I’ve been thinking about the layout of the house for some time, of which I wasn’t completely happy about.

Today, we switched the office and the bedroom around, and suddenly, we have a bit more space for all we need the rooms for. We won’t have our clothes in the bedroom, but that doesn’t really matter.

Last weekend, I contacted the Eidsvoll concert band (an orchestra including only woodwind, brass and percussion instruments), to see if they were intersted in getting another member. And Monday in the afternoon, a man called to give me some more information.

The man in question turned out to be working at the electrician’s company who had done some work at the house earlier, and he’d also stopped by our house on two occasions.

Band practice is Monday nights, so I went the very same evening. It felt really strange playing again after over a year’s pause, but I managed to follow the music, at least by looking at the sheet music.

This will be a good opportunity to get out of the house at least one night a week, and to get to know new people.

As I was saying in the previous entry, my friend Nina was staying with us before catching her plane(s) to go back to school in Grand Forks, ND.

Thursday morning, we stopped by the supermarket to get some Norwegian chocolate for some of her friends, before going to Eidsvoll to catch the train to Oslo Airport Gardermoen. After checking in, we went to get an ice cream each, and chatted for a while. Then, it was time for me to get back home, to clean up the house, and to go shopping.

Saturday, in the late afternoon or evening, we are having a friend of Sylvain from France over for dinner, along with his family, and another family. For the past week, the seven of them have been driving around Norway, admiring Norwegian mountains and fjords, etc.

For the occasion, we’re serving "fårikål" (lit. "mutton in cabage"), one of Norway’s national dishes, so they will at least have tasted a small part of my country’s "culinary tradition".

Anyways, back at the house after grocery shopping, I get a call from K, a guy I’ve known since before he was born (I’m born in April, he’s born in August of 1983), because K’s parents came to visit us while he was still in his mother’s tummy. I hadn’t seen him in a little over two years, when I’d brought Sylvain to Homme for the first time.

Coincidently, he was staying at Gardermoen between flights, because he works part time as an air steward, and because his next flight would go from Oslo the next morning.

After all this time, I wouldn’t pass up the occasion to see him, and he ended up eating dinner at the house, before I drove him back to the hotel.

Wednesday was my first official day back to university after summer vacation. When I woke up that morning, I knew I would have a busy day ahead of me:

Before getting on the train to go to Oslo, I was supposed to give my house keys to my friend Nina. She was going to spend the night at our house, because she was flying back to Grand Forks, ND, to start her last year of college.

In all the excitement, I’d forgotten to remind her of the name of the station, and so she didn’t get off when she was supposed to (Eidsvoll verk stasjon). Fortunately, the train turns around and goes back only one stop after (Eidsvoll), but I was getting on, and so I only had about 30 seconds to give her my keys before going to Oslo.

On campus, I was meeting one school friend for coffee - the coffee shop there makes the best white moccachino ever! - before she was going to the airport to get her kid. After that, I was having lunch - home made chicken salad by yours truly! - with two other school friends, before meeting with my MA thesis adviser.

I ended my day at the university with the first lecture of the semester...

July 31 - August 3, I volunteered at the Oslo Science Fiction Festival, mostly as a "door woman", but also performing other miscellaneous tasks.

It all started last summer, when I read a newspaper article about the festival in the national newspaper Aftenposten. At the time, I thought, "That might be fun!", but didn’t think about it much before I came over it again a few months ago.

The festival is a merger between Norcon and ShadowCon, two former annual Norwegian sci-fi conventions, and has been in its current form for the past two years.

After I showed my interest for volunteering at the festival, I participated at one initial meeting, where I got to know the (faces of the) people running the show. I wasn’t able to participate at the second meeting, however, because I was in the south of Norway at the time.

When I showed up at the festival last Thursday, I expected to be only working at the festival, and not participating in any of the events. My boss, however, encouraged me to find thing of interest, and we would work my shifts around these. And so, I was able, amongst other things, to watch some segments with the Scottish author Iain (M.) Banks, one of the guests of honor, including a book signing, where I got one "mainstream" (his word, not mine) fiction novel dedicated to myself, and one sci-fi novel to my dad.

