Nede under

Last night, EVER (really) (if not Knut has a housewarming)

2007-11-01T03:54:00.000+11:00

It has come to this at last. The last night!
Me, Knut, Margrethe, Camilla and Benedikte is sitting here and enjoying the last bottle of wine ever in Centre Ct. #6. The last supper.

A couple of shots to make my mom proud:

On the 18th im heading for Norway and a uncertain future (well, probably the navy anyways)
Tomorrow were moving to St.Kilda and a world of hangovers. Cheers!

Pain above the ass

2007-10-08T20:44:00.000+10:00

I haven't been able to work out lately part due to delayed holiday syndrome, and part do to my acrobatic escapades in the motion capture lab for me and Benny's project.

Moves like this results in you having to walk in a 90 degree angle.

Second time around is obviously the charm

2007-09-30T14:34:00.000+10:00

I'm sitting on our living room floor after arriving back from the Whitsunday Islands and Airlie Beach yesterday evening. As some of you might remember, some of us attempted a holiday last semester too, and even though it was good fun, pretty much everything went down the shitter.

But this time around, with a little more holiday experience under our belts, we achieved the Rolls Royce of trips! Our plane left Avalon airport in Geelong (Just south of Melbourne city) at 2pm, a pretty comfortable time to fly, leaving you with plenty of time to pack and getting organized.

From there we had a brief stop in Sydney airport, and on during the landing we got to see the Opera House from two different angles in the air, bonus! We then had a relaxing meal and we guys had a beer, before strolling to the plane to Proserpine airport in the Whitsundays.

The airport has to be the tiniest airport I have ever been on, and if my memory serves me correct its even smaller that Haukåsen airport in Sogndal. You strolled over the tarmac before going in to the arrival hall and wondering where the hell your luggage was! We actually had to go outside and one of those little, long luggage carts drove out of gate from the runway with everyones luggage on. You could then help yourself and get to the cabbies. We then saw absolutely nothing for the 30-40 minutes the ride to Airlie Beach took, not even the decent roadkill you would come to expect in those wallaby infested parts.

Then FINALLY we arrived in Airlie Beach, the spring board for all the lovely islands in the Whitsundays. As we drove through the heart of Airlie, which by the way is smaller than Sogndal too, we came by a place called Beaches Backpackers. This was the place we were originally supposed to stay, but decided against when we got 2 free nights at Magnums Backpackers when we booked our boat trip (more about that later).
Anyways, when driving by Beaches, this enourmous party filled club area opened up and everybode was going: "NOOOO! That was where we were supposed to stay!".
We then got another little shock, because 2 seconds down the road was Magnums, and that was even louder, brighter, bigger and nicer than the place we had just driven by. I guess I wont have to illustrate the sounds being made in the maxi-cab at that time.

After a bit lengthy check in, we were literally on our way through the jungle, heading for our cabin. Consisting of nothing but some pieces of wood and metal sheets for outer walls and roofs, it had air-con, roof fans and a fridge plus 4 bunk beds. It was situated amongst other similar cabins and larger buildings that contained the single and double rooms.

Unlike Gold Coast, we still had enough energy that night to check out the city and what it had to offer. Magnums actually had a pretty nice bar, club and a place to eat, so we stayed there for a fair while before going further down the road to a bar.
Now, I cant recollect if it was this night or the night after, but me, Knut, Øyvind and this other guy actually had to physically restrain a kid who was OD'ing on the pavement and was shaking uncontrollably and cracking the back of his head on the curb. After a while four police officers arrived, but they seemed to think we did a fair job of calming the guy down, so they stood back until the ambulance arrived and strapped him to the bed. We actually thought he had epilepsy because of the shaking and biting, but after asking his friend afterwards it became pretty clear that he had been popping a pharmacy worth of pills and whatnot.

The day after we did nothing but strolling the (incredible bad) beach in Airlie, and the surrounding areas. We then soaked some sun before heading of to the sweetest and most expensive Thai dinner I have ever had. I had some kind of honey coated fried chicken, and only that. I could feel the diabetes creeping in on me, even though the food was good. Then I believe this was the night when we got to know the first of the Swedes from the trip, one of them was definitely named Victor, and I strongly suspect the other one was called Ulrik.

The following day me and Knut, didn't feel like spending another day just lying around, and screwing up our moles, so we went for a walk up the hills of Airlie, with all its pretty villas. We got stopped by a fence and a "No Access", and then we went for a bit longer walk up another extremely steep hill, where they were building more of the same villas. Almost at the top we got pulled over by this guy in a pick-up truck and he said it was of limits, and that his ass would be on the line if we tumbled down that hill. After asking him around a bit he could tell us that there actually was this famous walk you could do right above Airlie called The Great Walk. Our feet was pretty banged up after all that walking in only flip-flops so we decided against it for the time being and went to catch up with the girls and Øyvind at the beach. It got a little to slow at the lagoon for us after a while so when Øyvind agreed to do it too, we thought; what the hell, lets do that walk.
After getting a map at Magnums, we headed off up the hills of Airlie, and we soon got to this wooden walkway and stairs that led up to the pathway.
We walked for maybe half an hour through steep terrain and leaf covered ground before getting to the sign describing the route. We discovered that we had actually covered only a sixth of the path called The Honeyeater, which is an appendix of The Great Walk, and it leads up to this great lookout point.

Realizing that flip-flops was not the ideal footwear for climbing a mountain, we finally reached the look-out and it was pretty much worth the steep climb, even though the thought of our emerging descent was lurking in the back of our heads.
By the time we got back down, it was like walking on meatballs, and the day was pretty much up, except for the compulsory party at the night. I believe this was the night when we met up with the other Swedes we got to know this holiday, Linus and David. The last thing I remember is us taking a bath in the pool in the middle of the night, and then Linus shoving me into the pool with my pants on, a action with severe consequences as you will hear about later :)

Wednesday, and we are meeting up with all the other (awesome) guests at the Reality Is, party boat. We actually thought it wasn't going to be THAT much of a party boat, so we bought some wine and met up at the designated area. The first thing the crew says to us is: "Listen, boys aaaand girls. This is a boat. Things run out a boat. Sunscreen, chocolate, alcohol. You are going to go through more of these things than you would ever think possible. So go back to the shop and buy moooore, then meet back up. And so we did.

When boarding the boat we got introduced to the crew. Tommy, Clayton, Paddy (or Patty), Paddy(or Patty) the chef and Whatshisname the Skipper. Each one of the was crazier than the next, but I cant go into specifics, as it would probably cause shock and an untimely death for 50% of the guys reading this. Well ok, the Skipper wasn't crazy at all, he mostly just "existed" and drove the boat. We started devouring our brought aboard goods at about 3pm, and a couple of hours later we anchored up outside Long Island, our place for both our nights, and it was dinner time. I was expecting to get toast and cheese when I saw "All meals included" in the ad for the trip, but the food was really great. That day we had pasta bolognese with a fresh salad and garlic bread. After the food we moored at Long Island and headed off for our rooms. That night we spent drinking beer on the beach, very nice and dreamlike. We also randomly met a friend of Margrethe and Camillas, Thea and her friend Iselin. Camilla and Margrethe had also randomly met a girlfriend from the same island as them in one of the airports. Clichè: Talk about a small world.
This was also the night I lost the only shoes I brought on the boat, my 70$ flip-flops. The rumour is that they floated of into the nightly sea, but here nothing is certain, because this was the night when I was *lost*.

When you have had a night out, you really don't want get up at 7:30 in the morning to get on a boat. I got up an hour before that, because of some sketchy alarm clock settings, and stood there all dressed up an hour before we had to be ready. After breakfast we were briefed on our introductory dives, complements of the boat. The crew that at other times were joking around, were now dead serious and professional in their explaining to those of us that hadn't dived before. You actually got pretty nervous when they explained all the details that were involved in the sport.
We suited up and headed out to this island that was going to be our base for the dive and a couple of hours. I tell you, my breathing was pretty heavy before going under, but when you were surrounded by coral reef and these zebra looking fishes, all the stress vanished and the calm of the ocean washed you over. I got to go alone with my instructor, Tommy, in the first group, because the rest of the group chickened out, *wink-wink*.
I had to equalize my ears a couple of times and then clear my mask of water once, but except for that, it was all good. Oh, and I disovered Nemo!

