I managed to close my suitcase!

My suitcase is very full. Hope it doesn't pop open on the plane. I bought a luggage-strap, so that should help a little.

I'm leaving at 3am tomorrow morning so I'm not going to bother going to bed, I'll just be even more tired if I do that. The last plane doesn't land until 11pm, so by the time I get home to my bed it's going to be 1 or 2am!

I have had a lovely time in England, I will write more about it when I'm back in Norway.

As geeky as it might sound: I'm looking forward to sitting down by my own laptop; looking through the photos I have taken during my visit on a screen larger than the one on my camera and reading the blog posts of the people I'm following.

I'm borrowing my friends netbook at the minute, It's a bit small for my liking, I'm not used to it, don't like it...

I really love Studio Ghibli films!

These are the four I've got:

- My neighbour Totoro

- Kiki's delivery service

- Whisper of the heart

- Howl's moving castle

I can't tell you which one is my favourite as I love watching all of them. Another one that I like is Spirited Away.

Before I knew of Studio Ghibli I never really liked animé. My only knowledge of it consisted of Pokémon and some rubbish series my ex-boyfriend used to watch that I can't remember the name of.

I was introduced to Studio Ghibli films by the family that I used to be an au pair for. Before that I had been in  love with Disney films, and I wan't really interested in watching any cartoons that weren't Disney. 

Until now, the only Studio Ghibli film I've not really liked is Princess Mononoke, but it's a while since I watched it, so maybe I would like it better if I watched it now. I think I just didn't realise it would be so violent and bloody. One film I would really like to watch is the new one by Studio Ghibli: Ponyo.

I still think Disney films are good, but at the same time I don't think they're the only ones or the best ones at making cartoons, or other films for that matter. The following clip kind of ruined Disney for me a little bit.

Warning: Do not watch the following clip if you want to continue watching Disney without judgement.

I'm packing my bags!

I'm going to England on Tuesday! I'm really excited!


It will be nice to see all my friends there again, I don't know when I'll see them again when I go to Australia. I've already made plans for some of the days I'm going to be there, it looks like it's going to be a busy week!


I've not told the people in the pub where I worked that I'm coming. I'm going to just walk in there on day and surprise them. "Miss me?".

The people I used to be an au pair for have invited me to tea/dinner one of the days as well. I'm really looking forward to see the girls again. From the pictures I've seen on Facebook they've grown a lot since I used to take care of them. Not surprising as it's nearly 3 years ago!

My friend that I'm staying with and I might go to York one of the days as well, if we can get cheap train tickets, and go to York Dungeon. I've never been to York Dungeon, I've only been to the one in Edinburgh, but that was 5 years ago, so I hope we're able to find some cheap tickets.

We also want to go ice skating. I've not done that since I was a kid so we'll probably spend the rest of that day in A&E.

I'm going to try to get some of this years Christmas shopping out of the way as well. I've already finished some of it. Yes, I know it's only January, but I want to finish it so that I won't have to spend lots of money sending the presents from Australia. I also won't have to worry about the presents not getting here in time, as they will already be here.

Shoes

I was looking through the blogs I'm following and I found this post at Pen and Paper by ...Petty Witter. After reading it I had to take a look at Kobi Levi's blog! He designs footwear, and I hope I will be able to buy a pair of his shoes sometime in the future! They are so cool and very one-of-a-kind.

Here are two of my favourites:

My feet are a bit wide though, so I don't know if any of them would actually fit. When I found out they had own shoes for wide feet in England I was so happy! I'm very picky when it comes to shoes and clothes, but finding something that actually fits makes it a lot easier.

Signs

I saw an article today about  a road sign, it's here (Norwegian) if you'd like to read it.

I think the sign is really funny, what makes it even funnier is that it's very close to a prison, which I guess is why they've put a ball and chain on it. The road traffic department says they're not going to press charges. Luckily they have a sense of humour, occasionally. Personally I think they should just leave it like that, but that's against regulation.

