Jule - Pepperkakehus

I had never celebrated so vividly the Christmas period before I moved in Norway!! There are so many things to do and events to participate that you have to try hard to escape them! & I have no intention to do so for no reason! Christmas are fantastic and super cozy here!

Yeah, yeah I know the true meaning of Christmas doesn't lie on the little lights or the presents ect ect... Well, I agree but is it very bad that I hopelessly enjoy social events and cozy gatherings? I love the wealth of excuses to gather and party, I enjoy the abandon of interaction and high spirits, I enjoy that I meet beloved ones that I usually don't. There is always a ''consumer'' aspect in which more or less we all give in but if I'm to be blamed, blame me for the party animal side of mine more than anything else!

One of the super fun gatherings is to build a pepperkakehus! Prepare some gløgg, put some Christmas music and get ready for tones of fun!

Last year, since it was my first attempt I had bought for back up two ready ones and extra dough to bake one and make it from scratch. We had amazing time! Hilarious moments when everything collapsed and had to be glued again, troubles with icing and some serious stability issues that our structural engineer had to take care of when the rest of us quited! : D 

We ended up with a very unique peperkakesommerhus and two masterpieces!

Wisdom gained; apply icing with a syringe!

Makes things really easy!! And clean!

This year we went for a Stjerneslott! From the NTNU pepperkakehus page. Ok the norwegian may be a problem but all you really need is the pattern and how many times to reproduce the pieces. Go brave and have fun! I certainly doubted that we would manage to fix it... more than once I have to admit.
But we actually did!! :D

Here are some advice and photos of the fantastic 5hr that took 5 people to construct it! 

Advice No1; never remove the star before placing it on the pan! Apply a lot of flour or cut the piece on the pan.

The pieces came out a bit (a lot) uneven even if we tried hard to shape them as good as possible. I was told afterwards that you can fix the shape by cutting the edges directly after you take them out of the oven and while they are still warm.  Next year!

Advice No2: Don't burn them! Not them nor your hands (true sugar story...sweet)! :P

Advice No3: Burn sugar instead!! This is the best way to attach each of the pieces even if the gaps are huge! 

 

Advice No 4; Have enough dough and keep the oven warm to make new pieces. My lovely hands managed to break several during the gluing process!

Advice No 5; See where the two parts overlap, glue just there. Believe me it's enough!

Advice No 6 ; Go crazy with the decoration!!!

 

Many thanks to my friends for the great great pepperkakehus evenings both in 2011 and this year!

Simply amazing

Cabin trip the real one- II

Of course I survived it and of course I had an excellent time!
I tried to chop wood, to fish, I washed myself in the cold waters of the lake and I enjoyed the bonfire in full  excitement. All new experiences, all great ones!!
Ok the truth is that I was exceptionally bad to chop wood unless you wanted a wooden abstract sculpture...
I was fair on sawing thin branches though. I managed ok on being functional with the headlight on in complete darkness if Mr hobbit forgives me on destroying his front door with my foot when I stepped in his hole. : )
But let the pictures I took speak for themselves! Enjoy!

Place: Heinfjordstua
Weather: ideal
Company: the best
Level in norwegian scale: underminus
Level in mine: 3/5

The miracle of Tsipoura (Dorade, Sparus aurata)

What I call ''the miracle of Tsipoura'', let's say, lays very very close to Coello's concept of the universe; the one that brings you what you strongly desire. Yeap that one!! Well, I don't know if it is the whole universe in my case but Trondheim wants me happy and pleased here! :)

Living in such a different environment is inevitable that you are going to miss an awful amount of things from your past life. From time to time I become nostalgic about specific flavours and aromas from my country. Especially in the first year, I experienced a constant swift from severe enthusiasm to taste every single aspect of norwegian life to severe homesickness even for things that I hardly ever wanted back home. From squid to baklava, from olive oil soap to octopus, from fresh fig to coarse semolina, from having someone to morn me in greek to the latest example of fresh (!!!) tsipoura... An awful amount of things.

Yes the last two examples are pretty spectacular! 

''Kalimera'' is goodday in greek and it's one of the most lyric words of the greek language. L and r and all the vowels there makes it such a melody! It's starting your day with is a tiny song! :D I had just started missing this little treat when a guest professor from New Zealand moved in in my office and he kept greeting me in greek! So sweet and so appreciated! 

