Weather vs. Clothing

Earlier today I was putting on a t-shirt I found in the back of my closet. I hadn't worn it for a year because I didn't bring it with me when I moved to Bergen to go to Uni. I put it on and it smelled familiar. I realized I hadn't washed it since I was in France a bit over a year ago, I hadn't worn it and so I hadn't washed it. It smelled like my room in Saint-Rémy. It smelled of the washing machine liquid thing I used to wash my clothes in. It smelled like my bed. Like my room when I was drying my clothes. Like home away from home in a way.

I spent nine months in France as an au pair. I lived in a small town called Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, just outside of Paris, from October 2003 till the end of June 2004. I stayed with a British family, watched two kids, a boy and a girl who were 3 and 4, spoke English, learnt French and spent every weekend walking the streets of Paris.

To return to the subject; I was wearing the t-shirt. The reason I was wearing this t-shirt was that my parents, sister and I was going up to a seter and up through this mountain pass (btw, that picture is from the seter we went yesterday). It's not exactly a pass, I think, but it's the best English word or expression I found. It's not a mountain but it's high up there.

It was cloudy and grey as we started, some raindrops hit as we started walking. Before we reached the seter, Otterdalssetra, it was pouring down. We still had over an hour of walking before we got to the pass, Otterdalsskaret. This was the first time ever on a trip, and there has been a few, when our parents seriously suggested turning around. But we ain't quitters so we kept going.

It kept raining as we made our way up the hills, the wind was picking up and the fog coming in from the lake. It was thick as porridge but we were able to stay out of it until we reached the top. We didn't spend more than two minutes up there before we started on the way back. Making your way down a steep, slippery mountain side with the rain pouring and the wind howling, now that's something you should try. Once. And only once.

It did stop raining when we were down the worst part. We started warming up as we kept walking but we were still completely soaked. It's been raining a lot this summer; we were jumping across small rivers that used to be two feet wide but now some were 6, others more like 10. Wouldn't wanna fall in there... It was... an interesting trip. But from now on I'm not going out walking the mountains when it looks like the sky's about to fall down.

Then again, as the old, Norwegian proverb goes:

There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

Oh bite me...

Men's Fashion, Spring-Summer 2006

Guys - the thing next year is skirts. And if you can get a shirt that looks like a straitjacket that would be excellent!

This outfit is by Vivienne Westwood.

The Sheep Book

"We finished our packing and had intercourse, then went out and saw a movie. In the movie there were a lot of men and women having intercourse too. Nothing wrong with watching others having intercourse, after all."

Haruki Murakami in the book A Wild Sheep Chase

Sunshine

I was outside reading when the little girl next door jumped into the hammock with me.

Girl: "Do you have big boobies?"
Me: "Uhhh.... do you?"
Girl: "No! Do you?"
Me: "Uhhh.... no."

She insisted on staying so I had my hands full making sure she didn't tip the whole thing over, making us both fall out.

London

I don't know anymore.

I could write something about politics, about religion or poverty. I could write something highly intellectual with fancy words and terms taken from the dictionary. I could write till I fell asleep looking at the black squiggles on the screen, these little things that mean so much.

I won't do that. When I heard the news about terrorists attacks in London I didn't spend hours in front of the tv like four years ago when it was in New York. I didn't keep thinking about it like one year ago in Madrid. I just sat down in a chair, stood back up and sat right down again. I'm sure that was some kind of reaction, although not a very intelligent reaction, some kind of reaction it was. Maybe we're getting used to it.

I'm at a loss for words. There is no longer any way to explain it or say it's just a one-time thing. Saying that the people responsible must be brought to justice no longer holds any meaning. Not for me anyway. How can these things keep happening? Is this the future? The naïve part of me is slowly withering away.

It was just a few weeks ago I heard a news report about terrorist cells in Europe and how they thrive here. How much harder it is when it's not a country going against you but citizens of your own country or countries, who may have been brought up and/or trained elsewhere. I've watched how people start hating terrorists, then Afghanistan, then Muslims and the entire Middle East. And it's so easy, it's so incredibly easy to assume somebody, anybody, 'over there' is responsible when terrorists attack again. I know it's easy because I feel it coming. It's fear. Then it's hate.

