Saying that the Gold Coast turned out to be a little crazier than we’d expected is a huge understatement! Dan’s mum lives (well, lived) in a granny flat that was directly under her landlords house. It was a nice 2 bedroom apartment that seemed to fit us all in perfectly. A place where Dan and I could begin setting up our computers and working on our portfolios. That was the plan. What we didn’t factor into that plan was the landlords having a huge problem with us being there. They couldn’t understand that we were trying to work from home. It was straight out of a ‘Today Tonight’ episode. We were called bludgers when Dan went up to do the recycling. After we told them we were leaving the next day they say ‘we know your type, leave your rubbish and piss off!’. Er yep, they had us. People should be warned to steer clear of a couple in their 30’s that work from home and do the recycling every couple of weeks.

So after a month of feeling extremely uncomfortable living beneath those crazy old landlords we decided to hire a car for the drive to Adelaide (we were too worried that our car wouldn’t make the 3 day journey so we got it trucked down). Back to a city where the people seem a little less heat damaged! Heheh. We arrived 3 days later at my Mums and immediately started looking for a place to rent. Realising our awkward situation of not having an employer or income to fill out on the forms, we checked out a short term 6 month lease and offered to pay it in full. Woohoo! We had a place! Well, until next March at least when the landlords are moving back in here. After 3 months of feeling like gypsies it was so good to have a place to call home again. Even if we did have to sleep on the floor for the next few weeks until our furniture arrived.

We’re currently working from home which is going really well. It’s keeping us extremely busy until Xmas at least. It’s warming up here too…35 degrees today. So we’re making good use of our air conditioner…mmm. Slowly we’re settling back into a good routine and starting to catch up with our family and friends again.

So that’s pretty much where we’re at. I hadn’t planned on doing an update for a little while yet but thanks to Shank’s encouragement I’ve made it happen

Speaking of which, the more we settle into a routine here, the more we miss our friends back in Oslo. But I only have to check the weather on my new Wii and see a chilly Autumn -7 staring back at me to know that this is really our home. But we really enjoy still having the Norway connection while we work remotely for Funcom.

Seeya on Facebook sometime! (you know you’re addicted)

Sonia & Dan xo

2 months. After sleeping in 12 different beds, celebrated 5 birthdays, been woken up in the middle of the night by a bat in the room, seen countless spiders, had a tiger leech attach itself to Dan’s ankle, spotted a wombat + a blue tongue lizard + a koala in the backyard, driven past a big banana + big sheep + big prawn, and broken down 3 times in our car, we’ve finally arrived at our final destination…for now. And after all that, the weather couldn’t have given us a better welcome. It’s been 25 - 30 degrees since we arrived here at the Gold Coast. The weather treated us well during our other Australian travels as well. Back in Oslo we had been dreaming about our Australian winter…wondering if we were remembering it thru rose coloured glasses. But I’m happy to report it’s just as good as we remembered. Lucky us! (sorry Oslo!!)

We’ve done so much in the past 2 months that it’s taking a bit of time to unwind again. The trip home was absolutely fabulous tho. After our sad farewells in Oslo we spent a week in Scotland catching up with John & Tia and then Ben. Breaking the return flights home with a 5 night stopover in Bangkok turned out to be a brilliant idea. We had so much fun exploring the place and then unwinding in our amazing hotel. Sydney went by in a blur but it was sooo good to catch up with everyone there (and pig out on the deliciously cheap food around Newtown!). Our stay in Moruya was extremely relaxing and we were very happy being able to see all of Dan’s family in Canberra too. Adelaide was crammed full of crazy fun times and numerous dinners where we got to catch up with old friends and family and attend several birthdays. Our roadtrip up to the Gold Coast was unexpectantly drawn out when our car broke down more than once. But finally, we have reached our home base in Queensland and are able to process all that we’ve done.

I can’t say enough, how good it was to see everyone again. And it’s fantastic how well all of you are doing! So many cute kids popping up around the place. It’s a good incentive for Dan and I to get our shit together so we can head down that track in the next few years. (!!)