We then sailed to Whitehaven beach, a beach with extremely fine sand. So fine that we were warned to bring cameras and leave them on our towels, because the sand would penetrate the cover and get stuck in the working parts of the camera. Me and Knut went for a long walk and Knut had a swim, and by the time we got back the boat was ready to head for Long Island once again. Whitehaven was extremely beautiful and quite long, postcard perfect.

That night on Long Island went a bit smoother than the one before, I am actually able to remember parts. Knut was pretty pissed (as in drunk), and he gave me money and asked me to go to the bar and ask for the most manly tropical drink they had. The bartender laughed and gave me a strawberry daiquiri with Frangelico in it. This was obviously Knuts big night out!

We had to get up at the same time the next, by the way our last full day in the Whitsundays, but I felt a little bit better since I could sleep an hour longer that day :)
The boat only did a little detour to a place called Daydream Island, which was private so we had to lurk around it. We then had to chug beer and goon from an improvised beer bong made out of an snorkel and a mask, and then it was straight home and goodbyes were in place.
By the way, the chicken got quite a bit of attention on that trip, but what can you expect from a boat full of drunken idiots. The crew actually hoisted the chicken up in the mast for the return journey.

We moored in Airlie and this is the part when my drunken no-shoes accident comes into play. I had to walk 15 minutes on black tarmac, on black painted wood, and on gravel before getting to my shoes in the luggage room. By then they had swollen so badly that it felt like one of my good ideas of not getting up during a 12 hour flight. The didn't look so hot either, all scabby and bruised after a rather rough volleyball match on gravel, with some Irish people.
I forgot to mention those. They kinda illustrate how this vacation went better than the last one. There the only Irish I met was a mumbling idiot which has brought me closer to physical violence than anyone. But these people were pretty funny and very nice. With a clear speech.

The crew had reserved a table for us at a place called Reefo's, which was supposed to be impossible to get thrown out of, no matter what you did. Cheap food also.
We got shipped out there by their free courtesy bus, and then back again to Airlie at about 11:30. And they were right, not possible to get thrown out. There was carrying of poeple involved. This was kind of a downer night out. I had real problem with swallowing beer, and switched to gin&tonic, which was a little better. A weird problem to have, considering me and Knut had been swallowing the devils brew, Whiskey, in respectable amounts earlier that week.

Which brings me to this freak thing that happened one night when we stayed in our cabin at Magnums. These two guys came up on our porch with a big box and asked us if we wanted to buy some Moonshine(Heimebrent). We politely refused but got a good laugh, and once again got reminded that Norway isn't that far off.

Anyways, back to the last day. We finished of at McDonalds, which was our only late night resort, considering Hungry Jacks hadn't opened up shop in Airlie yet.
Me, Knut and Margrethe headed home to our rooms and earlier that night I had put my pants (the ones that was wet from Linus pushing me into the pool:) out for dry on the porch along with a few towels. And yes, the pants reeked worse than 3 month old milk after lying in my bag for three days in the luggage room. Well, those pants and towels wasn't there anymore. "WHAT?! Someone stole my pants?! I cant believe it, damn bastards! What is the point of stealing stinking wet pants, and filthy wet towels?! If I ever get my hands on those guys I'm gonna take....Oh...wrong building.."
The buildings that housed the different rooms were so alike that we had taken a wrong turn and ended up at someone elses rooms and walked up and down their porch swearing our eyes out.

The remaining hours before our flight out of there the next day, was spent on the benches outside the cafè at Magnums. A sleeping Benedikte was harrassed by every living thing out there, and I spent the time worrying about my now pretty bleak financial situation and got some reading done. After spending half an hour waiting for a taxi, we were well on our way to the airport again, and the conclusion of our vacation.

I think this pretty much sums it up, and I won't fall into the trap of finishing up with a clichè like "And everyone thought it was a greeeeaat holiday".

Hawt

2007-09-24T11:59:00.000+10:00

So far this vacation must have an explosive expert father, cause this is tha bomb. Everything has gone according to plan and the weather is goood. Quite the contrast to the Gold Coast holiday, where everything that could go wrong, went wrong, at the worst possible time. This is gonna be a quicky with no pictures, but I will post a mondo sized post with media when I get back!

Clearly twisted

2007-09-21T20:26:00.000+10:00

Idiot + sunglasses in shorts + washing machine =

It is now merely hours before we depart to the Whitsunday islands for a week of (hopefully) sun, various liquids and junk food before going back to Melbourne and probably a future in the poor house.

For the occasion I purchased these thongs, which conveniently enough double as hip flasks! Its not much room in them, but if you're empty, you're empty. I actually noticed the flask detail AFTER buying them, fancy that.

I might even get to squeeze in a blog post while away too.

More violence, tsk tsk tsk..

2007-09-17T23:10:00.000+10:00

I have spent literally all day on this 5 second long video clip, so you better enjoy! :P

Here is the original video before I started editing for my Special Effects final project

And this is the finished product!

It's been a while

2007-09-14T19:29:00.000+10:00

But any day now I'm getting my new digital camera, and my blog life begins once more. It's gonna be the bestest post EVER!

And a video of one of our kitchen chairs getting blown up.

New phone, new moon and a new spring

2007-08-28T22:54:00.000+10:00

I lost my phone last weekend, and after desperately searching for it had to bite i da sure eplet and buy myself a new one yesterday. This is the photographic standard for the blog these days, and not much to talk about.

That bright spot on one of the photos (no not Maggie), is the lunar eclipse that is currently happening in Melbourne. Why they call it an eclipse I dont know, because the moon is apparently getting brighter than usual. But what do I know with my enormous brain!

And spring is now underway in Melbourne with 25 degrees in the park yesterday, and very pale Norwegian legs getting sun!

22. September Whitsundays GO!

Re-chickened

2007-08-21T17:37:00.000+10:00

I got this local tattoo parlour to re-ink my old chicken, and for the same price I got a *brand* new chicken tattoo on my ankle. Benedikte and Lene was with me to take some photos and some video, and to hold my shaking hand :)

Videos and pics from the event itself to come.

Manly mans of manworld!

2007-08-15T21:43:00.000+10:00

Me tell ya, bla bla bla orka ikkje finna på meir, full... kanskje?

Vamp kanskje, margrethe?

Matt, sign my chicken!

2007-08-08T20:44:00.000+10:00

Matt Damon was promoting his latest flick, The Bourne Ultimatum, in Camberwell today. Me, Øyvind, Christin, Maja and Alex went to try and get a glimpse of the guy.

We did a bit better than that, I even got him to sign my chicken.

He thinks NORWAY ROCKS! with a little less enthusiasm than me.

Then I managed to steal his pen, and give it to someone else, since I thought it was Alex' pen.

Before he arrived there was loads of other local and national celebrities walking the red carpet. There was Rove, which I got an autograph from but then lost, because Christin got her Damon autograph on the other side of the paper :)
And there was this warm up guy that was interviewing a few people, and I begged quietly that he wouldn't get to me, but no such luck. But I had little to fear, no screw-ups with the language, just straight forward stuff!

It was ungodly cold, and my heels were constantly in a puddle of water, AND I had to take a piss for 3 bloody hours. And of course this idiot of an Asian woman behind me manages to draw my entire back black with a pen. But anywayyyys, pretty good day.

So I am now officially his best friend in the world. He write
s like a three year old though.

Whats-left-in-the-fridge-pizza

2007-07-31T22:16:00.000+10:00

Me and Benny's creation. Domino's should adopt this one. A DOUBLE crust even!

BTW! This is the 101st post! Send more money!

The Siiiimpsoooons

2007-07-30T16:12:00.000+10:00

Friday night we went to Chadstone shopping mall, which has a cinema in the basement, and saw The Simpsons Movie.

They only went through about 4 of those buckets!

The kindness of the Vietnamese

2007-07-26T21:24:00.000+10:00

The Vietnamese couple that runs our local bottle shop always gives us tons of free stuff but this time they totally overdid it.