& now the tsipoura miracle; 

I was in the supermarket buying things for my name day party. I was basically sad because 15th of August is a huge celebration in Greece and especially in my family is as important as Christmas! I didn't go for vacation there  and I was regretting it at that time. On top of it, it is a normal working day here while back home is a public holiday. I was feeling very tired and very very very homesick. The party was my last hope to avoid depression. People might get depressed in their birthdays, I now get depressed on my name day, strange human nature?? So as I was approaching the fridge area, I glanced them, laying there with all their silver colour and their big eyes! I though it was an illusion, or I was confusing them with a different kind of fish that looked alike. I stormed towards the fridge window to read the name on the tag! Not much of help. Gkrr! How do I describe a mediterranean fish and verify that the one I was viewing was what I think it was a bit southern of the arctic cycle?? Uff! That's tough and it can end up rather funny. & sure it was. Very. Me rushing to ask and explain with lacking vocabulary in this area... The poor guy answering my questions must have thought I was some kind of weirdo. Such an excitement  for a fish?  But who cares?? To my surprise I was RIGHT! It was it! Coming directly from Spain. The world was wonderful again! & I was overspending on five of them!!! 

They are all cute stories and I have a lot more. Right now I am thinking of all the times that life has provided me what I needed. From the silliest to the most important. In retrospect I'm a lucky person, life has treated me well but I complain a bit and get stressed a lot more. This mental treatment is my way to prove myself that my current struggles will end up fine. Naive way maybe. My future is uncertain and I am thinking of tsipouras! I do what I have to do but I cannot help it, I hope for a new miracle. A BIG one this time. Trondheim please please do your best!! 

For the record;

Tsipoura is my favourite Mediterranean fish. Its taste is oily and bitter and all you need to do to fully enjoy it is to fold it in baking paper seasoned with some salt, pepper, oregano and lemon slices and bake it for approximately 30 min.  You start to yearn for it in 20 min when all the aromas start to fill the space and then you have to suffer for a bit more until your mouth get into heaven. When I was in Greece I used to have it at least once per week. Yummy, yummy! 

A! yeah! & that was the recipe bit of this post.. :P

Cabin trip - the real one I

You can NOT claim you have been assimilated in norwegian culture unless you go for cabin trips. FULLSTOP

As a city girl,my definition of nature involves common flowers occasionally living in my apartment, the trees at the sides of a street and city parks, animals like cats, dogs, goldfishes, city birds, snails and some insects which I prefer it if they avoid me (only a couple of exceptions on this thanks to my grandma's efforts to convince me that they are harmless). Please count also all the beaches and areas that the soil amount is higher than the concrete one but the percentage of the second is higher than 10% in total. That's nature in my comfort zone. And I had been VERY proud of myself that I never screamed aloud or other times too loud when always monstrous cockroaches invaded to my place but I was so amazingly courageous to fight them and heroically kill them! Usually even without employing the aerosol spray so that I'm consistent with my eco-friendly principles. (Sarcasm? Me? Nah)

The other nature- the real one- I enjoy in small and safe observatory doses.

The primitive part of it scares the hell out of me. 

I grew up in a glove box. I'm a specie that belongs to urban eco-system. In real nature I'm a fish out of the sea. I met a cow at my 18 and a pig at my 23. I like Trondheim because to my eyes it is almost countryside. 

My childhood outdoor expeditions was always and only in places accessible by car. If it was a non asphalt road then I was always feeling that we were deep down in the wildness. They were lovely. It is true that you can reach really beautiful places following these ''agricultural roads'' in which the car jumps up and down and the voice comes out in distorted sound waves. Magnificent places, really! But there were not real hiking trips, we were walking for 10-20 min and then we may had a picnic until we were back to car for further seated adventures....

Did I make my point clear? The background info is basically for my defense. To explain why I haven't been in a real cabin trip after two and a half years!! Coming to Norway inevitably had a tremendous effect on me when it comes to hiking and re-establishing my definition of nature. But it's a very slow progress. I'm pushing myself out of my limits and I'm becoming more and more a nature person but still .. SO very far away from a nature person! 

Nevertheless, a cabin trip is in my plans. After numerous declines my friends managed to convince me. Since I agreed I keep flirting with the idea to cancel it. Uff...

