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Saturday morning

Woke up way too early from a congested nose and a bad cough, read some papers online and indulged myself in drinking coffee in bed. 😉 I was planning to go to a flea market with Sammy, but I still don´t feel great, so I´ll leave it for the next weekend. Don´t think I´d be interested in any treasures with people all over me.

I could make some scones and style the house. Maybe later. Think I might just read a book and make myself some good old-fashioned cocoa for the moment. And then man up for a longer walk with Sammy boy, it´s such a nice way of bonding! Besides, the sun is shining and it´s one of those beautiful spring days. I should try to make something out of it. 😉 I think I might lay here and drink some more coffee for a while, though. This is my view.

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Saturday peek

I love Saturdays so much and even more so when V has a day off! Today we started the day smooching Sam by the bed, then we had coffee and cuddles with Beo in the living room and a walk to the city center for wine and groceries. We´re having guests for dinner and we´ll be serving them Vietnamese fresh rolls and Pavlova cake. Fresh rolls mean that everybody grills their own favorite (fish, shrimps and beef) and assembles it with noodles, greens and veggies, then rolls it in a rice sheet and dips it in a homemade Hoisin sauce. 😉

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It´s officially Christmas

Although I didn´t work a day last week and only a couple of hours this morning, today is my first official holiday. I can finally unwind, do the rest of the preparations and start enjoying myself. Vuong bought the tree and set it up yesterday, we were able to find one of the decoration boxes (out of two), I managed to make some cookies and will bake some more today. I also bought the last gifts and will make some chutney and sugar coated almonds as go-to gifts. 😉

It snowed a tiny bit yesterday and although it turned the sidewalks slippery, it also means the ground is not entirely bare. 😉 White Christmas this year, too! A couple of trips to the woods with Sam are mandatory and so is ice-skating in the city center, if it´s open for renting skates.

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with our friends Franck and Marion and his kids. We had a lavish brunch of yummy pancakes, scrambled eggs, ham and all the cheese and marmalades you could think of, followed by the gift-opening session where Sam gets to tear the paper once the wrapping comes off. 😉 It was a lot of fun and we felt like being with our second family. What else would you call very good friends, if not family?:-) On our way back, we had a stroll in the Sankthanshaugen park with Sam and it was delightful! All the pretty lights, the snow and the majestic buildings, plus people playing with their children and dogs in the snow..

In the evening I saw “Boyhood” with a friend at the cinema. What a fantastic movie! I´ll write a review soon, but you need to see it if you have the chance! Afterwards we had a chat over a couple of beers and a yummy pizza at Hell´s Kitchen, absolutely recommended.;-)

I hope you enjoy my pictures and that they bring you in the mood for Christmas. 😉

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Monday again

This weekend has been a bit overshadowed by the fact that I´m working out of town this week. Not only is it an ugly trial, but I´m living in a small town with literally nothing to do after hours. I was hoping to do a bit of reading, but taking my laptop with me was uninspired, there´s so much on the mighty internet more alluring than Shishkin. I really don´t like Shishkin, the way I don´t like many of the contemporary writers that everybody else is so crazy about! Makes me wonder if there´s something wrong with me. I just don´t buy anything beyond reason, call me sad, but I really don´t. I need people to stick to whatever normal people do and feel and books to depict just that. Surreal is no good in my book. Does it make sense?

Anyway. This weekend was uneventful, but cosy, we had lovely weather and took our mandatory trip to the woods with a happy Sam, made some good food and watched a lot of Netflix. On Sunday it was time to be urban, take Sammy to the Botanical garden and have coffee with friends in lively Grunnerløkka. He´s such a sociable soul, he loves being outside with us and our friends, even if that only means sitting beside us and barking at the passing dogs. 😉

Last night I arrived at my hotel at 11:30 pm, so there was no time for sightseeing. Today was a splendid day, the court room was spacious and had thousands of windows overlooking the sun and I literally died in my cashmere sweater in our little interpreting box! (but it was from Paris!!) No time for much sightseeing today either, although I did spot the city center walking back to the hotel. By the time I´d lunched on a nice sunny terrace, all the shops were closed. The whole town seemed to have gone to sleep, it was so depressing I went in for a nap myself. It seems I should be done here by Wednesday, so I might as well try to enjoy tomorrow as much as I can. Maybe I´ll get a haircut and a massage. Or maybe I´ll just buy a sandwich and soak up the sun. 😉

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This week is finally coming to an end

I can´t remember last time I´ve had such a shitty week. It´s been horrendous. And as it often happens when you´re under mental stress, you mood is precarious and so is your physical well-being. To sum it up, my week mainly consisted of working, sleeping, eating, walking Sam and watching the occasional movie on Netflix.