I think one of the reasons they're not pressing charges just because they're in the process of changing the signs anyway.

I don't like the new signs, it's just stick figures. They're supposed to be gender neutral, but just to be difficult I don't think they are: the stick figures are all men. They're all wearing trousers and hasn't got any breasts. I think the old signs were a lot nicer, and: there were both man and women featured on them.

Here are the old and the new signs, which ones do you prefer?

Pedestrian crossing:

Footpaths:

Schoolchildren:

Another reason why they're changing the signs is so that they will be easier to read, and because they want them to be more like the rest of Europe. I think it's just charming that they're different, as long as they're understandable I don't see the problem.

"Keep in touch"

This is something I've heard a lot of times, especially when I left England. And I have tried to keep in touch with people, mainly through Facebook, and also through handwritten letters.

I'm not always very good at keeping in touch, especially if people doesn't reply to my letters or messages, and I feel really bad about this. But lately I've kind of realised that keeping in touch is a mutual thing, it goes both ways. It doesn't work if it's only one person that tries to do it. This makes me feel a little bit better. Don't get me wrong, I won't stop talking with someone just because they're not making an effort, I just try not to worry if I haven't sent someone a message in a while.

Some people think that if you haven't talked to a person in a long time, there's not really any point in still being "friends". I can agree with  that to some extent. It depends on how your relationship used to be, if you were close friends or just work-mates or whatever.

One of my best friends, M, is very good at being logged on to Skype. I'm not. I'm good at writing letters. She's not. I guess I'm always kind of waiting to get a letter in reply before I write the next one. I should have learnt by now that that's not happening. Si in a way neither of us is very good at "keeping in touch", but we're still close friends.

I was her maid of honour at her wedding last summer. We got our act together when she asked me and we e-mailed and Skyped a lot since I was still living in England when she asked me. Even now that we live in the same country we don't really call that much or text each other.  But she's still one of my best friends and I will always be there for her, and I know she'll be there for me.

Another close friend of mine, S, is currently living in Poland studying to be a doctor. We spent a lot of time together when I lived in Oslo, she was one of my few friends there, I was mostly just bullied. I still don't like Oslo. We've not seen each other for nearly 10 years, but we still keep in touch through Facebook. We send each other birthday, Christmas and new year messages and sometimes just random messages.

We've tried to meet up several times over the years, but never managed. After I moved from Oslo, I went back down to visit her once, after that we've hardly been in the same country at the same time. S moved to Wales before I moved to England, then when I moved to England we were both to busy, S with her studies and me with settling in and work, or we didn't have enough money. Then S moved to Poland, and there's the same problem there. I hope we manage to meet up again some time in the future.

Friends

Have you seen those statues on Facebook that some people post? Something like:

I'm cleaning out my friend list, if you're a real friend then comment/like this, 

if not I'll take the hint and delete you. 

Shouldn't the people you've got on your friends be your real friends to begin with? I don't understand people that add anyone just because they want to seem popular. And anyway, the people that put this as their status doesn't usually delete any of their friends anyway, so why put it up there in the first place? I've never commented or liked one of those statuses. I won't be bullied into keeping a friend.

I have 130 friends on Facebook. And proud of it. Most of these are either family, friends I've known since before Facebook came along, people I went to school with and people I've worked with. Out of the people that I've worked or gone to school with, I've only added the ones that are actually my friends, I don't add people I don't want to spend time with outside of school/work.

I have been friend requested by people that bullied me in school, people I don't know, people that know some of my friends and people that I might be related to but have never met. I usually don't accept them. Why should I accept people I don't actually know or like. I don't see the point. The thing is they hardly ever write why they friend request me. Why do they want to be my friend on Facebook but not in real life?

The video I've put in this post almost made me want to delete my Facebook account. I won't though, because for me Facebook is a nice and easy way to keep in touch with family and friends, and show them what's going on in my life. Especially when I'm living abroad.