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Placement Test /Old Town

Today has been a rather long day for me. Got up at arround 7 to go and have the placement test over at Fudan. The test was really short, I just had to talk to a teacher for about 5 mins - then she said I was lvl B and that was that. Considered to change to lvl C instead (wich is one lvl higher, A is the lowest and J the highest), but decided against it because we will be racing thorough the textbook in only 2 weeks learning about 50 new words every day. While waiting for my turn I got to know two German girls; Vicki and Ruth. They were both really nice so we hanged out with them while waiting on the lists of who was to go to what classroom and such. We had about 3 hours to kill, so we went to the mall close to Fudan and did some shopping plus lunch. Ruth, Iman Irene and Vicki were all B-level just like me, but I didn't end up in the same class as any of them.. because it turned out there are 3 classes at B-level. When I got to the classroom it was just me and the teacher there for what felt like ages, she kept on talking to me in both english and chinese, asking tons of questions about me and Norway and my school, etc.. luckily some of the others showed up eventually though. In the end we were about 10 people that showed up, while we were maybe 20 on the list. After buying textbooks we all went on a campus tour. Fudan is definitely a big university - so big the people that work there normally send us a map of where to meet them etc.. hehe. I know the way to my summer course classroom at least, thats a start.
After shool I went to check out the Old Town with Cathrine, Katrine and Iman Irene. I liked this part of the city, closer to what you think China will look like sort of.. what is kind of sad is that they have modernized even the buildings in Old Town and it's full of shops and stuff inside several old buildings. They had even put starbucks and mcdonalds in there. I still liked it though, it was very different from the rest of Shanghai and it was a cool contrast seeing the skyscrapers in the background.

Quiet time

So today we had been told to stay inside all day because of the supertyfoon Muifa possibly landing on us, but as it turned out Muifa wasn't interested and it moved up to northern China instead. The wind was definitely stronger than normal, but not fatal - Miu could even take the plane back to Norway today. We still stayed inside most of the day, just in case.. but nothing really seemed to happen outside and after a while I could even see the sun going down - only a few clouds. The weather has been worse here several times already, this was nothing. Today was a really slow day for me, I mostly studied chinese characters, watched some shows I have on my computer, talked to people on msn and listened to music. In the evening we decided it was lame staying inside when there was hardly any wind so we went down to the store and got some more food - there was tons of hyperactive chinese people outside, walking their dogs, playing badmington and shopping at the mall, guess they were tired of staying inside as well. The three of us had dinner together, Cathrine makes awesome noodles, and then it was back to chinese characters and the internet for a few hours before going to sleep. Tomorrow we are going back to Fudan to have our placement test and be divided into classes for the summercourse, its so exciting! So yeah just wanted everyone to know Muifa didn't affect me whatsoever, but I guess you all probably know that from watching the news. Oh and by the way, the wiew from our balcony looks even cooler by night, especially when the picture is taken with Iman Irene's awesome camera:

Registration Day

We were kind of worried about how the weather would be today, but since we didn't hear from the university we decided to head to registration day anyhow. Unlike the others living here in Rainbow City we decided to take the subway and then walk rather than take a taxi. This wen't great and we found the way and everything, we did however calculate a bit too little time to walk from the station to Fudan. We got more and more stressed out while walking there in the heat, even ran for a few meters trying to make it on time. We were about 2 minutes late, but everyone were still at the main gate so we did sort of make it. Registration Day was mostly about filling out forms (in chinese, but we got help), getting our temporary student cards and our schedules for the summer course plus some maps and stuff. The Chinese told us that the placement test we were supposed to have tomorrow have been postponed to monday due to Muifa (the tyfoon) and that we should all stay inside tomorrow. The weather today was pretty warm, some wind and rain every now and then, but nothing I would call a storm yet, then again if the tyfoon does hit it will hit in the evening/night. Now they are saying on the news that the tyfoon might actually pass China and have its landing point in Korea instead though, but I guess we should wait and see inside just in case. Miu was supernice to us and made us dinner - it all tasted really awesome and it was great to all have dinner together in our new appartment. I guess tomorrow will be a really slow day, I guess I will try and study some chinese - seems I will be very safe though, not freaking out about Muifa anymore.

Wooooot?

Ok now Im kind of freaking out a little bit. When Iman Irene got home from the store a few hours ago she was all "ok girls, crisis meeting!".. apparently there is a super tyfoon coming this weekend called Muifa or something, strongest that have ever hit Shanghai. We wen't down to E-mart again to get supplied for the weekend - 5 kilos of rice, vegetables, water.. and I got some cola as well, hehe :P I really hope it won't be as bad as Im affraid of right now, and that my building is strong enough to withstand it - I live on the 37th floor so if it falls over and Im inside I guess Im pretty dead. I have been reading quite a few articles about Muifa and how strong it might be, seems like there will be tons and tons of rain at least and stormy weather, hopefully that's all it will be.. guess we will be evacuated if there's any risk of buildings falling down. I sure hope so! We're supposed to go to school tomorrow as well, to registrer for the summer course, but if it's full storm outside Im not sure how that will work. The predictions are now that it will hit in the evening though, so unless we hear anything else I guess we should go to school as planned.

