Walk along St Clair
Went for a walk along St Clair and St Kilda beaches in Dunedin. The weather was spectacularly good with lots of sun.
Rikugi-en gardens
The Rikugi-en gardens is a beautiful part of Tokyo city and well worth visiting if you are in the area.
Visiting Dunedin
I visited my home town of Dunedin for the first time in my life recently. Whenever I returned in the past it was because I was coming home.
Chris in Arrowtown
I bumped into Chris Laing whilst wandering around Arrowtown on new years eve
Metronet Julebord
Julebord is a traditional Norwegian Christmas dinner, consisting of meat, with some meat on the side and some meat garnishings.
Kate Moss
I’m best buds with Kate Moss 🙂
More of Edinburgh Castle
Some photos I forgot to post of Edinburgh castle last year …
Viking ships
I forgot to publish this blog post back in May 2012! I took these photos at the Viking Museum in Oslo.
Finnair linux
So apparently Finnair uses Redhat linux to power its entertainment system. This was both amusing in a nerdy kind of way and infuriating as heck when you want to get your quick fix of movie watching. Thankfully Marte had provided me with some movies to watch on my phone before leaving 🙂
Bad hair
And people wonder why I shave my head these days … Thanks to Melissa for providing the hair and taking the photo.
Lacrosse
This looks like an attempt to get as many things wrong in one paragraph as possible … It’s from the tag attached to an item of clothing.
Christmas at Toko Mouth
Christmas day at Toko Mouth. Dad and I headed to the river where I attempted swimming for the first time since 2006.
Swimming at Toko Mouth
View from my new office
The from my new office window in Nydalen, Oslo.
Store Gryta
Morten and I headed to Store Gryta to find some ice to skate on. Unfortunately it was a little thin, so we stopped for a short food break where I tried Julebrød med brun øst (Norwegian Christmas bread with brown cheese), a traditional Christmas time snack around these parts.
Skating on Setertjern
My new skating Morten kindly drove us to Setertjern for some ice skating. 50 mm of nice hard, smooth ice 🙂 There was a swiffle of snow on the top, but nothing major.
Frozen saft!
This is a lesson in why you should always pack hot water when travelling outdoors in Oslo 😉 This was a yummy bottle full of forest berry flavoured saft (Norwegian drink flavouring stuff, kinda like cordial) before leaving home; 60 minutes later and it became a saft slushy! The photo was taken on Kringlevann.
Skating on Sognsvann
After having a such a terrific time out ice skating the night before, I headed back to Sognsvann in the morning to try out the ice during the daylight. There was a little more snow and the surface had roughened up a little, but still an amazing days skating in the great outdoors. It is […]
Sognsvann evening skate
After being hospitalised with a head injury this evening (I thought it would be fun to walk into a cupboard door), Morten and I decided to go for an evening skate on Sognsvann on the outskirts of the city. We were greeted with beautiful smooth ice interspersed with the occasional snow dump. The local fire […]
More photos from skating on Kringlevann
More photos from my recent skating trip to Kringlevann. We had terrific weather this day, -6° C and very little clouds. A great change from the past month of dreary rainy crap.
Kringlevann skating panorama
I took the following panorama on my phone whilst skating on Kringlevann, not far from outskirts of Oslo.
Skating on Langvann
Morten and I headed to Langvann for some ice skating. Beautiful weather and a really long and smooth sheet of ice to skate on.
Frozen beer
People keep asking me how cold Oslo is. A picture supposedly paints a thousand words, so here is a photo I took outside a bar this morning. Presumably a patron left their beer sitting outside last night, and by this morning it was frozen solid.
Skating on Kringlevann at last
After multiple trips over the past few weeks to Kringlevann all resulted in failed attempts at skating, I was beginning to think my chances of skating in the great outdoors this season was fading fast. Fortunately we had a good freeze over the past few days and only a minor dusting of snow. After I […]
Australsk Vampyrer i Oslo
More Norwegian language practice. This time in the form of a comic strip … Click the image to see a higher resolution version. Story based on real life events. Resemblance to peoples living or dead is most like intentional.
Bob Skywalker walking
Look, new keys :)
These were nigh on impossible to copies of.
Autumn colours with Marte and Ingvild
Marte and Ingvild and I admired the beautiful autumn colours along Akeselva
Ice leaf
Whilst walking along Akerselva, Marte saw two leaves that looked like they had frozen ice between them. She peeled the leaves off, and out came a beautiful frozen ice leaf.
Running to Kringlevann
One of my favourite hobbies in New Zealand was always finding ice to skate on come the winter months. By the time I arrived in Norway last winter all of the lakes were covered in snow, so this time around I’m trying to keep a close eye on the lakes and as soon as they’re […]
Eating out in Lisbon
After WordCamp Lisboa, we went out for dinner a restaurant overlooking the city. Unfortunately I had left my camera in Norway and my phone doesn’t do the view justice. Suffice to say, we had a very beautiful view out across Lisbon cityscape.
