Author Archives: Ivar the Salacious

SteveO

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One of my friends died.

He was a good man, a happy man – always smiling, always joking. I used to call him bald Steve. I was never able to spell his last name… I loved his humour and his laughter. He was one of the good ones. Why did he die and not some other horrible person? There’s plenty of them going around.

We worked together at my old job.

One of the last things I said to SteveO was “I will miss seeing my reflection from the top of your head. If I was female I’d slap that tight bum of your’s as well.”

SteveO drove me home that day and on other occasions as well (for example when it was raining outside or I needed a lift to catch my train).

He was kind.

He was humble.

I wish more people were like him.

He was a friend.

I will miss you,
Ivar

Today is moving day

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Firstly I’m moving my ass back to England.
I miss home. I was on the bus and I got a bit nostalgic. I was listening to a romantic song and watching out the window. It reminded me of that time I was living in my campervan in Australia near Shepparton.
I loved watching the sunset but I remembered the mozzies… so many of them. I used to open the back door and scroll down all the windows and go for a drive so that the wind would blow all the mozzies out before I went to sleep. #Lifehack… Life wasn’t perfect but in many ways it kinda was.

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Today’s plan is to move house. I’m changing jobs and will move to London as well. I’ve been in the UK for 1.5 years and virtually all this time was spent in Chelmsford. It seems like I’ve been missing out on the whole UK experience. I think London will be good for me.
My new place is the most expensive I’ve ever lived in (£750 pcm for my room) but the location is very good. The closest tube station is Angel and the place is only 1.5 km from work – I can skip the whole rush hour commute and stroll to work in only 15-20 minutes.
My new flatmates are Daniel (car surveys) and Joshua (IT guy). I haven’t met Josh yet. Dan seemed nice. He is/was a runner, plays guitar and seemed like a good chap.
BTW when I was flat hunting I only looked at one place – I didn’t have much time because of my sudden trip to Estonia. I checked the place out and said I’ll take it because of the location. There was another place which was even better however the rent was £1000 pcm – a bit too pricey right now. I hope my new home is fine though.
I’m probably not going to finish packing/moving today but I’ll get most of it done. I’ll finish on Monday.
Monday is also the first day in my new job. Exciting stuff.

Faith in humanity restored… and then lost again

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I didn’t quite know when the funeral was going to be. All I knew was that it’s the first week of August. So I booked my outbound flights for the 2nd August.
Just a few days later they set the date for the funeral and it was on the 1st of August.
Great news. It made my day.
I had no choice and booked a one-way flight to Tallinn (with a connecting flight from Amsterdam). Problem solved.
I also had to visit the Estonian embassy to address my expired passport situation.
I have mixed feelings about the embassy. The guy behind the counter was the first Estonian I’ve seen in months… anywho I had to fill in a form or two and voila I was given a “certificate of return”. Think of it as my emergency passport, looking dodgy as hell. It was valid only for a week. The guy was issuing passports and ID cards to a few people who showed up after me (because it was a quick little thing and my thing took longer…). I expected the man to finish with me before moving on to other people in the queue but no. Welcome to Estonia.

My new flights were with British Airways and Estonian Air. I made my way to London City Airport (super easy to get to). I thought it probably makes sense to talk to the peeps at the British Airways desk because of my dodgy passport and give them the heads up.
The man at the counter didn’t quite know what to do, so he called his boss who called the peeps in Amsterdam and after a few nervous minutes it was all green lights boulevard.

I found the way everybody treated me on British Airways wonderful. They were all bending over backwords to make sure I get to my dad’s funeral. Nobody raised any additional questions when I boarded the planes. Faith in humanity restored.

The funeral was sad. I saw a bunch of relatives I hadn’t seen in many years. They might as well have been complete strangers… I knew nothing about where they lived, what they did for a living or what they studied/planned to study at uni. I’ve lost touch with most of them.

First thing on Monday I needed to get a new passport. It takes up to 2 working days to get it done if you choose the speedy option. My dodgy passport only allowed entry to Estonia but was no good for a return flight.
Anywho, I was impressed by the speed of things. I applied for a new passport around 10 AM on Monday and received an email to collect it the same day at 3:40 PM. Wow! The only downside was that I had already left Tallinn and had to travel back again on Tuesday to pick it up.

