family

Return from Mother Country

As you might have realized, I´ve been away for a week. Back to my mother country, or, to be more precise, Bucharest. More than anything, it was a time travel- as I implied last time I mentioned my trip- to a stage in my life when the future still held everything in store and my hopes were sky-high. I´ve been living in Norway for 14 years now and I look back on my year in Bucharest with a mixture of nostalgia and of “things that could have been”.

This being said, my “future” turned out just right, my country´s, however, never raised to my expectations. Buildings are crumbling down, corruption is still everywhere, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, even the middle class seems to be flattening out into a mass of people learning how to survive with what they have.

Leaving politics and the deplorable speed at which things happen aside, Bucharest is a nice city to visit. Plenty of coffee shops, restaurants, stores and bookstores. Throw in some museums, lovely architecture in the old town and some of the city´s main streets, fairly low prices and welcoming people, there´s no reason why you shouldn´t give it a chance for a weekend or so.

I was there for a week to see my family, especially my niece, who is the crown jewel of our “dynasty”, to meet up with friends, have some laughs, some drinks, get hold on some books in Romanian and shop. I love Max Mara and they don´t have it in Norway any more! Can you even imagine?;-)

So I dined and wined, visited people and places, mostly the same places (and people!;-)), as my need for stability is ever so present, ate the eclairs and the pies my body had craved for an entire year, stayed in the same lovely hotel Cismigiu and explored. The city was sad and grey in the dirty February light, the temperature was nothing to fuss over, either, but the 1st of March brought a token of spring and people gave each other flowers and symbolic jewelry as they do every year. And it was lovely to see everybody, now I´ve recharged my batteries for a while. I´m sure I´ll go back to feeling home sick in no time!

Check out Amsterdamming´s entries on Bucharest!

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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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My big fluffy baby

There´s nothing like a child of your own, they say, and I don’t think I could argue with that. I´ve been hoping for a child for 10 years now and it might happen soon, but I don´t take it for granted. However, the pets in my life have always been very important.  They have given me a sense of home and of belonging, but also the chance to feel care and responsibility for someone else than myself. My biggest love for the time being is Sam, our amazing samoyed. Here are some new pictures with my cute little darling. Isn´t he adorable?

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At home

Tired again. I make some changes and then I end up right back on the old path- working too much, eating junk or just drinking coffee and then plunging in bed. Today was one of those days again. I was supposed to be home at 3 and take another walk in the woods with Sam and instead I wasn´t home until 8 and too tired to even speak. Don´t get me wrong, nobody´s forcing me to work this much, it´s just that in this game, you´re either in our you´re out. I kind of feel that I have to. And I love my work while I´m doing it, so it´s easy to forget how tired I feel afterwards.

Enough about that. There´s something about fall and the cold sneaking up on us again, I feel so grateful for having a home, a place of my own, a warm and cosy cave to creep into. I never feel so attached to my home and my little family as I do this time of the year. Thought I´d share some pictures of my home and loved ones with you.

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Getting through every day without losing the energy

>Yesterday was one of those horror days, I worked for 14 h. I left home in the morning and came back at night. Nauseous from the train ride, hungry and beat. But as soon as I opened the door, my three favourite persons in the whole world were overwhelmed to see me: Sam jumped me and kissed my cheeks, Beo miawed in his familiar way and rubbed himself by my legs and Vuong told me there was hot Vietnamese soup in the kitchen. I mean, what more can you want from life?! Am I not the world´s luckiest gal?!

My Beo

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