A quick note

Hello friends!
In case you're wondering, I'm still alive and well! There has been a week with no updating, sorry about that. Because of a fantastic trip to Norway and no internet connection, i've had no chance to tell you about my exiting life in one of the world's most interesting cities! But, on monday i'll be back in the game, hopefully!

To all of my readers, THANK YOU! I can't belive that there are so many people reading, it really means a lot to me:)

Open House

Every day of the week St.Paul's has a cafe that is open to everyone. A lot of people come here to have their lunch, both old and young. The cooks are great and the food is fantastisc, this I know because we get the leftovers:)
Miko and I do two things. Either we work behind the counter serving food, or we just sit with poeple and talk, we are "open ears" as they call it. It is nice and an oppertunity to meet a lot of fantastic people.

This is a picture from the cafe, I took it today.



Well, it's weekend and I'm going home. Hopefully I'll tell you more on Monday!

A night on the town

We in the team have different "days off", Miko and I don't work on fridays. Hildegunn has also the day off then, so we usually hang together then. On saturdays we get the day off if there's nothing special happening. This saturday there was nothing going on, so we went to Central London. We were five girls and went to a lot of different places. We went to Kensington, Notting Hill, Portebello Road,Covent Garden +++
During the day we came up with the idea of going to a musical. We searched for some pretty cheap tickets, found them, bought them and went! We saw "Footloose", it was awsame!!! It was my first real musical, and i truly loved it! The music, the actors, the stage and lightening, and offcouse the dancing, WOW! We went dancing out of there full of energy when it was finished.
Now I'll start saving up for a new one. I hear "Dirty Dancing" is on it's way, anyone jelaous?

just talk

Now i'm sitting at an internett cafe in Hesteon, that's where i live. It is really close to the airport, i see big planes crossing over ny head every day. I think it's quite facinating staring uo at those big heavy things and knowing that the are flying! If thay can get those things in the air, why can't thay find a way for us to fly? The thing is that when i walk to my bus stop and a plane is crossing over, my eyes goes up and i think "wow". The problem then is that you don't look where you're going. I must admit i have cvome quite close to some very embaressing falls and crashes. Ooops, i'm out of time!

A taste of Nature

Sometimes it's hard for a non-city girl like me to handle all the traffic and people. What do I do then? Answer; you find a park! Luckely there's quite few parks around the area, and this is pictures taken from the one closest to me. I needed some peace and quite, and I found it. After a while of peace and some playing with the camera i went home. But, it was a good pause from the world.
By the way. I live close to heathrom, the airport. There's a huge ammount of planes over our head during the day. I didn't see the plane on the picture until i got back home. Nice eeh?


Just so you won't forget me:) I LOVE digital cameras!

Getting around

I don't live very close to work, I'm actually the volunteer with the longest way, unfear! But, i don't complain, it's not like it's that far, pluss, i've got a bike! This splendid thing gets me to work and everywhere i wan't to go. And, if the weather is bad or I just feel lazy, you've always got the red buses. Today was the first time i went by bus, and i must say it's quicker by bike. So, as long as the sun is shining I'll be quite sporty:)

The Brentford Team

Well, here we are; Team Brentford! All inn all we are a team of seven, but we are split into pairs. So, Miko and I work together in the Parish of Brentford. The parish has two churches, St.Pauls's and St.Faith's. It is at St.Pauls that the center is and where we go "to work". On Sundays I will go to St.Faith's, while Miko will be at St.Paul's. We'll be included in the Sunday school programme, so that will be exiting.
This is from last weekend when we were presented to the congregation at St.Paul's. Yesterday we did the same at St.Faith's.




This is a picture of Kjetil Aano and Miko, taken last Sunday after church. He came to meet with ous bosses and to meet us, we had a nice day as you can see. It was lovely weather and we went to a marked where the church had a stand. There was live music so we just sat ack and enjoyed the day.



This is a picture of St.Faith's. The church buildings are quite different. I think this is a baeutilful church.

Tourists

Big Ben! Isn't it great! The first days, from Wednesday to Friday we lived at the Indian YMCA in Central London. We were taken hand of by the CMS (Church Mission Society) witch had some cultural briefing with us. They taught us english table manners and other usefull things you need to survive in this city. No, I'm just kidding, we learnt a lot of things and they also showed us around town and in the Tube system. It was a really good start of wht will be a fantastic year!




