Saturday 21 March 2015

Friends who drink coffee together, stay together

Well, well, well, how are you dear friends? After a brief hiatus due to long-haul flights and ever changing time zones we are back! And back with a  vengeance might we add. We knew we had to plan something extra special for our return post, and that, we did.

After some serious and stealthy planning on Ale's part, the three of us returned to our natural habitat - drinking coffee in a café together, almost... Clever Ale managed to buy both myself and Philly Willy (apologies for the nick name Philippa) a coffee in the countries he knew we would be in; Philippa's in NYC of course, and mine in beautiful Oslo, where I missed my dearest Ale by the skin of his teeth (roughly two days in non metaphorical terms). Ale is currently enjoying the cultural and foodie delights of Vietnam on his travels, but only after popping to America and Norway to fix his friends up with a caffeine hit - some serious competition now for the next grand gesture of friendship within this threesome...

Below is each of our personal accounts of the country-spanning-coffee-rendez-vous!

Ale

Oh Norway, home of beautiful fjords, Vikings, reindeers, the midnight sun and (allegedly) trolls. Norway, Norway, Norway, you beautiful, overly expensive Scandinavian country.

I recently spent 20h in its capital, Oslo, and I somehow made sure to miss every single one of the things mentioned above. The reason why my trip there was so short? I flew there from Dublin to catch a flight to Thailand. Super random, right? Well, it turns out that besides selling falafels for NOK100 (around €12), Norway is also home of Norwegian Airlines and its super cheap flights to the rest of the world.

I booked my flight to Oslo without knowing that, coincidentally, Emma was also going there on a skiing trip. Unfortunately she would only arrive a day after I had already left. It didn't seem fair that we would be on the same city and miss each other by a matter of only a couple of days. To compensate, I decided to prepare a little surprise.

I spent most of my time there snapping pictures of every building that I could (gotta please my Instagram followers) and searching for places to have a decent bite and a cup of coffee that wouldn't break the bank. After walking for one and a half minutes (I'm the worst person when I'm hungry, I completely loose my ability to make good decisions and literally will stop in the first place that serves food without coriander in it), I managed to find a cute little place to put in practice the second part of my plan before I headed to the Far East. You can read all about it in the girl's tales about how great of a friend I am!

Ale's current position in Kuang Si Waterfall - I'll take a coffee instead thanks..



Emma

Shlurp, shlurp, shluuurp. That was the sound of me drinking my delicious (and free!) coffee in one of the darn right coolest cafes in Oslo (have bought beans and a book from the coffee owner to testify to this fact.) All thanks to the wonderful, bearded and Brazilian beauty that is our Ale.
Now, not only is consuming free beverages a delightful pastime, but consuming a free beverage in Oslo is a little bit more special. Why, you may ask. Well, let me tell you a little Norwegian secret. Norway is BLOODY EXPENSIVE. A free coffee saved me approximately half of my college fees. Well, sliiight exaggeration, but the point needs to be taken seriously. Norway is not a place for the euro-saver youths of today. Sure, whilst trying to steal free wifi in Mcds over there, the cheapest thing on the menu was 35NOK, that's a mere €4 for half an hour of wifi. Sign me up! Not.
Besides the expense of the trip, which I realise I have harped on about for half of this post (feelings are feelings, and if I feel strongly about something you must read about it.) Norway is b-e-a-u-tiful! I spent about 4 days there travelling from the west coast of Bergen (original capital of the country, there ya go now) to Oslo (current capital, but sure you knew that..). I biked, boated, trained and hiked from coast to coast all in the pouring rain so common to the Scandinavian Isles, only to fall madly in love with the country and with its people. They speak better English than me! Intelligent folk up there. Seriously though, if anyone ever wants to go to Norway, pleeease let me know as I will sell everything I own just to afford the weekend over there. I love it!

Also, a quick end note and correction to Ale's post - I was not in fact skiing in Norway, that was for my next trip to the Czech Republic which my boyfriend planned as a 'surprise' for my birthday. Some fun facts about the Czech Republic before I leave you:
1) The Czech Republic is about a gazillion times cheaper than Norway, we lived like kings
2) The people of the Czech Republic do not have as high a proficiency of English speaking as the Norwegians
3) Taken both former points into consideration, I spent my 22nd birthday, in the middle of nowhere on a snowy mountain in the Czech Republic (the more 'middle-of-nowhere' you go, the cheaper it gets) attempting to learn to snowboard, with an instructor that didn't speak English surrounded by about 1000 inhabitants of the town, who also spoke no word of English. One word, hilarious.
Ale's present #1

Philippa

Not only did Ale prepare a surprise for Emma but the thoughtful and chivalrous stede did the same for his NY counterpart (me).
On the day of his departure from New York, with tears in his eyes (and yeah, tears in mine too, I guess) he handed me an envelope with a short message scribed on the front : don't open until the 27th of February. It took all my willpower not to tear it open on the spot. The date came around and alas, inside I found another cryptic message : go to your favourite coffee shop where you will find a coffee waiting for you which is on me. You're right,this one is pretty self explanatory. One thing troubled my mind however : how did he pull off this elaborate ruse when I was with him every waking second of his trip here? Or so I thought. Some of you may be aware,  and some not so much,  of the fact that I need to pee approximately 90% of the time. So Ale aka Mr. Stealth waited until the inevitable opportunity arose and set up this glorious surprise so that all three of us could share a cup of coffee in three completely different places on earth, yet again proving two theorems:
1) He is the world's greatest (sorry, R Kelly)
2) We are always only ever...A Mouthful Apart.

Ale's present #2


No comments:

Post a Comment