Rockabilly Bon Voyage

Here's a photo from the 50's themed Bon Voyage party we attended on Saturday, as promised. I stole it from Y's blog. I'm to the left, in the middle is Y's flat mate - it seems in a dangerous mood. Sweet Swedish is to the right. Below you an see the rockabilly "tattoo" that Prince Charming painted on my left arm with kids's 'tattoo markers'. It had a scull, an 8 ball, stars, flames - the works!


I've started piling my gear on the living room floor. No big surprises yet - thank God. I'm flying to Stockholm to meet up with Y on Monday. We'll check in for Kathmandu together. She's bringing my backpack to Sweden by car tomorrow so I only have to worry about hand luggage on Monday. I'm now past the stadium of cracking up and have entered survival mode. What will be will be. I'll probably go into full blown panic on Saturday or Sunday.

6 days to go

Photo found here.

Today Y very generously offered to bring my backpack to Stockholm by car on Thursday. I'm first flying to Stockholm from Oslo to catch up with her and then we'll check in to go to Kathmandu. I've been so worried that my pack will get lost on the flight from Oslo to Stockholm so her offer was very welcome. It does however mean that I now only have 2 days to pack instead of 6. I'm numbed. Panic is lurking in the back of my mind. I can't wait to leave because then this horrid stress with packing and preparing will be over. Since we're planning on carrying our own packs and not hiring porters (weird Scandinavian cultural thing) I've weighed nearly everything on my kitchen scale. The goal is weighing the packs in at under 20 kg. Preferably it'll be 20 kg including water. So if I can get it to 18 kg I'll be satisfied. I'll post my packing list later - maybe someone doing something similar later could use it?

I also bought a new camera today. It was 50% more than I had planned to spend - without an extra battery and new memory cards. But it was exactly what I was looking for and I was sick and tired of being in that shop. So I just closed my eyes to the price and swept my card. Luckily, Y thinks it's a really good camera. I hope so. It's a Canon Ixus 82 IS and the girl in the shop said it had arrived earlier today. My old camera is so lousy it must be a major improvement either way. The important aspects to me was battery life and being able to turn the screen off to save even more battery. And Y recommended Canon. So now, before I've even turned it on, I'm happy with it. Happy and a bit more broke than before.

Snakes and Ladders

The battery on my camera was nearly dead at the party yesterday so I don't have any pictures. Sorry. If any of the others got any good shots I'll post it then. I've spent the day weighing toiletries and drawing 'Snakes and Ladders' on my sleeping mat. I had no idea one toothbrus can way 20 grams and another one 7 grams!

Bon Voyage

Every voyage requires a proper Bon Voyage-party! Y and I decided to have a 50's theme to ours and we've prepared for weeks. Today Prince Charmng and I have been in style the whole day. Above you see the essentials. I'll bring my camera so maybe I'll post some photos from the night tomorrow. It's now only 8 days until departure for Nepal and I'm really starting to freak out...

Prince Charming's home!

After spending 10 days in France Prince Charming finally came home today. When I got home from work he was making me dinner. And he'd brought wonderful gifts. He truly is Prince Charming! *sigh*

Spring in Oslo

The weather was really good today. I didn't take any photos while wandering the streets this afternoon doing different errands but I'll post a few I took last week. On the walk to the van in the morning I decided to show you a little bit of Oslo. The result you saw above.

PS. The money spending shopping monstre has escaped quite a few times the last few weeks. I'll update you on the wonders and horrors of that some other time.

No pictures today...

I was planning on posting photos from spring time in Oslo today but Blogger won't cooperate and upload my photos. It'll come later!

So for now you can look at Agathe's great outfit (so easy and so cool!) over at stylebytes.net.

"Things don't get any better than this"...

...was my mantra this weekend. The first real weekend of sun and warmth and I was so lucky I spent it in the mountains. My friend invited me up to a ski resort called Hemsedal for the weekend. When I saw the weather forecast reported 8-10 degrees Celcius and a big sun symbol I had no doubts about going.

I drove up on Friday night and arrived as my friend King S started making dinner. What a luxury! We didn't start Saturday too early since the night before saw many a glass of red wine and discussions about life. But it's now day light nearly 'till 9 pm so we weren't in a rush. Started off on the ski touring in the slightly wrong place so we ended up in rough terrain. It didn't matter that much because the weather was so great anyway!

Once we were above the tree line things were just so easy! We cruised all the way to the top even though it was a bit further than expected. And the ride down was fantastic! Watch King S ski Telemark (free heel) below!

The next day was even better. Another late start due to our After Ski but it turned into another amazing day:

(All photos by King S or me.)

Nothing's like spring time ski touring!

Came back from the best weekend ski mountaineering with my friend King S. I'll tell you more later, now I have to run off to work. Enjoy the photos for now!

Pickpockets suck!

