I’m now sitting in the hotel lobby in Buenos Aires, a bit bored really…waiting for Georg to come back from the conference. We have been here for about three weeks now, and it’s time for us to go home. We had a wonderful time here, seen a lot… almost everything in Buenos Aires, and had time to relax. Georg has been to a summer school and a conference and he has learned a lot. Now we are looking forward to getting home, to our bed and of course my “tiny thing” (Inu).

First Impressions

Buenos Aires is covered with dogs, they are everywhere, I think almost everyone has a dog, so it is easy to miss Inu seeing them. When people are at work they have dog walkers that walk the dogs and keep them engaged all day until they get home. One dog walker can have more than ten dogs, and they behave remarkably well. Also, many of these dog walkers meet up in certain parks and let all of the dogs run around together. They seem to have a great life here. I really just wanted to cozy up with all of then, but I have resisted the urge as we did not take shots for that.

It is winter in Argentina and we expected the worst. Well, we heard that it was normally around 5-15 degrees Celsius. Last year they even had a bit of snow! So we brought winter jackets. The first week was mostly cold and foggy, with nice weather on some days. After that, the temperature went through the roof. Really warm, almost as warm as a Norwegian summer gets. T-shirt weather, so really nice, we were lucky.

The first week we browsed through most of Buenos Aires, drank a lot of wine, went shopping and had a great time. We walked a lot since we weren’t too sure about the taxis, they can try to rob you. A Peruvian from the summer school got his luggage stolen this way – be careful when you put your luggage in the trunk! – and a French guy almost got robbed by the old you-gave-me-a-five trick.

But we also love to walk and it is the only way to really get a feel for the city, together maybe with biking. Buenos Aires is about 20 km x 20 km, so in the center you can really get by by walking. Of course after walking all day we were exhausted and went to bed quite early. People here do not eat dinner before eight, and we are used to eating at five every day. Combine that with a jet-lag, and we ended up eating in an empty restaurant every evening – at least the first couple of days.

Everything is very cheap here, especially food. You get BIG meals with a LOT of food. The first evening Georg and I went out to treat ourselves a bit with delicious Argentinean food and wine. And that we got. I ordered a meat platter for one person. I thought that was a good idea, because I would then be able to taste many different meats so that I could taste a bit of the local specialties. I have never gotten this much food in my life. I got two BIG plates of meat I plate of fries and all I could eat of salad. The whole meal could easily feed a small family of five… for days :).

Our Crib

The hotel is very nice. We live on the 9^th floor with a view of Plaza Republica, which is easily recognized because of the huge obelisk in the middle. Several roads emanate from the plaza, the main of which, 9 de Julio, having seven lanes in each direction. Although this made quite some noise, it also provided an amazing view of continuous stream of taxis passing the hotel.

Even better, almost every day the people of Buenos Aires had some sort of demonstration outside. In the beginning of the millennium Argentina was hit by an economic crisis, of which they are slowly recovering. In the weeks that we were there the parliament voted for a new law on export taxes, and this created huge demonstrations … These were, naturally, right outside of our building, where people sprayed their (for us incomprehensible) message on El Obelisco. The police handled the crowd very well, so that everything went peacefully and nobody got hit by a taxi. When we saw the first bus of special units arrive we thought they would arrest the whole bunch, but instead they let them do their thing and protected them along the way.

So even though I had to stay inside quite some days, being hit by the Spanish flu, there was much to see outside… Quite some action :). The hotel also has its own spa, with a swimming pool, hot tub, sauna and a training room, which we used frequently until I got sick. All the walking, waking up early, and running in the mornings might not have helped.

The Home of the Rich and the Dead

One of the first days we walked to Recolleta, “home to the rich and the dead”. This area is very rich, with only high end stores and expensive hotels. The main street is claimed to be impeccably clean, so the first thing I did was stepping in dog-poo!! Clean ha! Good start:) After that we visited the Recolleta cemetery… It is truly an amazing place, probably modeled after a similar cemetery in Paris. Each grave is like a small house. Lots of famous people are buried here, among whom most famously Eva Peron (Evita). It was really a wonderful and peaceful place.

