Summertime in Oslo

We've had 3 weeks of great weather now, with lots of sun and 20-25 degrees. The sun is now rising at around 5 in the morning and setting at around 10. I've been taking Paola for trips around Oslo, places that John has told me about or places that I find online. First up was a picknick at Gressholmen, a small island 20 mins. from the center of Oslo. Supposedly there are fish there too... Next up as a 4-5 km hike into Lillomarka which is the forest to the north-east of Oslo which has great rails and is dotted with little lakes, where I actually saw tons of trout in. Yesterday we went to the botanical gardens, which is not that impressive, but very romantic and easy to get to.

Some pictures, including a couple from a earlier fishingtrip

Fatherhood

That's right, I'm gonna be a daddy! We're expecting him/her in early December and although it's quite scary, I'm trilled about it. The whole thing is a little unreal still, but Paola is starting to show a tiny belly now which in makes it seem a bit more plausible that she has a little human growing inside her.

This have been going up and down in Norway, the business started really well this winter and then cooled down a bit. I'm starting up a couple of projects now that are very exiting, but have a higher risk then I'm used to (I've been spoiled with 0 risk in Mexico a while now). Paola has had a hard time adjusting, especially before the summer came. Right now I'm sitting on the veranda enjoying 24 degrees and sun in shorts.

Instant gratification

I've been taking pictures for a while now and it's one of the many things that I enjoy a lot and spend too little time doing. During university I learned the basics of film development and got a decent SRL for Christmas one year. It was a great camera, but the pain of having to wait to get the pictures developed was always something that bothered me since I'm very much an instant gratification kind of person. Later I got several mediocre digital cameras until picking up a pretty fancy model this last Christmas. Although the camera takes great pictures and obviously delivers the results instantly, the digitalness of it has never appealed much to me. Printing the pictures is ok, but it still feels like an artificial second step to a system where the pictures want to remain digital, uploaded to my Picasa album.

While I was in Mexico in March I managed to get a friend of mine to lend me his vintage Polaroid SX-70 camera, the worlds first SLR. Old-style Polaroid cameras are wonderful because they give you instant printed pictures. I feel that I can give up a little quality and portability in favor of 70s colors and the uniqueness of pictures that come from these simple machines. However, the camera turned out to be quite broken. It didn't close properly, I couldn't actually see anything out of the viewfinder and it neither took pictures nor ejected the film. After hours of thumb-numbing work I've manged to fix it and took my first pictures this weekend. I still need to install an ND filter on it to fix the exposure, but it works!

During repairs

Repaired / First pictures

Adios México

It's been hectic these last few weeks, traveling to Mexico to sell all the junk we had there and bringing Paola back to Norway. It's quite amazing to see how much crap one is able to amass over a few year and to see it's actual worth in cash. I swear to never again buy so many useless things. Leaving Mexico City was really sad this time, it's been home for almost 10 years and many of my friends are like family. It was also a bit hard to feel responsible to ripping Paola away from her life there knowing that adjusting yourself to Norway is not an easy process. In some ways it makes me feel responsible for her happiness in Oslo now. On the other hand the business side is going well and I expect to witness the power of my fully armed and operational outsourcing firm within 6 months.

Pictures:

Luscious Lips

Went to a new Fleshoticas show on Thursday, Luscious Lips at Pigallen with a couple of friends.

Trondheimsveien ned

A couple of weeks ago I participated in an event called Trondheimsveien ned. I made a map of it. Anyone who has lived in Oslo should recognize Sinsen at the top and the blue Aker river at the bottom. There are 13 places that serve beer on the way down Trondheimsveien. I only made it to "Ocean".

Midnight Burlesque

On Friday I went with some girlfriends to watch a show called Midnight Burlesque where an aquaintance was performing. As you can see from the pictures the event was a smashing success and possibly the most inspiring feminist entertainment I've ever seen. In a world where all women are supposed to be abnormally skinny with double D tits it was a wonderfull refreshment to see these ladies strut their stuff on stage and have a little fun with their sexuality. In order to get into character I shaved most of my beard leaving a grat big mustache, borrowed a fedora hat and got ahold of some suspenders.

Bang bang, I shot you down

Spent the weekend at my mother's place and practiced shooting clay pigeons for a hunt I'm going on later this month. It's not really my thing to play with lethal weapons, but it's not quite the same thing in this context. At the end I was getting quite good at it.

