Love Train

People all over the world,
join hands,
start a love train,
love train.

The Beatles - a short homage

Tell me whyyyyy you cried,
and why you liiiiiiied to me.

I saw A Hard Day's Night last night and I've fallen in love with The Beatles on another level once again. John Lennon was murdered 28 years and 13 days ago. I want an Imagine tattoo. And I want to see the rest of their movies and read all their books (I don't know if any of them besides Lennon wrote books, but if they did I want to read them).

I've always liked their music, I sort of grew up with them because they're mom's favorite band. But I never appreciated it in the way it should be appreciated. Seeing Across The Universe for the first time earlier this year opened my eyes and ears to more of their music and the phenomenon that is The Beatles and now I can't get enough of them.

Everyone, even the ones who don't like their music, has to acknowledge the impact they have had on the musical history. That's a fact and there's no denying it.

Framtida

Jeg burde lese til dokumentareksamen som er i morgen, men istedenfor sitter jeg her etter å ha sett x antall episoder av serier jeg følger med på. Jeg har klart meg greit på eksamen før uten at jeg har lest nevneverdig. Det årnær sæ nok uansett, på en eller annen måte.

Gleder meg til ferie. Gleder meg også til å starte med emnet Fjernsyn etter jul, det lover bra. For tida drømmer jeg om å ta bachelorgraden min i New York (jeg har på meg I heart NY-t-skjorte) og jeg har sånn halvveis begynt søknadsprosessen. Tidligere i høst har jeg gleda meg til å komme hjem til mamma for å fortelle henne alle de nye planene jeg har for framtida, de har nemlig forandra seg hver gang jeg har vært hjemme. Først var det å flytte hjem neste høst og jobbe for så å jobbe frivillig i Berlin og/eller Lisboa. Så ville jeg gå på skole i New Zealand og gangen etter det var det i Canada rundt Toronto. Nå er det i New York. Og denne gangen tror jeg det kommer til å sitte litt lenger. Det er litt av en by.

Tjue er foreløpig ikke noe særlig annerledes enn nitten, men jeg liker det.

Teen years

This is my last week as a teenager. I will never be a teenager in Oslo again. Tomorrow is my last day in Norway as a teenager. I'm turning 20 next Wednesday, the 26th. I'm not as sentimental as I seem, it's just a weird thought. I feel kinda old, but I know I'm still young. Twenty years. There are so many things I haven't done yet, but I'm pretty content with where I am in life. And I think I got an A on my Film History exam, but I have to double check when StudentWeb is up and running again tonight 'cause I don't really believe it.

Going to Amsterdam tomorrow with some people from my class, we're going to the International Documentary Film Festival there. I'm excited. And after that I'm going to Copenhagen and then to Oslo. As someone in her twenties. I'll be in Copenhagen on my birthday.

Listening to Westlife now, while being nostalgic? I don't know. I liked them when I entered the teen years and I still like them now when I'm leaving the teen years. Wow.

My life is good, it really is. And it has been. I've had some bad times during these years, but I'm too positive to not be content and think happy thoughts about it all. It all made me who I am today, or some cliche like that, and I like who I am today most of the time.

Nineteen was great. Here's to hoping twenty will be even better. Cheers.

Speaking words of wisdom

Sooooooooooooooo. Halloween was on Friday. There was a Halloween party at the student "bar" this Saturday. I went with my friends, dressed as someone from the 80's, in a not very thoroughly done costume. My friends were dressed as James Bond, an emo and Queen of Hearts (yes, a playing card). The latter was the best costume there, oh man! She'd talked about it quite a bit in advance, she bought it when she was in Minnesota for a school semester last year and I had huge expectations and they were totally met! It was awesome.

The evening was also very fun. I went to my emo friend a couple of hours before we went to the student pub, Bingo'n. We just chillaxed (my favorite word of the day) and yeah. Then we went to Bingo'n and it was kinda not-so-fun the first hour, the rest of our friends weren't there yet and not a lot of people in general were there. We met a random dude with a scary mask outside and it creeped me out a little bit. And some of the decorations were scary, but not as scary as expected. Thennnnnn a lot more people showed up eventually and then James Bond and Queen of Hearts came a little tipsy and the rest of the evening was hilaaaaar (my second favorite word of the day - a short version of hilarious).

Well, I gradually started to get more tipsy and we danced to crappy dance music until Bingo'n closed. I lost people and went to buy a kebab and then I found people after buying the kebab. The emo went home (hahah, not because she was emo, she was tired and it was late) and the very drunk Queen of Hearts (QoH) decided to go to another bar and James Bond and I joined her. At this point we were all kinda drunk though, but Queen of Hearts... phew. Haha, she was adorable.

The other two danced while a (cute and) very forward guy tried to hit on me. It didn't work. James Bond got a dude on the hook though, some creepy guy who followed us when we left even though we told him not to. We followed QoH home and the guy did too, I finally got him to leave when we were actually inside QoH's dorm. Bluh. And on our way there I kissed a statue, wow.

