Casa meva (pel moment...)

Some views from Breistølen 7, my new address in the hills above Sandviken. Had to move out of the centre of Bergen when I came back this summer, and must admit I wasn't too enthusiastic about that... Funny how you get used to things, though, and the company's what matters most anyway. Getting a scooter has effectively shortened the distance to the university (and the occasional, unpredictable hail storm and invisibly deadly ice-layer adds some excitement to everyday life), having a genuine living room is quite nice, and though the dining room is mostly used to dry clothes at the moment, I really do enjoy all this space aroud me.

And then there is the panorama view through my window which makes every morning just a littlebit brighter (or at least slightly less gloomy).

Sandviken and beyond.

Elin & Haldis enjoying the last days of summer in August.


Haldis on the sofa, me on the balcony...

Downtown Bergen, by night...

This is not really a post, it's just to say that I'm still alive and around. Have great plans for the blog, lots of photos and stuff, but it'll have to wait. Afraid my beloved university is going to take all my time these next weeks. Ah, well. Student life's always a bit up and down. December will be good I think.
If I survive November...

Ikkje meir HF?!

Har nettopp logga meg på webmail, som eg gjer av og til for å sjå om UiB har sendt meg ny og livsviktig informasjon. Har enno ikkje opplevd å motta nok slikt frå UiB (den livsviktige informasjonen må leitast opp, han blir ikkje utdelt på e-post sånn heilt utan vidare...), men dette er kanskje det næraste dei har komme så langt. Rett under ein fin-fin mail frå Lånekassen med beskjed om at eg no har fått pengar (Jippi!) låg ein e-post frå UiB som eg rekna med at inneheldt fullstendig uinteressant og irrelevant informasjon som vanleg. I staden finn eg ei lenkje til "Endringer på HF fra 1. august 2007" der det bli forklart at når eg ein gong kjem tilbake til Bergen vil ingenting vera som før! Har fått med meg at dei ville omorganisera institutta, og eg hadde nesten greidd å komma over at Romansk Institutt er historie og at eg til hausten må dela institutt meg ekle tysk- og japansk-studentar. Og så fortel dei meg at HF ikkje skal heita HF lenger, at eg får ein institutt-leiar eg aldri har høyrt om, at instituttet mitt no ligg i det super-guffne HF-bygget, at Infosenteret ikkje meir er på Infosenteret, at alt er flytta på og omorganisert og forandra og ikkje berre ligg på ein anna plass, men heiter noko anna! Eg som trudde at når eg kom tilbake til Bergen ville alt vera kjend og ryddig og enkelt. Kva skal eg gjera no? Eg kjem ikkje til å finna fram til noko som helst! Må læra meg alt på nytt! Hadde meir enn nok med tanken på å skulle ta til å master! Trur dette blir for mykje for meg...

Wonderful Manresa...

I know it's been a while since I promised photos and more info about the trips I went on for Easter, but I have been very busy lately (more trips, exams, St. Jordi (photos may be coming...), the beach, shopping, alien abduction, you know, the usual). However, I have now found the time in my busy schedule to share some fantastic photos and captivating information about my life with you.

Easter Friday (Langfredag, evt. 6. april) a friend of Alma had planned a trip to a place called Cardona. Don't really know exactly why, but it was supposed to be interesting, so when I was invited to come along I thought - why not? (the alternative was spending the day in the library reading for my exams). The girl who had planned everything decided not to go, because the weather had been horrible and the forcast was not really positive. Having learnt not to trust forcasts and in an attempt to be optimistic (and did I mention that not going meant spending the day studing for exams?) we (myself, Alma, her boyfriend and three of their friends) went without her, hoping that the information we didn't have about busses, trains etc. would be easily available and the weather gods would take the day off.

Looking at the view...

Manresas gothic church - La Seu (looming thunderclouds in the background)

To get to Cardona you have to take the train from BCN to Manresa and then switch to the bus. We easily found a train to Manresa, got off at the station, checked out the church and the rather depressing view from the church, and then headed for the bus station. At the station we were told that the next bus (actually, the only bus) to Cardona was not until 16:00. The next (and only) bus from Cardona back to Manresa would be at 15:00... Our second option was going to Vic, an other city not very far from BCN, but the only bus was at 19:00 (even without return tickets BCN-Manresa, which meant we had to go back to Manresa before returning to BCN, this was not really a good idea). Conclusion: We were stuck in Wonderful Manresa.

