So what's with the silence huh

 This blog has been hella quiet for a good year or so, other than my yearly summary that I posted as I always have. That is definitely not a result of a lack of material, rather the opposite. 2019 was extremely busy, I took loads and loads of photos - and all was going fine and dandy until my blog post about the Tall Ships Races 2019 in Fredrikstad and my experience as a volunteer there lost several hours of progress I had made to it twice. That admittedly killed all of my motivation to work on it, already being enough material for two tightly information-packed posts. As all that went down, I had more exciting things happen, among them two wonderful domestic trips within August, and a short notice trip to Miami in mid-September. As experience shows, if you don't get the exciting thing that happens posted while it's still hot, other exciting things will steal that spotlight and the time and motivation won't be the same again. Add the fact that I'm enough of a neat freak to want all my posts in chronological order, and the fact I usually feel the need to direct my productive blogging energy bursts towards other seemingly more important things, you get quite the deadly cocktail. I must confess that I've had the Miami-post all done and ready for publication for most of that quiet year, but I've been putting it off in hopes that I'll one day get to blogging about what happened prior. But I'll publish it on the anniversary of the trip which is very soon now, that's a promise. 

And then 2020 hit; it's been a rather interesting year to me so far; nothing has gone as expected, which, I guess, is a universal experience. I can't recall much from the pre-covid months, and I guess I'll leave that for a future 2020-summary post, but I had planned myself a rather badly timed visit to my parents in Estonia, and due to having several important errands to run, decided to go ahead with it. Predictably, I got stuck and what was intended to be three weeks ultimately turned into four and a half months. To anyone who knows of my general aversion to Estonia and how much I've grown to love Norway despite having some difficulties getting settled here (NEVER move to another country unless you really have to, I've done it twice, it's not fun) would guess it was a minor personal disaster. However, it went far better than I would've ever expected if anyone had told me I'd spend that kind of time stuck in Estonia in advance. I sat quarantined for two weeks after my arrival doing unapologetically absolutely nothing. And yet exactly one month and one day after my arrival I had my first workday in the Ericsson factory. While living on mum's couch with all my stuff in a suitcase by my side and working full time in a factory may sound a bit sad, I'm actually very grateful for those three and a half months of my life, because I got to take care of and treat myself to some things I'd been dreaming of for years, I gained an invaluable experience and I returned to Norway so much stronger than before. It was an interesting time in many ways, no doubt. 

Nonetheless, I'm very glad to be back, especially after at times feeling like I'd never be able to return. I've promised myself not to worry or stress myself needlessly about dumb stuff that needs not be stressed about (by which I refer to almost everything); while I do have a fairly good idea of what I want from the nearest year or two, only time can tell what the future brings. 

A side effect to living with mum was having daily access to this helluva character of a cat. She's 15 years old now, being the result of 8 year old me REALLY wanting a kitty, so any time with her is much appreciated. She is also the main cause of the severe kitty fever I've developed since my return. 

My 2019

'tis that time of the year again, to sum up my last year. I've written summary posts of every year since 2012, and 2019 was in no way less worthy of getting a summary. I may not have achieved my main goal of building some routine in my life and finding work, but on the other hand, 2019 was probably my wildest and most fun year so far, and looking back at it now, I cannot complain at all. Last year I ditched my month-by-month summary format, but this year I definitely feel like returning to it. Several of the events I'll be mentioning do have entire separate posts about them, or at least in my drafts waiting to be completed and published.

January

Last January had snow, this January doesn't seem to so far.

My 2019 started quite slow; I got quite sick shortly before New Year and was sick well into the first week of the year. Just as I was about to get better, my ribcage started giving me some serious pains from all the coughing I'd been doing. Those pains took all of January to heal, so I couldn't do much. I did however use the down time to start this blog!

February

Mid-February had some amazing weather.

In February I started to rollerskate and exercise again, and one of my main focuses that month was helping Sverre organise his birthday cruise for the next month, both because he was at work the entire month and because the attendance was blowing up beyond expectations and together with that, the workload. In addition to that, I started to organise something nice for my mum and myself in April.

March

Birthday boy and just a small fraction of the celebrating group; while plenty of photos were taken, I'm not even going to try to acquire everyone's consent to publish less flattering photos with more people in them. 

On the 2nd of March I was featured in the local newspaper with Fredrikstad Roller Derby. I spent a couple of days in Oslo, accompanying Sverre who was there on a course. From the 15th to the 17th Sverre and I took a cruise on the Mariella from Stockholm to Helsinki and back, accompanied by 14 other people, both from his Norwegian friend groups as well as from our mutual ferry-friend group. Being a huge group of vastly different but amazing people, I had high expectations for the cruise but it was wild and fun beyond any imagination, and it seems to have been so for everyone who came. The rest of the month was spent recovering from the cruise; I also had the first volunteer meeting for Tall Ships' Races and did some more organising for April. On the 31st of March I went to Oslo to watch intense roller derby bouts between teams from Oslo, Sundsvall, Copenhagen and Malmö.

