…where the girls are so pretty. That’s where I am right now. I flew in from London yesterday, and didn’t do a whole lot in the afternoon, other than walking around. Nothing new there, in other words. It was nice, though, just to get a grip on where my hotel is, and such.
Today has been a lovely day. I woke up at stupid o’clock, for unknown reasons, and decided to just relax and read and relax in the hotel’s lobby while waiting for fellow blogger Jennifer to arrive. I had somehow forgotten to put the right time zone in my calendar, so it said we were supposed to meet at noon, while the e-mail (when double checking) clarely said one. Oh well, I had my book, and Jennifer actually arrive a lot earlier than planned, so all was good.
Our day together included a yummy lunch, watching a guy playing music in Grafton Street (he was actually really good), taking a walk in the lovely St Sephen’s Greens, and looking around Trinity College. We pretty much gave up on trying to look at the Book of Kell’s after seeing the huge queue outside. It was still nice, though. Oh, and we managed to squeezing in a couple of bookshops and some coffee too!
After saying goodbye to Jennifer, I walked around Tower Records and Easton (the bookshop), before heading bak to the hotel for a rest, before heading outside again, for hunting down dinner. I had pizza at a medicore Italian restaurant, and then went back to the hotel. it was vey windy outside, so it was good to just relax inside.
I had decided to take an earlyish flight, so that I had some of the day free to use, and not end up just travelling. After having our plane delayed, and then having to wait for our lugage for ages, I finally got on the underground from Heathrow and headed to Paddington where my hotel is.
I was staying at the easyHotel Paddington, which for being one of the easyHotels, isn’t too bad. OK, so I had to drag my suitcase up four floors (no lift), as I was given a room at the top floor, but at least it was nice and quiet, as the window isn’t facing a street. Except for the fact that I could hear even the tinyest whisper outside my door, which didn’t go quite the whole way down…
I managed to get some errands done, before I found a book shop called Daunt Books. It was such a nice book shop, I think it deserve its own entry, which will come at some other point.
The day was rounded off with having dinner with lovely people at the Real Greek in Paddington street. The food was amazing, and we all shared the meze. Most of the food was actually vegetarian, and I think my favourite must have been the hummus. The falafels were great too. Yum, yum! However, it turned out the be the most expensive meal I’ve ever had in London, I think. Almost 400 NOK! And they say Norway is expensive… Fortunately, you can get cheaper meals in London, and I managed to get meals closer to my budget the other days.
After some hours spent with lovely people, I headed back to the hotel, and spent a bit of time reading, before I was so tired I fell asleep.
Tuesday, 12 August
I woke up earlier than I had planned, so I actually managed to do a bit of walking around in Paddington before I headed for my lunch “date” in Covent Garden. I had luch with a girl I met at the bookcrossing convetion in Gothenburg last year, and it was fun to see her again. After lunch we headed for Forbidden Planet, that I always have to visit when i’m in london, and also walked around Soho and down Charing Cross road with all the book shops.
I did more walking on my own after we had said goodbye. It’s actually quite good to just walk around and look at things. I then felt tired, and went back to the Paddington are, where I visited the floating book shop Word on Water. Walking along the canal is actually something I’ve never done before, and it was really nice. Those narrow canal boats you see really are something else, and I picked up there’s a whole community around them. It was lovely.
After all the walking during the day, I felt tired, and found a pub with comfy chairs, and ordered some food and a pint of dry cider (not the sweet stuff you get in Scandinavia). It was so nice just to relax and not really do anything. So nice I decided on taking a quite night in my hotel room with sweets and reading, before I was so tired I wanted to sleep.
Wednesday. 13 August
This day turned out to be another day with a lot of walking. My first goal was the British Library, for the Comics Unmasked exhibition (which was really good, a blog post will come later). On my there I stopped to look at some Asus pads, and started talking to a guy who turned out to be Scottish (no Scottish accent to be traced…) Most definately a geek, so we didn’t talk much about the product he was showing off, but more about science fiction tv series, compter games and other geeky things. It was a nice chat.