Gustavo

I find that I'm fascinated by people who make music. My neighbor in Mexico, Leo Heiblum, used to play music at odd times and especially at the end I tried to participate a little. I'm not talking about making studio quality stuff, just people who can pick up a guitar, or tabla or whatever and play for a few minutes. There's something very human and comforting in these situations and for me it's something very new as most of my family has no musical skill whatsoever (although my sisters have some). Personally I can't play anything, but I think there might be hope for me with Guitar Hero. Yesterday I ended up at Gustav's place with Elin where we made some food and talked about nothing. Gustav is one of these strange people who don't quite fit in any box and encompasses a vast amount of interests and skills.

Being around these people also helps to push me in the direction of picking up my painting again.

Firsts

Today was a day of firsts.

On Friday I picked up a new board, bindings and shoes since my old equipment is all over the place and it appears that the bindings are broken. Yesterday it was snowing all day, but today I woke up at 8:30 to clear skies and 10cm of new snow. It turns out that there's a ski center within walking distance from my house. So I geared up and headed into the forest with an orange and some chocolate in my backpack. The forest was quiet and without a soul in sight. The sun shone though the snow covered trees and I didn't break a sweat by the time arrived to the deserted lifts. After some quick adjustments with the screwdriver I was on top of the hill looking down on the city and further out into the Oslo fjord. The scene was postcard perfect. It took me a few minutes of unsteady turns, but I soon found my rhythm. As I hit the first patch of new powder I was in heaven, silently gliding on top of white cotton in the middle of a frozen forest.

After I few hours I painfully rediscovered muscles I hadn't used for a few years and the hills filled with families teaching their kids the fundamentals of skiing. I walked back to my house passing dozens of people on cross-country skis, all smiling and happy. We complain a lot about winter, but it's quite obvious that we belong here.

This afternoon I also made tortillas for the first time in my life. I found a shop that sell both coriander (Cilantro) and manzanillo chiles so I decided to get out my Maseca tortilla flour and try to make some decent Mexican food. The salsa turned out quite good, but as always, not spicy enough. I made some guacamole and heated up some "Meksikanske" beans to go with a alambre dish. The tortilla making turned out to be quite a challenge. Getting them evenly flat and avoiding that they stick to things is tricky. I had to craft a makeshift non-stick surface from a ziplock bag. Two big boards served as a press with myself standing on them in order to get the right amount of pressure. The first one looked more like a small pancake and the next 3-4 suffered from cracked edges and burns, but I finally got the hang of it and make some that worked.

Overall a perfect sunday.

There's no place like home

As a kid we moved quite a lot. In my first 12 years of education I managed to go to 11 different schools. One of things it taught me was that home was whatever place I kept my stuff it, be it in our one and only purchased house or the hotel suite we stayed in Houston for about 2 months while we waited for our stuff to arrive in a container from Norway. When I left Mexico last November I expected it to work the same way this time. I'd pack up 50kg of crap, drag it to the other side of the planet and instantly make a new home on Oslo. After being back in Mexico to visit my wife and friends I'm starting to think that it might get more complicated as you grow older and attach yourself of certain places and the people there. I feel much more at home in Mexico, even when I'm not in the city, but in Diego's house at Zicatela beach. At the same time there are certain aspects about Norway that also makes it home. Even if I complain about the weather here I can't help myself from getting just a little bit emotional when watching the snow fall and there are certain ways about how the Norwegians act that makes me realize that no matter how many tacos I eat at the end of the day I'm always going to be different in Mexico.

So home is now a feeling and not a place, a feeling of being calm and safe and surrounded by people you love and not by familiar things. This is great because it makes it much more flexible, but it also makes it harder to get there. Harder because I used to go home to my apartment in order to relax and feel at home and now I have to learn to relax in order to feel at home.

This Christmas and New Years was exhausting and I expect that it's only a preview of how the rest of this year will turn out. The idea of having Oslo and Mexico City as bases seems quite good if it weren't for the 20 hours of travel it takes from one place to the next. The whole notion of friends is also more complicated now. I've always just left them behind and forgotten about them when I moved before, but I now have people in my life who I want to keep close for a very long time. The Internet is all well and great, but you need more than a postcard amount of communication in order to have a significant relationship with anyone. The only advantage the Internet provides is that you can avoid having to give a compressed summary of the events on your life when you see people again, but the real stuff takes place over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

Some more pictures from the trip to Zicatela and Guadua:

