Making plans!

Today it hit me like a thunder stroke when I realised that I'm already supposed to be in Norway in exactly three weeks. I'll be in Oslo and around for a small trip I had already planned to do months (!) ago. 

Now, it's about to make some plans!!!!

Basically I haven't arranged anything yet but the flight. And since already this flight is making my wallet appear as thin as a piece of paper I will be very limited in my expenses there. No idea where I should sleep or how I actually should get to Oslo from the airport with a very little amount of money only. (And Norway is expensive!!)

Plus: I need to save some money for at least one concert ticket and one CD, I'm planning to buy there. BTW: How crazy is it to travel to Norway for a concert?! Hmm, actually I don't care 'cause I know it's worth it. 

But besides of the concert I'm also planning to do some sight seeing. My plan is to see as much as possible in the less time. For this occasion I bought one of these city-tourist-guide-books (including a map of Oslo). So if you see someone weird-looking with a city map in the hands running though Oslo - that's me!

And of course I will spend some time on meeting some friends there or gaining new ones maybe. That reminds me of something else now: I need to learn some pick-up phrases in Norwegian. Something like: "Er du sliten i bena? Du har vandret rundt i tankene mine i hele dag."

So folks, contact me if you want to give me some shelter while I am in Oslo, or if you have some tips for me about what I should see in Olso, or if you want to teach me some pick-up lines. And if you're a cute guy, don't forget to leave me your telephone number. Thanks. ;)

POST (music video)

A common rand of people and fun in the pool with POST.

I once told about my perfect "soundtrack" for this October before: Post's album "Common Rand of People". Listening to this album is a great pleasure and good treatment for wellbeing, as I think. And I was quite successful listening to it pretty much every day. Now they came up with some visual backing for their song "A Common Rand of People".

It's a nice video. Simple but sincere and slightly touched by synchronized swimming. The video suits the song by all means. But watch for yourself!!

Tíminn og vatnið

The Time and the Water
by Steinn Steinarr

Time is like the water,
and the water is cold and deep
like my own consciousness.

And time is like a picture,
which is painted of water,
half of it by me.

And time and the water
flow trackless to extinction
into my own consciousness.

I stumbled over this poem while I was looking through the pages of a book about the history of Scandinavia's literature. It's the first part of Steinn Steinarr's "Tíminn og vatnið" (=The Time and the Water). He was an outstanding and great Icelandic poet. I like these words a lot and Icelandic is a beautiful though difficult language. Iceland might not be one of the biggest or richest countries but they brought us many great artists also beside of Steinn Steinarr, right? :)

What music is making me do...

Sometimes I'm listening to music and I enjoy it. Music does many things to us - we become happy; we become sad; we start to sing and to dance. But sometimes (and this is what I love the most) music, songs, bands and artists can be so brilliant that you would get outside to feel the wind circulating around your body. When music is piercing every cell of your body so you just feel like a pile of molecules. I love it when music makes you get up at 3 a.m. in the morning to listen to that one song again you can't get out of your head. Losing a feeling for time. Or when you feel the urge to jump into a lake with all your clothes. When you would just stare at the ceiling while you would just feel the goosebumps all over your body. When you don't care taking the longer way home just in order to be able to listen to the music coming from your MP3-player longer. Brilliant music will make you dance in the rain half-naked and will make you touch concrete ground just to feel the hard, cold and rough reality. The feeling you get when you close your eyes pretending there is nothing but YOU! And when you can't help listening to one and the same song again for several hours. I love what music does to me...

High expectations!

Music, bands and upcoming albums. It can be a good or a bad thing to have high expectations in albums. For some albums you wait a long time and you end up disappointed because they didn't meet your expectations others will surpass them.
This year I experienced both: Some albums were more brilliant than I expected them to be while others should have been better. But no matter what, the last weeks before a new record is released are always quite exciting, especially when you get to hear the first streams of the songs. 

