Jeg kom for sent. Google maps spilte ikke helt på lag, og jeg hadde allerede beregnet for dårlig tid. Så kom jeg styrtende inn låvedøren mens jeg bar på de to kake-formene med sjokoladekake på den ene armen, og posen med våtservietter og papir, og bursdagsgaven i den andre. Det gikk akkurat uten at jeg falt i de høyhelte bootsene jeg hadde på føttene. Det eneste paret med sko jeg fikk med hjem fra Australia som faktisk var fine. Asta feiret bursdagen sin på låven til en venninne. Det var så utrolig hyggelig. Skikkelig instagramvenlig. Jeg fikk skryt for kortet jeg hadde brukt evig lang tid på å skrive. Ga bort tre pakker med te, sjokolade og litt krydder. Ble kjent med noen nye ansikter, spiste frukt i kopp, frøs litt, men hadde en veldig hyggelig kveld.
I skrivende stund ligger jeg i hengekøya, mens solen går ned. Det har begynt å bli litt kaldt, og er kanskje på tide å gå inn. Tidligere i dag har jeg lest litt forskjellig, spilt piano og spist litt sjokoladekake. Lyden av rennende vann fra den lille fontenen i andre enden av hagen synger sammen med en eller annen bie over meg. Det er sommer nå. Litt annerledes sommer, men sommer likevel. Til tross for at dagene ikke inneholder så mye, er det egentlig ganske fint.
Hengekøya. Der alle problemene forsvinner. Der du blir liggende, og nynne på en sommer-melodi mens du hører bier summe i epletreet som danser over deg. Duften av de lyserosa blomstene vitner om at det blir en sensommer med mye epler. Jeg kan bare ligger der. Vaie litt frem og tilbake. Lukke øynene. Tenke litt. Finne frem en bok. Lese litt. Sånn for meg selv.
Jeg kommer aldri til å glemme lykken av å få vite at de to frukt-trærne endelig var store nok til å henge opp en hengekøye. Jeg hadde alltid drømt om det. Plutselig var den der. My happy place.
Jeg møtte noen gamle venner for første gang siden jeg dro til Australia i går. Det var utrolig hyggelig. Jeg innrømmer gjerne at jeg gruet meg litt. Det er vanskelig å vite hvordan det blir å se noen igjen etter så lang tid. Det gikk heldigvis helt fint. Noen mennesker kobler du bare med uansett. Vi ble sittende og drikke kaffe, og prate i timesvis. Tiden bare løp, og det er jo alltid et godt tegn. Så takknemlig jeg er for venner som er der et og et halvt år senere. Jeg er jammen heldig.
The serving life during conferences like this is summed up by long days with a lot of caffeine. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry of the fact that I have spent two weekly budgets on coffee just the last couple of days. But hey. Let me tell you about an amazing weekend that just passed by.
Hello dear reader. I hope this e-mail finds you well (as we learned to start our e-mails in class the other day). This is not an email. I know. Forget my awfully bad attempt to be funny …
Back home, spring is literally on its way. On this side of the globe, on the other hand, it is more accurate to say that «winter is comming»(Which is also true since the next season of Game of thrones is right around the corner *joyful scream* ) Anyway. Part 1 of 2 of Colour Conference is done!! I can’t believe time runs by as fast as this.
// I borrowed this picture from Hillsong Church
What is Colour conference? Let me just sum it up as many thousands of women gathered together to praise Jesus. I don’t think you can experience anything like it anywhere else. Honestly. Colour conference is actually extremely unique. It was amazing, and it is not completely done. Since there are so many women, we are filling up the arenas one more time next weekend for new delegates.
What have I done this weekend? What was my role? I was serving in something called «seating communities» It is actually a genius consept that means every delegate in the conference are part of a smaller group. This group will sit together in every session, but change seats in the auditorium from every session. This way everyone get to have different views during the conference. My job was basically to wave with signs of where my community should go, and to make sure everyone had a good time. It all leaded me into a couple of interesting conversations. I was even given the phone number of a really nice lady who said I could bring a friend and stay at her house any time I wanted. That was really nice. I mean. I never know when I could find myself on a road- trip along the Australian east coast.
But hey. Next weekend I am allowed to sit in! I promise you to bring a better camera than my phone, and to remember to try to take some good pictures.(take this with a pinch of salt, given that I am not the best photographer) Until then I wish you a wonderful week, my dearest reader.