The volunteers compensation was one "credit" per hour, which could be used for buying food in the cafeteria, a festival t-shirt and a reusable water bottle.  We also had access to the "Ranger room", where we could relax between shifts, and make sandwiches if we were hungry. Those of us working late afternoons and evenings, were given dinners made by the "volunteer uncle" (a guy whose responsibility was the wellbeing of the volunteers).

At the festival’s closing ceremony, there’s a lottery, where the winners can choose amongst a certain number of prizes. Those who win first get the best ones, etc... Personally, I found nothing of interest amongst the prizes, so I didn’t buy any tickets, but some went a bit overboard, and bought entire lottery books... And of course, they won lots of things...

All in all, a good experience, despite the random train schedule, an the fact that the national train company NSB chose this period to start working on the rails going north from Oslo...

Day 1

Friday night, with about an hour’s delay with their flight from London airport Heathrow, Emma and Sandy came through the gates of the ‘Nothing to declare’ zone at Oslo Airport Gardermoen’s custom’s area.

These two girls are friends I met during my stay in Cannes about six years ago, along with a fourth member of our foursome, Angelica, who was the only one who couldn’t make the trip, as she was stuck in California at the time... We were very sorry you couldn’t make it, Angelica, and have tried our best to document the weekend with photos found in the photo section (at this time, only the four of us have access to the album. I will give access to people with passwords later).

Sylvain and I picked them up at the airport, and we arrived at home about 11:30pm. We stayed up until about 1am before I collapsed. Before that, we got the two camp beds ready for the girls in the office, and drank some tea.

They had brought me, upon request, some tea. Sandy had gone to Whittard of Chelsea in London, and gotten me a small selection of English leaf teas (Ceylon, Earl Grey, Darjeeling and English breakfast), all gathered in a very nice wooden box along with a dip infuser.

Day 2

For Saturday morning, we had decided not to use an alarm, and woke up past ten. After getting ready, us three girls headed by train to Oslo. There, we first headed up to my university campus, which obviously was deserted because it was a Saturday. From there, we walked down to the Vigeland statue park in Frognerparken, where you can find, amongst other things, a statue for which my great aunt Tordis was a model when she was young.

After the park, we headed downtown again to buy lunch at the Subway sandwich shop at the train station. I know it’s not very Norwegian, but I hadn’t eaten there in a while, and wished to go there. Fortunately, Emma and Sandy didn’t object to my proposal.

When lunch was over, we headed up Karl Johans gate, the main walking street in Oslo, towards the royal palace. On the way, we went into a couple of bookshops because I needed to look for some post-its to use for my MA literature, and because I wanted to look for English editions of the Sisterhood of traveling pants series.

Before reaching the palace, we passed by the parliament building, where Sandy also massaged my back (thanks, Sandy :D).

Heading back to the station, I wanted us to take the T-bane to get to the station quicker, to be able to take the train that stopped at Eidsvoll verk. Unfortunately, my lousy sense of direction (and memory, and stress) caused us to take a train going in the opposite direction, thus making us miss the train. Instead, we took the train going to Lillehammer, and Sylvain picked us up at the station at Eidsvoll.

That night, we watched Music and Lyrics and The Whole Nine Yards while eating Sylvain’s homemade pizza. Sandy and I also did some yoga, which did wonders for my back.

Day 3

After getting ready in the morning, we headed out of the house for a few hours. Our plan for the day was to visit the Eidsvoll manor house. This was my third time there, but first time with an English-speaking guide. Before going in, Sandy got her picture taken with a man who turned out to portray the Danish prince Christian Fredrik, who had wished to become king of an independent Norway in 1814. During the tour of the manor, we “ran into” him again in the prince’s private quarters, where he gave each of us a copy of the access pass each representative had been given to be able to attend the elaboration of the Constitution.

After the visit, we spent the rest of the day back at our house, first outside on the terrace in the sun, and afterwards watching a series called Medium, which I’d started to watch about a week earlier. Both of them seemed to like it, and also seemed to get caught up in the storylines of each episode. We also watched Robbie Williams’ concert at Royal Albert Hall, which accompanied his “Swing when you’re winning” album.