I bet you can guess why the big smile :D

If you cant get any work..

2007-07-24T20:55:00.000+10:00

..you'll just have to make your own brand of salad dressings, like Paul Newman!

Instant vacation, add water

2007-07-20T21:17:00.000+10:00

I did have about 2-3 hours to explore Frankfurt before I had to get back to the airport for Hong Kong. The city was actually a big and positive surprise, I had imagined it like I experienced Berlin a couple of years ago, nothing but slush in the streets and my shoes. The architecture is what I imagine Swiss villages in the Alps look like.

And of course the compulsory porn shops screamed at you the moment you put your foot outside the train station. Except from that the weather was beautiful, I think I got a sunburn, and the kebabs were good. Even the swans were friendly and ate out of your hand. Its probably idiots like me that pass the bird-flu on :)

11 hours further on I touched wheels at Hong Kong Airport, and didn't quite feel up to the task of exploring the damn dirty streets of Hong Kong for 12 hours. But what can you do? Definitely not sit at the airport all that time. So caught the fast train thingy from the airport to the city, which was nice, and I emerged in this huuuge shopping mall. After an hour of not finding my way out of the mall properly, I opened the right door and went smack into a wall of heat and moisture.
My body immediately swelled up and the clothes stuck like cling-wrap. The women at the market whom I bought some t-shirts didn't want to sell me medium size because she couldn't believe I was that size, the way I looked.

Got me some more shirts and some pirated DVD's and a very small breakfast, and I felt like crap after walking aimlessly around the smelly streets for hours. I just wanted to get into an air conditioned environment, and back I went to the mall.
There was a cinema there and I thought that would kill off some time for me so I just could get on with my travel back to Melbourne.

The cinema was so cold that I found myself alternating between dropping my head down because I was dead tired, and then freezing my ass off and concentrating really hard, cause I did want to watch the movie after all.

About a million years later I touched in Melbourne, and after a bus-ride through the city with this scenery:

..I got into a 7-eleven and bought a zone 1 ticket on the trams. After stopping TOOOOO many times to pick up school kids I got flashed in the face with a "Official Tram Ticket Controller" badge, and thought: "noooooo, not today, and not with only a zone 1 ticket." which isn't much good since we live in zone 2.
I had to put on a real show to avoid a ticketing from the nice lady, and probably sounded like a Russian immigrant while trying to explain that "man in seven eleven sold ticket to me, i ask for deakin, he sell.". But after a while of checking my passport out, and luckily not flipping open the page that showed that I didn't arrive for the first time in Australia today, but 5 months ago, she let me go with a warning. Jumping with joy inside I hurried home and sleeeeept.

Teaser

2007-07-17T17:46:00.000+10:00

I have legged around in the dark alleys of Hong Kong all day and haven't got the energy to put up all the stuff I got from the trip back to Melbourne while I'm sitting at Hong Kong Airport.

"Beautiful Frankfurt" and "Surprised Chinese guy" will have to do until I'm de-lagged.

Last post before going back (probably)

2007-07-09T03:55:00.000+10:00

Just a little update on the latest events, chronologically ordered.
I am now fully armed for a few days at our cabin in the mountains, as well as for the long flights back down to Melbourne. My 6 Andy McNab books arrived from play.com a couple of days ago.

They are really good spy-thrillers of the more serious non-Bondish type.

This Saturday I hiked with my parents up to the cabin, just to carry supplies for them and then going down again straight away. The snow had just lifted and as always, the ascent is beautiful.

And the evening featured my last party on Norwegian soil, for a while at least. Vassendgutane (oh, the horror) at Parken in Gaupne. I managed one whole shot the entire evening.

It seems that since Benedikte got her own mobile phone, and wasn't here anyway, the funny drunken pictures has seized to appear on my phone :)

New haircut

2007-07-04T18:30:00.000+10:00

nutn' more

The closing comments

2007-07-02T02:11:00.000+10:00

After 45.5 hours of sailing, and that's not including time spent on land, we touched land in Sogndal harbor today at noon. Then we had done hour longest stretch of straight sailing yet, 24 hours from Askvoll. Our goal from there was to enter Sognefjorden, which by the way is the worlds longest fjord, and then its straight sailing to the end of it.
We lost the sun about an hour earlier because of the high mountains, and I barely got to squeeze off a shot before it set.

When you sail these long stretches its important to get the diet right. This was our choice of the day, Smash and raisin-buns with mackerel in tomato. Yummy.

Though it isn't really dark this time of year, you can really feel the night on the cold. It wasn't as bad as the night to Askvoll, but I still had to wear wool underwear, a sweater and a heavy nylon lined knitted wool sweater on top, in addition to a cap and gloves of course.
One of the cruise ships that probably left the quay in Flåm passed us early that night. Trym had a couple of hours sleep before we had our nightly dinner of paper cup pasta bolognese and coffee, and then I went to bed and slept a little (longer) while.

When I woke the sun had risen a couple of hours before, and we were just past Leikanger. Then the engine started to f**k about. As a matter of fact it hadn't been itself earlier either, but now it just downright stopped. After several restarts it just gave up and died. We made it to the boat harbor in Ylvisåker, just 2 hours from our final destination. There my father came to our rescue, and helped get all the air out of the diesel in the engine.

Here's the bastard:

The motor suddenly woke up, and better than ever! We threw our shirts and got to it. Even with a little water in the fuel, we made good speed and reached our destination about 1.5 hours later. We even had a welcoming committee on the Bridge as we passed! Flags and all.

We moored the boat as fast as we could and got home to a sorely needed BBQ. Even with the extra 15 hours spent on the trip because of engine trouble, it was definitely worth it. Now I'm gonna get back to nursing my badly burnt nose.

Stormy weather..

2007-06-30T04:37:00.000+10:00

..or not! It is now a few hours since we crossed Stad, and the weather couldn't have been better! But of course, couldn't have been better at Stad means waves at 2 meters, and peaks at 4. A little hint of sea-sickness at first, but after a while it was aaaaall good.

Here's a video from when it started to get real bumpy around Stad. The shaky camera handling is not my fault, its the seas :)

The water calmed quickly once we had rounded the worst point at Stad, Vossa. From there it was just a matter of time before we'd reach Måløy. In the meantime it had started to get a little windy, so we got ballsy and tried out the sails.

They came quickly down though, since they couldn't beat our speed by engine.
I feel I look real sea-worthy in the next shot :) Our inflatable emergency escape, we have to move around if we are to use the sails, since space is a limited commodity around these parts.

Around several places in Måløy the local newspaper has put up web cameras, so we thought we'd hook up the mac when we went by one of them, and here we are; the unnamed boat from a distance:

We had a quick pizza and a bought a fender in Måløy and then we were off to Askvoll, where we're gonna spend then night in a house, yay!
We are making good time too, the boat has suddenly decided to give us 2.5 knots extra :D

Here is a shot of Måløy as we left the place.

The beginning of a long(er than expected) journey

2007-06-29T15:30:00.000+10:00

I didn't have the juice to get this online yesterday, so now I'm lying in my bed or whats-it-called in the maritime lingo. Our current location is Sandshamn, about 3 hours trip to the beginning of Stad, which will contain a bit of wind today, according to the report.

Here I'm blissfully ignorant of how COLD it was going to be once we got going. I had to add 2 outer layers atop of what I'm wearing here, and still it was pretty chilly.
After a bit of engine trouble, we got going around 9pm yesterday, and arrived in Sandshamn 1am. We then threw a snickers down our throat, and went to sleep accompanied by "The Punisher" on my mac, just like home :)

Didn't feel the sea too much yesterday. The max wave height was maybe 1 meter, and far between. We even got to try the sails yesterday, with some help from the guy who sold Trym the boat, of course.

This is the boat, unnamed as of yet. Pretty sweet, with plenty of room, at least for the two of us.

Our next goal will be crossing Stad, a weather hardened outer point of Norway. Then it's straight through Måløy and then for our home for tonight, Askvoll.
If we're going to make it, we will have to get going soon and sail until late night.

I had three videos that was supposed to go up along with this, but since youtube
isn't up and going, it will have to wait until later.

