Da tar vi den rosa sangen dere, den rosa sangen

I walked in to the classroom and sat down at the first free seat. The Slovaki girl next to me had been in Norway for less than two weeks and didn't understand the lecturer's jokes about Norwegian timidness or introvertness. This is because he was speaking in Norwegian, so, naturally, the 15 or so foreign students understood nada.

I tried to remember five years back, to my first day at University of Western Sydney, a chilly August day in 2002. It looked like a crowded and worn-down mental institutions (felt like one too) in the Western Sydney outback, 20 minutes to the nearest train station and you had to walk past low-income housing estates the university warned about strolling through at nighttime. There was a juvenile detention centre close by, and adolescent rapists often went missing from their lock-up. This morning I woke up with a slight hangover, it was 35 minutes to the introduction seminar and I was half an hour bumpy train ride away. Swedish Louise came to my rescure and did the M4 from Parramatta to Penrith in a remarkable 25 minutes. I ran into the lecture hall and sat down in the first free seat. My university career had begun.

After a pretty decent journalism degree I've now begun my first shot at Norwegian education (which is free!!) and joined classes in Nord/Sør Utvikling, Samfunnsgeografi and Sosialantropologi. Trude, who takes 50 studiepoeng in law in addition to work at UD reckons it will be a piece of cake, Stian thought I was an idiot. That was of course only til he realized I would get student discount on Flytoget, freeze the interest on my current mortgage and get cheap beer on uni nights. Then he was impressed, and a little jealous. I wasn't (and am not) really aware of what I'm trying to accomplish this semester, but was told that of universities in Norway, Denmark, Germany and Australia, Australia definitively came out on top as the hardest, toughest and most nazi. I can only hope as I am about to embark on fulltime studies - and fulltime work.

But back to the lecture last week. After the half-arsed introduction in Norwegian followed by an excuse in English and promises of all future lectures beeing in a global understandable language the lecturer started off: "Allright, I will now address some issues in the green book. The green book, guys." I nearly fell of my chair. This was an advanced Human Geography course and the lecturer referred to the academic text we were to read as "the green book." What happened to Potter's Geographies of Development? He kept going in poor English with a heavy Norwegian acccent and reminded everyone several times that a billion is a "milliard" in Norwegian and that there is no such word as "billion" in Norwegian, despite Donald Duck trying to introduce the term through years of comics. "Billiard" is neither a word, no matter how logic it sounds. He also added the fact that if we wanted to we could exclude China from the statistics and that the numbers most likely would become a lot more in our favour if we did.

Exclude the largest nation in the world? Subtract some billion (millard that is in Norwegian) people from the formulas because it makes the stats look more favourable. I know what I will be discussing in the exam. And somehow I am am not so worried, but rather looking forward to the upcoming semester.

And it's not only because of the cheap beer.

King, queen, matching knickers and a fresh start

"You need matching underwear!" Ivy looks at me with a terrified expression in her eyes and true disgust towards my non-similar undies. I look down. Gray cotton panties and a turqoise satin bra does not do the trick and will never solve any of my boy problems, she says. I laugh it off and wonder what would have happened if I wore a gray cotton bra too and she says then I'd probably get lucky tonight. And she adds, if I swap the cotton full stop and go satin all the way I might meet the man of my dreams. I can smile all I want, but she's deadly serious. I've underestimated girl-power, naïve rødstrømpe, notoriously singel. I won't tell you if I got changed.

That's two years ago and Ivy's obsession for similar underwear have resulted in Max and Henrik, (three-month old twins), a Melbourne fiancé and a permanent resident visa to Australia.

The stuff I've learned from my flatmates is unbelievable. I know there has been a previous post about this common phenomenon, but I can't stop thinking about the coincidences that makes strangers drop everything in their hands and suddenly want to live together. How much you can annoy people before they want to bite your head off. How many late nights and early mornings before they tell you to shut up. How much ice cream you can stuff in the freezer before they say stop.