It’s taken me quite a while to go thru all of the photos for the latest photo update. Yep, I realise it’s my own damn fault for taking so many. But I managed to narrow it down to 828 pics (!!). To make that a little easier to get thru, I’ve broken them down into the places that we were visiting at the time. So to your right you should see towards the end of the list:

1 - Last days in Oslo

2 - Scotland

3 - Bangkok

4 - Sydney

5 - Moruya & Canberra

6 - Adelaide

7 - On to the Gold Coast

Once you’ve finished a section you’ll need to manually click on the link to get to the next. I’ll be impressed if anyone manages to get thru them all! Altho I suspect Shank will give that a go

We’re really missing you guys back in Oslo. At least I’m not short on photos to remember you by! We’re on the computer most days now so it shouldn’t be too hard to stay in touch. Especially with Facebook being so popular at the moment.

Big hugs to you all! We’re off to the beach. With a day like today, it’d be a crime not to go

Sonia & Dan
xo

We’d heard about a spot further up the river that was apparently a beautiful walk with a little cafe at the end. We didn’t realise quite how far along it was and after an hour of walking mostly uphill we spotted a perfect place for a picnic. It was right by a lake and very quiet except for a few friendly ducks. We ate lunch and then Dan handed me a book. He said to start from the beginning and I opened it up to find it full of photos of our last 6 years together. He’d really gone to an effort! On the final page were the words ‘Will you marry me?’. It was extremely sweet and romantic. Of course I said yes!

We hung out for a while at that spot and then walked on to find the little cafe. We ran out of water along the way and were really hoping we’d find it soon! Eventually we did, the cafe was closed but we filled our bottles up with water from a tap and relaxed a while before walking the 6.5 kms back to the train station. We went out for sushi to celebrate…trying to keep our eyes open as we both felt so exhausted from the long walk!!

It was a beautiful day and I couldn’t imagine a more romantic setting. I’ve put up a few photos from yesterday for you all to see.

Looking forward to catching up again soon. It’s very sad to say goodbye to the friends we’ve made here but I know we’ll be seeing some of them again in the future.

Sonia & Dan xoxo

We’ve really enjoyed our time over here…paying a small fortune for a cask
of wine (bag in box) will be something we remember for a long time. If
there’s one thing us Aussies love to do, it’s complain. Regardless of our
complaints about the weather and the cost of alcohol you really have it very
good over here. It’s a beautiful country full of friendly people (except
when they’ve all gone away on summer holidays, then it’s rather empty) and
I’m very happy I got to discover that in my lifetime. We’ve enjoyed
travelling to a few other places in Europe and also seeing other cities in
Norway. If you’re a foreigner here in Oslo, I can’t recommend enough getting
out to see some other parts of Norway while you’re here. It’s such a
gorgeous country!

So anyway, enough soppiness from me. What I’m trying to say is that living
here is an experience we’ll never forget (especially with all the photos
I’ve taken) and thanks to everyone for making it as fun as it has been.
Hopefully we’ll still continue to be a small part of Funcom in the future.

I’ve put together a photo movie of our last 2 years starting from our final
weeks in Sydney. I know some of you have seen it already but I’ve now put it
on the server for everyone to check out. It’s the best way I can sum up this
experience. Thanks to everyone for our Ipod video too. It’s my new favourite
toy and it will be extremely handy on our long plane flights home.

T:\Oz_to_Oslo.wmv
Facebook version: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2757855729

We’ll be travelling around to see family and friends for the next 2 months. Besides our hotmail addresses, you can contact us via Facebook and LinkedIn.

Chuck a right at the big prawn!
Sonia & Dan

…which can be seen here:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2696575729&ref=share

This is possibly the last photo update I’ll get around to before leaving here. Maybe one more if I get time. Only 2 weeks of work left. We’ve sold most of our stuff so the apartment is reminding us of how it looked when we first moved in. Last night we dropped our baby off at Heidi’s place. Goodbye LCD TV! We loved you!

Oh how we loved it.

Update 29 - Summer party!:

Over the next 2 weeks it’s probably going to sink in that we’re actually leaving this place. I know we’ll miss Oslo…and the good friends we’ve made. Really looking forward to seeing everyone back in Australia too. I hope you’re all doing well! I’ve tried to inform everyone of the Dan & Son tour dates so just email me if you want to make a definite catch up time. For the sydney folk we’re currently thinking that Saturday the 4th of August will be our catch up for drinks at a pub night. So keep that free if you’d like to see our friendly faces (or our ‘damn we have no friends anymore in Oz’ faces when noone turns up)

Sonia & Dan
xo

So here ya go…things we’ve been up to!