Remember// ❤ You are seen ❤ You are worthy ❤ You are loved ❤
«I woke up all by myself this morning and felt so extremely awake. Sadly enough it took me about five seconds to realize that I had slept too long. It was indeed way to light outside to be 6 am. I was right. My alarm had not made a single noise. I was supposed to be at church 20 minutes ago. I ran out of bed and ate a quick breakfast before I finally left home. It was all fine. My leaders here are fortunately really nice. I came in time to grab an orange west and be a parking guard.
So the next Sundays I am going to serve in two of the three first services, and sit in one of them. I am also serving one in the evening. It sounds like a lot, but time went by really fast this morning, so I am honestly just excited. As I mentioned I am serving in the youth ministry, and I am convinced that I will learn a lot.»
Another day has started here in Sydney. But hey. I got my nose pierced the other day. Yes. It did indeed hurt. It still does actually. But it is worth it of course. The sun is shining I am on my way to school. I just realized that I have spent way too much money on coffee the last days. But I can not help it. It is literally half the price I pay back home, and the cold brew here is just so good! Hey. I even get a discount because I am a student. Anyways. I hope you have a wonderful week, my dear reader 🙂
I hope your day is good so far! My Fridays are always off, and it is so nice. Even tough I am serving in church in the evening, it is good to have a peaceful day to sleep out and relax! Wow. I just listed a few things that I really love. But hey. Let me tell you about a few things that i miss as well. I have already stayed in Australia for a whole month. I really can not believe how fast time goes by down here. Probably because there is so much going on all the time …
– MONDAY 11th of February 2019 –
The sounds of different voices flow around me. I am sitting on a café, drinking coffee that doesn’t taste more than tolerable. Lately I have begun to realize how desperate my need is for time to just think. Sharing room, and living with four other girls simply resulted in me being with other people 24 hours a day. I need some me-time sometimes. I think we all do. Time to let my mind run its own way. So I go for a walk. I can see 3 parrots fly by. It is strange that they live in the wild here. I have never seen one outside a cage before. They are beautiful. Colorful. Perfect in a way.
Somehow I find myself next to a girl on the bus, and she smells like my grandmother’s shampoo. Well. She does probably not. It`s just my brain that is making fun of me. Looking for anything familiar. But suddenly I miss the summers with my grandmother. I miss the smell of her shampoo in my hair while I was bathing in her bath-tube. I miss the icy wind as I get up on the cold floor in the morning. I miss the extremely good, cold Norwegian drinking-water. I miss the smell of freshly baked bread. The one that tasted so much better than any other homemade bread I’ve ever had.
Then I miss that house. Suddenly I am so grateful that Mum and Dad have kept it after all. The house that was built by the hands of my own great-grandfather a lifetime ago. I miss it. Maybe because I know that my parents are there right now. I miss picking berries in the summer. All the endless kilos of cherries from our garden. I miss stepping barefoot into the grass. I miss lifting wood down to the basement as soon as the leaves had started to turn red.
The heavy, warm air suffocates me. As I miss the clear Nordic wind wedging in my nose. As I miss snow.
I miss to ski and fall over every other second because I am so terribly bad at skiing. I miss the fireplace. Old furniture. My dog. Mom and dad. My friends. Although I don’t let myself miss them or anyone else. I miss home. All these things. I miss them, and I love it here. What a strange combination.
How beautiful is Bondi Beach, hey ? It is really amazing, and the water there is just so extremely salty. It is really a cool beach.
But why do I never remember to wear sunglasses? To be a day on the East-coast of Australia, it was actually quite cold and clouded. But my eyes were still burning. The temperature was low enough to make the walk in the sand tolerable but it felt like it was possible to get som tan out of it all anyways. At least I got a pretty, red, lobster-skin – color. Better than look as white as snow, I guess. My parents have sent me photos from back home where they are skiing. So I am not really allowed to complain either.
Half of my clothes is placed in a huge pile outside of our washing-room. Our washing machine broke down almost two weeks ago, and it is finally good again. Thankfully. I was about to run out of clothes. Is is not crazy how you suddenly have so much to think about once you have moved out from your parents? I mean… washing machines?
