traveling

Summer

It´s 2nd of June and there´s no sign of summer at all in Oslo. In fact, I turned up the heat yesterday and today, after venturing outside in the rain, with a broken umbrella and a pair of patent leather Louboutins for no reason at all (it turned out my services weren´t needed after all), I came home with a single urge: to make myself a warm cup of tea and put on a pair of wool socks. And since the prospects of hot weather are slim this year (we´re only going to Berlin in July), I thought I should take you with me on a trip to memory lane by showing you a couple of pictures from previous holidays and my outfits, of course. 😉

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A night out in Bucharest

Since we´re on a holiday in Bucharest for some days now, we decided to invite my family out for a better meal. Choosing a restaurant would normally sound like a nice and simple task, but proved to be a mine field this time. Not this one, not that other one, not in the city centre, ´cause the buildings are crumbling down, not traditional food, ´cause it´s not properly cooked, but not Italian, either, ´cause you don´t go to town to eat spaghetti, you get the point… The whole thing turned into a quarrel and I and my father no longer speak for the moment. Democracy was never the strong point in our family.

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Bucharest

We´re back in Bucharest and it´s great! 😉 Haven´t been on a holiday since last year, except for a short 3 days´ break in Vienna at the beginning of January. In addition to that, Romania is really nice this time of the year- the accacia trees are in bloom, the temperature is warm, but not steamy and everything is green.

We got here on Wednesday about midnight, my brother and sister-in-law picked us up at the airport and we had some drinks at our auntie´s place where we´re staying this time. They´d bought some corn puffs and my mother had made some roast potatoes and chicken, so we had a late night dinner, too.

Yesterday we woke up late- it had poured all morning and the air was fresh, but warm, just the way I like it. 😉 We had coffee and breakfast at Origo, where we´re regulars when in town. They have the best coffee ever. Afterwards we walked for a bit and grabbed a cab to my brother´s place to catch up with mom and babysit our niece while she was going to the dentist.
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Freelance life: Hitra and Trondheim

I´m home again and it´s never felt better! I´m a delicate soul who gets very tired when traveling, so today I´m going to spend my morning in bed, then go for a long walk with Sammy and put my affairs in order in the afternoon.

But let me tell you more about my travels, it´s been great! I can never express enough gratitude for working as a freelancer and being my own boss! It´s so good for my nerves! ahahah! 😉 IMG_2759

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Hitra

I´m working on a two days case on this island in the middle of Norway and I find myself hoping it was summer and that I had a whole week off to explore it like I should! (not that I have a driving license, but still!) Hitra is just stunning! The nature is unlike everything I´ve ever seen before (I might be exaggerating, but you should know it´s not intentional, I´m generally a grateful tourist!), the houses are cutie cute and I´ve seen both fish, sea urchins, a sea star and a deer! All that in just 1,5 days! 😉IMG_2714 Continue reading →

Marrakech riads

From where I´m sitting now- on my living room couch, wrapped up in a woolen blanket- the idea of some warm days of pampering and good food is more alluring than ever. I´ve never been to Marrakech, but it´s always been on my list. With all these traveling plans and a wallet not big enough to put up with them, it might be a while until we get there. But hey, dreaming is free of charge! 😉

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Traveling plans

The year hasn´t really started yet and it seems that most of the places we wanted to visit have been replaced by others already. 🙂 I don´t know about you, but with us it´s always like that. And as much as I love making plans and stick to them, nothing beats having to make new plans altogether. haha! 😉

So tomorrow we´re going to Vienna to meet my family, it´s a short trip, but I´ve been looking forward to it for several months now. So I and V, mom and dad, brother and sister-in-law, as well as the star guest- our niece- will all be staying at the same hotel and enjoy ourselves for a couple of days. Looking forward to chatting and drinking beer with everybody, try the hotel massage and sauna and sip to Viennese coffee at one of their venerable old coffee houses. Oh, and I need to dig into an apfelstrudel, it´s my all-time favorite dessert!

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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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Bergen

I was in Bergen on a short business trip and I thought I´d write a couple of posts about this town I love so much. An old Hanseatic harbor situated on the West coast of Norway, Bergen has got charm galore. The city center is contained by 7 mountains and preserves a small town atmosphere with wooden houses, narrow streets and lane ways, a meat market and a fish market, coffee shops and stores. It expands before your eyes as houses seem to be clinging to the mountain back. Nature is majestic and so is the architecture. And the people are so much more polite than the average Norwegian, you wouldn´t believe it!

Bergen was my adoptive home under a 3 months´trial in 2012 and I fell in love with it at once. Unfortunately, the weather is pretty bad due to the town´s geographical position- it´s raining cats and dogs and not only once in a while, either. And since I wasn´t in luck yesterday, I had to do my best with my camera and frozen feet and defeated the rain and my need to stay indoors by the fireplace.
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Christmas market

It´s official! The Christmas market season has begun and I simply adore it! The weather is crisp, no snow yet, but you can almost feel it in the air, so it must be right around the corner! The streets are lit with decorations and people come alive with anticipation. It´s the season to be jolly,  lots of gatherings every week, be it Christmas parties, dinners or seasonal beer tasting. We´re hosting a brunch next week and are otherwise jumping from one party to another in the meantime.

Yesterday I went to Bærums Verk with a couple of friends to check out the atmosphere. We had gløgg (a sort of mulled wine, except there´s no wine, just a very sweet concoction of spices and syrup, so that children can drink it, too) while walking around, the place was teeming with people,  children were sitting in a sledge pulled by a giant Bernese Mountain dog, adults were standing in waffle queues and everywhere you could smell sugar coated almonds. We had lunch at Pannekakehuset, a Dutch concept that´s very popular (since it´s the only atmospheric place there), pea soup with spare ribs and beer. They have amazing pancakes, but I had already had that for breakfast, so my stomach wasn´t ready for that much dough. 😉

The bus ride back to town takes an hour, but we talked and laughed like high school kids, so it just flew by. It was nice to soak in some nature and get into the Christmas spirit, now I´m ready for a slow Sunday until 6 o´clock, when we´re going to our neighbor´s beer tasting party. 😉

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