Dan & Son’s Adventures

Just lately it feels a lot like we’re sitting at a bus stop, waiting. Waiting for the headlights of Spring to appear in the distance. Waiting to feel the warmth of the sun on our faces again. Waiting for those first green shoots to pop up and the early flowers to start appearing, planted by people showing their enthusiasm for Summer the moment the snow melts. Waiting to free our bikes from their dark, dank room in the basement. Set them free across a sun-drenched park full of sun-drenched people eating their sun-drenched berries. Waiting to see everyone back in Australia again.

Waiting.

So until then life is basically work and our apartment. We’re catching up on a lot of movies this winter. Thankfully we’ve had BBC’s Masterchef and now the new Amazing Race season to keep us sane too. Just

Going to Tromso with Bruce was a great way to break up the long winter. The next thing we’re both looking forward to is my 30th birthday in London with some of my oldest friends. John, Linda, Chris, Ben and maybe even Gareth! Being so far away from home, I really am lucky to spend my 30th with a bunch of good friends. And in London of all places!!

I’ll have to make sure I have a big 31st or 32nd back in Australia for our families and friends there. Looking out the window at the snowflake particles dancing through the air, it’s a little strange to think of those scorchingly hot summer days in February. Mmm, it’s not hard to imagine though. Dan and I have been having dreams of sunny days at the beach back in Australia. Is that bus here yet?

In May we’re going to Svein & Yvonne’s wedding in Scotland. A Scottish wedding sounds fun! And hopefully quite zany! I should ask if there will be kilts.

And now back to…waiting.

Luv to you all,
Sonia (& Dan)
xo

Update 23 - Just lately:

Sometime last year our old friend from Sydney, Bruce, told us that he was doing a round-the-world holiday and would be stopping by Oslo to see us. Excitedly we started thinking about where to take him in Norway in the middle of winter. An extreme adventure perhaps? One with a chance to see the northern lights? Let’s go north to Tromsø!!

So we worked over Christmas in order to get the week off late January. It turned out to be such an amazing adventure. We met Bruce at Skøyen train station which he managed to find ok on his own from the airport. The week before we had been telling him how unusually warm this winter was. There might not even be any snow while he was here. Then, as if Norway knew an Aussie was coming, it bucketed down snow 2 days before he arrived. And the temperature dropped suddenly too. So here’s Bruce, stepping out of the train station into a -10 degree night, trying to wheel his bag over the snow. Welcome to Norway!

We had a fun dinner that night with Grant and Astrid and took Bruce sledding down the big hill in Oslo the next day. Early Wednesday morning we made our way to the airport bound for our arctic winter holiday. It was a great time of day to fly because we could watch the changing landscape below as we flew further and further north. By the time we were flying near Tromsø I couldn’t stop gawking out the window at the cold white islands surrounded by blue sea. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Some facts about Tromsø (from Wiki):
Tromsø is the eighth-largest city in Norway by population, and is home of the world’s northernmost university, University of Tromsø, brewery, botanical garden and planetarium. The city center is located on the east side of the Tromsøya (island) — almost 400 km inside the Arctic Circle at 69°40′33″N, 18°55′10″E.

I’m pretty sure it was the first and last time I’ll be inside the arctic circle, so it was really exciting to be there. It was even better to be there with Bruce who was amazed by the large amount of snow covering the town and continually falling on us. During our visit we missed out on seeing the northern lights…for 2 reasons. Too much snow (and therefore snowcloud) and the aurura reading was weak (we checked online during our stay). The funny thing is, that even though we’d planned this trip with that being our focus, it didn’t stop us from having one of our most favourite holidays ever! We had a guided tour at the Mack brewery (the northernmost brewery in the world), dog sledded in a heavy snow downpour, ate reindeer stew in a Sami tent and celebrated Australia Day with a bbq in a snow filled park. For about 2 months of winter the sun never rises in Tromsø. By the time we were there it was just peaking over the mountains. Sunrise was around 10am and sunset was 1.40pm.

I don’t think words can properly describe our crazy winter holiday, so time for the photos!

Update 22 - Arctic fun 01:

Update 22 - Arctic fun 02:

This was one experience I never thought I’d have. And it was so much fun having a good friend to share it with. Now we’re back in the routine of work until my 30th birthday in London in March. Today the sun was very bright and it’s not getting dark until about 5pm…the transition to lighter days has started. Bring on the Summer! Oslo’s winter has been exceptionally mild compared to last years.

