3:05 AM!

This waking up early thing is really working for me! Just kidding. Hakke lagt meg enda på grunn av vondt i magen! Men så lenge jeg våkner opp og rekker italiensktimen imorra er alt helt okej.

Nothing really new since my last update. (Når jeg blir inspirert til å skrive så kommer alt plutselig.) Last week, I finished writing my research paper for ENG 100, which I am quite proud of. Although I think it will be quite a boring topic for those who aren’t interested in linguistics, I’ll attach a link to it anyway for the curious few. The complete title is: A Comparative Analysis of Environmental Influences on Language with Regards to Language Planning in Norway and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Sounds professional, eh?

So my first year in Switzerland is almost at an end. This is the last week of school before finals, and I’m pretty sure that there are some people here on campus who I will not get the chance to see before I/they leave, and thus, will probably never see again. Even impersonal goodbyes are sad.

Looking back upon this year, I can say that spending $33,000 to come here was worth the price. But I often think that I make more out of it than many people here do–although perhaps that’s just my ego talking. But if you thought I spent 33 grand to come here just to spend my time in front of the computer or studying, t’as tort! Here are some highlights from my year:

• Seeing Natasha St-Pier in Morges
• Couchsurfing!
• Exploring Venice with Francesco
• Christmas shopping in Colmar with Marie and her family
• Carnevale and gay-bar hunting in Milan with Xenia
• Flurrying around Paris in winter with Marie and getting a taste of the French university life
• Showers with Pauli
• Dancing until dawn with Jessica at a discoteca in Bergamo
• Visiting my home in Horten
• Czech/Slovak sausages
• Spending a day with Staša in Belgrade, Serbia
• Visiting Sarajevo, Bosnia
• Visiting Dubrovnik, Split
• Turning 20 up in the Liechtensteinische Alps
• Sunday brunches in Ponte Tresa
• Halloween at Franklin
• Sleepovers hos Acacia, Quinn and Kayla down the hill
• Hiking and being active!
• Learning Italian
• Pascal in Basel

I am lucky, I know that. Not many people can say they’ve been to Bosnia, or that they’ve walked from one country to another. Or that they’ve really seen the Italian life from a local’s point of view (which goes to show you that AFS and being an exchange student is more than just a year-long experience). And pretty darn few can say they turned 20 in Liechtenstein!
I’ve always tried to find the positive things in life, and this year has most definitely given me many things to be thankful for. And I am more confident now than I ever have been that it only gets better here on out. While I’m sad in leaving Switzerland and saying goodbye to some people, I’m samtidig so excited for what’s ahead: summer exploring Magerøya, enjoying the midnight sun, working and earning money, living in my first big city–Oslo! Og hvem vet, kanskje kjærlighet ligger foran meg òg!

Conversation with Doug

doug******@*******.com says: Norway was because I wanted to go to somewhere in Scandinavia and Sweden closed up the day after I applied for it so I got my second choice (Norway) and didn’t really know about any differences between the two
doug******@*******.com says: I know we’ve talked about it but I don’t remember. Why did you pick it?
Greg says: fjords…

Here I am again, back in the Bay! Life has been busy for me in the past few weeks, and I haven’t had the motivation to blog.

Thanksgiving is now past and faraways, but memories of Vailate are still fresh in my mind: seeing Jessica’s vibrant smile, not to mention new slim figure; meeting her adorable mother; having a San Francisco cocktail at a local lounge courtesy of her sister Sunta; stuffing my stomach with everything Italian–seriously, everything (pizza, pasta, turkey, lasagna, you name it, I ate it); experiencing a legit discoteca in Bergamo; freezing outside in Crema at 5am in the morning for the first café to open because we had no ride home…
It was an amazing weekend, and I can’t wait for my first trip down to Italy when I go back next semester!

Finals took place shortly after that. And I don’t know how I did it, with a History research paper due mid finals-week, but I did it. Pulled a couple of all-nighters, not surprisingly, but in the end everything turned out okay and I’m fornøyd with my grades. (A’s in French and Italian, B’s in everything else.) I’ve also made it off the waitlist for the travel that I really wanted, so it looks like I’ll be going to Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia in the spring!

After my last final on Thursday, I hurriedly packed my things and got on the train from Lugano to Basel, where I proceeded to spend the night and have the best sex of my life. The following day I border-hopped over to France, where a jolly with Marie la Française et sa famille awaited.

The weekend with Marie was the last before I had to return to the US. We spent the afternoons in France and the evenings in Germany, where we caught up on our separate lives after exchange at the koselig Gästehaus Jäger.
The Christmas markets in Alsace were festive and full of people. I purchased myself a jar of Terrine Strasbourgeoise (which I am currently enjoying very much here in the US) and tried some terrific French food, including a croque monsieur and rosti. I also learned proper wine-tasting etiquette, and discovered that I prefer sweet white wines the most. On our last day together we decided to instead explore the German town of Freiburg: less Christmasy, but just as neat–and just as cold. (I think the temperature up there was around -5°C! I was not well kledd, to say the least.)

The next 48 hours were rather uneventful: I overnighted at Zurich International Airport, which apparently closes at night. (There was nothing after 11pm. They even turn off the lights.) And the 20 hours of flight weren’t any more exciting. Not even a good looking steward. Well, that’s not entirely true; he just served first class.