The last bus home to me had left a long time ago so I had to sleep at Bond's place and we left QoH's place, after about 100 meters we started talking to a random guy who wouldn't tell us what he's studying and we wanted to know and we stopped some other random guys to get them to try to guess what the first random guy was studying and wtf. It was bizarre. We had to pee and went back to QoH's place to borrow her toilet, and Bond had left her tequila bottle in some bushes outside Bingo'n because she couldn't bring it in there and we had to go get that too. And we hung out at QoH's place for a bit, I danced to Arctic Monkeys while Bond took pictures on QoH's Mac and then we all joined in and now she has some wicked funny pictures on it. She sent me some today and I laughed and laughed. Aw. I'm lying on the floor after dancing and QoH's is lying on the bed in the background and my leg is sticking up on the side of the picture because I wanted to be in it but I was too tired to get up and wow.

Haha, this got long and it's probably not funny to anyone but me, but I wanna remember it and it really was a hilarious evening. Bond and I bought Ben&Jerry's on our way to her place and we ate that while watching Dr. Phil the next morning. I went to bed at 7:30pm. Oh, hungoverness.

Oh and sometime before the emo went home, we shotted some tequila in the middle of the street. With the salt and the lemon and everything. And we live in Norway and it's cold. Next time I'm bringing my video camera.

Berlin

I went to Berlin yesterday with three friends. We went to see Of Montreal live at this small club in Kreuzberg. We got back home today. The trip was awesome, we saw lots of Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain and that's mostly it, but we only had a day there, so. Those are the neighborhoods we're all most interested in anywayssssss, with the underground scene and whatnot. The concert was cool and we stayed up late. Who woulda thunk it would be so difficult to find an open bar at 2am on a Sunday in Berlin. We managed. I wanna move there, for realz. I took some pictures, too few unfortunately, but the best of them are uploaded to my flickr profile. flickr.com/photos/rompetaske. Eskil brought his video camera and we have filmed some stupid and funny and crazy and weird videos. Awesome.

Late night irritation

Wtf, Katy Perry is all the things wrong with women reasons men oppress women combined, but she sure knows how to make a catchy pop song.

Blogging og filmer og reiser

Skreiv dette på mobilen 4. august 2008:

Jeg lurer på om jeg kanskje skal gjøre om dette til en slags reiseblogg. Har vært hjemme fra New York i halvannen måned, så har jo ikke noe mer å skrive om det. Bare at jeg savner det sykt. Har tatt mye buss i det siste. Først til København for å være noen dager i sommerhuset mamma hadde leid et stykke utafor byen, var ålreit (jeg la ut noen bilder på min flickr-profil for en del uker sida). Tok båt hjemat med brorsan og mor. Noen dager etter det tok jeg buss tur-retur Lillehammer for å se på høyskolen der som jeg skal begynne på om ei uke. Har hytte rett utafor byen, så sov der. Pappa+1 var der og kjørte meg rundt. Leste ferdig Beatles for andre gang og begynte på nytt på bussturen hjem.

Jeg leste den ikke ferdig den tredje gangen. Begynte å lese Bly for andre gang da jeg kom hjem, men har ikke giddi å lese den ferdig heller. Vil egentlig ikke begynne på den siste boka (Bisettelsen) fordi noen dør (jeg veit vel egentlig hvem, men ikke si det fordetom) og jeg vil ikke at noen av dem skal dø. "Det er jo bare en bok" yada yada.

Jeg er fortsatt i Lillehammer, trives på skolen og folka her er bra. Byen er mindre bra, men nå er jeg vant til det. Vant til at butikken er et kvarter unna på sykkel, at siste bussen går kvart på ett onsdag til fredag, at det aldri er en dritt å finne på bortsett fra quiz noen dager og øl.

Jeg har fortsatt lyst til å ta bacheloren min i New Zealand, ser i skolekatalogene nesten hver kveld etter at jeg har lagt meg. Nerd? Hah. Jeg har det fint. På tirsdag ville jeg for første gang som jeg kan huske se en film som ville få meg til å gråte. Dessverre så vi The Piano på skolen som ikke var gråtemateriale at all. Brukte et kvarter på biblioteket på skolen i dag til å finne en gråtefilm å leie, vi får se om jeg klarte det når jeg ser filmen. Jeg lånte en del andre filmer også.

Magnolia (som forhåpentligvis får meg til å gråte)
Jenter
Vinterkyss (vi så den på skolen i går, men jeg måtte skulke for å jobbe med oppgaveinnlevering, gruer meg egentlig til å se den haha)
Metropolis (fordi den Fritz Lang-filmen vi har på pensum, M, var awesome)
Junebug (den ser søt ut)

Tror ikke jeg gidder å se noen av dem i kveld, er i Scrubs-modus.


Skal til Berlin med noen venner om ikke så lenge, vi skal på Of Montreal-konsert. Glær mæ ææææææ! Og i slutten av november (forhåpentligvis på bursdagen min!) skal klassen på dokumentarfilmfestival i Amsterdam! Og jeg vil ta flere piercinger i øra.

