New, neu, nouveau

22 days left. Or actually 11 since I'm gonna be 11 days in Sweden before I leave (I leave for Sweden in 4 days), and I've started packing. It's so far just a tiny nightmare, but I haven't begun on all my tops and favourite garments yet, so I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a hell of a nightmare when I get that far..

Have in mind that I started braiding on Monday, so I feel I've got the hang of it pretty good! And it saves me a hell of a lot of money doing it for myself too!

Apart from that I have a new hobby; Macramé! No, I'm not braiding long carpets or anything, I'm trying to make decent necklaces, bracelets and ankle bracelets! And my friends are back home, so I finally feel like I've got a life again (although the sleeping too long and staying up too long is unaltered)! And bigbigbig news; We're getting a puppy! Tomorrow! It's supposed to be a Sunny-substitute while I'm in Switzerland. I'm not sure if I should look upon it as if they need something to replace my natural cuteness, or all my barking. I've got my fingers crossed on the first.

This is the race we're having, but different from this dog here (googleled) ours is all black. I don't know the race in English, but it's a schnauzer! And I've come up with the winning name proposition; Gizmo!

Cheers for now

Sunny

asdf

So my departure is closing up with lightning speed. Today it's 27 days until I'm leaving, actually, in 27 days I'll be in Switzerland. But I like to think that it's 17 days, because from the 4th to the 15th I'll be gone to swim in Sweden for about 10 days. 32 hours of swimming. Heah, and I've barely been exercising properly all summer, so I'm sorta trying to kick my body back to reasonable fitness and I'm positive since todays run was twice as easy as yesterdays even though I did the exact same route.


What it should say here is; why the EU want's Norway as a member.

Annnnywhooo
Yesterday I had a very delightful message. I've received a scholarship (I have no other word for scholarship but in Norway a scholarship doesn't work the same way they do in American teen movies)! I was expecting to get something in between 20-30K but noooh. I received 43K. Which is a lot. Calculated to euros it's almost 4800 euros. And my face was all happy and shit. Because this puts me in a very good financial situation - something of which I haven't been in for.. well, never! Woop woop!

This was my face when I received the email.

Now that that's alright, I'm a lot more chilled before I leave because the only thing I've got left is saying goodbye to people and packing. To be honest I'm more concerned about the packing... (not because I love material good more than my friends and family, but because I'm returning to these people so they can chill out. While what I bring will be crucial!) so I've started thinking about what to bring/what not to bring.

Look at this cute cub! I want one! I'll probably have to settle for a stuffed teddy version, which isn't as cute, but again it won't kill me.

Now if this doesn't melt your heart and makes you wanna hug it, then we can't be best friends. Ever.


This is Zante, some island somewhere in the world, where I'll someday lie on the beach and be like; "shit I'm livin it"


These lists are more for me than for you, watch the pretty pictures if you're bored


To bring:
-Clothes
Warm clothes
Expensive clothes (like my raincoat, skiing jacket(which is supercool and the most expensive garment I own))
Favourite garments
Some nice outfits
All of my pants (because I've grown accustomed to them and buying new underwear sux)
Four pairs of shoes (I've made the difficult decision of leaving my fav shoes behind - mostly because they've started to fall apart)
My favourite hat
Stuck between bringing two or five light jackets.. I know it's smart having some light jackets, and I really don't need more than perhaps two, but they match different things. I'll probably end up meeting myself halfway and bring three!
-Other
My favourite books (well, some of them.. and two books about Norway with lots of pictures in them to show people how similar our landscape is)
A variety of my favourite CD's and DVD's
My Mac (ilu), Ipod (ilu), camera (you're alright) and chargers for all these fckrs.
Gifts for my host family, but I've yet to find out what this will bee. Hm

Ever since I saw this photo almost a year ago, I think this is one of the sexiest men alive.



Not to bring - even though I really want to:


-My entire closet.. *weeps*
-Misc hair products like hairspray, hairgel++
I wanna bring these monkeys!


Yuss..

Cheers for now

Sunny

Three-O

Today marks my 30-days-to-departure. It's actually insane, because it's come so unbelievably quickly. I mean, I just turned 17 (in March) and now I'm moving away from this small town where I've lived my entire life. Right now I'm very excited still a little bit sad. But since I am coming back it's more exciting than sad. Since today is the day when things are really becoming real to me, I'm going to use this post to talk about what I know for now!

Just a google photo, it says Engi, but not sure if it is!