Missing you all incredibly. Dan is cooking hotdogs for lunch. I don’t think I’ll eat another hotdog after Norway

Big hugs,
Sonia & Dan
xoxo
:D

Woohoo! Memories of our last snowy winter come flooding back as we experience our first full weekend of snowfall. The weather in Norway has been restored and all is right in the world!

Today we made our first snowman of this season. The snow was dry and fluffy but we forced it into a lumpy snowman shape as best we could. We were telling Bruce (our next visitor to Oslo) about the unusually warm and almost snow free winter he was going to experience only a few days ago…but now he can be pleasantly surprised. We’re planning to take him sledding down the big hill on Tuesday now too…woohoo!

I’ve also fit in time this weekend to add a new photo update. It starts with photos from New Years and also includes our weekend of ski jumping, or rather ski flying as they called it, last weekend in Vikersund. We were invited away to our friend, Jo’s girlfriend’s parent’s place. And her family were extremely Norwegian and friendly and we had an amazing time.

So you can check out photos of that and more by going here (I have split this update into 2 sections again so remember to go to the 2nd one when you are finished viewing the 1st)…

Update 21 - New Year’s Eve:

Update 21 - Ski flying and snow:

We’re in a great mood because we’re on holidays now. This is the week that we worked over Christmas for. Bruce arrives tomorrow afternoon and we’ll catch up with Grant and go out for dinner. On Tuesday we want to take Bruce up to Frognersetern to hire sleds and slide down the hill. Then hopefully get back in time to take Bruce along to our Norwegian class. And on Wednesday morning we head off early for 4 days in Tromso. I’ve just checked the weather and it’s forecast to be cloudy which could mean we miss out on seeing the northern lights. So I’ll just have to hope that it changes and we can see them at least one night! Fingers crossed (really tightly).

The weather looks set to cool down here too. It’s been averaging -1 to 6 degrees this month (that’s why the snow kept melting) but the forecast now says the high temperature for Tuesday is -10. I hope Bruce brings a warm jacket

I hope you’re all enjoying yourself. Dan has been hugging his sunlight lamp and no doubt making himself blind in the process. But it’s definitely helping us cope. Now that there is a big layer of snow and no warm temps on the horizon it’s a lot brighter outside and feels a lot more like a fun winter.

And on that note…I’ll say goodbye and go check on my lamb stew.

Sonia & Dan xoxo

:)

Christmas came and went in a cold blast of air. We spent several days eating and drinking and watching movies. Last Sunday we ventured out to Sognsvann and watched people ice skating on the lake for the first time (this time last year they were skiing across because of all the snow).

Still no snow but it’s cold enough now to expect it soon! Today it was -6 as we walked to work…that wakes us up faster than a coffee ever can

I also found time to put together the latest photo update so you can see the frozen lake for yourselves. The photos are on 2 pages since there’s a fair amount of them (Update 20: Part 1 and Part 2).

Update 20 - John’s visit and our work Christmas party:

Update 20 - A frozen lake and Christmas Day 2006:

I hope you’re enjoying your Christmas holidays and have an awesumly drunk New Year’s entrance into 2007. We noticed yesterday that they are selling fireworks in the supermarket now…we’re getting a rocket!

Sonia & Dan xoxo

Winter is broken.

Either that or someone is messing with the thermostat

So far it’s been the warmest winter on record here in Norway. Today it was a balmy 9 degrees! Now how is it supposed to snow in that sort of temperature??!!

It snowed in October…then melted. And hasn’t snowed since!

Last winter we experienced the most snow Oslo had seen in 40 years. Which is kind of lucky now that we’ve hit this extraordinarily warm winter. I’m not sure when it will be cold enough to snow…maybe sometime in the new year? There goes our hopes for a white christmas!

I hear it’s been extremely hot in Adelaide…like 40+ degrees last week? That sort of temperature in the first week of Summer sounds crazy! But then again, no snow in Norway also has that ‘crazy’ ring to it.

Well, enough about the weather. Onto the darkness…heheh. This morning it was dark at 9am and dark again at 3.15pm. In between it was an overcast grey/blue light with drizzly rain. Now I know you’re all getting jealous hearing this so that’s the last I’ll mention it

Again, it’s been ages since I’ve written an update. Even longer since I’ve posted photos! But who wants to see photos of the darkness anyway? At the moment it’s a little like we’re living in a dream. Last week there was a story in a Norwegian newspaper (the online one that is translated into English because we’re not that good…yet) about the darkness and how it’s affecting 90% of the population. But not to worry because it’s healthy not to feel ‘up’ all the time. Now isn’t that comforting?