April

In early April, Sverre and I did quite a few trips on our bicycles, since the weather was getting nicer, we had plenty of time and we had both gotten new ones in October. After Sverre left for work, I attended a party hosted by a friend of his. In mid-April I participated in the annual Titanic Voyage role play event, which is something I've done every year since 2013, but I've usually been laying somewhat low and just watching. This year, however, I made friends, got very invested in the roleplaying and had so much fun that it magically sucked up a whole week of my life. At the end of the month it was finally time for my mother to come visit. We flew to Bergen together and spent two amazing days there, among other things - I wrote two posts about it. However, it was during this trip that I found out about the unexpected death of someone I cared about and considered a friend.

May

A beautiful 17th of May picture from Fredrikstad, before I left the city to join the celebrations in Sarpsborg and Moss. 

The first half of May was quite productive, but in retrospect I was quite emotionally drained for weeks. It wasn't until I attended the very beautiful and emotional funeral service on the 14th that I slowly started to feel better. Just three days later was the 17th of May, the Norwegian Constitution day. I was alone at home with no plans and decided to join the celebration of someone I'd met online just a couple of days prior; a mildly wild thing to do, I suppose, but I figured that the chance of something bad happening is nearly non-existent and it'll probably be enough fun to be worth it. That was probably one of the best decisions I made last year; I had so much fun that the bar for future 17th-of-May-s is probably unattainably high, and I met someone who has over the rest of the year become very close to me. The rest of the month was quite busy with various things happening as well, among them Eurovision where Norway won the public vote; something I'm still bitter about, since I've been against involving juries in Eurovision for as long as I can remember and it would've been great to have Norway win.

June

Me and a Drew Marine merchandise mug I got at the fair

By June, Sverre had returned home and we attended the biennial Nor-Shipping maritime fair in Oslo together. We also attended one day in 2017, but this year we were there over three activity-packed days. Sverre was home for a very short time then; we attended a couple of parties and took a short trip to Sandefjord, Strömstad, Gothenburg and Frederikshavn, which ended up being my last ever trip with Bohus of Color Line. After Sverre had left again, I had a friend from Finland visit me for a few days. Together we attended a party and took a trip to Halden.

July

July was crowned by one big event for me, the Tall Ships Races; Fredrikstad was one of the host cities this year and since I wasn't going to miss out on that, I volunteered as a liaison officer. Whenever I wasn't busy with liaison officer duties, there was always someone in town to hang out with, so for about a week I could barely make the time to sleep and shower. After the event was over, it took me several days of doing absolutely nothing to recover. Towards the end of the month we had about a week of extremely hot weather during which I almost lived at a nearby beach.

August

In early August, Sverre came home and just a mere day after we left for a very nice trip to Telemark across the Oslofjord, visiting Bø Sommerland and taking a boat down the Telemark canal. In mid-August I attended a couple of parties, and took yet another trip with Sverre with the main goal of sailing on the brand new Color Hybrid. A couple of days later I marched the Fredrikstad Pride parade with Fredrikstad Roller Derby. In late August I celebrated my 23rd birthday and on the last day Sverre and I left for yet another trip, this time heading towards Lillehammer and Gjøvik. It was also not long before my birthday that I found out about the death of my grandfather. I had been mentally prepared for it so it wasn't too much of a shock.

September

Lincoln Road, Miami Beach

September started with the continuation of the aforementioned trip, consisting of a daytrip from Gjøvik across lake Mjøsa to Hamar and back on board a vintage paddle steamer, and an eventual return home via Oslo. Otherwise, early September was relatively peaceful. At one point, I found out of a possibility that I may be able to accompany Sverre to Miami which resulted in some prolonged suspense, and to my great joy and excitement, that's exactly what happened - we spent three days in Miami in later September. I still somewhat fail to believe that actually happened, especially on such a short notice; we were so busy taking advantage of our short time there that when we returned, I had to spend the rest of the month recovering from the physical and mental exhaustion.

October

Go'vakker Elen, the newest river ferry in Fredrikstad, running entirely on electricity, finally entered service in October.

October was probably the most peaceful month of the year, not seeing more than a couple of nights out, and a 90's themed party cruise on the Stena Saga I attended together with Sverre's friends.

November

November started with Sverre's return home again and a fun Day of the Dead party with some of his friends. This year was also the first time I chose to embrace the inevitability of Christmas starting immediately after Halloween is over, and started unapologetically churning out industrial amounts of gingerbread, which is something I've done every year since 2012.

December

December started off with a last minute trip to Germany. We took the ferry to Kiel from Gothenburg, spending the first day and night in Hamburg, visiting among others Miniatur Wunderland, and before taking the ferry back the following day, I got to spend a few hours in Lübeck enjoying their infinite Christmas market and stocking up on their world famous marzipan. I had been to Lübeck once before, in 2016, when serving as a deck trainee for the first time. Lübeck was my first chance to go ashore, but I couldn't get my hands on any marzipan there and then. No problem, I thought, we'll be back soon, but then we were sent to Spain and I didn't get to come back until this time. Right after the trip Sverre left for work and I got to preparing for Christmas, which I spent with his family across the Oslofjord. I welcomed 2020 in Sarpsborg with a group of friends.

