Easter in Oslo

Karen is visiting!

Oslo is dead. Ghost town.

Easter makes everyone travel up to their cottages and visit family.

Hiking, climbing and just being in the nature is what the Norwegians do.

While they eat a huge amount of 'kvikklunsj'.

Thankfully Tina and me have our Easter family - Karen.

We've been around Holmenkollen, Opera huset, shopping streets (with closed shops) and such.

We spent quite some time at Frogner parken. See the result of the trip under:

We are invited for an Easter dinner at Ingar's house. Easter family expanding!

How is/was your Easter? Any eggs or bunnies?

xo

Linda and the Easter family

PS:

I boiled eggs for the first time today. But for some reason I preferred eating the Easter egg on the left...

All pictures from Karen's camera - taken by all of us three.

Need for speed

Yeah, just as I hoped. The longboard community is just as welcoming in Oslo as it was in London.

People willing to teach, people willing to learn.

A family.

A few shots from today's session at St. Hanshaugen park. My first session.

I can't wait to get a new board. I can't wait to learn more about sliding. I can't wait till I have more stability. I can't wait till I have the courage to go down from the top of the St. Hanshaugen hill.

This summer will be sk8mazing!

Fourth Day - The Cuba Diary

Day Four: Santiago and salsa

Listen to Esteban's 'Santiago' as you read this!

Reached Santiago around 1pm on Friday 9th March. After a 15-16 hour bus ride in a full bus we were really looking forward to finding a casa particular to crash at. Sleeping in the bus wasn't the biggest success, especially as my seat was broken and the bus was freezing cold.

As we had had trouble getting bus tickets to Santiago we decided to buy tickets to Trinidad immediately when arriving to Santiago. This way we'd at least be on board for sure!

But yay, what a nice surprise awaited outside the bus terminal doors: a thirty headed crowd of crazy fans and stalkers. I thought we'd get to be alone, peacefully, trying to search for the perfect accommodation. False thoughts, silly. We tried to pass all these men and walk out of the doors heading towards destination unknown. Now that was a struggle! They all called my name 'Linda, Linda', offered taxies and tried to sell us accommodation in their houses. Is my blog seriously that big in Cuba? What a celebrity feel it was.

For those who are thinking 'what on earth, is that girl crazy?' - no. Linda means pretty in Portuguese/Spanish. That's why the 'knew my name'.

Let me tell you a funny name -story by the way.

When I was little, very little, a just born baby, my parents and me went traveling around Portugal for a few months. Some Portuguese girls were very excited about me and told my parents: 'Linda bebe, Linda bebe!' Mum and dad hadn't quite understood the situation and thought 'how on earth do these girls know the name of our child? this is creepy!' Later on it occurred to them that the word 'linda' actually had a meaning.

I'm just thankful that at least it meant pretty and not earthworm or something!

After getting rid of all these 'fans' and salesmen, walking around who knows where and sweating like pigs because of our long sleeved and pant clothing we finally decided to take a taxi. As a protest to the unpleasant welcome we had, we wanted to take a taxi from somewhere else than these too eager salesmen. We found a bici taxi and the man asked us if we wanted a ride. 3 pesos and he would bike us to the city center. The deal didn't sound bad at all.

But oh my goooosh. If we had only known that Santiago was actually called the San Francisco of Cuba we would have NEVER taken a bici taxi. Poor old guy was cycling us and our luggage up crazy hills that I wouldn't have even biked myself up on. We could see how his skin started getting wet spots of sweat and how his clothes started turning a darker color. Plus, Santiago being probably the hottest city in Cuba, guess how bad we felt. The vibe of the city was very...historical. Felt like we'd gone bad centuries. And I felt like a queen using slavery. Believe me, it did not feel good.

So a word of advice: don't use bici taxies in Santiago.

We tipped the guy and hoped he'd survive back home.

By the way, bici taxies are not even legal for tourists to use. This is why the guy had to leave us a bit outside of the main streets of Santiago. I would make the taxies illegal for anyone - such slavery seriously!

We tried to find accommodation tips from the Lonely Planet -book I had bought. Unfortunately (or later to our luck) a guy started following us and offering help, accommodation, anything we wanted. I was already getting pretty annoyed by all these guys following us and never leaving alone. In Cuba if someone helps you, you should pay for the help given. We didn't want to be paying people if we don't ask for help! Get lost man, I was thinking.

