Friday, November 6, 2009

Astrid & Her Amazing “Five out of Seven”-Adventure

Astrid had not been on any big amazing adventures for a while, so in September 2009, she decided to take some extreme measures and to go backpacking from Cairo (Egypt) to Amman (Jordan).

I don’t know whether you are familiar with the game Frogger and it’s first level, but crossing the street in Cairo felt just like it (without the three lives):



Luckily, frog Astrid survived all trips to the other side, so she could venture on to see the Great Pyramids of Giza (Astrid is on a mission to see all the seven world wonders and this was the fourth one on her list!).

After seeing the Great Pyramids in Giza, Astrid travelled on through the dessssssssert. She even made it her home, because she could handle no more hotels with cockroaches.



She had breakfast with the Bedouins and climbed mountains in the early mornings, because why would you stay in bed when the sun is out and there is so much excitement to be had?

In the evenings, Astrid danced on commands of the Bedouins. Although she is, until today, still unsure whether “Yalla! Yalla!” means “Dance! Dance!” or “Faster! Faster,” but Astrid danced as if her life depended on it and after slept surrounded by millions of stars.



She easily got used to making a toilet out of big rocks and not caring whether people could see her bum or not as it is not hairy or anything like that at all and when being on public spaces now and then and no toilet near, she was often tempted to just quickly find a space of her own once more.

In Petra (world wonder five on Astrid’s list!), Astrid felt like Indy running all over the place and making millions of discoveries with her eye:



Crazy stuff!!! Within the heat, Astrid and a few new friends also searched for treasures and .. even found them!!! Yes, broken necklaces were found on several locations. They were repaired carefully and would later be handed to friends back home as valuable souvenirs.



While Astrid had no-food related-issues on her travels and loved the falafels with all her heart, the diarrhea hit her hard when she came back home, so she told her housemates to make an extra effort in supplying a few extra rolls with soft layers.

Astrid is still wondering whether this would have been the revenge of the Egyptian gods for fooling her friends with fake hidden treasures from Petra? What do you think?

 

Source: http://supercalifajalisticexpialidocious.blogspot.com/

Friday, August 21, 2009

Astrid & Her Amazing “Whatever Happened to Amazing Astrid”-Adventure

Have you ever wondered what happened to Amazing Astrid? Is she still out there? Does she sometimes still go back to Albert Heijn? Will she ever again stop people in the street to blow bubbles for her? And how are Outer Space Owen, Frivolous Fran, Restless Richard, and Terrifying Tom? Are they still alive and kicking?



Well, everyone grows up in the real world, even little Amazing Astrids! Yes, believe it or not. Astrid quit her job at LEGO and obtained a job where she improves the lives of factory-workers!!! However, this is not a matter of waving your magic wand. It means travelling and meeting lots of new people (and getting paid for it!).

Astrid once had to assess a factory with a Russian princess. To save on company expenses, Astrid and the Russian princess had to share a room the night before the assessment. However, the princess, whom Astrid had never met before, did not show up at the confirmed time at the hotel the night before the assessment. Thus, when it was midnight, Astrid decided to put her pyjamas on, take her contacts out, and do some light sleeping. Deep in the night, the Russian princess knocked on the hotel-room-door and Astrid did her best to make a bedazzling appearance in her pyjamas and with no vision; it worked and both the princess and Astrid slept for three full hours.



In return for a little sleep-deprivation, Astrid goes on trips to LA and Hong Kong. Well, Hong Kong is still on the list, according to her boss, Astrid first has to learn to eat with chop-sticks, but LA was there. With a little emergency-landing in Newfoundland, Astrid arrived in LA. During the week, Astrid stayed in a hotel to work around the clock, but in the weekends, Astrid only lay on the sand and jumped in the waves of the galore of beautiful beaches. She was introduced to all these new games, such as Apples to Apples:

“Apples to Apples will enliven Family Gatherings” Apples to Apples is the game in which players must choose nouns to fit a particular adjective, with unpredictable and sometimes hilarious results.



Amazing Astrid did not win the game, but got hooked to talking to the most interesting people instead, Marty, the actor from Australia, Torin and Steve, both in the dental- care industry, Rusty, the entrepreneur, Jeff who likes to do his conference calls on the volleyball-court, and Mary Jane the Schoolteacher, and many many many more.

It is the lack of time which stops Astrid from writing; NOT the lack of adventure!

Until soon!

Miles of smiles,

-Astrid.

posted by Astrid @ 11:47 PM   2 comments

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Astrid & Her Amazing "How many cars are there in Cardiff and which colours are they?"- Adventure

Astrid simply loves pancakes and for this reason decided to throw an authentic Dutch pancake party in England.



The entrance-fee was an egg per person. Some people brought an extra egg, hoping that this would earn them a bonus stack of pancakes to take home!



Everyone baked and ate and played with their food like any twenty-something would do. The result was that the winner of the pancake-eating-competition even refused to have his grand-prize: A Chocolate Santa Clause. Despite of the fact that chocolate is the most popular item to eat over the Christmas-period.





Astrid had her Christmas-chocolate-pudding with chocolate-sauce and vanilla-ice-cream in Cardiff, Wales where she celebrated Yuletide with her Welsh-speaking Texan friends. Astrid thought it was fabulous due to a large variety of reasons:



1.) She got to take the bus from London (England) to Cardiff (Wales) and so got away with legally sleeping 3,5 hours extra during day-time.
2.) With no other major wine-drinking-fans in the household, Astrid could drink all she wanted as long as there was a bottle left.



