Driving myself mad

My newest pair of Nike Shox. Me like! Perfect shoes for my upcoming Easter Holiday. Which started TODAY. Yay.

Norway is such a beautiful country. Oh yes. I will tell you a secret. Occasionally, all this nature can be a bit too much. For instance, when driving to my my in-laws' "chalet", the so-called "Høtta". In the "Trøndish Alps", also referred to as "Sylan". This is a five-hour drive from my parents' house. Through a long valley, "Østerdalen". Or "Eastern Valley". Pretty describing, as there is not much about it - other than being east.  This is a valley full of:

• Trees
• Norway's greatest river - "Glomma"
• More trees
• A couple of gas stations
• A tavern or two (with a customer base mostly consisting of truckers)
• One particular tavern that we now drive past, as we tend to get a bad stomach after eating there.
• Even more trees
• A few cute places along the way, which we never have the time to stop and visit. Like "Tynset". Who boasts that they have the world's greatest "kick"* on display in their main square (they do have a square - yay!).

This stretch of road is hell. It takes FOREVER to get through it. It all looks the same. And, nowadays you even have to keep the speed limit. Crikey.

It is a good thing we have GPS.

* Totally untranslatable. A "kick" (Norwegian: "spark") is an ancient Norwegian type of SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle).

Sleeping with a serial killer

After a weekend on the slopes of Kvitfjell (I could have said the OLYMPIC slopes, but I have never skied down the actual competition slope, too much of a chicken), including a lovely dinner with T & T & T & T at their apartment close to the hotel on Saturday, we left for my home town.

Hm, well, saying that I grew up IN AN ACTUAL TOWN would kind of be taking things a bit too far. I grew up very much on the outskirts of this town. In the middle of a field. As a friend of mine said when she came to stay with me at my parents' place the night before one of her skiing competitions, and she was not able to fint the place: "I did not believe people could actually live out there". Hah. YES, they can. And it is pretty idyllic, too.

And, as a kid, I think it helps you build character having to ride your bicycle for at least a couple of kilometres to have anybody to play with (apart from the boys next door, but they were not that fond of playing with my Barbie dolls).

I am fortunate enough to have a client in the area these days, so I could work at their head office (yes!) during the first days of Easter. Which means that I could stay with my parents for three days. Which beats staying at any spa for weeks. I find it a bit difficult falling asleep when staying there, as everything is SO QUIET. And - it gets SO VERY DARK. But when I fall asleep, it is like being in a COMA. No trams. No being woken up by drunken neighbors shouting in the hallway. Or flushing of toilets.

The only possible disturbance might be the cute, but extremely violent, cat -jumping into your bed to cuddle up on your feet.

Zzzzzzzz.

.

In the country-side you keep a cat not just for company. It is an outright necessity. You need someone to keep the mice out of your house. Our current one, however (conveniently carrying the same name as all of his ancestors, the Norwegian equivalent of "Kitty"), is the most blood-thirsty  "trigger-happy" (if you may say that about a CAT) I have seen so far. A real serial-killer. He kills for fun. And he even enjoys playing with his prey before they die. He will go after anything. Biting the head off squirrels is a favorite. And birds - of any shape - and size. Once he tried killing a pheasant. We should be glad that he has stayed off the peasants... So far.

I guess I should sleep with one eye open. In case his instincts suddenly kicks in during the night.

Planes, trains and automobiles

Sigh. Being a globetrotter like myself can be PRETTY STRESSFUL sometimes. I'll tell you. After a hectic, all be it interesting, week in Helsinki with my new team of colleagues, I had to catch the early afternoon plane back to Oslo on Friday to catch a train.

After explaning to the gate crew that I had only 40 minutes between my ETA at Gardermoen and the train departing towards Dombås, I was even allowed to board the plain lugging four (!) pieces of cabin luggage. On Scandinavian. And this was without Mr. Incredible and his Eurobonus Gold in tow. Amazing.

Of course, the flight was delayed. By 30 minutes. Thanks to the cabin steward letting me stash all of my belongings up front, I was able to leave the plane before the remaining passengers, and RUN (ouch!) for the train station. Past the tax free shop. Can you imagine the PAIN?!