After my visit to the British Library (which also included the compulsory “drool over Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë manuscripts”), I visited Skoob Books, a book shop dedicated to second hand books. That shop also deserves its own entry.
I was the ready for book bench hunting. Of course, the book bench hunt will have its own blog post as well. White I was doing that, I ran into a lady by the Pride and Prejudice bench who also did book bench hunting. I managed to have a nice chat with her too! Quite lovely.
It’s probably needless to tell you my feet hurt so much from all the walking, I decided to have dinner after that, and didn’t really do anything for the rest of the day. It was quite late anyway.
Thursday, 14 August 2014
This was my last proper day in England for this time. It was also the day where I took a day trip to Norwich to meet up with my friend P. Getting from the hotel to Liverpool Street railway station went surprisingly smoothly (no changing of trains was nice). And the train trip was good to.
P. picked me up at the station in Norwich, and we headed for his place, where I got to see his cat again. It was nice and relaxing, and good to see my friend again. The hours just flew, and I then had to go back to the station and take the train back to London.
I stopped by a place called Le Gourmet Brasserie to have my evening meal. The place itself didn’t look like much, and I was told I couldn’t have the falafel as a meal (not sure about what the reason was), so I got to have falafel and feta cheese in a wrap instead, and to be honest with you, I’m glad I did. It was so yummy! I wouldn’t brag about the service or the place, but the food was both very tasty and very cheap, so I guess you can’t expect more?
Then it was time to head back to the hotel, pack my stuff, and get to bed…
I think you have to be blind if you can’t see Israel’s apharteid system. There’s a lot about how they treat Palestinians in the news these days, and the pictures from Gaza are hard to watch. I’m not going to say a lot, I think this song with Immortal Technique, Don Martin, Tumi, Eltipo Este, and Tonto Noiza says a lot. The video contains the lyrics, and even though you don’t know all the language, it should be enough for most to understand the message.
For the first time in years I have a balcony garden! I started planning it last year, and with the help from nice colleagues (giving me plants), my girlfriend and my mum, I now have chairs, a table and several plants, making this place to my own private Paradise.
Days like today, which is sunny and warm, are perfect for relaxation on my balcony. Just sitting here with a cold drink and a book is heavenly. Even sitting with your eyes closed and listen to the sounds surrounding you is wonderful too.
So, having my first week off work this summer, my girlfriend and I went to Bergen. On the morning of Tuesday 1 July we hopped on the bus, and headed north. The bus trips usually takes about 5 – 5 1/2 hours, but it isn’t so bad, as there are two ferry trips included. It breaks it up, and makes it more varied.
After checking into the hotel, we went to Bergen public library, where we walked around, and I borrowed a couple of Neil Gaiman books I hadn’t read. It’s a nice library, and I am planning on an entry for that all by itself.
We had dinner at Hot Wok, and the food was fresh and nice. Needless to say, going for a walk after dinner was a great plan, we even walked along the harbour, and had a nice view of Bryggen.
Saturday we had agreed to meet up with a friend of mine, so after breakfast we first walked around a bit before heading for Det lille kaffekompaniet, which in my opinion, is the best coffee place in Bergen. I must admit I was so thrilled about the good coffee there, I had three hot beverages! My friend met us there, and after he had had some coffee too, we headed for Fløyen.
The hike up to Fløyen was really nice. It was nice to have a bit of a feel of the “woods”, which I don’t get very often where I live, and we had also some stops where we could enjoy the view over Bergen. At the top there’s a café/restaurant, where we just had a break eating ice creams, before walking back down to the centre of Bergen again.
After the hike, it was nice to relax with a cold beverage at a café. We found a book café called Krok og krinkel, after the recommendations from someone I know online, and had a bit of a rest there before we Went to have some pizza for dinner. After dinner, we said goodbye to my friend, and then headed back to the hotel.
Our main plan for Wednesday was to visit Bergen Aquarium. I’m a huge fan of penguins, and was very excited to see some live again.