At least I got to try hotpot before this pretty scary weekend - we decided to treat Miu to dinner because she has been so nice helping us out our first days here in China. Having her here have really made things easier as she knows the language and stuff! Hotpot is pretty amazing, you get a small cauldron to boil stuff in and well yeah - stuff to boil. We had tons of different things, vegetables, meat, fish, etc - was a great dinner, really.

Looking outside now everything seems so normal, was a lot of people down at e-mart getting tons and tons of food though - so I guess they are all worried about Muifa. Ah well all I can do is wait and see what happens I guess.

Big Change

So today we all dedcided to go to the hairdresser - it is way cheaper in China than Norway, and I really needed to do something about my hair.
I got to admit it was sort of scary for me going to color and cut my hair at a place where I could hardly even explain what I wanted, etc.. but it did turn out pretty cool, so it's allright. I told the people working there I wanted some light golden brown color (pointed at it and everything), and they got to work. Two of the hairdressers spendt ages on my hair - maybe because it's kind of long, who knows.. As the color started to take hold I realised it was a little lighter than I thought it would be and I got kind of ancious. The Chinese just smiled and threw me a "hen hao - very good!!". For a second I thought it was all bright yellow, but luckily it's not - it's not golden brown either, or well the bottom is, but the top is blonde, hehe. It's such a huge change I don't even know what I think myself yet, but here it is - my new hair:
The color and cut cost me 978 yuan, so that's about 800 something NOK I think - I had to pay more because my hair is long apparently, hehe ^^ Anyways, thats my new hair, laters :)

The financial district

After we had checked out the neighbourhood and then relaxed for a few hours, Cathrine and I decided to go check out the financial district. I really loved it there, it's so modern with tall buildings everywhere, the pearl tower, etc. It was even greater when it got a little dark and we took tons of great pictures. We found a few cool shopping centres in the area as well, and I found a huuuge Uniqlo - wich is one of my favorite stores in the world, so Im pretty happy ^^ Now Im going to sleep in the new appartment for the first time, after making some sandwiches (yaaay I can find real bread in China) and surfing the net for a few hours :)

Our Place

Today I moved my last stuff into the new appartment, so I oficially moved to Rainbow City - wuhu! :) Our appartment is pretty big with a livingroom, a kitchen, 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms and 2 balconys. The bedrooms aren't 100% the same size so we are going to switch rooms every 3 months to make it fair. As I said earlier it's on the 37th floor so the wiew is pretty awesome - we can see the TVtower and everything. I promised to post some pictures, so here's the 3 bedrooms and the livingroom:Today I have mostly been unpacking and just fixing stuff. The internet took a while to fix, and before our appartment agent got here we had to try and speak with my awfull chinese + gestures to the guy setting it up. Li You speaks english AND chinese though luckily, and he got here kind of quick. We also handed in some papers to a guy from the police for our temporary residence permit. Afterwards Irene and her mother went seightseeing or something like that while Cathrine and I just hanged out at the appartment and the area surrounding it, I got to say I love the shoppingcentre directly next to our appartment complex. We also went to a vegetable store that was run by this really sweet couple, they gave us free fruit and stuff :)

Update from Shanghai

Here we are, back at the Starbucks next to our hotel. Been a few sort of busy days, saying goodbbye to my friends Guri and Luna and moving some stuff to the appartment etc. Guri is going back to Oslo and Luna are going to study in Japan - happy that I got to meet them before they left though :) Saturday we had dinner with some of Guris friends at a danish restaurant called Kommune - pretty nice place actually and it's cool that you can find a danish restaurant in Shanghai, hehe. Sunday Cathrine, Irene, Miu and I wen't shopping before I went to Guris to get some of the stuff she couldn't take with her back home to Norway. Ended up with a huge backpack, a laundry basket and two bags - all filled with stuff! She gave me everything from beers, old food and candles to shoes, an umbrella and body lotion. Kind of like christmas :P
We got the keys to our appartment yesterday and started to wash a little bit, etc. Going to be great living there I think. Nice that we still have some days at the hotel as well so we don't have to stress too much with the cleaning and stuff- We went shopping for linens and stuff as well, the store close to the appartment complex is huuuge! They have everything, really - see for yourself:thats right, they have frogs for sale - just 15 yuan :) I got some more pictures of the appartment as well, but I think I wan't to make an entry just about the appartment a little later - plus it takes ages to upload pictures at Starbucks and we're going to IKEA soon to buy some more stuff that we need. Anyways just wanted to give you an update really, take care everyone :D

Things falling into place

So I found the best internet arround - at starbucks! :) We get to use it for free if we buy something and it's right across the street from our hotel. The connection is about a million times faster than in my room as well. Anyways a lot of things have happened since my last update, even it's only been a few days. Yesterday we wen't to look at appartments in Linping/Rainbow city - seemed like a pretty cool appartment complex and we looked at about 10 different flats. Eventually all 3 of us fell in love with an appartment on the 37th floor - we liked the interior, the rooms were about the same size, not to mention the amazing wiew!The rent is 8000 yuan in total per month, wich is kind of allright for a 3 room flat in Rainbow city really :DIm going to take more pictures and post them later on, as we actually decided to take it. Running short on time now thought as we need to go sign the contract in a few minutes. I heard finding a place would be quick, but not this quick - and such a cool place too! In the evening I went out with Guri and Luna (my friends from University of Oslo). The nightlife here seems awesome actually, a lot of nice places to go. We wen't to a place called The Place and one called Shelter. Shelter was pretty special, had to enter thorough a tunnel etc, at The Place it was Ladys Night so we got free drinks. Awesome day and awesome evening.

