Neverending summer

 going to end soon

 but until then, let's enjoy the verdant surroundings

 all around our house, all taken without really leaving the house because I'm a lazy-face

even on an overcast day, it's not too bad

Thursday was the first day in a long time when I felt I was allowed to stay inside and do computery things. We've had such ridiculously nice weather that I have commented on it several times, and it's like it's neverending, but of course it's only a matter of time before we go back to normal summer weather, about twelve degrees celsius, and overcast with a constant chance of rain.

Tea, of course

 Last Saturday, my parents and I went to a tea garden in the city centre

 And guess what, we had tea

I could probably write volumes about tea and my relationship with it. I started drinking tea when I was thirteen, although it had nothing to do with tea really, and was more hot drinks made with fruity things inside tea bags. I started drinking black tea (what English people call "tea") a few years later, I know I must have done, but I can't remember much of it before going to study in England. Nowadays, I visit people and ask for milk in my tea, and they look at me with a strange look until I explain "Oh, but you know, I've lived in England", and suddenly it's all right. It's still a quirk, but at least they know why I'm acting so strange.

Copenhagen's botanical garden

 We went there on an offhand tip, not expecting to have to stand in line

 To see a specific attraction in the tropical greenhouse

 Namely this flower that blooms every ten years or so.

 After looking at the slightly smelly plant, we went to goggle at cacti (very, very exciting)

 And be taken more photos of

Because we were in a botanical garden and everything was beautiful.

Here you can read a fairly up-to-date article about the flower, it is only in Danish, but you can always google translate it (if you're that interested). It's supposed to bloom only every ten years, but the last time it happened here was two years ago. 

Hans also took heaps more photos of us in the garden, and also in Tivoli later on. I pretty much let my camera be, being too busy going on carousels and tiny roller coasters and "driving" small cars with Cecille. I was extremely tired after this weekend, but mostly because we did a lot of fun things all day long, and sleep was fairly far down on our priority list.

At least this time we'll have lots of photographic evidence that we had fun. 

Copenhagen, Copenhagen

 Last weekend, I went to visit my Danish friend Cecille in Copenhagen

 She brought me home and gave me food and drinks and A BONFIRE which made for a happy Norwegian

 Then, next day, we went to a place called Grød (porridge) and got... porridge

 We walked all over Copenhagen, with Hans as our personal paparazzo

Walked a bit more, ate food and walked some more in these beautiful gardens

And this was all before we went to the botanical garden and Tivoli (see next post). Cecille's boyfriend Hans took photos of Cecille and me all over Copenhagen, by the statue of the little mermaid, in a whole lot of gardens, in front of fountains, by street lights and in Tivoli. We've known each other twelve years, and yet we only have about three photos together. Cecille and her family lived in Norway from she was ten, then she moved back to her hometown of Copenhagen after turning twenty. Since then, I've visited her once a year, or every two years, and she's been to Norway a few times as well as visiting me in England, but we've just photographed one another, and never really been photographed by other people.

Cecille was one of my very few friends in school (age 13-16), and a lot of how my personality has developed to something more positive and brave is due to her friendship. All the hearts.

A week of summer time

 When we had all the water melon

 and a barbecue at Karoline's house, eating fish burgers and sausages but mostly water melon

 With Ida,

 Christine,

 Karoline,

and myself (this last from when it had started to get cold)

These past weeks have been amazing for sunny weather, with temperatures we hardly ever see here in the north, with 25 to 30 degrees celsius, hardly any wind, and a lot of confused northerners. It has led me to eat more water melon than I thought was humanly possible. I haven't had any work either, so I've had plenty of days reading books in the sun and thinking secret thoughts about when I can go inside without feeling like I'm shirking my duties (as a northerner, it is my duty to stay outside whenever it is sunny and warm, because it happens so seldom, and we must enjoy what we can before the sky is overcast again). 

Our barbecue was one week ago, luckily, this weeks looks set to be more overcast (I am looking shiftily around the room while writing this, in case anyone records my treacherous thoughts).

Ringvassøya, Skarsfjorden, Klokkarholmen

 On a family trip on Ringvassøya (Ringvass Island) outside of Tromsø

 we passed this, which I thought was man-made, is a vertebrae from a whale (it's big enough to sit on)

 my dad ate his salmon on a flat stone, because who needs plates when you have stones lying around

 We admired the view from Klokkarholmen

 and admired it in another direction

 We had lots of coffee and laughter (this is my cousin and my aunt)

and we went to a beach with deceivingly clear and inviting water and beautiful sand

Skarsfjorden is where my dad and his three siblings grew up, and Klokkarholmen where my granddad grew up. We all like to walk there in summer (there is no road, and there are no people living there permanently anymore), but we always seem to do so at different times, seeing that we are four families within our family, and several smaller groups inside these families again. This year, my dad and cousins hatched a plan for a long walk, an overnight stay, and inviting all the siblings and their children, grandchildren etc. We ended up being eleven people, barbecuing out there on Saturday night, talking, laughing, eating, laughing a bit more, and sleeping in tents for the night. The next day, we went past a beautiful beach on our way home, and had another barbecue there, tested the beautiful but oh-so-cold water, and went home. 

It was extremely tiring to walk that far with tents and sleeping bags and all the food, but very worth it. This is the place that we all connect with, that is deeply ingrained in our minds and our family history. I also just enjoy spending time with my family, getting to know them better, and laughing about all the silly things.

Andreas on a short visit

 Hello there pretty flower

Let me tear you off and throw you on the ground

My nephew and his dad had just been on a trip to Svalbard, to see friends of their family and my own brother. They came by our house to have dinner before heading home, and I brought Andreas with me to the buttercups. He is infinitely amused by stroking his hands through flowers and grass, and even more by "picking" the heads off the flowers and dropping them. He's becoming more and more aware of his surroundings, using his big brown eyes to ask for permission (especially if he knows he's about to do something he's not supposed to, i.e. throwing food around).

Mathilde

one of my co-travellers in Nicaragua

Last week, I was just waiting at home, not having any work that day, and planning to meet my friend Viktoria in the afternoon. My phone beeped, and I got a message from an unsaved number. It was Mathilde, whom I hadn't seen for almost a year, saying that she had to wait for her connected flight in Tromsø, with three hours to spare, and whether the airport was far from town. I went to the airport and picked her up, we went for a cuppa, drove back, and then she was gone again.

This should happen more. You should all have flights connecting in Tromsø at all times, but especially when I am free and the weather is favourable.

YOUTH DELEGATES TO COLOMBIA

 Sunniva and Johanne, take one

Sunniva and Johanne, take fourteen or thereabouts

So, this is us. We are going to stay in Colombia nine months, from September 2014 till May 2015. We are going to work together, live together, eat together, and be together about ninety percent of the time from the departure brief in August until we return to Norway next May. We met for the first time last Saturday.

This was after almost three weeks of Facebook messaging and feeling like we were preparing for a first date. Only even scarier than that, since we already knew we'd be spending all this time together, and there was no real turning back. I worried about my hair, what to wear, what to say, and so on. And then I spotted her in the food hall on the Red Cross Youth Summer Camp and I ran over and hugged her and everything was normal and easy.

I'm looking forward to this year.