After a year in the same place something tells me to move on, find a new home with a new bathroom to get dressed in, a new kitchen to burn food in, a new tv to watch soapies on and a new key. I've never lived more than one year in any previous flat, but to change routines is good, so there's a new era coming up with, I hope, potential and possibilities.

Maybe I finally should get them photos up on the wall?

But the best thing about roomies must be the priviledge of being a part of their world and share their thoughts and opinions. Kent William recently read up on Congo Zaïre and Congo Brazzaville and eagerly told me the differences. Stina tought me how to make the best kladdkaka (she was Swedish), and Trude told me a lot about laundry (yet never that whites should only be washed with whites). And Ivy of course with her rules and fanatic thoughts about underwear.

I look in the mirror. The black and floral bra I'm wearing is looking suspiciously similar to my underpants. Me and the boyfriend just clocked six months. I must be doing something right.

Idyll

I've just spent a weekend at Skral festival in Grimstad, the cute little town I ditched on New Years Eve, but which is so much more fantastic in summertime. Lots of good bands were playing and despite my favourite band not playing my favourite song, the weekend can only be described by the words from a certain summer hit from a few years back:

Det var solnedgang

det var latter det var sang

det var sommerfri

det var sjø og magi

Det var deg og det var meg

det var minner som aldri vil dø

det var evighet

og en sol som farga himmelen rød

Det var øl

berusende ord

det var sommer det var sol

det var hjerter i brann

blikkstille vann alt på denne jord

Og det var kjærlighet

ja det var kjærlighet

og minner som aldri vil dø

en sol som farga himmelen rød - Idyll

Sommer'n var på hell

dette var siste kveld

vi lå på rygg jeg følte meg trygg

men frøs litt likevel

Vi lå og så på stjernene

og hørte på sangen fra ternene

vi visste begge hvor det bar

og at vi aldri skulle glemme hvordan det var

Det var øl

berusende ord

det var sommer det var sol

det var hjerter i brann

blikkstille vann alt på denne jord
Og kanskje en dag vi sees igjen

vi stopper og prater og du blir med meg hjem

så ser vi med tiden hva som skjer

mens vi tenker tilbake på minner og ler

Det var øl

berusende ord

det var sommer det var sol

det var hjerter i brann

blikkstille vann alt på denne jord

Og det var kjærlighet

ja det var kjærlighet

...

Grønt lys og medvind er utgangspunktet for en bra dag

The past few weeks have been really good. Most of all because of the sun and hot weather which transform cold, shy, reserved Norwegians into cheerful, chatty, happy individuals.

I came to think about it.

Here's a few things that's given me a huge smile across my face lately:

- The sun: I know, every Norwegian would say that, but it's true, the sun makes everyone happy. I've only ever met one person who did not enjoy the sun and that was an Irish guy on a sailboat at the Whitsundays. He sat for three straight days with his red hair, milkywhite skin, a sunhat, large t-shirt and was beeing pretty miserable.

- Music: Some songs just makes you laugh. We went to Edinburgh last weekend and at a pub they played Blondie's Maria. Helga got it on her mind. Now she has downloaded it and blares it out into the office landscape a few times a day.

- Unconditional love: aah, you thought you had me there, but then you should stop and think about it. Is that really me? Nope. I don't mean the clishé stuff your boyfriend might give you, what I mean is individuals that loves you for what you can give them. Like my dog Kajsa who adores me because I'll scratch her behind her ears. And my 5-year-old cousin Filippa who thinks I'm the coolest chick around because I wear nice skirts and play dart with her.

- Green lights: I can't take the credit for coming up with this, but if you bikeride to work and you get green lights at every intersection you'll be three minutes early for work and will have the time to get a coffee before you start. The wind part applies mostly in Denmark where it's flat as a pancake and wind in your favour will give you time to stop at the bakery as well as get the coffee. But definitively a mighty fine start to the day.

