Category Archives: Uncategorized

Friday last week I met with Gigi and Phillip for some sort of reunion. Gigi has been in Shanghai for 8 months since last time she was in Oslo, if I remember correctly. It was fun seeing her and Phillip again. Although Phillip was in Oslo, we haven’t really had an excuse to meet before now… everyone are too busy nowadays. More people were invited to the reunion, but only me and Phillip could meet on such a short notice, apparently. Forgot to take a photo too. Ah well.

The Saturday after that I went to a barbeque party with my family and some family friends. Ate a bunch of really salty chicken, some salmon and some squid, plus salad and various other food. Then I played with the kids a bit. (Misin and Lisa and Vilhelm.) Some badminton and basket, then played some cards when it got colder outside. It was nice I guess.

^ I have no idea what Misin was trying to do here.

v Lisa trying to slamdunk on a basket that is low enough for me to reach almost without jumping. (This video was removed on request from Lisa.)

Sunday we had a family reunion/dinner party with some relatives that we don’t see so often. Ate a lot, talked a bit with my cousins, and had a look at my new cute little twin cousins!

My grandfather (mother’s father) is the oldest guy sitting in the wheelchair.

Monday I went and played board games with Kristoffer, Jørgen and Jørgen. I got last place in Puerto Rico, even though another person was playing for the first time… I spent too much time trying to work up money to buy many expensive buildings, but the game ended when the first-timer took the mayor even though we were low on slaves. Well, I probably need to work up cash quicker if I want to play that strategy anyhows, so I can’t blame others… We played Carcassonne after that, where I got a very good second place (10 points behind first place, and quite a bit in front of the other two)! If only I had start putting more farmers at the end, I might’ve gotten first place. But eh, I’m glad I didn’t end up last in both games.

Today the church went out for barbeque. I also played a bit of soccer, but was too tired to stick around for the second half of the match. Paddled a bit with Sean and Marcus too, they came visiting from Stockholm!

For the barbeque I prepared a quick burger (no salad or anything), a pork steak, vegetables wrapped in aluminium foil (squash, mushrooms and onions with margarine and garlic), and a banana with two pieces of Toblerone and one piece of truffle (also wrapped in aluminium foil). Both the burger and the pork steak got a little burned, but tasted okay. The vegetables could’ve needed more seasoning though, maybe more garlic and salt… but I just added ketchup and sennep. The banana however turned out delicious! Chocolate is yum. Got some sausages and other food from other people too, got pretty full.

Was supposed to meet William today, but he was busy after all, so we said Monday. I’m considering going home to my parents to see my relatives from Stockholm a bit more, but it is also tempting to just chill at home… Just played an hour or two of Super Paper Mario, should be very close to the end of the game now. Ah, need to make the nametags for Summer camp too. *sigh* I guess I should try and finish them quickly.

Edit: Oh, almost forgot about the title I picked. I bought a bathrobe, it was, uh, on sale! 99NOK instead of 399NOK! Since I bought it online I had to pay postage though, but I also bought a bunch of other stuff that was on sale, so I think I might have still saved some money. (And the postage isn’t as much as 300NOK anyways.) But yeah, it’s nice to wear bathrobes in the morning and after showers. It’s my favorite clothing article now! Woohoo! …but I think I feel a bit too awkward to actually add a photo of me wearing bathrobe. Maybe later. 😛

Hmm, the title part of the song isn’t before the end of the video. Oh well. But whenever I think of the word “cruise”, I always think of this song. I got the phrase stuck in my head because it’s such a weird Engrish sentence…

But anyways, last week was mostly spent on a cruise with my family! We travelled with the Royal Caribbean International‘s Vision of the Seas (those links are in Norwegian, here’s the English description of the boat, and their English website). Vision of the Seas is one of their older ships, and didn’t quite have as many facilities as I was expecting, although it still had an okay amount of entertainment.