The few places recommended by Lonely Planet were full. This guy was still annoying us but as we were tired of walking, we decided to give him a chance. Fine - take us to this amazing accommodation of yours.

Thankfully we listened to him. We were welcomed to a lovely family in a lovely area in a nice house. We went into our room, took a shower and rested for a while before heading out to explore the city.

Accommodation 25pesos a night per room.

We also ate at the house. Fish and rice! But YUMMY for once. This fun also cost us like 15pesos all together. I miss the food the Cuban families made us. The fish was delicious.

Our new best friends! Neighbors from our Santiago -home street.

Ronaldo, Fernando, Yuri, Antonio...

Our next stop in the evening was Casa De La Tradiciones!

We were warmly welcomed to the salsa house of locals. It was only locals plus two Portuguese men who were pretty much locals as they had been to Santiago tens of times.

The night included tens of pictures, tens of new friends, tens of men asking to dance with them, tens of friendly people, live performers and one way too strong pina colada.

...and a new boyfriend!

This guy, whose name I unfortunately can't remember, had apparently been a very famous Cuban singer a couple years back. Anyone recognize? I have no idea of the name!

After a lot of convincing my new boyfriend got me on the dance floor. My favorite move that I learnt was definitely a 'wiggly, wobbly' legs one. Wish I had video of that for you, but unfortunately I don't.

In the evening when we came home our host mummy came into our room wearing her pajamas, just making sure we were alright. Cute!

<3

Linda

xxx

ps. Sanni's post of Santiago day 1 here.

Oslo life

Exciting!

I've now moved in to my new apartment.

About Thursday, the day I arrived to Oslo, click here.

Friday I came to visit the new apartment and had dinner with Tina, my friend from exchange and new house mate. ;-)

Saturday I moved in. Bought a bed and brought it to the apartment after which is was Ikea time. Then back home to arrange the room and start unpacking my bags. Everything went faster than expected and so it was time to go to a gig of three Norwegian artists/bands that I hadn't really listened to before (does it count if I listened during the time I was arranging my room?). Actually very good gigs, a couple of very good singers and amazing atmosphere - the Norwegian really love their music. ;-) Plus, have you ever got cupcakes after a gig? Yeah, well at this gig you did!

The artists/bands were:

Mikhael Paskalev (might get interesting if he plans on making an international career as 'paska' means 'shit' in Finnish)

Jonas Alaska (who had a very Amish -style going on in his clothing)

Team Me (probably the best ending of a gig I've seen, very powerful)

Sunday we went out into the woods with J-Lo and Ingarito.

And today, Monday, I've been doing the groceries for the first time. How much does chevre cost in Finland? Cos the cheapest, and only, one I found in the store today was 34NOK = 4,5€ for 120g.

At least I got to eat my salad craving of the month: honey chevre salad with avocado and tuna. Whilst checking out the album of new Finnish little superstar: Robin.

Any Finns living in Oslo and reading my blog? Any suggestions for where to meet around my age Finns in Oslo? For the first time I am in an environment where I don't know any other Finns and can't speak Finnish, my mother tongue.

Anyway, now I'm off to meet some of Tina's friends. Norwegians!

Feels like the weekend just continues going on and on...

xoxo

Linda

OSLO, man!

Halla fra Oslo city ass!

I arrived yesterday and I've already been up to a lot and met manymanymany people. The one thing I haven't done is taken photos. Wanted to enjoy a day of sun, skate and freedom.

So once I got to Ingar's apartment I unpacked my longboards, put on the trucks and we headed out to skate. Skated to town to arrange all kinds of stuff like get a bus card, try and arrange my social security number and bank stuff but everything except the bus card was a flop. Hopefully I'll get the rest done soon! Just need to get some documents filled in first.

The weather was amazing. Wearing a hoodie, skating down huge hills (huge for me) on a Penny, trying to look cool with sunglasses on my head...yeah - can't complain! Seeing about 30 longboarders in a day isn't that bad either. Unfortunately the culture just seems to be veeery different to what it was in London. In London everyone always said hi when they saw someone with a longboard. It was kinda like a community and social activity. In Oslo longboards seem to be more of a transport method. At least from what I've seen now. But that's ok, I'm sure I can find the social side of it, too!

