"It's not good, it's not bad - it's just different"

After this post I don't think I'll be bothered to blog anymore until I'm either on my way to Switzerland or already there. All I know is that now, when I look over at my bigbigbig suitcase filled with all my favorite things, I'm thrilled. I've taken AFS's advise and I'm not filling myself up with expectations, but I can't help being excited. I leave in 3 days. I have 3 more nights left in the country I've lived in and known my entire life. I'm like a little kid but this is way better than Christmas eve and my birthday all together! I've been exchanging mails on Facebook with one of my host sisters (Lisa) and when I arrive in Glarus there's a music festival there, she asked me if I wanted to go and really I can't imagine a better way to start my year! I love music, and I love festivals and I have a very good feeling about my year! Also I'm no longer confused. Excited, excited, excited!

I'm like this

And when a catchy tune is on I'm like this

And I also feel like this

Other is that when I started packing my suitcase, I for once decided to do it properly - so thorough that I wrote a list of everything I put in my suitcase! Just because I'm thinking I might have forgot something I'll write down everything I'm bringing, and if there's something vital I need to bring; dear God tell me. Thankies.

Clothing:

My Volcom jacket for snowboarding, a raincoat and a blue winter coat for more festive occasions. Two light outer jackets; one blue and one grey with a cheetah print. My trainers, a pair of sandals and a my new flip flops. My eight favourite pants and four favourite bras including my favourite sports bra (relax, I will by more underwear). Two pairs of woolen socks. four light scarves, one buff, one knitted neck and two hats; one purple (fav) and one brown (for snowboarding). My black swimsuit, two swimming caps and my fav goggles. Eight pairs of tights; training, blue, purple, flower printed, zebra printed, woolen and two grey nylon ones (one dark and one bright). A high-waist black skirt and a colourful dress. A vintage vest, waist belt and hippie shirt. Two large grey sweaters and one tight fitted one. A pair of grey/red/white/anything else shorts, a pair of high waist black shorts and my denim shorts (fav). Two black tank tops, three white ones, a green tube top, two white tops, one plain white tee, two coloured ones (bought in London) and my new green Puma t-shirt. A woolen undershirt (a musthave during cold winters anywhere). My navy blue cardigan, two brown belts and a bikini.

This is what my room has looked like these last few days

Articles:

Disposable razors - so that I'll not become a beast until I get a proper one. A Buddha jewlery box with my favourite rings and necklaces in it. A silky Chinese bag with all my bigger necklaces and bracelets in them. Eight books; a book about Sunnmøre, The Alchemist, Jane Eyre, a how-to-macramé book, A Beggar in Jerusalem, Ian Dierach and Papillion (which I'm currently reading). Seven videos; My Audrey Hepbrun collection (a three piece), Miniscule, Mansfield Park, Le Destion Fabuleux d'Amelie Poulain and Jane Eyre. Eleven CD's; Two Bokkereidards Blues Band CD's (my dads' band), Minor Minority, Jamie Cullum, Michael Bublé, U2, two Kanye West CD's, Bloc Party, Blondie and Garbage. The beautiful stationary I got from Susanne today, my external hard drive and my portable ipod speakers.

Things I'm bringing but are not in my suitcase yet; a pair of jeans and a pair of harem trousers (are they called harem trousers in English?), presents for my host family, my new hairspray (I had to buy one in Sweden because it was too cheap), various chargers and technological stupidities, anything I can't bring through customs (my tiny and very unsharp yellow scissors) and any other things I would've forgotten - because I've definitely forgot something.

Bye bye Norway!

Other I just took a round in town with my dad (looking ever so cool on his Harley Davidson) saying goodbye to aunts and uncles and my godparents before leaving. Tomorrow I'm saying bye to my friends at school and of course my beloved, fantastic and worlds best grandma! It'll be a hectic, probably a little bit emotional last day in Volda. But as I said, I'm excited, excited, excited!! (<--Two exclamation points!)

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)

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.

The end

So that's it. My last competition ever.. over. It's like an end (or perhaps a beginning?). I can still picture myself in the 6th grade (about 11 years old) when I dreamed of becoming the best. And I think I had a fair share of talent, and I could've come a lot further than I have. Which is probably the worst part. But this is how it is; now I'm just gonna swim for the one reason; I love swimming!

It was a nice weekend; socially wise. Sport's wise I blowed. I doubt I've ever done as poorly as I did this weekend. But I guess one can't win them all, and going out with a blow was my style - a low-blow that is. Either way, I'm sorta happy and relieved that I'm done with all this stress now, I don't have to have that friggin' nervous feeling anymore. And yet I'm a bit sad, because going to competitions are fun, and I do enjoy it I have a lot of friends there now (and a boyfriend, lol). Not satisfied at all (with the results that it, very satisfied with the boy!). But I'm done, so that's that.

