember if I´m living in Borås, or still lives in Umeå (moved from there 5 years ago), if she has taken her heart medicines or which day it is. However she still has her silly, naughty humour which always surprise you. We cooked for her, took her to the hairdresser and drank too much coffee. She´s such a cool golden girl. Mum and I went on a shameless shopping spree. We found the most weird excuses to buy  that top or go back for another ice cream with cinnamon crusts. It was hilarious. By some weird reason *blushes* I even bought more cloth. As always, I left Stockholm with a hell lot more things than I had planned... Ah well...

Speaking about "textile projects", I made a priority list for them. Tomorrow I go back to work, then I work for five weeks until school starts. Yes, school. I applied to the "naturvetenskapligt basår", (no idea what that is in English) and got accepted. For one year, I´ll study Math, Chemistry, Biology and Physics. I´m scared already, but I really need to get away from my work NOW, or I´ll be stuck there until retirement! *shudders* So, back to school it is! One thing´s for sure, when school starts, I won´t have much time for sewing, so I made said priority list:


A very great benefit of vacation is that you can stay up laaate at night, reading a lot of weird, silly, steamy (and sometimes very great) fanfics. The more you read, the more you find, they say, and the Sweeney Todd fandom is no exception. After reading an interesting discussion in a community, this one was recommended:

http://the-haunted-one.livejournal.com/196254.html
What happend to Toby afterwards? Traumatized for life, no doubt. This one deals with a very dark and tragic possibility. What if he turned out just like someone he really hated...

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4228554/1/Passing_Strange
I usually duck and run for cover when I come across fics themed "Todd and Lovett meets again in the modern world". To write AU and still keep the characters IC is an art mastered by a very few, and to change the settings that much rarely gets my attention. But I liked this one. It´s a WIP, but the last update was two days ago. The first chapter really woke up the slumbering fan art wannabe in me. Ugh, like I needed more things to do...

I even got ideas for a fanfic of my own. After catching up on an Isfolket community, a discussion concluded that most people would have liked to read about Liv´s death. "Time for a fanfic, maybe?", someone said. "Indeed", I thought. And then my brains started to work. Like it always does in such cases. I swear, I tried to calm it down, telling it what an utterly stupid idea this was, but it didn´t listen. Damn. Must... write... must sew... must use these last hours of vacation wisely... *faints*

*cools off with my lacey fan* That fanfic you pimped was one of the best I´ve read! And I´m not even _that_ much of a PotC fan! Sure, I like the first movie (still not sure about the other two) and the three-some potential is more than obvious, but not my favorite fandom. But this was... amazing! Very IC all over, and very steamy. Is it hot in here, or wot?! *reaches for the fan again*

So, in return, here are some for you:

http://movies.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=600091924
The steamy _and_ IC Sweenett story I told you about on the phone. I´m still not sure about the idea of them sleeping together, but this one works in my mind. Works very well... Hmm, if you think about it, it´s actually a three-some... in a sort of way...

http://shyaway.livejournal.com/105402.html
Mrs Lovett´s POV. You´ve probably read this already, I know I have ranted about this earlier, but I really like it. Dark *cough* with a tragic ending *cough*. It might very well have ended this way, I think...

http://movies.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=544184943
And the Sleepy Hollow story I found. A warning though, it´s a WIP, and not updated since 2006. Still, it´s really great! I liked the Lady van Tassel in all her wickedness, and I think this is a possible story how she ended up that way...

Enjoy! *hands over the fan*

*** edited a little, I just _had_ to show my newest userpic... ***

I´m a night person. Always been, always will be. Working as a cleaner, however, early mornings are unavoidable. *growl* But when the opportunity comes, I turn back to "nocturnal" phase. This year, the transformation went quickly, in less than 2 days. Last night, I was up until 3 a.m., reading obscure fanfics, looking for icons and drawing some costume ideas for an upcoming Mithlond event. I sooo need my DVD player to work again... *evil glare at said player*

I´ve got my embroidery books! They arrived today; 4 wonderful books about crewel embroidery, whitework, satin ribbon embroidery and miniature embroideries. Gonna pimp my hobbit costume a little (okay, a lot!)... Guess I´ll stay up late again... *smile*

Today´s the first day of my vacation. To noone´s surprise (not mine, at least), it´s raining outside...

Rain or not, vacation is great. Really great. This year I´ll stay in Borås most of the time, except for some trips to my parents´ place, and a visit to my grandmother; the cute, cool little lady.