Update 28 - Summer has landed!:

There’s only 4 weeks left of work for us. Our emotions are a mixed bag of excitement (to see everyone back home again and on our way home), worry (have we thought of everything we need to do before leaving?) and a growing realisation of how much we’ll miss this place. The people we’ve met here are damn cool and Norway is a place that has changed part of us forever.

But hey, the winters are just too damn long to get that sad

I might make up a little graphic like I did last year to show what dates we’ll be where after leaving here…but in the meantime the basic plan is…

July 19th go to Edinburgh to stay with John and Tia.
July 23rd go to Stirling to hang with Ben and Jennie.
July 26th fly to London then Bangkok.
August 1st fly to Sydney (arrive on 2nd).
August 7th bus it to Moruya to see Dan’s Dad.
Sometime before the 18th August, get to Canberra.
18th August, fly to Adelaide.
3rd Sept, fly back to Canberra.
Sometime after that head up to the Gold Coast via Newcastle.
Mid Sept…settle in at Dan’s mums! (at which point I can also visit my bro in Ballina)

So that should keep us busy for a while. In the meantime we’re trying to get as much sun as we can and eat as many norwegian strawberries as possible.

Hope you’re all having fun! Looking forward to seeing y’all soon,
Sonia & Dan xo

Oooh Dan…our presence has been requested! Oh shit…what are we going to wear?

Last week we flew over to Scotland for Svein and Yvonne’s wedding. It was the first wedding we’d been to together (I think the last wedding I went to when I was 10). So it was really exciting to be invited to Svein and Yvonne’s in Scotland. A scottish wedding! There are going to be kilts!

So we boarded a plane on Tuesday morning and landed an hour or 2 later in Edinburgh. John met us at the airport and we hired a car…woohoo we get to drive again…and headed back to John’s place. It was the first time we’d met his girlfriend, Tia, and we also got to meet her cute kid, Louis. John didn’t know Svein and Yvonne so it was just a lucky chance that the wedding happened to be nearby and we got to see them too.

The next day we drove to Glenrothes and stumbled upon the Travelodge we were staying at. That night there was a pre-wedding dinner at Balbirnie House which was a lot of fun. We got to meet some of their relatives and friends and catch up with people we hadn’t seen in a while from Sydney. The wedding day was so much better than I had expected. Mostly due to the great family and friends they both have…they made it so much fun. Lots of kilt action and dancing…and eating and drinking! It was a fantastic day as you can see in the photo update…

The next couple of days we veged out with John and Tia again before making our way home. Tired but happy. We’d had such a good week.

Did I mention we enjoyed ourselves?

The past week in Norway the warm spring weather has cooled down a notch. But the sun did come out on Thursday which was the Norwegian National Day. We went into work for a buffet of good food and wine before heading into town to check out all the people dressed in their traditional costumes. We could’ve stayed at home but knowing it was our last national day we were glad we made the effort to check it out one last time.

Speaking of which…this weekend we booked our return trip home! I’d been researching flights from London to Sydney with a stopover in Bangkok for a few weeks. Then yesterday when I went to book it I noticed the price had jumped up over $1000! For the next hour Dan and I typed in all sorts of other options on how to get home and discovered that by pushing the dates forward 2 days we were back to the original prices. Woohoo! So the plan to head home now is…19th July fly to Edinburgh for John’s 30th birthday. 25th or 26th get a train to London to catch a plane on the 26th to Bangkok. Stay 5 nights in Bangkok then catch a plane home. We were really excited with this until we read about the bombings in Bangkok last New Year’s Eve…uh oh! But it’s all booked now so we’re going to look forward to it anyway. We did leave for London a week after the bombings in 2005. And apparently the chance of a car accident is much much higher…

So ANYWAY, that’s our plan. And that’s the latest update. Now for the fun part. I’ve just finished adding the wedding photos so you can all go get a coffee and settle back down to go thru them…

Update 27 - A wee wedding:

We’re really looking forward to being back in Australia soon!
Big hugs!
Sonia & Dan xoxo

Update 26 - Spring!:

Dan and I gave our 3 month notice a week ago at work. Yep that’s right…3 months! Actually it’s possibly 3.5 since we were told that notice starts on the 1st of the next month. Already we are finding this an interesting challenge. Since we made it official I am drifting into daydream thoughts of back home more and more often, but remembering it is still months away usually snaps me out of it. It is easy enough to be here when the days are bright and sunny (and finally warm!) but it also makes it a little harder because the sunny weather reminds me even more of home.