For lunch, we ate pieces of bread with a kind of sardine paste (mashed sardines mixed lemon juice and butter) which Sylvain had made while we were at the manor. For dinner, we ate pieces of salmon marinated in a soy and lemon sauce and accompanied by tagliatelle pasta.

Day four

This was the only day we woke up with the help of an alarm clock.

For lunch that day, we had decided to make banana and chocolate pancakes. So, first thing we did after breakfast was to head down to the supermarket to get the needed ingredients. There, the girls also got some Norwegian chocolate to bring back to England.

The girls made the pancakes from scratch, whisking the batter by hand, and frying them on Sylvain’s hotplate, which we can also use to melt raclette cheese when we’re eating Swiss.

During that time, I made them some “mixed tapes” (actually CDs, but oh well…) with some French songs, some movie sound tracks (Legally Blonde and Music and Lyrics amongst others), and Robbie Williams’ Swing when you’re winning album.

While waiting for Sylvain to get back from work, we watched some more episodes of Medium, which we continued to watch while eating. All, except vegetarian Emma, had fried chicken for dinner that evening. Emma had a veggie omelet, and I think Sylvain had a piece of that, too, although I’m not sure about that.

After dinner, it was time to bring Emma and Sandy back to the airport. This time, I had to drive, because Sylvain had drunk a glass of wine by mistake while eating.

We made it to the airport about an hour before the plane was scheduled to leave the airport. After the girls had checked in, they wondered if we should go get a coffee or something before they went through the security. Unfortunately, my tears started to appear at that moment, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it if we stayed together any longer. So, Sylvain and I watched them go through the metal detectors and towards their gate before heading back to the car and back home.

I cried all the way home, and then some, while watching the ’50’s movie High society and checking the Gardermoen and Heathrow websites for Emma and Sandy’s plane’s flight status. As they did coming to Oslo, the flight to London was delayed for one hour.

Emma sent me an SMS when the two girls arrived safely at the airport. Her boyfriend Johnny picked her up at the airport, while Sandy, apparently, spent the night in London with her boyfriend Sam before heading back to Cambridge.

My dad left Friday afternoon, after spending a few days with us. We didn’t get much rest, however, because that same night Sylvain’s dad arrived for the weekend.

His visit started with a delayed flight from Paris, and a "lost" suitcase upon arrival in Oslo. It ended with him finding his car with a flat battery, but the middle was, apparently, worth all the trouble.

On my request, he had brought four bottles of red wine (Cahors and St Nicolas de Bourgueil), some smelly cheese and some French sausage for his son. Sylvain wouldn’t see these gifts before retrieving his father’s suitcase at the airport Saturday morning. That day, I had planned for us to go to two of Oslo’s many museums; Norsk folkemuseum and Vikingskipmuseet on the island of Bygdøy. For those of you also reading Sylvain’s blog, his impressions of the weekend are coming up, he just has to get the time to sit down to write an entry about it...

We also climbed up on the roof of the new opera building in Oslo. One word of advice for those wanting to do the same; bring sunglasses, because you risk going "snow blind" from the reflection of the sun on the white marble.

Returning home from Oslo, Sylvain showed his father the building where he works, as well as the bike trail he uses when going back and forth.

Sunday morning for father and son was spent at Eidsvollbygningen, with a "private" tour in English, arranged by yours truly. I will arrange for another "private" tour this weekend, when my friends Sandy and Emma are coming from England to visit us (see The vacation marathon part 3).

As well as discovering the various ways Norwegians have used wood to build houses, I also urged Sylvain’s father to taste a local speciality called "lefse", which is a kind of soft flat bread folded in two, with a mix of a little butter, sugar and cinnamon in the middle. He liked it so much that we found some for him to bring back to France...

We came back from France last Sunday night, and arrived at the house a little past midnight Monday morning.

One of the bitches of traveling by plane, is the weight restrictions - in our case, 20kg of checked in luggage and 10kg of cabin luggage. Because the excess kilos cost an arm and a leg, we decided to send a lot of stuff by mail. Even by getting rid of about 25kg divided into four prepaid boxes, we were still quite close to the weight limit... One of the reasons for this might have been the four bottles of wine we had in each suitcase, but still...

We had a very good time in France, seeing members of Sylvain's family again, some after a one and a half year wait. The weather in Argelès wasn't as good as it could have been, but we still managed to go swimming and get a tan (and a slight sunburn...).