It's a little bit over a week (approximately 9 days) since I got an email saying that I was to live with a family in Engi, Glarus. As far as I've understood Engi is a small (very small) town a bit up in the mountains and the canton of Glarus. I went wiki and checked out Engi; it's tiny. In 2003 it had a little bit over 650 people living there. This is.. tiny. But I think Glarus (population
5500) is close by because that's where I'm gonna be schooled and (hopefully) swim. I'm also going to live not too far from Zürich, which I think is an awesome city. If Engi was further away from society it would've bothered me. But it doesn't. I think it's gonna be positive for me to live in such a small environment and this will help me integrate easier.

I have perfectly cropped in this arrow to show you where in Switzerland I'll be placed. Unless my geography skillz have been completely outdated, I would say this isn't too far from the Alps!

I've only heard from the mother of the family (who's name is Claudia) once. I don't know if my mail wasn't sent or if they are too busy. I hope I'll hear from her again soon! But I'm going to have two host sisters, and I've been exchanging mails with them on Facebook! They seem really nice and I'm really looking forward to getting to know them! The oldest sister is my age (actually I'm only a few weeks older than her) and is called Lisa, while the other sister is a year younger than me and is called Hannah. They both seem like really nice and cool girls and I hope we'll become great friends. The father is called Kaspar, but I haven't been in contact with him yet. But the family seems real nice and that gives me a great mood!

The smile on my face!

Since I'm going to live in such a small town, I'm a little bit worried about my swimming, but I hope I'll be able to swim at least three times a week. If I have to take the bus to training I'll probably not be able (or arsed) to swim more than that. But I guess I can jog a bit and such. And I'm also looking forward to finding out what kind of sports there are there, I would like to try out something new, like Yoga or dancing? I don't know, but it would be really cool! One other thing is that Engi has a skiing center. I can't begin to describe how cool that is! I have high hopes for the Swiss winter, and think I might be able to actually become a decent snowboarder! And another thing is I'll be able to snowboard in Switzerland, which in itself is kinda cool.

It's just a googled photo, but I think this is the facility! I'm seriously looking forward to be blazin' down this hill!

Since my departure is only a mere 30 days away, I've been beginning to think about what to pack, what I have to do before I leave and getting nerves that I'll do something stupid and miss my flight or something else that will fuck up everything. I'm trying to cool down though, and concentrate on being positive.

A photo of a part of Glarus (according to Google), not sure if this is Engi, though..

Pack :
(this is where you stop reading and look at the nice photos I've put up here and there)

I'm bringing four trousers, and I know which ones. After that everything gets a lot more difficult in the clothing department; style is very important to me, but lately I've been changing style every week, and dunno how it's gonna be a month from now. I know what shoes I'm going to bring though; a pair of winter shoes, my Nike's (from London), my new white summer/spring shoes, a pair of sandals (new ones too) and that's it. I think that'll do for basic shoe garments, I might have to bring a pair of nice shoes too... holy shit, I've forgotten all about having to think about bringing clothes to wear to such occasions. Shit. Shit. Shit. Goddamnit. Now I just became upset with myself. But whatever (please forgive me for just rambling on, but that's why I'm writing this). It's alright though, there has to be something in my closet I can bring. If not a dress I at least know of a nice skirt.

I'm glad my suitcase is bigger..

My main problem with clothes is that I have an urge to dress summer and spring all year around, which often ends up with me freezing various body parts blue (no dirty thoughts, I'm thinking about feet, arms etc). And I'm going to be living 800m above sea level, which I think is pretty cold. So I'm trying to go against my natural urge to pack lots (or only) of tops and shorts (I'm obviously gonna bring lots of t-shirts and tops to wear underneath warmer sweaters and stuff). I have much hope in myself and think it's gonna work out.

Me during winter, pretty much.

Apart from that I want to bring the family some gifts from me, but I dunno what to give them. The normal thing would be bringing some chocolate from Norway, but dude, I'm going to Switzerland, wtf like. They're world famous for their chocolate, and'll probably think ours is pish. But I'm going to bring some music both Norwegian and other to show them some Norwegian music (bringing one of my dads' albums) and to let them get to know my music taste (even though my music taste has no beginning or end). And I've also been with my grandma and found some books that show the environment I'm used to living in (Sunnmøre).

This is the stuff that's gonna make me add about a 10000kg to my current weight. Worth it? I think so yes!

Apart from the packing issue there are lots of paper work to fix (with my retarded school), lots of people I have to say good bye to, and not to mention I'll be gone the 4th of Aug to the 15th/16th (not sure when I get back?) on a swimming camp in Sweden. So when I get back from swimming for ten days (obviously tired as hell) I'll have approx three days to finesse everything before I head down to Oslo to say goodbye to my "second" family (Jeff and her mommy) and then leave not to return back to Norway for ten months. It's kinda insane, right?

