Speaking of...

...flights! I've got mine booked, and I'm heading to Brazil for Christmas! Who'd 've thunk it?
Normally I'm very much set on staying home for the Christmas holidays - especially since I'm very seldom home as a student. This year however, pretty much my whole family will be just scattered all over the place, so when my mom and step-dad invited us to Rio to spend the holiday with them and his family, coming down from Seattle and Portland, I got in! Another unconventional holiday for me; but I'm sure it'll be exciting. I'll have to get to see the huge Christ the Redeemer statue, hopefully get to do some samba dancing, and definitely lie in the sun with some ice cold Coronas!

Love it!

Speaking of Christmas; has anyone started on gifts yet?

I got these gorgeous bags at Beyond Retro, and I'm thinking one is a potential gift, so I've kind of started (I just might end up keeping both of them though... ;) I've also started a couple of knitting project, hoping it'll finish in time..

Any wishes or tips? Please leave a message!

Enjoy the flight!

This week, I really feel like school's taking off! We're already done with the first section of this term's course, we've gotten our semester-assignment and I need to work!! Right now I'm just taking a break, but I'm working on going through all my notes and putting them together, so I'll hopefully be able to sort out the mess both in black and white, and in my head! Time is starting to go by too quickly already...

The subjects I'm taking the this semester is a full 30 points, so I really need to stay on top of it from the get-go, I think. But it's still better than the system at my old school though, where you'd have all of the semester's content building up for two major exams; head to head. Now I'm glad I have a mid-term exam in November,

Wouldn't you just kill to have some Penelope skills??

as well as the assignment and an end-of-term exam in December before a final home- exam in January. It's a lot, compared to what I've been used to, but you definitely get the feeling of breaking it down more, which is good.

I'm also trying to land enough web-coding skills on the side, to hopefully launch my step-dad's website for his business for Christmas.

Home - where your heart is

Well.. yes, home is where your heart is.. but my new home is pretty friggin awesome all by itself!! When I first came in to see how much bigger it was, compared to how the pictures make it out to be, I couldn't stop jumping up and down for joy!

My mom and mother ''in-law'' were a great help the first week here, from the drive over, to shopping and company.. We had a great time getting to know the city; walking around all day and even a roundtrip on the city guide-buss!

Better late than never, ey? I wanted to get everything together before unveiling, so it took some time, but here it is; our awesome apartment! Starting og with a lovely little front-yard above...

Livingroom

Livingroom

Livingroom

Livingroom

Bathroom

Kitchen

Kitchen

Office / guestroom

Office / guestroom

Bedroom

Bedroom

The autumn leaves

It's blowing up for a chilly fall-storm today... Still ,I'm not admitting summer defeat untill I see other colors than green (right as I was writing this of course; on the way to school, I looked out and saw a yellow-brown branch on a tree..)!

Bergen last year, on the way to school...

  Oh well.. it's still pretty warm out (still 15 degrees cel. today -despite the winds), and anyways: I love spring! It's just as beautiful every year and makes ready for a new start.

Flees and tees

Still enjoying around 20 degrees of summer in Gothenburg! Today is quite whet, but still good temperatures!

Today, I should be dedicating the entire day for reading after taking almost all weekend off... Well, I got a good 4-5 hours in, so it's not the worst.

Saturday I didn't really do much..

Legg til bildetekst

we had a nice, lazy day followed by a movie in the evening based on real events - Tropa de Elite - about the corruption and drugwar in Rio de Janeiro. Absolutely recomendable and interesting, though gruesome.

Yesterday I went down to the big fleemarket in town for a little treasure-hunt!
I found a really nice, old yellow nighty, a polkadot spin-skirt and a few everyday tops, just because they cost me nothing upon the tha last hour of clear-out before closing-time.

The find of the day! Can't decide if it's a gift or keep.

I also got an old vinyl of the great whistler Roger Whittaker, some knickknacks and starters for christmaspresents, and last but not least a gorgeous 40/50 year old vanity mirror and brush!