Villa 31

After strolling around the place we walked south towards the parks and the railway tracks. On the other side of the tracks is Villa 31. This place is not as fancy as it sounds, since it is probably the biggest slum in Buenos Aires. People living here made their own houses, and one such villa can house over 15,000 people. Surprisingly, it turns out to be well-organized with its own elected board and president. Getting to the end of the parks and closer to the railway it suddenly got very poor and not so nice a neighborhood, so we turned around.

The next thing on the agenda was the marked. Outside the Recolleta cemetery, on Saturdays, there is a big arts and craft marked, and they cell amazing things. They are really good at making things with leather, stone and clay. We bought a lot of nice stuff and headed home.

The next couple of days we walked through Palermo, a hip neighborhood with lots of bars, restaurants and high end stores, but also lots of nice parks and open spaces. We also went to the Sunday market in San Telmo. The market is known for antiques, but also for tango and lots of street musicians. It was quite touristy, but authentic nevertheless. People were dancing and playing music on the street, very rural and warm. It seems that the people here know how to have a good time, and almost all of them are honest and friendly.

Of course I had to do a bit of shopping here. I love to shop, and things here are relatively cheap, especially shoes. So I was really out to shop some nice shoes. But the thing that annoyed me a lot was that the stores are quite small and full with people, not with shopping people but with people working there, usually five people in a very small store. So you are trying to look at something and you just keep bumping into the shop attendants. And of course they follow you around, in case you want help, getting exactly in front of the shoes that you want to look at. It’s Japan all over again! Even if I intended to buy those shoes, I got so annoyed that I ended up buying nothing… I guess I shouldn’t complain too much sitting here with five new pairs of shoes :).

A Tango Show

One other thing we did was going to a Tango show that came with a course in Argentinean tango. The tango show was fantastic and it was fun to learn how to dance, we are so going to learn more when we get back to Oslo. Too bad the whole evening was very touristic. We booked the tour through the hotel, and they are probably used to people looking for that kind of evening… well we are definitively not one of them. We were picked up at the hotel and driven to the theater… Because of all the traffic it took some time, and we could have walked there faster :).

On arrival, the first thing they did was leading us into the souvenir shop, where we had to wait for all the other people joining us in our tango course. Once there, they kindly pointed out that it was much better to buy something right away, because after the tango show there would be way-too-many people shopping. Quite funny really, as long as you don’t have to put up with it for too long. Learning some of the basic tango moves was a lot of fun. We were in good company of many middle-aged ladies that seemed to have started the party early, laughing hysterically and going bananas!

After the lesson we went to the show room and had dinner. Although Argentina is famous for its meat, which it produces in humongous quantities, I have never ever eaten that bad meat before; I could hardly bite through it… At least the show was really good, and we definitely had fun, but both of us are convinced we should stay away from organized travel groups. :)

The Other Side of the Delta

At the end of the first week, we took the boat over the Delta to Colonia, Uruguay. Its newly build departure port looks a lot like a mini-airport, with security checks, gates and, unfortunately, queues. Partly because of the sunny short-sleeves weather, this was probably the best day we had. Add to this the many friendly loose dogs in the old city centre, and you get an oasis of peace and silence contrasting the busy and car-flooded Buenos Aires. Something that we had never seen before, was the possibility to rent a golf cart.

Unfortunately this was also the day that my mum and dad had to put Bastian to sleep… I was devastated. It was hard to not be able to say goodbye to him, but on the other hand, I think it would probably have been worse if I had been there. At least here I could try to focus on something else. So it was a beautiful day, with a lot of tears :(.

