Blogs from Oslo, Eastern Norway, Norway, Europe

I don't know what pops into your head when you think about Norway, but for me it's Vikings! As well as bolluck numbing coldness and chest-pain inducing prices, of course. And funny accents. Not to mention weird TV adverts with dancing naked people. But mostly just Vikings. Harbouring a worsening case of man-flu, I decided to leave the comparitively tropical climes of London and head for the fjords to investigate, this time with 2 lovely ladies to accompany me: My Welsh ex-flatmate from Auckland, Ruth, and my South African friend from London, Megs. We decided Viking names would be more suitable though, so after much deliberation we became Ruth the Battered, Megs the Awesome, and Clay the Undecided (Our plan was to wear Viking hats for the duration of the trip, but unlike Copenhagen Oslo is ... read more

Let's recap if you're only reading this one: It all started in May - Vancouver, Brazil, Copenhagen, France, Sweden - big events we were working in each place. Then a summer of festivals and events and now, here we are, just before Mexico. A quick run down of events: There was KulturSYDhavn, round 2. It went well. It was combined with a mobile hacking workshop so that was really interesting, and followed up with my good friend Christian welcoming his daughter, Katinka into the world - congratulations to you all! Then we had a fairly hectic insane fall - a quick trip to Berlin as part of a visit with Nick and Ben - my good Canadian friends who have now twice come to Denmark so that was fantastic. A Copenhagen Burlesque, short but lovely as ... read more

Note: All events in this entry occurred back in March 23, 2007. For more updated trips and entries, please refer back to this blog at a later date. Thanks and enjoy! I had always wanted to travel to Norway ever since I was a little girl, especially after going to the Norway exhibit at Epcot's World Showcase (for more information on how Disney World has influenced my interest in world travel, please refer to my blog entry entitled "Two Days at Disneyland Paris.") However, originally I was going to go to Oslo with a new American friend I had made in my new program through IAU at Centre'Aix (for more information about my study abroad experience in Aix-en-Provence, please refer to my blog entries entitled "The Move to Aix-en-Provence" and "IAU Trip to Nice, Monaco/Monte Carlo, ... read more

Da har tiden kommet. Ikke for avreise, men for den faste UpperCrust baguetten før avreise. Update på formen: 2 trøtte karer. Seb er forkjølet, og Daniel skylder på sin forkjølelse på Seb. Dagen idag gikk på å døgne for å snu døgnet (prøve å unngå jetlag) Så vi satser på at det fungerer. Første Etappe går til Moskva. Der skal vi vente i 3 timer på neste fly som går direkte til Hong Kong. Satser på å få oppdatert bloggen idet vi finner frem til et hotel/motel med wi-fi. Ikke så mye spennende å skrive akkurat nå. Men vi (Seb) følte for å legge inn et innlegg sånn at det ser ut som om vi skal bruke bloggen idet minste, og det skal vi. Regn med Bilder fra turen, personlige opplevelser og kanskje noen gode historier. ... read more

Oslo was full of flowers. Roses of every colour had been placed on every street, on every fence, and on virtually every statue. Doorways, pathways and archways had been adorned with splashes of vivid colours from the flowers, with perhaps the epicentre of this decoration being Oslo Cathedral. There a huge field of roses stretched out until the individual blooms became a single sea of colour. What had begun with a single red rose had now evolved into a city wide explosion. My arrival in Oslo was less than a week after the horrors committed by Anders Breivik, but instead of venting their grief with anger; the population of Oslo had laid flowers. And in doing that, the city was proving it not shying away from what had happened and was most definitely alive. The streets ... read more