Thelma and Clyde will release their album "White Line" on the 8th of November. Now that I spend several hours (!!) listening to 30 seconds of each song (-> here!) I can say I'm very satisfied. I already knew most of the songs and of course it's not possible to judge the album by these little sound-files, but still.... 

:)

Vi snakker bare norsk! Del 2

Had my second Norwegian lesson yesterday; now we're talking!! Hva heter du? Og hvor kommer du fra? Hvordan har du det? Vil du ha en kopp te? Infinitiv, Presens, Preteritum, Perfektum.... og så videre.

It's great fun so far. Probably because these things aren't yet very challenging and isn't it always exciting to learn something new?! :) The more I learn the more confident I get when I have to talk Norwegian myself. And I just can't wait to prove my skills when I get to talk to my Norwegian friends. ;)

Speaking of my Norwegian friends - Some of them are already speaking ONLY in Norwegian to me, completely resisting to talk English. It's fun and a good way to get used to the language. 

Actually I think I would be a bit lost if I didn't knew already a phew phrases. From beginners to experts you'll find all sorts of students in our course and I guess it's a bit difficult at the beginning - especially when it comes to the 'odd' pronunciation. At least it would be difficult for me.

Well... I got some Norwegian home-work to do now. Sooo... ha det!! :)

Vi snakker bare norsk!

I had my first Norwegian lesson today. Our teacher started to talk Norwegian right away welcoming us to the course. After talking about some administrative matters we got asked if we'd already understand a few words. Most of the students were shaking their heads while (brave me)...... was almost hiding under the table thinking: Jeg snakker INGEN norsk. :o) 

Some of us introduced themselves - since we're around 60 people in the course only a few had the chance to talk. And I almost fell off my chair when one of the students revealed that she is from Oslo!! OMG, I'm going to look so much like a loser in comparison to her - I was thinking. Some of us spent some time in Norway and could already speak a little bit norsk. I enjoyed a lot to listen to the language thinking how long it would take until I can talk that fluently. And although there might be so many who are already able to speak Norwegian, I'm not too worried because there are others in the course to whom this language is completely new. 

Our teacher is from Norway and when she told a few things about herself I was quite happy to be able to understand her (since I thought I could only understand Norwegian when it is written down - it seems the countless hours watching interviews/TV and listening to radio programmes in Norwegian finally payed off ). :)

We spoke about our reasons for learning Norwegian and our teacher told us about a student in the advanced course who started to learn norsk because of her favourite band: Kaizers Orchestra. I had to laugh; once more I'm soooooo busted. ;) Although the fact that I love so many Norwegian musicians/artists is only a small part for my reason to learn norsk.

Some minutes of the lesson we spend with learning a few things like saying/asking for the name or where someone is coming from and the pronouns (but that wasn't new to me).

Next lesson is on Thursday and I got some homework to do. I'm looking forward to learn something new. :)

Autumn is on its way...

October 1st: Colored leaves are falling, it's getting colder outside and the days are getting shorter (well, they still last 24hrs - but you know what I mean). The new academic year at the university has started today while lectures will start the upcoming Monday. Shops started to sell candies and chocolate for christmas (yeah, we're still talking about autumn, I'm sure). And there is a cute raccoon living in my garden these days - I called him Bjørn Magnus.

After an exciting summer with some cool concerts and festivals I'm now looking forward to a peaceful fall. But there is so much cookin' and since I am having some plans (traveling! and more concerts!!) I need to figure out and organize I won't have much time to rest.

But I already found the perfect soundtrack for October: POST's debut record "Common Rand Of People" which was just released a couple of days ago (available on iTunes). I wrote a small review of the album on my MySpace page and I would recommend you to listen to the tracks the album. It's dreamy, piercing, strong and creative.
And you should absolutely check out this video of Hanne Kolstø, who is a member of Post, performing their song "Broken". This song is simple but so beautiful - I can't help myself clicking the reply button over and over again.
BTW: My review has been posted on the Facebook pages of both, POST and their label Karmakosmetix Records. (Ahhhh! - the sweet taste of fame!! ;) )

And now... enjoying the last bits of warm sunlight.