During the week I met up with a few friends. It was really good to see my main bros – Siim, Pete and Olav – and my family as well.

Remember, I didn’t take the first leg of my flights I booked originally? I thought I could still use the return flights from that original booking. I was wrong. I discovered this about 24 hours before the flight when I tried to do my online check in.
Since it was a no show, all my flights on the booking were cancelled. I was never notified about this.
The carrier (Lufthansa) said the travel agent (TravelUp) might be able to reinstate the flights. I called them but no such luck. All I could get out of them was a £31 refund which would take 4-6 weeks to be processed. Faith in humanity is now a thing of the past.
I can’t catch a break.

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It seems like this is standard practice – if you miss the first leg of your booking they cancel all flights.
I was out of options and booked a new flight to Stansted for tomorrow. I’m glad I’m made of money.
This has been an expensive, stressful and crappy week (with a few exceptions). I hate Lufthansa, TravelUp, buses, online check ins, my bank account and flying. I just want to go home.

Ivar

Today is a strong day

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These are the words I read from my mug trying to keep my shit together. “Today is a strong day” I repeat. Why is today so much harder than yesterday when I found out about it?
I log in at work hoping to find a shitstorm in my inbox. However, no such luck. Nothing. Nothing to distract my thoughts.
SteveO says “good morning” and I couldn’t. Not a single word. He made all this so much harder. You could cut the awkward silence/tension with a knife. I was still in shock so I didn’t notice it at the time.
I had another sip of my crappy coffee and noticed that I finished it.
“Today is a strong day” – Mr Strong.

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Except……..that it isn’t.

Lets timetravel to yesterday.
I had a fairly good day and was on my way to London to dance some zouk. My battery was low, so I had my phone on flight mode.
I got to the dancing venue and for some reason turned my phone on normal mode
.. which is odd because the dancing venue/bar is underground and I had no signal there.
However a FB message made its way to my phone. It was from my brother.
He said he’s got some bad news for me. My father died.
A beginners salsa class was ending at that point as I read the message and you could hear the instructors giving pointers and summaries to the kids about what they learned today.
At the same time I completely froze.
And started shaking. Uncontrollably, but not visibly (maybe it was visible, I’m not sure). An inner tremor of sorts.
The music switched to a zouk beat. I was glad it was dark and nobody saw me… or maybe I wasn’t too concerned whether anybody saw me or not.
I pondered about what I should do and remembered something I read a long time ago. When somebody dies, you shouldn’t make any radical changes to your life. Instead, continue your daily routine as you always do.
I felt the waterworks starting.
I made my way to the toilet to take a piss… you ever wonder why the loo is so busy at the worst possible moment?
I remembered that it’s not possible to feel sad if your body is in a happy/positive posture. So I sucked it up. Chest up, head up, shoulders back and it got better. The initial shock was a thing of the past.
That didn’t last long…
I needed to distract myself before the class started and made some conversation with Phoebe. I think that was the wrong call… She asked me how I was and I said fine… she saw right through me and I gave her some crap about having a stressful day at work in response.
It was a painful conversation but it worked. I kept my shit together.
The class started. Zouk is a fairly engaging thing you know. The fact that I can’t multitask also helped. Only a few times did my thoughts wander and remind me of what had happened. I feel bad for saying this but I was able to enjoy myself throughout the evening. Don’t judge, dealing with death isn’t something they teach you at school.
However, I broke down like a little bitch just a few steps from home. It was too much. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The distractions were gone and
I fucking cried myself to sleep.

Next day
Next day I went to work, as usual (remember the thing about not doing anything radical…The stupid is strong in me.) The morning was difficult but as I got more involved with work it got better. Much better. I shared the news with one colleague who might have shared it with a few others.
But I wasn’t quite myself. I was very quiet and generally avoided human contact.

Did I mention that my passport expired in March? Well… that’s a bit of a problem if I want to go to the funeral in Estonia. Anywho… I contacted the embassy who came back to me fairly quickly and told me they could issue me a document which will enable me to travel temporarily. However, first I needed to tell them what my travel dates are. At this point where was no date for the funeral… I would contact them again once I know. I was told the Embassy can issue the document in half an hour and all I needed were two passport photos and a date for my flight out of the UK.