A new beginning

So this is crazy - I am now sitting at the hotel in central Shanghai - the biggest city in China! Even crazier.. not going home for a while. The wiew is like a huge christmas tree - sooo many lights! Anyways, I would like to tell you about the trip down here and the first day! :)

The morning of the 26th of july started out with some last minute cleaning - packing the last load of laundry and stuff. Victoria came over to help out and also to say goodbye. My parents and Ludvig came to pick me up and in the end we decided Victoria should come to the airport with us as well. Ludvig was really upset - as he lost one of his friends at Utøya in the terrorism attack and I felt really bad for leaving him, but at least talking about playing RISK put a smile on his face for a little while. Hope he will be allright. We went to Gardemoen and met Irene and Cathrine (my future room matets) with their friends and family as well - was a lot of really hard goodbyes for all 3 of us - Irene didn't leave everyone at home though, her mother is here with us now to help us out finding a place to stay and all that. After a short stop in Helsinki we moved on to the longer part of our trip down to Shanghai. On the way we met up with another guy from our class here in China that stays at our hotel as well - Alf. The plane was pretty fancy and we had our own tiny screens that we controlled and everything, food wasn't too bad either - the kids in front of Cathrine and me kind of annoyed us though, put their seats all the way to the back even if they weren't even sleeping all the time, etc. With so little space it was impossible for me to get any sleep at all - hard enough for me on planes as it is. Watched 3-4 movies, failed at falling asleep, listened to music and played on my DS most of the flight that lasted for about 8 and a half hours. It wasn't too bad really :)
We landed about 7.30 AM local time and arrived at a not too crowded airport. The security checks wen't smooth and quick - no lines or anything, probably because we landed so early. As you can see in this picture I was tired, but very happy when I arrived:

We decided to take taxis to the hotel so we wouldn't have to stress with it and try to find our way with all of the luggage (the other two girls actually had two big suitcases each). The trip to our hotel was an adventure in itself, at least for Cathrine and me (we were sharing a taxi). The driver was listening to really loud chinese techno music, sometimes singing along. I didn't mind that too much as it reminded me of J-pop. What I did mind was how he all of a sudden didn't know the way anymore, demanded that we called someone and didn't listen when we tried to read the adress to him. Cathrine succeded on her third try of showing him the road though, but somehow we were now stuck in traffic. Mr taxidriver didn't mind that at all though, gave him time for a quick smoke :) We finally made it to our hotel in the end and met up with the rest, what a relief! I got to start remembering more of my chinese, really.. maybe it would have helped us a bit. It was still early, so we decided on sleeping for about 3 hours befor going out again to fix a few things. When we went out again a little later the heat was pretty insane, apparently at arround 33 or 34 degrees, but the air is so humid you notice a lot more here. We walked arround a bit, ate and got simcards for our phones, poweradaptors, subway keycards, etc. My first impression of Shanghai is that is a BIG BIG BIG city, and its also really cool :) Best wiew today was of the TVtower and the buildings arround it, but the city in general looks so modern and clean and just.. different from what Im used to :)

Anyways that's Shanghai so far – will blog more later, not sure if I will be able to use the internet everyday though as it costs money. Facebook appears blocked as well, so I won't be able to link this post there, but hey at least the ones of you that follow me can read it.

Love from Shanghai! :)

An unreal reality

Everybody know by now Im sure - that the guy behind both of the attacks on Norway july 22nd was in fact norwegian.
He said he would rather be hated than forgotten and I had a hard time remembering his name, so I won't look it up as I will in fact try to forget it, even if I can never forget the guy or what he did. While it's awfull that one man can do all of this damage, at least it isnt some big terrorism organisation that is out to get us and that's always something.
Oslo the last few days simply haven't looked like itself. I had to go downtown to pick up my friend Rob on the bus on the day of the actual attacks and it was a freaking ghosttown.. police everywhere blocking streets, all of the buses stopping outside of the city centre.. very few people all looking freaked out.. I just walked on as quick as I could as I didn't really want to be there for long. People are out in the streets again now, but there are still military everywhere, with machine guns.. to others this might not be such a big deal, but for Oslo to have armed military out in the open like this is completely unreal to us - haven't been needed since world war 2.
Yesterday was the day of my goodbye party, at first I felt like canceling it because of what happened - but then I realised it's better for us to stick together than grief on our own, and I still wanted to see everyone before leaving for Shanghai. We didn't go out and we didn't celebrate, but we did get together. Sticking together and taking care of eachother is the only thing we can do in times like these. Those of my friends that showed up were all kind of sad, but we all agreed it was nice to get together and talk to eachother about this - see some friendly faces, not just sadness. Some of us knew people that were at Utøya, people they still dont know wether or not are safe. Still we got together and tried to make the best of it.. what else could we do? I love all of my friends so much, Im really going to miss them. Even while they were so sad they wanted to show up and say goodbye, said they would always be there for me and that they would come to pick me up if I dared to try and stay longer than a year in China.. I feel as if Im leaving them behind at a bad time, and I don't really want to. At the same time I don't feel as if I can cancel my flight to China and simply stay behind either.I am in fact leaving the day after tomorrow and that's just weird for me right now.
Rob was leaving today, so we went downtown so he could have at least a short look on all the tourism thingies downtown.. it was hard for me to see the broken glass that's still outside of some stores there - made it more real for me I guess. Sad to see Rob leave as well, he didn't get to see Norway the way it's supposed to be, the way it has always been. It was still nice to see him again and it was good to not be alone the day of the attack. Just rambling on now I guess - not a very well structured or well written blogpost, but it was nice for me to write it at least - get some feelings out there. Now the appartment is empty again, but Im just staying her for two more nights anyways and seeing how people show their support by putting flowers outside of the church of Oslo keeps my spirits up. Seems sticking together and caring for eachother is what norwegians try to do now in general.

