Ultimate annoyance...

We had all these rhymes when we were kids, the ultimate speed was for instance to lock a drawer and manage to chuck the key inside etc. etc. This morning I experienced the ultimate annoyance. I got home late from Bergen last night, and really, really felt like a spinning class this morning at 06.30am. So when my alarm goes off at 06.03 I happily jump out of bed, get my gym stuff, eat a banana and am ready for a great work out. I go out in our dark backyard, through all the leaves, unlock my bike, only to find out the front wheel has decided to blow over the weekend! As I was a little late I had no time making the class by walking, so I had to go back inside without having exercised, one big, big downturn.

So now, as I'm on foot until I or someone with bikerepairing skills fixes my bike it might as well snow! It snowed over the mountain yesterday (not as much as in the photo, which is from a winter a few years ago), but it was so beautiful! Although Oslo-Bergen is one long hike by car, it is definitively recommended, because it is a beautiful scenic route, and you wonder why LOTR was not filmed there instead. It nearly beats New Zealand!

Anyway, it's getting closer to 7am in the morning, and my stomach says it's about time to get some brekky. Still would've preferred bikeriding my arse off in a small dark room with very loud music.

Law and order

As I was bikeriding home from a workfunction with a few beers on the inside (still wearing a bikehelmet and flashing lights and riding on the sidewalk, so no immediate danger) I came to think about can you get caught for drinkriding? In Norway, if I were to borrow my car (hypothetically since I don't have a licence) to a drunk person and that person got caught I would have gotten the same punishment. Which easily would be three weeks in jail and a 15 000 NOK ($3000) fine. Which is fair enough actually. You shouldn't drink and drive!! Not bikeride either but it was the best of two evils.

Put on your seatbelt. And slip, slap, slop. Good night.

October

It's pretty cold now. My room is cold, I live in an old, beautiful house with very high ceilings, which is great because it looks good, but I have to admit, it's bloody freezing every morning. I'm just waiting for the snow to come actually. I like snow, love it actually, but it means I can't ride my bike and will have to choose every morning whether to walk the 30 minutes to work or catch the tram which takes me 32. I think I might walk.

Might go for a walk and look at the yellow leafs on the ground. Went to a party last nigth where they had decorated with leafs. It was pretty.

So long.

I know I'm in Norway when...

"Usjekta, men du är för sen." (It's rather badly spelled Swedish and means "You're too late."). I'm looking at the blonde girl behind the counter and it takes me a few seconds before I realize what hideous crime I've done. There I get it. I tried to buy beer after 8pm on a Thursday night. Oh, yes, welcome to Norway. It was 8.47pm on Thursday night, I was on my way home from the gym and knew I'd love to have some cold beers in the frigde, just in case me or a flatmate felt like one over the weekend, but no, the register-chick takes it and puts it behind the counter. "Come back tomorrow, will ya?" Oh, yeah, I will. Just to clarify, it's not some big problem for me not having access to beer late on a Thursday night, but it made me think back to the differences with Norway and Australia. In Norway you have two good excuses for not drinking. 1. Bottle shops are closed, and you have nothing to drink. 2. It's too expensive. (3. Of course, your'e driving, but I am still not in the posession of a license, so don't have that privilegded excuse). In Australia these excuses are no good (and maybe therefore slightly more alcohol abuse??), howver there is nothing like you couldn't get alcohol. There are 24 hours drive through bottleshops. And if you don't have a car to drive through, feel free to bikeride. Second, alcohol is dirt cheap. Cheaper than milk. Bottles of wine for $3. I'm not saying it's the right thing, it is probably the cause of lots of problems, I am just noticing the differences. But other than that Norwegian and Aussie party culture is pretty similar. Yet different. To quote another alcoholic ad. Anyway, tonight we're taking it pretty chill at home, watching Stingers (I miss Melbourne so bad when I see it, the Police Station on St. Kilda Road, Telstra Dome, the Rialto Towers, cafes in Fitzroy...ahhh), but tomorrow there might be a bit more of a party. That is, if I make it to the shop before the curtains go down on the beer.

Cheers

Ikea and Harry Potter

It has been a very relaxing weekend! After a good night out on Friday, Kristin (one of three flatmates) and I went shopping at Ikea. There's an unwritten rule that on a Saturday afternoon Ikea is absolutely chock a block full, and despite the fact that we waited til 6pm there were plenty of people around looking for stuffed animals in the shape of lions, the occational witch-costume og wardrobes. We spent the evening at Ikea and barely made the last bus home to Oslo.