- Flowers: self-explanatory. Who doesn't like flowers? One of my happiest flowermoments where all from my mum and dad actually. Once on a birthday when I was a kid and dad wasn't home and I got my first flower delivery (of course a special moments). They were pink and had silver bands around them. When I graduated from uni I found an enormous bouquet outside my flat and when I broke my ankle there were also flowers waiting for me.

People: most of my family and friends actually makes me extremely happy whenever I'm with them, so there's really nothing to complain about. My dad always makes me laugh. My grandma is the coolest lady going around always making me feel special. Ex-flattie (to be again?) Trude is a sunbeam herself and of course that affects people around her. My siblings are fun and when we don't fight we laugh. The people I've travelled with I've had so much fun with and we can still sit around and chat about funny, hilarious and often slightly embarrasing times.

So my suggestions to all of you this summer is: Laugh your hearts out. That's what they are there for, and that's what I intend to do.

No further explanations should be needed.

The good is always in minority

Place: Strøget, Copenhagen.
Time: When I really should have been at work.
Who: Maxine and me.
What: Maxing out my credit card, second month in a row.

After some eventful weeks with lots of Australian influence after a long visit from Melbourne I am now situated in Copenhagen, Denmark. I took today off work and caught the bus down last night. I slept most of the way, only woke up now and then to tell Maxine to go to sleep too. She didn't.

It actually felt like I was back in Central America and we were heading on a bus through the continent. Because I spoke English I wasn't immediately looked upon as some xenophobic Norwegian and we soon started to chat to the Indian guy next to us. He was studying in Trondheim, but now on the way to Århus to play music with his friend. We quickly shared our life history and I was wishing it was like this every time I got on a bus, if you felt like talking to the person next to you, you would instead of just quietly whispering sorry when you crawled over him to go to the ladies room.

But we made it to Copenhagen and what a fantastic city this is. Not only for the great shopping, but the people, the buildings, the Royal Family, the Little Mermaid, H.C. Andersen, Tivoli, it all makes Denmark a good place to be. Cristina bugs me for moving to Århus and some times I'm even considering it. Not sure what I would do there, but it would be nice to be closer to my little sissy.

On the Central Station in Copenhagen we went to the bathrooms to freshen up and the old little lady in the control booth (which very conveniently was filled with g-strings and lacy underwear, it looked like it could have been a brothel at some stage) yelled madly at us for only having Norwegian crowns to pay with as she only accepted Swedish and Danish. She let us quickly go to the toilet and wash our hands (see below) but threatened that if we wanted to brush our teeth it would cost us. I wanted to brush my teeth so ended up going to get change and rightfully then spent a quarter of an hour getting ready to meet the daylight.














As the Indian guy said "The good is always in minority." I felt really bad, because he's actually right. There are a lot of arseholes out there. But there is only one thing to do about it (and this is for you nazi-control-freak-bathroom-lady):

Don't be such a BIAATCH and do to others as you wish they would do to you.

Jack Daniels was here too

Sometimes a Friday night drink is a Friday night drink. Other times it's a bit more fun.

Gotta love those work colleagues.

Desperate housewife

Due to Liverpool playing the qualifying finals in UEFA Champions league at the same time as Desperate Housewifes screen on tv I'v been missing out on a few episodes, and I therefore believe I can justify the fact that I lack some housewifey tendencies. Like, for instance: what is the object below:My first guesses were a) flour, b) white paint in powder form, c) cocaine.

No, no, I was wrong there, I'll give you a few hints, it fixes your dirty laundry, and not only that, it fixes your white dirty laundry...

It all started a few weeks ago, I was at work and Helga asked me if I had a new shirt on. New? No. I look down and see, it sure was quite crispy white and with no creases. But not new. Hmm...I wondered about the story behind it until I realized I left my shirt at my mum's last time I was home. And voila, it has not only been ironed, it has also been washed with white washing powder, something which appearantly does the trick and make stuff look new again.

