tami and deev's adventure in Norway

well, I've just (yesterday) arrived back from a lovely half-term holiday in Norway. I went on Saturday and was met in town by lovely tami. (cheers) and then we went back to her appartment to have some lunch of typical open sandwiches. We then grabbed out skis (thank you Helene for lending me your skis and poles) and out we went for an afternoon/evening ski. It was lovely. Jumped on the train and went only 40mins or so and we were in the mountains at the snow... it was great! Sunday was a lovely day of cross-country skiing, fabulous. I LOVE SKIING. it was a bit too warm and tami didn't have the right wax and so it was hard going with not much gliding and lots of walking. It was pretty much walking but with skiis... could have done it without the poles and skis, but saying that, i had a great day (thanks again tami). went to church with tami that night and me some of her friends. all lovely people.

Monday was exploring oslo and going ice-skating with tami, eiven and magner (see my myspace for a video of this... hehe) at night. Magner was a great skater!! hehe.

Tuesday i jumped on a train and took the scenic railway to Bergen. We jumped off at Myrdal and took another train to Flam. From Flam, i caught a ferry to umm, somewhere and then a bus to Voss. From Voss, i caught a train into bergen. I met some lovely brasillian boys and went to the hostel i had booked. About 30mins after getting to the Hostel, the brasillian boys and two girls turned up at the hostel... all the others were closed for the night. The girls (Tracey and Becky) were lovely and it was nice to see the boys (Gustavo and Leonardo) again. Next day wandered around Bergen with my new found friends. And then took the night train with the boys back to Bergen. Unfortunately there had been a derailment near Voss, so we took a train, bus and train to Oslo, great to swap from trains to bus at like 03:00, especially when the train isn't there and you have to wait on the platform.... FREEZING.

ummm, then wandered through oslo again... it was something like minus10degrees celcius today... sooooo cold, so ended up not seeing too much, but lots of inside burger king and the station. then off to meet up with tami and cook dinner before going out to Underwater bar with her housemates (which is right around the corner from where she lives).

Friday, early start to go skiing with a girl i met in Bergen (Michelle, aussie living in paris) and one of her friends. A great day skiing, so much fun. And then went back to oslo city to catch up with Tracey and Becky for a coffee. Then met tami after work and went back to hers for a nice dinner, catch up, and chill before my flight very early the next day.

Now, Norway is meant to be one of the safest countries in the world, and it was great, but in 2 days i had a friend get their wallet stolen and saw someone else get 5000K (£500approx) taken from their wallet... so just be careful wherever you travel, because nowhere is actually that safe. especially tourist destinations.

thanks for a great week tami, was great to see you!!! (and thanks for looking after me, how are your ears by the way??). was great to go skiing, was great to be in freezing cold norway, I had a great half-term.

yesterday i just bummed around and redid some of my room (putting stuff in my new desk and had to change my bookcase as my lamp was plugged in behind it, d'oh). and then went out for a lovely night at 'The Cat Empire' and of course the walkabout. both just around the corner from my house. saw a few aussie friends and introduced nick t great aussie music. i think it is safe to say we all had a GREAT night... cheers guys. photos from that to come in my next post.


and now for the photos...


me and a troll in the main street in oslo
magner, tami and me at ice-skating
beautiful beautiful bergen
on the ferry in a fjord on the way to bergen, taken by my one of the brasillian guys
tami, where are you legs?? are you ok?? hehe, let me help you up!

on the train on the way to our first ski... i'm going skiing, i'm going skiing... below is a beautiful photo of tami and her two lovely lovely housemates helene and camilla. thanks for having me staythe sea in bergen.... is that a bike and a wellie??? weirdme and tami on our full day skiing. this was at our lunch spot... i LOVE THE SNOW!!! it was actually quite a nice day too.
who is that pro skater??? is that Jane torville?? oh no, it's me. Ha. I decided i want to take up ice-skating lessons again, so i am going to look into how much they are. new-found love for the ice, come from watching skating with the stars and then ice-skating again in Norway... I'm loving it!!!
and that is me done... hope you are going well... i hope you enjoyed my half-term break almost as much as i did.

take care, love and hugs
deev
xx

where I'm at

a photo of some of the gloves drying after playing in the second lot of snow... my feet got sooooo cold, but now i have new shoes (waterproof merrells, so hopefully will be better for the rain and snow in london and of course oslo this weekend)
carrie about 200m away from her house in Northern Ireland (went to visit her last weekend and had a great time catching up). yes, short, blonde hair now... thanks for having me carrie, i had a great weekend!!!
diane, our new housemate, doing what she does best... kidding! but she has been a good influence on the house. and she is a lovely person to have living with us, WELCOME!!! (we had a house dinner on monday which was really fun). I love my housemates!
ha, our new pets, well they were until they got stuck on the trap. look how tiny they are... soooo cute, but well, these two had to go. please don't ask for details!!!
oh, and my desk that i didn't 'make' but i put together. i started at 11:40pm last night and was in bed well before 1. i was well proud with my effort... and all by myself too!!! (dad, are you proud??)

ok, and now for the story...

just got back from dinner with some friends from spanish class. it was really nice to be doing things with people i have met in london... makes it feel more and more like 'home' for the moment. they are all lovely. went to a nice arabic restaurant in shebu... very cheap too... nice one. (michelle, hope you get better, we missed you there tonight!)