Sånn kan det gå, sa brura og stappa kuken i vepsebolet

Nostalgic

I haven't played any Wombats songs in iTunes since I came back from New York, until now. I was at their concert on the Lower East Side, I think it was in March. I'm so nostalgic these days. Wow.

The toothbrush I bought there needed to be replaced because it's been more than three months since I bought it. I didn't throw it away, maybe that's disgusting but I don't care. It's my Duane Reade toothbrush, I wanna keep it. I'd glue it in my Memory Book, but then I wouldn't be able to close it.

This is so absurd.





Let the love tear us apart, I'll find a cure for a broken heart.

Edumacation

I dag har jeg lyst til å ta bachelorgraden min i New Zealand.

Start over

I guess I'm kinda starting over now; with this blog, with life, with everything. I'm living in Lillehammer now, it's a small town in Norway. It's weird, and wonderful, to read my entries from New York. I'll write more later.

And then it was over.

It's quiet now and what it brings is everything

Suddenly it hit me - I don't know if it was the sad The Kooks song or the fact that I was in my old neighborhood, maybe it was both -, this is my last day in New York. I just took my last subway ride from Central Park North - 110th Street.

I've been to Kansas City since last time I wrote. I went to visit relatives. And I drove up to Minnesota and was everywhere to visit more relatives. It was nice, I met a lot of fun people.

I've uploaded some pictures to my flickr profile, I'll update more when my Internet connection gets better - so probably not until I get back home.

Right now I'm sitting in my hotel room in Upper West Side eating the last part of my last Ben&Jerry's ice cream in New York. Banana Split. It's pretty good.

Later I'm going to a The Kooks concert and then I have to pack pack pack.

Leaving New York, never easy
I saw the light fading out

Traveling and moving

Just thought I'd write a quick update. I have a feeling it won't be so short and quick though.

Got back from a ten day road trip yesterday. I'm no longer living in East Harlem, I'm staying at an apartment in West Village for ten nights. Yeah, the same apartment I mentioned in my last post. It worked out after all.

The road trip was fun, we flew down to Miami and drove back. We stayed two nights at a hostel in South Beach two blocks from the beach. I'm not too fond of beach life so I took the bus and Metro to Miami Museum of Science the second day. The museum was not at all what I expected, but it was fun. And it was cool to see the little part of downtown Miami that I got to see. They have a Macy's there, whodda known.

The third day, the 14th, some of the others went to go pick up the rental car, but the rental business had of course screwed up our reservation and yada yada and we had to wait for five hours and tried to find another way to get to our next destination and there was none but we finally managed to rent a car. So we drove to Melbourne, which is also on the east coast of Florida, just a bit further north than Miami.

We stayed there for two nights too, at a Radisson Hotel because our fantastic driver, who deserves all the praise she can get, works at the Radisson Hotel in her hometown in Norway so she gets great discounts. We lived right on the beach, and there was an outside pool and yummy breakfast and huge-ass suites. We went to the bar next to the hotel one night, that was kinda weird. A lot of grown-ups being drunk and dancing under a lamp where 134245253 bras was hanging. It was classic rock night the night we were there and they had a live band. They played Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and other cool stuff. The lead guitar player and singer was an 18 year old boy, he was amazing. When he sang Whole Lotta Love, it was like Led Zeppelin was there, playing it themselves.

We went to Jacksonville, Florida after that. Stayed there for two nights. I pretty much stayed at the hotel, except on May 17 which is Norway's national holiday. Some of the others went to walk in a jungle or forest or whatever, the rest of us went to pick them up and we stopped at an Asian restaurant on our way back to the hotel. The chef cooked our meals on the table we sat at, it was entertaining and cool. And silly, and embarrassing, haha.

On our way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, we drove through Savannah, Georgia and ate lunch there. It was a small, but really pretty town. A lot of nice houses and cute parks.

In Myrtle Beach we stayed with some Norwegian pilot students. Our driver knew one of them from way back. I wanted to go to the Hard Rock amusement park, but we heard it sucked and it was expensive so I didn't go. Instead I did a lot of nothing, and I played Rock Band on XBox a bit. It was friggin' awesome and I want it so badly. Oh man.

We were supposed to stay there for two nights, but the day we were leaving a tornado came. Lightning and heavy rain. So we stayed another night. We left not really knowing where we were gonna sleep next. We were going towards Washington DC, but the drive was loooong so we slept at a Comfort Inn in Waldorf, Maryland. That was our last night of the roadtrip. From there we drove straight to New York, some of us wanted to go through Washington DC, but the traffic through there was too heavy so we dropped it.

So yeah, this was a really shallow description. I had a lot of fun, the people I went with are awesome and funny and adorable. We have a lot of great quotes and jokes from this trip, all of which we have written down in our Driving Book. It's like a bible.

So, yeah, this is my second night in my new, very temporary room. The first night with more stuff than sheets and a t-shirt. I didn't have time to get my stuff yesterday 'cause I had plans with a friend from school who's been in New York while we were gone. I have a lot of stuff here now, and a lot of stuff at a storage room uptown. All of today has been used on packing and helping Solveig (our driver) pack. It was stressful, but we made it. A million trillion thanks to Martha, it would've been impossible without her. Crap.