When we got to Evry and Sylvain's mom, we went to see the Chateau of Vaux le Vicomte, which supposedly inspired Louis XIV to build his Chateau at Versailles.

Monday afternoon, Sylvain's friends from Rennes came, and spent the night here, to be a bit closer to the airport. They got to see some of our life here, amongst other things, the house where we lived before, and where Sylvain works.

Wednesday (yesterday) afternoon, my dad and Anggun (the cat), arrived by train from the south of Norway. Anggun will stay with us for a few weeks, before we bring her with us back south. Dad returns to the south tomorrow afternoon, after which The vacation marathon, part 2 begins...

I had my last exam yesterday. Man, it is good to be done! Especially when I haven’t had classes for the past few weeks...

I’m spending today vegging and washing clothes. Tomorrow, my mom and a friend of mine are coming for a two day visit. Then, on Friday, Sylvain and I are off to France. Hopefully, the weather there will be as good as it has been here for the past couple of weeks. I’ve even started to get a tan! :)

You can see pictures of the house on Sylvain’s photo page.

The latest addition(s) to the house are curtains for the kitchen and the living room, which I bought in Sweden a few weeks ago with my mother.

I have also acquired some dessert bowls and spoons. My mom gave us six ice cream bowls which have never been used in our household because of the small quantity. We bought the spoons in Sweden.

The desert spoon size is between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, and which makes it perfect for eating cereal. In a couple of weeks, we will also receive a 68 piece steel cutlery set, and then we will be well equipped, at least cutlery-wise...

We still need some more shelve space for books and DVDs and such, and a small "entertainment center" to store what is needed for evening entertainment...

We had Sylvain’s boss, and his wife, over for dinner Saturday. They brought us flowers and an Italian sweet, sparkly red wine called Brachetto d’Acqui. Unfortunately, my allergies has forced us to put the flowers out on the terrace...

Sylvain had prepared a very nice (French style) meal, as usual, starting with snacks and aperitifs. The main course consisted of delicious pieces of duck meat, a potato and apple mix and a mixed greens salad. Then followed a "cheese course", and the meal culminated in a home made pear-and-chocolate cake, accompanied by the wonderful, Italian wine.

The evening ended where it had started, in the couch area. Our guests had placed themselves in the armchairs, leaving the couch to us. Sylvain’s boss didn’t seem to want to leave his seat, as it seemed exactly right for this hight (he’s quite tall).

Overall, a very enjoyable evening!

We have a few more additions to our schedule.

When we come back from Argelès, we will probably spend at least a couple of hours with Nico and Sophie, two friends of Sylvain’s from Rennes. They are visiting Sophie’s sister Hélène who has been in Oslo this past semester with the Erasmus exchange program. For those of my readers who speak French, Hélène’s blog can be found here. We will only have the one day to see each other, because they are going back to France two days after we come back.

Secondly, Sylvain’s dad is coming on a weekend visit the weekend after our return.

Thirdly, I have two friends coming from England for a long weekend in the end of June.

But before all this, I have to finish my semester. I have to hand in a second term paper in a little over a week, and an exam in the beginning of June. On Friday, we are having Sylvain’s boss and his wife over for dinner, and next week, we will also have electricians come fix our electrical system, and a locksmith to reinforce our locks.

I will also slowly begin the work for my Master’s thesis...

We decided a while ago to renovate the second bedroom, partly because of the wall-to-wall carpet, partly because of the mint green color on the walls. When Sylvain told me he was getting a long weekend because of May 1st, I thought it might be a perfect opportunity to get the work done.

We cleared the room on Thursday. At first, we feared removing the carpet would be a tough job, but it turned out only to have been lain on top of a linoleum flooring.

Before laying the carpet, the previous "renovators" had tried to remove the lino, but ended up leaving a large, black stain instead, which is probably why they didn’t attach the carpet with glue. Fortunately for us! Instead of spending time on removing the carpet, we could look for the color we wanted on the walls.

Friday, we went to a the stores to pick up paint (and accessories) and parquet. For the walls, we wanted a really light color, but not white. We ended up getting a light blue paint for the walls, and white for the baseboards. The parquet is dark, and made of real, German oak wood.

