Travel! England!

 Even though I will not be travelling with this train line

and there will be no passing of Lostwithiel (a romantic sounding name)

I am going to England today! (Fingers crossed against bad weather and cancelled flights). There will also be plenty of train travel, as I am going

Gatwick Airport-Bristol today

Bristol-Reading Monday

Reading-London Thursday

London-Gatwick Airport Tuesday

ANYWAY holidays in the real sense are coming up and I am excited!

Andreas og Dina

 or Dina and Andreas

 My relatively new, tiny nephew

Spent his first Christmas being adorable in all the ways

So, I've just returned from a Christmas at my sister's house. I spent every night listening to my niece's sleep talk, and every day playing hide and seek ("auntie, you go hide in the wardrobe and I will try to find you"), eating all the food and being eaten myself by my nephew, who tries to bite everything that gets close to him.

Tomorrow I'm off on adventures!

All the Christmas

 So here's our Christmas tree

 Decorated by yours truly

With all the decorations we've made through all our years at school, my sister, my brother and me.

Merry Christmas

says Evil Santa Claus Decoration

and says I, to you all!

Baking again

 No, just more photos from the same session

 And here are the kakemainna (cake men) (yet they're neither cakes nor men)

 My grandmother Ninna using her 80 + years of experience

"Now I'll make a cat" she says. "I think we need more cats."

My grandmother is brilliant, both at baking and telling stories. She tells me she used to bake two batches (and much bigger batches than the one we usually make) of these cakes, hide one box of cakes in the cellar, and give the rest to her husband and four children, because they were so fond of them and would finish them all way before Christmas. I think this method came about after some years where she had to do all the Christmas baking twice, because they'd managed to eat it all in the beginning of December.

If anyone's wondering why the text format of my blog has been looking a bit odd lately, it is because I still haven't gotten a new keyboard, and have to copypaste every letter 'e' into the text. This means copying from different fonts and sizes, and changing it afterwards and hoping Blogger will understand it, which it doesn't always do.

Also,

tonight, the 23rd of December, is "the night before the night" in Norway, as we celebrate Christmas mainly on Christmas Eve. This means that I am going home to my parents tonight, to watch this film at 9 pm (and you may ask why all of Norway is watching this film about NYE on December 23rd, to which I will only answer that we have a lot of weird Christmas telly traditions):

Snow again

 Last Saturday, I went to the top of the mountain

 Looking down at Tromsø from above

With these two lovely Guatemalans whom I was showing around

Oslo in December

 At least on the first of December, the weather was brilliant

 I went to the market at Birkelunden, where half the wares seemed to have fallen off the backs of lorries

 Then went to a cafe with two of the girls I went to Nicaragua with

And only photographed one of them, Line, because she was sitting opposite me

I also spent a lot of time with my friend Maja, as mentioned earlier,  met another of my Nicaragua-girls, met my friend Samantha from Zimbabwe, relaxed and drank all the tea in the world.

Can you tell I've just gotten around to editing photos?

Snowstorm

The view outside my house, December 3rd

I'd left Oslo in a summery (almost) 7 degrees and sunshine, and came home to this in the evening. Full storm, although you can't really spot the wind...

SURPRISE

Me and my little brother last night (photo: Tore Johansen)

Last night (Thursday), I was coming home (to my new house) from swimming, after a long day of work and back and forth and general stuff, when I got a message from my mum that my brother was on a surprise visit for the evening, and that I should come home (to my parents' house) as quickly as possible. You see, my little brother lives at Svalbard, almost two hours flight away, and will be working over Christmas, and we were prepared not to see him between November and February. 

So I packed all my things and went home and we had a tiny Christmas celebration and charades, and I said goodbye to him this morning outside my work and felt like my younger brother (of only 19, will be turning 20 by the end of January) has grown up a little.

This was the post of all the parentheses.