Out in the woods, no electricity, no toilet, no immediate access by car (even though the parking place is pretty close), no Internet and that comes to my mind before the 'carrying your own potable water' (!!!) and the 'make a fire to get warm' (!!!).
Anyway, if I survive it, which I assume I'll do, provided I go, I'll come back with a celebrating post full of exclamation marks, a couple of photos and being slightly more Norwegian than before. If not you should be proud of me that I was fighting a bigger monster than the monstrous cockroaches; my(inert and scared)self!

Ok, this is the only weed free fun version I found in youtube, even though those apparently mexican cockroaches seem to me a bit high. :P

PS This song has a long and interesting story check it in wiki.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cucaracha

The ring of fire

I read at some point about a research study which showed that people who had been thinking mostly about food during a specific period, they gained significantly more weight compared to those who were thinking about sex. I guess there are many reasons for this but ...wait a minute...

Oups! One out of two posts in this blog is about food!!

Bells ringing! Bells ringing!!

Alarm! Alarm!!

For the sake of my scale... I have to fix this!! The sooner the better! 

So this post is going to be about the ring of fire as in Johnny Cash... :D

Being a foreign single girl in Norway is certainly interesting! You face almost a paradox; you know how to play but you don't know the rules... Been there done that in the past but now? Suddenly someone has changed the cipher or even worse he enciphered the rules of the game after first encoding them... Most of your interpretation doesn't make sense but you still see it works for the most around you... 

Advanced level for sure but I'm a tough one, I'll break it! I like challenges! ;D

After discussing my frustrations on the issue with a friend (oh yes, teenage years are forced back, apparently!) she sent me this fun post from an American girl who lives in Sweden. It has seeds of truth, believe me! It was such a relief and I laughed my head off! I hope you enjoy it!

''Dating in Sweden: sex, booze and mobile phones''

And just to close with a little food for thought, the extrapolation of the study is very fitting to my views. What you think or you allow yourself to think is who you are going to be! Scary and promising at the same time!
Take care of your thoughts! :)

Greek salad!

First and foremost I have to state that I really really love how much Norwegians enjoy and appreciate greek products! Feta, olive oil, ouzo...
We do,too! :) And I can't help it, every time I find similarities I feel happy!

Now that I made myself clear on this, I can continue with some criticism.
I come across again and again to the term ''Greek salad''.
Yeah, well, only that it is NOT a greek salad!!!

Would any Greek accept a salad that contains lettuce, tomato, olives, onion, pesto and feta cheese with tzatziki on top (!!!!) as a greek salad?? Damn it, NO!

First of all, tzatziki is a salad itself! Yeah, right, a separated one! It isn't a sauce and I doubt that during the almost 30 years I lived in Greece I tasted a single combination of tzatziki and feta at the same dish! Even the idea gives me chills...

Everyone is of course free to use greek ingredients to his fancy, and it is nice to let imagination and creativity wild but by all means don't call it greek! And even more don't present it as greek in your menu!! It is quite unfortunate on how many restaurants and cafes here, you meet this distracting idea of greek salad. Especially when one can easily find ALL the ingredients that a real greek salad contains!
It's insane! It isn't either that Norwegians haven't visited Greece or tasted the real thing...
I really, seriously, honestly find no reasonable explanation why this happens!!! It's simply insane and it drives me crazy!

Let's see;

• slided tomatoes
• onion (the colour doesn't really matter) in small half-moon slices
• green paprika in rings
• feta cheese, in a shape of block 8x12 cm
• oregano or thyme
• olives
• salt, preferably sea salt (&for God sake not pepper!!)
• cucumber (of course, corrected after the kind contribution of Camillaki) 
• optionally capers.

Do I forget something? Ah! Yes, a decent amount of olive oil!

Here you go! Greek horiatiki (meaning from the village) salad 1000% acceptable of any Greek around the world!

And another thing the so called tzatziki is another painful story! No, yogurt with garlic and something green inside is not called tzatziki either but I'll stop here because I have an upper time limit in nagging and Ι'm right now approaching it!

Last but not least, you can actually find real feta here! No, I definitely don't mean appetina, but there are greek brands in some supermarkets and you can find it also in Bondens marked in Torg. Once I had an excellent chat with one of the farmers when I certified that he actually makes real feta cheese and we laughed about having a label to his stand like 'Approved by Greeks'! :D

New generation :)

After last summer which is fair to be remembered as the summer of weddings this is definitely the summer of newborns! I'm so happy for all my friends!!! 