Anyway, cheers for now

Sunny




(I'm not going to post any photos of the family before I'm down there and have talked to the family about it, because it's plain stupid to do such a thing without their consent)

Jane Eyre

I just finished watching 4 hours of Jane Eyre (the BBC episodes I bought in London). And even though I've read the book, I'm so in love with this movie (though the book is even better). I cried, and I fell in love, I was scared and I was anxious. Aaaaah! I'm gonna bring it to Swiss, and when I feel sad and bummed out, I'll be watching these exact four hours of amazingnesssssss



Ooh dear! Kill me now! I want to live a hundred years back and experience this kind of love. Aaaah. Strike me down for being such a hopeless romantic!

Cheers for now

Sunny

Everlasting Love

Cliché title indeed. But summers are filled with clichés, so I feel it's appropriate.

On Wed, I was in Molde on the Molde Jazz festival to see Jamie Cullum. And I'm telling you, it was amazing! He has been one of my favourite artists for a long time, but now he is my favourite person! I'll admit I have a celebrity crush on Jamie Cullum!

A bit about the event itself; I started the day with watching my brothers' band play on an open stage and when they were finished my dad drove me (on his Harley) to where I had to stand in line - and managed to ignore all the signs that said no cameras - and had to go out of line, pay for some asses to almost lose my camera and get back in line again. Then I got inside and found Julie and Ida and sat down with them.


Mr Cullum

Warming up for Jamie was a group with a difficult name..eer.. something with a Q in it. They were sound, vary catchy. Played a lot of songs I've heard before, but I dunno if they made them or if they've covered them. Unfortunately for them, it started pouuuring down as hell when they were playing and people had to seek shelter. We had to get those huge plastic bags that you wear and look really cool in.


He is totally in his music, and that makes it even greater!

Then mr Cullum finally came on stage after a break, and he was so cuute. I mean, he's gorgeous. And it was still raining but the crowd was in a good mood. He started with "Singing in the Rain" and believe it or not, the rain stopped when he finished the song! That was soo decent! And so was the rest of the show! I mean, that's the biggest amount of energy I've seen in such a small person (because he is short)! He was bouncing all over the stage, and the vocals, and the bass, and drums and trumpets and guitar and piano and everything was awesome. At one point he even went in to the audience. We were well gutted, because he stopped where we stood like five minutes earlier, and I could've touched him.. Gutteeeeed


Just look at him, wooow

After that we went and checked on life and such. Fun night all in all. Not a big fan of sleeping in a tent (actually I hate it) and woke up half way chocked and with my body screaming for water (but we had none) and we had breakfast and my cousins and my brother drove back home while I wandered around in Molde waiting to take the bus to spend the weekend with my babe!


A photo from the camping (not taken by me)

We went camping, which has always been something I've never really understood the whole camping thing before, but now I do. I had a great time. The weather was very sunny - though a bit too windy for me (I can live with a breeze, but I go cold quickly) - and we did stuff that I rarely do; we went out with his boat, played monopoly, cards, some weird game where you throw sticks and I learned a new game called Rummicub. I even went swimming (well, jumped off the boat and then climbed up immediately). All in all I've had a great weekend and looking forward to a stressing coming few weeks.

Todays lulz

hahahaha



Cheers for now

Sunny

Summary

Soo.. These last two weeks haven't been hectic, but I have been in Oslo and when I came home I had a visitor and no Internet, so nothing from me. But here ye, here ye; a summary of my last two weeks.

First I drove down to Oslo with my parents and my younger brother (always tempted to write baby brother, but he's no longer a baby... at least not all the time), and was in Oslo Tuesday morning. Jeff had some work thing going on, so I had to get my ass from the dock where we parked and up to where she lives in about 20 min to get a key and get in. Let me remind you that it was a 1000 degrees and I had trousers on (and Oslo is not known for it's windy conditions). So there I was, speeding up Karl Johan with a bag dragging behind me, sweating from everywhere and all I really wanted to do, was take the bottle of water I had in my bag out and take a long sip, but I couldn't.. It all ended well, and Jeff made the meeting, but none of her co-workers met so she just came back home. I changed into lighter clothes, and we headed out to meet Sonja! Which I haven't seen since Dec because she has been in France on exchange! Woop woop. So we went around and chilled with her for the rest of the day. Nize.


Oslo isn't really this beautiful all the time, but it has its charm when it's sunny outside.

On Wed we went to Tusenfryd! I suck at taking photos (meaning I brought my camera to Oslo and took about 11 pictures), so I swiped some of the net. We took all the cool rides, and also experienced something disturbing; taking a shortcut to one of the rides, we went through this trail thing. This is where we can thank my bad habit of looking down when I walk (most of the time, not always), because about a mm from Jeff's foot I saw this huuuuuuge maggot, and then you can imagine the rest; screaming, jumping, almost vomiting eetc. It turns out it was a small snake and that makes it even worse. In the end of the day (we were there for like four hours) we were dead tired and had to wait in the frying sun for the bus that was 20 min late. We went back home and just chilled out with brownies and a movie (I think).