Arrh, I feel seasickness in the horizon

2007-06-28T16:29:00.000+10:00

The next couple of days this blog will be all about my forthcoming adventures on the seven seas. Or at least one of them.
Me and my brother-in-law are heading north, around Ålesund to be specific, to pick up a sail boat he recently bought and sail it down to Sogndal again. And by sailing I mean not sailing, but flicking on the mighty 10 horsepower diesel-engine and using well above 30 hours to drive down.

I have a internet connection on my phone, and so this blog will be fully operation in the text, picture and video department. So keep yer eyes on the horizon o'the 'net!

A quiet night in Bergen

2007-06-22T05:50:00.001+10:00

Well, here we are. Pissing about while emptying beer bottles, me, Chris and Kjell Ronny. Later on we're probably going to the Noroff end-of-school party, and meeting up with some ooooold "friends", like Torleif and Geir from "Ærlige Geirs bruktbiler".

The wonderful view from Chris' penthouse apartment. Really, really posh...

If you'll excuse me, now I'm gonna get drunk. bye.

A view to a pub

2007-06-20T02:37:00.000+10:00

Just a little update from the aaaaawful summer heat in Norway :D
Here a view of a local pub in Sogndal, the Lægreids pub, from the balcony of one of my friends' house. A very good photographer decided it was artistically correct to place a tree in the middle of the shot.

And here's me enjoying a veeery nice (and tooth killing) gin&tonic on the very same balcony. Cheerio old buddy, old pal-o-mine!

I'm going to Bergen this Thursday, and will stay till Sunday, or as long as I have a place to sleep. Give me a call if anyone I know are drinking in Bergen either Thursday, Friday or Saturday.

Aaaand one last thing. On the sidebar of this blog you can now keep a track of my running (Oh glorious joy!). It's a live feed from my Nike+ profile.

Chipped shoes

2007-06-15T22:21:00.000+10:00

Yay! I got my Nike+ system today, the wonderful technology thats gonna keep me from getting fat! Its a sensor that's placed in your Nike+ compatible shoe, and it speaks with a receiver plugged into your iPod Nano. When you run it feeds you with info like calories burned, time and lenght.

Afterwards you upload this data to nikeplus.com and it shows you fancy graphs and everything. You can also enter "Challenges" all over the world, like who's the fastest 5 km and stuff like that. It's really motivating!

See, the graph lets you include bitching about pains in your legs too ;P

Summer of '07: Part one

2007-06-12T04:31:00.000+10:00

I've ordered the Nike+ system to motivate and aid me in my running, so I needed new shoes to go with the Nike+ chip. That means 1500 bucks out the window, so this better get me fit, damnit! Pretty sweet kicks though, and comfortable to run in.

It was everything but comfortable weather to run in today, when I took my shoes for their maiden voyage. Almost 30 degrees and air dry as hell. At the end its always worth it though :)

Here's a few shots from our new cabin complex that we're building by a lake up by the mountains in Sogndal. It's nothing big, the large cabin is about 40 square meters.

This is crazy. The photo is taken 3am, and its about as dark as it gets around here now. Quite the contrast to the 5pm dark ages in Melbourne, and shit to fall asleep in.

Norwegian BBQ! And you guessed right (probably not), it's kangaroo on the grill. I'm pretty sure it's one of the first in Norway!

Just another view of Sogndal sentrum, or Fjørao as we locals call it :)

And I ordered my return tickets today and now I am 14.800 kroner shorter. Talk about expensive summer vacation :/

Long way home

2007-06-09T05:57:00.000+10:00

It was supposed to be a surprise to the folks back home so I couldn't write about me going home sooner. Gonna post the live shots from the 3 subsequent surprises later :)

The trip home went smoother than I would have thought, with no fuck-ups and little to none waiting between flights and buses. I managed one mastermind trick though. I didn't get up to move around ONCE in the 9 hour Melbourne-Hong Kong flight OR the 12 hour Hong Kong-London flight. That made my feet swell so much up, that I had serious trouble getting my shoes back on when we landed in London.

Can you guess which ones are the flight-feet?

And this is my hair-check-up photo from the last stage of the trip, the 4.5 hour bus ride from Bergen to Sogndal, my home town. Tiiiiiired after over 40 hours of travelling!

When I touched down in Bergen I was almost knocked on my feet by the heat! We have 25-26 degrees C in Norway these days, and that pretty much beats freezing winter Melbourne :)

This is summery Sogndal, shot from my sisters veranda.

Always another Sunday

2007-06-04T00:06:00.001+10:00

Just a couple of shots from me and Margrethes trip to the city today. Margrethe spent about 4,5 hours in clothing shops, while I stood outside and was bag-man. I also bought some toy roos and koalas for the folks back home. And we found the most dangerous and awesome shop for boys! They had stinkbombs and everything. I wound up with some of those gunpowder cowered stone balls that cracks when you smack them together, and those little paper wrapped thingys that goes bang when you throw them on the ground, and a model airplane. Its important to enjoy the pleasures of childhood:) Later on we hooked up with Lene and Camilla for a sweeeeet gorgonzola pizza at Bimbos.

Half-time party

2007-06-03T23:55:00.000+10:00

Most of the Norwegians down here are going somewhere during the semester break, so this Saturday Centre Ct. arranged a Half-time party for all to attend! All nations was represented, and most wings at Deakin too :)
Later in the evening we headed to St. Kilda and the Esplanade Hotel for some butt-shaking. Headed home at 4 in the morning and that's it!
And today I was informed I managed to break our last wine glas. Kudos!

I remember being there aaaaand.....thats about it, as usual. I swear, they must put something baaaad in the booze down here, because I seldom remember more than the first few beers.

Melbourne Cricket Grounds

2007-06-03T23:29:00.000+10:00

Lene's boyfriend got us some tickets for the Collingwood vs. Fremantle game at the MCG this Friday. Collingwood won and all was goood. Before the game we had a few beers, some of them free too, at Einsteins at school. So I wound up with a hangover at nine o'clock in the evening.

Fairly strict clothing regulations applied! Guys had to wear shirts with hang-gliders and no holes was allowed in pants, whatsoever.

UPDATE: There was about 45 000 people at the MCG. Courtesy of Margrethe Stenevik.

BLOODY NAGGING UPDATE 2: The sport is of course Australian football, or Footie as the natives call it. Now shut up.

Gaaaaah...What-ever's-in-the-fridge pizza...

2007-05-29T20:02:00.000+10:00

And the lucky winners aaaare...Meatballs(homemade), sauce made from onion, cream, tomato, chili paste, basil paste, pepper, salt and oregano. We continue with scampi, mushrooms, tomatoe slices, leek, corn and capsicum on homemade crust!
Definitely uttermostly gaaaaahhh...

EMERGENCY UPDATE! Apparently I forgot to mention that Margrethe did ATLEAST 50% of the pizza-work! Oh my gaaawd!

..and a rømmegraut to go

2007-05-28T20:20:00.000+10:00

For all you non-norwegians reading this (if any), rømmegraut is a porridge made from sour cream and a special kind of grain. You top it off with raisins(sultanas?), cinnamon, sugar and your choice of aged meat at the side, for example parma ham.
It is a traditional Norwegian course, and it is customary to make it for the national day celebration.

This was what Margrethe made today, after me and her took the short walk to and from Safeway to buy the ingredients. Tasted JUST like the one at home!

Run to the hills..

2007-05-26T17:58:00.000+10:00

..or definitely Mount Dandenong, which we went up today! Originally planned to ascend by foot, but that plan quickly went *pouf* when Lene offered to drive us up there.

That's a huge humvee limo we encountered on the way. And the scenery on the way was the weirdest thing. Along with the architecture, it was a constant mix of Norwegian forest, English countryside, buildings from the Switzerland and cozy little mountain towns from the US of A.

Finally arriving at the Skyhigh observatory, the view was absolutely huge! Melbourne city was a little turd in the middle of a enormous landscape.

The observatory also featured a hedge maze, an English garden and a restaurant. The maze was 6 bucks so we skipped that easily, since the hedges was barely more than a small bush. But the garden was very beautiful, even if it was a bit small. At the restaurant I went totally gourmet and ordered seasoned wedges and a chocolate milkshake.