Remember the "dress of doom", the totally insane project aka tekiila´s medieval shift? Until we can get her to Borås to finish the very last details, it´s done! *recieves applauses* So, yesterday, kseenaa and I started a new "dress of doom", except this time it´s not a dress, but a pirate coat! After drooling over  pktaxwench´s incredible PotC costumes, we both realised that we needed a Bootstrap Bill coat. Desperately. Well, without the sea shells...
So, a purchase (horray for Simplicity patterns) and some anxiety later, we were ready to start the project. The plans for yesterday was simply to put the pattern on the table, look at it and maybe even poke it with a stick, as kseenaa put it. After all, none of us has even made such a huge... serious... project, so we were a little scared. In the end, we both poked (I have the proof in my camera!!!), measured, and even cut out the pieces for a toile! Progress! Success!
After all these exhausting toils, we went to kseenaa´s home and had delicious food (I tell you; her boyfriend is a god in the kitchen) and collapsed in the sofa, watching "The Illusionist". We thought it was the movie about two fighting magicans, starring Hugh Jackman, but no. This was instead a very... weird... movie, where you couldn´t figure out what was gonna happen. And definately not how it was going to end.

Coming home, I had to check www.imdb.com for the Hugh Jackman movie. It´s called the "The Prestige". I´m sooo gonna see that too. Mark Ryan is in it!!! *fangirl swoon*

Before the Friskis outdoor´s aerobic starts, my plans for today is to start sewing kseenaa´s toile together. I got really inspired yesterday, actually. As we don´t have the same size (she´s 6 feet tall, I´m 5 feet tall), we can´t use the same pattern sheet, though. So we´ll start with hers, until I can buy a smaller pattern. Ah well...

Just a short link to a wonderful Mary-Sue-bashing fanfic from ff.net Mesa like! *giggle*

*ROTFLMAO*

This was just too good, not to put here. Lars Lagerbäck, coach of the Swedish Football Team, goes Gladiator...

http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/sport/fotbollsem/article2547384.ab

So... cute... *still ROTFLMAO*

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Don´t you agree, kseenaa? *wicked smile* But we had a great time, even though it had been even greater without the parking fine...

Last Friday, we had tickets to Sweeney Todd, on the Gothenburg Opera. I love musicals, and after watching Tim Burton´s ST movie, I was really interested in the stage musical. Since neither of us go to the opera THAT often, we felt a little like the country cousins coming to town...
First of all, what to wear? It wasn´t première night, but almost. After some anxiety, we settled for nice, proper clothes; not too fancy, not too casual. After finding a parking practically around the corner, we went inside to realize that our clothes worked just fine.
The Gothenburg Opera House is gorgeous. It´s by the water (duh...) and the interior is wonderful. After buying a theatre programme and the movie OST, finding the wardrobe (cute guys) and having a cider and a tart (VERY expensive, but extremely yummy) we found our seats, on one of the balconies.
The musical was great. We had seats with a little restricted view, but just a tiny bit. I hadn´t been to a theatre for way too long, so it was pure pleasure sitting there. I strongly hold to that musicals are for the live stage. Nothing wrong with the actors in the Tim Burton movie; they sure did their work, but they just can´t compete with opera trained singers from West End.
I really liked the singer playing Sweeney Todd. Such voice he had. I got goose flesh all over when he sang "Epiphany". It´s really my favorite, with the changes between grief and pure madness. I read somewhere that the libretto is really hard to sing, no shit, but it really goes with the story. A story about a revenger/mass murderer shouldn´t be accompanied by cute melodies. The stage also went well with the story. It was circular and with very little props. The orchestra was between the main stage and a kind of a "catwalk" at the main front. And thank God for the text machine! Cockney is damn hard to understand!

We left the opera, feeling very cultural, and with a loss of words, after a wonderful experience. Unfortunately, we had another experience coming up. A more embarrassing one. The parking we had found was parted in three. The two first were for public use, but the third required a parking permission. Guess where we had parked...? Oh, yes, here comes the hillbillies, hmm?!  Even more embarrassing; we didn´t find the fine until next morning. So we drove 60 kilometres with a fine on the wind shield! How clever is that?! *awkward laugh*

After listening to the OST for most of the weekend, I decided to check out the fanficion range. I didn´t find much. I guess it´s a hard fandom to write in. Apart from the usual (more or less) shameless Mary-Sue:s, most of it was Todd/Lovett pairings. Me not like! Sure, they fit together as partners in crime, but I can´t see them as a love couple. She has a thing for him, no shit, but from his side... no. I managed to find some pearls, though, both from fanfiction.net, of all places... *gasp* The search goes on...

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3990471/1/Fifteen
This is very well written and VERY dark. Feel the pain...

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4230637/1/Pies_and_Prejudice
Okay, it´s sappy and quite very OOC, but I can´t help liking the idea of a crossover between ST and Pride and Prejudice! Writing in progress. Go on writing, please!!!