…but where would they live?
As this is posted, I am currently in one of the most important presentations of my short life. I am defending my master's thesis in front of a committee, showing them that I have spent the last year of my life wisely, researching something that I care deeply about. I will most likely write a... Continue Reading →
When I was 14 my family and I took a trip to Tunisia where I went paragliding over the Mediterranean Sea. The operators liked me so much, they offered to take me out on the boat, to show me around. To this day, this is still one of my most favorite memories of all time.... Continue Reading →
Last week A and I traveled to Geneva, we had a long layover in Amsterdam. And when I say long, I actually mean long, 21 hours long. 21 hours are a long time to wait, especially in transit. But we did the smart thing: booked a hotel near the hotel and actually took the day... Continue Reading →
I flew a two-seat airplane when I was 23. Not by myself, mind you, that would have been disastrous, but I did fly an airplane. Nothing quite comes close to the feeling of flying. When the world slowly but surely becomes smaller and in a way you start feeling smaller too, insignificant even. You're not... Continue Reading →
In 2011 when A and I first moved to Norway, we didn't know what to expect. We moved to a strange country, with strange food customs and a strange language, knowing nothing about where we would be and how long we were going to stay. We got on a plane, had a way-too-expensive two week... Continue Reading →
I spent the last few months as a prisoner of my own work. Captivated (see what I did there?!) by my own words. I've written so much, I made my head hurt - literally. It felt like my brain was exploding working hard trying to find out the ins and outs of my own writings.... Continue Reading →
I'm going to let you in on my two mantras, which really are words to live by: Dance like no-one is watching, and Never say no. I think everyone who spent a little time with me knows that I'm not shy of dancing, it's my form of expression. It's not that I'm such a good dancer... Continue Reading →
A couple years ago, on first wedding anniversary, A and I went out for pizza and drinks at a some-what nice restaurant in Oslo. Given that we celebrated our wedding in Italy, celebrating our first year at the pizza place around the corner seemed like a good idea. The pizzas were mediocre (if you had the... Continue Reading →
I was 14 the first time I saw my grandma, I mean really saw the person that my late grandma was. It was at a tram station in the center of Vienna. She held my brother, who was about two years old on his hand and she was waiting at the station for me. I saw... Continue Reading →
Last month I traveled to the US to (finally) start the next phase of my Master's thesis: data collection by conducting 1-hour long interviews with all sorts of people. What does this mean? In short, it means asking questions, and lots of them while also listening to elaborate answers. Sometimes you hear things you never... Continue Reading →
Every life is accompanied by music, no matter where you are from, no matter where you are headed: Music is and always will be part of your journey. I fell in love with music when I was little. My childhood household wasn't very musical, both my brother and I played the recorder and the guitar... Continue Reading →
The first time I fell in love with Vienna was in the summer of 2004. Most days I spent with my best friend running around day and night, tanning poolside during the days, spending warm summer nights on roof tops, looking at the stars, laughing hysterically and imagining our future bright and wonderful. We met... Continue Reading →
This Christmas A and I decided to travel to Nuremberg to experience Europe’s biggest Christmas market. After all, no one does Christmas markets quite like Continental Europe and if you have ever been, you know what I mean! It’s a food coma mixed with hot spicy drinks and just an overall exciting feeling of jollyness.... Continue Reading →
I honestly have no idea how the year passed by so quickly but my hunch is that constantly being on the move had something to do with it. Going places makes you feel like the world turns twice as fast while you are stuck in an airport/in an airplane/on the train, what ever your preferred... Continue Reading →
As the curtain of 2016 silently falls – no one calling for an encore – we look filled with enthusiasm towards 2017. A and I have a million ideas for the coming year and are very excited to share them with you, once they come into being. But for now, I want to thank you... Continue Reading →
When I was young, my dad was terrified of flying. He would try not to sleep the night before, so when he got to the airplane the next day he could just pass out and would not have to think about take off and landing and all the things in between. Flying never scared me,... Continue Reading →
For all the aching souls in empty homes. A house is not a home. Your home exists, even if your house disappears. Filling your house with the laughter of loved ones, having dinner parties together, making fuzzy memories with the ones that make you eternally grateful to be alive. Those memories together, they make a house... Continue Reading →