Outlet

This entry probably wont make any sense to anyone, but I need some sort of outlet right now to just write about some feelings and stuff. There was an explosion today downtown - they don't know if its terrorism or not yet, but its likely.. nothing happens here ever, it's completely unreal to me to watch the news and know it's all 15 minutes from here. I am fine though, just in shock - I was far enough away. I actually heard the explosion though, was at my grandmother place with my grandparents, my brother, uncle and cousin.. we thought it was just thunder or something like that. To make things worse, some maniac with a machine gun went cray at the labour party's youth camp at Utøya. Who would want to hurt Norway? I have no idea.. it was in the government quarters and then at that youth camp - if their connected can it be political activists? who knows.. I really dont. And now their saying

"Norway on allert, Norway under attack"

on CNN.. this is just a complete nightmare.. really. I guess all I can do is light a candle for the victims of this tradgedy and hope there wont be another explosion. My friend from the Netherlands, Rob, is on his way to Norway now as well - Im not supposed tgo go outside and the traffic is affected as well so he will just have to get on the first bus on his own. Ludvig cant get home either or we dont want him to travel thorough the city centre right now.. its all so messed up never thought anything like this would happen to Norway ever.

Coffee and even more cleaning :P

Yesterday I grabbed some coffee with Kaja downtown and I realised that
when I thought it was just the people I would miss I was wrong. I will actually miss the city of Oslo itself as well, hehe. Sure its not the largest capitol in the world, or the cheapest, or the cleanest.. but it's still home and I will miss Karl Johans gate, having cofee at Egons close to the central station, Aker Brygge, the Oslo Fjord and Frognerparken. Oslo is a great city to live in! :)
So like I said I had cofee with Kaja, and breakfast and lunch.. we were downtown for almost 6 hours. And yes I still think it's the people I will miss the most, even if I will also miss Oslo. Kaja and I have been friends for a long time now and I will definitely miss her a lot. Our friendship did survive my trip to Japan though and she said she would come visit me in China if she can afford it.
After hanging out in Oslo I had to get some more cleaning done, and Victoria came over to help me out. That's another person I will really miss a lot while Im gone. We have been friends since I was 2 and she was well.. born, and she is my mothers cousin so we sort of grew up together. She also says she will try to come visit me though :)
I know they will both be here when I get back to Norway, but I will really miss them a lot while Im gone. Not being able to simply call and ask if they want to hang out, grab cofee, play xbox risk, ask them for help when I mess up at whatever, invite eachother over for dinner.. They are always there for me and I will really miss having them arround. That goes for all of my other friends as well of course!
This beeing said, I am still really psyched about moving to China! Im so excited about living in Shanghai it almost hurts. It is such a huge city and the culture is so different from what Im used to, going to be a great adventure and it starts in less than a week! Thanks to Victoria helping out and us beeing pretty effective I am hoping we will be done with cleaning up the appartment this evening, so the last days I can focus on saying goodbye to everyone like I wanted :)

Packing

Today has been a really boring day - have to pack all of the stuff I wont bring with me to Shanghai into boxes - and damn I have a lot of stuff!
I have been packing/cleaning all day and Im still not done.. Want to finish with all the things I am not bringing by tomorrow afternoon as I am going to my parents place then and they got room for it in their basement/attic. Think I can make it by then, but Im not sure. Got 5 boxes here so far, and my dad already took 2 boxes to their place - so can't be that much left can it? Also saved files from my old computer - actually found some songs that I made back in highschool so that was kind of cool.
Gave even more clothes away to charity today as well - dont even remember ever wearing some of the stuff in my closet, what a waste. Anyways the final week before leaving looks pretty stressfull so far, everyone want to meet up and say goodbye, but I have to move out proper and clean everything as well.. I will just have to manage balancing it all somehow I guess.

A rainy day

So today was my last day working at Tusenfryd, possibly ever.. kind of sad somehow. It was a pretty slow day as it was raining more or less all of the time. Everyone was really nice to me, saying goodbye and stuff.. really weird to leave in the middle of the season like this, doesn't feel as if it was my last day at all, hehe. It is now 9 days untill I leave for China - I don't feel ready at all, actually I am kind of scared at the moment :P Everything will work out though, I got people to take the plane with/live with, my visa, my insurance, my student loan etc.. just have to clean out all my stuff of the appartment now and Im all set I guess - Shanghai for the win! :)

