Saturday, June 30, 2007

Stormy weather..

..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.

Friday, June 29, 2007

The beginning of a long(er than expected) journey

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.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Arrh, I feel seasickness in the horizon

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!

Friday, June 22, 2007

A quiet night in Bergen

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.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

A view to a pub

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.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Chipped shoes

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

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Summer of '07: Part one

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 :/

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Long way home

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.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Always another Sunday

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.


Sunday, June 3, 2007

Half-time party

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

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.