We painted the "frames" the day before yesterday, and the walls yesterday. The blue color really looked blue before drying, but this morning it looked a lot better.

Am very excited to get the furniture in, and some paintings on the walls.

So I’ve told you before about the chimney that needs fixing.

Today, a guy came to inspect the electrical circuitry in our house. The inspection and following repairs will cost us a lot of money in the short run, but will grant us a insurance discount in the long run. And, afterwards, we won’t have to worry about things breaking down, at least not for a while.

There are going to be a lot of small things that need repairing, as well as some bigger things. We will have to add some more circuits into the fuse box, so that we will be able to wash and dry, and heat and use an electrical water boiler at the same time.

While the electricity inspector/electrician was there, he installed a residual current device for less money than the regular electrician would charge, and also gave us a couple of surge protectors, to prevent electrical devises from voltage spikes.

We are also going to change some of the locks on the house, and the handle on the front door, and see if that gives us another insurance discount.

Let us hope the buyer insurance will reimburse us for the costs of fixing the hidden faults.

My (our) summer plans are falling into place.

Sylvain and I are spending ten days in France after I finish my exam in June. First, we are going to spend about a week with some of Sylvain’s aunt and uncle and grandmother in and near Argelès-sur-mer. The nearest airport is in Perpignan, and to get there, we will fly Norwegian from Gardermoen (Oslo) to Orly (Paris), and then with AirFrance to our destination. From there, we will rent a car to go the half an hour drive to Argelès.

During our time in the south of France, we will go wine hunting and swimming, and of course spend time with my newly "adopted" grandmother (I asked her if it was OK a while ago) and the others.

We will head north on the Friday, but will stop at Orly to go to Evry for the weekend to visit my "mother-in-law". She, in turn, will come visit us in Norway in July, after having taken in the fjords on the west coast.

I’ve also decided to volunteer at the Oslo Science Fiction Festival, which takes place on the Oslo university campus July 31st through August 3rd. I don’t know what my my responsibilities will be yet, but everything has become clearer after I attended a meeting yesterday with some of the people already involved.

The couch arrived today, a bit before 1pm. The delivery guy called forty minutes before he arrived. When we arranged for the delivery on Saturday, I was convinced we’d have to wait a week before getting the couch, because the people at Ikea also insinuated that I lived way beyond the normal delivery zone.so imagine my surprise when I got a call the very same day, telling me to expect the couch between 10am and 4pm the Monday after.

The couch was delivered in four smaller and three bigger packages, all ready to be assembled. I am proud to say that I did almost all the assembling, though Sylvain helped me a little when he came home from work.

We will post pictures of the house (the couch included, of course) very soon.

My second birthday 'day' started quite early in the morning, because we were finally going to Ikea!!!

When we arrived there, the parking lot was already full. We didn't have to drive around for too long, though, before finding a space.

We started upstairs in the big furniture department, because we were looking for a couch for our living room.  We were looking for something simple, not too big, and with a built-in chaise-lounge. We had looked in a few other furniture stores before coming to Ikea, but we could end our search here, because we found something we both liked. What we ended up with, was this couch, but with gray washable covers.

We also wanted to buy a "singing" water boiler compatible with our induction stove. We already had an electrical water boiler, but the socket where we plug it in is attached to a fuse which also provides current to the living room, where we plug in our two 2000W oil heaters. Basically, when we want to boil something and use the oil heaters at the same time, the fuse blows. (Fortunately, we have the modern system, so we don't spend a fortune on fuses!)

We got 55cl (1pt 3fl.oz) beer glasses because I wanted huge glasses to drink from. I think this obsession with huge glasses comes from my brother always taking ours at home, leaving none for me. But now, I finally have my own, and they fit exactly in the kitchen shelves!

We got curtains for the bedroom and for the bathroom, a bedside table lamp for Sylvain, oven mittens, sheets for our newly acquired cots, and hangers for the bathroom door. We also stopped by the food section to get double chocolate crisp cookies for Sylvain.

My parents were coming up again with the black leather armchairs they had been storing for us, a bottle of champagne and a birthday cake.  We met at Ikea, and because Sylvain was getting tired of shopping, he went with my dad in my parents' car and drove towards the house. I finished up the shopping with my mom, and we drove Sylvain's and my car home.