well, i think this week has been a week of reflections. I was walking through the corridor this afternoon after i had seen my students out and thought... I really like being a teacher. I have quite q troublesome Yr7 group as my tutor kids, and well, they are great. And as scary as it sounds, I would love to see them in a few Years time to see how they change. CRAZY... now, i don't know how long i will be here for, but days like today make me realise how much i do like my job and how much i want to be able to teach these kids... high school special needs isn't that bad. Smaller kids are still my teaching passion, but my kids aren't too bad. i think this started because tomorrow is half-term again already, and so my year at this school is half-over. it has gone so fast. and my 2 year plan, out the window and my new plan is to well, enjoy life and seek God's will in what i do.

as for where life is heading... i don't know really. lots of reflecting i think. Crazy how the sermons at church have been on transforming life and well, i have been thinking things in my life that i would like to change or have a better grip on (like does it really matter if the dishwasher doesn't work properly {sorry guys} and can i just get over it and get on with it??) like we had a slight fight at home about the dishwasher that I got all high-and-mighty about and then go to Cluster where we are learning about pride and humility... ha, there's a lesson. and just little things like that, where i am reminded that God does care and He is in control and well, He doesn't necessarily like the way I am and that I don't have to be proud because that's just the way i am, but I can learn to change. So, mmm, thinking over that. and well, when i get back from Oslo (where i am going to Sat to see tami and hopefully ski, yay!) i will start the homeless work i spoke about in a previous post. really looking forward to that and how I can learn from the team and other people who i will be working with.

and looking into going to do some sort of work in spain in summer, but still waiting on options there. London is really good at the moment. but i do miss aus. I got a letter from my step-grandma the other day, just receiving it and knowing it was from her brought tears to my eyes... I could barely read it. I do miss aus greatly. but as i have said before, London is where i am at for the moment. and i am loving what i am doing over here, all the opportunities and i am looking into areas i never would have thought of looking into if i was still in sydney. and of course the travelling opportunities.

anyways, i must try and get to bed soon as i need to function at school tomorrow and it is already after midnight. on saturday i am going to Oslo to visit tami. hopefully there will be lots of snow so that we can do some cross-country skiing together, oh that would be great. I feel like i haven't skiied for ages, wait, I haven't! ha. no, but it will be nice to chill with her to. and catch up. and see her new 'home'. then back to school for a few more weeks and then more holidays, ha, that is crazy over here. lots of holidays, just get into the swing of teaching and it's time to pause again... mind you, we are all really tired, so it will be a welcome break.

ok, bed for me. enjoy the pics. will have some from oslo soon. they should be fabulous.

night night, love to you all
deev

p.s. schelle and nick, sorry i can't make it to your party, but you know, skiing needed to be done, hope it is ace.
p.p.s. people not in london, COME VISIT!!!! plenty of room here for visitors.

HAPPY SNOW DAY... take 2

well, had dessert with Mark last night (cheers for that Mark) after a volunteer meeting for a place called the Simon Community http://www.simoncommunity.org.uk/ that i am going to start doing volunteer work for... anyways, the weather forecast was for snow... would they be correct?? Mark and I had a bet and well, yes, the forecast was right on and it is snowing this morning. I have had my very first experience of walking to work whilst it is snowing. i don't think i have ever really thought about that before. I spose in aus, 1) i didn't used to walk to work and 2) in syd it never snows, so one wouldn't think about it. And it barely even snows in london, so to have it snowing on you whilst on the way to work it quite surreal. I only had joggers and thick socks on, so my feet got wet in all the slush and then very cold. so change of shoes at work, hang everything up to try and get ready to face the day of kids not wanting to work because it is snowing.

london really is a totally different place in the snow. i'm sure tami is used to walking in the snow, and hopefully it will still be snowing in Norway in a week and a bit when i go there to visit tami and hopefully earn some turns on the backcountry. (tams, you'll have to be patient, it's been a while and my telly skills aren't the best). Come 2 weeks, I'll be pro skiier, norweigan style!! ha... or just very tired and sore.

well, really should get back to my work as don't really know what i am going to teach today and have no frees to prepare in, so have to do it all now.

have a good day wherever you are (sun, sand, snow, land... ok, i'm gone)
deev
xx

lior, kristy and life

well, the weather yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. Michelle (from spanish) and i went to High Street Kensington to get some stuff from a camping store for our trip to morocco... that will hopefully be lots of fun. and it was a beautiful spring type day. February is usually much colder and wetter. The sun was even shining with strength behind it. so yesterday was lovely and last night i went out to Wax Bar (nice place) to a b'day party of Kristy a girl i went to uni with (loving your hair luv!). Was great to catch up with her, it had been too long. we'll catch up soon kris, i promise.


ummm, tuesday night schelle, nick and i went to a Lior concert at the borderline (found his music courtesy of ben, cheers buddy) , don't think i really did much else during the week. Barnsey is playing there this wednesday, but unfortunately i have a meeting for some volunteer stuff and so had to think hard about which one was more important to me. I think i'll just have to play jimmy really loud on my home stereo and pretend i'm at the borderline. ha.


and well, not much else to report, today going to Hillsong with Chris and maybe try and buy a pair of boots, you can never have to many apparently! i'll see what i can find. oh and i went to yoga this morning. I got some fitlinx thing at the gym where you earn point for doing stuff... so i might go a bit more regularly. a trainer even gave me 4 exercises with weights to do... pretty scary for me, but little by little, i'll be iron woman yet. but my aim is to do that at least twice a week, so lets see how i go. ha.

france beat italy yesterday in the rugby. allez le bleu... and i'm off.

tatafornow.
deev
xx

and the photos below... nick, schelle and me at lior; lior at lior; kristy and me at wax bar.