I live in a light green room now. I share a bathroom, livingroom and kitchen with two other people. I've only met one of them, but he seems really great, so I'm sure this'll be fine for this short period.

I hung out at Solveig's place all day, and Martha eventually came, and Mari and Kristoffer came later to eat dinner with us. These are just some random quotes or happenings I want to remember:

Solveig and Gisken walks back from picking up our laundry, talking about dogs in New York.
Gisken: I think New York is a bad city for dogs. I want to have a dog in Berlin.
Solveig (thinking this is a weird thing to say): (jokingly) I want to have a cat in Tromsø.
Gisken: Me too. But not long enough for the cat to live there its entire life.

After dinner things were really stressful, Solveig had to pick up her bus ticket in 40 minutes and still wasn't finished packing, and then leaving on the bus shortly after that so I had to take her stuff and my stuff to a storage room on the other side of Manhattan (across, not downtown). Solveig didn't have time to go with me, so Martha came with me. I tried hailing cabs, but none drove by. Finally one stopped, but we had a lot of stuff to bring with us so we needed two. I told the cab driver to just go around the corner to a girl standing on the sidewalk with a lottttt of luggage, he said sure and was ready to go around the corner when he picked up another person instead. Fucker. I managed to hail a big taxi though, so one was enough.

We finally made it to the storage place. The cab driver let us off at the corner outside and we had no idea where the entrance was. Three New Yorkers on bikes told us it was at the other end of this block and the cab driver could've let us off just outside the entrance. We laughed at our suckiness and sighed because we had a huge-ass amount of luggage to carry with us. The three guys offered to help, I'm still absolutely amazed by some New Yorkers generosity and niceness. It's overwhelming and I don't know how I'll be able to leave. Anyway, they helped and I owe them forever but I will never see them again. We carried all the stuff to the entrance, when the cab driver suddenly appeared again. We had managed to take his backpack too, with all of our crap. All six of us laughed and enjoyed the moment. It was funny. We're so stupid, hahah.

I had to fill out a million forms at the front desk before I could put all the luggage in a storage space. But we finally did it. Martha and I took a cab downtown and had a really nice talk while driving to her subway stop.

It's been a couple of really nice and tiresome weeks, and it's weird how everything is coming to an end. I don't know when I'll see some of these people again. I've uploaded some pictures from the road trip on flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/rompetaske/

School's out

Sup, y'all? I just saw SNL live for the first time and I thought it was time to update my blog. So, yeah, SNL live for the first time, it was coooool. I wish I had tried to attend the stand-by line, but my plan was to do it when we got back from our road trip, but unfortunately the season finale is next Saturday and I'm in South Carolina by then, I think.

I had reserved four tickets for The Daily Show for April 29 and I went with three friends. Asdfdfs, it was awesome! I wanna do it again and again and again. Working at a TV set seems so cool and I want to end up there somehow. I was also at the Colbert Report in the beginning of April, it might have been slightly more awesome but I still lurrrv Jon.

School's over. I had three exams this week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Overall I think it went well. We had a graduation party at school last night, with games and speeches and goodbyes. It's weird that I'll never see over half of those people again. Not necessarily sad, because I didn't really speak to over half of them, but weird.

On my way home, after I had gotten off the subway, I saw a raccoon! My very first raccoon! It ran across the sidewalk I was walking on and jumped a meter up a tree where it stood and stared at me while wagging its tail. So cute. I walked less than 50 meters and I saw my very second raccoon! How can I leave this place?

I'm going to Miami on Monday with friends from school. We're staying there two nights and then driving back to New York, we'll be gone for ten nights. We haven't renewed our lease for this apartment so we're moving out and we need to pack everything. Aaack. I've packed most of my clothes that I'm not bringing to Florida, but there's still lots to do.

I was supposed to live in a room in an apartment shared with a couple in West Village when I got back from the road trip, but yada yada and it didn't work out like that. I'll figure something out.

I'm visiting relatives in Kansas City and Minnesota between June 2 and 8, that'll be weird I think. And hopefully very interesting. I'm leaving New York the 12th of June.

Busy bee

Kate Nash
Originally uploaded by rompetaske

I've done a lot of stuff this last week, finally taking advantage of this city more than I have before. I went to Brooklyn a couple of days last weekend, saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and hung out in several parks (the Central one and Prospect Park in Brooklyn). And the whole school went to Ellis Island on Sunday,

and in the evening Mari (a girl from school) and I went to the UCB theater where ASSSSCAT performs each Sunday. It's an improv show with Amy Poehler in the lead. It was hilarious. Jason Sudeikis from SNL was there, and of course Amy too. A guy from 30 Rock was there. And one of the girls from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (the least famous one, haha).

This week I've done some summer shopping, been to a sculpture exhibition opening, had dinner and seen a movie with my philosophy class at the philosophy lecturer's house, had my first mani- and pedicure, been to a Kate Nash concert (picture) and today I'm planning on walking around a bit downtown and then probably end up in the park and read or something.