Figgs Vei 7

This weekend we moved into the new place at Figgs vei 7. Saturday was hell, first we went to rent a huge van, then we got lost on our way to buy a fridge and washing machine. After that we went to pick up a new stove, move that to the Grødem place, then pick up Daniel's stove and other crap there. After that we went to take apart and pick up a big bed and finally we went to IKEA to buy a sofa, a table, some lights and more crap. Then we just had to get up to the apartment, unload everything and put together the sofa and beds. But yesterday was great and we had her first dinner there. Snik also came up and seems to be adjusting without craping or peeing all over the place, which I understand cats so sometimes when they are not happy. We found some great looking chairs in the loft and the place is really taking shape. My bed is fantastic and I couldn't be happier with my new place of residence. Daniel also seems to be enjoying himself a lot there...

More pictures here

I also snapped some pictures of my normal commute to the office so that people in Mexico can get an idea of what Oslo is like:

Anual FIX/Copyleft Julebord

Yesterday was the anual FIX/Copyleft christmas party. Enjoy.

Cats

I've always loved cat, but as an allergic kid I could only last a few minutes with them before having a full blow allergic reaction with asthma and everything. One of my most hippie friends, Christianne, was one of many people who told me that you can get rid of allergies by just being around whatever you react to long enough. I wrote it off as BS together with Reiki and the homeopathic medicine. Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning of eating sugar pills and diluted herbs next time I get a cold, but I may have been wrong about the allergies.

After being around Otto, the neighbors dog, for prolonged playstation sessions I noticed that I could be around him for a lot longer than at the beginning. By the time I left Mexico I could be around a big German Shepard for at least 3-4 hours before reacting.

I now live with 3 cats and training myself to withstand them. I intentionally hang around them and pet them, making sure to wash my hands afterwards. If I get home early I have to take a half a pill, but I've managed to go without for 8 hours at a time which is a huge step for me. Overall living with cats is cool. We have an cuddly old one, a playful 2 year old and a shy redhead. All the damn hair sucks, but it's nice to have purring fuzzballs all over the place.

New place

Thanks to Daniel I know have a new place to stay, with my own bed and everything, starting on the 15th of December. People have been telling me that it's imposible to find a decent place in Oslo, but we actually landed a sweet 1/2 house on you first try and closed the deal in about 2 hours. 90 square meters, upper floor of a house with a huge balcony for 7,000 kr/mnth. Rocks! The kitchen is a bit shaby, but overall I couldn't wish for more. There's a forest directly behind it and from the balcony you can see all the way to the Oslo fjord. I'll be living there with Daniel at least untill Paola gets here and maybe longer if she likes it.


Here:

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Life of luxury

After spending a week in Oslo working 12 hours a day it's nice to kick back and relax at my mothers place. The average Norwegian lives a life of luxury thanks to our massive oil exports (#3 in the world) and pathetic population numbers (#114 in the world). Combine the wealth with our wonderful weather results in a great deal of this luxury focused indoors and it's great to just sit back and enjoy it. The house is always warm and full of great little comfy-corners to sit in. In addition my mom makes great food, full of calories and Norwegian flavors. Later today I'm going hunting for dear with an uncle and my kid-brother and I can almost imagine myself as a real Norwegian and not a Mexican lost in scandinavia.

Update: No hunting, but I spend several hours out in 3 degree weather, constructing a small garage with my brother for his 4x4. It feels good to actually construct something tangible, something made of wood and nails and that will one day fall apart from decay and not because someone fucked up the server or forgot to do a backup. Long live the physical world!

The rising sun

Today I watched, for the first time in years, the sun rise. It came up from behind a building as a white, dead disc behind some clouds. As it rose into view it lit up and caught fire forcing me to turn away in a display of power to the Norwegian winter cold. It reminded me of the essence of the Norwegian spirit, of how we seem to get excited for very brief moments when something special happens in this very dull and gray country we've built.

The spectacle lasted for about 10 minutes before disappearing again, but in some mythical way it must mean that summer will come again in a few months time.

Going away party

4 lambs legs, some bottles of wine and 30 friends showed up yesterday to see me off to Norway this Friday. It seems that the 10 kilos of rosemary and sun-dried tomatoes legs went down well, along with the potato and asparagus soufflé and liters of gravy.

Leo (the other one) came over with his jaranas (micro guitars) and a donkey's jaw and we played son music (from Veracruz) till late at night.

Today I said goodbye to Hans Petter and bought 20 cigars for the cold months ahead.