I guess a highlight of the past 2 months has been the day we rode out to Sognsvann in bright sunlight (!!) and had a bbq next to a frozen lake. The sun was so warm that we were in tshirts and the lake was still frozen over! It had this amazing crystal shaped pattern all over it that I’d never seen before. Dan and I took turns throwing rocks into the middle of the lake to hear the ‘twang wang wang ang’ sound of the ice reverberating against other ice sheets. It’s soooo kewl! And then we heard this loud ‘twang wang wang ang twang wang wang ang’ sound in the distance and looked up to see a deer legging it across the other end of the lake! Across the thin frozen top! It was just like a national geographic moment. Dan and I both watched and hoped that it wouldn’t fall through the ice. It made it almost all the way across before falling through right at the edge. Which is really lucky because it was shallow enough to hop out onto the bank from there. Crazy! We cooked our hamburgers and ate them just as the sun sank behind the trees. 5 minutes later it was absolutely freezing cold. So we put on our big jackets and headed home at 2.20pm.

Christmas is fast approaching and it’s a little sad not being near family or friends at this time of year. Something we have to look forward to instead is our visit from Bruce (friend from Sydney) in late January. The 3 of us are flying up north of Norway to Tromsø (supposedly called the Paris of the north) to try and catch a glimpse of the northern lights. There is no guarantee of seeing them because it’s totally dependant on the sun’s actitivity (solar flares) and a clear sky. So just incase we miss out I’ve booked us each a dog sledding trip. That should be amazing! Oh and Tromsø is in 24hr darkness at the moment being so high up (in the arctic circle). Around the 21st January the sun starts peaking over the mountain tops for a bit each day so that will be interesting to catch.

So what else have we been up to lately? Oh yeh, a few weeks ago we had our work christmas party with lots of free food and alcohol. And a couple of weeks ago we had a 3 course Norwegian dinner cooked for us by Rich and Maren. The main meal was a reindeer strogonoff. It was delicious! I think we’ll have a reindeer roast for christmas…

Tonight we’re invited to an english mince pies night at Will and Ingvilds. I don’t think I’ve tried homemade english fruit mince pies before so I’m looking forward to it. Last night Dan and I purchased Guitar Hero 1 and 2 so we have a guitar each. We’d borrowed the game from a guy at work and loved it so much we decided to get our own copies. We finished Bully (Canis Canem Edit) last weekend so now it’s time for some Christmas guitar fun!

I guess the last thing to mention is Dan’s birthday in a week. I’m really looking forward to it because we’re going to a restaurant called Kokopelli that Grant recommended. It’s expensive but amazing food (we went there for our anniversary and the food was unbelievable). So it’ll almost be like it’s my birthday too

We’re working over Christmas (well except for a 3 day weekend) so that we can take time off to go to Tromsø when Bruce is here. We don’t really mind because we’re really looking forward to seeing Bruce and going up into the northern darkness. Fingers crossed we get to see the northern lights!

Ok enough ranting from me. I hope you’re all well and have a fantastic Christmas / New Years. I’ll get around to posting photos one day. But for now you’ll just have to imagine us sitting in the darkness…heheh.

Have fun everyone!
Sonia & Dan xoxo

It’s snowing! When the temperature drops from 14 to 0 degrees in a matter of weeks the only thing I can really look forward to is snow. I keep turning my head, looking out the window to check that the fluffy white balls are still falling. I think the norwegians find my suddenly cheerful mood mildly entertaining. *turns head to window again*…yep it’s really coming down!

4 weeks ago my Mum came to visit us on her first overseas holiday. After a day of ‘jetlag recovery’ in our apartment we did some sightseeing in Oslo. We had lunch at Aker Brygge (pier) and walked around the city. Mum was surprised at how warm it was. Oh those were the days…

The next day we got up early to catch a train in town. We were doing the ‘Norway in a Nutshell’ trip from Oslo to Bergen (west coast) via trains, boats and buses. The trip in total takes over 12 hours but the scenery makes it thoroughly worth it. My highlight of the day was when we were sitting at a table on the ferry, drinking our $60 AUS bottle of jacob’s creek chardonnay (the cheapest bottle), gawking at the towering sunlit mountains and gorgeous tiny wooden houses that dotted the base of them. Amazing stuff. It was the 2nd time we’d been on that trip and just as enjoyable…maybe even more so because we were lucky with the sun.