The aquarium also had a sea lion show, that was much fun! It was so fun we decided to watch it twice! The penguin feeding was fun too. They had two chickens, the youngest beig only a couple of days old, the chicken of the same sex couple. Yes, the Bergen Aquarium has a same sex penguin couple! The seals were in mating season, so they were just occupied with eachother, than putting up a show for us. Which, of course, is totaly understandable. The aquarium has lots of other animals too, turtles, fish, reptiles of different kinds, and so on. Lots to watch!
In the afternoon we met up with my girlfriend’s friend for dinner and later something sweet. It had been an eventful day indeed.
Friday was our last day in Bergen, and we mostly spent time at cafés or walked around. Walking down Bryggen was interesting, with lots of tourists. We ended up having diner at Pygmalion, which serves organic food. I think we agreed we had the tastiest meal of our Bergen trip.
In the afternoon it was time to hop back on the bus, and head back home.
I picked this book up at a bookcrossing meet up back in 2008, but didn’t get around to read it until now. And I’m mighty glad I did, as this was a very good read! The lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is the first book in the Gentleman Bastard series, and was first released in 2006. Lynch was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, in 1978, and had since written two more books in the series: Red seas under red skies (2007) and The Republic of Thieves (2013). There are at least five other books planned to be released in the series.
The story in this book is about Locke Lamora, who at the age of six ends up being bought by Father Chains, a priest of the Crooked Warden, the god of thieves. Here he is brought up to, along with a group of other young boys, to be a master of disguise, and they become “the Gentlemen Bastards”. This is the setting for an exciting thriller of a journey for us readers…
This book was different from any other fantasy book I’ve read in many ways. Not only did it have a pretty original plot, but it had a rather colourful language as well. If you’re of the religious kind, you might find it offensive, as it does contain swearing. Personally, I think it fits with the rest of the story.
For me, this book was a real page turner. There’s so many good things about it, not only the language and the originality, but it is full of humour and is at times so exciting, I almost forgot how to breath! I also loved all the different and colourful disguises that were described, and kept wondering how Locke could fool so many.
I must say though, this is not a book for the faint-hearted. Lynch has not spared any details in the combat scenes. They are quite bloody, to say the least. But if you don’t mind such things (personally, I think it makes the book just that much more believable), you’ll probably enjoy it.
As far as I’ve understood, Warner Brothers bought the movie rights to the book shortly after it was released. However, I’m not sure if I’d like to see it at the cinema, though it were to be screened, I’d probably go. I’m worried, though, as the descriptions in the book are so lively and great food for your imagination, I have a hard time seeing the film can come anywhere near the book. But we’ll see, time will show.
My first proper meeting with yoga was in 2008. It wasn’t very long after the car accident I was in that summer, and my body wasn’t wholly healed. To be honest with you, the meeting wasn’t at all pleasing. I went to a yoga class at the gym I attended at the time. I don’t really know what I was thinking, I managed to arrive pretty much as the class started, and felt as I was the only one there that had never done any yoga before. That, added to the pain I was still in, didn’t make a wonderful meeting.
Some time later I decided to try yoga again, much thanks to a friend of mine. I was living up north in Hammerfest at the time, and she’d done a course about teaching yoga. Because of her yoga interest, she managed to get a yogi coming from Oslo to teach yoga for a week end. This time, yoga was a whole different story, and I’ve loved it since.
Even though I’ve been yoga for a few years now, I still feel very much like a beginner. I would love to take more yoga classes, and I even went to classes at Satya Yoga here in Sandnes, but even though the teachers were good and I enjoyed it, they do Iyengar Yoga, and used a lot of props. I do see the usefulness of them, but I felt I lost the flow you normally get from Hatha Yoga.
Not long ago, I passed a new yoga centre in Sandnes though. It’s called Atha Yoga, and according to their website, they do different sorts of yoga. Having looked at their Sandnes schedule, they seem to be doing mostly Jivamukti Yoga. I must admit I’m intrigued! I’ve never tried Jivamukti Yoga before, and am planning on trying it!
I love foing yoga. It feels good on so many levels. Especially my body is happy when I’ve done a round on the yoga mat. But I feel good afterwards, all-in-all.
