Last Day at Work

Well today is my last day at work, before the christmas holidays and i think its only good that i write something before i go. I am coming back on the 5th January where i will write loads and loads of posts on my different holiday experiences around parts of Norway. I am really excited about the trips i will be taking, but at the same time its really hitting me hard that i am not spending Christmas with my family.

I got a gift from South Africa yesterday, it was from my boyfriend. He gave to Vidar who is in South Africa but came to Norway for his December holidays. If i did not say this incident made me even miss home more i will be lying. Well enough of that i am going to Stryn and Arndel, so people of Stryn and Arendal brace yourselves a South African is coming to town. I have some self evaluating that i need to do. I kind of need to look at myself and see how i have grown and it what areas i have grown in?

3rd Week of December

The Christmas spirit is on an all time high, everyone around me is talking about gift shopping and how many days they have left till they go home. Its all rather exciting. I am also looking forward to spending my first Christmas in Norway, and i must say i have experienced alot of the traditions through various events that have been taking place from the beginning of December. I sincerely hope i will experience a white Christmas but apparently where i am going it is not a guarantee that it will happen. The days are certainly coming closer and closer and Christmas is here people. I already know where i will be spending my Christmas holidays, and i am looking forward to seeing other parts of Norway in the process. As hard as this time of the year should be especially since its family time. I am still really looking forward to spending my Christmas here. Its kind of funny because most of the time i have been complaining and feeling like things are very hard that i have only realized now that i am doing absolutely fine. I am fully adjusted now and i am no longer weary of doing things on my own. I have treated a life for myself here in Norway and it feels good to be happy and at peace about everything.
This past week there has been alot of event attending. I tried ice skating, since there is a huge ice ring in Oslo central now, and as much as i feel i was terrible. People have been telling me i was not so bad for a first timer. This was really cool and i think i am going to go again and see if i can find my own technique or balance. I also attended a Chirstmas boggie on Friday and got to meet some of the people i will see at Strini and i had a great time. I meet some really lovely people. Yesterday i went to a girls movie night and we were watching Mama Mia. Mama Mia is really a great girly movie that i enjoyed. Most of the girls i was with we watching for the second time but still managed to be glued on the screen. I now want to hire the movie Love Actually, as i have been told its a great Christmas love story movie.

In the work front, it getting close to wrapping up time. The year is almost over and my last day at work is on Friday. I am looking forward to the London Trip taking place in February and i am so glad i am part of the organizing committee. I had a great meeting with the two others leaders for this trip, and we had some great ideas. This is going to be one of those projects that will be really close to my heart. I feel extremely excited about this and look forward to putting together the final logistics in it. As from January i will also be visiting different groups, so i look forward to meeting everyone and sharing some information about my country and the HIV virus.

I would like to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year. I will try to carry on writing even through my holidays.

2nd Week of December

Well its already the second week of December, and believe or not i am starting to get scared. Towards the end of the week, i was not feeling to well. I had a sort of fever and a massive headache. Surprisingly enough after resting for about 2 full days and taking painkillers i was fine on Thursday. Thursday was also the day for our office Christmas Party and the day i was leaving for my weekend to Bergen. I got really emotional when i received a gift from everyone in the office. What made it so emotional for me first of all, is that they brought me the perfect gift. The kind of gift that is so perfect that it would have to come from people that listen to you when you talk, and who want nothing more then your wellbeing at heart. It was also emotional because for the first time, i was actually hit with the realization that everyone in the scout office has become a part of my family.

They are the people that i spend more time with than anyone, and they are the people i am going to miss most when i go back home. The realization of the fact that i am going to leave them in may was really overwhelming for me, i care so much about each and everyone of them. I also believe that when they call themselves a youth organization, they really do stick to their word. I really would have never dreamed of being in another organization then the YWCA-YMCA Scouts and Guides of Norway. So since i was so emotional at the dinner, i think this is the opportunity for me to say Thank you to all my colleagues and that they all Rock!!!

On Thursday i also left for Bergen, where i we were hosted by Birgitte. She is one of the GoCy's and also a good friend of mine. I must say this before i carry on, i am in love with Bergen. The moment i got out of the train and just looked around i thought to myself this is definetly a homely city. Oslo however is still very close to my heart but Bergen is just out of this world. Its a city that is still very much in touch with its history monuments, and its evident in their achirtecherer that the influence from the medieval times is still very much alive. I love the fact that you can walk around the whole city in a few hours and everywhere you turn you are just drawn by the essence of the city. I find this city even more breathtaking because of the fact that the city is surrounded by houses on its mountains.


