The best first year of my life

A year ago, I was sitting in a bar in Torquay together with a few of my colleges that I just met as we all just started working for STS Language School for the summer. We were having our first night out in town and we wanted to watch England play against Italy in the World Cup and found the shittiest little bar where we could sit down and actually see the TV screen. 

The place was packed with crazy English football supporters and I just felt a liiiiiittle bit scared of how they all would act when the game actually started - or even worse, how they would react when England won, or lost (which they did, but it wasn't as horrible as I had imagined).

Anyway, in the second half a guy in a hawaii shirt walks into the bar and he catch my eye immediately and how much I try, I can't stop looking at him. 

Little did I know that a year from this day, this guy in particular was gonna turn out to be MY Guy. The love of my life. The one Guy that I cannot live without. The one Guy that I would do anything for and that would do anything for me. 

Even though it's only been a year we have already had ups and downs - which might have to do with the fact that we basically moved in together after knowing each other for two months and that we almost haven't spend one day apart since that night we met in the bar. 

Being on NZ time and all, we celebrated our birthday yesterday - in the best possible way I could imagine. Going for a yummy tofu burger at Burgerfuel and then spend the rest of the day watching the third and new season of Orange is the new black (if you haven't started to watch it yet - start now! The new season is great!)

But since my boyfriend is the most caring, loving, best, cutest, hottest and kindest person on Earth he surprised me with flowers - I definately did NOT expect a flower delivery coming to my desk at work on a shitty Monday morning. 

I am so spoiled, but even though I am hard to live with and even though I can be the bitchiest girlfriend in the world, Guy endures all that and treats me like I am the queen of the world. And give me my favourite flowers. On a shitty Monday morning. (Well a shitty Monday morning that didn't feel that shitty for that long because of these pretty things)

Guy Marsden: I love you more than words could ever describe this has truly been the best year of my life. And everyone else: I'm sorry about this post, I just had to brag about my boyfriend. Sorry - he's just the best boyfriend in the world so I can't help it.

Another weekend in our new home town

So another weekend has come and passed, but this one was a little bit more special than earlier Auckland weekends, because this weekend entailed mine and Guys 1 year anniversary (!) 

On Saturday me and Danni had a wander down town. Took a wrong turn, ended up in Ponsonby, went up and down Queens Street, saw some polar bears and finally finished on K-road. Looked through some funny, some cool and some cute stores for a while. 

We got ourselves some vegan mozarella and vegan mince in the Cruelty free shop and after that my feet were aching so much that I couldn't walk a step further than to the cool little gem Revel.

Spotted a vegan chocolate cake made from beetroot that was so heavinly yummy that I died a little bit inside. That with an almond latte was one of the best brekkies I've had. 

We managed to move our asses home to Dannis and Scotts apartment (well, Scott had to pick us up, my feet did not want to bear me anylonger) and made the most amazing vegan tapas brunch with some of the stuff we bought on K road. 

We continued to Kingsland where we sat down at the coolest bar; Macs Brewery. Good beer, nice staff and awesome Espresso Martinis!

Yes - it turned out to be a rockin' Saturday eve!

Ben and Jerry goes vegan (!!!!!)

WOW WOW WOW - Ben & Jerry's has announced that they're gonna release a vegan ice cream next year - vegan happy dance everyone, please! 

It doesn't seem that much is known about this mystery new vegan friendly ice cream yet, like what flavour it's going to be etc, but it seems that they gonna base it on coconut- or almond milk. Gosh, my vegan life is going to be complete in 2016!

The only thing that worry me is what the price is going to be since B&J is already so darned pricey.. Oh well, I'm just happy that a big company is starting with this so that maybe more and more business can follow in their steps towards a more veganized world

Wednesday funtivities

So yesterday me and some of the girls that is a part of my new day-to-day Auckland life, started a weekly tradition - Wednesday funtivities!

We started with a dinner and movie night and my contribution was the (for most Swedish vegans) famous vegan snickers!

All you need is a small jar of peanutbutter (I like to use the crunchy kind!), 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup(ish) syrup that you mix together in a sauce pan and let it boil up whilst sitting occasionally so it doesn't burn. Take like a litre of cornflakes, crush them all and mix with a cup of coconut flakes or two. Mix it all together with the peanutbutter sauce and flatten it out ion a baking Sheet. Melt a lot of dark chocolate to cover it all with and out in the fridge for a while before digging in

- this is so easy and so damn yummy I wanna do a little dance everytime I eat it!

Anyway, we had a lovely night. How can you not when you get to eat a hot vegan Indian aloo gobi and have a couple of glasses of wine??

It's so nice and so easy and so great to make a simple weekday-evening feel special!

The glittery Festival de Mayhem

Yesterday turned from the most unproductive, lazy Saturday to an awesome crazy evening at Festival de Mayhem- a little festival arranged in the house and garden where Charli lives with a bunch of other people. When she invited me to a "party at my house" I did not realise that it was actually a festival. Gosh how I've missed going to festivals! Start to drink way earlier than usual, happy people everywhere and so many hours of pure fun!

They had decorated the garden so cool with lots of tents, fairy lights and lighted balloons. There were workshops in bongo drums, African dance and - the best part - a tent with loads of glitter and paint to paint each other's faces with. Lucy did mine and I loved it, she also did Guy who looked more like a cat after he was done, haha! 

Most of the evening I spend around the fire in front of where a live band was playing. My hair smells burnt today, and there's glitter everywhere. But a glittery hangover is better than I glitter and just a hangover - right?