Puerto Madero

As Georg sot sick before I did, I had a few days to myself. One of these days I walked around Puerto Madero. This is a newly developed waterfront district with a lot of restaurants and bars, right next to a big nature park. A lot of people walk and run in the park every day. It is huge with its small lakes, and it stretches out to the sea. It was an invigorating walk, refreshing to get away from the city and the noise for a short time. I walked around for a bit and ended up on the docks with ice cream. They have the best ice cream here. Never had a better one than the one I have tasted here. Ice cream is as big here as it is in Italy, which is because of the Italian immigrants. They have this ice cream that tastes a bit like caramel called “dulche de leche”. It’s very South American and they are very proud of it, for good reason, as it is the best ice cream I have ever eaten. And it had few calories! It really was a nice day :).

San Telmo and La Boca

One of the days we visited La Boca. We started our day in a historic museum in San Telmo, which I had looked forward to seeing, but which was very small and only in Spanish. This was a disappointment, to say the least. Then we walked towards the big football stadium in la Boca. Since it was full of football fans and tourists, we didn’t spend much time there and took off towards the centre of La Boca.

Or so we thought. We managed to walk in a totally wrong direction and headed right into the slum of la Boca. La Boca is an old neighborhood of Buenos Aires, and it is also very poor. That’s why the guide books warn you against going outside the tourist areas in this part of town. And this was of course exactly what we were doing now. We felt that this part was getting unfriendly and very poor. But luckily it was mid day and a lot of people were out. We are also fortunate that we do not look that much like tourists, being frequently taken for being Argentinean, and being careful about when to take out the camera and map and when not. In the end we found the centre without being robbed or anything, lucky us! The centre is beautiful and colorful. Even if the houses are not expensive, they have painted the houses with pretty colors to brighten them up. Unfortunately this is the day that I got sick. It felt like I was getting the flue and we had to take a taxi home early.

Many Argentineans look very European, maybe a bit Italian or Spanish, but some could easily have been British or German too. So we tend to blend in with the people. There are also parts of the population that do look very South American, but I’m not sure if they are Argentinean or just moved to Buenos Aires from Peru or other countries. In the suburbs, on the other hand, most of the people look very South American.

The next week we had planned to travel a bit around Buenos Aires, but unfortunately we both were ill with a fever and a bad cold – so still not well – and we kept within Buenos Aires so that we could sleep in and take it easy.

The Market of Mataderos

The last Sunday we went to one of the suburbs called Mataderos. The subway did not go this far so we first took the subway and then walked the last bit. The problem was that we didn’t have a good map of the location, only in the direction we should walk. We walked about an hour or so, through kind of rough neighborhoods, which seemed to be very poor. We had to stop and ask for directions but in the end we found it.

We also had a bite at a bakery nearby. The Argentineans love cookies, chocolate, ice cream and pastries. So not very healthy, but of course we had to taste. Then we headed off to the market. It was a very nice and cozy market with a stage with people singing, people riding horses while standing on top of them, lots of food to try and of course arts and craft. I bought this amazing purse there… so pretty! In the pubs people were dancing, old and young together, they were crazy, and had so much fun. It was a great day, that ended with a quiet night with pizza in bed :).

More pictures here.

Visiting Margit at Svalbard

Last Tuesday we went to visit Margit at Longyearbyen, Svalbard. We were very close to canceling the trip, as Georg spent the night before and the following morning throwing up. But we decided to go for it, and we made it. There was a lot of snow and it was very cold, -19 degrees Celsius. First Margit drove us around the city showing us where everything was, and then we went home to her place where we met her dog Ravna, a very cute and cozy dog! Georg was still not feeling well and spent the rest of the day in bed, while Margit and I took the scooter to the other dogs and went dog sledding. It was so cool! I could do this every day....


Wednesday morning Georg, who was feeling a lot better, and I went to Coal Mine 7. It is the only coal mine still active in Longyearbyen. Being inside the mine was fascinating and a bit scary. Because of all the coal dust in the air we had to wear masks. On top of that the air was a lot thinner, and this was hard to get used to. It was interesting to see how they operate. Very exciting! We also got to see the famous footsteps of a prehistoric mammal, a Pantodont. On a previous tour, some American wondered how come the animal walked on the ceiling (although because of the presence of Americans he kindly lied that the person was Swedish). When we got out we were all covered in coal dust and looked very pretty.