I feel the fucking rainbow. I’m sad, then angry, then oddly OK, then depressed, then even happy. I’m all over the place. And it feels like there’s no end in sight. Work helps, a lot. It keeps me focused on other things.

I wrote the above almost two months ago. The funeral was last Saturday. I’d rather keep the details to myself about why it took so long until the funeral. Sorry. Don’t ask. Things are much better now and I’m glad this is all behind me and that I can finally close this chapter.

Ivar

New year, new home

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I had an exam yesterday (R06) and think that it went really well. I’m sure I passed but will find out the results Feb 27th. This was the last exam needed for the diploma in financial planning. So… all I need to do is wait for the diploma to pop in in the post and make it official. Hopefully it’ll make me much more employable and open a few more doors.

The studying and exams don’t end here. I’m going to continue towards chartered status and will do a bunch more this year. I’m glad all the foundation work is done and everything else is a good extra to have.

After smashing my exam I had to pack up all my stuff and move out to my new home. I could’ve moved out earlier but I didn’t want to spend valuable study time on that.

I was surprised how much crap I’ve accumulated in the last 10 months. I remember all I had was one bag of stuff when I first came to England. I think it weighed 8 kg. Now I’ve at least tripled that…Long story short all my stuff is in my new home now.

I am living in a two bedroom flat with Sue. Sue is in her early 50s. Her daughter moved out and she needed someone to help cover the rent and bills. She looked for people for ages but nobody was good enough. Finally, as she said, I rode in like a knight in shining armor to save the day. 😀

On the plus side my room is bigger – it’s got a double bed. By the way this is the first time ever I’ve had the luxury of having a double bed in my room. It’s so big, it’s a monstrosity of a bed and I’m so small. I still have a few issues to deal with. I don’t quite know how I’m going to cope with all this extra room on the bed.

One thing is different though. It’s a bit colder here. I was freezing my ass off during the night and the hot water ran out fairly quickly in the shower. In all fairness it’s -4C outside (the coldest it’s been in the UK since I immigrated on my row boat with Bubba and Malloy… I sometimes still have nightmares and see the massive waves and how they grabbed Bubba… rest his soul in peace).

Now I live twice as far from work compared to what it used to be. A 25 minute stroll (2km) became a solid 50 minutes (4km). I’m probably going to bus it every now and then… until I buy a bike. The bike idea isn’t great anyway because I have nowhere to store it. Luckily our office will move closer to the town center in a few months’ time and I live in that neighborhood. Even if I had to bike or bus it, it would be temporary.

It’s already the 20th January and I’ve only run twice this year. Training isn’t going that well. I’ve never had issues with my shin splints for so long. Normally they’d disappear after taking a few days off. I’m not too worried though. To a big extent I’m glad I can’t run – it’s freezing outside. I feel bad about it, especially when I skip a run on a beautiful sunny day – it’s such a waste.

The best is yet to come

I’m enjoying my Latin dancing classes. I leveled up into the highest level group in zouk and if I get my salsa instructor’s blessing will do the same with her classes.

Remember, I wrote a post about hugs and kisses almost a year ago? How things have changed… I met this French girl – let’s call her Amelie – and last week I did something I’ve never done before. It was a normal zouk social but strangely I danced with Amelie a bit more than usual. Normally I’d max out at 2 dances with the same girl during a social but that time it was 4 or 5. She just seemed to be available every time I finished dancing with somebody else. Anywho she’s fun and I like her and before leaving I kissed her on the cheek… you know like the French do. I know it’s not a big deal but I remember it was a very spontaneous thing – I just said “see ya” and went for the cheek. I’ve never initiated a kiss on the cheek as I’ve always been uncomfortable with the concept. How I’ve grown…

OK boys and girls, I need to go to work now,

Ivar the soon to be level 4 financial planner

I found the one

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In mid-December I decided to take my own advice and move out of my current sharehouse. I gave my 30 day notice and started looking for a new home.

I think I looked at 8 properties until I made my decision.  Actually I said yes to 3 people but I was late with my decision for one of them. Another landlord was very uncommunicative – so I decided to skip that one and as it looks right now all lights are green for my move to the third place I said yes to.

home change for a goldfish to a better place

It’s amazing how quickly rooms are snatched up in Chelmsford. For example I had to cancel two of my viewings because somebody else took the room before I even had the chance of seeing it.

