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Monday off

I´m starting to get old- if I´m  too active in the weekends, I need an extra day off. 😉 This weekend was particularly rough: drinks and dinner with an awesome couple from Australia on Friday evening, Christmas market with Sammy and friends, dinner at friends´house later on and an unplanned party at our house and that was just Saturday. Yesterday we had pancake breakfast with our other friends who stayed the night, did some washing up afterwards and saw the Hobbit at the cinema in the afternoon. So today I was dead: When the alarm rang I thought it must be Sunday morning! Fortunately there isn´t lots to do at work this time of the year, so I was able to cut myself some slack and take Sammy to the woods. 😉 It´s been so dark lately anyway and I haven´t felt like getting out of the house, so the streak of sunshine I could spot made me feel besides myself with joy! And because we were in luck, we got a friend to meet us at Frogneseteren, the restaurant on top of the mountain. I and Sammy took the subway half the way and walked the rest. I had cream porridge and Christmas soda, my friend had a Danish and we both walked back with our lattes. 😉 I fell on the ice and almost chipped the camera, but the latte only spilled a bit. 😉 haha! Enjoy the pictures!

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Gift Ideas for Him

What about a camera strap from EAM? The designer is no one other than my husband, his products are hand-crafted in Norway and made to last. For an exclusive Scandinavian look for the modern gentleman, go for simplicity and support a local business! You can find this and other amazing articles on: Essentialarticles

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Last days

During the last days I´ve been thinking elections, revolution, patriotism and how my life would have been if Romania was a country one could go back to. As in living there. Not that I necessarily would do that, but I wish it were a viable option. I was barely able to sleep and I felt light and full of color. I felt a sense of belonging in all this story, a feeling I often miss both as a foreigner here and in my line of work. You see we, interpreters, are neutral, we don´t belong in any camps.

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A Sunday with mom

My mom got home safe and sound today and the “kids” were happy with their gifts and the funny stories from the big “abroad”.  The white bunny and the pink body went straight home with my niece, but the fur collar beat them all. I decided to give up wearing fur, unless it´s sheep skin, it makes me uncomfortable and my husband embarrassed. It doesn´t make things better by giving it away, but I can´t undo the purchase and at least they won´t risk getting sprayed on in Romania. Enough about that.

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Mom´s visiting

Living abroad means seeing less of the ones we love. I meet with my family 1-3 times a year. This year I was in Romania for a week in February (when my father was mostly in the hospital for a minor intervention) and 2 days in June (we were in Belgrade for a friend´s wedding ), when I didn´t get to see my brother since he was working and we didn’t have time to travel all the way to Bucharest.

A couple of weeks ago I started feeling seriously homesick. I´m in the middle of a trial now and I´ll need a couple of weeks after that to do my accountancy and put my affairs in order, so it wasn´t the best time to travel. Besides, I didn´t feel like leaving V alone with Sammy for a week since the dog needs his walks and he´s a full-time job if you have him alone. Thus I decided to ask mom if she wanted to come visit. After persuading pops that he would make a wonderful nanny for my niece for a couple of days, I bought the tickets and started counting days. 😉 You see, mom is babysitting my two-year old niece while my brother and his wife are at work; you have to be three in order to be accepted at a regular kindergarten in Romania.

Friday was my day off so I woke up early with V in order to tidy up a bit and prepare the apartment for my mother´s arrival. 😉 I then worked for an hour, bought a nice bouquet of flowers and went to the airport to pick her up. She hasn´t travelled a lot on her own, my father usually leads on, so I didn´t want her to find this journey any more stressful than necessary. 😉 We found each other and, overwhelmed with joy, took the train back to Oslo, going straight home to unpack and unwind. She brought us wine, smoked ham and cheese (cascaval), baked eggplants (ready to turn into a salad by adding mayo and stuff), pretzels (my fave!) and some pufuleti (snacks made out of maize flour). I was so happy I started dancing the moment I put Aretha Franklin on the turntable. 😉

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Fall in our home

Yesterday I had a day off and it worked wonders for a tired soul.;-) I did some laundry, uncluttered my wardrobe (for the 5th time this year!) and bought some ingredients for today´s party. We had lunch in town and dinner out-of-town, all in all it was a pretty amazing day. I also had some time to sneak fall into our apartment, meaning I picked some chestnuts from the ground, bought a new blanket and some candles. This is what our living room looks like now.

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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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Chanterelle stew

Yesterday I paid a visit to the local organic marked at Stortorvet and couldn´t resist buying some fresh corn, apples and chanterelles. I don´t know about you, but I love me some chanterelles in the fall! Although I´ve only made this stew the last 2-3 years, it´s one of my classics by now! Not only pretty and yummy, but very easy to put together, too. I usually serve it with pan-fried chicken and rice.

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Birthday picnic in the woods

Yesterday was great. The sun was shining yet again and our friend, Hege, celebrated her birthday with a picnic trip in the woods. We took the subway and met the crew at Frognerseteren, a venerable restaurant on the top of the hill. After enjoying a coffee or a glass of wine in the sun, we started walking towards Songsvann, our final destination for the picnic. We were 6 adults, a child and a dog. Sammy was happy to explore the surroundings, he jumped up and down, drinking water from small creeks, engaging us in his silly schemes and sniffing every dog we couldn´t prevent him from meeting.;-) On the way I picked some blueberries and served them to the others from Sam´s drinking cup. 😉 They were sweet and tasted like summer. When we finally arrived to a table in a sun, everybody started unpacking the goodies. Food never tasted that good, I tell you!;-) We had bean salad, cheese and bacon pie, cheese and fig jam, chocolate cake, banana bread, chips and drops. Yummy! After filling our tummies, we tok the subway back to the city. We were tired and our feet had started aching when we realized we´d been outside for 6 hours! Now that´s what I call a Sunday trip!

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An autumn Saturday in Oslo

Oslo on a sunny day is like a dream come true! Although it´s mid September, the weather Gods still had some summer in store for us! It was such a glorious day to go for a walk and of course we brought Sam along. First, we walked to Grunnerløkka for coffee and breakfast and had a break in the sun to enjoy the view- colorful people on their Saturday stroll, fashionistas as well as young parents with strollers, dogs and their owners, you name it. Sam behaved himself for once, happy to have both his parents with him, he sat by our feet, squinting and drooling, getting the occasional petting and “Awww, that´s such a pretty dog!” I couldn´t have been more proud!

 

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