I just don't understand it. What can make someone do something like this? It's the same question as four years ago. It can be easy enough, human beings are made so that if we have to do something we disagree with, we simply change our opinions because we can't see ourselves as bad people. We, as in you and I, do bad things only when it's necessary and only when we have a reason. Others do it because they're bad people. It's so easy to create a killer.

What about war? I've thought plenty about war and the people involved. I still think it's wrong and never the right answer. Terrorist attacks like today in London can go either way when it comes to war. Either war is right because you can't let people get away with this; or war is wrong because it's not a country that attacks and you can't attack a country because some of the people involved lived there. You wouldn't attack (for example) Switzerland if you found out a couple terrorists had lived there the past ten years. Would you?

But that is not the issue right now.

Hopelessness.

I don't believe in "hopeless". But it's a word that comes to mind now. How can we keep believing people are good when these things keep happening? I try my best not to ask something unless I know the answer, and always to back up my opinions and statements. But now I have no answers and I have nothing to back up my opinions with. What if people start losing hope?

As for the people of London, all I can say is they went from this year's big high on Wednesday night, to the incredible low on Thursday morning. Their people suffer and are scared. They'll pull through like other cities have, their politicians will get more freedom to pursue the 'evil-doers' and the people will live in fear, both in London and the rest of the world, wondering which city will be next, what country is on the list.

Fear... No. No thank you, not for me.
I have hope but so far it hasn't helped much.


The pen may be mightier than the sword,
but I think we need new ink.

July!

After a week of no internet and a few more days of uncertainty, I'm finally able to post again.

Uni is over, summer is here and yesterday I came home.

On the bus, after leaving the city, I noticed the oh so familiar smell of summer. I haven't noticed it like that before, the city doesn't smell like summer but here it does. The air on the bus smelled like flowers and grass, it's a mixture that doesn't really smell like any specific thing, it's just summer. It's just like that here.

Exactly 24 hours after I passed by this spot, this thing landed on the road.

They say it's 100 tons, 100,000 kilos, and they'll probably have to use dynamite to get rid of it. They're just not sure if it's safe yet. But don't worry, if you ever want to go on a road trip through Norway, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. This kinda thing almost never happens...

Today I went swimming with my sis but we came back home pretty quickly. Even though it's 27 Cs in the shade, the temperature in the water really lets us know summer only came a couple days ago and that it takes a while to warm up the deepest lake in Europe.

The one with the guy sleeping in my bathroom

Two of my three roommates have left for summer. One has gone home for a couple months, the other one moved out, which is a little sad. The girl who moved was the one who owned the sofa and big red chair in our living room. Now it's empty and white, we really gotta find some stuff to put in there.

My only remaining roommate was having a party when I came in at around 9 last night and they left at around 11. I noticed someone was in the bathroom but didn't think much about it. I didn't go out, decided to stay in. A couple hours later I went to the kitchen to get some water. I noticed the bathroom door was still locked and thought someone must have locked it from the outside. I knocked and when no one answered I got the lock open.

There was a guy lying on the floor. Asleep. Fine, the floor is real nice and warm now that I get to put the heat on without my roommate turning it off (she's gone home already), but that doesn't mean you should lie down there and go to sleep in the middle of a party. Not really sure what to do, and after seeking advice from the one you may know as Sandman, I decided to leave him. If you're drunk enough to fall asleep on the bathroom floor, then you might not want to wake up. Plus I didn't know him, never seen him before, didn't have a clue where he might live or even want to go if I asked him to get off my floor.

So I left him.

An hour or so later I heard my roommate come back. I checked to see if the guy was still there, which he was, he'd just changed positions and stuffed his hand down his pants. I went to see her, and this is pretty much what happened;

Me: Hey, I think you've forgotten a guest in the bathroom...
Ema: What??
Me: Yeah... there's a guy asleep on the bathroom floor.
Ema: Are you kidding?
Me: Nope.

(We go to the bathroom, I open the door, the guy moves)

Ema: Hey, is this where you are?
Guy: Uhh.....
Ema: You're lying here sleeping?
Guy: Uhh.....

(Guy gets up, talks to my roommate for a minute, then leaves)

Ema, my roommate, said she didn't really know him, she'd only met him that evening. He'd just dropped by and I believe he lived on the 2nd floor. How he came to fall asleep, or even lie down in the first place, remains a mystery.

I don't know about you, but I'm not used to having guys sleeping on my bathroom floor...

Things that are in my head.