I just about made it. I even had a WHOLE MINUTE to spare before the train arrived (our national rail services are not known to ever be on time, which - although mostly annoying - CAN sometimes be a good thing). Wheew. To my great disappointment there was no restaurant car. Alas, no RED WINE. Weep.

After enjoying the scenic landscapes along the beautiful lake Mjøsa for three hours, I was greeted by the pre-booked taxi-diver at Ringebu station. One of the TWO taxi-drivers in this godforsaken place. Half-way up to the hotel at Kvitfjell, the taxi driver (who apparently also doubled as the taxi central booking service) asked if I would be willing to drive back down again to collect another hotel guest. He even offered to share the cost of the ride! How generous! Being a girl, of course I felt bad about having to turn the offer down politely. Although inside I wanted to SCREAM - "F*** you, I have been travelling for seven hours now, I COULD HAVE BEEN IN NEW YORK BY NOW!": But, of course, I didn't.

Arriving at Gudbrandsgard Hotel I was greeted by the newly appointed hotel piccolo, a.k.a. Mr. Incredible. And - waiting in our suite (with a humongous terrace facing the ski slopes) - was our old acquaintance - Mr. Perignon, too.

Being a globetrotter is perhaps not that bad after all.

Restaurant Ravintola

"Heeeeere's Mooooooomin!"

I know. Not quite as scary as Jack Nicholson in The Shining. You simply cannot go to Finland without bringing one of these adoring creatures back. This cute little guy is soon going to be adopted by another cute little guy - my friend's son born on April 1st. I tend to be the one buying my friends' kids drum kits and WHITE plush toys. Very practical.

It took me THREE days to figure out why so many of the restaurants in Helsinki are called "Ravintola". Until the OBVIOUS struck me. It means RESTAURANT. Gaaah. The Finnish language is weird. Normally I am able to understand bits and pices of foreign languages because they have some similar words. Ohno. Not the Finnish, no. They speak IN CODE. Most of them do not say much, though. So it is not really a huge problem. Until they try to speak English. THEN things start to get really complicated. "Would you like some FISS for LUNS?"

And, not knowing the language here, you might suddenly find yourself in UTTER danger. But what sort of danger?

• Getting too drunk?
• Break-dancing?
• Dying?
• Doing the funky-chicken-dance?
• Or.. simply... falling?

Who knows. I tried to be careful, though.

My self-imposed shopping-ban sort of fell apart on Monday afternoon. Hm. Having a house to fill with new stuff, and a summer in sunny France coming up very soon, it just got too hard resisting the cute psychedelic summer dresses. And the Marimekko cushion covers with COWS on them. And the Iitalla glass plates that I have never seen back home. And - last but not least - the sauna hats. A MUST when we go to my "cabin-in-law" for Easter, right?

Today I will be working on my "please-I-know-I-have-at-least-one-piece-of-hand-luggage-too-many" smile for my airport check-in this afternoon. After all, supporting the local economy is the decent thing to do when travelling. Hm. And there was a mid-season sale at the local Marina Rinaldi. Irresistible.



The master of the post-it dragon

I was supposed to get up at 4 this morning. To make things even worse - the alarm went off TEN TO FOUR. Just to spite me, I'm sure. Amazingly enough, I have been able to get through the first day of my training course without having to rely on substances like COFFEE. Dinner is in an hour, and I am still awake. Sort of.

Did not look that promising when I was waiting for the train this morning, though. I was in such a coma that I did not even recognize my own boss sitting down next to me at the airport train terminal. Talk about being a mindless (blonde) zombie. I just cannot help it. Before 5 AM I am just no good.

Is it any wonder I think our loan application work process mapped at the end of the day started to look a bit like a dragon? Please, please tell me you see the resemblance too, and that it is not just me hallusinating. Please?

On the positive side, I can mention that today I have added one more country to my list of "places I have been to". I am in Finland for the week, more specifically: Helsinki. After working for a Finnish-based company for three years, I guess that was long overdue. This addition means that I am now one meager country ahead of Mr. Incredible in our never-ending battle to be "the ultimate globetrotter" of our house. Yay.

Hm. And, you know what? There is a Marimekko store across the street from my hotel. Yaaaay.

Too bad I am travelling with just my carry-on this week. Which means:

• Serious cuts in the shoe department (brought TWO very lonely pairs - weep)
• Shopping will be extremely limited

Oh well. At least I will be a certified master of something quite cool by Friday.

