For now I'm just packing all my belongings wondering how in the world I'm supposed to both fit it all in one suitcase and fail to exceed the 15 kg weight limit. It is mission impossible!
Here's the tune helping me:
This time there wasn't alot happening. The trip took longer then it should because of various delays (specially on the way back, it was due to our bus hitting another car. No one got hurt but the car driver wouldn't let it go even though it was his fault), but I got there and back safely.
The coming of the new decade was celebrated with our youth group "Gnisten", and the only eventful thing was the traditional "running like the wind and diving into the snow because the fireworks have fallen are are shooting in your direction".
Other than that, we played a few board games (which I lost at....all of them). And we did a bit more planning for our Interrail xD It's going to be the best thing ever!
After coming home it was back to work for me - gotta earn some money for my big trip!
For me Christmas day was a boring one, but only because Norwegian customs call us to celebrate Christmas eve in stead. So after work I came home, helped my mother pack the last present for our cat and put it underneath our tree, before I started on the turkey (I am the only one who knows how to stuff it right, so they just let me do it ;p). After dinner we gathered round the beautiful tree and opened our presents.
I got everything I wished for with a few surprises as well. For example, this year Santa gave me a potato peeler :D I think he's trying to send me a message, but I'm not sure whether it's "you've been a naughty girl this year so get started on those potatoes to redeem" or "you're such a good girl and you're cooking is wonderful - here's something to make it easier". Oh, and did I mention that the it peels the potatoes itself? No? Well it does, and that's why I absolutely LOVE it :D No more potato peeling for me, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Gonna turn Irish and have potatoes every night ;)
What did you guys get? Anything fun?
Anyways, gotta go....potatoes are waiting for me :P
There were tons of customers all whom were buying a million things, getting through each one took ages and that created a long cue, plus I was extra slow today because I'd forgotten every code I once knew. People were getting frustrated and I was getting stressed. When one customer had exceeded her credit card limit and wouldn't give back the groceries saying it was a system failure on my side, I thought it was just bad luck, but when the scales on my counter broke I knew that this just had to be one of those days. I was right, as more crappy situations came my way, and I didn't even get to have a proper lunch even though I'd had to wait for it for ages. I also had to work overtime because loads of people came in 5 min before closing time and I had to stay there until everyone had left :(
I'm so thankful that this horrible day is finally over...more work at 8 tomorrow, goodie :(
At first it was just the obvious lack of Internet that kept me away, but then something much worse happened. My laptop decided that it was a good idea to completely die on me, just for fun...to see how I would react. So I reacted the only way I could - by calling up my mom and asking her to fix it. She told me to call up Dell support, which I did and they came, saw...and then turned around and left without fixing anything. That's when I panicked and shut myself in my room on the phone to various people I know who study IT, all to no help. At last, when I came home, yesterday, my mother was finally able to figure out the problem and fix it :D I am now a very very happy girl. I missed my laptop and I missed blogging, but now I'm back and I have a few things to tell you about first term.
I think I'll start off by telling you about my journey home. Boy was that a challenge! You see, the Brits don't get snow very often. Most of the time they get to see it once a year, and only for a few days. Because of this they are, of course, completely unprepared to face it when it actually does come. During those days everything shuts down, and by that I literally mean everything.
No buses, no trains, no flights, no lectures, no work and no cars on the roads. Everything is cancelled and shut because of the "bad weather conditions". The conditions previously mentioned are nothing more than 10cm of snow...at most. Now, people in Norway and Russia (where I live and come from), laugh at the British 10cm because having about 2m of snow is a given thing in these countries. There is no big fuzz about the weather, and no cancellations at all. Here is what happened to me:Midday Thursday I was in town buying a present for one of my friends when it suddenly started to snow. I was very happy for this development at first because the snowflakes were tiny and didn't settle on the ground. While on the bus home, i noticed that the snowflakes were getting bigger, but rain came in between, so I figured there was nothing to worry about. Later that day, after having Christmas dinner with the trampolining society, we were preparing to leave for the Snow Ball. Little did we realise that in the few hours we'd been inside the restaurant, a blizzard had come our way and completely snowed us in.
After a brave rescue from our friend's boyfriend, we went to Snow Ball, hoping that the bad weather would pass by while we were there. No such luck. So my housemate and I ended up at our friend's house because we lived too far away from campus and there were neither buses nor taxis running anywhere.