When we got back we went sight seeing in town, shopping and then went to the Svalbard museum. It was a pleasant museum and we learned a lot, but I got so tired and almost fell asleep:) When Margit came back from work we ate some food and then came with her to the Northern light observatory, where she does some of her work. To get there we first had to drive for about ten minutes by car, and then drive a caterpillar vehicle the rest of the way. It was completely dark and we could see nothing but snow. On the top there was a building, almost not visible because of the snow and the dark. When opening the door to the building there was a long white and clean corridor with dark doors, like in a new office building. Coming in from the snow and dark and into this building was strangely surreal. It could easily have been a scene from Star Trek or, even more striking, from "Brødrene Dahl". Could this corridor lead to a space ship, an entrance to a secret spy station, an alternate dimension or even better to offices with nerds and big toys:) On our way down I got to drive the caterpillar vehicle, and it was amazing! In the evening we went to the local pub to eat, drink and meet Margit's boyfriend Urban, from Sweden. After this exciting and packed day, we went to bed quite early.



On Thursday morning Georg and I went on a dog sledding trip up a glacier to an ice cave. We got to saddle up the dogs and of course cuddle with them:) It felt incredible to stand behind them as they were running. We went quite fast! Visiting the ice cave was also amazing. The icy corridors and narrow passages was something we had never seen before, and I so want to do it again! The whole trip was one of the best trips we've ever had. We were also incredibly very lucky with the weather, it was sunny and not too cold, relatively speaking of course. In the evening we went to the pub again, naturally. :)



Friday morning we totally relaxed and slept in. Later we went shopping and walked Ravna. After Margit came home from work we met up with Urban and went on a scooter trip to a cabin called Bikkjebu at Kapp-Laila. It was an amazing ride to Kapp-Laila. When we got there and fired up the oven, Margit started cooking dinner while the other three of us fell asleep. We were just too tired. After eating dinner we played some cards but couldn't keep our eyes open, so we went to bed quite soon after that.

We took it really easy in the morning. Georg and I tried to use the oven to fry bacon, which worked, but took us over an hour. There was a leak in the gas-tank, so we hesitated to use it. But in the end we gave in and used it for a short period of time. After breakfast, cleaning the cabin and getting our stuff together we drove to Barentsburg, a Russian coal mine settlement not too far from Longyearbyen. Driving into Barentsburg was like driving into Russia (or at least what I would imagine it would be, since I have never been to Russia). The people were very friendly, waving and smiling to us. It was an incredible experience, just like driving into a different country. The people spoke Russian, had Russian TV in the pub, serving lots of vodka and everything looked very Eastern-European. After having a coffee at the pub we rushed home to Longyearbyen, where we had a reservation at 19:30 at a restaurant (Kroa) in town. We had to drive quite fast, it was very cool. Later we all went to "Huset", where they had a big sun-party. That Saturday was the first time this year that the sun shone on Longyearbyen, so that meant a big party. Me and Georg only lasted until 1:30, when we were almost sleeping and my back was hurting from the scooter-drive, so it was nice to get to bed.



On Sunday we ate a good breakfast at "Kroa" and then went on a scooter trip with Margit and Urban to a TV-tower on the opposite side of Longyearbyen. The weather and sun was incredible and we had an amazing view. It was the best way of ending our stay in Longyearbyen. It has been the most amazing week, and we want to come back as soon as possible.

Buying a camera and Inu passing the test and receiving the bronze mark in obedience training!


A week ago we bought a new camera, a Canon 35d digital single-lens reflex camera. It is really cool. We have been thinking about this for a while. We have been in so many situations lately where we weren't able to take good enough pictures with my old camera. We love taking pictures, especially of Inu or when we travel, so we decided it was time to upgrade. So now we just have to learn how to use it:)


Also! On Wednesday, Inu passed her test for the bronze mark in obedience training. I have to say that we really didn't do a great job there, but the weather was going against us. It was cold, wet and slippery. Most of the dogs wouldn't even sit down on the ground, and who can blame them:) We were very close to failing, but we just passed. So we were very happy. So our next project will be a beginners course in agility at Stovner Hundeklubb, in April. We are very excited!