When boarding the ship, we could leave the luggage at the entrance, and they would have people ship them to our room. Kind of like a hotel, where the piccolo helps you carry your luggage to your room. I guess it’s clever, since it means we don’t have to worry about a lot of people boarding the ship while dragging big luggages around, making it crowded. Actually, the ship never felt crowded, part of the reason being that people had to go through some sort of security control before entering the ship, meaning that only a few people entered the ship at a time. And part of the reason being that the ship was, well, big enough for the passengers I guess.

My family (mother, father, brother and me) had a junior suite, with a double bed and a bed sofa. The stateroom attendant would prepare the sofabed every night, and put it back to “sofa mode” when we went to breakfast in the morning. Very servicy! They even put folded towel animals on our bed the last few nights. Of course, they expect people to tip, almost like they depend on it for their payment. (Last night even had a video about how you should tip, with suggested amounts.) But I understand that it’s normal for the US service industry? Oh well.

Each meal was included in the cruise ticket, or rather, the whole cruise was basically an all-you-can-eat buffet, where you could eat as often as you liked, as long as some restaurant is open. The swimming pool had fast-food like pizza, burgers and fries the whole afternoon and evening. And there was an ice cream machine on the outside deck of the ship, where you could eat as much as you wanted in the afternoon/evening. I already got quite full just from the breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets though, so I didn’t really eat much between meals.

Most of the time aboard was spent swimming, watching the night show (also free) and playing cards and other games. (I played Carcassonne and San Juan with Vilhelm.) I didn’t take any pictures of the pools because I didn’t want to bring my mobile phone with me when I was swimming, and it felt awkward taking photos when I was not swimming. Anyways, the pools were rather small, the inside pool only had space for two or three people swimming side by side at the same time. But as long as I went a bit early in the morning, there weren’t too many people. I also sat in the bubbly hot tubs (bacterias notwithstanding), steam bath and sauna for a bit. It was quite nice! I never got around to try the outdoor pool, partly because of the cold wind, but also because there were usually a lot more people there. I’m sure the water was heated anyway, so I guess it’s ok even if it’s cold… Too bad it was closed the one morning I wanted to try it before there were more people there. 🙁

The shows were all right, they had two dance shows, one magic show and one humor/acrobatics show. One dance show was called “Boogie Wonderland” and had “old” music. The other one was called “Rhytm and Rhyme” and had music from Broadway shows. The magic show was held by John Taylor, who is supposedly Australia’s premier illusionist. Too bad he shares a name with many other famous people, I couldn’t even find an article on him on Wikipedia! Maybe he should’ve gone for a flashy artist name, like David Copperfield. Also most of the tricks seemed somewhat old, but I guess it’s limited how many tricks he can choose when performing on a somewhat limited stage in a boat…

Last night had a “Farewell show” with an spinning plates and ladder climbing acrobatics show with Flash and Fever, some kind of entertainment troupe from Netherlands…? The website is pretty basic and very Web 1.0 (under construction?? Haven’t seen that in ages!), but their show was quite fun and entertaining enough, I guess. Then there was a final dance show, before representants from the whole crew came onstage to greet us goodbye.

We were in Hamburg for about a day, but since it was the Ascension day, almost everything was closed… so we just went around in a tour bus most of the day. Dim sum was kind of nice though, even though we already ate so much on the boat. There was also a street market, so at least there were some things to watch! Oh, also, on our way back, we got caught in a heavy rain/hailstorm! There was so much rain and wind that I got my pants soaked even though I used an umbrella…

Ick, I always write way too much in my posts… To short it down, I’ll finish with a wishlist:

• Bigger pool would’ve been nice, so it doesn’t feel as crowded
• Should try the outdoor pool/whirlpool at least once!
• Bigger shops! I wanted to buy candy. (They only had a small shop with Royal Caribbean merchandise, liquor and jewelry) 🙁
• It’d also be more interesting/(shopping) if the destination city isn’t on a public holiday when we arrive
• The feature list said minigolf, but there was none! But honestly, I have no idea how you’re supposed to play minigolf on a rocking boat.

Oh, by the way, I bought an XBox 360.