Anywho, I checked out this two bedroom flat yesterday and was very happy with it. It was beautiful, very clean and in a perfect location – next to a park and much more central than my current place. I will be sharing the place with just one more person, which is fantastic. I don’t like to live in a crowded place. Plus I need my quiet to study for my financial adviser/planner exams.

My next and final exam to get my diploma will be on the 19th January – in 10 days. My study marathon will start shortly. I’m glad I found a new home as the last couple of weeks have been rather stressful. Now I don’t have to worry about moving house anymore and can focus on my exam.

Oh…. I was promoted to assistant paraplanner at work. Now I’m doing “research” and writing suitability reports for clients. It’s basically a step closer/transitionary phase to becoming an adviser. The job description is still a bit fuzzy and I don’t quite know what I’ll end up doing. Only time will tell.

Looks like this year started reasonably well. I found a new home, got a promotion at work and will probably get my diploma soon as well. Everything seems to be going well.

Ivar

Looking back at 2014 vol 2

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I realise I should’ve done a much better job summarizing my last year in my previous post. That’s because I just saw how PewDiePie summarized his year. Oh man… I’ve got so much to learn from him.

Now where’s my credit card? I need to buy some merch and bropoints.

Brofist!

Ivar – forever bro

Amsterdam

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I passed my protection (R05) exam like a pro and headed out to meet France for a quick catch up before I left towards Amsterdam.  We organized to meet up in a bar and I got there before she did. So I ordered my drink … well, not exactly. I was standing at the till waiting patiently before I could order anything. This was the 31st October – Halloween.
In front of me was a woman in fancy dress – she looked a lot like a vampire or some other undead creature. She ordered two fancy drinks and it took ages for the barman to make them. The barman also fucked up the second drink and had to start all over again. Naturally we… well, she started talking to me because let’s face it – nobody can resist my charm.

In the spirit of Halloween she asked me who I was supposed to be. Without any thought I replied “a tourist”. She and the barman thought that was the funniest thing they’ve ever heard and they almost ROFLed. The vampire decided to buy me a drink in return for that entertainment. This was a historic moment for me because no woman has ever bought me a drink before. Just shortly after making history France popped in and I had to ditch the bloodsucker and move on.

The usual catch up followed and I had a good time chatting away with her. She was doing most of the talking as is always the case. I’ve always thought that France was very different from me but after this little meet I discovered that we’re more similar that I thought. I also liked the fact that she refused accepting my money for dinner. All I had was a cup of tea – the only vegan thing on the menu. I didn’t feel like going through the motions of customizing a dish with the waitress. So France ended up paying for my second drink that night.

Things were off to a good start for my holiday.

I met up with 4 Estonians in Amsterdam. I only knew two of them – we studied maths back in uni. My fellow Estonians only stayed for the weekend but I had bigger plans for Amsterdam.

The first day we did a bit of sightseeing, checked out a few pubs, weed shops, adult shops, the Red Lights District and the library. It wasn’t that exciting because nobody had made any plans. And the only reason I wanted to go to Amsterdam was to smoke a joint.

So we went to a coffeeshop and I bought two joints. Without any questions or fuss I was the proud owner of 2 joints for 9 EUR each. We headed back to our rented apartment to get stoned. It was a very happy evening.

The next day we decided to be a bit cultural and checked out the Van Gogh museum. This was the first time in my life I had to stay in a queue for 45 minutes to enter a bloody museum. I’m not an art person but I thought I might as well get cultured. I will never go back to that museum again.

After this rather boring experience we headed to the Vondel Park to get some lunch. One girl said she’d like to visit the Anne Frank house. Since nobody else except her had even heard of Anne Frank, she had to go there alone. The rest of us went to get some dinner. Later we found out that she had to wait in another line for 45 minutes to get into the museum but nevertheless she had a good experience inside.

All my Estonian mates left me on the third day, so I had to move into a hostel for the next 3 nights. The first day all alone was awesome. I felt really free. I don’t know why… I guess I like to explore places on my own.

I rather quickly fell in love with Amsterdam. It is a beautiful city with the channels, architecture, millions of bikes, weed and prostitutes. One thing I noticed was that all the people were so good looking. Most of the girls looked like supermodels. I think it’s because of all the cycling they do. I fell in love several times each day… there was so much beauty everywhere.