Baking again

with my grandmother, who's 86 years going on 87 (photo: John Harald Johansen)

last Friday, I was baking Norwegian Christmas cookies (kakemainna) with my grandmother Ninna, something which has become quite the little tradition from the past three or four Christmases. We've become a very good team, finishing the entire operation in less than two hours, leaving us with just enough cookies to survive Christmas.

Now there is Christmas in every sentence in this blogpost, and I am happy (one week left, excited!).

News

from the day we got internet in my house in Falmouth, October 2010

1. I have a house that I'm renting with four others, only one of which have moved in.

2. I now have internet in my house! Almost as happy as on the photo above.

3. The reason I went to Oslo was to go to the Global Dignity evaluation meeting for all the district leaders (yes, I was one of them), and after that, go to a formal(ish) dinner at the Norwegian Crown Prince's residence. Yes, I shook his hand. Yes, it was exciting and very pretty and not too lavish.

I think that's about it so far... Getting ready for Christmas now!

Majajajaja

 Dancing a Norwegian Christmas song (På låven sitter nissen) at Christmas 2010

 Visiting the Vigeland sculpture park in summer 2009

 Housewarming our house in Falmouth, autumn 2009

Waiting for the whale meat to cook, summer 2012

I've been staying with my friend Maja this weekend, after my other friend fell ill. We've known each other since we were two of the three Norwegians starting our photography studies in Falmouth in 2008. Then we moved in together with three English people for our second year, and ended up living together those last two years of our studies. I've been seeing her more than our other housemates, since I go to Oslo now and then. Still, when we met yesterday, it had been more than a year since we saw each other last.

And yesterday we were back in the sofa, having a late Saturday breakfast, watching Friends and going back in time.

All the stuff

two pages from our book

What have I been doing the past two weeks?

I've been going to house viewing after house viewing, securing an actual house, finding house mates and new house mates when the previous house mates decided against the house, signing contracts and getting electricity contracts,

choosing photos, editing photos, editing texts, downloading programs, downloading files, uploading files, copying files, and designing and doing the layout and exporting an entire book of photography and text about the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. I wouldn't have had any content without my co-travellers, who have provided me with all the brilliant texts and beautiful and important images, but the layout part was mine.

I've also been working more, and then I moved to our new house on Wednesday and went to Oslo yesterday (Friday) for reasons you'll hear more of later.

In short: busy busy times with a computer which doesn't have the letter 'e', means no blogging from me. And I'm sorry if I sound complaining, because in reality I am very happy to have found a house to stay in with my friend Elise, and I am happy to have finished with the photography book from Nicaragua, which I am hoping will turn out all right at the printers (all fingers crossed).

Me and my best friend Andreas

Taken earlier today when he was slobbering all over my neck (photo: John Harald Johansen)

This week I've been getting my laptop back (in worse condition than when I sent it in for repair), working in kindergardens, looking for houses to rent with my friend, celebrating one friend's 24th and another's 25th birthday, as well as recelebrating my mum's 50th, and held a photo course at the Red Cross. Now my brother is visiting from Svalbard for the weekend, my sister and her children have just left, and we are about to watch The Sound of Music, seeing that it is a Sunday afternoon and there are no more QI reruns.

Sober October and all that

Me on October 31st, wearing my volunteer tshirt from Insomnia festival (at Tenerife), photo by Nina Haug Johansen

So how did it all go? Did I manage to finish October without breaking the rules of all my challenges? Actually, the supposedly most difficult one, eating fish every day, was the easiest one. Mostly thanks to my dad who is a pescetarian and eats fish fairly often anyway, and my mum and the rest of the family who are used to catering to different diets, but also my Northern grandmother who was married to a fisherman and has always lived off the natural resources around Tromsø, and my Southern grandmother who is a brilliant cook and sent me some wonderful recipes. 

I found it more difficult to wear only volunteer tshirts, because I found it hard to feel dressed up in them. I actually broke it once, while visiting my sister and going to a party with her and her fiancè, when I wore a pretty dress for the duration of two or three hours. I did only drink apple juice though, and the Sober October part of Sober October is, after all, the most important part.