Tribeca Film Festival started this week, a lot of people from school are volunteers there, but I signed up too late. Anyway, in that occasion, Amy Poehler is speaking at the Apple Store in SoHo tomorrow evening, probably about her new movie Baby Mama which premiered at the film festival. I wanna go.

Spring

Guitar player
Originally uploaded by rompetaske

Spring has arrived, everything is getting greener by the minute and we've had a couple of days with 25 degrees. Celsius, of course. Helle and I had a little picnic in Central Park one day, we ate sushi and sat near this guy with a guitar. It was nice.

I went to Park Slope in Brooklyn yesterday, bought a purse and a wallet and some earrings and met Kristin from my class. We went to Prospect Park where she read and I played on my new Nintendo DS.

Today we sat in Central Park again, a whole bunch of us. Central Park feels like a whole different place than the rest of Manhattan, it's weird and very nice. Yes.

Herlige samtaler en søndag i East Harlem

(fritt fra hukommelsen:)

Helle (løper rundt i leiligheta): MARTHA! MARTHA! MARTHA! MARTHA! MARTHA! MAAARTHAAA! (telefonen ringer) Nå ringer de igjen! (svarer) Hello? ... Yes, I'm coming down now.

Martha (pakker ut kinamaten fra posen): Åh det er til og med etasjer i posen! (pakker videre) Enda en etasje! Helle, se! De har til og med lagt sånn deilig væske mellom hver etasje.

Helle: Har dere noen gang ett ord på hjernen, som dere tenker på om og om igjen?
Gisken: ...nei.
Martha: Hvilket ord er det du har nå?
Helle: Neeei, det kan jeg ikke si. ... Dumt at det ikke var sol i dag, da.
Martha: Vi burde begynne å skrive ned disse samtalene.

I'll always love you though, New York

It's been two months now. I've been in New York City for two friggin' months. The best two months of my life.

That is all.

Pigeons

We got our first pigeon egg on the balcony during the Easter vacation. The nest had been there for a while, and the birds, too. Vomiting in each other's beaks and being generally disgusting. Mom told us to remove it and we did. We didn't see them very much the next days.

The week after we saw that they were beginning on another nest in the other corner of our balcony. We removed it and they started again. Earlier this week we saw an egg there. We didn't do anything, we were kinda interested in what was going to happen. Yesterday we saw another egg. And we added one of our (not so good) chocolate easter eggs.

Apparently pigeon eggs hatch after 17 - 19 days and the babies will stay in their nest for two months before they start flying. We were still a little intrigued. I at least would like to see a bird learning how to fly. But we would also get pigeon bugs or mites or whatever, and we would have to listen to the baby bird screaming all day.

So we removed the nest and the eggs and everything.

A nice amount of random

I'm at school, yo. Or the school's library. Just finished writing my American Topics midterm paper. And I'm eating Twix bought from one of the school's many vending machines. Don't tell anyone though, we're not allowed to eat or drink in the library.

It was really weird not going home with my family. I always do that when we're in another country together. But I live here now. I live in New York. Until May 31st. I tried changing my return ticket to June 13th, but I'm missing my e-ticket number, so we'll see how that goes. I sent an e-mail to Kilroy Travels, but I don't know if they can do anything.

I can see the Empire State Building from here, all the lights are white today. No special occasion. I can also see a river, Hudson River?, and New Jersey. I'm hungry. Maybe I should go eat something and go home. My battery is running low soon too.

PEACE OF MIND
FOR YOUR FAMILY
NEW YORK LIFE

It says that on a commercial banner/poster/whatever outside.

This was a nice amount of random. Go check out my flickr pics.

I'm alive!

Empire State Building
Originally uploaded by rompetaske

Long time, no see, eh? I'll make this short. This is the last day of my Easter vacation, mom and my brothers are leaving tonight. We haven't really done a lot of turist-y stuff, like museums and guided bus rides, but my brothers and I went to Top of the Rock, which is the top of the GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where this was our view. That's the Empire State Building in the middle.

Other than that we've been shopping and looking around. Five days isn't very much in a city like this. I'm glad I still have a couple of months left.

I uploaded a lot of photos to my flickr account today, and I had to buy a pro account because I have over 200 pictures uploaded. Go check 'em out, yo.

Waiting for the cable guy

Hollaaaa! Haven't updated in a while because not much has happened. I have been way too busy doing school work or thinking about school work or feeling guilty for not doing school work. I have turned in two papers since last time, one in philosophy and one in human rights. It's nice to be done. We'll get our American Topics paper assignment on Thursday, which we will have two weeks to write. Easter vacation in between.

Mom and my brother arrives in a week, I'm looking forward to seeing them. One and a half month is the longest I have been away from mommy ever. It's been really nice, but it'll be nice to seem her again too.

I'm at home waiting for the cable guy or girl now. I am almost finished with my Dunkin' Donuts coffee, it's getting cold. Starbucks is ten blocks away which is too far when I'm not planning on sitting there. Dunkin' Donuts is just two blocks away.