The other cool thing was the sense of freedom. People would walk on a street and light a joint and smoke it like it’s nobody’s business. I loved that!

The Red Lights District was really exciting – especially when I was walking there alone. All the girls behind the glass were asking me to come in or waving for me to come closer. They were very friendly and to my surprise very attractive. I also liked that it was so full of tourists. I saw families with kids walking around, guided tours, couples strolling around and also a few horny men (just like me). It was a very civil and friendly environment. I loved it.

Amsterdam is now my favorite city in Europe.

The perfect storm

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Hi kids,

Today was the day I’ve been training for for about 6 months. I woke up, got my shit together and walked to the park where I knew the first thing I’d do is join the pissline. I din’t really need to go but figured just in case. The park was crowded with about 2000 runners and their family/friends/supporters.

I was jealous of everyone because I had nobody supporting me. I was all alone :(. The queue  moved along at a snail’s pace. I enjoyed trotting in the wet grass and mud – ladies and gentlemen this is what England is all about. I forced a tiny amount of liquid out of my bladder and felt hugely accomplished – it was totally worth the 25 minute wait in the pissline. Hands down this was the best part of race day.

I moved along to the bag drop are, got rid of my shit and went for a 15 minute warm-up run. I felt optimistic and full of energy. My last two Sunday runs were epic – I ran a personal best in a 5K, 10K, 16K/10Miles, half marathon and 32K/20Miles distances. I was very confident I’d run a personal best in this marathon as well. I was aiming for a sub 3H 10 min.

I positioned myself behind the sub 4H sign. This was my first mistake – after my start I had to pass many runners because I wanted to stay at a 4:22 min/km pace – it was a nightmare and the first 2 kilometers were rubbish. In my experience the first 3 km are crucial to running a PB – if they’re slow, it’s very hard to make up for them later on in the race. I was already going slower than I planned. Then shortly I discovered that the pavement stopped and we started to run on wet grass. It was soft and muddy and gross – and incredibly hard to run on. The marathon was a multi-terrain race – pavement, grass and gravel. I wrongly thought that it would still be mostly on paved roads – but it was about 50% pavement and 50% grass or gravel. I hadn’t done my homework.

At about the 5Mile/8K mark I noticed that my legs were hurting. 5 FUCKING MILES. What? I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never been in pain after such a short distance. I hardly ever run distances that short – and there I was with pain in both calves which was moving up towards my quads. I think it was the grass which caused it – it felt like running on wet sand. Where was a lot of give on the surface and that must have put my leg muscles under strain/stress which they hadn’t been exposed to during my 100% pavement training runs.

The pain didn’t go anywhere. It was gradually getting worse and I was slowing down more and more. After about 16K/10Miles I wanted to quit. It was clear that this race wasn’t for me. All I wanted to do was to stop the pain, stop, walk home and cry like a little bitch. But I kept going, thinking that maybe, just maybe, the endorphins will kick in and the pain will go away. That never happened. FML. 🙂

It was a surreal experience. The last 10K or so my heart rate averaged 150 bpm (FYI that’s very easy running and certainly not race pace) and I just couldn’t go faster. The fitness was where but the pain much too great. I told myself that I wouldn’t walk, I’d keep shuffling all the way if I had to. I think I got quite good at doing the shuffle.

This was the hardest race I’ve ever done. After crossing the finish line at 3:49:07 I got a medal around my neck and a goodie bag. I slowly walked towards a tree and laid down on the moist grass and formed a massive star with my arms and legs. I was exhausted and glad that the ordeal was over. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was so disappointed, angry and sad. I was so pissed I even ate the 3 non-vegan chocolate/protein bars I found in the goodie bag. Looks like I wanted to spread my misery and support the torture and murdering of other sentient beings. I feel bad about it now but at that moment I didn’t care. Yeah… I’m quite disgusted by what I did.

 

So where you have it – today was this year’s crappiest day.  The perfect storm has come to an end and after taking a warm bath at home I’m optimistic that sunny days will follow.

Congratulations to my fellow runners – all 2000 of you. I’d also like to thank for the support from the volunteers and community. This was my 4th official race and the support from the people was the greatest today – England 1 Australia 0.

Ivar the Shuffler