Nothing worked till late Friday. The day was started off sunny. I was almost calming down and starting to hope ever so slightly that my flight wasn't cancelled and that my coach to the airport would be running. Then it started snowing again. I called to order a taxi for Saturday morning so that I could get to the coach station. They told me the roads were too slippery. I panicked again, called two of my friends begging them to drive me, got a refusal from one of them and nearly gave up when my other friend said he'd drive me. To him I owe a HUGE favor. He literally saved me! He collected me from my house the same evening and drove me to his so that I'd be near campus in case his car couldn't manage the roads in the morning, and sat up with me all night watching anime because I was too nervous to sleep. He also waited with me for the coach and calmed me down when it didn't come for 20 min. He is my hero right now!!!!!
After I hd gotten to the airport and waited for 4 hours for the plain to get there...you guessed it, it was also delayed, I could finally get home. And boy am I glad that I'm finally here. Oh yeah, and the reason I'm saying "Boy" so much is because I just finished reading "Catcher in the Rye". I may even review it on here later...but I'll doubt you'll like my views on this book, I really didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.
Anyways, I'm off to catch up on Grey's Anatomy :)
We don't get internet till next week, and it will probably take me some time to catch up with all your blogs, my lovelies...but I sure will try!
Love ya all <3
DUDE!
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This is bad...I need my life back!
None of it mattered when Dream Theater went on. As I pushed myself to the very front, Petrucci, Myung and Rudess came out, the curtain behind them fell down, and the whole room exploded with cheers. I clambered myself to the rail, receiving the evil eye from those standing beside me and though to myself: "The only way you're gonna get me away from this spot is by carrying away my copse, otherwise I wont budge an inch. I'm here to stay!"
They opened with "A Nightmare to Remember" and my heart filled with joy. The next few songs were from different albums, which was genius because it meant that I could sing till my throat got sore (which I did...and then I sang some more ;p). I almost cried when they played "One last Time", Petrucci looked me right in the eye while I was singing along to "In the name of God", and I screamed my heart out to "Prophets Of War", "A rite of Passage" and "Solitary shell". I don't even remember what other songs they played, lol, I was in a state of complete ecstasy! They finished off with "The Count of Tuscany" and sadly cut it very short :(
Oh, and here's a little solo from the best guitarist in the whole world - John Petrucci
PS: Please excuse the very bad quality and the fact that it's the wrong way. It was hard to hold the camera and I don't know how to turn the video *angel eyes*
- 7 hours at work
- 3 hours of sleep
Is it any wonder that I'm tired?
Today would've really sucked, if it weren't for the fact that I finally got my results back! I passed with a very good mark, so there was really no need to worry the way I did (had nightmares and couldn't fall asleep. Didn't eat alot cause I had a knot in my stomick and generally just worried the hell out of myself). So, despite my horrific incident with the train, loss of alot of money and nerves, I am actually pretty happy. Can't wait to move into the new house with the rest of my friends. It'll be perfect, I just know it.
But before that I still have to catch the next train home, work, go to a Dream Theater concert on saturday (SO looking forward to it!!), pack my stuff and avoid irritating my mother for 10 more days...a task not easily accomplished after todays fiasco.
- Grow old with the person I marry (also marry the person I love)
- See ALL the art in Louvre
- Go backpacking through Europe
- Join a war reenactment
- Get a scuba certification
- Build a matching rocking chair set for me and my hubby to sit in when we're old
- Never hear my children say "I HATE YOU", even in their teen years (should have children first though)
- Learn at least 10 languages
- Read all the books in a library
- Never loose touch with my family and my best friends
- Cook all the recipes in Julia Child's cooking book (although I don't think I'll be attempting to do it all in one year)
- Learn Japanese, and watch a whole anime without translation :D (also go to Japan)
- Visit all the continents in the world (and try their food)
- Have an amazing life story told to me by the person who lived it and write a book about it
- Go to an AC/DC concert before they quit
- Learn to play the bagpipe just so I can annoy the neighbours while I'm learning
- Pet a lion or a tiger
- Ride an elephant, a donkey, a horse and a camel...oh and a sled pulled by dogs (or even one pulled by deer)
- Get a tattoo that I won't be ashamed of even when I'm 50 ;)
- Have a job that I love for the rest of my working days
- Live a life I'll be proud of
The 8 Least Original Moments in 'New' Bruce Willis Trailer -- powered by Cracked.com
I'm sorry but I just had to...this is too funny not to share :D
It is safe to say that I am completely in love with this site, as well as another pretty handy online book store - The book depository - which left me suprisingly satisfied with my new purchase of no less than 8 books from my reading list. Lovely titles such as I capture the castle, The five people you meet in heaven, The lovely bones and Wuthering Heights are awaiting my arrival in England at our new house (which I, of course, can hardly wait to move into). I am delighted beyond all imaginable when I think of the prospect of reading all those books!
