Frustration and confusion

I said I loved Norway when it’s glittering white with snow before and at Christmas time. I also love Norway during the summer. In fact in that season, I think Norway is one of the world’s most beautiful countries. I hate it the rest of the year though, like now. It’s supposed to be spring and the flowers are supposed to peak out from the dirty melting snow. The suns supposed to shine and the temperature’s supposed to be above 0. People are supposed to walk around happily smiling to strangers and sit down for the first out door beer. Wrapped in a thick jacket perhaps, but still let the sun caress their face while they sip their cold drink. I wish! Temperature is at least -2 and the roads are so icy you can’t walk without looking like a 90 year old great grandma with a hip problem! The only entertainment is staying inside someone’s house and drink coffee. Alcohol’s too expensive, *I don’t drink during the day anyway and not on a weeknight really) going out to eat is out of the question because it’s too expensive and waiters look at you if you order a cocktail like San Francisco Fling or Singapore Sling. Well, I was out eating yesterday at TGI Fridays where they happen to have these cocktails because the majority of the staff is Aussies. You actually have to speak English in there which is kind of cool. Anyway, having ordered them, the waiter asked how the heck I knew about them as they don’t sell them in Norway. Knowing the recipes though, they made them especially for me and Len since they’re quite popular in Australia. The food’s expensive too. You can’t get a carton of fresh orange juice for less than £1.50! And this is the country I might be moving back to in a few months?

It’s not fair on poor Norway to curse it like this, but the thought of perhaps having to move just makes me depressed. I’m gonna miss the urban city life, the eating out, the cheap drinks and calling drinks in London cheap just goes to show how expensive Norway is. I’m gonna miss my friends, all the shops and foods they don’t have in England and I can’t bare the thought of having to move away from A now that things might be developing in a positive direction. This is all due to me being stubborn though. If only I was the average graduate interested in charity work, accounting or investment banking, but God didn’t want it that way. I want to be a journalist, a full time one and it does look like I have a much better chance of getting that in Norway, at present anyway. I just pray I get the job I’m going in for an interview for on Friday! If nothing else, it gives me another 7 or 8 months to start hating London so much I might just belonging to go back. My Norwegian contacts respect the organization I’m going to get interviewed by on Friday and said that I should take it if I got it as it is longer than the summer contracts I will get here, and because other opportunities inevitably will come up next year. Ah well, I guess all can do is, if I don’t get the job, cross that bridge when it comes to it and as I believed I’ve said before, if it’s meant to be between me and A, it will be sorted out. We might perhaps both go to Norway for a bit and then go back to the UK, or somewhere else. I think it’s just a matter for me to settle in the trade, get my name known to the right people and then opportunities will open elsewhere. I will also be one of the first blind journalists in Norway, something I’m not going to be too keen on as it will be me educating them on how I work. In the UK I know quite a few who have walked the path before me. You might think being the first one would be a challenge I would enjoy. Having perhaps read my blog for a while, you know that I’m not the kind of person to back off from a challenge, but I was the first blind student in all my schools and my university, so I’ve always been their little testing animal If it comes to a point very soon that I have to move back, I’ll probably, over time, while building up yet another network and getting settled in a job etc. learn to appreciate things about Norway.

I had a nice stay at the cottage. It was nice to see our friends again and we were eating, drinking and talking non stop. The mother in the family told us that she’s known Martine Vik Magnussen, the Norwegian student who got killed in London just before Easter. Martine had worked in the same clothes shop as her during the uni holidays and apparently, she’s a lovely girl. Ellen, the mother had a few texts Martine had sent her, such as Merry Christmas etc. that she has decided to keep after her death.

Yesterday it was back on the exercise bike after all that lovely food. I am starting to get happy with my body shape, but I need another month or so to be truly happy. Afterwards, I went to see Len at her ex’s place. I didn’t know he was her ex, so when he told me he’d married a Romanian guy, I got quite shocked. I knew he was bi, so that it was a man didn’t shock me, just the fact that he’d married while I thought him and Len were going out. After that, Len and I headed to TGI’s were we were gonna meet her very sexy Greek cousin, but he didn’t turn up due to damaging his knee while skiing earlier. It wasn’t serious, but he had to get it fixed immediately. We still had a good evening though.

Tags: Exercise, London, Martine Vik Magnussen, Norway, San Francisco fling, Singapore sling