In the evening we had a party. Oh man, like 30 people came to celebrate the end of exams and start of Easter holiday. Or to welcome me to Norway? Hah. Well, probably not as I knew hardly any of them. ;-) Fun night, fun people!

I get the keys to my apartment and move on April 1st. Exciting! Now I just need to find furniture. Let the search begin.

Hope Oslo hasn't stolen all the sun in the world! Though I wouldn't complain...

Think I'm going out for a skate.

xo

Linda

Third Day - The Cuba Diary

First of all you can find stories and pictures of our trip also from Sanni's blog if you haven't yet checked it out! Nice for the Finnish readers, as the text is in Finnish.

Then lets continue with stories from Cuba, the country where everyone are friends.

Day Three: Santa Maria -beach and the longest bus ride ever

On the morning of March 8th we met up with our new friends, Fino and Lazaro, outside our hotel. It was time to head off to the Santa Maria -beach! We had had troubles with arranging how to get to the beach that was situated about 20-30min outside of Havana City. Taking a taxi to the beach would have been way too expensive for the guys and taking a local bus was not possible for us tourists. In Cuba tourists don't only have a different currency but also different transportation than locals. This is because tourists pay much much more for everything in Cuba.

Somehow the guys just got us on a local bus and we travelled to a spot in town where taxies were a bit cheaper and not only for tourists. The guys arranged a cheap taxi for us four, and Sanni and me paid for the ride. We wanted to travel together and as our 20min taxi ride cost 5pesos it wasn't a rip off. Five pesos is about 3,5€. It is also 1/4th of a Cuban's monthly salary. Yeah, some only get 20pesos a month. Loco, right?

Windy, empty, cold beach. Not that much of a success. The sand was flying into our eyes and mouth. As we weren't that big fans of that crunchy feel in our mouthes we decided that the couple hours we had spent on the beach were enough. Our body probably thanked us, too, as during those couple hours we already succeeded in getting burnt. Wee hoo!

Back to the hotel in the back of a Jeep and said our goodbyes with Fino and Lazaro as we were heading off to Santiago de Cuba in the evening.

We ate out again at a paladar (family) restaurant before heading off to the Viazul bus station.

We took a coco -taxi to the Viazul bus station. Hah, those coco -taxies were the best! The only one with a helmet was the rider himself. We were holding onto our luggage hoping it wouldn't fall out. Sanni said she could start riding one of those taxies as her summer job. ;-)

We had been advised to get to the the bus station at least an hour before the bus left. We thought two hours in advance could be good and so we got to the station at 8pm. Also we'd been told that tickets can be purchased when you get to the station and it's not problem as the buses are hardly ever full.

False.

The buses so were full. A very unpleasant lady working at Viazul (probably the only unkind person in Cuba) told us we should come back to the station again the next morning at 7 to ask if anyone had cancelled their bus trip to Santiago. Apparently all the buses were full. Today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the day after the day after tomorrow and so on. There were people at the station who had been waiting since 3.30pm to get on a bus.

As it was only one hour till the departure of the bus we decided that what the... we'd just stay and see what happens. No plans for the evening anyway and so little time left - why not try our luck.

And so we did:

The clock hit 10pm. The cash registers had been shut down, the unfriendly lady had left and the only people left in the waiting hall were Sanni and me accompanied by a Columbian (?) guy who had come to say bye to his aunt. Thankfully this guy started talking to us and then arranging us on board... After a few minutes the bus driver came to us, asked for money and guided us to the bus passing a twenty-headed group of people escorting their friends/family. Again eyes turned at us and suddenly we became the center of attention.

So all ended well, no change of plans had to be made and we were accepted in the full bus which happened to have two seats left, right next to each other.

Let the 15-16 hour bus ride to Santiago de Cuba begin!

What comes to the money we paid to the bus driver...I have no idea where that went. As said, the cash register was closed.

View from the bus as we were heading from West to East.

Thankfully the bus ride went fast as it was night. I pretty much slept all those 16 hours.

coming up next...Santiago!

<3

Linda