And then I arrived in the United States.
A suivre…

Hos Francesco

Life has me at an emotional and moral wreck. This week has been perhaps the most difficult so far. So to reward myself…or rather, to save myself from completely imploding: I’m departing tomorrow for a weekend in Venice. I’ll be staying at Francesco’s place; it will be so nice to see him again! It’s so strange how I run to him for comfort even after my year in Norway has wrapped up. I remember being afraid of losing contact with all the AFSers I had met and befriended while in Norway, and at the time, his answer to me was: “Maybe we will [keep in touch], maybe we won’t.” While it wasn’t the reassuring response I was hoping for, it was, au moins, the truthful answer. And well, now I have my answer.

I guess I should elaborate a bit. Francesco and I met through AFS. And despite my terrible memory, I remember precisely how I met him. It was August 2nd, 2008, and it was our first day there. After the airport, the AFS organizers shipped us all to a gathering location somewhere outside of Oslo. Exchange students from all over the world, tasting our first smørbrød, sipping our first saft (and not knowing that it was supposed to be mixed with water). I remember the Italians came, filling almost an entire bus–a swarm of yellow shirts: cambiare il mondo…they read.

I remember going down to a lake and wading in the water, and approaching two Italians: one with a braid, and one that reminded me of a younger version of Bob Saget. Little did I know how often I would be conversing with Francesco and Yuri.

After they split us into our regional groups and sent us on the bus to Torpo, I found out that Francesco was my roommate for the week-long orientation camp. (Camp–it brings back so many fun memories, it’s so easy to get lost marveling about camp. It was most definitely one of the most exciting weeks of my life: meeting people from all over the world, learning Norwegian language and culture, that tinge of nervousness at meeting our host families.) And every night, we would spent an hour or two just discussing random things: life, music, “medieval” Italy and xenophobia in America. I guess it never really hit me how easily we got along with each other: so different, yet compatible. I felt at ease around him. And on the fourth day of knowing him, I came out to him. (Which, at the time, was something I had never done before. I never felt secure enough to tell a person that until I felt like I knew them. Whether it was because I wanted a change…or just the fact that I already knew I trusted him…I don’t really know. But it was a good feeling.)
And there is one thing he said to me that I will never forget as long as I live. We were discussing the difficulty of being an immigrant and visibly different, even in an area as diverse as the Bay Area, or perhaps it was because of that diversity which never truly made me feel American. Anyway, he said to me, “I think you are a real American. You are the new American.” Hearing that immediately made my eyes water; there is something inexplicable about those words. Because he said so easily what I’ve always secretly wanted to believe in my head.

And through the rest of our year there, Siljan was the place I would take a train to whenever I need to feel comforted, whenever the coldness of Horten Videregående became unbearable. And here I am again. September, 2009, in another country, taking another train, but still going to the same place. Still going to “hos Francesco.”–

–For a much needed vacation. The energy here at Panera lately has been sluggish and depressing. (I’ve been sleeping down the hill at Girasole three nights out of four this week.) And I find myself too entangled in something I shouldn’t be. Too attached to someone I shouldn’t be. So needless to say, I need this getaway. I need a break from college. And I need someone removed to focus on, to enjoy life with, to open my eyes and pull me out of my myopic vision.

I’ll conclude my post with something lighthearted and unreflective: So apparently, searching for these terms will take you to my blog: fucking in asgardstrand,  kom hit nu flossy,  la voglia che vorrei translation. (I know, right? I didn’t even fuck in Åsgårdstrand…)

Jeg vil slette alle dine spor.

Spiste middag med Ou ikveld og det var veldig hyggelig. Begge av oss hadde masse å prate om, og det trøster meg å vite at vi er fremdeles gode venner. Jeg fortalte henne av mine skuffelser: at jeg har forventet så mye mer enn hva blei av denne sommeren. Vi har også snakka mye om ham, kärleken min, og største skuffelsen min. 最近我为他上了很大的火，但是除了 Francesco 以外，谁都每有告诉。Og det er ikke ofte at jeg få snakke med Francesco, så å kunne endelig fortelle noen andre om det var en stor…lettelse. Og hun sa til meg akkurat det samme: at jeg må komme over ham.

Det kommer ikke til å være lett, det skjønner jeg godt. Men det første–og viktigeste–trinnet er å innrømme at jeg har en problem og må vel løyse den: 我必须放开他。

Det spiller ingen rolle hvor perfekt han ser ut. Sjølv om jeg synes at han var ment for meg er det bare et ensidig forhold. Og sjølv om jeg ikke tror at det finnes andre fisker i sjøen kommer jeg til å innse at de har rett. Jeg er ferdig med å kaste bort så mye tid på grunn av ham når jeg ikke veit i det hele tatt hva han virkelig synes om meg eller om han var även ærlig med meg å begynne med. Det finnes for mye av hans tilstedeværelse i mitt liv, og jeg har blitt så vant til å tenke og drømme om han at det ikke er sunnt lenger: og hvordan skjedde alle dette? Tre samtaler og en fantasi date at jeg ikke kan tro på. Så nå slutter jeg med denne besettelsen. Dessuten er han sikkert lei av alle mine innsats i å få hans oppmerksomhet.

S’il a envie de parler à moi, il le fera naturellement. Et sinon, alors, c’est tout, ça…