To have a little baby in your hands so fragile and so dependant. A little human being that innocent that is impossible not to love! A new life ! What a tremendous miracle and what a tremendous happiness they must experience!!!! 

Right now I'm just looking the photos my friends sent me. Photos and ultrasound images! I do it again and again. With eyes full of tears and a heart full of love for these little people I try to absorb as much as possible of this miracle! It is the first time I regret so much we live in different countries and I cannot be there, to handshake with my finger their little hands, kiss their little feet, deposit my share of love and promises that I'll take care of their well being with whatever way I can.

Is love transmitted within space without a physical presence? Words can do that but babies cannot understand words. Probably they only understand the warmth of your voice and they feel the pace of your heart. But this is not possible in my case. I hope love does!

I cannot help it but I try to understand if I am an appropriate material for mum... Maybe? At least I have really nice intentions but I am horrified of the responsibility and a bit skeptical on the philosophical idea of giving birth. Anyway there is no space for this kind of thoughts in this post! 

This post is dedicated to Anastasis, to Niki's son, to Ellen's baby, to Ntina's daughter and the Trondesk /French baby we are all expecting!!! 

I wish for all of them to be healthy and happy. To become wonderful people who are going to beautify our world with their presence as their parents have beautify my life! And I wish to my beloved friends to be healthy and happy as well! To be patient and wise, to enjoy every single moment of the upbringing and their offsprings to always make them proud!

A little post for the little gentlemen

( I tried hard to find the version of Nora Brockstedt that I like so much but it is not available in youtube so for those who have spotify please check Lykkeliten of hers)

and another norwegian post for the little ladies having or not blue eyes

Love you all!

Louisa cream

Every time that outside is cold or I feel homesick or I want something warm and sweet (which mostly happens when I feel cold or homesick! ) I make this super easy cream my mum taught me in Easter. My mum is fantastic on experimenting in the kitchen. Even though I wouldn't consider her as a great cook (sorry mama :) ), she is very creative in general and she has definitely come up with some excellent recipes of her own and some new versions of other recipes that I prefer better than the originals. At some point I'll post how to make mousaka that won't give you a heavy stomach afterwards!!!  

The idea of the cream is very simple.

First boil water and add Louisa herb leaves (Lippia citriodora), and when it is about to boil remove the leaves and add some sugar.

Mix corn flour in half a glass of cold water (the ratio is 1 big spoon to 200 ml of initial water but depends how dense you like it),  pour it in the Louisa tea and then stir it to one direction so that it gets denser. Remove it from the heat and pour it in little bowls or a big one as I do! 

It is supposed to be eaten warm so after some minutes of cooling is ready for consumption. 

I have played around with spices and herbs and I would also suggest anise, cinnamon with cardamom, and chamomile but nothing compares to Louisa which gives to the cream this lemon aroma but not the acidity. What I like the most is the elegant aroma the cream has even with cinnamon. This and how light it is!! 

I hope you enjoy it!!

As for me I have decided that I'll name my future daughter Louisa after my mum as she doesn't like her name. It always reminds me my late grandpa, too. He planted it in the garden of his summer house and now whenever I recall my times there, they have the aura of  sea and Louisa! 

Sunset at 'the spot'

Almost eleven in the evening, the sun still high, yellow,orange, pink, light blue and the clouds are reflecting the colour, dye the whole sky... so beautiful! I love that sunset lasts for so long here!
Earlier I went to the spot again.
The spot is a little flat place in the way to Tyholt looking to the town, the sky and the sea.
Spectacular view.

Today I was with a friend, we were coming back from ikea, I miscalculated once again the distance to my place so we were walking for some time before we reached it, talking for life matters and other casual things. I liked it so much! It was so different from all the other times I have been there! Usually the spot is the place where I go when I feel lonely and I try to convince myself that I'm doing fine, that I can have beautiful moments all by myself or when I feel happy and want to extend a bit more this feeling. In the first case it never fails to give me the peace I yearn for. Looking at the wonderful sunsets from there is as if you're shooting misery on the forehead! Very powerful stuff! :) When happy, it definitely enhances the feeling as pure beauty always does! 

In a way is important to have your spots in the city you live, your trees, your benches, your alley, your stones. It's a secret code between you and the town you live. You pass by with other people and you get a bit silent. It's a greeting, followed by a quick flashback of the times you spend there and the things and thoughts that brought you there and in a way you feel connected with yourself again.