To have anything to write about at all on this blog in the future, I just have to keep you updated in what I do in School and church. Since that is where I spend all of my time basically, haha.
So we had Heart and Soul night at church yesterday. That is a yearly happening where our senior pastor tells about the local vision at church. It was really inspiring and encouraging. I am going to serve in the youth ministry, and I am serving for the first time later this week. So I am really excited to get startet. Right now I am going to take another cup of tea, so I will update you guys again soon. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day!
The first week at school is called «intensives» and it was very intense. There were so many things we needed to go through, and so much information! I have learned a lot already, so it was challenging and nice at the same time. Next week will fortunately be more quiet. I only have school two days.
But hey. I got a job! It is so funny. Suddenly I got a text-message in Norwegian from a flower-shop I delivered a resume to. The owner turned out to be Norwegian. If that is not enough, my colleagues speak Spanish, so it is kind of genius since I really need to practice mine.
I need to learn a lot about flowers now. But I really like it. I am learning to put them together in arrangements, and it is actually very funny!
// Where are those Opera house , Bondi-beach pictures?
To clearify. Yes. I live about 40 minutes with bus from every famous Sydney-tourist attraction you have ever heard of … Unfortunately I just haven’t had time to go there yet. I am going to, and I am going to take a lot of pictures. I promise. I just don’t know when … But stay tuned!
I have tried to make my room a little more personal with hanging up some pictures from home.
Mini Australian word dictionary
Maccas – You probably knew, or guessed that this means Mc Donalds. One of my first days here, I entered one to use their wifi, and they had named it «Wi-fry.» That made my day.
Thongs – Prenounced as tongues, which makes it really confusing. It does obviously not mean your tongue, but flip – flops. Those you have on your feet.
No worries – As I told you earlier. This is just used everywhere. I am not joking when I Say I hear this expression at least 20 times during a day.
Mate – Bro/ Friend. You knew that. I know. But it is just a funny word. Hahah.
Arvo – This afternoon. Also kind of confusing when these Aussies speak fast.
Before I left Norway, I invested in a bullet-journal. It is just so genius. I love it, and there is so many different things you can write in them! I try to keep things organized.
There are a lot of things you need to remember when you live by yourself, and not in the same house as mom and dad anymore. The bullet journal helps me with that. I use it to budget and write my time-tables. So organizing! I will probably show you more from it later.
Just a little detail in our stairs. Lavendel, one of my favorite flowers!
❤
Have a wonderful day or night, depending on where on earth you are right now. Hehe. You will hear from me again soon! Hopefully with some fancy-er pictures in the nearest future.
From a boiling heat caused by approximately 35 °C outside, I am probably melting away faster than ice cream right now … But Hello there, dear you! ❤
I have not less than two fans behind me, blowing the same hot air around in this room. It is so hot, and I am still drinking hot coffee. I think I need to go downstairs to park myself under the air condition. Hold on a few seconds, please…
Here I am. It is somehow so much colder downstairs than in my room. Probably because the sun is constantly hitting on that side of the house. Anyways. Yesterday was Evaluation day at school. For me who is not doing a creative stream, I only had to do some practical stuff. For the creative streams there were obviously auditions going on. I am so glad that I didn`t have any of those …
Today was enrollment day with even more practical things to do. Signings of papers and so on. I did choose pathway in my stream today, which decides where my main focus will be. There were so many cool options. Even tough I wanted to do all of them, I ended up choosing youth. That means I will be working with teenagers. So. I am so excited for the following weeks. So many new things to learn and experience!
So my room – mate and I was at the mall yesterday to buy another fan (because you can never have to many of those) She is so nice by the way. We talked about delivering our resumes soon to try to get a part time job. Even tough it wasn’t really my plan to work next to my studies at first, I have to admit that some extra income would be totally fine. So yeah.
See you later alligator (which is kind of accurate because of the fact that i am actually living in the land of alligators)
Dear reader. Where am I even supposed to start? I guess from the beginning. Well. The past week? There is just so much to tell you about.
We landed on Australian ground, and the heat did just hit me as a wall. Unfortunately it was not really any better inside of the house I finally arrived at a couple of hours later. Two kind girls welcomed me and showed me my room. I did not really sleep at all that night. I was totally convinced that some snake or spider was about to bite me the entire time. I survived the night tough, but at 5 am I was wide awake.
