Slow Stream…

…of news coming from me, lately, I know. It happens every year…I see it as a biorhythm, and right now I’m in the trough.

Nothing bombastic has really happened lately, but life has been treating me nevertheless wonderfully. I go to class, I go to the gym, and on the weekends I go up to Thurgau. Splitting my time between Italian- and German-speaking Switzerland, I consider myself more than lucky.

Most recently, I’ve been killing weekend-hours on René’s Playstation 3 playing Final Fantasy XIII. Now that’s something that I never thought I would do. A little background information: I was an FF freak in elementary school. I spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours hacking away at monsters and grinding my characters’ levels. I did all the side quests and got all the final weapons. I had to play the perfect game. Now, when FFX was released on the PS2, I was more or less resigned with the fact that I would never get to play the new installments. It was sad, but okay; it had its corner in my childhood.

So you can pretty much imagine what happened when I got my hands on XIII. Homework? Dinner? Sleep? “Ja, ja. In ten minutes…” I even think my sex drive went down. And the only solution–I must finish this game as soon as possible and retake my life in my hands!

Okay, less nerd talk: Next weekend is Easter and I’m going to speak some French! I’ll be visiting my friend Marie and spending the weekend in Lyon. We met during our exchange year in Norway (the first time), and have kept in contact ever since. Last year, I saw her twice–once in Colmar in December and once in Paris in February. We froze our asses off both times, and to this day France to me is just a very very very cold place. Maybe it’ll be warmer this time around…I hope so. In any case, I’m looking forward to seeing her again and learning more about France.

Now it’s time for bed: hope to post some pictures up very soon!

Hælga Er Borte

Wow, this weekend passed by so quickly…has it really been three days? I guess it has.

I spent a good part of Saturday with my friend Gayoung in Farmandstredet, the nicest mall in perhaps all of Norway. I don’t think I got a chance to see here the last time I was here, in May, so it has been a while! She’s one of the only people form Horten Videregående that I’m still in touch with, and it was nice to get updated on her life. She tells me that next year, she will most likely be moving to Oslo, although she also really wants to study in Trondheim’s NTNU. We shopped a bit, and then went back to Horten for a kebab. One thing’s for sure: Norway definitely has better kebabs than Switzerland.

After dinner, I came home and tried some of Pappa’s home-brewed beer. Despite being only 4.9%, I have ridiculously low booze tolerance, so I felt its effects pretty good. Mamma suggested I should train. I’m not so against that idea. After all, I plan on going to next year’s Oktoberfest.

Mamma also made some excellent food for the guests we were having over. I missed the entrée and the main course, but I got my share of dessert: baked pear halves with mint chocolate and vanilla ice cream. It’s so good to be back home.

Sunday, I continued my weekend of kos. Marie woke me up asking if I wanted to join her in delivering “breakfast” to Pappa in bed for Norwegian Farsdag. Of course I said yes and we served him coffee and chocolate and the four of us huddled in one big bed for a while. I was pretty sure I fell asleep, because afterwards I went down to my room again and slept until breakfast: scrambled eggs with leek and lox on rundstykker.

Afterwards we took a promenade down to Horten’s harbor. It was close to zero degrees Celsius and we walked for an hour; to be honest, I don’t think I would have ever done that alone. (But I did hike half of Liechtenstein in February alone…so I wouldn’t say never.) The rest of the day went in flashes: I skyped with René, I ate dinner (pork filet with red wine and coffee sauce, mashed potatoes and broccoli), I watched two episodes of Bones, and I watched Søndagsfilmen with Marie. And now it’s 2 AM again as I type this!

I have to sleep a bit, because I plan on leaving for Oslo early. I have to go to BI for a briefing on exams, and then I have to pack for two weeks in Thurgau with my sweetheart! Only good things are ahead!

One Good Thing About Long-Distance Relationships Is:

Love letters. I used to think, “What’s the point of writing actual letters when you can just call them or send them an e-mail?” The answer is that the feeling is simply not the same. Writing a letter by hand is much more intimate than writing it by email.

René’s letter from India arrived in the mail when I came back from Switzerland today, smelling like Armani; a chunk of it has been torn off somewhere during the mail handling process, but luckily all the text is still there. (I got a nice apology sticker, “Vi beklager at emballasjen er blitt skadet under postbehandlingen. Skaden er utbedret.)

Aside from that, I think a long-distance relationship is terrible. I honestly considered not using my return ticket and just staying there. The day before I left (yesterday) felt downright somber–I think we were both a bit under the weather, knowing that we, on the contrary of what he likes to say, did not have all the time in the world.

On Saturday, we made a day-trip to Lugano, and I got the chance to see Pauli and Emma, and see their new shack up in P14. It looks a lot cleaner and girlier now without me living in it. But we didn’t stay there long; Lugano was alive for the Autumn Festival. We headed to La Bottega for some chocolat chaud first, and then made our way downtown. There, we tried some food, including lamb shish-kebabs and St. Gallen bratwurst, and walked around the city, just the four of us: Pauli, Emma, René and me. (And to think, I didn’t know any of them just a little over a year ago. Life has taken me far away from Fremont, California.) It was a very special day.