Also I beg you to excuse my changed forms of writing. I have recently been engaged in reading The Woman in White, thus I have been influenced by its unmistakable writing style. It is the second book from my reading list and I expect to finish it my tomorrow.
(My reading list, as of now, consists of 36 books which I plan to read before the end of this year. The final list will be posted online after I have obtained most of the books, as well as updates on my progress in reading them.)
In these hectic days filled with work, school, worries and duties we should all find a little time to relax. I found this video on [carrotspeak] and couldn't resist sharing it with you. It's beautiful and very soothing for the nerves. Made me think how wonderful some things are...she simplest things. I recommend watching it in full screen to get the best effect.
Cats are lovely and loyal and very smart *love*
In protest against this day I present to you a very cute picture of my own cat - Sherlock, and his friend, who are, no doubt, also outraged by this day :p
And a LolCat...just because they're AWSOME
I've read 32, and I plan on reading at least 30 more. The books I've read are marked green and the books I plan to read in the nearest future are marked blue ;)
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (in entirety)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - No
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Still in the mood for Muse. Don't even know why. Just been feeling a bit lonely lately. Listening to Muse and Keane all day. Waiting. Wondering how it would feel to be at one of their concerts. Somehow becoming a stranger to myself, and watching as others become strangers to me. Waiting. Mindlessly passing time by staring into an empty screen. Waiting. Feeling that life is passing me by.
Waiting for it.
Waiting for them.
Waiting for you.
We arrived in
During the first few days we didn't do much more that relaxing. Mostly I was just reading my book in the sun, and sitting on the rocks in the water (note: I can swim, BUT the sea water is salt, duuuh, which means - it irritates the skin on my face...so basically my face is allergic to it but the rest of my skin is fine and since sea water is so good for the
body I found rocks in the water I could sit on). We also did some paragliding and pedalboating (was great fun!). Sometimes there were activities going on in the pool, like water gym, water polo, water volley etc, that I willingly joined in on. And after a while I befriended the entertainment guy so I knew exactly when all the fun stuff was happening. I even participated in the table tennis tournament! I lost, of course, but I wasn't far behind and I was playing against the teacher :D
By the end of the week we were getting a bit bored with just laying around in the sun, so we went sightseeing. Travelled across the border to the north, Turkish occupied side of wo words - flags everywhere. I guess someone really wanted to make it clear whose land it was. I think someone was trying too hard.
But anyway, the trip itself was about two castles and one church (monastery). One of the castles was build over centuries, finally finished in the 14th. It is very beautiful, high up in the mountains, and it looked more like it had just grown out of the mountain itself, rather than someone having build it on top of it. Apparently Walt Disney (who, by any account, had a great imagination cause I sure couldn't have imagined it and still can't see any resemblance) got the idea for Snow White's castle after seeing this one. As a matter of pride we, as always, climbed to the very top of the building. Took us about an hour with all those c
rooked steps, but we made it, and were rewarded with a magnificent view.
The other castle was less impressive. The only good thing there were the chambers of torture and the 4000 year old ship they managed to lift from the bottom of the ocean. The monastery was far more interesting. The chuch there was the only greek orthodox chuch that still had all the original icons (because during the occupation people barricated themselves in it for a year and after a while the turks just couldn't be bother to rob it). And the monastery, although roofless (due to colonists that smashed it to get building materials for the english channel), was very well preserved. Anywhooooo, I liked it, and although my feed were bleeding from my new shoes (yh yh, I know, silly girl in her silly shoes...but they're so pretty!!), I enjoyed it.
Last few days were all about souvenirs, eating at local tavern's, and packing. We went to "Cyprus night", and got to see lots of national food and dancing. It was great, they even made us dance :p I won't say anything about food portions, only that after the 9th plate I couldn't even look at it anymore.
We left on monday, our favourite tavern being Marco's, where the food was awsome, the portions less overwhelming and thus eatable, and the menues were in russian :D