Liseberg

Yesterday a bunch of us from work rented a bus and went to our friendship park in Gothenborg - Liseberg. It's always awesome to go there, get in for free and then get a VIP bracelet so I can take all the rides for free, just because I work at Tusenfryd :)
I woke up 5.50 in the morning, realising I had overslept. Had to get ready in 10 minutes and then run to the bus to make it to Tusenfryd on time. It was a 4 hours drive to Gothenborg so we had to get an early start in order to have any time there at all. Liseberg's new ride this season is a freaking tall tower (109 meters or something) - they take you all the way to the top, then drop you for about 90 meters or so, apparently the tallest freefall in all of Europe. When we got to the park we decided to go straight for the tower, Atmosfear, to avoid a long line. The plan worked and we only had to wait for about 10 mins. I really loved Atmosfear, if it had been up to me I would have stayed there all day and taken it over and over again, but we took it twice in a row at least. When they drop you you actually hover in your seat, amazing feeling. The other rides were of course nice as well tho, especially the ghost house. Liseberg has really gone all out with it and there are actors inside scaring you and everything - Im always scared to death of going there, but I always have fun when I do.
On our way home we got delayed pretty bad due to terrible traffic as a result of what looked like a pretty nasty accident. We lost the last bus to Oslo from Tusenfryd, but Leif was nice enough to drive us to Mastemyr so we could catch another bus to Oslo there - so we all got home safely. It was a very long but pretty cool day :)

Update

Sorry for not blogging, had a few days off and decided to make the most of them so didn't have a lot of time. The 6th I actually went to Tusenfryd even if it was my day off, because I had won some stuff I had to spend before moving to China. I gave the free entrance pass and the gift certificate for sky coaster to Victoria and Ludvig tagged along as well. The three of us had a great time in the park, and Im so proud of Victoria for taking Sky Coaster, she is terrified of heights. The diving show this season is pretty cool as well, they are doing a pirate theme and it has more of a storyline than it had earlier. After Tusenfryd I had dinner with Victoria and Chris and we watched TV for quite some time before I went home kind of late. Yesterday we decided on a trip to buy cheap stuff in Sweden. I don't really need a whole lot of food in my freezer and stuff as I will be moving in about two weeks, but I figured candy is always nice, and some food at least if not tons. Besides, whats more norwegian than driving across the border to Sweden to buy cheap stuff? I even found some new clothes even if I know I probably shouldnt have.. but honestly I am sick of my whole "I wont buy anything before China" thing and I really needed some new tops. Found a kind of cool dress for my goodbye party as well :D
When I got home from Sweden I had about 30 mins at home to put everything in the fridge before heading downtown to meet up with Kaja. The two of us had cofee,bought shoes and hanged out at Oslo City. I found a new suitcase for China as well- my old one broke when the plane landed in Bergen some weeks ago. The new suitcase was a bit more expensive, but I want one that will last for a while so I decided it was worth it. Its also green (not black as everyone elses) so I will recognize it at the baggage claim! :D Oh and one last thing (yeah realise all this talk about my suitcase might be boring, but I love it :P): it has a really cool code lock that the customs have a universal key for, so if they have to open my suitcase they dont have to wreck it, and my stuff is still safe inside.
Today it was work again, and I had to go to the Chinese embassy before I started to pick up my visa. I was pretty stressed out and managed to step on some broken glass that was somehow on my floor - always vacum when I break something, but I guess not good enough. I thought I got the glass out, but I was really stressed so didnt use enough time on it I guess. I got my visa anyways, so thats good :) Work wasn't too stressfull and Kim Tomas was nice enough to remove the rest of the glass from my heel, so now it should be allright in a few days time or so. Tomorrow the plan is to go over all my clothes and decide on what to give away, what to bring to China and what to ask my parents to send to China.

Back to reality for now

So yeah back in Norway again and back to work for a few weeks before moving. Today after work we had a BBQ party in the pool area, was actually really nice - people went into the pool as well, but I forgot to bring my bikini so I just slacked and ate my food mostly. Crazy people were grilling candy, or well at least I thought they were crazy untill I tried it and it actually tasted real nice :P I thought I would be really sick of Tusenfryd this season to be perfectly honest - but right now Im actually sad that I just have 6 more shifts left.. I will miss everyone else working there and the whole working with people every day thing as well. But hey Im going to China in 20 days, wich is supercool so I shouldnt be sad! :)

Admission notice

Just wanted to show you my admission notice from Fudan - 100% sure I am accepted now, YESS! ^^

The Netherlands part 2

After I left Groningen I had 3 more days in The Netherlands. I got to stay with my friend Rob and his family in Utrecht, they were all really nice :)
The first day we spendt on going to an amusement park (surprised?) called Walibi. Harm (another friend that lives in the area) tagged along as well. It was actually a pretty cool park, they had 6 big rollercoasters, their own version of a sky coaster and several other rides that we took. After the park closed we went to Harms place for a few drinks, somehow we ended up playing cards with several members of his family as well - was so much fun we forgot the time and stayed for quite some time. We got back to Rob's place so late we didnt even meet his dad and stephmother.


The next day we spendt in Utrecht and the surrounding area. first Harm and Rob showed me arround in central utrecht. Nice city with quite a few canals, a tall tall tower, beautifull church, etc. They also had a pretty cool sign outside of the central station pointing to several citys in europe, including Oslo :) After we had walked arround for a while I got to try some local food - Broodje Mario. Some kind of sandwich-ish thing that they only have in Utrecht, tasted really good actually. As it turned out there is also a really awesome castle just outside of Utrecht from the 14th century called de Haar. I really liked it there, we just missed the last guided tour inside of the castle, but the outside looked awesome too so it was allright. In the evening we went back to Harms place again to say goodbye before we went back and had dinner with Robs dad and stephmum. Apparently they really liked me and wanted to see me before I left again too, that was kind of sweet :) BBQ out in the sun really is nice, and we just made it before a huge thunderstorm came. Bad weather never stopped me though and Rob and I went back to Utrecht in the evening to see a movie.