And when you share parts of this code with someone, then you know that you have reached the trust that the real friendship requires! Simply wonderful as the sunset tonight! 

''Life happens''

Life seems as a chaotic dance of people moving around, relations starting and dying, feelings growing or fading, new challenges coming up to meet, situations following one another, failure and success, different places as if observed from a car window or mismatching tunes in a radio search for the best station... Inevitable swifts of reality...

and me in the middle of this dance, trying to follow or lead, trying to cope, enjoy, evolve, create roots and bones... 

Yes, yes, I know changes are necessary for life, to move on, to become better. But is it just me who suffers so much with them? I'm always in a kind of psychological inertia and mourning before stepping into a different path, independently of how good the reasons for this step are. It doesn't matter either if it is me who introduces them or the others or just life forces them. I always feel that we give up a part of ourselves, a tiny bit maybe or often times a big one. It's a split anyhow, which we go through for the sake of a better future. A new reality that nobody can secure in advance is risk-free or worth the while. It's a wonder how I find the strength to proceed with all these inhibiting thoughts, but I do and I try to be fair and justify why others do too, despite the pain they cause me.

For now what triggered this post is external so at least I'm saving myself from the doubt ''should I do it or not''. I'm probably also allowed to be as dramatic as I want... No, behave. I'm not drama queen, anyway. I'll play it cool. I cannot do anything drastic so I'll go with the flow. I wish ''good luck'', which seems a very reasonable wish even though I believe a lot more in the chances we create than luck and hope that what is built so far is solid or flexible enough to withstand and survive.

Recipes :)

I definitely believe is worth sharing the email my good friend sent me, explaining with many many details how to reproduce his fantastic cooking! So here we go;

''The recipe on this site seems to be quite close to the one I used:

http://www.nrk.no/mat/1.7548100

 I do wonder if it is a bit much sugar and vinegar in the gravy, but that you should add to taste any way. I also used more vegetables both when I was boiling the meat (an onion, some carrots, a bit of celery and some celeriac, all these I discarded), and when I served the soup and meat. Parsnips, celeriac and Jerusalem parsley (persillerot) are all good ones to use.

The melboller, the small dough balls in the soup was made as such (from http://www.matoppskrift.no/oppskrift/Kraftsuppe-med-melboller );''

60 gr  butter

60 gr  flour
1 stk egg
1 dl boiling water
 0,5 ts cardamom
0,5 ts  sugar

Melt butter, add the flour and dilute with boiling water. Remove the pan from the heat and add the egg. Add salt, cardamom and little sugar. Stir. The mixture should be dense enough so that you can form small balls with a spoon. Cook the dough balls in a bit salted water. (This part is my translation hopefully comprehensible enough : ) ...

'' It is easier to work with the dough if you cool it in the fridge before use. Simmer them in salted water for about 5 minutes. A slotted spoon is esential to get them out of the water. They can be left in one layer on a dish and put in the soup right before serving. They fall apart quite easily if you mess about too much.

The rhubarb soup is made as follows:

400 g rhubarb
1 l water
2--3 dl sugar
1,5 ts potato starch + 0,5 dl water

Rinse the rhubarb and cut it into small pieces. Remove the skin if it seems to be tough. Put the rhubarb pieces in a pot with the water and boil gently until the rhubarb is tender. Add sugar to taste. You can put a stick of cinnamon in the pot if you want to.
Instead of adding sugar I add some cheep strawberry jam. It contains enough sugar and it ads strawberries that I think make a nice addition to the dish.
Thicken the soup by adding a slurry of the potato starch and water to the near boiling soup. Stir well and bring to the boiling point.

Chill and serve with whipped cream, vanilla ice-creme or yogurt.
A final point. Rhubarb is in season now and a few weeks more. You can, however, clean it, slice it in pieces and freeze it. It keeps well frozen.

 Good luck!''

He is great, isn't he?? :D

Norwegian food

I have come to the conclusion that norwegian food is very underestimated. And this is pity!
Let me explain. 

First of all, if you ask a foreigner how he/she finds food in Norway most probably if not for certain will say in despair that he/she suffers! Well, I don't completely exclude myself.... But this is mainly due to homesick syndromes. You don't find ingredients you are used to or even if you do they taste differently. Coming from a Mediterranean country is almost a curse if you try to appreciate the quality of fruits and vegetables, here. 