Church
The next morning, I was introduced to the rest of the house before I went to church to the «welcome lounge.» At the Welcome lounge they had some people waiting for new students so help with every practical matter. It was also a place to get to know people, and make some new friends.
Usually church is about 5 minutes walk from my house, but I didn`t know that. Instead google showed me a rout that took 17 minutes. Believe me … the difference is huge in this heat! Wet by sweating, I finally arrived at the welcome- lounge. I got to meet some new people and we went to the mall to buy some stuff.
Getting to know people around here turned out to be fine. People are so friendly. I guess that it will take some time to make the friends that I will end up being closer with, but just during my first days here I felt so home. I really felt like I was at the right place at the right time. The whole moving has been really peaceful, and I am so thankful for that.
A few days later I went to «Summerfest» an arrangement for young adults. That was the first time I have ever been to a Hillsong meeting outside scandinavia, and it was just so good!
-Some things that fascinate me about Australia –
Driving on the left side of the road. Even tough it is not unic for Australia (since they are doing it in UK as well) … the funny thing is that Australians need to remind themselves about it. I mean the «keep left signs» are everywhere. As if they are about to forget about their crazy driving pattern
«No worries» Probably the most common expression around here. I really love it. The culture here is just so relaxed! It`s so different than Norway, you have no idea!
Clothes. People are so funny here. You should have known how many Australians I have met wearing jeans when it`s super hot outside. Probably because they are mostly staying inside with the air-condition. But it`s just so strange to meet people with that much clothes in this heat!
School starts for real in a couple of days, and I will probably be back with some more pictures and updates for you really soon. See you later ❤
So. I don`t really know why. But from now on, I think that I will write this blog in English. For my Norwegian readers that will probably be annoying. But I hope you survive it anyways. Google translate is always helpful tough ❤
I didn’ t sleep at all. I started realising that when my eyes opened automatically by the sound of my alarm at 4.30 Am. I was not surprised. To move your entire life across the globe is not exactly a small step. Even though I had waited for this day for so long, I didn’t really realise what was happening when my feet walked through the airport. I prefer short goodbyes. They need to be so short that my mind doesn’t have time to react to all the feelings that are dancing inside of me. With my «short- goodbye – philosophy», mum and dad only got a short hug each. Not a melancholic remembrance speech about the fact that I am actually leaving them for an entire year. Mum cried anyway.
That didn’t exactly surprise me. But I do understand her. I cried a lot when a couple of my closest friends left me to travel out in the world. My point is not that I love my friends more than my parents, but that the feeling of being left behind is terrible. Probably a lot stronger than the one you get when you are the one leaving. Therefore I just didn’t manage to cry even a little bit when I left my closest friends or when I left my parents. Simply because my mind already were in Australia, and it had been there for a while already.
My big sister works at the airport. She came running to say goodbye before my flight left. Of all days, her bus was too late today. Fortunately she reached to say goodby to me, I reached my flight, and I am convinced that I reached the perfect time in my life to do this.
Long flights at overrated, or maybe they are just underrated. I don’t really know how to describe them other than “better than I imagined” I have about 2 hours left before I am at an airport somewhere outside of China that you have never heard of. After that I have about 12 hours left before I have been in the air for 26 hours in total. Well. It might be a little early to say that I love long flights . Did I mention that I have never seen so many Chinese people at the same place my entire life? Not so weird given that I am on my way to China. But the reason I am even bothering to write about this is because of a very interesting experience. One of these stewardesses started to talk to me in Chinese. I just wanted to call that anti- racism taken to an entire new level. I am just so fascinated that my blond hair and blue eyes could be mistaken for being Chinese!
I have tried to sleep after Australian time zone. My optemistic mind decided that it is possible to avoide jet lag. Let’s just say that it didn’t work out like that. In all different positions that it’s even possible to have in a seat in a flight, I have tried to get a few hours of sleep. The little pillow you get free on these planes are not worth anything. I lost this battle.
I have watched “The holiday” and another movie with Brad Pitt on the fancy touch screens they have on this plane. Ah. The second meal of this trip just arrived. It was supposed to be WiFi aboard, but that didn’t work for my iPhone. Fortunately I ordered Spotify premium before I left. If it hadn’t been for my music, how would I be supposed to survive?
Victoria Skjortnes 