Today has been a very relaxing day, been watching Harry Potter and doing absolutely nothing. I probably should do my Spanish homework, got a 100 word essay to write (it is harder than it sounds!). Anyway, have a lovely Sunday, Sydney Swans are going to beat West Coast Eagle next week, which I am looking very much forward to! Just to explain for those who don't know who Barry Hall is: it would be like telling Ole Gunnar Solskjær he doesn't played for Man. U...

Cheers!

Go the swannies!!!

It is actually quite pathectic, but only hours before this photo was taken (I broke my right ankle and needed six screws and a plate in my foot for 18 months) me and a few friends were hanging around with the Swans players at Melbourne Cup back in 2003. I think I managed to call Barry Hall a lier and tell him there was no chance in the world he was playing for the Sydney Swans, and Adam Schneider actually visited me in my apartment (at 2am in the morning, I was in so much pain and told him to get out), but anyway, the Melbourne Cup 2003 was great fun, and made me start focusing on who actually played for the team I had been barracking for the past three years. So, when they last year won the Grand Final I was there supporting them (in a car, listening to the radio at a wedding reception in woob woob Victioria), and I am there now going nuts at work hoping for them to win! So despite siblings of Swans players partly being fault in my right foot's limited moveability, I wish them all the luck next week!!! You rock, guys!!

Cheers, Maria:)

Hohohoo...I feel like Santa

Not that I bring any cool gifts or anything, but I do a bit of interviewing for Speak (the student exchange organisation I worked for over summer). And I basically get to decide whether these kids I interview are fit for a year in the States. And if I think they can handle it they go, and if not they are stuck for two more years at a Norwegian high school that's falling apart from the inside, re-naming itself (my old high school just did), without actually improving anything materialistically, the class rooms are still sub zero during winter and the blackboards are broken in two... Anyway, I think it is really cool being invited into these peoples' homes and chatting with student and parent for an hour or two. And of course, I can highly reccomend a year overseas, so it's pretty easy to convince them.

To a whole different thing. Oslo is very dangerous!! I bikeride to work every morning, and they've just made a perfectly safe zebra-crossing into a potentially fatal roundabout. It's not making it much easier that I can't drive a car, and therefore don't know who to stop for or when to go. They've figured it out in Copenhagen, they've got hundreds of kilometres of biketracks, but Oslo is just an accident waiting to happen. So, wish me luck.

On a different note again, Kristin, my flatmate, just passed her, what can you call it, "hunting licence" (jegerprøven), and is now ready to shoot a moose or kangaroo or anything in her way and make a perfect stew on a cold autumn night... yeah...right...

Well, long day, hope everyone is well. All you, Aussies out there, what are you doing at the moment, give us an email:)

Cheers, Maria

Very important meetings...

I spent two hours in meetings today, which is a totally new concept to me, sitting around drinking coffee with your colleagues while getting paid for it and just discussing things to and fro about what goes on at work, and what can be done better.

I had an absolutely awesome weekend. The Friday was as mentioned pretty damn good, and I spent the whole day of Saturday and Sunday outside in the park (it was the last sunny weekend of the year in Norway, so it was well spent). The park is so close we are in login range of our wireless network, which is pretty cool:)

Other than that it is starting to pick up at work, which is great. The guys I work with are lovely, which makes it all that easier, but it is tough if you walk around with little stuff to do, so now that I'm getting into things it is a lot better.

We're considering a movie tonight, there are lots of good Norwegian movies around now, so if any of them get to Nova, run and see it! The Aussie movie Look Both Ways is on cinema here at the moment (a year after Australia), and it is getting good critics.

Anyway, have a good day! Cheers, M:)

Good night...

No, seriously, it was a good night. Now, however, have a good night...

;)

Crikey no more

Steve Irwin - killed by a fish. I can't believe it, at the same time it was the only reasonable way for a guy like him to go. However, it was way too soon at only 44 years of age, and my Australia-loving work colleagues and myself have all had a sad day, remembering his shows on Animal Planet and total, yet very entertaining, stupidity most of the time. Steve (as if I was a close friend) was what I believe is the true spirit of Australia, a bit silly, slightly reckless, yet laidback and with a profound love for everything and anything that has a heart and can grow in some way or another. My sister made fun of me six years ago when I applied to go to Australia on high school exchange, and said if I ended up with an accent like his it would be hilarious. Would I only be so honoured.

He was true blue - rest in peace, mate.