As for locals, if you ask them for norwegian food, they will start mentioning baked potatoes and fish and maybe reedier and whale and that's pretty much it. (Ok let's not talk here about Gradiosa....) 

Does this signal enthusiasm? Any room for fireworks? Oh! No, surely not! They present proudly raskfisk and brunost but how many chances there are that you won't turn skeptical after experiencing these? On the other hand  ask for feta cheese or olives and you'll get exclamation marks!

By making the comparison and summing up with your nostalgia, you end up with the impression that norwegian food is rather something dull (and if you have supper in the canteen, you're slightly more prone to believe that). But is that true??????

To be honest in a great degree I believed so. There were dishes I liked like the reedier with the brussels cabbage or the fiskeboller,  the smoked salmon, the bakalao or the fiskesoup but I thought that's rather a short list. 

All it takes is a dinner at a friend's place who loves tradition and prepares everything with care. He called it ''norwegian assimilation dinner'' and he ''forced'' me to reconsider this unfavourable opinion of mine with the most tasteful way!!! : D The first dish was fresh meat soup with small dough balls. The soft texture, the sweetness of the butter and the salty biff taste was fantastic and then he served the miracle!!!! Biff with onion sauce and vegetables. I could hardly stop myself praising it!! I was all 'yiummy... ouaou...uff!!' for way longer than appropriate! Uff, I feel a bit embarrassed since there were people I knew very little but it was so spontaneous, so honest and that sauce so amazingly delicious and the biff so tender! ( I want this recipe, I want this recipe, I want this recipe....NOW!!!). The photo is from the dessert another very pleasant surprise! Rhubarb and strawberry soup served with cream! Full of taste and full of aromas!

Who said again norwegian food is boring?? Shame, Shame on me!!

Brunost

Do you remember this horrible medicine with the exceptionally fake strawberry taste that as a child, who respected yourself, made your mum's life difficult to take down this poor spoon of it, waiting patiently in front of your mouth for ages, but after a while you got so addicted that you were going in secret to find out where she had stored it in order to get another sip?

That's pretty much my story with brunost! First time I tried it I completely and ultimately hated it, only to make my Norwegian friends, who so proudly offered it to me, feel disappointed and now there is always  in my fridge...

Funnily enough the people who actually convinced me to try again were a German colleague in a Friday waffle session at work (a post will come soon about this fantastic habit) and a Turkish friend making a Norwegian recipe! So afterwards I experimented with the different types and found which one I liked...
Well, I have to admit that I widen a bit my definition of cheese so that it could fit. You see, feta and brunost are REALLY different but it ended up to be a success story!

My suggestion to anyone who wants to offer it is to present it properly. One of the reason that people dislike it is that they experience a completely different thing than what they expect ( yes, yes once again...)!

So my advice consists of a few rules:

1. Avoid by all means any reference to the word 'cheese', not at the beginning at least. The most common concept of cheese involves a very milky and often salty taste.
2. Please describe in advance the sticky properties of it (code word: teeth)
3. Inform for the sweet taste as well
4. Do the trick with the waffle!!! It works as a charm! : )
5. Offer more than one type. With the second trial people are already starting to get used to it!

Good luck from a former brunost sceptical and a current brunost lover!!

Concerts report

Here is my little comment on the concerts I enjoyed lately. 

Razika

Teenage (not really) girls who know what rhythm is. They will definitely dominate norwegian scene when they become a bit more confident. I surely enjoyed their concert even though I felt I was the oldest among the rest. Favourite member the very little one playing the bass! So sweet!!! 

Kaizers orchestra

Oh they are simply fantastic!! They are performers! What I experienced in their concert was absolutely satisfying! Great music, extreme energy! Theater and concert in one! However, I have to admit that when I listen to their songs at home I get a headache after an hour. But in their concert everything makes absolutely sense! I can easily say: I'm a groupie!  

Susanne Sundfør

A new album full of gems! She is a very very talented artist with a wonderful voice! BUT why on earth she decided to change her performing style from introvert girl to the (so common to my opinion) sexy type of woman? And I have to clarify one thing here. Yes her style last year needed some improvement, being hidden behind the synthesizer for the whole of the concert wasn't the best for sure, and I had concluded that you actually didn't need to look at the scene because the eagles hugging around didn't offer much of excitement... The scene director did excellent work, especially with the lights and taken her out of her shell. This time I was actually looking at her but I couldn't help myself of not wondering why a musician needs to prove that she is sexy too!? Anyways, I have faith that she will balance it. I'm sure that if it was so apparent to me, it must have been to many others, too. I just believe that this sexy style doesn't fit with her lyrics. 