Our pretty princess!

I'm healthy...can it be possible?

I have now been sick since September, been on 5 types of antibiotics + a lot of other things that I don't really know what is, and was now pretty sick of staying home. And frankly walking all over the walls and feeling quite depressed. The doctors had pretty much given up on me and said that it was a migraine or a tension pain, and that I needed to relax and not stress. After staying home so much, I haven't been able to stress. I even tried acupuncture, and I'm VERY afraid of needles:) So...I have been desperate. Even the ear-nose-and throat doctor I saw said it was nothing..maybe migraine. And he put me on medication ..that I got allergic to of course. I felt that the world was against me:) He also sent me to a neurologist with 3 months waiting time...:( He didn't find anything either, but put me on some standard pink pills. When I started using it I lost all energy and just slept (12 hours a day in the start).

But since I switched doctor I have gotten so much more help from the right people. She has been great and very determined to find out what was wrong with me and not giving up. She got me an appointment to an ear-nose and throat doctor at the hospital here in Oslo, and he looked up my nose and into my sinuses. To be able to do that, I had to take anesthesia on my nose, because I have a very thin/crooked nose wall, so it is difficult to get through there. When I got home the nose started to run...quite a lot and it felt like (and still does) like I had a big hole in my nose! And it kept running for over a week. My headache was gone. I was soo happy. It can still come back, and I'm going to the doctor again the 18th of February, and have taken a CT and MRI scan as well. He talked about operating my nose, and I hope he will, to make it more permanent. Since then, the world has been a beautiful place to be:)

It is funny because the good doctors that I have met and have gotten help from has not been native Norwegians, but the ones that have not been so nice and not been able to help me have been Norwegian. Plus all that crap the doctors have given Georg when he has been here (like, "you have to go to your doctor in Holland.."). Unfortunately we get a bit prejudiced about doctors lately, even though we know it doesn't hold for everybody. It has definitively been like this with our experience. It is funny, because it is probably the opposite prejudice than a lot of other people have:)

Me getting well happily coincided with my birthday (the 27nd of January). So we went to Dublin a couple of days to relax and celebrate. It was great! We did a little shopping, went out to restaurants, did a lot of sights-seeing and listen to a lot of live music. We had a blast! Put the pictures out here.

So now I'm back at work, and I'm really enjoying it. A bit afraid it will come back, but hope the doctor can fix it more permanently. Now we at least know what it is, and it is not just in my head:)

Update..long time coming..

Hi! It’s been a long time since I have written anything, and a lot has happened.

Engaged

For our summer vacation we decided to drive through parts of Norway, being tourists for a change. There is a lot that I haven’t even seen in Norway, and doing this we could bring Inu with us. We started with driving to Ålesund visiting Kanutte and Tor helge at Kanutte’s parent’s house in Sjøholt. After a few days there, going in the mountains and visiting Molde and the surrounding area, we decided to drive the west coast back to Oslo. On our way we visited Geiranger. Probably one of the most beautiful places in Norway, and the place kanutte and Tor Helge got married. We spent a few days there and one of the days we went hiking in one of the mountains. We took the boat and then walked up to Skageflå (which is a very popular place to go to). It was raining just a bit and the sun shone through the clouds creating a rainbow. That's when Georg proposed:) and of course I said yes! Great day! We had an amazing trip driving the west coast to oslo, part from small roads and horrible drivers (not me of course..hehe), and we put out more pictures from the trip here. We also went to visit Ålesund, Nidgardsbreen, Bergen, Rosendal, Prekestolen and Lindesnes.

