Au pair

I've found a family to au pair for!

I found them through au pair world, which is the same place I found the family I worked for in England.

The family seem very nice. I'll be looking after a boy and a girl, I'm really looking forward to meeting them all. The family lives outside Brisbane, which I think is a little bit funny since that's where I was going to study before I changed my mind. This means I won't have to be in Southern Australia during their winter.

I'm getting a plane from Sydney to Brisbane on July 10th, so I'll only have a few days in Sydney, I'll probably sleep on all of them because of jet-lag. Since I only get a few days in Sydney, I might go back there another time to see more of it. After all, I'll be in Australia at least one year, maybe two if I like it and can get my visa extended.

Easter surprises

Well my easter started off with a surprise.

On Thursday morning both my sister and I got a text from my dad just saying "In Lillehammer". Lillehammer is on the way from where my dad lives and to where we live. So after a second we realized he was coming up for easter! Which we hadn't known about. He called a few hours later (it's an 8 hour drive from Oslo, and he's not even halfway when he's at Lillehammer) and explained that he'd only thought about coming that morning, he had been planning to do some work on the house that he's selling, but then decided he wanted to come and see us instead. So my sister and I were very happy, I think the last time he was up here was at Christmas, so we hadn't seen him in a while. We'll see him again in about 3 weeks though, for my sister's confirmation, but it was still nice of him to come now.

My dad is from this place as well and has loads of family up here. Whenever he's here he stays with my grandmother. My grandmother wasn't home this easter which meant my sister and I could also stay in my grandmother's house, instead of our parents having to drive us back and forth (20 minute drive between their houses). The house is kind of divided into two flats, my grandmother lives downstairs, and my aunt lives upstairs with her fiancée and two little girls.

The weather has been really nice since Friday, which was lucky because we had some boxes of things stored in the basement and attic from when we used to live where my aunt lives now, so we took all the boxes outside and went through them to see what we wanted to keep and not. I just threw most of my old stuff away. I've not had most of it for about 10 years, and I've not missed it, I've not even remembered most of it, so what's the point in keeping it? My sister took some of my old clothes. I can't even believe I fit into them at one point!

Anyway, we made a bonfire... Not very environmental friendly... I did put some things in a bag to put in a charity container though...

We also shot the crockery to pieces... My dad has an air revolver, we lined up some plates and cups as targets and then shot them. Which was fun. I missed most of the times.
Me: Missing is good though, isn't it? I mean, it's not like it's a really good thing to know how to fire a gun.
Dad: No, it's not good. If you own a weapon you should know how to use it.
Me: I don't own it though, you do.
Dad: .... Yeah... You're right.

I was going to write about all this while I was at my grandmothers place, but the wireless internet wasn't working.

Before I knew my dad was coming I had planned to either hike or bike everyday I was off (I probably would have lasted a day) so when I came back to my mum's this morning I changed and went hiking, which was exhausting, but felt really nice when I reached the top. Spring has finally arrived as well, so there were a few flowers next to the trail.

After I got home and had taken a shower I thought I'd sit outside and read a book since the weather was so nice, so I put a sleeveless top and some suncream on and went outside... Guess what happened? Of course, the sun decided to hide behind some clouds. I don't even know where the clods came from since there hadn't been any clouds when I was hiking!

Since the temperature dropped when the sun hid I went back inside, where I saw my sister eating some sweets from a HUGE easter egg. I told her "That's a big egg!" and she told me there was one for me as well! And she pointed next to the fireplace, where there was a big green egg with a big post-it with my name on it! I must have walked past that fireplace 10 times since I got back this morning and I didn't see it! So the easter bunny came with sweets for me as well. That's almost a bigger surprise than my dad coming to see us!

Hope you've all had a nice easter as well, here are another couple of pictures I took while staying at my grandmother's.

She did WHAT?

Someone told me about a local elderly lady woman yesterday that had been caught shoplifting in one of the other grocery stores in out little town quite a few times. Which on it's own is kind of shocking, I don't really expect older people to do thing like that, and also of course I'd like to think the best of people (without being naive). Apparently she's quite rich as well, so I guess she does it for the excitement? Although I can't really see how anyone would find shoplifting exciting, I'd probably be stressed to death if I tried to shoplift anything.

But it doesn't end with just regular shoplifting...