Confession time

I love waking up early on Saturday mornings, because then I can allow myself to dose off again and really enjoy the fact that I DO NOT HAVE TO get up. Bliss.

Had a bit of a nerdy afternoon, with half of it spent analyzing some weird calculation results in an equity note I am currently working on, before my cousin came over to work with me preparing for her upcoming mid-term in maths. (Which makes me realize how long it really is since I was in the same situation myself, as I seem to have forgotten quite a lot).

At five I met up with my sis, the before mentioned cousin, and - of course - Mr. Incredible. Early dinner at Nodee. Tempura, crispy duck and black cod. Yum. Accompanied by a nice Puligny-Montrachet. Eh, well, ok - maybe we had two. A perfect little get-together before the highlight of the evening: Concert at Oslo Spektrum with the popular Norwegian band "Kaizers Orchestra".

I have been looking forward to this concert for MONTHS. These guys have a vision to be no less than THE WORLD'S GREATEST LIVE BAND (!). Ambitious, yes, but not totally unrealistic. They are actually quite popular even outside Norway, in spite of most of their songs being in Norwegian. Strange, yes. But enjoying them live is an experience. They really DO deliver the goods.

(And the lead singer is HOT-HOT-HOT.)

A great concert.

There is just one small problem.

Although Norway is a quite small country, we have quite a few different dialects.
And - this particular band sings in their local dialect - from somewhere close to Stavanger.
A dialect that is by no means foreign to me, but in the middle of the concert it suddenly hit me:

MOSTLY- I HAVEN'T GOT THE FAINTEST IDEA WHAT THESE GUYS ARE SINGING ABOUT!

Help.

Incredible. Indeed.

And - FINALLY -  the sidewalks are free of ice and snow! Shoe time! I have now started on the back row of my shoe wardrobe. Which contains some pretty weird mistakes, as well as - I hope - some hidden treasures. These are - I presume - something in between. From Norwegian "pretend-to-be-Italian" brand Enzo Poli. Shoes are Italian, yes, but try finding a pair of Enzo Poli shoes in Italy. Nope. No. Niente. I have not used these for quite a while. Due to a combination of toes being squeezed beyond recognition in them, AND the fact that they have been very much out of fashion. Pointy shoes have been a terrible fashion faux-pas for a while now, but according to my glossy magazines they are now coming back. Cool. Because they make my short legs look longer. At least that is what I say to comfort myself when my toes hurt like hell. The depressing part here is that I hang on to stuff long enough for them to go out of fashion and then back in again. Sad.

Being a bit swamped at work. Don't get me wrong, being busy when you work as a consultant is a good thing. So I am by no means complaining, absolutely not. And I do love my job. It is just that EVERYTHING always seems to happen at the same time. What is funny, though, is that times when I work 12 hours a day I get more done around the house, simply because I HAVE TO be very efficient, and cannot allow things to slide. And being the control-freak that we are, we cannot let that happen, can we?

What is truly annoying, though, is that quite a few unexpected things do happen when you least need them to. Like this morning. Mister Incredible, is - as I have described to you soooo many times - pretty incredible. Yes. On most occasions - this is meant in a positive way. But - of course - he is not by any means perfect. He is a MAN you know. With all the things that come with it.

I noticed a weird beeping sound getting out of bed this morning. (When I come to think of it, I might even have heard it on my way to the bathroom during the night as well.) It turns out that it was the freezer in our kitchen. Which was trying to tell me that the love of my life had been up during the night getting a glass of water. With ICECUBES. But he sort of FORGOT the minor detail of SHUTTING THE  FREEZER DOOR after him. Rightie. And it was not that he had sort of tried to shut it, but it just did not close properly, and he was unfortunate enough not to notice. Ohno. HE LEFT IT WIDE OPEN!

Argh.

So. To my great joy, this morning I have been trying to rescue some of the food that was in there. Cooking EIGHT hamburgers and frying up a kilo of moose - at 6 AM - is not my idea of a dream morning, I'll tell you.

For some reason I really don't feel like having breakfast today. Yuk.

PS. If you are reading this, dear, picking up some flowers for your little wifey on your way home from work this afternoon, might be a very good investment.