My last day in the Netherlands Rob and I went back to Amsterdam so I would have some more time to actually see the city. We walked arround for a bit looking at buildings and stuff like that and then we went on a canalcruise.. damn there are many canals in that city, its insane! After the cruise Rob helped me to find one of the very few things I remember from the last time I went to Amsterdam - a pancakehouse that looked like a carousel. I was 5 back then and it ment a lot to me to be able to go back to the same place and see if it was like I remembered - and hey it was still there! :) I even ordered the same pancake - with stawberries and cream.
In the evening it was time to go back to Oslo again, wich was actually very sad as we had made really good friends. Nothing to do about it though I have work and then China so off I went, Rob took me to the airport and then we said goodbye. My plane was actually delayed by arround 45 mins because of a KLM plane blocking it, so that was kind of annoying - especially since it was originally leaving really late. We landed 15 minutes before midnight and I was lucky enough to find a bus to Oslo right away. Got home arround 1.30 in the morning, tired as hell, hehe. Thank god I didnt have a shift today, would have been terrible - am working tomorrow though, but that will be fine :)

The Netherlands part 1

So I didn't blog for a while, as I was on vacation in the Netherlands, the land of windmills, drugs, bikes,cheese, canals and so much more! :)
A bunch of us from World of Warcraft (also known as the guild Bloodline) wanted to meet up and we decided on the Netherlands as quite a few of us live there. I met up with another norwegian, Josefine, in Oslo first. We met a little too early and just had cofee and talked and stuff before we took the plane. She was actually really nice and it was great to get to meet her first. We took the plane to Amsterdam where we met Søren from Denmark. The three of us stayed for one night before going to Groningen as our planes landed a bit late to take the train even further. We didnt have much time in Amsterdam, but at least we got to check out the nightlife. It was pretty special how obviously people were doing drugs, my impression was that the whole city smelled like it, not to mention the red light district, thats just not how it is at home.. at all!
We were going to see some more of the city the next day, but we didn't find anywhere to put our luggage as the lockers at Amsterdam Central station were broken and just accepted dutch creditcards, so we didnt do much before our train left. The actual gathering was a bit outside of central Groningen in a house we rented at a campsite. It was loads of fun to meet up with everyone, kind of weird as well as I have talked to most of them for a long time, just never actually met with them. Mostly we just talked, ate, drank and played cards - but that was actually really nice. The highlights for me was when we went to the playground in the middle of the night and when we made the guys cook dinner for us. Everyone was really nice and Im kind of sad that I won't be playing with them anymore (as I have more or less quit the game now that Im going to move to China and everything), ah well I will just have to try and stay in touch somehow. I left the gathering a little early to go stay at my friend Rob's place in Utrecht, and the others all followed me to the car - making him promise to get me home safe, kind of sweet of them. Will write about the rest of my trip in the next blog entry, laters.

More work (department meeting)

thats right its another blog entry about my job - but hey the next one will most likely be about my trip to the Netherlands (I leave in 2 days).
Anyways, today I worked at the pool area and it was a really slow day so it was pretty slack, hehe. After work I had well.. more work :P We had a meeting for all of us working at the rides department. First we took spaceshot (thats the tower ride in the middle of all of the photos) and ate pizza then we discussed numbers, rules, etc. We also had a few awards - employee of the month and winners of the 4 truths, etc. Im pretty surprised, but I actually got an award myself as well. I won the best at interaction (best translation I can find but it means Im easy to work with basicly) - yay :)
Then we had a poolguard meeting and then a sky coaster meeting so yeah long evening for those of us working those places, but those last two didnt really take all that long. Anyways Im just working one more day, then Im off to Holland, not sure if I will be blogging from there or just blog about it when I get home - think it will be a lot of fun, meeting quite a few people I know down there :)

Back to work

Another saturday another day at Tusenfryd. Today I decided to bring my camera - just because I didn't bring it to work yet this season. Worked at sky coaster today and at the beginning of the day we didn't really have that many guests so we tried to fly to attract customers.. first I tested it then both Kirsten and Oda did promo flights, so we got quite a few nice pictures :) Another awesome thing is that we now have a new wireless phone that we can bring up to the actual ride, rahter than the old one we have down by the cash registry area. Eventually all our fake screaming did attract a good wave of customers, and noone got sendt home - happy ending! :)

After my normal shift I had agreed to work at an event (as in someone had rented the park and also some rides we needed to operate), but in the end Intern Service needed help, so I got to work there instead. Cool to try something completely new for a change.

Day off :)

So like I said yesterday, Tusenfryd was closed today and I was determined to actually do something usefull. Alltho I will need my passport for Holland in less than a week I decided to go to the Chinese Embassy and see if they had an express visa solution so I could fix it before leaving. My classmate Thomas tagged along as well. As it turned out none of us could actually hand in our application tho - as he didnt bring a passport photo and they said they didnt do the express visa right now (even if it said on several signs and also on the actual application that you could pay a fee to get it quicker.. ah well).. at least now we know where it is and have the applications ready right?

