Travels with Charley

I read John Steinbeck for the first time today. In 1960 he ventured on a quest to find the answer to the question "What are Americans like today?" with his dog Charley, and his custom built truck Rocinante, and it reminded me of this:

Fields of opportunity in Iowa

                                           California is not too bad either

Lewis & Clark                Telemark, Colorado

Minnesota welcomes you

                        South Dakotan coffee                         Michigan         

Thank you Oklahoma, for great nails

Water tower

Sioux Center: As close to locals we got

Settlers in the wild wild western Kansas

Where would we be without Henry Ford and a car for every American?

Marching bands, and so much more....

You can ask me the same questions I guess: "What are Americans like today?"

 And my response will be quite general: I like America, and the ones I've met on the road. 

And the book was good too. 

Wedding dress up

Someone told me to start posting pictures of my outfits. So here is my first attempt, with horrible night light and the photo booth camera... I will try to plan it better next time. 

Wearing:

 Vintage dress (my sister's, 2nd hand in Drammen)

Yellow wedges (my sister's, probably from Argentina)

Gold bracelet from my grandma

Cameo necklace from my other grandma

I just came back from a wedding. It was beautiful, and I discovered I was somewhat related to the bride, which is a bonus, since I know the groom better. It was a very international wedding, with participants growing up in Japan, visitors from Switzerland and citizens of the USA. Let´s just say I felt at home. Enough for today, it is bedtime for this gal.

Summer is here.

I am in Bergen, and summer holiday just begun. I hardly made it here though... t seems like I´m a distracted traveler lately, and I totally misread the train schedule before leaving. Luckily I have a good friend that agrees to take me the whole way to the airport, not just the train station. But that was not the end of the problems. It seemed like every force in the universe, especially the construction workers, was against me, and we had to take one major detour after the other. As the GPS gives us an estimated arrival time closer and closer to my flight's departure time, I prepare myself to spend a lot of extra cash to get home in time for my sister's birthday. We finally park outside the airport 10 minutes before departure, and I think all hope is lost as I approach the counter. The place is almost desolate and they are already mopping the floors of the departure terminal, but one guy shouts to me: "Are you going to Bergen? Run over to that guy in the white shirt." 

Without even checking in, I run through security, throw away all containers over 100 ml (a small price to pay in this situation) and proceed to run to my gate with all my luggage. I am so stressed out I can't even look at the departure notices long enough to see where my gate is, and end up running in circles for a few minutes before I stop at gate 24 where they start boarding the minute I arrive. Still panting, I get in line like nothing special happened, hand my credit card to the air steward and get on board. I got home in time and feel like I cheated the system. Love it!

So summer is officially on, and apart from stressful travels I expect some of this the coming weeks:

Hiking and camping with the family.

Weddings.

Coffee in the kitchen, on the deck, in the living room and in the forest.

And most of all: lazy days in lawn chairs and the hammock. 

Here is the view from my "summer house" at 11 PM. Got to love those bright summer nights!

The magician's nephew

"I love books, words, paper, the whole idea of writing a story and print it so someone else can read it. I wish i could do that. Maybe someday?"


I wrote this a few years back, and stories still fascinates me, but I can easily be so distracted by other things that I don't prioritize books. When I was little I would go to the library and come home with stacks and stacks of books. I would usually read all of them, and then go back for more. I don't really do that anymore. Luckily, I joined a book club last fall, and it is encouraging me to read books that perhaps I wouldn't choose myself. 


One evening I started on the Chronicles of Narnia. I had never read "The magician's nephew" before, and the story was captivating and beautiful. Since it is a children's book it I easily read it all in one sitting, and it brought me back to the world of not just a magical country, but beautiful stories that can teach me truth in a different and deeper level than text books can. I should remember that for the next day I'm looking for something beautiful. 


Now the book-girls just left my house, and I have several weeks to savor this one:

"Ghost heart" by Cecilia Samartin

And I hope to spend many lazy summer days in a hammock reading many more. Any suggestions?

Moving in.

Today I took action on a project I´ve been thinking about for a long time, namely a blog.  In the process I stumbled upon this old Ethiopia outreach blog, and since I don´t like to waste things I decided to clean it up a little and try to move in. If you understand norwegian you can enjoy the previous posts by myself and my teammates, if not, you can join me from here.

I have been inspired by blogs lately. Blogs can be funny, sad, about family, fashion, cupcakes or pretty things, real or totally unrealistic, serious or just time-consuming. I don´t know what this one will turn out to be yet. Perhaps a sweet mix. But for now this is just an announcement: I have moved in.

Oh, and I can´t wait for some summer sister FUN!