We will have been overseas for 2 years by the time we leave. That feels like just the right amount of time for this experience. We are both now needing to reconnect with family and start the journey titled ‘the rest of our lives’. Will it include kids? A dog? Being able to work from home and therefore having a choice about where to set up a family home? These are questions we are asking ourselves a lot more lately. Yep, I think it could be to do with turning 30. Suddenly 35 doesn’t seem that far away. We really want to give freelancing a go and now seems like the perfect time to try it. No kids, no mortgage. Time for the next chapter of our lives. And it’s a nice time to leave Oslo too…with warm, green, cheerful, sunny memories of the place. Damn it’s good here in Summer. But don’t blink or you could miss it!

The highlight of the past month has been my birthday in London. We flew to London on a friday, extremely excited about seeing old friends again. Dan and Linda had been planning the weekend for months, I was to find out. On the Friday night we met up with Chris (old friend from Adelaide), Linda (another old friend from Adelaide) & her Dan and then John turned up (an even older friend from Adelaide)!! Everyone (including Johnno) had said that he wasn’t able to make it. So it was a great surprise to see him there. We had a fun dinner at a sushi train restaurant that night.

The next day (my actual birthday) Dan and I were very tired from not sleeping well and I wasn’t sure what exactly Dan and Linda had planned. It turned out that we were seeing a theatre show called ‘The Blue Man Group’ and it suited my mood perfectly. It was very creative and entertaining. My ticket was a present from Linda (so thanks Linda man!). That night we celebrated my birthday at an upmarket dim sum restaurant called Yauatcha. The food was absolutely amazing. As was the hand basin in the toilet (see update 25). Ben, who we knew from Sydney but now lives in Glasgow, also came down for my birthday night. As well as an old friend who I studied with when I was 17, Andrew (who had just recently moved to London to work). So it was a fantastic night and it felt like we could’ve been back in Australia celebrating my birthday

The next day started with a greasy english breakfast before catching the tube to the London Eye (big wheel next to the river). It was relaxing until it stopped halfway up and we both started to feel a little claustrophobic and sick. But we were fine once it started moving again. It’s a great view from up there!

After walking around Picadilly Circus and Chinatown, Dan and I met up with Linda and her Dan (confused yet?) and the Old Street train station. They had said there were some good bars and restaurants in the area. We walked along the main road when I glanced down a side street and noticed the Fifteen logo. It was the Jamie Oliver restaurant that I’d seen on television a few years ago! I headed in that direction telling the others that I wanted to get a photo. Linda pretended that she hadn’t heard of the place and we went inside for a drink. 10 minutes later Dan revealed that we were eating dinner there and they’d actually booked this place months beforehand! And here I was thinking I’d stumbled upon it myself

So we pigged out totally on good food and great wine. That night Dan and I had trouble sleeping again because our bellies were protruding so much that we kept rolling off the bed

But it was a fabulous weekend. The next day the sun was out and London was much warmer (it had been really cold the first 2 days…colder than Oslo!). So we slowly made our way to the train station via the park and ate a great sandwich at a Pret deli. Touching back down in Oslo, I looked out across the grass to the forest surrounding the airport and realised how much we’ve settled into the open-spaced, slower-paced life here. If only we were a little closer to Australia!

We both thought that seeing old friends would help our homesickness. But it’s actually made it worse! The same can be said for the warm sunny weather creeping in. I keep closing my eyes and imagining being at the beach back home. Or just sitting in a backyard back home on a 25 degree night sipping a glass of wine with family or friends. Yes! Homesick we are

I had such a fun weekend in London. I have such amazing friends. And such a sweet boyfriend (which you all know already). Being so far away from family and friends for so long is giving us a strong appreciation for what actually matters in life. Something we did always know, but something we feel so much stronger than ever now.

I hope you’re all doing great and kicking back in a chair outside somewhere with the sun on your face. When you need a break from that I’ve included links to 2 new photo updates below. Update 24 & 25. Enjoy!

I had a brilliant 30th birthday in London. Thanks for the presents sent from back home.

Love Sonia & Dan
xo

Update 24 - Spring (almost):

Update 25 - My 30th birthday in London!:

:)