Isn't it beautiful? We found this at Covent Garden. We were really spellbound by all the lights and the wounderfull music, maybe that explains the next picture, hehe:)




This is Vidar and Torgeir, they just had to go for a ride.




London by night. Since it's the first time for me to visit this big city, the red busses made an impression. When I think of London I think of red busses, so i just had to take some pictires of them.




Finally, this is me and Vidar sitting on the top and in the front of a red bus for the first time, cool? Yes, it was for us!

The team!

Here you can see a picture of the entire team, the London Team. We norwegians met this summer, while Miko and Rada first met ut last week. I must admit, it makes me really proud to be in a gang of such great people!

Names from left; Torgeir, Miko (from etsonis), Anne Marie, Me, Rada (from Croatia), Hildegunn and Vidar.

Coming here

This is me and my dad right before I left the country. He was the one that drove me to the airport and bid me farewell. Thanks dad!

The whole thing went without any problems, at least for me. I flew to Oslo where i met the other norwegians and Miko from Estonia, the guy I work with here in Brentford. I'll tell you more about him later. On the flight to London we were all very exited, luckely it's a short trip. I sat next ta an exiting man that travels around the world, so that made the trip a lot more interesting.
This is Torgeir and Merete. This is right before we found out that Vidar's luggage never made it to London, poor guy! After talking to British Airways we could finally move on to find our last team member, Rada from Croatia.

This is Vidar and Anne Marie. They work together in The Holy Trinity Church in Hounslow, great people! There was something wrong with the tube, so we had to go by bus for a while.






This is picture from the tube. Usually it's crowded, but not on this pidture. We take the tube to get around central London. Believe it or not, I'm strarting to understand how to use it!!

News on it's way!

I'm sorry for the non-active days, it's just that i haven't had internett. So, it's really not my fault. But fear not! Today and tomorrow I'll put in new pictures and fun stuff from my first week in London. See ya!

Those last stressful days

Right now my room is still pretty messy and for the untrained eye it might look like I’ll miss the plane tomorrow. But, no worries, I’ll make it:)
After my stressful but very cosy days in Oslo, I headed to Kristiansand for some more goodbyes. My best friends are studying there, so a stop was very necessary. We had some great days together, just like in the good old times.

On the Saturday I went up to Birkeland Folkehøyskole where a friend of mine from Madagascar studies this year. He had no idea that I was coming, so he was very surprised to see me standing in the door. We both got so happy and started to talk in Malagasy without thinking about the crowd listening, it was very funny. We spent the day together, and I took him and his roomies from Peru and Taiwan out for a tour in Kristiansand. The rest of the day I met all his friends, and we sat outside the school in the sun playing guitar and singing, it was really a fantastic day.

Yesterday was an exiting day in my life. First I bought a new camera, HAPPY! I haven’t had a camera since mine was stolen at Easter this year. I am very pleased with my new Canon camera and can’t wait to fill up my memory card with London’s many tourist attractions!
The other thing that happened was that I finally got a haircut. My parents told me it was about time and sent me away. I must admit, there was absolutely room for renewing.

Well, now I’m off to say goodbye to some more people and then just make the finishing touch on my luggage before I’ll be in my way.
So, next time you’ll hear from me I’ll be in London!!!!!!

Oslo

These last couple of days I’ve been in Oslo. After spending five and a half boring hours on the train, I could finally see my friend Marit waiting for me. We studied together at the bible school.
It was great being in Oslo again, it’s a bit more interesting than my home town. I think there is about 530 000 people living in Oslo. If you compare it to Lyngdal’s 7500, then you might understand that to me it’s a big adventure just walking up and down the main street. And yes I’m moving to London, he he:) How will I survive?
My mission was just to find as many of my friends from school as possible, say “hello”, “good luck” and then “See you next year!” Lucky me found a bunch of people and had some great days!

I think that one of the most entertaining things to do in a big city is watching people. Just sit at a café or a bench and looking at people stressing, walking or even running past you. I like guessing their thoughts and what they work with and stuff, it’s so much fun!