I can still remember two houses at the top of its mountain that were identical, and Birgitte told me they was a TV show about the two families in the two twin houses. From the top of these mountains, one can see a stunning breathtaking views of the overall city. We went past a wish well, where you can throw money in and make a wish. The whole atmosphere around the city is very calm and tranquil.
Bergen is a city just like Oslo but for some reason its a city that you can feel more at home in. I have to remind everyone that i saw Bergen at a very cold time, and still thought it was stunning. I cant Imagen how gorgeous it looks during the summer. Bergen is definetly a city i would like to visits even when i have gone back to South Africa. I have decide that i am going to start writing down a list of all the places i get to visit around Norway, so i can make sure that when i go back home i see alot more of my country like i did Norway.

So i have definetly had a fantastic weekend, i am feeling very refreshed and looking forward to more traveling during December and seeing more of Norway.

First Week of December

I really had a great weekend; I went to something traditionally Norwegian activity on Friday and had a great time and I meet some lovely people. In ths blog I am sure everyone has realised that I have not only made it my travel blog but also a discussion blog. I enjoy writing this blog because it lets me share my experience with so many different people, but over and above that it also shows realistic experiences and challenges when living in a foreign country. I continually make sure that I am forever honest in this blog because I know that when I have left Norway it is I who will read it.

Humour/Jokes, such a great word and something that we all need from time to time to keep us going. But humour/jokes as great as it is if used the incorrect way can be the most insulting, de-grading and embarrassing way of attacking another human being. My dad always you to say ‘Every joke has its meaning’, whether this is true or not I still stand to find out. I have come to learn of a different form of humour in my time here in Norway, and that is sarcasm and irony. This is a great way of joking and at times I have found it more humorous then most jokes that people have to tell or say. In between all this laughter though, I have also experienced that there is a fine line between humour and being down right of offensive.

I have ask myself the question of so where is the line between these two different dynamics and how does one know when they have crossed it or stepped on to you. I have been thought and learned for myself that one should think before they something to another person. This can go as far as re-capping those words like they are coming to you personally from someone else and ask yourself how they would make you feel. Now this is extremely difficult to do especially when having a flowing conversation between two different people and getting lost in the moment as I always say. So I have given myself guidelines and precautions when it comes to humour, I believe that humour should not contain offensive or laughable information about a person’s religion, culture, race, gender, background and sometimes most importantly history. I choose these guidelines because I believe that they are factors that interlink with the individual holistically. These are aspects one can not change because these are factors that make the individual who they are, and so humour linked with them is similar if not exactly the same as making fun of the individual themselves.

I know some people might say I should take a ‘chill pill’ or just ‘loosen up’. But my culture, my country, my race and background have been the source of many criticism, humiliation and de-grading for many previous years and some aspects till currently. I will be the first to admit that these reasons have in some way made me sensitive, but also in other ways they have made me the person I am today. I carry these internal scars with me wherever I go, they have been inseminated in my mind and therefore I cannot just shut them off. I guess one of the reasons why I immediately take a disliking to humour that has to do with race, gender, culture, religion ect is because of the country that I come from, where it is utterly not tolerated for one to be humours about those aspects because of the history we have and how fresh and new the scars are still to many people. I share this with you because I want to hear your views about this broad and funny topic called humour, I want to hear what your boundaries are when it comes to humour.

In the work front, we were handing out HIV/AIDS badges to the public today at Karl Johan Street. It was a very entertaining morning, and I would like to thank everyone who participated in this great course. My invitation letter will be getting sent out very soon, so I am looking forward to meeting all the different groups and sharing a bit of my country with them. February is slowly creeping in, and that is during my trip to London, I really can’t wait. We will be having our first committee meeting on the second week of Decembers, where we will discuss potential activities that will take place during the trip and other logistics.

Its already December and we are just a few days away from Christmas, I really cant believe it. I will be spending Christmas with one of my colleague’s family, and I look forward to experiencing my first Norwegian Christmas and hopefully a white Christmas. I am also going to Bergen, for the coming weekend to visits a friend. I am really looking forward to that and I think it will be a truly entertaining weekend filled with lots of laughter. My December holidays seemed to be filled with a lot of different activities so I am really looking forward to this month.