After the engagement we have been busy finding a place and deciding on a date. We have been around to look at several places, and have now decided on one. A few weekends ago, we went to Vikerøya in Larvik. We had already seen a place that we loved, and was sure that THAT was the place, but when we arrived at Vikerøya, we just fell in love with the place. We put out pictures of the place here (..and yes, the barn will be free from grains:)). We didn’t need to go other places to look, and booked it right away. So we will get married the 1^st of August 2009. I know it is early to think about this stuff, but next year they are almost all booked up, so to get the date we wanted, we booked right away. We also have created a wedding page, where we will put out all the information about the wedding. It is funny because I have never been one of those "wedding-girls", the ones that have looked forward to get married since birth. I actually didn't think that I wanted to get married, boy was I wrong:) I look very much forward to it..and can't wait till the day comes!

London x 2

This summer I also have been twice in London on vacation. The first time was with my mum. We decided that it was time to take a girls trip to do some (…hehe…some…more LOTS!!) shopping and also to see a musical. We hade a great time. In advance I had received an amazing and detailed guide from Milica about where to eat and shop, we followed to guide religiously. We shopped a LOT and had a really great time there. We also went to see the musical “We will rock you”. My uncle has been in London to see it over three times now, and highly recommended it. And it was totally worth the trip, a great musical, especially if you like Queens. The only thing that almost spoiled the trip was that I got some sort of stomach flue that last couple of days. I was in plain…but it didn’t stop me from shopping or from going to the musical:) More pictures here.

The next time I was in London, Georg and me went to ICPS. Klaus, Ingvild, Mateusz, Sanja and Åsmund was there as well. The conference was great and lots of fun things to listen to. And since I was in London just a month ago, I knew where to go for good restaurants and shops. It was great meeting up with all the people we usually just see at these events and catching up with all the new stuff that has happened. This was my 5^th ICPS, and this time I was not involved in any IAPS stuff and not going to the general meeting. It was quite weird being one of the oldest and not really involved in any “conspiracy-things”. We were all quite ready for this to be our last ICPS, and it was a nice conference to end it with. More pictures here.

Dog show

We went to a dog show in Lier the 1^st of September. I went to a dog show with Bastian about 12 years ago, so I didn’t quite know what to expect. We hadn’t trained on showing her off since we didn’t quite know what to practice on. We were there early on Saturday, and met Laila (our breeder), so that she could style and cut Inu to the perfect shape. I was the one to take Inu into the ring, and I was very nervous. I probably did everything wrong and got lots of comments on the wrong things…and it made me very nervous. When they handed out the first second and third place, I didn’t know if we got a price or not.. afterwards I found out that we got 2^nd place (of 3 though)! We were very happy and proud of little Inu. In spite of me, she won 2^nd place..:) We really liked it, it was social, and it was very nice to see the other dogs as well. Her father, brother and her sister (she was the one the won) was there as well. We probably will do it again. I put out picture of the show here.

Part from this we haven’t done much part from being sick. I have almost been sick a month in a row, and I’m sick of it:) I finally found out that it was some sort of sinus infection, and can get well of it now. I also might be allergic to something, and that’s why I get sick all the time. I hope that it is something like that. Just want to find out what it is so I can get rid of it.

Inu

Last weekend we drove to Larvik and got Inu. She is just so amazingly cute and wonderful. We thought that the first night would be horrible, and we would not get any sleep at all. But we slept till 7.....7 wow! She sleeps about 70 % of the day, and in between pees, poos and eats. She is getting a bit stubborn and hyper active lately, but I guess she just takes after her owners:) We got her on Saturday and on Sunday she had her first real try walking in a leash. And she did great! So on Monday we all walked to the dog store to buy some new toys and some food. She did great. We walked for about an hour. In the end she got a bit tired, so then we carried her home.



We are working hard on trying to get her to pee outside. So after she has slept, ate, played and so on, we take her outside. Usually she pees just some seconds after she wakes up, so when she sleeps we sit ready to run out with her as soon as she wakes up. It is quite the show...funny! We are also working on leaving her at home, alone. And it is really working quite well. At first she was crying so much, but now we hardly hear anything from her. Today we almost forgot that we were gone open the door after half an hour... We are so happy that we got her, she is perfect for us:) We put out more pictures here.

I HATE Chess.no and Posten!!!