Harrys Gym

I went to their concert just yesterday and I'm listening their songs right now. Great great powerful music! Favourite member the drummer! Ok, true, I always have this thing with the drummers, but in some songs his performance was so intense that it was impossible to look to anywhere else! I also like how relaxed were before and after their performance. Standing among the rest of us while the support band was playing in the scene, drinking beers and chatting afterwards. I don't know why but artists who play it cool and distant from the audience lose some of my respect. I suppose that is general thing with me, I dislike divas and people who brag for who they are. 

Bernhoft: I love the guy but seriously I'm so frustrated that his concerts are sold out so fast! So no I haven't been in his performance. He is going to play in Jazzfest in May, and I seriously consider to get the festival ticket because of course his concert is sold out -written as sold out even in the brochure!!! For god sake you can have a second performance, we love you man!!! 

Confidence at work

Today it's raining and it fits perfectly with my melancholic mood. Lately I have troubles at work. I feel as if either I am into something very difficult or I'm horribly bad. Most probably the truth is in the middle; I'm bad in something relatively difficult. I have to fix this. I will but nevertheless it upsets me. One should not bother for work related issues in his free time and here this is a general principle. Free time is devoted in well-being and family and this is sacred. I try to adapt but I have found easier to go out jogging even though I hate running than not being concerned with what I have to do the next day.

Another thing I noticed very early was that every single norwegian colleague or acquaintance I had /have was super confident relative to work and in a great extent relaxed at least comparing with my greek ones. How can these people be like this? Don't they have difficult tasks that puzzle them?

I tend to believe that it must have something to do with the way they are trained, the way their studies are structured or the way they are raised. Maybe the later, I feel that this super confidence is widespread in many other aspects of life as well. 

I definitely want to have this quality at least at work and being relaxed wouldn't hurt either. But I still haven't found the key to adapt on this.

Snow in April

I have promised myself that I would avoid the ''weather posts'' but weather in Trondheim is sometimes so overwhelming!

Today is the 3rd of April and it is snowing the whole day long. In my poor greek mind April means temperatures around 17 C and flowers blossoming. Oh well, I definitely don't have such expectations here! And as a friend told me once when I complained about how cold the summer was;'' You haven't decided to come to the North pole to nag for the low temperature!''. You have pretty much nothing to reply after such a comment... He was 100% right. So since then I accepted the situation and even when I was out in a snowstorm, I leaned in a wall, I protected my face with my hands and waited patiently until it came to an end. No complains at all, I swear!!

Now, I'm looking outside my window and the snowflakes are dancing... I have to admit...nicely.  I have been watching the very same picture in November and I was super happy that finally the snow came, in December and in January and then again I was feeling pure pleasure! 

But now?? Oioioi!

If I want to be objective, it is a great day. The sun is shining from time to time, blue sky, fluffy snowflakes, not too cold, not very icy either and long daylight.  

But still!

I suppose the itching feeling comes from the fact that I was ready to repair my bicycle and have a ride, I had planned to go jogging with a friend and the past days I was walking around wearing my thin raincoat, noticing how many twigs had a little green nose at their end... 

If I were to conclude something is once again all the trouble is caused by expectations. This realization comes annoyingly too often to ignore and still seems way too difficult to take into account when your brain is daydreaming and setting plans... Puff!

Smile

Bakklandet

A carpet of stone cubes.
Not exactly fitting with each other.
Low wooden houses, the dark river, the red old bridge,
the view of the green cathedral in the other bank.
Red, yellow, green, white.
Lighted windows. Blue flowers in pots.
People jogging, biking, going up and down.
An old couple walking hand in hand and a young one.
A boy with skis returning home.
Dancing snowflakes or raindrops.
A girl in an armchair next to the window is reading a book.
A sofa full of friends. Funny stories and jokes.
Dreams, plans, fears, thoughts over a cup of coffee.
Hot chocolate or carrot cake or both.
A concert. More than one.
A break for a cigarette with old friends.
Beloved memories from a different reality.
A birthday dinner. A heart full of feelings.
Love and gratitude and more dreams.
Beer and a judebox playing an italian song.
Metallic stairs leading to fresh air.
A walk with mum in summer time.
Resting on a bench, voices from the street
gazing the birds taking off and landing.
A breeze and the sky.
Laying on the tiny beach, the tide revealed.
A burning sun in the late evening.
Colorful moments in a beautiful template.
A girl in a miracle.
The miracle of life.
The real one.