A little later i met up with Nicolai and his friend from Australia downtown and then went to Hannah and Emils place for dinner. It was Nicolai, Guro, Hannah, Emil, the australian girl (damn I hate to forget names and she was so nice as well.. =/ ), Rolf and me. They had made awesome taco for everyone, tasted great. Hannah breeds hamsters and one of them was actually giving birth while we were there.. damn hamsterbabys are tiny.. and pink Oo and cuute :)
Somehow we ended up watching the second pokemon movie, wich was kind of well.. yeah so bad it was funny. Best part was:

"why are they here?"
"to see if they can help."
"but what can they do?"
"they don't know, thats why they are here."

um yeah cause that makes sense..

Apparently Nicolai and Guro play pokemon cards quite a lot as well, Hannah has them too.. they even gave me some cards, perhaps its time to become a pokemon fanatic? After the movie we played some wii, great fun even if Im still pretty bad at the wii version of Mario Cart :P Tomorrow I will be working very late, as someone rented the park again - more money for China ^^

BBQ in the park

After a rather slow day at work (almost no guests at all, and I actually had a poolguard apprentice the first two hours) a few of us went to Frognerparken (the biggest park in Oslo) to BBQ. We were kind of worried about the weather, but it worked out - clouds, but more or less no rain and sun every now and then. We grilled, played various card games and frisbee and relaxed in the sun :) Great evening. Tomorrow Tusenfryd is closed and this time I will use my day off for usefull stuff - like fixing my visa for China and meet friends ^^

Worketi work

Still working more or less all the time - today was a rather long day, almost 11 hours in total. Had my normal shift first and then somebody had rented the park so some of us stayed for a few hours longer. Because I basicly had nothing to do between the two shifts I got to pick trash - A LOT of trash. At least I didnt have to work alone, me and Mariann (from work) actually spendt 2 hours on trash picking :S Seriously why cant people just throw it in one of the hundred trashcans rather than UNDER our rides? Ah well, more cash for me ^^ Oh AND the third day without cola today. Had a bit too much cofee though and we got to take a few rounds in SpinSpider while waiting on the next shift as well, so now I feel pretty bad.. I hope its just all the cofee and not something more =/

"Sober" for 24 hours!

Im trying (again) to quit cola, starting today. It was starting to get out of hand when I went to the store just to buy cola, and this was pretty late in the evening as well. I generally buy at least 2 small bottles of cola every single day at work, then I most likely have a big bottle at home as well - can't be good for me at all. Generally if I don't drink any caffeine I get headaches and feel super tired (wich is bad), but I have decided to at least try and switch to cofee for now - after all its not AS unhealthy as all the cola, and the cofee at work is free so I will save about 30 kr every day I work - thats about 150 kr a week.. not that much, but this is a whole summer so there are a lot of weeks! Last time I quit cola it lasted for about 1 month, lets see if I can do better this time, hehe. The last cola I drank was yesterday arround 23.00, so that means I have been "sober" for 24 hours - at least it's a start right? Wish me luck!

Summer party :)

Another saturday, another day at work. Still tons of rain so not a whole lot to do. After work I went to JJ's Summer Party. Always nice to be social and hang out with friends so it was a great evening. Today I actually have the day off, but its a sunday so everything is closed and most of my friends are either working or studying for finals (not everyone finished in may sadly).. guess I will just end up slacking at home, not that I mind that either :)

Random update

So yeah, I didn't blog for a while.. nothing much to blog about though. I have mostly just been working. Today was a rainy day with hardly any people in the park so I ended up in charge of three rides. It actually worked pretty ok, I felt a little lonely at times tho when there was no guests or employees in the entire area other than me. I got kind of hungry because I didn't have time for breakfast this morning and my lunch was kind of late (3).. but hey that was my own fault for oversleeping. The few guests that wanted to take my rides were all real nice and they respected all of the safety regulations, like they understood the smaller kids had to go together with an adult, etc. And yeah stuff like that is what my life has been all about lately, thypical summer for me. The day isn't over yet though, going to meet up with JJ later on and go eat at Max Burger, wehei! :) Tomorrow the park is closed so I am considering to go to the chinese embassy and apply for my visa.. yeah, not much else to say really :)

Busy Weekend

This weekend was pretty crazy. Friday you already read about, the rest of the weekend at work I was kind of in charge of the pool area and the other poolguards working there. It was most of the others first days as poolguards and also the opening of the pool area this season so I was a little stressed out about it to be honest. Saturday when I opened the gates the guests actually raced eachother to get to the sun chairs.. thats how crowded it was. Somehow nothing big really happened even with that many guests though and all the new poolguards did really well. After work I met up with Ludvig (my brother) and went to Victorias place as she was having a party. It was great fun even if a lot of people canceled and we even played some Risk :) Today it was back to work again - the weather was nice, but not AS nice as yesterday so we didnt have a lot to do (or perhaps we were just used to having more to do after yesterday). In the end we decided we didnt need to be all of us there. When I told the bosses about this I ended up leaving for Sky Coaster (shock) to help train one of the new guys working there this season. This was actually a pretty slack job as the new people who work there need supervision for quite some time at each task even after they have understood what to do. After work I had about 1 hour at home before heading out again, this time to watch another movie with The Shadow Project. I got to say Im impressed with X-men First Class, I loved the storyline, the effects, the humor, just everything - awesome movie. You dont have to have seen the other three to understand whats going on either as it is a prequel. After we got out we saw the line to buy tickets for Harry Potter - people are sleeping in tents and everything, not very long line yet, but a few of them are already there. Apparently you can't leave the line for longer than one hour and you HAVE TO say that you are going, you can't smoke.. etc etc. Seems pretty harsh just to get to see it first :P But I guess some people like this kind of thing as well, hehe.