Yesterday however I was done at 2, which left me time to have a couple of much-needed Proseccos with my husband and a friend of mine and blow some steam. It was a glorious day in terms of weather, sunny as only early September days can be. The air was crisp, but you could still wear ballerinas and short sleeves. I´d bought some fresh local produce at the market and couldn´t wait to get the chance to make some seasonal food. We had lunch at Café Bacchus, they have a lovely garden and serve well assembled salads and summer dishes made from Norwegian ingredients.

 

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Weekend

This week has been busy and exhausting in terms of work, so I couldn´t wait for the weekend to come. The joy of having a couple of days off was only spoiled by my juice detox diet. I don´t think I´d ever realized how much I enjoy the idea of food, its social connotations, the physicality of it all. How else can I explain why I´d feel so robbed of the pleasure of eating, although I´m not really hungry?

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Tales of spring and hope

Although it´s still February, we´ve seen the sun a couple of times, it snowed  and the snow melted again, in a few words- I´m in the mood for spring. Thought I´d share with you a couple of pictures of our apartment and our life while waiting for spring. 🙂

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February

February started with a pang- a whole Saturday of training for the my oral examination in order to become a certified interpreter. We were three Romanian interpreters, two role-players and a certified English interpreter who volunteered to help us. It was really tough and I have to admit I had to swallow my pride a little bit at the end of the session. Everybody has stuff that need working on, but one never likes being reminded of that.

Sunday I was so beat I couldn´t lift a finger. I had to take a nap for a couple hours after waking up because everything was blurry and I was feeling both nauseous and dizzy. I was so exhausted I almost got worried, but today I was ready to resume my normal life course.

I had a day off and although I spent most of it on accountancy, I got to enjoy the rays of sun piercing through our window. And so did our cat. He was so happy observing the birds outside, probably sensing spring in the air, he wouldn´t move for ages, eating some leaves from my favorite plant (that makes him throw up) and warming himself up.

In the afternoon a friend dropped by for coffee and we found ourselves reminiscing about our youth over a biscuit or two. I´m now making mousakka ´cause I need to get rid of all those organic potatoes and eggplants. Meanwhile, I´m sipping some wine and looking forward to Californication. 😉 Have a lovely week!

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2013 in pictures

2013 was a good year in many ways. I established myself as an interpreter and worked hard, so hard that I needed almost a month´s break to realize how burnt out I was. I won´t repeat that mistake in 2014. Besides, I alienated many of my friends because I didn´t even have time for myself, let alone for others.

On a personal level, we´re still going strong, trying to have a baby one way or the other.  Meanwhile, we decided to get a dog and that´s how Sam the samoyed entered our lives. We got him in February and he´s been filling every day with pure bliss ever since. He´s such a good natured pup and so affectionate, I never thought you could love anybody as much as we love him! He even befriended our 9 years old cat, at least at a frenemy-level.

Family-wise,  I rejoiced in my niece´s presence when I visited my family in Romania for Easter, as well as in everybody else´s. My parents visited us in July, when Norway showed itself from its best side, it was hot and not a cloud in the sky. Christmas was spent with friends and my husband´s family.

Travel-wise, I savored Palma de Mallorca during our summer holidays, unfortunately we didn´t think of bringing the camera with us, so only Instagram can tell the tale. The fall was busy and stressful, but a short break to Berlin for a conference made it bearable. To get into Christmas mood we went to Tallinn for 3 days and it proved to be a terrific idea. Christmas break was long and lazy, I indulged myself in doing as little as possible.

2014 is the year! I´ll get my driving license, travel outside Europe and work my body in good shape again. And be kind. I´ll start with myself. Have a good one!

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