I was at the Barnes&Noble at Union Square yesterday, and apparently Jon friggin' Stewart was there on Saturday. Oh mannnnn.
I was supposed to find a photo album for my polaroid pictures, and I did. But I also bought some gifts and three books for myself. I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert, which I've started reading some in and it's awwwwesome. And America (The Book) by Jon Stewart, which I've also started reading some in and it's not as awesome, but still cool. And a street art book from NYC and Barcelona, I've always wanted one of those books, but they're so expensive in Norway.

Besides doing laundry, I might go into Central Park and take some pictures to put in my album. I have to buy more polaroid film, they're going out of production, which is ssssooo lame. Æ må hamstre!

Have a nice day/afternoon/evening!

Shopping spree

I needed a new skirt so I bought three.

Went shopping today, bought a lotttt. Today's shopping goals were:
A cardigan, maybe two.
Sweatpants.
Skirt.
Maybe jeans.
Stockings.
Bra?

What I ended up with:
Three cardigans.
Three skirts.
Sweatpants.
Three pairs of stockings.
One top.
Pens and paper for school.
Polaroid instant film.

I'm looking forward to getting the polaroid camera I bought from ebay.

Went to the Fred Armisen show at Knitting Factory last night, it was awwwwesome. I couldn't believe I actually saw him live. Aaa he's awesome. His girlfriend, Petra Haden, was there with her acappella(?) choir, that was not so awesome. They did covers of some cool songs though.
Uncle Eddie from Grounded For Life was there, woo.

We might be going to a launch party today, if my hungover roomies are up for it.

Let's dance to Joy Division and celebrate the irony!

Concerts!

So apparently I have some readers, sweet. Thought I should update about what has happened since last time.

Last Sunday the four girls from this apartment and a friend from school went to catch a movie. We went to Union Square and decided to see Juno, it started at like 10:30 pm or something, but hey, we're in New York, sleeping is for losers. It was really good, I loved it. We got home at around 1am and two of us had school at 10 the next day. We managed though.

We had our first Human right classes, with our very pregnant (and adorable!) teacher. It was more interesting than expected. We talked a lot about genocide and on Tuesday our class went to a debate at NYU School of Law about genocide and media. My mind flew elsewhere, but what I caught was edumacating.

On Wednesday the whole school went to see The Color Purple on Broadway. We read the book for American Topics. The musical was great, I really enjoyed it. But I'm a sucker for musicals, so. Wish I had the money to go to some more. Maybe I'll get mom to pay when they get here, haw. I think I saw Jerry Springer outside the theater, it certainly looked a lot like him. My first celebrity sighting, haha.

We eat a lot of peanut butter. Ok-tasting cheese is "expensive", and that's kinda all the "pålegg" they have here. Nothing here is expensive for us though, but you probably get what I mean anyway. I love the low dollar rate, it's my favorite thing in the world.

Another thing I also love is when people ask me for directions. Maybe I don't look as lost as I really am. Nah, I'm not always lost. Today I wasn't.

Today I went to Lower East Side or East Village to find this concert place to get my ticket for the The Wombats concert that I ordered yesterday, but it was closed. No hurries, the concert isn't until April I think.
I went to the same neighborhood yesterday evening to catch a concert with three tiny bands. These bands to be exact:
Aviation Orange (http://www.myspace.com/theaviationorange)
With Impurity (http://www.myspace.com/withimpurity)
Rattling Cages (http://www.myspace.com/rattlingcages)

The bass player from the last band told me about it in an IRC channel. The first band was awesome and they're playing around there again while I'm here, so I'll catch them again. The second band was crap, as metal is. The third band was cool enough. I'm not too fond of screaming in music, but it's cool sometimes. The vocalist had a mustache that I grew a love/hate relationship to. But then he spoke some kind of East European language and that sorta won me over.

I did get lost on my way there, the location was one block away from the subway stop, I of course went to opposite direction for four blocks. I almost went in to a bar that showed the Oscars because Jon Stewart was the host and I wanted to see it. But I went back to the subway station instead, 'cause they had a map. And this time I found it, phew. Too late to catch all the songs of the first band, but I caught an okay amount. I already knew I'd like them because of their myspace page.

On Friday the other girls here went to a concert at Apollo in Harlem, I was home alone, that was nice. Didn't really do anything special, but it's nice to be alone sometimes. On Saturday evening we went to Brooklyn with a friend that lives there, we ate and hung out at some bars. Danced and had fun.

Sometimes when I'm walking around alone, I suddenly realize where the hell I am and I just grin and grin.

I have bought two concert tickets besides the one I was going to pick up today. Kate Nash(!!!!!!!!!!) who's playing in April, and Fred Armisen who is playing this Thursday! Wooo!

Oh oh oh! On Friday I went downtown by myself and went to Rockefeller Plaza and the NBC Experience Store. I bought a Dick in a Box t shirt (HEART) and some NBC pens. Aaaah NBC. And I finally got around to sending some post cards, but not all. Let me know if you want one.