So we arrived in Bergen tired, but happy. It didn’t take long to walk to our hotel and we celebrated our arrival with a drink in the 400 year old basement bar. The next day we saw the famous fish market, went on the Fløibanen (steep train) to the lookout at the top…took a few cold and windy photos…then went back down and found an indian restaurant for an enjoyable lunch. That night we ate at a Japanese restaurant that Dan and I had been to a year earlier. Still just as good. The next day we walked around Bergen some more and ate at an italian restaurant that served amazingly good food. We waddled back to the hotel to call a taxi and headed off to Bergen airport…the most expensive airport in the world. Mum bought a glass of wine from the ice cream shop (which funnily enough served wine) and it cost $17 AUD for 1 average size glass! Crazy Norway. The guy who served Mum laughed when she asked for a receipt to remember the expensive drink by.

Then off we flew to Paris! We decided to get trains from the airport to our hotel (usually the more stressful but cheaper option). I left my ticket in the machine thinking that’s what I was supposed to do so we boarded the train with me a little worried about having lost my ticket. Once in Paris we tried to find our way to the next train and went the wrong way so we needed to sneak back in without my ticket. The heavy automatic doors snapped shut on Dan’s backpack as he rushed to get in behind me and it was a funny sight seeing him struggle free. But he did which was lucky

We saw lots of people in Paris sneaking through the automatic exits and jumping over turnstyles so we knew it could be done. About 9pm we arrived at our hotel…yay! Too tired to go back out we ordered room service and drank a bottle of duty free wine…mmm.

The next day we were up early and looking forward to our Segway tour. Mum was wondering what a Segway was. We walked for 25 mins to the Eiffel Tower and met a girl on a Segway. I have a movie of Mum’s face when we pointed at it and said ‘you’re going on that!’. We had lessons first and found the Segways to be surprisingly intuitive…which was a relief because Mum could operate it fine. Except for the one time she got on it and started going backwards and said ‘how do I stop?’ to which I replied ‘lean backwards’ and she promptly went backwards even faster, just missing 2 people and a wall. Ooops!

We explored Paris on our private Segway tour for about 4 hours…stopping for lunch. It was so much fun and I’d recommend it for sightseeing a new city. More relaxing than buses and trains and much faster than walking. We had many tourists film us and many french people coming up to us asking questions we couldn’t understand…so we just smiled and Segway’d away

That night we met up with Linda (my friend who is currently living in London) who was also in Paris for that weekend. She was staying with her friend Marie who also came out for dinner. We found a french restaurant where Dan and I tried snails for the first time. The garlic butter sauce was nice. I’m not in much of a hurry to eat the snails again

Tired from our first big day in Paris, we got up early again the next day to cram as many sights in as we could (seeing as tho this was our final day). We caught trains around the city and saw the Arc de Triomphe, Montmarte Cathedral, Lourve (mainly Mona Lisa and Aphrodite), and Notre Dame Cathedral. That night we ate at a local asian restaurant near our hotel which was great value and really tasty.

The next day we relaxed and took a taxi to the airport, arriving back in Oslo with 45 mins to get to our Norwegian lesson. We rushed from the train to our apartment (come on Mum!)…dropped Mum off and rushed back down the hill to our lesson. Only 15 mins late!

Over the next 2 days I took Mum on the train to the top of the hill (Frognersetern) where she ate Norwegian meatballs with a berry sauce. We walked around the forest and also hired bikes. On her final day we hired bikes to ride around Bygdøy. Mum only fell off twice. Poor Mum…I turned around at one point and saw her lying on the footpath. She was a trooper though, and we got back home just in time to collect her stuff and head to the train station. At least she got to see a viking ship

And that was Mum’s European Vacation. I don’t think we could’ve fit anymore in! It was great to see her over here and 30 hours after seeing her off she arrived back in Adelaide

I’ll be putting together the big photo update when I get time in the next couple of months.