The rest of the images I wont bother commenting. Clues are: Noisy bird, sunset, limo and weird trees/statues/long-indian-thingys.

But we will definitely have to get up there again, by foot.

Delayed national day

2007-05-20T18:11:00.000+10:00

I wont bother with blogging about the ANSA celebration of 17. of May, since literally every other person on my links list has done it with the identical pictures. But this Sunday there was a Norway Day celebration at the Swedish consulate in Melbourne, with hot dogs and cakes and whatnot. It was located in a very posh part of Melbourne with huge houses and fine gardens surrounded by big fences. And on the way there me and Margrethe discovered an old friend.

Bjørk!

And here's an example of the kind of houses and front yards that populated the area.

And here's a version without idiots :D

Yet another gaaaaaaah...

2007-05-15T22:09:00.000+10:00

This time its some kind of chocolate icecream with hazelnut streams.

Tomorrow its dress-up-centre-ct.6-for-17th-of-may-while-
you-drink-yourself-senseless-day, and its gonna be FUN! Me and Margrethe went to K-Mart and Coles today for shome party stuff shopping. And i'm gonna bake a peanut-chocolate kinda cake!

Berry yoghurt lolly, gaaaaaah...

2007-05-14T20:20:00.000+10:00

Tastes just like the real Norwegian berry yoghurt.
Memories, sweeeet sweeeet memories...

I look like alot of people.

An enchanted evening in Centre Ct. 6

2007-05-13T19:39:00.000+10:00

With myself and Madamoiselle Stenevik.

When I woke up this morning...

2007-05-13T16:31:00.000+10:00

..I did a 1000 words assignment. I then beat the semi-last boss in Klonoa on my brand new old Playstation 1 (which came complete with a chip and all, I might add). Then I cleaned the house from top to toe. Then me and Margrethe walked to K-Mart where I bought a belt and a spray-bottle(?) for cooking oil, along with a berry smoothie(yummy). Then we walked home again, and I was the superstar for YET another photo session. Then I'm lying in bed and writing this. Soon I'm gonna eat 2 fajitas, and 500 ml of lemon gelato ice-cream. Then I'm gonna watch Deadwood, and then this sunday is over and I am going to bed. Bye.

Sunday, one week after

2007-05-07T19:46:00.000+10:00

This Sunday we again took to the city, for some cheap Sunday-saver tourism.
The attractions this time was a arts and crafts market underneath a bridge, a candy store in the Crown Casino complex, and eating Asian food in a street I cant remember the name of.

Gaaaaahhhhh..............

Brown food, mmmmm.....

Sunday's initiative

2007-04-29T19:28:00.000+10:00

This Sunday I was on a mission to buy my niece a confirmation(?) present.
But since the tram is cheaper on sundays, me and Linn Therese thought it would be a good idea to try and do something else except sitting in front of a computer and loking around all day.

We started out at the Queen Victoria Markets. The place is so huge that we walked around it for 3-4 hours, and still didn't see the end of it. We enjoyed some garlic and herb marinated prawns, and then a very naughty brownie treat!

We also stopped by St. Pauls Cathedral, a quite big and beautiful church. There was some sort of arrangement there, a men and boy's choir was performing, and I disturbed everybody with my noisy mobile phone camera. :)

And last but not least, I found a little something for Junie. It will be arriving in the mail, in good time for the big day. :)

I have a crazy mother

2007-04-24T14:07:00.000+10:00

I received a parcel today, weighing no less than 10 Kgs.

I asked my mother for some chocolate, some caviar and some other Norwegian groceries.
What I should have specified was that I meant 1 chocolate, 1 pack of caviar and 1 of every other thing that she sent! I'm gonna get fat.

Anyways, a thousand thank you's, especially for the photos of the entire family, and Vilde's fantastically fine paintings :)

Souvenir

2007-04-23T19:10:00.000+10:00

I made this! From a make-your-own-token-thingy-machine at Australia Zoo.

I couldn't work out the machine by myself, so a 4 year old actually had to help me.

Today's Menu

2007-04-21T17:29:00.000+10:00

I made this, with no help from Linn Therese whatsoever!

Heaps better than that pizza place's!

Smuggler's goods from Norway

2007-04-20T16:29:00.000+10:00

This parcel was shoved into our tiny mailbox today. It was full of chocolate (and sheep's meat) from our friends Øyvind and Aina in Norway!
Instead of labelling it "Food" they put down "Inspirasjons namm", and it sailed right through customs and quarantine and whatever :)

Thanks alot from everybody at Centre Ct. 6!

PS. They didn't stamp the... ehhh... stamps, so we'll send them back to you!

Thumbs up!

2007-04-18T23:25:00.000+10:00

Instead of doing nothing today, I did two assignments I didn't have to do, mailed photos and some other stuff back home, and walked twice to Safeway and back again, yay!

Gonna have to adopt a child in need or something tomorrow, just to top today!

Show and tell

2007-04-16T18:31:00.000+10:00

My teacher brought his chicken to school today!

I feel like I have gotten little brother, and of course the real-deal-chicken is proud too.

How to use your vacation to prove Murphy's law

2007-04-12T18:11:00.000+10:00

Our Easter trip to Brisbane and Surfers Paradise was excellent proof of Murphy's law: "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong".

It started the morning of our day of departure from Melbourne. I thought everything that needed to be planned, was planned to perfection, but I checked our options for getting from Brisbane airport to Surfers Paradise and our hostel anyways. We thought that the trip would be a few easy minutes, either by train or bus. The sad reality was that our hostel was a good 90 minutes with a train that didn't go anywhere after 8:00 pm, and the bus needed to be booked in advance. Ok, maybe we would need to take a cab to Brisbane, and then a bus or a train to our hostel, no biggie... HA! Since we would arrive in the middle of the night at our hostel in Surfers Paradise, it couldn't hurt to let them know. We then got a wonderful response back, that the hostel closes its reception at 10:00 pm, and after that we wouldn't be able to check in.
So there we are, 5 hours before we had to get moving to the airport with no place to stay, and no way to get there.

Soooo, this is where we ended up, at the floor on the airport, underneath an escalator. To be honest, it was pretty cool, and something that you remember much more vividly than a night at an hostel. It sucks to pay for an empty room though. After some red wine, I fell asleep, and early next morning we decided to head of to Steve Irwin's zoo since it was only an hour by train and bus away.

It was a pretty scenic ride to the zoo, lots of weird mountains and red soil.

And then there was the park. Oh my god, it blew away all our expectations. There are kangaroos running free and you can buy bags of food to give them. It took a while before we found a kangaroo that wasn't already about to explode from all the feeding that was going on, but I at least shot this video of one that wasn't completely full

And here's one with a bit more action, and even MORE Norwegians at the end :)

And there were elephants. Asian elephants I believe..?

And who could forget "Extreme zoo speed-tour", the amount of g-forces was unbelievable. It was a shuttle that drove you around the zoo, to wherever you wanted to go.

And here's just a bunch of pictures from the zoo, and then we're moving on to Wet'n Wild (its a waterworld, nothing nasty:).

When the park closed we were supposed to catch the same buses and trains back to Brisbane and then onward down to Surfers Paradise. But instead, we jumped on this tour-bus where the driver said he could drive us straight to our hostel, Aquarius Backpackers. 45 bucks and on we go.

The driver dropped us off at the Hotel Aquarius, and half way up to the hotel we realize that this...

..looks nothing like this, where we were supposed to stay:

So we get the very nice lady at the reception to call up Aquarius Backpackers, and this guy comes over and picks us up. We also got a free chocolate Easter egg from the manager at the Hotel we were dropped off at, weee!
We grabbed a Doner Kebab (sweet, sweet memories of Berlin), and collapsed on our beds until the next morning.

There's this collection of cool theme-parks 20 minutes from our hostel and the first one we visited was Wet'n Wild, a waterpark. I haven't got many photos from that one, since we had to lock up all our stuff, but it was an awesome park!

And with our luck, it started raining. But we were pretty tired so it didn't matter much.