I joined the bookring for Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad, written by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit, simply because of the title. I mean, I’m a Jane Austen fan, what else is to be expect? It didn’t talke long, though, before I realised that this book was not so much about Jane Austen, as about two other women.
This is the correspondence between the BBC journalist Bee and the Iraqi university teacher May, who wrote e-mails to eachother from the beginning of 2005 to late 2008. Bee works for the BBC World Service in London, is married with small kids. May teaches English and human rights at the University of Baghdad, and is married for the second time to a much younger man.
It is through Bee’s job the two women get in touch with eachother for the first time:
17.01.05
Hello
Dear May
Thank you for agreeing to be available for interview. As I said, I’m a producer for BBC World Service radio, on the news programme The World.
And so starts the e-mailing back and forth the two women, and through e-mails they develop a deep friendship, despite cultural differences, age gap and different religious views.
This was a very interesting read. I must admit I even had to break down some prejudices I had about Iraqi women. And that, I think, is a good thing. I loved reading about the women’s lives. Especially I found May’s side of the story interesting. Through her eyes we get to know Iraq better, even before and after the invation. Not only does May tell Bee about the (then) present situation in Iraq, but she also gives information about the coutry’s history. I can’t even phantom how it must be like to have such living conditions!
I’ve seen some people mentioning that they don’t like May all that much, but I disagree. Even though there are things she, and Bee for that matter, thinks that I do not agree on, I do take a liking to her. Heck, I like them both. Not that I know what on earth I would say to them should I ever meet them, but they’re real. They don’t show us picture perfect lives, but how things really are, for them both.
To be honest, I think this is the kind of book most people should read! Maybe especially Americans, but also others in the western part of the world. I think that we all have something to learn from this. Maybe we should force Barak Obama to read this? 😉
I went to Iceland 16 to 19 January, traveling with former colleagues. This was my second visit to this beautiful country, first time was in August 2010, almost 3 1/2 years prior to this trip. I was happy and excited to go visit again.
We had to travel via Gardermoen (the so called Oslo Airport), to getting there took a bit. When we arrived, we checked into the Grand Hotel Reykjavik, which was to be our “home” for the week end.
We went to a restaurant called Lækjarbrekka, and the food was really nice. If I’m to go back to Reykjavik, I might very well end up going back there – I loved the lentil burger I had there. It’s not always restaurants like that are good at vegetarian food, but these guys knew how to do it!
While the others went out sightseeing on Friday, I decided to go horse rinding. I love horses, and did the same thing last time I visited Iceland, so this was something I had been looking forward to. It was good to see the winter landscape from the horseback!
After a day on the horseback, it was good to go for a walk down to city centre, after I had done some relaxing. Spent a bit of time by myself, before I met up with the others for dinner at Fredik V, a fancy restaurant serving five courses. I wasn’t very impressed by the vegetarian food, though.
Here are some photos from the coast of Reykjavik:
Saturday morning I went to the centre of Reykjavik again. A couple of the others and I walked along the coast, which was a really nice walk. The day before I had just gone down to the coast while in the centre, but this time we walked all the way from the hotel.
Me by the coast of Reykjavik.
After walking down the coast, we went our seperate ways, and I had a walk around the centre of the city. I walked up to Hallgrímskirkja, but didn’t go inside. However, it’s a magnificent view, and you can see it from many places in the centre.
Hallgrímskirkja
There’s few things as good as a nice cup of coffee after wandering around for a while, so I headed for a coffee place I’d been recommended: Kaffitár. I enjoyed sitting there with my (good) coffee and read my book.
In the afternoon we all headed for the Blue Lagoon. I had really been looking forward to go there again, and it was wonderful to spend some hours there. Being there at windter time was absolutely magic! It’s a pity we didn’t get to see any northern lights, but that’s Mother Nature for you, you don’t always get what you want! It was still great, and I’m sure I could spen even more hours there.
The Blue Lagood after dark.
Sunday it was time to bid farewell, and head back to Norway. I hope to go back to Iceland in a not too distant future!