A few weekends ago a pickpocket stole my MP3 player on my way home from work. It was suddenly gone and I've looked every likely and unlikely place. It has evaporated. So I have reported it stolen to the Police. Today I received both the confirmation letter on the report and the letter saying the case is closed due to lack of evidence. I'm sending the confirmation on the report to my insurance company as my home and / or travel insurance will cover theft on the way to work / school. Can't remember which but I have both in the same insurance company so I'll find out.



What else arrived in the mail today was my new MP3 players. I actually went ahead and ordered two. The one pictured below is the exact same as the stolen one. A Creative V Plus 8 GB. I'm very happy with it and didn't want anything else. It's small and it's easy. 8 GB is enough for me since it was only half full when it was stolen. The web shop I ordered it from also had Creative Zen Stones 1 GB on sale for only NOK 199,- ($ 40 with the crummy exchange rate on USD these days). It's so small and lightweight i thought I'd bring it to Nepal. It's pictured above. And since it's cheap it doesn't matter if I loose it, break it or it gets stolen while I'm away.

20 meters in 2 hours

This is the tale of how I spent 2 hours to go 20 meters today. Well, strictly I drove and walked way longer than 20 meters. But you'll see what I mean.

17:45: I have dropped some stuff off with the Workplace Van since my colleague broke his leg the other day. 20 meters back in the One Way street is my building. Easy to get home? I don't think so!

I was very illegaly parked to unload the boxes and paranoid about the traffic officer I saw two blocks back coming our way. I pulled out into the street, thinking "Now I just have to find a parking space and I'm home." That was the trouble - finding a space. Driving around my block I realized they had reserved all the spaces around the neighbour block for a movie set shooting inside the abandoned school I live next to. I'm sure it'll be developed into fancy apartments when they're done. Anyway, I started to extended my search realizing that the rest of my neighbourhood had temporary signs up, saying No Parking Tuesday from 18:00 to 07:00 due to street sweeping. They do this every spring. The few spaces left were full long ago and the streets were full of cars looking for a space to park in. Everybody had to move their cars at 6 pm, ie. now!

I then came to think of my boyfriends car, parked 8 blocks from our building (nearest free 24 hour street parking). A lot of the streets in the area had temporary No Parking signs up. I started panicking. They were going to tow the Ford and I had promised to look after it! Stuck in the van with no parking in sight, I started sweating. I decided to go home, park the van illegaly on a reserved spot belonging to an office building across the street and go move the Ford, hopefully in time. It was now 18:10. I had to go home to pick up the Ford car keys anyway and the dread of driving over to check on it with no place to leave the van was too much. I had to get rid of the van and walk over. It was either a ticket or being towed. Easy choice.

Walking the 8 blocks was a nigtmare of anxiety. What if they had just towed it? What if I was too late? I had my boyfriend on the phone from France to pinpoint the car's location so I could get to it as fast as possible. Luckily, when I got there, the temporary signs on that exact street stated No Parking Thursday 18:00 - 07:00. In other words, I have to go move it on Thursday. Crisis avoided for today.

When I got back to the van I hadn't gotten a ticket. I was almost disappointed because now I'd have to move it to avoid getting one. Not that I wished for one, after having awokened to a parking ticket on the darned thing this morning. Darned movie set!

I decided to drive over to my colleague to drop off the charger for his phone, as promised. I parked there, on the first legal space I could find. The only legal space I could find, actually. It took me 25 minutes to walk home. I could have taken the tram but wanted to stop for food on the way, so the walking was my choice. No complaining there.

When I got home, there was a free legal space on the other side of the street. It was now 19:45.

Heard this in a while?

Tina rocks!

An Eventful Sunday

Photo found at Jupiterimages.com

It's already been a very eventful Sunday. Prince Charming left for France at 6 o'clock this morning. He's off for 12 days bouldering and I sure will miss him. I can't go since I'm taking all of May off to go to Nepal. Around lunch I got a phone call telling my my colleague at work broke his ankle last night. So I went to see him at the hospital. He's himself, although a bleaker version. Poor guy.

Picture found at Jupiterimages.com in the Old Visuals Everett Collection.

When I got home I delivered my tax report. Looks like I'll get a little bit back and not have to pay any extra tax, so that's good.

Picture found here.

What's that doing in there?

Picture found here.

In a compartment of my bag I never use I found the charger for my old mobile phone. The phone I don't use anymore and therefore don't carry around. But the charger has obviously been coming to work with me for three to four months now.


If you take a look in your bag / backpack or maybe wallet I bet there's at least one thing in there that makes you think: "What's that doing in there?" Tell us about it!

Wool here, there and everywhere

More stuff are now fixed and ready for going to Nepal. I got a new Smartwool Microweight T-shirt and Boy Brief and Smartwool socks. I like always having wool next to my skin in the mountains. It feels the safest. Since we're carrying our own packs the weight is a major issue. We can't take many different items of clothing so the ones we do bring have to work in all conditions and layered with each other. I also got a new Wool Fleece Bra from Devold. I have one just like it from before and really like it. It's probably been in the washer 50 times now so I doubt how much wool there's actually left in it.