After a short rest we were ready for our first night out in Surfers Paradise, Yay!
But a recurring problem with all of us, is lack of cold hard cash, so we needed to conjure up a smart way to get drunk, since the hostel didn't allow anything except water in the rooms.
The saviour was this excellent but very shabby and small Chinese B.Y.O restaurant over the street from where we slept. So first we headed off to our local bottleshop, which actually was a drive-through bottleshop :)

We brought our cheap wine to the restaurant and had an excellent and *almost* free meal. And this included a vorspiel, oh the luck!

That was actually a pretty good picture to introduce everyone. Moving clockwise from the guy with the biggest head, that's me, then Margrethe, Benedikte, Camilla, Linn Therese and Kristoffer.

The bar at the hostel was our next stop, and then a place called "The Beachhouse". Then this is still me blogging, and as usual I can't say that I remember much from thereon out, except some of us taking a very long and spontaneous bath in the ocean.
I also retrieved this video, showing me being very uncertain about where to eat :)

"Were gonna diiiee! I'm gonna staaarve!"

Suddenly it's morning, and we need to get moving if we are to catch Warner Brothers Movie World, and all of the rides before it closed at 5:00 pm. This park surpasses Wet'n Wild in "awesomeness", and we barely have time to try all the cool rides.
Even Margrethe that started out with a "I think i'm gonna stand over here and take pictures while you're in the rides..."-attitude, did absolutely everything, including the Superman Escape, which goes from 0-100 kph in 2 seconds and then straight up a 90 degree slope, and then down another.

I don't think there are words in existence that can describe the way that that ride messes up your body. And it's also fun.

We ate Nachos at the Dirty Harry Nacho Bar, which were delicious.

But when did Dirty Harry have something to do with mex food?!?

Below here is a very consistent version of a ride we have in Norway, that we call "Tømmerrenna". It has you thinking it's just a ride up the hill and then down again while getting wet, but actually it sends you backwards down a hill inside that mountain, in complete darkness. It also takes you through several mines, and a ghost town at the top. Very nice, and as I said; very, very consistent to the western theme.

And this is how we looked on the other side of that ride :)

Amongst these photos is also a Batman spaceshot kinda ride, and the Police Academy stunt-show. The stunt show had a big explosion that managed to scorch our faces from 50 metres away, it must really suck to be close to that kind of explosions in a movie!

Some of us went out again that night, but it didn't feature much more than me spending 32$ on one(1) gin&tonic and getting pissed off at an annoying Irish guy.

The next morning we headed of to the Main Beach at Surfers Paradise, and that's a pretty cool beach. Beats St.Kilda beach in Melbourne by heaps! (Even though St.Kilda's a pretty nice place too!)

Waves came crashing in that were twice the size of the one you see below, very fun and a little painful! Lifeguards had closed of the entire beach, except this little section between two flags where you were allowed to dip yourself into.

Going..

Gone!

These guys started off building a "fire-breathing dragon" out of sand at the end of the day.
2$ to take a picture of the thing. Lets call this one a freebie.

And then things started going south again, real fast. We logged in to my mail on a internet cafe at the beach, just to check what options we had to travel to the airport the next morning. It turned out that our flight didn't leave at 9:00 am as I had believed, but instead at 6:15 am, leaving us with no time to get to the airport the next morning. So we checked out from our hostel and headed to Brisbane with the train to have a look at the city.
We were quite tired, so we didn't get to see much more than this open-air mall. But in return that was a pretty nice place!

At "The Beachhouse" (again) we ate a mediocre steak, went to the airport, and yes, you guessed right, ended up here again:

Paying for another night at the hostel, while sleeping at the airport, we came full circle and our Easter trip to Surfers Paradise was over. While it should have and could have been a longer vacation, the 3 full days and nights we had on our 5-day trip at least exceeded my expectations of the place, and has become a great memory.
And one hell of a long Blog post, that took me over 3 hours to write :P

pouf

2007-04-07T15:19:00.000+10:00

Then were off to Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise in Brisbane! I don't think I'm gonna be doing to much blogging there, but I'm going to bring back tons of stuff to put up here!

Happy easter!

Supermodel

2007-04-05T23:45:00.000+10:00

Me posing for Camilla's photo assignment.

Hot and nasty.

Or just nasty...

A quite ordinary wednesday night at Centre Ct.

2007-04-05T23:24:00.000+10:00

11 o'clock this wednesday night, I found myself shitfaced on Margrethe's bed, examining half-nude photographs of myself and craving fried eggs.

A pretty normal night.

Bah!

2007-04-02T17:25:00.000+10:00

Something funny
What happens when graphic designers get bored

Skilt ved fødselen

2007-03-26T22:39:00.000+10:00

In the Norwegian gossip magazines we have a section called "separated at birth". This is my little version, with Linn Therese and a smiley!

The only thing missing is some metal in the smileys mouth :D

Cola penguins

2007-03-26T22:19:00.000+10:00

This is a cola penguin, it has 34% real penguin in it!

99.9% fat free!

This was on our floor this morning

2007-03-25T20:05:00.000+10:00

I´m going to do a little bit of censorship here, to shield the weak hearted

Click here for the nasty truth

Surprisingly enough, it didnt belong to anyone living in our house :)

Dramatic morning in Centre Ct.

2007-03-23T15:48:00.000+11:00

I could have been killed this morning, literally! A tree split and fell over the road and some power lines, because of some wind.

Seriously, if I had been under that tree when it fell, I could have gotten like a really bad headache!

For Frank

2007-03-23T00:05:00.000+11:00

Here´s your bloody chicken! (Aloha-style)

Sadly I forgot my blue jacket at home.

The poor man´s footbath

2007-03-23T00:02:00.000+11:00

This is Benedikte´s toe, in the largest container in this house.

It´s a hell of a job to boil potatoes

The local fauna

2007-03-20T20:36:00.000+11:00

Here´s a couple of shots of the local fauna. First a cricket(?) that sat on my window tonight.

Then some parrots(again ?) in our neighbours tree. Way better shots than Margrethe got out of her fancy schmancy camera :D

Recent events

2007-03-18T23:06:00.000+11:00

This Saturday we were invited to yet another housewarming/birthday party. This time it was at Ida and Julie`s place. They had a huge backyard, and by the time we got there, it was filled with food and people.

My god that dude looks like Sting, can you spot him?

Earlier today Benedikte played her first match with her new handball team. They lost :)

The other day we first took the tram a few stops up the line, then hopped on the bus to get to this ice-cream shop rumored to be awesome. You get to choose from a huge line of ice-creams, then you choose your filling/topping, which can be anything from brownies to kit-kat or licorice or whatever.

I had white chocolate ice-cream with brownies smashed into it, and with boyseberries on top of it all. It was pretty good!

Right now the most useless tv-show EVER is on. It´s called Cheaters, and futures a very serious(ahem) reporter and his crew which hunts down alleged cheaters and confronts them on camera.

If you feel that a TV-crew is essential in your lovelife, your boy/girlfriends fucking around is certainly not your biggest problem.

1337

2007-03-15T00:59:00.000+11:00

My first 3d creation! A mushroom in Maya 8.5!

So Proud :D

Motion Capture Monday

2007-03-13T21:48:00.000+11:00

This Monday we were introduced to the motion capture studio provided to our class. It is the most advanced of its kind in the southern hemisphere.

It consists of 24 cameras arranged around the studio, which picks up the reflections of a large amount of bright markers placed on the suit of the "object". The signals can then be translated and placed in a 3d world, a game, for example.

Midway uses the studio for their new WWII game, Hour of Victory, and that is of course very cool :)

EVIL sunburn!

2007-03-10T21:01:00.000+11:00

We spent a few hours at St. Kilda beach today, and I lubed up with sunblock factor 15. I obviously didn´t lube enough, this is how my body looks this evening.

And the smartest move was not to turn over more than 15 minutes.

Awful, awful night out

2007-03-10T19:57:00.000+11:00

Ok, as I mentioned, Wednesday was the most ridiculous night out ever. But it seems last night de-crowned Wednesday night. There was so much crap going on, that I barely know where to start, but lets try the beginning.

