I've been back in Deutschland for almost 5 day now but before I forget, I wanted to drop some quick lines about my last night in Oslo. After already having spent a nice 'last supper' with part of the Bleed crew Wednesday night at Olaf Ryes Plass and the very cozy MIR – the latter of which I sadly had never been before – it was time to say goodbye to my swedish homeboys and -girls. I had originally planned to just have a simple little barbeque up on St. Hanshaugen right next to my apartment. After talking to a couple of the guys though, I found out that they had already made plans to hang at closeby peninsula Bygdøy. After some hesitance – my lazy ass didn't wanna go that far – I gave in. Niklas picked up Fredrika and me, picked up Max and Viktor, made a quick stop at the very chaotic flatshare that he called his home now and off we went to the beach.



After the first Corona and some future fantasizing with Max near the water, we moved on to the beach volleyball court in a park located right next to the shore (really quite pretty actually). Watched a couple of games, not realizing that we had to put a shoe down besides the net to signalize our will to play – and when we finally did, one after the other of 'our' teams got their asses whooped. We settled on mixed teams in the end, made it more even / more fun. As for me, my game hadn't suffered as much as I would've guessed :D



When it started getting dark, we headed back to the city. Not without some bad ass car surfing by Nikke and Olof first that is! Would've loved to join in but I know for a fact that beer and longboarding don't mix well, at least in my case. Anyways, said goodbye to half of the people and drove on to Simon and Johan's place. Unfortunately Johan was still in Sweden and came back a day later – him by far not being the only one I didn't get a chance to say farewell to btw – but at least I had a chance to meet Simon and Hannah one last time. Cracked open a bottle of champagne, had an improvised hot dog dinner, made a lot of 'yo moma' and nazi jokes, started to watch 'Kill Bill 2', fell asleep and called it a night. Basically a very regular evening with the Swedish and therefore, I think, the best way to leave :)

The countdown continues – two more nights and I'm on my way back home. In an effort to relieve my conscience for not taking the two week trip around Norway this summer, I continued my tour of Oslo vicinity lakes yesterday. Took my bike up to Østernvann in a constant drizzle of rain, totally underestimating how far and high up I would have to go. After getting lost a couple of times on the way – and riding at least another 2km extra – I arrived at this beautiful, secluded little lake. Almost no people and foggy weather added to the serene atmosphere. Hadn't it been for the loud gun cracks of the sport shooters practicing somewhere in the woods, it would've been almost perfect. Got myself another little slice of cliché Norwegian nature scenery nonetheless.

On a side note: I can't recommend carrying this through 1km of this while wearing these. Just a tiiiiny bit slippery. But the blueberries were tasty :)

...that makes our apartment so appealing to completely wasted drunks? Seriously, they're starting to become part of the fucking inventory on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

One week left in Oslo and I'm starting to feel a bit homey after all. And why does it not surprise me that it needed a friend back from Copenhagen to do so? Yesterday I met good buddy Henrik, who I haven't seen since our last meeting over one and half years ago. He just got back from a 4 month stint in New York, and is now trying to adapt to the somewhat slower pace of the Oslo life. Him, his girlfriend and me went out for drinks after our initial plan to go bowling didn't work out. The city was unusually crawling people as there was a friggin' megastar overload with Madonna, Metallica and Lady Gaga all having a gig in town the same night. And I guess the ones that didn't get a ticket for either of them decided to go bowling...

Anyways we ended up having a very cool, laid back time with beer, cocktails, good conversation and lots of laughs at Cafe Sør, probably my all-time favorite spot in Oslo. Unfortunately this sort of thing has happened way too little during my time here – same goes for good house parties and club nights by the way – and now that it does and probably would continue to, at least with Henrik and Gosja, I'm leaving.

:P

EDIT: Same thing yesterday, except the buddies were Stian and Erik (Deaf Center Erik, not Bleed Erik) and the locations Internasjonalen and Robinet. Great and very drunk night, should have done that more often. I'll stop bitching now.

Last time I wrote I had loads to do and that is still case. Still, if the weather were to be nice – you know, warm and sunny and all that – I sure could 'sacrifice' one or two days here and there to actually do something fun outside (even though I like the projects on my hands). But the summer really sucks at the moment – no sun, temperatures below 20°C, rain and wind. According to trusted online weather services it's gonna stay that way for at least another week! Come on, seriously?! Not exactly how I had imagined my last two weeks in Norway. Well, at least there's still summery videos, kind of...

Here's a little update on what I'm up to these days. As you know, I'm on my July 'vacation', but so far that hast unfortunately mostly consisted of extracurricular work. First, I have to do a couple of t-shirts for André, the guy I already did the logo for. Then I've begun designing my portfolio website so that that same André can soonishly start programming. And in a addition to that Svein and me will be collaborating on a poster for an Australian magazine/poster company which is due early August.