I really miss my life in Lugano. I miss my friends, these people who I’ve become so close to within the past year. I miss my school, where the professors know my name and take us out to brunch. I miss the environment, I miss San Salvatore, I miss il lago. I miss the weather; and now that I have René, coming to Norway for the second time seems more and more of a mistake.

To be honest I feel quite sick here. I wanted to come here to perfect my Norwegian, to meet some nordmenn, to enjoy the city life and to right everything I’ve done wrong on my exchange. But I haven’t done any of that, and I feel stuck again–in that same awkward hole. I have neither the energy nor the will to try in this place anymore. Going on exchange with AFS was the best decision I could’ve made for myself, but it took something from me. I had high hopes of making good Norwegian friends during my year, and I failed. They tell you to try and keep trying, that the people are reserved…they falsely reassure you by saying, “Du kommer til å få venner.” Det var vanskelig å ikke innrømme til de nye studenter på leiren at “Nej…det kan hende at du ikke kommer til å få venner.”
I have changed the city, but the people remain the same. And I realize now that I don’t even care to know them anymore. I look around and I see the same girl, the same guy, the same conversations, the same prettiness, the same coolness, the same little venngjenger.

Of course I’m mad! Of course I’m defensive! But am I unreasonable? I’ve lived here a year and nobody opened up to me…if they don’t care, why should I give a damn about them? I’ve given enough, I’ve tried hard. I make initiatives to smile, to talk to people, but I can’t do it all the time if I don’t get shit back. So many nights I wondered if there was something wrong with me…but there wasn’t! The people are so unbelievable…so exclusive. But it’s okay, I’m done. It took me a year and then some of living here to realize that…what–I never want to live in this place! I’m fed up with Oslo. I want to be someplace warm, where the people might be a little dirtier, a little poorer, even a little uglier, but friendlier. And come December I’m done! I’m gone! I’m not coming back to Norway for a long time. As beautiful as it is. As much as I still love my beloved family (without whom I would’ve surely died of misery) and our cozy little house up on Apenesbakken. But I’ve had enough of this love-hate relationship for a while. I’ve had enough of the people, this cold, this bureaucracy, this tonefall, this attitude, this beer-obsessed drinking-culture, just everything Norwegian for a while. I want to be in a place where I feel good.

Overgang

Nå sitter jeg her på Newark International Airport, endelig tilbake på amerikansk jord. Å tenke at det har bare vært et par timer (eller har det vært dager?—vi fikk nesten ikke sov på leirene) siden alle var sammen i Norge.

Nå kan jeg virkelig si at jeg har lyst til å bo i Europa i fremtida, kanskje reste av livet mitt. Jeg…sliter meg med America. Det er teit, utryggt og rot. Alle snakker engelsk og jeg savner å høre norsk og sine forskjellige dialekter.

Kanskje dette er bare resultatene av overgangen mellom to land…kanskje det er bare fordi jeg er på lufthavn og det finnes kaos overalt…og kanskje jeg kommer til å trives USA, California, Union City igjen. Men det føles ikke sånn. Jeg koser ikke meg.

Penultimate

De temps en temps, Life likes to kick you in the ass hard. Yesterday was a—how to say it nicely—en helt jævla dag: a hellish blend of bad rapport, lack of sleep, and hjemlengsel. And as much as I try to make the best of everything, there are just those days where nothing goes. Men derfra finnes det ingen annen vei enn oppover, og idag gikk det bedre.

So I should probably share a bit about our current situation. The twenty of us Region 2 AFSers are currently at Holtenkilen Folkehøgskole for our avskjedsleir, a short gathering before we disband and fly back to our respective countries.

There is a dock that is a couple of minutes’ walking distance from the school. Balázs—who I was fortunate enough to room with—and I have been swimming there every day. It’s a very special thing to be out there, your head rested on the water, looking upside-down at the blue and peach horizon and the boats sprinkled along the shore. It makes me wish I had an underwater housing for my camera…or a Ziploc bag.
We went swimming today together with Doug, Phil, Anıl, and Kevin during the onset of a coming thunderstorm. Have you ever seen lightning while swimming in the ocean? Thrilling, awe-inspiring, and probably not the smartest thing to do. And when we got out we were treated to a scene reminiscent of Laura Pausini’s “Primavera Anticipada”: a display of yellowed leaves drifting off with the wind.

These precious final moments tick by:

All of Balázs’ silly shenanigans. I will come to miss him dearly. This guy is one in a million. It doesn’t matter how I’m feeling, he always manages to cheer me up. And I can tell him anything and everything with no drama or hang-ups.

Attempting an amateur photo shoot with Yanzi: jumping off the bench, somersaults across the meadow, swinging by the seaside. We laughed until our sides hurt and it was wonderful.

An ephemeral moment with Diego, enjoying “Is It True?” in silence.

Comforting Elaine, mind reeling back to all our shared moments in Horten: days together with Gayoung of Korean movies and beaches and homemade cakes.

Singing to the passing cars on E-18 and sleeping outside on a bench with a pillow and blanket, an empty vast sky above decorated with one lonely star.

Pappa saying “Gutten min.”

And looking at that, I can see that things change, and things also change back—for good or for worse. Nothing is stagnant—relationships and alliances the least of all, as I have learned. And the repercussions don’t slip by unnoticed.

The storm has not yet gone over the horizon.