The whole point of the evening was to celebrate Alex´ 23rd birthday, and initially that worked out pretty well. But being in Australia has obviously hampered the little bit of drinking control I had from before. After getting hit in the jaw twice by Alex (not a fight, just a very stupid guy thing, drunken guy thing :) the police arrived and told us to shut up, because it was getting VERY late (11 pm, wtf!?).
From there on out I pretty much blacked out, so most of what I write now I am being told by the others.

It starts with me almost getting run over twice, just outside the apartment. Apparently I senselessly wandered the street, with no idea that there could actually be cars there. We then jumped on the tram, and headed for the city. 10 minutes before arriving in the city, I was feeling sick as hell and jumped off the tram, getting my wallet and mobile thrown after me by the others. I then scavenged for a taxi for a while, and when I finally found one, I emptied my wallet in the drivers lap asking; "Will this get me to Burwood, yes or no?"
The reply was positive, and I am finally on my way home. 5 Minutes from home however, I get into a hefty argument with the driver, and I am on the verge of being left by the side of the road. What the fight was about I don´t recall. The mood cools down, and the driver drops me of by the school, and that´s a 3 minute walk from home.
YES, I am sick and tired, and I am finally at the door. Crap. No keys.
Apparently, the smartest thing I could think of, was to use my shirt as a pillow and going to sleep on our front stairs. The girls arrived a couple of hours later, got me inside and tucked me in.

I hereby swear only to bring one(1) wine bottle to the next party. Cross my heart and hope to die, unless a car does that job for me first.

My bed:

My running route

2007-03-08T21:35:00.000+11:00

I try to run in the park behind school as often as possible, here´s my route:

Margrethe also runs.

Goodbye-Mats-Party

2007-03-08T21:26:00.000+11:00

To "celebrate" Mats leaving, we had a small party yesterday, which evolved to be the strangest night I have ever experienced. It started out pretty normal, with me spilling wine over myself, and Camilla spilling my wine over my socks and our friends´ carpet. I drank about 2 beers, a wine bottle and 2 glasses of white, without feeling a thing.

Then, BOOM, I wake up in the same apartment, on the floor, at 4 in the morning. The space in between, is blacked out, or at best, with very few blurry moments rising to my mind. I had 20 bucks in my wallet, and they were gone. But the weird thing is that those 20$ lasted the whole night, and they paid for taxi, enough drinks to keep me in blackout mode and a Bacon Deluxe at Hungry Jacks. And, no, I didn´t visit an ATM.
And you would expect to wake up with the mother of all hangovers after a night like that, but no siree, not even a hint of hangover, except for the usual carpet-mouth.

But no matter how totally wasted beyond all recognition I get, the night always ends up at..

PS. I also have a picture of Tee at Hungry Jacks, but I promised not to post it, so no go :)

Mats is leaving

2007-03-08T21:17:00.000+11:00

Now it´s about 2.5 hours until Mats gets on the plane home to Norway. He made an early departure since none of the subjects he was allowed to take interested him.

We will all be missing you, Mats, but I´m sure we will meet again, somewhere in the world!

Our meditating cockroach

2007-03-05T19:11:00.000+11:00

This house was a filthy, stinking place when we moved in, we literally had to wash the house from roof to floors. Behind the (incredibly painful) sofa, we found this meditating, and very crispy, cockroach.

Inner peace, uuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmm...

Big ass spider (by norwegian standards)

2007-03-05T19:05:00.000+11:00

At a party at some other norwegians place, there was an enormous spider clinging to the window. Being blissfully drunk, of course we had to touch it and put it under a glass.

Imagine the girls when Kristoffer lifted the glass and the spider ran away!

Benedikte showing eagerness!

2007-03-05T18:57:00.000+11:00

Benedikte really couldnt wait for this lecture! Just look at that education-keen gleam in her eyes!

Now, if that ain´t promising, then i dont know!

Midnight tour of our new house

2007-03-05T18:45:00.000+11:00

After literally filling a maxi-taxi to the roof with all our new and old stuff, we arrived 11 in the evening at Centre Court in Burwood, a couple of minutes from our school. Our agent told us earlier that day that we would have to arrange our electricity and water, and that the house would not have electricity when we moved in. So there we stood, in a dark house at the middle of the night, with nothing to light the way but crappy candles from IKEA. Fortunately we had gas and water, so we were able to cook some food. And what better time to arrange a video tour than in the middle of the night in a dark house, with a mobile phone camera! Enjoy!

The next morning we found out that we did actually have power, we just needed to flick the circuit breakers to "ON". WHO COULD HAVE KNOWN?

The day the internet arrived

2007-03-05T18:40:00.000+11:00

Today i got a happy SMS in class. Our router had arrived, and we could run straight home and hook up our internet connection!
So now im gonna try to spew out a few posts, and then keep this blog regularly updated.

1 week..

2007-02-23T14:40:00.000+11:00

..and we'll have internet in our house, and i can start blogging again!

Bah

2007-02-18T17:30:00.000+11:00

A bit lacking in the posting departement lately, but i will try to get something done in the food court tomorrow or maybe tuesday, including a video of a huge spider we found the other day!

Letdown

2007-02-14T19:27:00.000+11:00

Sadly, i was looking at softdrinks.
The beer is $10 a jug :(

First day at school

2007-02-13T18:26:00.000+11:00

We were greeted with a bag of information, and a bit of swag in the form of a drinking bottle. Then we were ushered in to a huge auditorium and fed one tedious speaker after another. Except for the DUSA president (with man-boobs), it was pretty sleepy. Eventually we got a free morning tea with a muffin, and then some free lunch.

Ps. This is Benedikte, not the DUSA president

This is my glasses laying on the fine table at the very boring introduction. We were thankfully rescued by a wonderful speaker named Jennifer, that was substituting for the Head of Faculty of Arts(?). We are going back tomorrow to discuss what electives to choose, and probably more boring introductory stuff.

Oh, and the beer on campus is dirt CHEAP. $5.20 for a jug!

The St. Kilda festival

2007-02-13T18:08:00.000+11:00

Been a while now, have been too busy doing nothing. This Sunday the St.Kilda festival went off (it actually went off alot sooner, but no one noticed), and we went partying at the clubs down by the beach. With us we had Inès, Maiken, Kim and Hansi. Kim we met the day we got shanghaied by a tourgroup at Deakin, and he introduced us to the rest of them when we met him at the beach. Hansi and Kim are also studying at Deakin, and the girls are here on vacation (a looooong vacation, which includes several stops).

I´ve gotten my own brand of beer down under!

Aaaaand this is what happens with too much of your ego-branded beer. Not very niice.
I even managed to order some food at the end of the evening, only to forget where i ordered it, and then going to bed hungry and angry.

Here´s a video of land wakeboarding we witnessed at the beach earlier that day. The wakeboarder is actually tugged by a wire and a huge winch, and is jumping over several pools of water:

The return of MOFF

2007-02-07T16:35:00.000+11:00

I´m sitting at the food court now, and in 10 minutes were off to meet Benedikte, the last member of our bad-ass posse to arrive in Melbourne.

Margrethes fancy-pansy watch

2007-02-07T16:26:00.000+11:00

After several failed attempts to catch the huuuugely miraculous hour-change on Margrethes fancy Nike watch on video, we beat time itself and filmed it with my mobile phone.

I´m out of words....seriously....awesome...wow

Posh cinema experience

2007-02-06T14:53:00.000+11:00

In Melbourne Central, one of the biggest malls in the city, you can get a rather nice cinema experience with electronic recliner chairs, blankets, and a waiter that brings you all kinds of stuff. We went there the other day and saw The pursuit of happyness featuring Will Smith and his (actual) son.
Good movie.

Yarra River Tours

2007-02-06T14:51:00.000+11:00

Here´s a little video from one of the boats that cruises up and down the Yarra river, right in the middle of Melbourne.
Very hot that day, and me very sunburned in face, very niice.

Margrethes Birthday

2007-02-06T14:33:00.000+11:00

On saturday Margrethe was 23 years old, and we celebrated with dinner and wine at Bar Santo, the little italian restaurant that has practically become our regular place for finer dining.

