私はノルウェーという国をみなさんに紹介しようと思います。

ノルウェーは北ヨーロッパに位置しています。ノルウェーは西側に北海に面していて、東側にスウェーデンに接しています。北ノルウェーは東側にフィンランドとロシアに接しています。

ノルウェーの人口はちょっと少ない、４５０万ですが、面積は日本とほとんど同じです。ノルウェーの宗教は国家のキリスト教ですが、一般的なノルウェー人はあまり教会へ行きません。ノルウェーの産業は石油と漁業です。

ノルウェーの冬は本当に寒いから、夏のほうがいい季節だと思います。ノルウェーに行くなら、５月から８月の間に行くといいと思います。

ノルウェーは自然豊かな国と言われていました。観光するならベルゲンという町がいいとおもいます。ベルゲンは西ノルウェーに位置しています。ベルゲンと言えばフィヨルドです。フィヨルドというのはとてもきれいで、深い川のことです。フィヨルドに人気がある観光スポットとして有名です。「Sognefjorden」は私の国でもっとも有名なフィヨルドのひとつです。スキーするなら、ノルウェーの真ん中に行くといいです。そこで高い山があるからたくさん大きいスキー場があります。

ノルウェー人はもちろん日本語ができませんけど、一般的なノルウェー人は英語ができるので、行く前に少し英語の練習したほうがいいと思います。

あなたも機会があれば、ぜひ一度ノルウェーに行ってみてください。

(This is a small introduction about Norway in Japanese. I am trying to post in several languages on this blog so I can get some practice writing in both English and Japanese. Hopefully I can even manage to write some posts in Norwegian sometime in the future.)

This is what I have been doing too much of lately. At least I can convince myself I get better at reading Japanese faster.

I guess I have a tiny unhealthy habit when it comes to Eurovision, and I loved Patricia Kaas with her song “S’il Fallait Le Faire” and I can not believe she did not get more votes back in Eurovision of 2009. I guess it is kind of boring for a Eurovision song, but the quality of the song is wonderful. I also think it takes a lot of guts these days to just send a single woman out on stage in a black dress and no fancy stage-show. She’s got amazing charisma. I wish I knew French so I could have written this little passage in French and better understood the lyrics of her song as well.

When I got home from my classes today, there was a small parcel waiting in the mailbox for me. The front of the envelope was even written in Japanese, so that made it even more exciting. It was my awesome creative friend from sortenke.no who had taken the time to actually send me something for Christmas! She had even written on the envelope in Japanese, even though she has never studied Japanese. (Ok, so she studies Chinese, but still!) The content was just what I needed right about now.

Inside there was an incredibly long letter in the form of a book. (I blurred the text a little bit here, but wow – it was like 10 – 12 double pages like the ones in the picture above.) I don’t think I have received such a long letter in a long, long time, and it made me so happy to see that it is still possible to compose a letter, even with all kinds of chats and IM and facebook-accounts.

The package also had all kinds of other awesome stuff, notice the awesome post-it-notes in the shape of a floppy-disc!

最近、私はその歌ばかり聞いています。本当にきれいな歌だと思います。

Time alone in a coffee shop with pens and time to draw.

Bestis! ♥ And her coffee.

Norwegian coffee.

Open spaces with room to breathe.

Pretty cutlery, just for fun.

Fat, cute Norwegian pigeons trying to stay warm.

Going to the aquarium and take pictures of the various underwater creatures.

I am still really happy where I am though, most of all I just wish I had a little more time, just a little more time to experience everything around me, a little more time to waste, a little more time to appreciate everything I’ve got. I don’t think I have been bored in over 10 years, there is still so much to see, do and love.

If you have seen Lost in Translation, this is the crossing that was in the film. It actually looks smaller in real life than what I had imagined it would look like from the movie.

I’ve had some super days including alcohol and good friends for the past two days, so a little behind with posting on the blog here. Will fix that right now, hope you are all having a wonderful week so far!

The sun was shining, and I had a date in Shinjuku gyoen.

They have little info-boards up everywhere with some information about what kind of trees and plants you are looking at.

The park was for the most part pretty quiet yesterday, but there were a couple of people here and there.

The water underneath this bridge was filled up with koi-fish, but I did not have the right kind of lenses to actually take pictures of them.

And things are starting to blossom!

I love how big some of the trees are.

And how beautiful the sunlight is right around 3pm.

These smelled wonderful.

And then we went and ate at La Boheme…

I had pizza with Gorgonzola and honey.

And pasta with spinach and smoked salmon.

We sat there until it got dark outside, and then headed home.

I am not sure I have mentioned it or not, but a lot of the restaurants have plastic food on display in their windows.

The plastic sushi looks niiice, I almost dropped by to eat sushi before classes, but managed to contain myself.

Lots of good lunch-deals to be seen!

“Please wait”. I feel that is all I am doing these days.

Yeah baby! I could use some more glam in my life.

This is the little temple right next to my school. Apparently the god for gambling resides in this little temple. Very fitting, since there is a lot of pachinko-parlors around this area.

After school, I spent some much needed time (or at least two hours) with good friends at an izakaya nearby. Nice Friday! ♥