And I did buy new shoes! Brown and blue vans. The second time I wore new shoes, and the second time someone random asks me about them because they like them. I have good shoe taste.
I also have some new pictures on my flickr account: flickr.com/rompetaske

Blurry New York Skyline

New York Skyline
Originally uploaded by rompetaske

Here's one of the pictures I took of New York Skyline from Brooklyn. It's too blurry, but at least I was there. You can find a few more New York pictures on my flickr account.

My week and whatnot

Second Saturday in New York. It's going well. School started on Monday, had philosophy (exphil) Monday and Wednesday, and American Topic Thursday. Human rights starts this coming Monday. American Topics seems very interesting, the main lecturer is very cool. It's about American culture in every meaning of the word. Immigration, music, sports, everything. Exphil is kinda boring so far, but I didn't really expect otherwise. We've talked about Sokrates and Platon.

Human rights seems kinda dry too, I'm not really interested in that kind of subject. But maybe it's okay, we'll see. We have to write an expectation letter for our human rights lecturers by Monday and we've gotten two big assignments that are due March 5 and 10, in exphil and human rights. We haven't even started with the curriculum for the assignments. I feel like this was a bad idea. Coming here for school. I don't like school. I'll probably manage alright, it's just boring and I'm not really motivated.

Besides school, everything is grrrreat. The first couple of days, our school had some arrangements for us. Not the very first day, then we got to settle down a bit in our new apartment and we found a Mexican place nearby where we ate. That was last Wednesday. On Thursday we had to register at school, then we went on a bus guide. It was cold, we sat on the roof of the bus. It was very cool though. Drove downtown and uptown of Manhattan. Saw the NBC building and other important buildings and Harlem and we stopped at a New York museum, wasn't very interesting, but it was warm. Afterwards we ate hamburgers and soup. I ate soup. And theeeen we had the rest of the day off, we probably went a little shopping, I don't remember.

Or maybe that was on Friday. Whatever. We had a welcome seminar at school one day, where the head master told us useful information and whatnot.
On Saturday we had a "rebus" sorta. Ended up at Sjømannskirken where they had waffles and grøt, mmm. Then we went on a boat trip around Manhattan with a grumpy guide. We saw the Statue of Liberty up close and Jersey City, and of course Manhattan. After that we took another bus guide, during night. Another crazyass guide, aiiiiight. We stopped in Brooklyn, right by the Brooklyn bridge and saw the famous New York Skyline at night, it was beautiful. I tried to take some photos, but I'm not a very good photo taker so all the pictures came out too blurry.

I, the three girls I live with and two other girls we've befriended went to eat in Chinatown one of those days. It was okay, probably not the best restaurant there, but we got rid of our hunger.

Last Sunday we had all day off, I went shopping with two girls. We walked all the way from Central Park north to downtown. We walk a lot. It's okay.

I've bought a pair of shoes, a hoodie, two t-shirts, a top, socks and underwear. Not on the same day, but yeah. And a phone! All of us have gotten American phones 'cause they are much cheaper to use than our Norwegian ones.

On schooldays after school, we haven't really done anything special. Walked around a bit, shopped some, seen new places. We're good at making our own dinner at home, cheaper that way.

I was walking around downtown by myself one day and thought I'd stop by the library to check my e-mail, but they were just closing so I didn't. I tried to find the toilet, but that wasn't easy and some guy thought I looked lost (which was very much correct) and helped me find it. He asked if I wanted to do anything afterwards and told me he'd wait. And he did. I said I just wanted to go home, and he asked where I lived and whatnot. It was kinda creepy, but he was just being nice and helpful really. He showed me some drawings he'd made, of naked women, and he gave me his number on a queen of spades card he said he had found. Told me to call him whenever I wanted to party. I said "yeah, maybe" and he said he liked the way I said that. He walked me to Times Square, just a couple of blocks away from the library and showed me what train to take home to where he thinks I live. He told me he thought I was attractive and luckily didn't join me into the station.

I didn't go home, I went to Brooklyn. To a Target there, to find a polaroid camera. But they were sold out.

On Thursday some of the girls at school had arranged a Valentine's Party. We went, it was very nice. I had a great time. Some of us got a little too drunk. Oh well.

I have every Friday off, wooo. One of the girls I live with who takes the same courses as me and another girl who also does, and I, went shopping in Harlem yesterday. We wanted to get a little more familiar with the surroundings here. I wasn't really in a shopping mood, so I didn't buy anything, but they did. And I got to see Harlem so it was nice anyway. Afterwards we joined the "another girl" mentioned above for taco at her place with the people she lives with and the people I live with and some other girls who also goes to our school. Ack, so many people to hold track off. After dinner, we hung out a bit there, then the rest of my apartment went home. I stayed a bit longer to watch a movie, we saw Shawshank Redemption. Then I went home. These people live like four blocks away from us, so I didn't have to go far. One of the other girls who was there lives in Brooklyn, she spent an hour getting home and she had to go alone. She got home safely, it just took a while.