A long day at work

Today was one long day at work. OBOS rented the entire park so the opening hours were a lot later than normal, but as I am a poolguard and the pool area opens tomorrow I had to complete my yearly training. The training was directly before my actual shift, so it ended up being a pretty long day at work (from 10.30 to 21.15 ish) with a lot of different things to do. I was going to work at Sky Coaster (like always), but we didn't really need a third person there so I ended up giving people breaks and then preparing the pool area for tomorrow. There was a lot of random changes in what I was supposed to do today, but it wasn't really a big deal for me - apparently this was a good thing though, cause when I got back to the office I got a little dimploma saying I had done really well today, etc.. haha :) Always fun to be appriciated, especially when you don't realise your doing a good job.

Done! :D

I am finally done with all of the final exams! :D
The last one I have been worried sick about for at least a week now, as it was on practical economics and management. Everything with calculations is normally impossible for me, but today I feel as if I might actually have done ok. The final itself was almost the same as the trial exam that we have been working a lot on the last few days, so I knew more or less how to solve all of the problems - what a relief, I was sure I would fail untill I saw the actual test! The final even had true/false questions in it.. not too hard at all. Ah well, maybe Im wrong, maybe I failed, but I think I should have passed (heard you just need like 30% correct so I don't see how I can possibly have failed).. that means I will have enough credits to go to Shanghai and that is actually in less than two months, damn thats weird to think about - but also really cool!

Facing my fear - numbers!

Today I decided I had no chance whatsoever of understanding this practical economics business on my own, so I studied together with my friends. Yesterday I had more or less given up on this entire final all together and I was still kind of down this morning. Studying with Yong, Nina and Cathrine actually helped quite a lot though - we got thorough the trial exam twice, I undestood more or less all of it - now I just have to remember it (and tons of other stuff) and pray I get something I can at least partly understand tomorrow.. hopefully it's ok that I pray even if I am not a christian.. hm.. yeah it has to be! :P Our humor today was even worse than all the other times we have been studying too long at school.. we even came up with "Fear Factor - the BI edition".. our fear was doing ABC budgets and technical budgets, but caffeine, Yong actually understanding it and more caffeine made it all ok ^^ I stayed at school for about 8 and a half hours.. I simply cant stay as long when it's economics.. I get too upset when I don't understand things, even if I get the right answer and everything, haha. Now I have taken a break and I guess I will have to study at least a little more before going to sleep. Anyways - I have a slightly better feeling about this today than I had yesterday.. my new goal is now a D, but Im happy as long as I pass to be perfectly honest.

Trying to understand practical economics..

The subjects I always struggle the most with are subjects including calculations and economy. The last final this semester is Practical Economics and Management, so naturaly I am rather confused trying to study for it. I am now trying to solve a series of problems related to technical budgeting, and it makes me rather frustrated how little I understand.. I have never had any ambitions about awesome super grades in this subject, but it would be nice to at least not fail it.. hope I can manage that at least. The plan is to study 7-9 hours a day all weekend - as I solve the problems or learn from the solutions sheet how they should be solved I write down the formulas in a way that I can actually understand - then I will try to memorize the formulas that I have written down. I think it's the best I can do... hopefully that will save me from a fail. I am worried about things I shouldn't worry about - affraid I have failed both the last two finals I did, even if I actually wrote quite a lot on them both and I can't know anything untill I get them back.. the thing is that if I somehow failed those two and I also fail this one I don't have enough credits to go study in China.. so I hope I didn't!

Chaos..

Obviously the last few says have been rather stressfull for me. I have been stuck in an ashcloud for two days, wondering wether I would even make it home to finish the finals and how serious it would really be. Flying home while knowing we were most likely close to the ash was rather scary as well to be prefectly honest, but it's not as if I had any choice, I had to make it back in time for B2B. Then yesterday I studied all day, trying to at least be able to pass the final I had today while all I really wanted to do was reload after the whole vulcano thing. I don't feel as if the final went good at all. I can blame the vulcano and the stress all I want, but I guess it's my own fault for not studying more evenly all semester.. my style is the whole.. panic attack the last few days thing, and it normally works out pretty ok. Didn't count on Grimsvötn having an eruption though, even if I guess the odds of being stuck due to an eruption must be higher in Iceland than anywhere else in the world. And yes, I realise it is selfish to feel sorry for myself when farmers close to the eruption have lost their animals and stuff, Im just feeling frustrated after the final. Right now Im just really tired and angry with the whole thing.. apparently most of my friends had a pretty hard time with the final as well, everyone I have talked to felt unprepared and were surprised with the questions we got. Everyone seemed really tired and we all made terrible jokes that everyone actually laughed at all day yesterday and all morning today (because we were all so tired). I can't do anything about the B2B final now though I guess and I all I can do is move on. There is another final in 4 days, and this one is on practical economics and management.. so yeah, I will need a lot of luck and hard work if Im going to have any chance at passing it at all I guess.. on the bright side that is the last final, and two months from now Im on the plane to Shanghai :O