I'm, but

I'm tired, but I don't want to sleep the night away.




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OSL

I'm back in Oslo. It feels amazing and surreal. I'm starting to outrun my exhaustion, but it's midnight so I really should sleep soon if I want to get anything done tomorrow - which I have to 'cause all of my favorite people are coming over to drink wine and talk shit.


Home, sweet home.

This is where I'll be living this summer, fully equipped with the mandatory crime shows on TV and a messy floor.

Hair

My hair went from this:



to this:


in four weeks.

Heyoooo!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Shoulda, shoulda, shoulda

I bought a new pink lipstick to celebrate/cheer myself up (I don't know which one yet).


The flash makes it look a lot more pink than it is.


I should write my paper(s), I should finish cleaning my room, I should go grocery shopping. I'm watching episode after episode of Mad Men instead. I'm hooked, but that Don Draper is an asshole.

The Mask

I bought my first facial mask ever today and now I'm wearing it. (Do you use "wearing" when talking about a facial mask?)

Slabbedask

I kveld skulle jeg egentlig på et meetup.com-treff, men bestemte meg istedenfor å bestille garlic knots, pizza og Snapple og være hjemme aleine og se på TV. Og jeg som klager over at jeg trenger å møte flere folk, hah. Men jeg var faktisk på CouchSurfing-treff på torsdag så det får være ukas møte nye mennesker-event. Jeg kommer nok til å fortsette å dra på det, så det er i hvert fall noe.

Om ca. 45 minutter er det Earth Hour, da skal jeg sitte i mørket og spise pizza og se på 30 Rock. Det blir ok.

Her er noen bilder for å gjøre dette blogginnlegget litt mer levende.


Et, uh, lighthouse (lyshus? nei, hva heter det på norsk?) ved George Washington Bridge på Manhattan.


Middagen min i dag. Under Snapple-korken står det at "Miami installed the first ATM for rollerbladers."

God kveld!

Bang! Bang!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
I officially have bangs again. I cut it myself earlier today and they look very newly cut, but it's a start.

Waiting

Waiting for the subway to work. This is Grønland station in Oslo. I'm also waiting for a letter from college. Yesterday I found out that all my 59 previously taken credits will transfer if I'm accepted, that's great news. The TOEFL results are the only thing missing. Waiting, waiting,

Art project

I've just started my own little art project with my polaroid camera and the streets of Oslo. The photo above shows my first attribution, outside a Kiwi on Sinsen.

/rumpetaske

My first tattoo

I wrote this March 21st:

Okay, so, I got my first tattoo yesterday. On my upper back. I sat for five hours including breaks. I don't think I could've sat there for much longer, unless I knew there wasn't much more work to be done. I tried to distract myself by listening to Andrea (thank you a million times for coming with me!) and The Beatles, but it didn't really work. It was pppainful, but holy fucking crap, the result is amazing. I have lots of red marks on my forearm after pinching myself really hard with my nails and my back is sore and the shading and coloring on the same spot over and over and over again yesterday was awful. But yes, sssooo worth it. All the tiny details and the colors and the way things fade into each other and the shading and the whole picture and and and. Just... amazing. So much better than I ever imagined.

I hadn't told my mom or any other family member I was doing it. My mom knew I was probably getting a tattoo, but I had told her my appointment had been delayed a couple of weeks and she didn't know I was going to do this motive. My cousin and aunt is visiting from Copenhagen this weekend and we were having a family dinner last night and I was a couple of hours late for it. I tried to cover up, pretend I was doing something else, but when I was on my way home I told mom what neighborhood I'd been in and she figured out what I'd been doing. But she was not expecting this big, amazing piece of art. Everyone absolutely loved it, both the surprise element and the tattoo itself.

Enough chitter-chatter. Picture time!

Photo taken by Andrea Bruer.


My mom (mamma = mom) cried when she saw it. Happy tears, of course.
Click on photos to see larger versions.

Oh shittt, this thing is on my back. I can't believe it and I can't stop looking at the photo.

--

It has almost finished healing now. I still lllove it (phew!). And I'm very excited about my next one, whenever that will be.

Aketur

To jenter i klassa, Cecilie og Trine, og jeg var oppe ved Cecilie og aka en dag. Det var moro. Bakken var kjempelang, vi måtte ta buss opp opp opp i ørten minutter. Her er noen bilder.


Henholdsvis Cecilie og Trine.








Vi tok en liten pause foran dette skumle huset.


Og enda en pause ved et annet hus.




Slitne, men klare for andre runde.

Alle bildene er tatt med mobilen min.

På forelesning

Jeg kjeder meg på forelesning og kan ikke tegne hoder, hender og bein.

Kjøleskappoesi

Jeg kjøpte tyske kjøleskapord i USA, men har ikke åpna dem før nå. Dette "diktet" har jeg laga med grunnlag i en setning min hybel- og klassekamerat Trine skreiv.

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.

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

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/

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.

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.