Great jacket, great concert

The Nouvelle Vague concert yesterday was great! I had so much fun and enjoyed every minute of it. My friend S hadn't heard them before and also thought it was really good. The jacket I'm wearing in the picture above was sown by my Mum back in the 80's. We found it while searching for treasure at my parents a month ago. I felt SO cool in it! Thanks Mum!

Nouvelle Vague

Tomorrow Nouvelle Vague is playing at Rockefeller here in Oslo. Prince Charming and I are going out for dinner first so it'll be a great evening! I'm really looking forward to it. You can hear some of their music here.

Gnarly gaiters

We decided from the start not to buy new gear for Nepal if we have stuff that is good enough already. Removing my old full gaiters from my old boots and putting them on the boots I'm bringing has been my intention all the way. Wearing full gaiters in stead of regular ones gives more warmth. You can see my plan for footwear here.



But nothing ever runs smoothly. Well, the first gaiter did come off quite nicely. When I first put the gaiters on my boots I had to glue them on. This is to prevent them from sliding off the tip of the boot. I first glued them with the kind of glue you fix bicycle wheels with. This didn't prove to be a very good idea. The glue became brittle in the cold and the right gaiter popped up after a while. I can't remember what I glued it with after that but it might have been super glue. Whatever it was it surely worked. It worked very well, as a matter of fact. This evening I spent 45 minutes carving my gaiter off my boot. I did manage to save the gaiter. The photo above shows what the boot ended up looking like.



I haven't glued the gaiters on to my favourite boots yet but this is what it's going to look like when I'm done:

Sunday in the City

Starting out the day with tidying up in the basement. Now everything's neat and organized in boxes reading "ski" or "cycling". I feel like we are good people, doing things we should do. We've even photographed the lot to document our belongings.

Following that, we strolled down in the rain to the new Opera being built here in Oslo. It's a very impressing and beautiful building. I can't wait for it to open so we can go inside and have a look around. The band "Seigmen" are playing there but it is of course sold out. A great band reunioning in the new Opera, now that would be an experience!

To finish a good day off, we had burgers at Harvey's and saw "Sweeney Todd". Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter never disappoints!

Double sick

Picture found here.

Since I've now caught a cold in addition to my red and sore eye, I've spent parts of yesterday and today on the couch watching Futurama. Things could defintly be worse. Things could definetly be better too. I could be skiing this weekend as I had planned. But still, things could be worse.

Kiss my shiny metal ass!

The Irony of Life

Photo found here.

After having visited my physician on Wednesday I felt pretty good. Everything was normal and I felt one step closer to the departure to Nepal in May. The next day I woke with my left eye red and sore. So today I had to spend another half a day, including 1,5 hours in the waiting room to get a prescription for my eye infection. I can't believe I got it the day AFTER having visited the Doctor! Now, if that's not the irony of life, then I don't know.

Searching high and low

The third pharmacy I tried had Diamox in stock. In the end it felt like a hunt! "Does anyone have Diamox to sell me? Any Diamox-pushers around?" Having gotten hold of it now means one more thing to cross out from the list. The Doctor by the way said I was as healthy as can be. He gave me a prescription for Trimetoprim against Urinary Tract Infection, just in case. I also picked up Ciproxin against Severe Stomach and Bowel infections when at the pharmacy. You can also see Paracetamol against headache and Rhinox, for runny noses pictured above. And this is only the start of our first aid kit! Y was in charge of first aid in her group when she attended The Army so I'm leaving what our first aid kit should consist of to her. We're definetly bringing a lot of pills, though!

Medical attention

Photo found here.

Today I'm going to see my Doctor for a full check. Wouldn't want any surprises popping up while away! I'll especially get him to listen to my lungs since I've had a cough for a couple of weeks to make sure it's nothing serious brewing there. And I'm going to the farmacy with our prescriptions to buy Diamox.

Photo found here.

Diamox is used to treat Altitude Sickness and we're bringing it just in case. We are aware that some people take it prophylactically (forebyggjande) but have been recommended by several guides and doctors to use it if we need it. So that's what we're bringing it for. Hopefully we won't need it but it's comforting that we're able to buy some time to descend it one of us should experience acute severe Altitude Sickness. We're not climbing any of the "really high" mountains but it feels good being prepared for any eventuality.

Another great weekend skiing but now...

...back to work!

The weekend was perfect with two long days skiing. It snowed the whole of Saturday and Sunday. We were four of the maybe ten people off piste on Sunday. The resort is very small and the off piste great so there's seldom a long line waiting to take the lift. Most times you can just ski straight onto the lift. The picture above is another one from our Easter trip, taken by Y. I only took one photo the whole weekend and that was with my mobile. And since I'm not very nerdy (I hope) I have no idea of how to get the photo onto my computer. I suspect there was a cable delivered with the mobile phone to start with. But I got it from my colleague who didn't like it so that kind of stuff never made it through. I've never missed it before so it's not that big of a deal.

Phtoto found here.

And now it's back to work!