Scones with polenta

Scones is a great weekend breakfast. It's done so quick and who doesn't love freshly baked bread?!

Polenta scones

(2 large buns)

You need:

1,5 cups Flour 

0,5 cup Polenta

2 teaspoons Baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons oil

1 cup soy milk or water

Make it:

Turn on the oven on 200 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the oil and soymilk. If it's too sticky add some more flour.

Divide the dough into two buns. Flatten out on an oven tray with ovenpaper so the buns are about one centimetre thick. Use a knife to cut a cross so that each bun is divided into 4 pieces. 

Put in the oven for about 10 minutes and enjoooooy with your favourite spread (olivianis vegan butter and marmite for example nomnomnom!)

OMG - the best quick fix munchie ever! Peanutbutter-choc chip nice cream

Okay, I just created the best (and easiest and quickest) recipe for a sweet tooth like myself. I just mixed some melted coconut ice cream, with a few (read: a lot) spoons crunchy peanut butter, a spoonful of syrup and some vegan dark chocolate chunks.
CHRISTMAS IN MY MOUTH!!!! Never gonna be able to sleep tonight after that sugar kick, but it's worth it.

An hour with Amnesty New Zealand and Salil Shetty

Today I went from one NGO office to another on my lunch break to attend a meet and greet with Amnesty Internationals Secretary General Salil Shetty. It felt so lovely to be in an Amnesty environment again and I realized how much I miss being involved and active in this amazing organisation. It was without a doubt the best lunch break I've been on since coming to Auckland. 

Salil highlighted various subjects, like the issues within the UN Security Council that prevents the UN from taking action in humanitarian disasters. It is absolutely ridiculous how the five countries that have veto power are always going to put their selfish, economical interests as priority. It's sad that they will use their veto power, and in that way continue to letting violation of basic human rights happen by stopping any peaceful suggestion or action that would harm their own interests.

The UN was created to save people in the world from getting their human rights violated, not to give powerful politicians a space to play games with eachother. I think a lot of people agree when I say that it's time to reform the UN structure, so that it can start to work for what it was meant for. 

Happy birthday to the queen!

Due to the Queens birthday (yes, queen Elizabeth, in the UK) this weekend meant loooong weekend = an extra day off work. It's funny that this day counts as a holiday here in New Zealand, but not in the UK. Oh well, say what you like about the royal family and shit, I just want to say happy b-day queen and thanks for giving me an extra day off work!

I've done a lot of needed sleep ins (due to 12 days of getting up early in a row, since I spent last weekend doing Greenpeace action training. This mostly involved alot of fun and cool activities which I would be so gutted to have missed, but also not much sleep for a light sleeper like myself) and treated my better half to a massive pancake brunch.

People usually asks what I use instead of eggs in pancakes. Now, there are alot of things to use instead, one of them is that egg replacer powder which is great, but I use the easiest recipe that results in yummy pancakes - without any egg replacer whatsoever! All you need to make amazing vegan pancakes is oat milk, flour, melted vegan butter and tiny bit of salt. 

Anyway, besides sleeping, being lazy and eating pancakes we went with Danni and Scott (yes, Guys brother Scott and his girlfriend Danni just joined us in Auckland, wihoo!!) to Piha, which is a little beach village just a 30 minutes drive from central Auckland. 

First stop when arriving was of course a cafe where we all could have our morning coffee to be able to wake up before climbing the massive rock on the beach. (And the cafe we went to had soy lattes and some vegan food dishes and sweets, yay!)

Loaded with caffein we started the walk up Lion Rock, it was such a steep walk and the view from the top was absolutely stunning (even though it felt as if the wind could've pushed me down). We found a great little spot at the top where we could just sit and enjoy it and I think I could've sat down there for ages and just admiring the surroundings.

We finished off the weekend with a nice falafel/hummus/oven baked parsnip/avocado salad dinner to prepare for the work week to come. 

But I must say, going back to work doesn't feel that bad when you have your little cat at your desk waiting for you and lunch breaks which entails jogging up Mount Eden and admiring the view from up there every day. Sometimes I really do feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

Walking in a winter wonderlaaaaaand - in June?!

Get ready for some serious moaning. I'm sorry but I cannot stop myself from saying it one more time: I hate cold. I cannot believe it's June already. It is so confusing that June + winter this year and not the best freaking month of the year.

I'm starting to see cute summer-y photos from friends back home on Facebook and Instagram and while I am happy for you all who are experiencing the absolutely best time of the year in Sweden, I  keep thinking what the hell I was thinking when I agreed to go through another winter this year. 

Okay, yes, we left a cold grey England in January and skipped a few awful months, but the fact that the winter hasn't even started and I am freezing here already makes me want to go back home immidately. It would be ok if the houses had some kind of heating here, but apparently they don't. We didn't realize until we had moved in to where we live now that there are no radiators in the entire house (!) 

But then again, it is so good that we have our own fireplace in our room to keep us warm at the worst times. 

And to be fair, it is pretty cosy sitting by the fire with a glass of red and watching a movie. And to be fair again. Winter here is nothing compared to the winter back home. It's not like it's snowy or anything,  winter here in Auckland seems to entail alot of rain and storm instead.

It's also very good that we live close to super vegan friendly cool cafe Vinyl on Dominion Road, so that we can stay warm with a nice cup of soy latte when its way to cold in the house.

I cannot promise this will be my only winter moaning this winter, but oh my, it does feel better now after writing about it. Thanks for listening to my bull shit. That's enough moaning and negativity for today!