Sunday, October 29

This is FOOD

You may think I'm joking, but I'm definitely not! My friend Sunniva and I were visiting a farm nearby to have a hundred kilos of apples transformed into pure apple juice, and suddenly found ourselves standing right underneath these poor wooly creatures' former heads...

Grilled sheep's heads are immensely popular as autumn and Christmas food in Western Norway. I've never had one, but friends of mine boast about having swallowed the eyes. Yikes! Whoever wants to have a go is welcome to visit between now and Christmas...

Tuesday, October 24

Highlights from work I: I'm a Trainee

(Photo: T.Bickhardt)

My job is not only about research conducted from a tiny office (luckily). The photo shows me rowing a boat with the eight other trainees taking part in this year's trainee programme in my region. On the agenda is personality development and cross-institutional network building. For the purpose of becoming more of a team we spent about two hours rowing an old church boat to a tiny, roadless farm where we ate locally produced goat meat. Being a trainee is not bad!

Sunday, October 8

Postcard from Idun/flying in from outer space


My darlings everywhere - how are you all? Me: busy, too busy to even begin to locate the telephone to phone you. Living is just so demanding right now, or (and this scares me) is this just my first taste of Life After Studying?

That was the excuse. Here comes the news. Or...there is none. Jeez, I am exceptionally scatterbrained today, but at least it made a nice rhyme. Oh, yes: I started my new job. It's great - great colleagues and interesting though sometimes peculiar tasks (nanotechnology). I am being taken care of in a zillion ways - I now have one mentor for every finger on my hand. Two days into my employment I was sent to a conference. Nice, I thought. Then, this week, nanotechnology in Stockholm, and the coming week, a trainee seminar. Also, my first application deadline is coming up. Life IS a deadline; life moves fast. So, I've never slept so little in my own bed before! But still nice.

It's unbelievably pleasant to be home. It feels like a holiday, but one that never ends. The fire place is lit at night, someone bakes an apple cake with Aroma apples from Husabø (it's a farm our ancestors once ran, and the trees remain). It's oh, so silent (No Murphys, Toby, isn't it great?) and you every morning you wake up with the mountains still outside. Examples:





Today is Sunday. I landed in Bergen on Friday, intentionally as a transit point between the work journey and a modified hen's party on Saturday. Somehow, my friend Silje talked me into not going to bed. This always happens, probably because I am weak and she is convincing. At 6 am we texted someone with whom I was to take the train at 8.40 am (for some reason in Finnish) to say that I would have to take the next. After three hours of deep sleep, I travelled to the next party, which began at 11 am on Saturday and ended early this morning. Buenanotte, brainpower! I can feel my body's "no battery" sign flashing...so long, my dears!

Important postscript, all ye foreigners reading this: In ancient times, Nordics believed their Gods, worn down by old age (plus, no doubt, drinking, fighting with swords and having Viking sex) could rejuvenate themselves through eating apples. Not just any apples: The apples of Idun. I am planning to have a bite right now, to see if it works.

Sunday, October 1

Do not despair...

...the blog is only having a little break. It is exhausted after all the partying, and promises to be back any day now.