In Norway we've got this kind of fee on bottles, kind of like an environmental fee I guess (except for on wine and liquor bottles). Say you buy a bottle of 7up: you pay the price for the pop/soda/whatever and then you pay NOK1 or NOK2,50 depending on the size and type of bottle. When you return the bottle, you get the NOK1 or NOK2,50 back. There are machines to return them in in most grocery stores, you get a receipt for the bottles you have returned that you can hand in at the till, and you can use it to pay for your groceries, or you can just get the money. There are also charity boxes next to the bottle machines in some stores so that you can just put the receipt in those, which is what I usually do the few times I've bought a bottle of something. I don't know which other countries has this system, I think at least Sweden and Denmark has it as well.

Many poor/homeless people pick up bottles they find lying around and rummage through bins just to get the money for them. And just the other day some teenagers were collecting empty bottles to finance the school band or something. I like this system, you get money and you help the environment.

Anyway. That little old lady woman I wrote about. She'd managed to squeeze her hand into the charity box next to the bottle machines and taken some receipts out! Then she took them to the till and got the money for them. Who DOES that?! Steal from CHARITY? That's just SICK! I don't care what you think is exciting and not, or whether you're rich or not, but stealing from charity is just WRONG!

And that is why she's not a lady.

Happy almost Easter!

Sorry about the rubbish quality, I took the pictures with my phone...

The eggs are: my sister, my mother's cohabitant, my mother and me... We're a bunch of eggheads! Ahahaha...

I had just started to chop my head off when my mother said: You can see that my head's chopped off better now!

Have a lovely easter everyone!

I plan on eating my weight in sweets. How's that different from the rest of the year? It's sweet-eating-season, so I don't have to feel so bad about it!

Trondheim

I had a great time in Trondheim visiting my friend this weekend. I wish I was still up there with her, but at the same time it's nice to be back in my own bed. We had a nice relaxing weekend (except for Saturday) and watched the last season of Ghost Whisperer and a few episodes of the Big Bang Theory.

On Saturday my friend pulled me with her to BOTH step AND pump! I think the fitness instructor was trying to kill us. The step class was easy to begin with, I got into the routine fairly quick, maybe because I used to do a lot of it a few years ago, but after just 10-15 minutes I was having trouble just lifting my legs. I doubted that I would be able to live through pump after the 45 minutes of step. But it was okay as there wasn't any jumping involved in that. I decided to just have the same weights through the whole class instead of changing them for almost every exercise since I'm not used to lifting weights. Most of the heavy lifting I do is on delivery days at work.

We were going to go to a spinning class on Sunday (it's my friend that's trying to kill me, not the fitness instructor!), but after 10 minutes of waiting for the bus we just figured we'd missed it (unless it was REALLY late) and to wait for the next one would mean we would be to late for the spinning class, since there aren't many buses on Sundays. On the one hand I'm happy we missed the bus, but on the other it would have been fun to try spinning, just to see what I thought of it. But I'm not going to go to a class here, because I don't want to pay for it when I can just get my bike out and go for a free bike ride instead.

Saturday night we went to a house party with some musicians. The party was held to celebrate the Norwegian Championship in band music that finished that day. It was an awesome party! Although, even though I studied music for 3 years I had no idea what they were talking about most of the time, so there was much nodding and smiling on my part. I've not really been to that many house parties, but in my experience musicians throw some of the best!

So except for the house party on Saturday I didn't go into Trondheim city center while I was up there, So I didn't shop or take many pictures. But I did take a couple of pictures yesterday as I was waiting for the coach. The stop where I got on the coach was very well situated as well, so I got to take a couple of pictures of Trondheim's most famous landmark: Nidarosdomen/Nidaros Cathedral

Just looking at it makes me feel like I've suddenly traveled back in time (or possibly inside a game of the Sims Medieval). It's so beautiful. I've never been inside it though, so I think I'll have to go back to Trondheim sometime just to have a look inside it. On the news a few weeks ago they showed a few pictures from the decorations in the ceiling of the cathedral. No one has seen how it looks like up there in 100 years I think they said, because it's normally too dark (and too far away when you're standing on the floor) to see what's up there. They really knew how to make a cathedral back in the middle ages! And the decorations in the ceiling wasn't even made for the public to enjoy, since all they had was candlelight there is no way anyone could see them. They made the decorations for their God.

I even remembered my jeans!

I'm going to Trondheim to visit a friend for the weekend, actually it will be for an extra long weekend, as I leave tomorrow morning and come back Monday or Tuesday. I just hope I'll be able to get up for the coach tomorrow morning, I've got a late shift tonight.

Almost everything is packed. I just need to remember to bring my trainers home from work when I finish tonight, because my friend is going to drag me with her to the gym, which should be fun. She talked about a spinning class though, which I've never done before. I've got a feeling I'll do a Bridget Jones and fall of the bike.

I'm really looking forward to seeing my friend, I've not seen her since Christmas, when she was down here to spend the holiday with her family.