He's off to war and doesn't fear death
Bucks County Courier Times

Bob Dembowski, 18, soberly assessed his prospects this way. If he's killed fighting in Iraq, death probably will come quickly.

With luck, it'll be painless.

"Death doesn't bother me," he said. "It's better to go over there with that kind of mentality. If you are constantly worried about being killed, you're just going to get others hurt and probably get yourself killed for sure."

At peace with the idea of dying young, he sat in his house in Northampton and chatted amiably about the future.

He graduates tonight from Council Rock High School-North. He has signed up for a four-year stint with the Marines. He has chosen the infantry.

His friends don't want him to go.

"They're afraid I won't come back or I'll be injured," he said.

His parents are supportive but concerned.

"It's not what I would choose for him to do," said his mother, Fran. "I am very proud that one of my [four] children would serve his country. But the danger. It's the infantry."

All warriors know they risk death when they enter the battlefield. Bob Dembowski knows it, too.

"It's why I have such a great respect for everyone who has ever fought for this country," he said.

He feels a bond with them.

Military service is his destiny. He's wanted to be in the military service since he was a kid.

He has studied the history of America's wars and is confident Iraq will be free, not a quagmire.

"Guys like me want to be there. We failed for two reasons in Vietnam. The media and the draft. The draft was the biggest contributor to the failure in Vietnam because you had people there who didn't want to be there. Talk to any recruiter. They don't like drafts for that reason," he said.
Click Here!

Iraq, too, is a noble cause.

"I believe we're doing the right thing in Iraq," he said. "I understand our government may have not been entirely truthful with us about why we went there, and I don't like that. But I still think we did a good thing getting Saddam out."

Free people are obligated to help those living in nations enslaved by tyrants, even if it means risking death to do it, he said.

"On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, most people just see it as a day off. Nothing wrong with a day off. But I'm always thinking that someone else gave their life so I can have my car, live in this house, have all the freedoms I have," he said.

"And don't get me wrong. There are things I don't like about this country, but there's no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest country in the world. And I want other people in other parts of the world to at least begin to taste the freedoms that we take for granted.

"Even myself, I take things for granted. Roads, for instance. We have paved roads, not dirt roads. We have streetlights. We have libraries and schools and supermarkets. Some countries don't have any of that. It doesn't seem right.

"Since I have these things, and I am able to help other people get it, that's what I feel I should do."

He enters boot camp on Monday.

He sets out on his first patrol in Iraq by fall.


by J.D Mullane June 14, 2005 4:59 AM

Seter

In one of my posts, Easter skiing in the valley, I explained what a Norwegian 'seter' is, I've never been able to find a good term for it in English... What I said then was this;

Basically they were places where someone in the farmer's family, usually women - a 'budeie' - stayed during summer, or went during the day to milk the cows. Now they're used as places where people build small cabins and go to get away from home for a weekend, or stay longer during summer.

The picture above is a seter and this is pretty much what they looked like a hundred years ago. Many haven't changed. This place is called Holskarsetra and I really can't say what the word means.. There are no roads and it's a thirty minute walk up through the woods to get here. We walk through during summer when we go to a mountain up and to the left of this picture. People still stay here, only during summer of course. It's a peaceful place, nothing but cows, mosquitoes and the occational hiker.

Photos are taken by a neighbour and are the headings for the new pages Honndalsportalen. They're mostly for those who live in town so if you can't read Norwegian you won't understand much. But the pictures are pretty! Below is, I belive, the view from our highest mountain.

June

It's June, beatiful June.

Usually this means last exams, oral exams in particular, last weeks before the summer holiday. Maybe being able to wear a skirt outside, and maybe leaving your jacket at home. It's the month when you're finally free from the slavery of school, when the flowers have come and you can lie on the grass. The month before July, a month which exists in our minds as an empty space of golden sunshine and green green grass, a month when there are no obligations, no early mornings, no homework to do in the afternoons. You go swimming and are called back home for dinner outside on the lawn.

Where July is a green and golden month of freedom, June is when it is getting greener, when the sun shines stronger, when you get just a little more free. It's the month when it's always light, even in the middle of the night. A week ago it would be dark for a half hour or an hour in the middle of the night. Now, when there are no clouds, it will never be pitch black. It's still three weeks till it starts getting darker again, three weeks without complete darkness. June, it's the month of light. That's what it feels like. That's what it is to me.

And now it's here.