Cluck cluck

Beurocracy! We'll go mental before we have anything to show for it! We've been working to get local phonenumbers and bankingaccounts, but good God what a chicken hunt. After a visit to the bank, tele2, and I don't know how long Hans spent on the phone with customer services on both ends, we still got conflicting messages of what we need to do...

Anyways, he finally got through phoneservice which is on the way in the mail, and we decided to just go with all-online Skandiabanken -which is easier than the girl at another bank's cashier with seemingly no clue.
-Pretty much like home in Norway, I guess.. You need a paper for this, and another paper for that, transcripts from this -but then so much is electronic today, so you'll have to hunt down the paper-transcripts like there's no tomorrow.. back and forth. Lucky for me, Hans Magnus doesn't take a break 'till it's done, so he got it all together rather quickly ♥

With the norwegian studentloan foundation, it's the same kind of problems, only it takes even longer... Today I finally got through to a caseworker, just to make sure the papers I sent in were adequate documentation for my spot at school, since the e-mail I got was an automatically generatet "documents recieved" message. The only responce he would give me was a sourpuss "your case isn't done yet -you'll know when it's finnished proccessing!" ..Ass..

Chocolate-chip pancakes

We had these for dessert the other day.

225 grams all purpose flower
1,5 teaspoon bakingsoda
2 spoon sugar
1 egg
15 grams melted butter
3 dl milk
50 gr chocolate bits

(1 grated apple)
- Didn't have one, didn't need one -probably works though!


SO tasty!!

Comatose

We've had a pretty lazy weekend! Yesterday we had such good weather though, so we couldn't stay in all day - I got some sun, and got a good start on the books. Hans also finally got his new surround-sound system installed, so we're living it up on the tech-front.

I wanted to look around for a small commode after school today, but after a fruitless quick spin by Myrorna, I think I'll push that 'till tomorrow, when I don't have school...  I only had a 3 hour lesson today, so I got to sleep in again today, and got in a bit of reading before school; which is good..

As for my schooldays though.. I'm starting to wonder if I'm really ever supposed to get into a regular rhythm of sleep. I've been good at getting to bed early the past year or so (even though that doesn't  always mean I'll get to sleep early...), but every term - every year - and basically on any course and program I've signed up for the last 4 -going on 5- years, lectures have been late in the day; never forcing me out of bed early enough! Yes yes... I should be able myself, as the will is there... But I'm not able! When I do get a few weeks of normalized rhythm, I feel better than ever, but then suddenly I go back into my morning coma...

At least I'm not alone..!

Ikea hacker!

So.. having a retired landlord isn't too bad! She gets up super early, and hang our laundry yesterday for the 2nd time -Before, we were sure she did is as a protest to us being slow and lazy, but yesterday she came to make sure she didn't intrude :p I'm liking this life!


The other day I went to IKEA for a few things to hack:
A horrible dresser in the hall gets made-up into a pretty cross-period piece...
I also bought two simple (-and cheap!) Lack shelves, and turned them into a nice settingtable above the laundrybaskets in the bedroom. As these shelves are basically only filled with cardboard, I carefully sawed one of the shelves into to pieces, and used just a nail on each side and a whole lot of glue to put the table together! And it worked - looks perfect!

♥

Get your motor runnin'!

I am loving my 15min ride to school. I can relax, look around and start my note of the day. I found it makes bloging easier, when I note things along the course of the day...

Well today I had my first real lecture -great to finally get started! The lecture was good, and everything.. but for some reason, I had my mind set on finnishing at 4. Remembering I had a whole hour to go sucked harder than a Fish at Folsom. Especially when the only thing on my mind was food!

I'm in a pretty big class, but I've had some small-talk with a few nice classmates. Don't ask me their names... but they seem cool. They're also some of the round about 40-50% of the class who have studied at a uni before, so I'm sure we'll all find our "click's" soon enough. -I was considering going to a party tonight, put together by the student union.. As it's a huge event, it would suck to show up all alone though, and since none of the ones I've talked with were going, I put a stick in those weels and had a nice movie-couch night in stead with my hubby.