I wanted to go to the the Kooks concert on Tuesday, but it was sold out. All of those I hang out with have tickets for a the Roots concert in Apollo Theater. I don't want to go. That's next Friday, I think. I'll manage.

Oh, speaking of Apollo Theater. We went to their weekly Amateur Night on Wednesday, where amateurs can sing or play or dance or do whatever and the audience decide who goes on to the next round. You clap or boo. It was very cool, we'll definitely go again. One of them step danced, that was awesome, he was so good.

Today's plans are probably including school work. I don't know what else. We talked about catching a movie at a theater last night, but didn't do it, maybe we'll do it today. And I want new shoes. Yes, another pair. We'll see, no hurry.

Home

Just thought I'd write a little sumthin'-sumthin' here. I'm hearing barking and loud voices out in the hallway. All three of my roommates just went to bed, I'm still up and not really rushing to get ready for sleep. Dunno why. I'm tired. Just wanted to sit here for a little while, like I always do at home. Home. I guess this is Home for the next couple of months. Very surreal, very fantastic. We went on a tour bus guide yesterday, through almost all of Manhattan. That was interesting. This guy was our guide.
I took some pictures, will upload them later. Should do it as fast as possible in case I lose my camera. I'll try to remember it tomorrow morning.

We had a welcome seminar thing at school today, where the teachers talked about safety and classes and different kind of info we need. I'm not really looking forward to the reading and writing assignments, I'm still sick of school. But we'll see, maybe it won't be so bad.

Everything is great here. We saw a dude sleeping on the subway on our way home from school and some shopping, which is not at all a weird sighting here, not even for us, but this guy! This guy was snoring so loudly and he had two spilled beer cans around him. That might not be a very weird sighting either, but for us it was interesting. We laughed. It was cool. We're in New York.

Our apartment is big, it's close to Central Park and it has a balcony. We're pleased. Today we cleaned a lot and put our stuff into the closets. Home.

New York City!

Huh, guess where I am.

Hundred dollar bill

I met dad for the last time in about four months today. He gave me a hundred dollar bill. My first dollars. It made this whole thing a little more real.

Stress

So. Twelve days away. I'm freaking out inside. And I freaked out outside a couple of days ago. I was so stressed, I felt like I have nothing ready when in reality all that's undone is the packing more or less. I've done some small things I needed to do before I go these last few days. Like buy travel adapters and... that's about it. No, I got some of my skirts fixed, puh. Our washing machine is broken and have been for almost two weeks, that's kinda stressing me too. I have so much clothes that needs to be washed asdgfg.

I have so very painful blisters from my new winter boots, but they look awesome. The shoes, not the blisters.

I still can't believe I'm actually going to New York. And staying there for almost four months. Un-friggin'-believable. These last days will probably go too fast, I am so slow with everything that's practical and needs to be done.

No longer living in Astoria

I got an e-mail from the headmaster (or something) at the school I'm attending in New York a couple of days ago about some new living arrangements. The Astoria apartment I was supposed to live in, is given up because the dude who rents it out wasn't willing to fix some leak or heating problem. Whatever. I was a little pissed, we're leaving in less than three weeks and here we found out we have no idea where we're living.

They'd found an apartments in Harlem, with one less bedroom than the one in Astoria. We figured we'd go for that. It's cheaper. Two of the four girls (me being one of those two) were supposed to have our own bedrooms, now we have to share. But y'know, that'll be fine. As long as I have somewhere to live in New York, I'm content. Dude, I'll be in New York.

I didn't really want to live in Manhattan, because I'll be there so much anyway. I wanted to experience a different New York by living in Brooklyn or Queens. But I can still visit the outer boroughs. I can live there the next time.

It'll all work out fine, I'm still excited of course. But the nerves are showing too. I'm leaving in two and a half week, for four months. I have never been so long away from home, and never so far away from home.

One month away

In celebration of me being ONE MONTH AWAY FROM GOING TO NEW YORK, I'm writing this entry. Have I already started a pattern? Hah. Nah, I just had some stuff to write and why not do it on a Sunday.

I got my embassy interview a lot later than planned, but I've been there and I'm pretty much done with it. I was there on Thursday and I haven't actually gotten my visa yet, but hopefully nothing will go wrong. I'm expecting it tomorrow or maybe on Tuesday.
The "interview" was very weird. I got there fifteen minutes before my appointment and I had to wait outside for like an hour. The security level there is very high, like on airports. When I finally got in to the security check I had to leave everything, you're only allowed to bring money, your passport and your visa applications with you inside. And when I got inside I had to wait another hour. For an "interview" that only lasted five minutes and was held in the same room you wait in.

It was okay though, not as scary as I thought. She just asked me what I'll be doing in the US and if I have any close family there and such. And now I'm done with it.

It was also the first real snow day. The day before I was whining about how I wanted snow to come, but that was before I knew I had to stand an hour outside in it. Nah, it was okay, I still love snow and it has hardly stopped snowing since. It's beautiful outside.


Click for more pictures.
Just outside the front door to my building.