A week later we had a visit from my old friend Johnno…so many visitors this year! We had a fun bbq at Sognsvann by the lake…trying to get the bbq started for half an hour. Then enjoying pølse and lompe…Norwegian style! We were going to go to Frognersetern but it was covered in cloud all weekend. The next day we relaxed and played games, just like old times! It was fun having John visit

So now it’s back to settling into another Norwegian winter and adjusting to the ever encroaching darkness. I’m looking forward to buying a sled when the nearby hill is covered in snow. This Friday is our 6th anniversary so we’ll go out to dinner to celebrate…then hurry home to relax in our apartment that we are now calling ‘the cave’. It’s a very cosy cave to spend the winter. Last weekend we bought a new game called ‘Bully’ and stayed indoors cooking, eating and playing the game. Lots of fun

Another big update I know! It’s been great to have so many visitors. We miss them as soon as they’re gone! But I have lots of photos to go thru and remember them with…soooo many photos. Why do I take so many??!!

I hope you’re all well. Ha det bra! (my basic norwegian is still quite basic)
Sonia & Dan xoxo

P.S - Happy 22nd Bro! And Happy 15th Em!

Ok, time to write a monster post about what we’ve been up to the past few months. It’s funny how the more you do, the less you remember doing. And that’s exactly why I take so many photos! Which seems like a good idea until it comes to update time and I start sorting thru them all…

First, a recap about Summer. We returned from Australia and enjoyed several months of beautiful, sunny, long, warm days. The nights were twilight strolls, the days were full of picnics. We bought ourselves bikes and rode to the beach after work to enjoy a bbq and a swim. The sun still warm and high in the sky at 7pm. Apparently it was the best summer Oslo had seen in a number of years. Lucky us.

Ferries took us to the fjord islands for more bbqs and swimming. Swimming in the same lake that we had skiied across last winter was a unique experience! Sunbaking on the grass, remembering how cold we were as we cleared away some snow to sip hot chocolate earlier in the year.

Winter doesn’t seem so distant now that the days have shortened and begun cooling. The leaves have begun their colour changing decent to the ground already. Dan and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary in Norway earlier this week. What a year it has been! I don’t think what we are doing will properly sink in for another few years. Right now we’re just living through the ever changing seasons and preparing for our 2nd Norwegian winter. Dan likened this time of year to living in the movie ‘The Others’. Which pretty much somes it up! This past week a fog has been hugging the hills around us almost every day. Looking out our window, it does feel a lot like the house in that movie!

We’ve been fortunate enough to have a couple of visitors lately. Vinh (currently living in Shanghai) extended his London holiday to Oslo for a few days. We had fun bbq’ing in the forest, avoiding the thunderstorms by eating apple cake in the hilltop restaurant, before riding our bikes through the forest to the lake as the skies cleared back to blue. We had such a good time that we decided to try the same tour with Linda when she visited from London. Somehow she managed to catch the sunniest weekend all month. Probably for the rest of the year!

We’ve also unexpectantly seen Svein again as he was in the neighbourhood (if you can call Kiev in the neighbourhood!) for work and managed an Oslo detour for a couple of days. So one Sunday afternoon Dan and I were sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, when the phone rang and it was Svein asking if we wanted to go for a coffee! Another weekend my Aunty and Uncle (Maria and Nick) were here to start a cruise ship holiday and we got to catch up for lunch with them in town. Unfortunately my Aunty was recovering from a case of food poisoning so we didn’t wander too far, but it was really nice to catch up with them over this side of the world.

Next week my Mum will be visiting us here in Oslo. It’s her first overseas holiday and I’m really looking forward to showing her around. We’ve booked the ‘Norway in a Nutshell’ train, boat and bus ride to Bergen via the beautiful fjords. Fingers crossed the fog lifts that day! Then, after a sightseeing day in the cute, old town of Bergen on the western coast, we’re flying to off to Paris! Bergen’s airport is apparently the most expensive airport in the world. I compare living in Oslo to living at an airport back home…so I can only imagine how expensive a bottle of water is at Bergen’s airport!

Neither Dan or I have been to Paris so we’ll be just as excited as Mum will be. I’ve booked a hotel that is about a 20 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. We’ll have 2 full days of sightseeing in Paris and hopefully have time to also see Linda again since she is going to be there at the same time.