Lisbon via bus
Marko Heijnen and I went on a siteseeing tour of Lisbon via bus. Thankfully our bus had a cover to keep the sun off us, as didn’t bring any sunscreen.
Pronomen test 2
The bold sections were originally empty and filled in by me. Same drill as normal. If you see any problems, lemme know please 🙂 FIRST SENTENCE Jeg skal reise til Berge på fredag. Broren min, Karl, bor og studerer der. Jeg gleder meg til å treffe Karl igjen. Han er bare to år eldre enn […]
Pronomen test 1
The bold sections were originally empty and filled in by me. Same drill as normal. If you see any problems, lemme know please 🙂 First sentence Jeg har en ganske stor familie i hjemlandet mitt. Familien min liker å reise, og to av brødrene mine har allerede besøkt meg her i Norge. Brødrene mine bodde […]
Family story in Norwegian
I need to write a story about “families” for my Norwegian class homework. To keep things interesting, the following are loosely based on real life people. You KNOW who you are! Det var en familien i Neu Seeland. De hadde tre medlemmer, mor, far og datter. Farens navn er Siemen og Morens navn er Bao […]
My first snake ever!
I had never seen a snake before until visiting a pet shop in Alcantarilha with Nadia’s family. It’s not the most exciting way to see your first snake, but I figured it was worthy of a blog post/photo at least 🙂
Giant pineapple
I went to the Alcantarilha township with Nadia’s family. Whilst there we saw a giant pineapple!
Email to my Norwegian teacher
I’m just logging this here for future reference and so I can get people to proof read it before sending … Hei Kate! Jeg har problemer 🙁 Jeg kan ikke gjore det lekser. Jeg provde det, men jeg ikke forstår alle det og trenger hjelp å ferdig. Jeg hadde hjelp fra venner via blogg for […]
Skriv om part 2
More Norwegian homework. Same drill as normal, lemme know if you see errors 🙂 Fortell om dem. Susanna: Jeg gleder meg til sommeren. Da får jeg besøk av kjæresten min. Susanna gleder seg til sommeren. Da får hun besøk av kjæresten sin. Liv og Ole: Vi gleder oss til å treffe familien vår Liv og Ole gleder seg […]
Skriv om
More Norwegian homework. Lemme know if you see anything bad. You know the drill, bold bits are the ones I wrote, un-bolded bits are from my textbook 🙂 Hva sier de? Alexander skal besøke familien sin i jula. Han glader seg til jul. Alexander: “Jeg skal besøke familien min i jula” Alexander: “Jeg gleder meg […]
Sett inn et av verbene i riktig form
More Norwegian class homework. Lemme know if there are errors please 🙂 Words to choose from: glede, feire, smake, ha, savne, synge, treffe, spise. I jula har jeg lang ferie. Jeg savner familien min i jula, men i år skal jeg heldigvis feire jul sammen med tanta og onkelen min i Sverige. Der treffer jeg også broren min. Vi skal snakke sammen og synge gamle, tradisjonelle julesanger. Etterpå skal vi […]
Eiendomsord
Some more practice sentences for my Norwegian homework. Lemme know if you see any errors please 🙂 The workbook I’m working from has the sentences, minus the bits in bold which I need to fill in. di, din, ditt, dine Kommer foreldrene dine på besøk i jula? Hvor gammel er mora di nå? Er faren din frisk? Juletreet ditt […]
Albufeira
Nadia and I visited Albufeira, a small seaside tourist town in Portugal. Nice views. Nice beach. Nice weather. Nice company. All around nice place 🙂
Google doc of Norwegian language
Here is a document with all of the stuff I’m trying to learn about the Norwegian language. Norwegian grammar document (PDF version)
Marble the chameleon
Meet Marble, the plucky little chameleon I met whilst visiting Nadia near Alcantarilha Portugal.
Post workout dinner with Metronetters
Dinner with Erik and Yelitza after going to the gym.
WordCamp Lisboa
Nadia and I visited Albufeira, a small seaside tourist town in Portugal. Nice views. Nice beach. Nice weather. Nice company.
Ma weekend in Norwegian
This is a work in progress … due by Tuesday evening. Saturday Jeg kjøpt for klær på lørdag. Jeg kjøpt en rosa trøyen og en svart trøyen. Jeg hate rosa klær, men jeg nødvendig* rosa klær for rosa fest med rosa tema. Jeg kunne ha cowboy klær men jeg vet ikke hvor jeg kunne ha […]
Norwegian language homework
14 setninger med disse adverbene … opp, hjemme, ned, inne, ut, oppe, inn, hit, hjem, dit, her, inne, der, ute. I’m not sure how to use “inne” in a sentence at this stage. Jeg skal går opp gate til hjem Vi sitter ned parken Jeg skal ut i morgen Kom hit! Jeg sitter på stol […]
Public urination in Norway
I assumed that going to the toilet in public was relegated to third world countries, but it seems it is totally acceptable in Norway!