We had a very nice dinner consisting of duck meat with a side of potatoes, apples and sauce, accompanied by red wine (white wine for me, but I'd already finished my half bottle before the meal started). For dessert, we had the cake my parents brought, a cream cake with chocolate sprinkles around the sides and a marzipan top. Yum!

My mom and I spent the rest of the night watching the newest BBC version of Sense and sensibility, adapted by Andrew Davis, who also wrote the screenplay for Pride and Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth and the "wet shirt" sequence).

I turned a quarter of a century yesterday.

I will have had two celebrations this year, one with "only" Sylvain, which was yesterday, and one with Sylvain and my parents Saturday (see Happy 25th birthday to me, part two).

It all started at midnight yesterday, when Sylvain gave me my present, a pair of white gold, sapphire and diamond earrings :

You'll have to excuse poor quality, I took the picture myself with my cellphone.

I spent the day at home, waiting for our new washing machine to arrive. To make a long story short, when it hadn't arrived at 3pm, I phoned Elkjøp's call center to figure out what was going on. After about 30 minutes, they call me back to tell me that the people who were supposed to deliver the washing machine hadn't been told, but that it could be delivered now asap, if I had someone in the house who could help to carry. The machine is now installed underneath the dryer :D, but I've learned my lesson to not go back to that store again...

But before this happened, I got an unexpected visit from two firemen who were inspecting the pipe and the presents of fire alarms and extinguisher(s).  We had to search for a while to find the pipe hatch, which was hidden behind some shelves in the kitchen, and clearly broken. We have to get a mason fix that, and some cracks in the pipes.

I checked the papers for the house, and I reconfirm the poor work of the guy deciding the state and value of the property. It clearly states that the guy hadn't bothered to move furniture to check for damages on the non-visible sides (including the pipe hatch, apparently!!!). I hope this is sufficient grounds for a "hidden faults" insurance claim!

I'd told Sylvain I wished to eat pancakes and muffins for my (first) birthday dinner, and that is what I got! In addition, he had found, and chilled, a bottle of Coteaux du Layon wine, a sweet wine from the Loire valley, to go with the meal. YUM! 

The move had a couple of casualties: the washing machine and one of the base elements on Sylvain’s home made loud speakers. The latter can, fortunately, be repaired quite easily with spare parts bought from a Norwegian website. The former, which had already been capricious before, couldn’t take the second big move, and stopped spinning the day before yesterday.

So, yesterday, we returned to Elkjøp at Jessheim to order a new one. It’s an energy class AAB. The B refers to its spin cycle, because it  "only" spins 1200 times per minute. The more expensive model is 1500NOK/187EUR/294USD more expensive for an additional 200 spins per minute. To be honest, we would have gone for the more expensive one, but it doesn’t come into the store until the end of April, at which time we would have run out of clean clothes.

The washing machine, which will fit better into our wash room than the old :D, will be delivered on Thursday, which happens to be my 25th birthday.

With the help of my parents (and their car), a trailer and two of Sylvain’s colleagues, we were able to move all the rest of our stuff into our new house.

We had a lunch break in the middle of the day, where each of us got a slice each of Sylvain’s chocolate cake for dessert. Yum!!

We were able to use the stove and the dish washer for the first time, and they work very well. The dish washer only emits 45dB, and so we hardly hear it. Fortunately, it has a display indicating the time remaining.

We have also decided to buy a new washing machine, because we don’t really have space for the old one in the "wash room", because it opens on top and not in front.

It won’t be thrown out though, because it can be put into good use in our "guest house" in the south of Norway, so guests will have the possibility to wash things at their convenience.

Today, Sylvain, my parents and I went back to the apartment in Eidsvoll to clean it and this. It took us 1 1/2hrs to finish - without my parents we would have had to double that... When we were almost done, I went up to the landlords, who told me to just leave the keys in the apartment. They don’t seem to be afraid of burglars...

We were lucky to be done yesterday, though, because it started to snow last night, and hasn’t stopped yet...

All we have to do now, is start tidying up the house. I’m hoping to have the house warming party before the summer, but there’s no rush...