There is a few things in life that one cannot recover from. A broken heart is one of these things. I think the initial crack, is what hurts the most. It's like a hairline fracture, it seems so tiny and innocent and yet it causes you excruciating pain. Of course, time heals all wounds (or so... Continue Reading →
Water. All life forms need water. There is no single organism that does not require water - at least on this planet. Of course, we humans are more complicated than that and need a million more things to live a fulfilled life. For me, however, the two things that I need in life are water and... Continue Reading →
We all have our battles to fight, we all have our dark demons that haunt us at night. For some of us it might be something as simple as the snooze button every morning. Only five more minutes. And maybe five more... For others it's a bit more complicated, when five more minutes make no... Continue Reading →
When I first arrived back in Oslo, it seemed impossible to go back to my all to familiar school/work-routine that I carefully had created for myself. The first morning back at home, as I laid in my bed, the very bed that I had missed for so long, staring at the ceiling, noticing that there were... Continue Reading →
In the last 24 hours of my India trip I ate food from a street vendor, got caught in a sudden monsoon outburst and made some life-changing decisions. All in all I enjoyed life to the fullest and have absolutely no regrets. I've returned to Norway a week ago and have since then battled with... Continue Reading →
I have few regrets in life, only one haunts me still... My grandma was the most amazing woman I ever knew. She had many flaws, laughed rarely and was very skeptical of anything and anyone and yet, she was kind-hearted and full of love but what I remember most about her is her sense of... Continue Reading →
Today I had an egg-salad kind of day and no, I didn't have any egg-salad, nor do I want any. But before our first lecture today, my friend showed me this picture and much to my own joy, I was laughing tears. This wonderful family picture made me wonder after a prolonged heart-felt laughter, aren't... Continue Reading →
After four weeks in India, I can tell you one thing: there is such a thing as too much curry. Eating various types of curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner makes you eventually feel like you would give a kingdom for anything but curry. Eventually your clothes will start smelling like curry and so will... Continue Reading →
The last few weeks flew by like nothing. I can't believe that I am halfway through my India experience already and the worst I had to live through so far was general discomfort (you learn to love it, believe me!) and a severe cold with intense fever sweats last week. This, by the way, is my... Continue Reading →
Sometimes you get a great opportunity you didn't even know you wanted but once you realized it was there is nothing that could stop you. Two weeks ago I left the beautiful beaches of Greece to go to India. And although no fiber of me wanting to stay, I persevered. I embraced the unknown and made... Continue Reading →
Unbelievable sights Indescribable feeling Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling Through an endless diamond sky A whole new world - A whole new world, Disney's Aladdin You can hardly travel to India without thinking of Aladdin. That’s like going to the beach and not worrying about Jaws. Unthinkable. For me, movies like Aladdin did not want me to... Continue Reading →
Sounds, smells and a general discomfort. That’s probably the best way to describe my first 48 hours in India. No part of me wanted to leave Greece. Not even the smallest particle of my body. Having arrived in India after about 30 hours of traveling, sleeping at airports and being stuck in the middle seat... Continue Reading →
#summer2k16 so far has everything but what I imagined it would be. I left for Germany on July 5th for three weeks of intense catering to teenagers’ needs. To be honest, I don’t know what I expected but I can with 100% certainty say, I did not expect this. The three weeks were intense emotionally... Continue Reading →
I am 28 years old, I am married, I have a regular day job, pay my bills on time. You could call me settled and I wouldn't be upset. I have a good support system in Norway, in the US and in Austria. I figured that would be enough, but truth to be told, there... Continue Reading →
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. - Courtesy Wikipedia Last year I volunteered at a whales project in the Azores. It was an amazing experience that... Continue Reading →
About a month ago I finished the last exam for the semester. Since then I've been in a summer-break daze. I guess the first five months of the year have been so crazy, that once I delivered my last exam I just checked out - mentally. That's not to say, that I've been laying around... Continue Reading →
After a stressful but successful semester and a short and exhausting trip to Berlin I visited A in Maastricht, Netherlands. Now, I don't know how much you know about the Netherlands, but my knowledge was limited to windmills, wooden clogs and a crazy love for bikes. All my prejudices were instantly debunked: The only windmill I... Continue Reading →