Most of last week though I've spent with Ære and Graham from Automaton Studio. These two are running sort of an improv silkscreen printing studio here in Oslo and I'm doing one half of my oral diploma exams on them. Really nice guys who let me pester them for three days so far while they are setting up a new studio after relocating from their old place. I was mostly there to document the progress of construction, their 'facilities', the print process and a couple of their reference works. But I also helped out a little when I could, bought beers and had some nice coffee chats. I'll be seeing them again in a week for a small interview and a couple of more pictures. And even though this is also work somehow, it's nice to get out and away from the computer screen once in a while.

Other than that not much going on at the moment. Took a little run up to the very pretty Sognsvann which I will hopefully repeat soon and than also go around the lake. Backed up all my work for Bleed and am currently in the – very much pain-in-the-ass – process of transferring all data from my old iBook to the MacBook Pro that the studio has given me as a farewell present. Booked my flight back home for the 7th of August – which was a five hour trial as it's not that easy finding a cheap airline that will let you take two bikes, a snowboard and a longboard on a plane all at once. And finally, I'm gradually preparing my departure from Norway in general – sending stuff home, canceling accounts, these sort of things.

Oh, and I'm continuing to watch a very odd selection of movie. I must have really weird mood swings according to the list on the right. Anyways, below are Ære and Graham testing the new developing facilities for the very first time.

Last weekend one of many Norwegian festivals took place here in Oslo, so-called Oslo Live. Next to Øya, Hove, Quart and Norwegian Wood it's probably one of the most well known and popular festivals here. And it's cheap too! Only 99NOK/10EUR for a day pass. But despite class acts like Klaxons, Diplo, Does It Offend You Yeah!, 2ManyDJs or Kleerup I didn't really feel the urge to go there, even though it was so close, right next to the Oslo marina and the town hall.

Last Saturday Stian and I decided to give it a try nonetheless. Luckily we found out that we could watch the whole thing from a nice spot atop the Festningen – for free. Well not entirely, after meeting with Thor Viggo and Vegard for some quality park chilling, we were actually kicked out by the royal guards at around nine... Still, it was fun while it lasted :) Got to see some swedish hip hop acts and a little bit of Diplo.

After that I saw the women of my dreams, we had a couple of cold ones at Fisk og Vilt, which is a pretty cool location unfortunately just crawling with fashion hipsters, and I ended up at Johan, Simon and Victor's place for some Nachspiel Johnnie Walker shots. Good fight, good night :D

This event actually already lies two weeks back but thus far I just hadn't had the time or patience to write about it. I might not have mentioned it yet, but the Bleed bureau is more or less shut down the entire July. Some people are going to come in at the end of the month to get some work done but I had my official last day at the office last Friday. To be honest, for me personally that's not even remotely true as I have shitloads of work on my agenda, mostly private but also one project for Bleed still. But more about that some other time.

Anyways, as sort of a start-of-the-summer thing, Astrid and Erik had planned a little company picnic on Gressholmen, one of the many islands right outside the Oslo harbor. The two of them had been cooking and preparing delicious treats pretty much half the day. After work, everyone (almost, Katrine and Miriam unfortunately couldn't join) took a cab to the ferry station, waited in the boiling heat for half an hour – it had been abnormally warm with degrees in the 30ies these two weeks, now it's gray, rainy and cold – and eventually landed on the island. After a fifteen minute walk we arrived a pretty nice spot close to the water. A gin tonic and a quick feet dipping in the cold cold fjord later Erik and Astrid unveiled their gourmet goodies. Homemade antipasti and salads, marinated seafood, fresh bread and tender beef – fingerlicking good stuff. So we stuffed ourselves with food, drank, talked and spent an altogether nice evening 'at the beach' (including a little sleeping on my part) until we headed home at about 11.

Overall a very cool thing to do despite it also being a tiny bit sad – it felt a little like a goodbye-event too. So thank you Astrid and Erik for organizing all of this, and everyone else for being there. And by the way, it was in fact my first time on any of the islands, not counting Bygdøy as it's a peninsula, which is truly a shame.







Doesn't that last picture release a sudden urge in all of you guys to come visit me at the end of July for exploring the Norwegian back country ;D

As promised, another collection of happy faces of the people I 'mingle' with and who's names will continue to appear in a blog entry or two. Everyone until Kris are flatmates and ex-flatmates. Everyone until Thor Viggo are friends of theirs or friends of co-workers. Everyone after are the guys and girls from Bleed.




Anders (NOR) – Magnus (S) – Niklas (S) – Øystein (NOR) – Lina (S)
Fredrika (S) – Kari (NOR) – Moy (ISR) – Kris (NOR) – Johan (S)
Simon (S) – Victor (S) – Kenneth (NOR) – Peter (NOR) – Thor (NOR)
Nana (NOR) – Th. Viggo (NOR) – Astrid (AUT) – André (NOR) – Erik (S)
Fred (NOR) – Dag (NOR) – Svein (NOR) – Alex (USA) – Stian (NOR)
Alex (USA) – Åge (NOR) – Miriam (NOR) – Annika (NOR) – Yours (GER)

"Hey, if we plant it smack in the middle of the street, maybe no one will notice!" Clever approach seen about 5 minutes from my apartment.
Oh and by the way, after over three months I finally managed to put up a mixtape on Twisted Nuns again. For whoever cares.