Some days homesickness creeps in and we have to remind ourselves why we’re over here and what we’re eventually going back to in Australia. Both Dan and I have such awesum family that it makes it harder to be a long distance away. And we miss all of our friends back home so much too. I realise how lucky we are with modern technology making it easier to stay in touch. I’m not looking forward to the 9 hour time gap once daylight saving ends here! But we’re learning a lot about ourselves during this experience. And I can’t tell you how nice it is to have your best friend with you when you’re living overseas. It’s such a different experience to living in Hong Kong and it’s nice to have contrasting memories of both places.

And now on to the photos!

The update is once again divided into 3 parts.

Oslo Summer - Part 1
Picnics, bbqs and general vitamin D happiness

Oslo Summer - Part 2
Vinh from Shanghai…come on down!

Oslo Summer - Part 3
Linda’s action packed weekend in Oslo

To get to Part 1 click the link over on the right or just click here:

You might want to settle into your seat with a cup of coffee or tea before ya start!

Missing you all!

Sonia & Dan xoxo

Well, it’s been a month since returning from our holiday down under. And what a holiday it was! It was the holiday to end all holidays! No actually that would really suck. But it was a holiday to remember and what I’m trying to say is that we REALLY enjoyed seeing everyone. Just check out these photos and see for yerself! I’ve finally gotten around to putting together the photo update and I’ve had to split it into 3 parts so that there wouldn’t be a monster thumbnails page. The 3 parts are divided like this:

Oz holidays! - Part 1
Sydney and Moruya photos

Oz holidays! - Part 2
Canberra and Adelaide pics

Oz holidays! - Part 3
Gold Coast, Ballina and Nimbin

To get to Part 1 click the link over on the right or just click here:

Enjoy!
Son & Dan xoxo

The day was sunny and warm as the final flight of our 35hr long journey touched down on Norwegian soil last week. It had been 4 weeks since we’d excitedly left for our Australian holiday, already aware it would be over all too soon. But I can’t put into words just how good it was to see everyone. Being the veterans of vacation cramming that we are, we managed to catch up with so many of you. An hour or so after touching down in Sydney we were already out enjoying our favourite sushi at Asakusa with Allie, Bruce and Brendan. The next night was a good turn out at the Rose pub. I have some funny photos of everyone trying the Dundersalt lollies! The last night in Sydney was our ‘kid friendly’ mexican restaurant night. It was a fantastic couple of days…thanks to everyone who came along!

Then it was on to Dan’s Dad’s place. After a 5hr bus journey south we arrived, with tired jetlagged smiles, at Moruya. Dan’s Dad (Pete) picked us up and stopped along the drive home so I could get a photo of kangaroos (the things you do when you’re home sick!). We spent the next few days relaxing on the property with and playing with the dogs. After our first night of sleeping in the old loggers cabin Pete asked if we’d slept ok. We told him it had been a little chilly…since we could see our breath as we hopped into bed! With a surprised look he said, ‘but you live in Norway!’. It really makes me appreciate the heating over here

Pete lent us their rental car to drive 2.5hrs to Canberra on the Thursday. We stayed with Dan’s bro, Matt and also caught up with Dan’s Aunties, Uncles and cousins. There was a fantastic day spent at Pat and Rob’s, all the family came along, and I think I talked for 9hrs straight! Heheh. We also checked out Mez (Mary) and Steve’s place the following day and hiked in the Nature Reserve nearby…’Steve we need to head back cos we have a flight to catch in an hour….STEVE!’.

Next on the list was Adelaide, and after a short flight from Canberra (1.5hrs is definitely short to us now!) we were greeted by a very happy mumma bear at the airport. We were at Mum’s house by 8pm and got straight into a delicious stew she’d cooked up for us. Woohoo…it’s fun being spoilt at home

Over the next 6 days we caught up with my lil bro, had lunch at China Town with ArtyMarty, dinner with Marcia & Jude and Marty followed by a dress up couch stealing mission from the side of a road (unfortunately the couch was too mouldy…but we did look damn good in eye masks and fake moustauches wondering the streets at midnight).