If you are lucky, you can point to a handful of life-altering moments in your lifetime. Maybe the day you earned your first cheque, your first real life goal accomplishment, your last cigarette... Those moments manifest themselves in funny ways, usually at times when you least expect them. It's not just simple memories and it's... Continue Reading →
I don't think romance always has to happen between a person and their partner. It can happen between two strangers somewhere in the middle of nowhere or between lifelong friends. It's just a moment, the moment doesn't mean anything other than what you make it to be. Before I go any further, just so there is... Continue Reading →
When A and I first moved to Norway, all I could think about was the opportunity to finally be together with A in the same country without having to say goodbye. Beyond that single most wonderful thought, being finally able to share my life with A, I never gave Norway a second thought. Norway looked... Continue Reading →
One time, several years ago, one day after I arrived in the US after not having seen A for months, I locked myself out of the apartment while he was at work. That was pre-Wifi and pre-smartphones and generally during a time, where simcards were not generally used in the US. It was 11 am... Continue Reading →
...Telemark's got it all. You know, how in high school, the one week you look forward to the most is the field-trip week? I'll let you in on a little secret, it doesn't change in graduate school. All semester long we have been talking about the three day field-trip that was planned for the end... Continue Reading →
Seven years ago A and I sat in a Silver Diner somewhere in Virginia and shared a slice of warm apple pie with vanilla custard. A wore a jeans jacket, his curly dark hair framed his strong facial features and he looked at me, as if I was the most foreign thing, he has ever... Continue Reading →
"To live will be an awfully big adventure" - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan I always wanted to be just like Peter Pan, but instead of being the boy that never grew up I wanted to be the woman that forever would be a grown up. As I child I envied people that had a job and fulfilled... Continue Reading →
The last month or so has been a never ending roller coaster ride with many ups and downs. The ups definitely outweigh the downs and I can honestly say, I have never felt like this before in my life. I am, if you haven't noticed yet, a feminist, and I whole-heartily believe in equality. To me, equality... Continue Reading →
Vienna was calling so loud it's still ringing in my ears. Going home always comes with a special kind of anxiety paired with an unbearable amount of excitement. Needless to say I couldn't sleep for several nights before my departure. I was super early at the airport, I was not going to miss my flight... Continue Reading →
I am about to embark on a week long Vienna-trip, I am going home. I haven't been in Austria since 2012, before I started (and finished) my bachelor's degree, studied in Hong Kong, started my master's degree, got married, changed jobs and accomplished millions and millions of things that you can read up upon if... Continue Reading →
Traveling is part of A's and my relationship. So this year, for our 7th year anniversary A and I went to Tallinn, Estonia, because apparently Norway is not cold enough for us but also because the tickets to Tallinn were the cheapest ones we could find for a romantic getaway without having to break the... Continue Reading →
A and I have been together 7 years today. 7 years that felt like 7 minutes. 7 years filled with laughter and crazy unexpected experiences and most of all, 7 years filled with love. And after 7 years I can honestly say, that our relationship is EVERYTHING I never thought possible. In these 7 years... Continue Reading →
This is the final and last part of our month-long road-trip through the US and I know you're thinking, "Geesh, finally, took you long enough". And yes, it took me almost longer to finish the road-trip saga than actually being on the road-trip with A. So yes, this is the final installment, the one... Continue Reading →
A note of warning, before I jump into the fifth part of our month long road-trip: Because our trip was so extensive, eventful and wonderful at the same time, I decided to split my blog into several installments. The first part recapitulated our initial car-troubles whereas the second part told the wonderful story about excessive amounts of... Continue Reading →
A note of warning, before I jump into the fourth part of our month long road-trip: Because our trip was so extensive, eventful and wonderful at the same time, I decided to split my blog into several installments. The first part recapitulated our initial car-troubles whereas the second part told the wonderful story about excessive amounts of... Continue Reading →
A note of warning, before I jump into the third part of our month long road-trip: Because our trip was so extensive, eventful and wonderful at the same time, I decided to split my blog into several installments. This first part recapitulated our initial car-troubles whereas the second part told the wonderful story about excessive amounts of... Continue Reading →
A bird loves a fish 