I’ve been to Oslo a couple of times, but I have no idea where stuff are or how to get to different places. This time I had to get around on my own a lot, since everyone started their studies this week. I was a bit nervous the first times, but I made it! Off course I made some mistakes like taking the wrong bus and things like that, but nothing serious.

To all the cool people I met, I’LL MISS YOU!! But, I know you check this site and we’ll stay in touch.

Oslo, here I come!

Today I had my last early morning, my last lunch break and best of all, my last day at work!!! As a miracle I left dry and in good shape. I have been waiting all day for a major water attack by some people. We've had a little combat going on this summer, and yesterday I really showed them, or mostly one guy, the real me. So, I must admit I was a bit nervous walking outside the safe wear house wall’s:)

Both I and my co-worker, Laila, brought something extra for lunch and the coffee break. It’s a good tradition.
A lot of people have stopped by to say "good luck" and "see you next year!" I think they are satisfied with me and my work, so my chances of getting a job next year looks good.

So, tomorrow I pack my bags and set out to the big capital, Oslo! Most of my friends are there to study, so it's really a necessary stop before leaving the country for one more year. It will also be my only vacation this summer, and I'm planning on spending it good. Off course it will be, since I will see a lot of people that I haven't seen for a year of two, exited? Yes I am!!!
If you find my bubble a bit dead the next few days, you know why. Just fill it with comments:) I'll be returning on Wednesday, after that it's packing and so much more to do. I think I might be a bit stressed out the last couple of days, but it's always like that.

If you’re in Oslo, maybe I’ll se you around! For everyone else, have a splendid weekend!!!

My girls

Names from left; Mailene, Martha and me!
These girls are two out of the three fantastic girls, that lived at the boarding house on the Norwegian school at Madgascar. That was were I worked, and it was great! We got that family feeling and I felt I got three younger sisters.
They were at a camp nearby a week ago and lucky me got to see them again. Martha stayed at my house a couple of days, i loved hanging with her again. I miss them very much but I know we'll stay in touch. Love you girls!

Shakespeare

As some of you might remember me and some others had a period where Shakespeare was all we talked about. Sitting here I suddenly remembered a quote, but I don't remember where it's from. It goes like this:

"Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun"

If that's not a compliment then I don't know what is:)

Mondays...

There are those days when you just wish you had never gotten out of bed. Days when problems are all you see and they just keep popping up wherever you turn. At the same time your mood just sinks like a stone in water. Well, that is how my day has been, lovely! After a night of terrible sleep and lots of really slow going trailers on the road to work, I just knew I was in for a blast. You see, today they needed me back in the "sweeping" car. I was a bit happy since I thought it would be nice to get out of the wear house for a little while. To make a long story short, I really made a mess, hehe:) It ended with me driving it full, in the way that it won't tip (there’s a big box which fills up with dust, to empty it you tip it). That’s a bit embarrassing, and off course everyone noticed. Especially when as a girl you’re a part of the absolute minority. On the top of that one of the tires punctured. If I look at the positive side I made a lot of people smile today and all in all that’s good. I like putting a smile on people's faces!

Now I've had dinner, a shower and even a little nap and things are looking much better. Hopefully people will be nice and forget all about it till tomorrow, but I must say I doubt it. These people won’t let you forget:)

Where will I live?

I thought that it would be fun to show you where I'll be living and working next year. I'll be working in the Parish of Brentford witch consists of two churches, St.Paul's and St.Faith's. I'll be working at St.Paul's. If you want to know more about that, go to their web site! It is: www.parishofbrentford.org.uk Have a look!

Two days a go I had a long first talk to my host. Her name is Melanie Green and I can't wait to meet her in real life. I'm so exited about this!

Moving on

I was looking at some blogs and found this. This is all the missionaries that ended their period at Madagascar this year. I'm sitting on the roof of the car with Kristian on my lap.
Last week I met with the new volunteers and the volunteers that came home this summer. It was time for debriefing, saying goodbye and moving on. I've had a hard time "getting over" Madagascar and I probably never will. But, at the same time I'm so exited about London that I can't stop thinking about it!!

Just want to say to the people on the picture and the people that are still down there, I MISS YOU!! Thank you for a super year! Hopefully I'll see you soon:)

Make my day

I just want to remind you that it is possible to write me a message:) If you press on the "comments" under the post, you will really put a smile on my face.