Sooo, over to something completely different; I've found out that my departure date to Swiss is 21st of August. That's insane, haha, I leave in 68 days. Better start planning what I can bring, I guess.

How was your weekend?

Cheers for now

Sunny

Different!

Before I start this very loong post;

Should I start video blogging? I'm gonna do it next year when I'm in Swizz, but I dunno if I should start right away or not!

Starting off with a random picture I found hilarious:

I am now taking a break in my studies. Maths exam tomorrow. And I've decided to tell you about my weekend; because it was excellent! After this weekend it's actually occurred to me that I'm moving. To a different country. Where people don't know my culture, or I theirs. I don't know the language, norms, rules, customs or anything. It's so bloody exiting!

I started off 11 in the morning here. Flew to Oslo, waited three hours, felt like hell (still dunno what that was all about, but I was sweating, peeing, shaking and freezing all at the same time (peeing happened at the loo, ofc). Luckily it passed), and went to Stavanger. Spent two great hours with my friend Rebekka before I went to the meeting point. Met some of the guys there and felt a bit awkward, or, I was still shaky, sweaty, head ache'y and I swear if it wasn't for the bus ride I had dropped dead right there because I felt so dizzy.

Our camp..house--thing.

Anyways, we took the bus to this other place, where we met some more people and took the bus further away from civilization to a farm where some people came and drove our bags to the camp site, and we had to walk - at least until they returned and we got a hike! On this bus trip/walk I got to know Karoline, a really sweet girl from Kristiansand who is going to France. We shared a room at the camp site, together with Sara and Ida. Great fun!

Mads (green) and Johannes. Two boys with what seemed like an endless amount of energy and laughter!

When we arrived, we had plenty of games where we introduced ourselves and started to get to know each other. It was a lot more fun that expected. Camps and games is something I combine with my days in the Christian scouts and Christian choir trips, but no! This was hilarious, and I had a blast playing games like a kid.

The first night when we played mafia. I got killed first. Heah.

More fun and games!

Waiting to play more games!

Haha, hug tag! If you're taken, someone has to hug you to free you! Best tag ever!

On Saturday we had a bit more serious-play-serious-play thing where we sat down in groups and talked (with game interludes) about things we had to be prepared for next year, asked questions and sometimes just did the complete opposites of what we were supposed to do. Like this:

This is how we take notes.

And Saturday night we had this insanely weird ritual thing, they called it albatross. If it rings a bell then you know what it is I'm talking about. I sat on my knees for two hours, and when we were done I couldn't stand up, which was very amusing at the same time as it was extremely horrible (I was scared I would never walk again!.. but it took about 5 min).

When I'm given a pencil and a piece of paper.

I don't know what more I can say about the weekend apart from my trip home. Dear holy buttfucking christ. I'm serious, for me, traveling is stressful enough. When something goes wrong when I'm out and about, it's like a frame holding up my sanity just crashes. And this happened Sunday. I was supposed to land on an airport about 2 hours from where I live around 9pm. This way I would be home safe and sound right before midnight. But nooo, my airplane was delayed with an hour, and then an hour and a half before it took off from Bergen - where we were supposed to only have a 10 min landing and then take off again. We land at the airport around a quarter to 11pm and I'm weeeell stressed out; my bus has already left, I dunno how the hell to get of the island and the tunnels are closed. Thank God I have my dad ( <3>

So things are cleared, I take the bus across the lake-thingy and a taxi will pick me up and drive me home on the agency's tab. But heeeeeey, the ferry had problems. Another half hour of delays. I was well pissed when I finally found my taxi and was prepared to sit two uncomfortable hours with someone I didn't know. But karma is great and gave me the best taxi driver ever! He never stopped talking, was funny, interested and fond of playing Queen pop songs very loudly. It made the rest of the trip alright - as did the fact that Scandinavian Airlines had to pay 2600,- to get me home that night - and even though I came home about 02pm I had made yet another new friend this weekend: Vebjørn the taxi driver.

Everyone!

All in all I'm beginning to become more anxious, excited, scared, happy, I mean, I literally don't know anything about next year. It's half the excitement, but still. I dunno how I'm supposed to feel about leaving, I mean, it's gonna be extremely tough leaving everyone for a year. And I've been dumb enough to get me a (very very very sweeeet) boyfriend pretty much right before I leave. And all my friends and everything. I think I'm gonna have to put all my feelings aside until I'm de-stressed and ready for lazy summer days and nights. In other words I'll have a look at my feelings in a week or two, perhaps they're sorted out by then!

'til then it'll be more or less the very serious type of posts I've had earlier, yuss.

How was your weekend?

Cheers

Sunny