Just need to get some frustration out! We just have needed to take a lot of crap lately...uff...! I have my mobile phone SIM card from chess.no, and they are very cheap. But there are some negative thing with having a cheap SIM card provider. I just bought a new phone, and I found out that it didn't register my SIM card. They told me that new phones are more sensitive to stripes in the SIM card and I probably needed another one, so They was gone send me one right away. It took some time, and then suddenly my old phone, which I still used, stopped working. I called them up, with my brothers phone, and they told me that they had closed the old SIM card when they sent the new one to me. They also told me that this was a normal procedure to do and that people normally went without a phone in 3-4 days while waiting for the SIM card to arrive....!!! Hallooo!! Could that BE more WRONG! So...not even an apology ....because this was the way to do it. I tried to ask if they could undo it or that I could go somewhere to get it right away, but that was impossible. So all I could do was wait...which ended up to be 2 weeks...! And I called chess again. I had gotten no SIM card and they said that they had sent it a week ago and I had to go and ask the post office...still no apology...! I finally went down to the post office, and found it there...so I have it now...but it was quite the wait..!

Not only that...but probably also the reason for the long wait, is that we don't get all our mail. We get some, but important mail like bills and stuff get sent back, with address unknown. This happened twice for the internet bill. And they called me to get the real address, which they had...! I have now called the post office twice about this, and now a week after I got my SIM card, I got two pick up slips for the SIM card, with a note on it saying unknown address, but it was crossed out. If I hadn't gone looking for it myself or called the post office, I would never had gotten it, and wouldn't have gotten any important mail. But what I don't get is that it is the right address and they are sending it back, and that we get some mail but not all...! I hate it...don't we got any rights in this system??? If it happens again, I will seriously take some more action than just call in...!! huff....

Update!

We have been a bit lazy lately and not written anything on our blog, so this is a short summary of the last months.

We needed some time off work before easter so we went to Barcelona for a couple of days. It was wonderful. We had great weather, for most of the time, went sightseeing a lot and shopping big time! I bought 5 pairs of shoes..! It was the perfect city to relax and drink a lot of wine:) The only thing that almost ruined it was a football game that week, Andorra vs. England. English football supporters must be the worst of them all...they created a horrible atmosphere in the city that day..and it was cops everywhere. But to save the day we hid out in a tapas restaurant away from the city center, chilled out with food and wine. It was very nice. We went there with Ryanair, so the trip itself was very cheap. But they tricked us though! On the internet they say the one baggage can't weigh more then 15 kg. And then on the next page they say that we can check in more then one bag, but then we have to pay more. We thought then that we could have with us more than 15 kg, so we booked 2 baggages each. We told this to the person when we checked in, when she asked how many baggages we wanted to check in, because she saw that we had booked for 2 each, but didn't say anything, just nodded. On the way back we had a lot more with us, because of my shopping of course. But then they said that we had mistaken, it wasn't that we could have more kg with us, but that we had payed to divide the 15 kg on 2 bags..! We both felt tricked...and did not want to give them any more money by paying over weight, so we put away 2 bottles of wine...very cheap..and then put a lot in our hand luggage. Georg also put on 2 pants, 2 t-shirts and 2 sweaters:) And we made it...! Put out more pictures here.


We mostly worked during easter, but also found some time to go home and visit my parents at the cabin, and to see our little puppy Inu. We don't know exactly which one we get yet, but they are all very cute. The funny thing was that all week it had been the most amazing weather...! But the day we were supposed to go home, by car with summer tires, it started to snow..pretty bad. So we had to stay a day extra hoping the snow would go away, which it finally did. More pictures here.



Last week Georg's parents came and visited us here in Oslo. We also went to visit my parents in Larvik, so they could get to know them and of course see the puppy, which we will get in 8 days!! Can't wait!!!! The meeting went great! they got along, and they all had a great time. We showed them the cabin, went all around Larvik, showed them Oslo, the viking ship museum, the Kon-Tiki museum, went around the coast and up to the forest. We put out more pictures here.

Georg and Bastian

Georg's father (Ate) and one of the puppies

Our two families