Central Manresa

We decided to get out of the station area, and check out if the rest of the city was actually as uninteresting as the parts we had already seen. After a lot of walking we ended up on a decent plaça and took a break under the pink trees until the sky started to rumble and made us think it was time to get out of there.

Back at the train station we found out that there was no other train for a while, so we decided to check ou the Bridge (according to my ever trustworthy LonelyPlanetGuide (...) one of the two (the other is the church) tourist attractions in Manresa). The bridge was, well, a bridge. A nice one though.

The Bridge (which probably has some other name as well, that I don't know...)

With different weather and late in the day, the view from the train was not as spectacular as on the way to Manresa, but it was still interesting. I haven't really travelled much in Catalunya, and it was nice to see some of the countryside as well.

Feeling not quite ready to go home, we got off the train about 20 km outside BCN, in a city called Sabadell (about 180 000 inhabitants). There wasn't much going on, but we caught the last part of the Easter Friday mass, took pictures of the ajuntament building (kommunehuset) and bought ice cream (which always makes any day a bit better!)

Ajuntament de Sabadell

Ice cream and the Manresa Rambla

I guess the trip didn't really turn out the way we expected, but at least the weather was nice for a change (the thunderclouds never became anything more than clouds), there was good company and ice cream, so all in all, it was a nice day!

Waiting for the train in Sabadell

Singing in the rain...

It's raining in Barcelona. Actually it has been raining more or less continuously for a loooong time. I think we have had more rain the last two weeks than all the time from September to March combined... And I have finally completely lost any belief I may have had in weather forcasts. Somehow they manage to get it wrong every day. Until March my impression of weather reports here was that they were always too pessimistic. They told us it would rain everywhere (at least in Catalunya) and then it did rain everywhere but Barcelona. I even told Riikka, the Finnish girl who moved in in February, that it never rains in Barcelona (of course it started raining the next day, just to prove me wrong, but at least then it only lasted for a couple of days). My relationship with rain has also changed rather dramatically over the last year. In Bergen rain is normal, it's what you expect. A day witout rain is a positive surprise. Here I take it personally if it rains for two or more days in a row.
At least we were lucky with the weather on our two daytrips during Easter (pictures upcoming). Lucky enough, in fact, for my friend Alma to get sunstroke (very scary business, btw.). Today the rain is combined with a bit more heat than earlier in April, which you would think was nice, but actually it just makes the world humid and sticky and disgusting, and it makes the Metro a nightmare, particularly if you have been running because you're just a littlebit later than you were planning to be (the Metro is always either too hot or too cold, and gets very humid when it rains). Have been checking the reports for next week, and the weather is supposed to get better, but I'm sceptical. Last week I was convinced that this week would be good because I actually didn't think it possible that it could rain for such a long period in BCN, but now I don't know anything anymore...
Anyway, apart from the weather situation:
Friday the 13th today and so far nothing dramatic has happened (yes, a little disappointed). Had an exam which went really bad, but that was as expected, and since it was a partial exam and I can do it again in June it doesn't really matter. The exam I managed to fuck up completely on wednesday I'm a bit upset about however, because I had actually studied for that one. So, having finished two exams this week and everything (worked very hard...) I tried to do as little as possible today, and I have rather succeeded. My class at 17 (Spanish and Catalan history for exchange students) was cancelled because the teacher is ill, so now I'm back to wasting time on the internet. The plan for the rest of the day is to find a book at the library for Erica and then go see free movies at the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat.

(Av ein eller annan grunn has melodien til "fuglane vett" snurra rundt i hovudet mitt heile dagen i dag. Veldig rart, for eg har ikkje høyrt denne sangen på lenge, og det tok meg halve dagen å finna ut kva det eigentleg var. Kanskje det er eit eller anna slag teikn...)

Hørr, gode vermeldar,

du melde vidt og bredt,

og lengre enn tri dar.

Du peike utforbi,

øve grenså i det fri,

e du stigfinnar, eg drar.

Der fuglane vett,

finst ei lisa av fre’,

der må vel regna tett,

bara fuglane vett.