Home for Christmas

The word "Home" is a peculiar word. It symbolises the place you go home to every day after school or work, where you eat, sleep and can relax and be your self properly. Some people love being home, and are dreading going out the door everyday, and some just pop by their house to get the necessary 8 hours of sleep. However, I think we all can agree that home is a good place to be.

When we discussed the Christmas break at uni, we were all agreeing on that we were finally going home. Home to were our parents are, home to our siblings, home to old friends. What I find a bit strange is that this place has always been the place we call home, but then again, after moving out, it isn't our home anymore. Everything looks the same, everything feels the same, but its not. This isn't where we live.

I wonder what it takes for us to not call it home anymore. When did my parents stop calling my grandparents house home? The certainly doesn't to it now. You will always have memories from the childhood years; playing on the floor, baking cakes, bringing your first boyfriend home. Every corner of the house has a memory. You can walk into one room on the second floor and at once you think of that time where the funny thing happened, or when you got that call accepting your first job. It is just like yesterday, you remember the smell of the almost finished dinner mom is making downstairs, the music thats playing on the radio, or you just remember that feeling you had in that exact moment.

Although coming home from Christmas was all i wanted in the world after finishing all the assignments of the semester, I did it with a bit of melancholy. I knew that when I came home, I would see how everything had changed. I would see how the house was doing fine without me. Oh, how I would love if everything could be as it was before. Everyone I love around the table on Christmas eve, having the same conversations again and again, but I guess its time to face the truth and grow up.  After all I did moved out, I have my own home now and I couldn't be happier with my life at the moment. Going home will never be the same, but then again, thats probably a good thing?

Norwegian tree at Trafalgar Square

A jaunt up north

When the days until I was moving to London seemed countless, I figured a little trip seemed appropriate. Where to, I asked myself, and there was only one correct answer. The adorable little town of Trondheim.

Why so eager to travel up north, you might ask... Good question my friend, good question. As the school year in Britain starts about a month later than in Norway, all my friends abandoned me in the middle of August, leaving me helpless and alone behind. I wanted to visit them all, but as my budget didn't allow me to hit the seven sees, I had a problem. In the gloomy darkness I was in, there was one tiny little light. Half the lot of them had gathered in one little town. And I figured, if I cant get them all, I might as well take the ones I can have. Hence, I packed my bags, got settled in the train seat and snuggled up with fresh fruit and a good book (read: Fifty shades), ready for the 8 hours long journey.

Why so eager to travel up north, you might ask... Good question my friend, good question. As the school year in Britain starts about a month later than in Norway, all my friends abandoned me in the middle of August, leaving me helpless and alone behind. I wanted to visit them all, but as my budget didn't allow me to hit the seven sees, I had a problem. In the gloomy darkness I was in, there was one tiny little light. Half the lot of them had gathered in one little town. And I figured, if I cant get them all, I might as well take the ones I can have. Hence, I packed my bags, got settled in the train seat and snuggled up with fresh fruit and a good book (read: Fifty shades), ready for the 8 hours long journey.

On the way I even got to update my virtual boards, which was one of the highly important tasks I planned to preform on my journey. 

But then there were so many ginormous marshmallows to count, so I figured it needed all my attention...

And at some point the coach got packed with eye candy, and my attention moved elsewhere. 

Finally arriving in the most adorable city I know, this old champ was standing in my way, looking all cool and stuff with her Dr. Martens and her Brazilian attitude. Saving myself the problems of getting away, I took her out to dinner at Solsiden and had a proper sleepover afterwards.

We had a blast in the cold Trondheim sun and could not stop laughing. Im telling you, there is something about tho girl, that I just love. So fellas in T-town, even though you may all be sporty, good looking and smart at the same time, there is no fooling me. Only the best chaps get to come near this one!

Breakfast was spent at an unbelievably adorable place called Fairytale Cupcakes.

And no matter how much of an inconvenience it is, I want one of those gigantic pink chairs in my room. Preferably today. 

 Then, after kissing my goodbyes to my bestie, I went to the other side of town, a cute little place called Illsvika, where my sister lives with her fiancé and my unbelievably adorable little niece. When her smile lights up her whole face and even her ears join the facial expression, the mood in the room changes in a blink of an eye, and no matter how bad of a hair day you have or if the mob is knocking down your door, you cant help but loving this kid.

Suddenly everyone are singing and joining party.

Lucky as I am, the women in my family have the superpower of just whipping up one delicious thing after the other. Hence, my sister just randomly came up with these healthy and yummy lollies. Don´t they look like they just want to melt in your mouth? And you know what? They did..

To sum up: This trip was the best thing I could have spent my time on whilst waiting for my time to leave the nest. 

Three little foodies and a new hero

On sunday 3 little foodies wiggled their way along the river in Oslo, headed for the great food hall called «Mathallen». This is a large hall filled with small tastes of different restaurants and bars from all over the world. You can either chose one of the places, sit down and check out what they have to offer, or (as we did) buy a selection of different things from all the booths and sit down right in the middle, eating your way through it all.

Maria, who had been there before started with showing us around the place, giving us reviews of every dish she had tried not leaving anything for our imagination. 

In the bastement there was this really nice bar called "Smelteverket" where you could sit down on a bar stool(which they informed us that could be used as a floating device if a flood would occur) and have one(or several..) of their large selection of beer, alongside their incredible yummy soul food. 

As for the globes.. We counted and there was actually 54 real globes hanging from the ceiling. 

After the tour we decided it was too much good there to only try the food at one of the places, hence we sat down right in the middle, ready to ride the whole hall. We took turns selecting dishes and surprised the two hungry pigglets waiting by the table. At the end we had tried foie gras, mushroom and chicken bruschettas, spicy spring rolls and steak fries. As it followed tiny swords(that was what we saw at least) with the bruschettas, each of us were bound to grab one and - en guard. I totally knocked Maria down in her sandals. Thats my statement and I´m sticking with it!

Then it was time for dessert. Oh the dessert. All of us (just me) wanted to try every pastry, cake and macaroon the place had to offer, but then we found the pie place. It was amazing. Lots of small pies right out of the oven - who could ask for more? Arvind, who was trying to keep up his too-healthy-to-eat-sugar-image, meant he was going to have the tomato-basil pie, as (in his opinion) everything that is pie is dessert. But then he discovered the rhubarb crumble pie. The amazingly juicy, perfectly sour-sweet rhubarb crumble pie. He couldn't resist. As for me and Maria, we went for, the obvious choices of chocolate mouse-peanut butter and strawberry-vanilla on a layer of crispy caramel.

When we had shared and devoured them all, it was time to walk up along the river again, where we found the cutest little bridge where we(obviously...) just had to stop and play for a while.

Then we finally managed to get to the car and drive our happy tummies to the cinema, we met the adorable Ruth, Anne, Atussa and Annika for some real quality time with my new (without specifying reasons) hero – the man of steel. If you haven't seen the movie - do. I promise you will either want to be superman or (like I did) stare endlessly in to his wonderful abs(didn't really notice much else..). After a long and happy day, we got ourselves home, with a happy tummy and a new superhero crush.