I ♥ NY

You can stand under my umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh. You're welcome.

I'm back from New York. It was aamaaazingly, fantastically awesome. It sort of felt like I never left, with everything being exactly as I remembered it. Almost everything. The Virgin Megastore on Union Square is gone, the little Mexican place near our old subway stop is gone. And so on. Generally my old 'hood was a lot more "cool" now, but that's what happens when prices go upppp everywhere. I saw some of The New School buildings and I absolutely love that neighborhood, right next to Union Square which is one of my favorite squares in Manhattan. I got a tiny tattoo. I met Kine. The weather was wonderful my last couple of days there, so we hung out in parks a lot. I have hhhhot new shoes that are so high-heeled I can't walk in them. We saw street dancers asking for dollars as opposed to change like Obama on subway stations. We ate dinner next to Larry David at Balthazar, walked past Ben Whishaw and his boyfriend in West Village, took the same subway car as Tim Gunn downtown. We saw rats, squirrels, pigeons. We went to a comedy show and was placed on the first row and messed with a lot because we're Norwegians. We ate bagels, pretzels, cheese cake, burgers, gigantic milkshakes (at the Seinfeld café), M&M's with peanut butter. I sat next to some kind of therapist on Starbucks and she was having a phone session with a client right next to me. He apparently had some anxiety and argued a lot with his mother, but it seemed like he finally had gotten somewhere to live and a job.

Only in New York, folks.

What I've been doing since December 5th

Oh, I just realized that I hadn't updated this blog between today and the beginning of December. Some new stuff has happened and I have been updating my LiveJournal (yes, I have a LiveJournal, get over it), but I forget to copypaste the updates to this blog.


This was posted December 13th:

(This first passage was written on my way home from work yesterday. It's still true, but it's not a newly fresh wound anymore.)

My heart is fucking broken. I had the early shift at work today and left before most of the kids, including the one who is so fond of me it's insane and adorable. When I told him I had to go, he said no, no, no, no and gave me a look that would've made anyone feel bad. I'll see him Monday and I feel like this. Thinking about leaving him for good, which I'll have to do next summer, makes my stomach ache and my hands numb. No way. No fucking way.

In other news, I'm postponing New York for certain. I've gotten pretty far on my New School (which is the name of the school) application. And I'm visiting the city during easter break. Hello excitement!

Today I bought tickets to Tromsø too! Going there in January to attend the film festival.



Posted January 25th:

I don't know what I'll do if I'm not accepted by The New School. I have no back-up plan, I'm not applying to any other schools, I don't want to attend any other school, I'm just so focused on The New School I can't think of any other schools. Shitttt. Maybe I'll end up working in the kindergarten forever, just postponing and postponing my education. I really don't want that to happen, but what else do I do if I'm not accepted?

I was at TIFF, saw lots of good and not so good movies, had fun, ate, drank, talked, ran after a dog. Maybe I'll write more about the films I saw. Now I'm watching a Law & Order: SVU episode, I've seen it before.

NS NZ WES GPA TOEFL NY BHG

Hello hello. Nothing much to report, I'm still insecure about getting accepted to New School and I've started looking into schools in New Zealand again, but the more I read about NS (New School) the more I wanna go there. It's the perfect school. Peeeeerfect. WES finalized my transcript evaluation on Thursday, I have a 3.41 GPA which I'm very pleased with. So that's another step closer to finishing my application. NS still hasn't received my TOEFL results and my WES documents were sent Thursday or Friday so those are obviously not there yet and that's basically what's missing from my finished application. Arsgfsafghd I'm just waiting and waiting and I'm very nervous and hopeful. What if my essays were craaaaap. I've never written college application essays before and I didn't really get proper feedback on them. What if I'm not accepted. Shit.

I'm visiting New York for eight nights in about seven weeks, wow. I haven't been there since I moved back to Norway in June 2008. Yesterday was the two year "anniversary" of my moving there. Time flies, whatever. Too much of my life - considering I live in Norway - evolves around New York, I'm a nerd.

My job is still amazing and I'm very anxious about leaving the kids, they should have stability in their life and I'm not giving them that by leaving (I of course realize that I am not the most important person in their lives, but I'm a pretty big part of it). And after that I'll probably never see them again, what the hell. The youngest ones will probably forget about me and that's a fucking heart-breaking thought. I'm tearing up, lawlz. I'll have to send lots of pictures and letters from wherever I might be moving and visit every time I go home. Way to move on, yeah.

And I'm also in love with all the actors in Hipsters and the Russian language. :D

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.

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/

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.