Last time I went up to Trondheim was for her hen-do last summer. I wore a dress going up there on the coach because the hen-do was the same day. I was the maid of honor, kind of (that whole system's different in Norway, hard to explain), so I'd arranged the whole thing, with some help of course since I wasn't in Trondheim. But I did manage to keep everything secret from my friend, she only knew what day it was.

To start the day of I'd arranged for her sister-in-law, T, to pick her up and take her to a spa, where a treatment was already booked for her. When she came out after the treatment I was standing there waiting for her, she hadn't known when I'd show up. I'd run from the coach station to the spa, luckily the coach wasn't late or anything.

Then we went for a walk into town where T and I were telling her what the plans were for the day, for example her standing in a roundabout with some alcohol and a sign saying "Bert, bert så tar jeg en knert." (honk, honk and I'll take a swig). Which of course was all a lie, I know her better than to think she'd like that. We actually ended up at a nice Italian restaurant where a few more of her friends were waiting for us, and after the restaurant we went home to one of the friends where we had wine and played some standard hen-do games.

Anyway, the next morning when I was going to get dressed I noticed that I had forgotten to pack my jeans, or any type of trousers, hence the title of this post. I had to borrow some jeans from my friend, then go into town and buy some new ones. And you know when you look for something specific, you definitely can't find it! I found some in the end, they're not really nice or anything, so I hardly ever wear them now, but they were cheap, and at least I had something to wear until I went home.

I don't have to worry about that this weekend though, because I've remembered to pack some jeans, I'm also wearing a pair when going up there, so I'll definitely have some.

It's not fat, it's information.

Feeding vampires

I've been feeding vampires today.

In other words: I've been donating blood

Like organ donation, I think this is something everyone should do, if they are eligible to do so.

My mother and I went together the first time, when they just took a few samples to see if our blood was healthy and that we had enough of it to share. We had to wait a few months for the results, then I got a phone call where they asked me HOW allergic I was to shellfish (we had to fill in a form as well), and as soon as I told them the one time I tried it (and spat it out straight away because I didn't like it) I just got a rash, they booked me in for an appointment to donate.

When they finally contacted my mother, she was disappointed because they told her she couldn't donate because she didn't have enough blood to share. She's not anemic or whatever, it's just that she's only got enough blood for herself.

Today was only my second time "properly" donating blood (instead of just the samples) and I was sad to tell them to take me off their donor-list since I'm going to Australia. When I settle down somewhere I will hopefully be able to start donating again.

About me

You know when you create a profile on various pages, or you fill in some forms, and there's an "about me" section, what do you write?

Every time I'm supposed to write about myself my brain just doesn't want to work. As soon as I see the title "about me" my brain just stops working, I can barely remember my own age.

The last time I was supposed to fill in one of those section was when I was creating an au pair profile online. I basically just wrote that I like to work with children and I've worked as an au pair before. That's it. Done.

I don't understand people that are able to write really long or really funny "about me" sections or even both. Do they write it in advance? Or get someone else to write it? Is it just me that don't have a life and therefore can't write about myself?

I realize this probably sounds strange since I write this blog, but this is more about my thoughts of things, not me. If you get what I'm saying...

Seriously, any tips or tricks out there to actually remember "who you are"?

Organ donation

There's a new girl at work whose sister has had a heart defect from the moment she was born. She's now 15 and last Sunday she got a new heart. Everything seems to be going well so far, I just hope her body accepts the heart. I'm happy she got a new heart, and I'm glad the poor person that died had decided to be an organ donor, or that the people closest to him/her decided to donate the organs.


In Norway we don't have a donor register, which is just ridiculous to be honest. What we have to do if we want to be organ donors is to get a donor card, which we can get at pharmacies and hospitals, or print off of the internet, but none of these are "proper" laminated or anything it's just a piece of paper, so if we have them for a while (as of course everyone hopes they will) they will get worn out, depending on where we keep them. I keep mine in my purse. We also of course have to let our next of kin know so that they can tell the doctors if something happens.


On the back of it we have to write with capital letters our name, the name and contact information of two of our next of kin and then we have to date and sign it. So all the information on it is handwritten.


When I lived in England I noticed that they could actually choose which organs they want to donate and not. Here it's all of them, which is fine, it's not like I'll need any of them after I'm gone anyway.


I think that everyone as soon as they're born should kind of automatically get on an organ donor list, then opt out of it if they decide for some reason they don't want to be one. That way, if some unfortunate accident does happen, at least the person that dies can help someone else. Just think about all the people that might have been alive today if they had gotten a new organ.


Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something.

My donor card