What else? Oh, I forgot myself and put on a little perfume on October 5th. Other than that and the dress incident,  I think I managed rather nicely. I think next year I shall have to add an exercise challenge, because this is the one thing I've been really failing at all autumn long.

Another thing: Do I now feel extremely healthy and fresh and new? Not really. I probably am though, and my body has probably enjoyed the omega-three and a rest from alcohol.

So now, let's see if any of these practices stick with me or change me in any way.

Long story long

Hello,

I am here, after almost four weeks off the blog, not completely on purpose.

October 18^th, I was busy doing a lot of stuff at the same time, and as I was getting my kindergarden agency papers and drinking tea and logging on to where I track my working hours, when I spilled my tea all over my laptop. In my seriously-I-have-to-finish-logging-my-work-frenzy, I didn’t turn it off immediately, only threw a tea towel on it (how appropriate) and kept on writing. Aaaand then it started failing, refreshing the window every time I typed an ‘r’, creating a new window every time I typed an ‘n’ and so on. So I panicked a little, cried a little (you did know that Mac users have a reputation for getting ridiculously attached to their laptops? It’s actually a phenomenon) and resolved to take it to the Apple Store next day. Long story short, I kept going back and forth, between my house and the Apple Store, retrieving receipts and doing backups and all sorts before I managed to hand it in on the 25^th. Then they had to send it halfway through the country (to Trondheim) for repair. They’ve finally been looking at it, telling me that a) my battery is broken (which it has been the last four years) and b) they can’t replace my non-functioning keyboard because it’s too old (six years). Now I’m just waiting for them to send it all the way back to Tromsø before I will buy an external keyboard and start working on the layout for one of my Nicaragua-projects.

Of course, this is a bad excuse for not blogging. There are, after all, other computers. I have been blogging on my other blog though, and then I’ve also been to a Red Cross Youth Camp, been on holiday in Spain ten days (oh noes, poor me, I was too busy sleeping, going to the beach and reading to be blogging) and now I’ve just come home and have managed to borrow a Red Cross laptop.

So, hopefully, soon you'll get some updates on how Sober October went, and if I get my laptop back in working order you might even get some photographs.

And then...

 Winter was properly here on Tuesday morning

And today, after the winter winds have settled a little, it's even looking quite pretty

I am excited by the snow this year, seeing that I was away most of the winter, and haven't been close to  snow since January. I am also already exhausted by the snow, realising that it means six months of hoping our neighbour will come and clear our driveway in the morning, of starting every car journey ten minutes earlier in case you have to clear off the ice and snow, of getting stuck, of darkness, and so on.

Snow is very nice at midday, when you have daylight, when you don't have to go outside, and you have your book and your tea and your sofa and your cat. Other than that it can be a bother. I remember that. Still, at this moment I can enjoy it. (It is midday. I am inside. I have a lot of the aforementioned things.)

Winter is coming

 and it has been present in the mountains for a while

but now, it's creeping down towards us

Apparently it did snow on ground level today. Luckily, we were visiting my sister two hours away from Tromsø, and only had a nice, sunny albeit chilly day. My dad has changed the tyres from summer to studded ones. This week it's supposed to start snowing, and the winter winds are on their way.

Also, I have lots of photos of babies.

All the important news from the North then, through my blog.

Some title

My newly made bed, even if it doesn't look that newly made

Here, a photo from a few weeks ago, when we still had sunshine and a nice autumn. We've now moved into late autumn, which has all the rain and wind, and all the leaf-less, sad-looking trees.

I've not edited the photos from the North Cape. Nor have I transferred the photos from my last visit at my sister's. For now, you'll have to enjoy looking at my room. Very yellow, isn't it?

Tomorrow I'm off again, holding a volunteer training for my Global Dignity volunteers, this time at Finnsnes, a two hour drive from Tromsø. Here I quote my mum: "When you consider how awkward and shy you and I were in our teenage years, isn't it a wonder how we're both enjoying having presentations, trainings and courses in front of lots of people?" Thanks, mum. I do agree, though.