We fit in a bit of much needed clothes shopping (Sunday shopping is non-existent here in Oslo) and also a fun pub night with Andrew, Shane and Christine. I can’t say enuff how much I wish we’d had more time everywhere. The Friday night was a crazy fun dinner with Lindie and Leigh and Saturday night was a fairwell dinner at the pub…so much pub action! Dan definitely had his fill of schnitzel for the next year I’d say. And we pigged out on Oysters Kilpatrick until we could take no more! It took at least 5 servings during our trip for that to happen

It was sad saying goodbye to Mum but we left looking forward to her visit to Oslo this October…which will be her first overseas trip! After a few hours plane flight from Adelaide we arrived in the Gold Coast and were immediately swallowed up in a big Fran hug (Dan’s mum). I imagined us having to move around like a katamari ball until she let us go

So that week we were thoroughly spoilt again…cooked breakfasts…lunches out…it was the life. It was great to see Baz as well. He cooked us a bbq before we left and brought over the freshest and tastiest prawns I’ve ever eaten. Mid week we hired a car and drove south along the coast to my brother Matt’s house in Ballina. Stopping along the way to enjoy the sights at Byron and take photos of the most easterly point of Australia. That night in Ballina we stayed up late playing poker with Matthew and a few of his mates. It was our first proper poker game and not surprisingly we lost all our money. But it was loads of fun and Matthew made me take back all our winnings the next day! Which we had lost fair and square! But he’s a generous and stubborn brother

The next morning Matthew drove us to the nearby beaches (his place is 150mtrs from a beach!) and then we found a place in town to eat breakfast. About 11.30am he headed off to work and we followed in our car until Lismore. There we said goodbye and continued our drive towards the hippy rainforest town of Nimbin. The plan was to visit my relies who live there and who I hadn’t seen in 16 years! Following Matthew’s handdrawn map it wasn’t too hard to find…take the second road and the windy track and stop at the clearing to the right (!!). We were greeted by my very surprised cousins and aunty and uncle and only had a few hours to chat but it was great to see them after all these years. And I also got to meet my little second cousins for the first time.

Cam and Dunc’n drove down from Noosa the next day and we hung out at Surfers Paradise for the afternoon…living the high life which included lunch n beers followed by a round of putt putt golf! That night, after realising that the only food delivery we could order would be pizza, we decided to take a taxi to the casino. Surely they would have food? So we caught a cab driven by ‘MadMax’ (well that’s what he called himself) and by 8.30pm we were feasting away at a restaurant in the casino. Soon after that we started gambling and 5 mins later Dan and I had won $235! I initally won $25 on my first try of that chocolate wheel thing and gave a few chips to Dan. He placed one $5 chip on the 47/1 Jupiters slot and hey presto it came up!! Crazy. So we pocketed $200 and gambled with the rest until the scent of depression and addiction in the air became too much and we taxi’d our way back home

That weekend we said goodbye to Fran and Baz as we boarded the plane at the Gold Coast. 35hrs later we’d left winter far behind and had arrived in the land of summer…woohoo! The weather has been 25 degrees and perfect for the last week. On the weekend we met up with a group of friends and took a ferry to a nearby island in the fjord for a bbq and swim. It was a fantastic day…especially seeing the europeans kick the AFL footy around in the park for the first time. And we even got sunburnt! It was our first swim this year…who would’ve thought we’d be swimming in Norway?

Last night Dan and I bought new bikes each. I haven’t had a bike since I was 13 so I bought a helmet as well even tho it’s not compulsory here. It’s nice to have our own means of transport and some freedom to get places easily. Tonight we’re thinking of riding to Bygdøy for a bbq and swim after work. We sat on the balcony at 11.30pm last night chatting away and enjoying the light and weather. I can only hope it lasts for a few more weeks!

And that’s the update for now…it’s a been a big one! I’ll be doing the photo update just as soon as I have time to go thru all of our Oz holiday pics. As you would guess, there’s a lot of them!

We had an awesum time in Oz seeing y’all. Keep having fun!
San & Donia xoxo

Hellooooooo there!

I’ve uploaded a new bunch of photos taken when we returned from our Italy holiday up until now. Last week we had a public holiday for the Norwegian National Day. It was great to see everyone dressed up in traditional costumes in town. You can check out the photos for yerself here:

Or go to Update 16 on the right.

Only a week til we’re actually in Sydney! Our feet on Australian soil again! We’re really looking forward to it and seeing as many of ya as we can. Next weekend is our pub night in Sydney (remember?). And a week after that we’re in Adelaide. And in between we’re in Moruya and Canberra. Then ending in the Gold Coast and Ballina. I wish we could also make it to Brissy and Melbourne but there just isn’t enuff hours in a day! Or days in a week for that matter!

So…seeya real soon!
Sonia & Dan xoxo
Living in a world where the birds wake us up at 3.15am because the sun is starting to rise!