Then after dinner, Camillas third cousin Ellen, and her friend Skeet, met up with us to show us some of the good places to party in St. Kilda. After meeting up with more of Skeets friends, we ended up at the Hotel Esplanade, a rocky, kinda underground place, with live music, very niiice. It turns out the Esplanade is quite well known, we actually saw it featured in a Lonely Planet movie yesterday!

When it was time to head home, we were a bit worried, cause all the trams stop at midnight, and we dont know a thing about the buses in Melbourne. Then one of the guys we´d been introduced to earlier, Matt, offered us a ride home. What? Hasn´t he been drinking with us the whole night? It seems that DUI policy in Australia is somewhat liberal compared to Norway.

Waiiiting

2007-02-05T18:59:00.000+11:00

By now were just waiting to move in to our new house. The problem is that the agent cant get a hold of the last tenant living there, so the worst case scenario is that we cant move in for another 14 days. I have a video and a few pictures to share with you, but the crappy hotel PC refuses to accept my iPod via firewire, so it will have to wait.

Yummy

2007-02-02T11:34:00.000+11:00

There is a wonderful, affordable, italian restaurant by St.Kilda beach that has the best olives. The other day we had this awesome Linguini with mussels:

Almost rented a house, then we rented a house

2007-01-31T15:26:00.000+11:00

Yesterday we were millimeters from renting a house we probably would have regretted. It was extremely large, with a huuuge garden, and eventually we negotiated in all appliances, a TV and a couch, and a 10 month lease. BUT, and that turned out to be a big but, the old chinese couple that used to live there, would be moving in to the shed in the backyard, and that would have created problems at some point. It was also a pretty expensive house. The day before we were really keen on that house, so it was only the critical minds of the girls that kept us from signing the contract right there and then.

Instead we signed a contract on a smaller house with 5 bedrooms today. The rooms are quite large, but the common area is rather small. Its gonna end up a bit cheaper and with no one living in the garden. Its also a 2 minutes walk from campus, and close to a supermarket. The crap part of the deal is that we might not be able to move into the house for another 2 weeks, and we will have to do some tricks with out living arrangements.

But anyways, YAY! No more worrying about getting a place to live. We also made bank arrangements at school, so that is settled.

Stuff in Melbourne

2007-01-31T15:10:00.000+11:00

Here are some pictures of different things we have been experiencing in Melbourne the past days. The Melbourne Aquarium, the Docklands, Melbourne Central (mall), the Library, and my new sunglasses.

Australia day fireworks

2007-01-28T12:01:00.000+11:00

Friday was Australia day, the national day of Australia. We actually had somewhat of a hard time finding barbie food! In the evening there were fireworks by the river, and on top of some of the sky-scrapers. One of them almost looks like its on fire, at one point!

Melbourne, finally

2007-01-28T11:43:00.000+11:00

About 48 hours after leaving Sogndal, I and the girls arrived at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne. It was all VERY australian by the airport. Red soil and those weird threes.

Kriståffer had to wait 4 hours extra in Hong Kong because of a ticket fuck-up. It was a pretty thorough check for food items at the airport, so it took an hour to get out of the security checks.
Our schools had sent a private driver to pick us up at Tullamarine, so the ride to the city was pretty comfortable.

Finally we arrived at our shabby hotel. The Chicken was tired too.

The first few hours was pretty miserable. I didn't drink too much so i was dizzy from dehydration, and had sailors legs from all the flying.

Oh, and Home and Away has gotten much further than in Norway. Watch out Sally!

Hong Kong

2007-01-28T11:19:00.000+11:00

Aaaaaaand 12 hours after we departed from London we arrived at Hong Kong airport. It was a freaky landing, since the airport laid beside the sea, we came very close to the water before touching down on the runway. And at the aiport and SkyMart everything was very chinese. We had four hours to spend in Hong Kong before departing to Melbourne. I am a little ashamed to say we had a Burger King meal in Hong Kong.
Dead ducks hanging in the restaurant windows:

And the occasional lame asian cartoon:

This is the extremely long departure area, you can literally not see the end of it.

The HUMONGOUS Hong Kong Tax Free!
(just kidding, there were other stores.)

Palm trees inside the airport, Very Niice!

London

2007-01-28T11:02:00.000+11:00

Its been two or three days now, but i havent had a chance to blog earlier, so we might as well start at the beginning. Me and Kriståffer arrived at Heathrow 1300 on Tuesday, without the girls, because of the weather at Gardermoen and the de-icing queue. After a 10 minute busride to get between terminals 1 and 3:

We then had to wait an hour in the queue you see on the picture below. It was 4 times longer than what the image shows, at least.

And then there was nothing to do, except wait in the departure area

Lack of internet in Melbourne

2007-01-27T08:21:00.000+11:00

Didn't get any chance to connect to the internet for an extended period of time since London, so i have alot of material to post later today. Stay Tuned!

Oslo Lufthavn Gardermoen

2007-01-23T17:02:00.000+11:00

An hour ago i arrived at Oslo Lufthavn Gardermoen, and im now waiting for Kriståffer to arrive. Then we need to locate the customs office for the girls, since they arrive late at Gardermoen.
I've just eaten a panini with mozarella, tomato and basil, and had a cup of coffee.

I did also screw up when booking a hotel and arranging for the school to pick us up at the airport. It turns out that my 1337 math skillz calculated that we would be in Melbourne a full day before the plane landed. But i sent a mail to the hotel and the school, informing them that we were late, and i got a reply from both of them when the bus driver had his coffee break in Gol.

And that god damn iPod crapped out on me, so i had nothing to do the entire bus ride.

Selfless clothing

2007-01-23T06:05:00.000+11:00

It's closing in now, I'm leaving in a little over 2 hours. I have set up my phone so that i can blog on the bus if i see anything funny, like the driver falling asleep or something.

In an hour ill jump in the showers for the last time, and this is what ill be traveling in:

It looks like I'm walking around with a constant wedgie.

My B.S.K

2007-01-22T23:05:00.001+11:00

(Boredom Survival Kit)

This is what will keep me breathing during and in between the flights:

- My MacBook Pro
- Nintendo DS
- Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian"
- iPod Mini

I hope to get my hands on Hotel Dusk on either Heathrow or Hong Kong SkyMart, cause i'm siiiiiick of Super Mario!

Australian moolah

2007-01-22T22:57:00.000+11:00

After shipping the money all over the country before eventually getting them to ME, my bank finally had Australian Dollars for me today. Cool bills! They're the first i have ever seen that have transparent areas.

Extreme Makeover - Shoe Edition

2007-01-22T22:45:00.000+11:00

I felt that my old shoes still had some life in them, so I re-laced them with brown laces!

Before:

After:

(that gunk on the tip is snow, i had to go outside and lift something.)

Pre-packed

2007-01-22T20:27:00.000+11:00

As i'm writing this, it's 12 hours until i leave Sogndal on the bus to Oslo Airport. I've made everything ready for packing, and only have a few struggler items left on my list, so i'm gonna have to go shopping now.

This is my main luggage, contained in a big bag-on-wheels.

And this is my backpack, which, among other things, contains important items to prevent me from dying of boredom during our 35+ hour journey to Melbourne.

Kidnapped!

2007-01-20T05:59:00.000+11:00

Tonight at 18:00 i was shanghaied by my family, and taken out for chinese food. For my goodbye-norway-restaurant-visit i had Filèt of lamb in curry sauce, and applepie with icecream for dessert. Tomorrow its goodbye-taco, and sunday is goodbye-turkey.

I guess monday will be goodbye-leftovers.

Snow

2007-01-18T18:29:00.000+11:00

For Christmas we had no snow at all, and this week was actually the first week that we saw any flakes that stayed on the ground, and didn't just melt away. But last night we got all the snow in the world; 40 centimeters in one night, and its still snowing while i'm writing this.

Oooooooo! Exciting! He's talking about the weather!

Last day at work

2007-01-18T06:39:00.000+11:00

A couple of hours ago i went out the door at Gilde, were i have worked part-time for the last 4 years, for the last time. Of course, i said i went out that door for the last time 2 years ago too, and here i am.