The thundercoaster.

Thursday is kind of vague to me. I think Jeff was at work. I think. So I started the day with reading in the sun and stuff, and then when Jeff was finished at work we went out to get me a new pair of shoes, and first I had my heart broken shoe-wise, and then it was rescued again! All thanks to Jeffyyyy. And then we were planning to go swimming at some beach, but found out it was already about 8. pm already and thought naaah. Which was smart, because on the way back, it started raining. So we were like; yay, we didn't take the wrong decision. And when we got of at our stop (which is about 120m from Jeffs door) it started raining for real, so we thought it was good we lived so close. But then, out of nowhere, it started like tropical raining, but without the heat in the rain. It was insane! We had to take our towels out and put them on us and then run (with slippery slippers) to her door. We were soaked and spent a few hours indoors and at night we took an evening stroll. Just because we felt almost constipated from sitting too much.

This is what tropical rain looks like in the Philippines. It's wet.

Friday the entire family came. Because lots of her relatives are in the Phils right now, and they were spending the night at Jeffs so they didn't have to pay for hotel and stuff. So we slept at a friend's house. Going out for a midnight snack (well, they were. Being a vegetarian kebabs aren't really my thing), we took like a shortcut or something, and from a distance we saw this guy sleeping on the ground. First thought was like; silly man, drinking too much and going to sleep in the middle of nowhere. But when we came closer, we saw that he was unconscious and was bleeding from mouth and ears. Immediately Jeff took his pulse - which was barely there - while I called an ambulance. We were in a hidden sort of street so we told the ambulance we were gonna wave when they came. Suddenly a gazillion people gathered around and were like "is everything alright" balbalbalblabllllaa. We knew that if we weren't standing there they wouldn't have given a shit. Then this security guy came over, and the beat up guy started waking up, or, tried to wake up. And he said we could move on, because the less people that were there, the better. We felt we did a good deed!

Norwegian ambulances are yellow (I wrote that because I feel I have to put text under all photos if I out text under one)

When we woke up the next day, it was raining. And we were defo not dressed for rain. That sucked. We didn't do much that day. But more people came to visit Casa Jeff, this time a load of Filipinos that I am very familiar with (I'm like part of the family with Jeff, but I don't know her cousins). So Jeff slept and I watched tennis with them. It rained that day too. But when it stopped we went to Sonja just to talk girl talk and shit. It was much fun, especially since I won't see her for another year now. Mjee

Then I took the excruciating 11 hour bus ride home, but it was worth it, because when I stepped of the bus, I only had to wait about 15 minutes before my babe came! We were home alone all this week, and tbh we didn't do much. The weather was shit, and we did boring bf/gf stuff but it was a very nice week still.





Since my geography knowledge about Switzerland is very limited, this is where I think I'll be living. Somewhere close to Glarus!

And now for the big news! I HAVE A FAMILY! I'm going to live in Engi, Glarus in Switzerland! It wasn't French like I hoped, but I got over that very quickly, because my family seems really cool! I read over the rules, and I realized that a few things are gonna be quite different, but I'll adapt quickly. Right now I'm trying to write them an email and stuff! And it's also just 39 days until I leave! I can't believe it! It's gonna happen really fast, because this week I'm going to spend some time doing lots of shit I have to get done, and then going to a Jamie Cullum concert at a Jazz festival and also watch my brothers' band play at the same festival. And then continuing up to spend a few more days with my baby boy. Come home, spend lots of time with friends before I go to Sweden for this swimming camp thing. And when I come home from Sweden, I pretty much have to pack and get going. Wow!
Later I will update on this, maybe even put up some information on where I'm gonna live and the family and stuff! I'm so excited!!


Jamie Cullum on Thursday! Oh yeah!

Anywho, today the sun is shining, and when I finish my mail, I'm gonna sit out on the porch reading and enjoying some strawberries!

Cheers for now

Sunny



Check out my brothers' band; Skullsplitters (the name of the band should tell you something about the genre)
Skullsplitters at myspace.

Herroo

As in "hello".

My blog is very uninteresting because I'm in Oslo and I suck at taking photos. I've taken about 10 photos, but none I'd like to post. I'll come with like a sort of...I dunno. SOMETHING in a week when I finally might have time to sit down and write something useful.

But if anyone is interested; I'm having a very good time indeeddddddddd.

In meantime; here's a pretty picture of a fancy llama for you

Cheers for now

Sunny