All in all, I've had quite the year; I got to do a lot of fun and interesting things, have more fun than ever before, meet many new people and travel to many places I'd been dreaming of; on the other hand, I also had my first close encounters with death. Last year I wrote that my Norwegian had gone from A1 to B1 and mentioned that a similar leap to C1 in a year would be amazing. I dare to say I'm now B2, which is more than fine because the higher the level of language competence, the longer it takes to acquire. As I write this, I'm still yet to use anything other than Duolingo combined with daily use and exposure, but I'm waiting on a set of grammar books (made specially for those who are already well familiar with the language but would like to learn more about grammar, rules and structure) arrive very soon and look forward to practicing with them, and additionally I can now borrow books from the local library.

As of the new year and new decade, may it bring fulfillment and happiness to all of you reading this!

How I showed my mum some Norway, part 2

This is part 2 of a trip report. Part 1 can be found here.

I left part 1 off at a point where we, two unprepared tourists, had just climbed up and down a considerable mountain and still had the 2nd half of the day ahead of us. We were somewhat exhausted, but also glad we had chosen to go ahead and do it, and quite proud of ourselves. Afterall, we both grew up used to landscapes flatter than an ironing board; even if I have now lived in hillier countries for a few years and taken good advantage of it, I still hadn't done anything quite up to that scale. But now I definitely dare to say that I hope that this is just the start and that I'd certainly like to be scaling more impressive peaks soon.

Now, before I get to what happened next, here's some more music to enjoy, as promised.

How I showed my mum some Norway, part 1

As anyone who has been watching my social media would notice, I recently did some travelling. Of course, I'm generally on the move a lot, but the trip I'm referring to now was an outlier in many ways. For example, I've rarely ever felt so mad excited (and afterwards, satisfied) about a trip that didn't even involve crossing a single international border - at least, not for me. While I've never minded domestic travelling, it has never been quite as special as going to another country; but of course, now that I live in Norway, a world-class tourist destination, I dare to say that rule can be rewritten. However, my mother, who was my travel companion this time around had to cross a couple of borders to get here; in fact, this trip was a surprise-present from me to her.

Throughout the whole planning and waiting stage that lasted for about two months, it felt like the most ridiculous idea ever. It was also somewhat tricky to find the perfect balance between all the ideas I had and constrictions of time, budget and eventually, energy. Thankfully, I managed to concoct a plan I was and still am extremely satisfied with, which ended up (not quite intentionally) having many similarities to a part of my first ever trip to Norway that Sverre organised for me. One of the similarities being that the two trips were just a day or two (depending on what part you look at) away from being exactly three years apart. Anyway, the blog post about the similar part of my first trip can be found here, should you fancy running a comparison. In any case, even if I had been through most of this before, it still proved to be quite a lot of new and exciting experiences for me, let alone for my mother to whom all of this was new.

26th of April, 2016. The weather was actually lovelier that day, but it had generally been colder that spring, which meant more snow in the mountains and mostly frozen waterfalls.

25th of April, 2019. The weather was mostly overcast, and I couldn't really retake the photo quite as far out on the pier as I had in 2016, because there was a small ship parked there all day and she would've covered up most of the background. 

Now, those who have been reading my old blog(s) for years, know that I'd sometimes give some music to accompany my posts. Heck, this is probably going to be a bit of a read, so you may as well buckle up, and if you wish for something to enhance the mood, enjoy this.

April fools!

While I didn't write anything on this blog yesterday, I couldn't resist the temptation to deliver a proper rickroll, a meme as old as time itself, on the Facebook page. Of course, while I do have respect for the people who manage to continuously pump out interesting content on Youtube, doing that myself is not in my list of plans for the predictable future.

Sorry, not happening. But if you do have the compulsive need to like and subscribe to stuff, feel free to do so for this blog on the sidebar to the right, as well as on the Facebook page. Like. Follow. Share. Turn on notifications. Go wild.

I do have a decent amount of appreciation for April Fools' day, and I wouldn't mind having a couple more such days per year. As someone put it quite well, the first of April is the only day of the year where people take everything they read with a grain of salt and tend to double check before accepting it as truth - a practice that should be common any day of the year. Either way I certainly enjoy hearing about all the glorious jokes people, various institutions and companies pull off. In this post, I'll include some more memorable ones I've come across, as well as some I've pulled off myself, over the years.

Cruise ships? In Fredrikstad?!?

... Apparently!

This is how I roll, animal print pants outta control

Spring 2004. I'm 7 years old, the weather is getting nicer and nicer and I'm seeing all the older kids on rollerskates. I had finally gotten the hang of actually moving forward on ice skates some months earlier, saw all the older kids having fun on their skates and thought that damn, it's time I get on wheels. So, my dad dug out an ancient pair of quad skates for me and off I went.
Granted, by that point inline skates were the mainstream and quad skates horribly outdated, but I was having enough fun to not care so much; I'd sometimes skate to school, and over the summer I started feeling fairly confident.

One grumpy kid sitting on the roof of her dad's ancient van.