3.) There were pancakes on Christmas-morning with butter, fresh fruits, and maple syrup!
4.) Astrid got to watch hilarious Christmas-movies recorded in the 80s, but taking place in the 50s.



5.) Astrid was allowed to sleep underneath the Christmas-tree with presents all around her on an inflatable mattress which inflated itself for more than 6 hours a night.
6.) Santa Clause spoiled Astrid with lots of presents too, including every single flavour jelly-bean: lemon, green apple, sizzling cinnamon, peach, lemon lime, chocolate pudding, bubble gum, raspberry, coconut, strawberry daiquiri, very cherry, buttered popcorn, blueberry, toasted marshmallow, Dr. Pepper, strawberry cheesecake, tangerine, licorice, watermelon, plum, juicy pear, strawberry jam, A&W cream soda, cotton candy, and A&W rootbeer.



7.) Astrid got to laugh, talk, eat, drink, read, watch Dr. Who and James Bond on the telly, visit the oldest pub in Wales, wander over a graveyard, play monopoly in Welsh, and and and got to take another bus home to do some more of that extra sleeping! Zzzzz…





Merry X-Mas everyone and a Happy New Year!!!

posted by Astrid @ 10:55 AM   8 comments

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Astrid & Her Amazing “You Crack me Up”- Adventure

From the day Astrid was born, Astrid has been smiling. To be honest, Astrid’s smile might have been the main-ingredient of all her adventures. Without her trade-mark smile half of Astrid’s adventures would have probably never taken place. However, a smile does not work well on it’s own; it works best when it is shared. So here are the tales of things that made Astrid smile just recently.



One day Astrid was at her number one train-station travelling on an escalator when she noticed that the person in front of her was not transporting a child in his buggy but a big suit-case instead, so Astrid confronted the fellow and said: “I must say, you have a child of extraordinary beauty,” to which the fellow replied that yes, he was very blessed, since he had another one of these beauties at home exactly alike!



Then Astrid and her friend went to see a modern art exhibit and were looking at this tremendous crack in the floor. Everyone around them was just looking at the crack with full admiration and were flashing away with their cameras. Astrid and her friend had no idea what everyone was on about, but loved to play along and started to pretend it was something big too.



In the end, the crack turned out to be something symbolic about racism and the post-colonial past and Astrid and her friend actually became quite intrigued, but then couldn’t stop laughing when reading something about the crack in the papers a few days later:



“A crack in the floor that forms an art installation in the Tate Modern [London] has caused 15 injuries in seven weeks.”

“We must ban it. Simple as. If it injures 15 people then it must be the fault of the artwork, and not in any way a case of evolution in action. Only then will we eliminate risk entirely.”



Then there are so many people making Astrid laugh continuously! People who dry their chest-hair with hair- dryers or guys who throw in shoe-sizes of the continent in a conversation when girls discuss UK-dress-sizes:



Girl 1 (not Astrid): “A size 20? Does that even exist?”
Girl 2 (not Astrid):“I am a size 10.”
Guy 1 (not Astrid): “I am a size 45.”



And Astrid is pleased to say that the smileage is not over. It will only get better by time!

posted by Miss Astrid @ 9:49 PM   6 comments

Two Teaspoons of Astrid & A Lump of Sugar

I am grateful every day for all those years of great fun and awesome replies, my readers. So far, it has definately been a fun ride and I especially enjoyed the wacky forest-sounds, the nauseous-making loops, the frog-jumps in the vegetable soups, and the little sparkling plastic golden stones that were thrown to my cheeks...

Here is the long list of stories I have been telling you for the last few years. Enjoy!!!

A Random Astrid - Adventure

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Astrid & Her Amazing “Number in the Crowd” - Adventure

You have certain faces and they just don’t stand out in the crowd. A phrase that is too often heard by people possessing these faces is:

“I think we have met before.”



Well, Astrid has a telephone with a number that just does not stand out in the crowd. Dial a random-number and big chance you wind up twirling around like a twister on Astrid’s telephone-line.

From the moment Astrid became the legimate owner of the number, she, nearly every day, has been receiving the weirdest voice-messages.



1.) A flower-shop called to apologize that flowers had been delivered to the wrong address.
2.) A girl called, wondered what was up with the American accent, but wanted to inform Astrid that she had missed her ride, was currently standing out in the rain, but would come as soon as possible.
3.) A lady called to inform Astrid that she had received her application-form and was just calling to check up on a few details. She would try again.
4.) A man called for reasons unknown to Astrid (some people just keep on babbling!), but maybe Astrid could return him a call?



Astrid says her phone is haunted and messages from previous owners of her number will continue to inhabit Astrid’s phone, always appearing totally out of the blue and vanishing like thin air as well.

The last message Astrid has received on her phone was from Alice. Even though it was a mighty nice message, it scared Astrid a lot, and Alice didn’t even have to say "BOO."

Alice called Astrid a “sweetie” and just wanted to know how she was doing and jokingly wondered whether Astrid still remembered her. She was really sorry she couldn’t see Astrid before she left, but she just had to run. She will soon clarify why. Oh, and before Alice put her phone down she also proclaimed to love Astrid.



Astrid thinks the flannel pillows and the woolen underground on her line, should possibly be replaced by barb-wire or the smell of egg-farts.

posted by Astrid @ 10:04 PM   9 comments