Nordlys! Aurora Borealis! Northern lights! Βόρειο σέλας!

No matter how you call it, this phenomenon is AMAZING!!!

I feel so lucky to be in Norway these days!

The first time I experienced it it was in March 2010! Oh God! What an excitement!!

It was not so intense and fairly white but for me was a thrilling experience! I had seen thousands of photos, I had read about it, I had watched documentaries and I had spend three winter months in Norway being extremely unlucky on this, before that night! I was hanging half outside my window (I have the best view over the city and the sea and the sky), calling my family and broadcasting what was going on (!!), freezing to death for hours. When I got extremely tired, still I didn't want to miss a moment from the miracle, so I moved my dinner table next to the window, I took my blanket and I laid there to sleep. Well, if one can actually call it sleep because I was falling asleep and waking up, taking a glance outside, feeling the happiness running in my veins, falling again asleep with a big big smile... 

Since then I've seen the northern lights six more times. I can't help it! I'm extremely enthusiastic every single time! It's because of its outerspace and unexpected nature contrary to my earthy qualities, it's because it reveals me the size of the universe and how small my problems are, because it reminds me that dreams come true, that every single moment can be a happy one if you add a dose of excitement, a dose of beauty!

Last week and tonight we were blessed with the most vivid and intense Auroras than all the previous times! Even in the city you could see the fantastic green shapes and with good cameras my friends managed to capture even the purple and red colours! I tried to take some pictures with my new camera too. They are not so good but I love them! I do so because I wasn't able to take this kind of photos with my old camera and I had been waiting quite some time until I buy a new camera but far more importantly because I captured a boring evening which turned to be exciting and challenging (I have a long long road ahead for a good photo) and fulfilling!

Let's say I captured happiness, in its green particle state!!

Trondheim Calling

Music! Music! Music!

Music is my thing! Not in an apparent way. I'm not the person who would start speaking for groups and details and the rest... No, definitely not and let's blame for this my short memory, but music is very important in a very blended way in my everyday life.

Simply say that most of my memories have a soundtrack! ;D 

Unfortunately, I was very lazy to study music properly but I cannot live without it! I have a natural craving of listening to new groups, kinds and experience music in its full! The first thing I always do when I return home is to put some music. I love Spotify exactly because it feeds this need! You do a random search and boom! so many miracles, so many different songs, artists, styles! I can spend hours and hours just checking songs and names! 

Nothing compares though with concerts!!! Oh God! All this energy, all this emotion! Amazing!

Before coming here the only norwegian group I knew was Madrugada and Tom Waits (his origin is norwegian but I doubt that anyone else would consider his music as norwegian). Well, Madrugada is a very special case! They are extremely popular in Greece.  So no surprise that my first concert here was theirs in Studentersamfundet back in 2008.

After my comeback to my wonderland I was introduced to the music of Susanne Sundfør, this introvert girl with the sensitive voice soon became my favourite. Then Benhorf, Ida Jenshus, Postgirobygget (yes, in solskinnsdag ;P), Vamp, Age Aleksandersen, The Kids and yes, I was off to explore norwegian music! Well I suppose it is very proper to have a local soundtrack for the memories of a place!

Rockheim in a very interactive way filled me with more information than I could get but thank God there is always their website. One can find there an extended database of the past generations of norwegian music in general and not only rock. Trondheim Calling, which took place the last two days, gave me excellent material for the newcomer artists from the area I live! Hoist, I Love Wynona and Blood On Wheels are worth be mentioned here!!! 

My next stops in this music trip is Razika and Kaizer's Orchestra concerts in February! Gleder meg!!! : D  : D

Long time no see

Yes, I've forgotten completely my blog!
Can a person forget her blog?
Oh, well!
If you have one million notebooks to write down your thoughts, you do!
Two years later, I come up with the same idea! To write down my experiences in this beautiful place, to decode the Norwegian habits and ways in a way which allows feedback, and then it hit me! I started this project just a few months after my arrival!! : D
Typical recycling process in my head!!