I told my mum who laughed heartily and said yes, didn't I know that I had to wash my whites with white washing powder (and of course with no coloured stuff, but that's given right? Ehh...you should see my white clothes. Rather gray as my sister puts it). So no, I didn't know that. I might have briefly seen that there are different types of washing powder in the stores, but I only though they were expensive ones, or more expensive ones, not that they actually influenced your clothes in one way or another.

And here comes my real question: Why did I not know this? My mum knew. She knows everything there is to know about a household and she has a career too, so it's not because of abundance of time at home. I think nowadays kids (I refer to myself as one in this situation as I can't even wash my clothes right) don't learn these kinds of things any more. We have our mums or cleaners or gardeners or you-name-it to fix any ordinary things around the house and as a result end up not knowing what to do if things don't work. I can do my tax return online, send photos around the world with one click or print out last year's bank statements in a tic, but I struggle at lots of essential stuff.

These following things I could do if I had no handy-man around:
- Unclog the shower drain
- Cut the grass with a manual lawn mower
- Screw together Ikea furniture (proved several times) and other furniture items

What I couldn't do or would definitively struggle more with is:
- Plant a bulb in the garden (I'd kill it with to much water/sun/soil)
- Change a fuse
- Change a bicycle tire

Kids these days don't learn elementary things that will save you for a lot of trouble later in life. If you get a plumber to pull your hair out of the drain it's gonna set you back at least 500 kroner for ten minutes work. And the bicycle tire-change will cost you 200 at G Sport. Not to mention the ridicule you'll expose yourself to if you call the electrician to change a fuse. It ain't that hard. But I still don't know it.

So I believe some of the nynorsk in high school should've been replaced with a subject called Bare Essentials or something similar. I think they had Home Economics at my high school in Australia where people learned amongs others how to bake bread (there are lots of people who don't know how to). I was so pro-girl-scouting as a kid because now I briefly know how to rise a tent, knit knots, make bonfires etc, but there are lots of housewifey stuff I wouldn't mind getting my head around.

And to finish it all off, I was having some beers with Kristin last night and she sincerely expressed the fact that we were not going to be someones housewife when we grew up, no, we were going to be careerwomen! And successful ones at that! I'm very pro that thought as well, but realize the very convenience of constantly not killing your garden plants and managing to save a New Year's turkey in the oven if the electricity blows.

A fruit, a bird, a nation

Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Tenei te tangata puhuru huru
Nana nei i tiki mai
Whakawhiti te ra
A upa…ne! Ka upa…ne!
A upane kaupane whiti te ra! Hi!!!

I die! I die! I live! I live!
I die! I die! I live! I live!
This is the hairy man
Who fetched the sun
And caused it to shine again
One upward step! Another upward step!
An upward step. Another… the sun shines.

That's one way of greeting the world. Spring's here - yay!!

Finn én feil

The world has gone absolutely stark raving mad

4.18pm, in the office: Ola comes in the door, we have a chat and tell him about the huge mega success Facebook has been for Kulturstudier and x-plore. Kulturstudier have got 40 new members and an unaccounted for number of posts and board topics since lunch, more than what we had all autumn at our old forum. So it's all good.

4.21pm, still office: Helga and I try to trick Ola into at least having a look at this phenomenon, if not good for anything else at least it will increase awareness about his band Suspenders and they can post whenever they've got gigs and stuff.

4.27pm: Ola has logged into Facebook and is struggling with the privacy settings. Don't really want your email to be shown off to the entire world, will you?

4.32pm: He's hooked. Helga and me are now guilty of creating another Facebook junkie. Black Suspenders have already managed to get several friends, joined two groups, been invited to a few events and mentioned we hooked up last year and it was good. Now he's in a relationship and it's complicated. (Heard that before, haven't we??)

4.48pm: Another ten people have joined Kulturstudier's group and I am in ecstasy. Trude posts a note on my wall asking for photos of Kristoffer. I say I don't have any available, but that he's added as friend and she can snoop around for herself.

Time-consuming, information-sharing, network-binding, friends-making, espionage on the highest level. Trude haven't repeated her request so I guess she found what she was looking for.

I rest my case.