Author Archives: Yannani

Yesterday was my dad’s birthday and we had invited our extended family and their partners. It was really nice seeing everyone again and also got to hold a baby for the first time.

Before the guests arrived we had to set the table and still prepare the food, but that didn’t take too long. The guests arrived at 3 pm and thankfully the weather was nice enough for us to sit outside.

The first people to arrive was my aunt and my uncle, then my oldest cousin with her partner and 7 months old daughter and then my other cousin and his partner. Everyone was dressed in nice summer cloths and we sat outside catching up, having a nice time. I informed them of my plans to finish my high school degree and everyone thought it sounded like a great idea. My mother had found some old photos of the family that was taken at leas 15 – 20 years ago. It was fun to see photos of me and my cousins so young. A bit later on my sister arrived after her shift at work and then it was time for presents.

The first one was from us to my aunt, because she had her birthday not too long ago. My mother had bought some coffee cups from when we were at “Blaafaververket” the other day. Next one was from my extended family. My father got a burgundy scarf + hat and a small mug. Then it was my turn to get a small present since I won’t be home during my birthday. I got a small bottle of perfume from Blueberry. Everyone said it smelled nice, but I personally couldn’t smell it as good, but it’s the though that counts. Then it was my gift to my dad, which was a bottle of virgin olive oil since my dad love to cook. From my mum my dad got a nice coat that she had bought when she went to Morocco earlier this year with her girlfriend. After all the presents it was time for dinner.

The menu of the day was chicken salad with honey melon, asparagus and walnuts. Which tasted really nice and refreshing. We also had wiener sausages for the people who wanted that. The sausages are mostly used for kids party, but ever since they were a big hit during another party my parents realised that some adults enjoy some sausages now and then. Our menu might not be close to traditional party food, but I don’t really mind as long as there are some items that I like. After we had our main course my sister got to hold the baby and she did a really good job. The baby kept trying to grab my sister’s hair and knocking down her toys. Very cute! Then it was dessert time. which we decided to have outside. My mother had bought 2 different cakes for the party. 1 chocolate and 1 cheese one. I preferred the chocolate one over the cheese one, but both were nice.

Then it was my turn to hold the baby. I was a bit nervous since it was my first time holding a baby. I was afraid to drop her, but it went well. She was a bit restless, but the thing she loved was to be held up so that she almost stood up by herself. She also like to grab and pull on one of my mums hat. Then it was time for people to go home. We said goodbye to everyone and wished them well until next time.

Rest of the evening I spent playing some games with my friends and talk to boyfriend, before going to sleep. Today is going to be a quite day at home. My mother needs to tidy up the house before the cleaning lady comes tomorrow. Tomorrow my mother and I will meet up with some of her friends for lunch so that will be nice.

I have now been home for 2 days and it has been really nice so far. Always nice to visit old places I haven’t seen in years and spending some quality time with the ones you love.

I arrived on Thursday at around noon. Nothing much happened on the first day I was home. I just helped out around the house for the most part. Helped my dad with the groceries shopping, replacing some bulbs and taking stuff to what we call “a dump” which is just like an area where you can dispose of different stuff such as gardening trash and old electronics etc… That day we had a really nice Torbay Sole for dinner, served with Colliflower and potatoes. We did a lot of catching up and also had a long conversation about some future plans for me, but overall it was a calm day.

Yesterday I was also up before noon because my mother and I were planning on heading out to gather some information about my rights and stuff. It didn’t take longer than 15 min so when we came home, we had breakfast. After we had eaten we jumped in the car and headed out for the day.

Our plan was to head to a place called “Blaavakerverket” which is a place where you learn about the discovery of cobalt that is used for the famous blue powder/ paint that are used to on different pieces throughout the many years. We were wanting to visit a cobble mine and we drove an extra 7km up a mountain on a narrow road, only to discover that they were closed. We headed down to the other exhibition and had a lovely lunch on top of a giant waterfall.

We were there for around 4 hours. For dinner my father and I just headed out and got some kebab and we started a new crime series which was quite interesting.

Today is going to be a quite day. Nothing major plans besides getting everything ready for my father’s birthday party tomorrow.

Hope everyone everywhere are having a good start of your weekend. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post where I tell you all about the party.

Yesterday was my last full day in Norway. I was originally planning on heading home then, but since it was my sisters birthday I decided to extend my trip by 1 day. It was a lovely day spent with my loved ones. A perfect ending to a nice trip.

I woke up at around noon again and just waited for my sister to come back from her 17km run. In our family we always celebrate a little bit in the morning, but then the main part is that we all go out for dinner at a place where the birthday person wants to go. After my sister and I had eaten our chocolate cake my dad and I prepared ourself for our finale outing.

We drove to a place called “Fetsund” which was a place around 30 min outside of Oslo. In the old days one of the ways they would transfer huge logs was that they would send it down Norway’s biggest river called “Glomma” and then there would different places where people would work at taking out the logs from the river. It was apparently a dangerous job because they would have to balance on top and one misstep would lead to you getting crushed between two logs. We saw the water platforms they used and the saw. It was a perfect day. Not too cold and not too hot. There were a fair bit of mosquitos there though, but besides that everything was good.

After we had gotten home we change out of our current clothes and into some nicer ones for the birthday dinner. The place we were heading to was an Asian place called “Tatakii”. It was in the middle of town. The place looked really nice. You could choose to sit outside or inside. We decided on inside.

I ordered a “Hao Gao” which were dumplings with pork and scampi with chili paste and then I had the “Crispy duck” which was 1/4 of Crispy fried pulled duck and served with pancakes, 5 types of vegetables, and 2 types of sauce. I do not remember the what the vegetables were. As a dessert I had Crème brûlée with pandan flavour and today’s sorbet. It all tasted really delicious, especially the duck. Rest of the family had dumplings, salad and lamb. Sadly my father wasn’t too happy with his dishes, but he ate them regardless.

When we had eaten we went back home and watched the last episode of the crime series that we watched the first night. I headed to bed semi early since I had to wake up early for today’s flight.

There isn’t really a point to include today since it was mostly spent traveling, but it was really nice seeing my boyfriend again, returning to my pc and I also ordered a new phone which I’m excited to get and hope it will arrive here during this week.

Hope you guys have enjoyed the blog posts this week. I also hope you all had a nice week too. Next post will most likely be about TwitchCon which is at the end of June, so until then. I wish you all a lovely summer and as always, stay healthy and safe.

Today was the big day. We woke up nice and early to get ourself ready for day ahead aka the daughter of my cousin’s baptism. We were going to start off with a small sermon in the church and then an after party at their place.

We headed at the house at 12, to make sure we wouldn’t arrive too late in case the traffic and parking would be difficult. The church was around a 30 min drive. The sermon didn’t start until 1pm. We arrived in good time and managed to find nice seats at the front.

As soon as everyone had been seated and the church bell rang the sermon started. It was a lot of singing and praying as it usually is during these kind of things, but then came the time for the actual baptism. My cousin was first, so then she, her fiancé, her sister (aka my second cousin) and I think the brother of the fiancé walked up. The priest said the words and then they lit a candle that had her name on it. The priest showed her to everyone else like a lion king moment and then they sat down again. We had to sit through 5 other kids who also were getting baptised today. It all lasted about 1h in total.

When the sermon was done we headed over to their place for the after party. There we got to talk to the rest of the family, eat tons of delicious food that my second cousin had made and of course had some cake. People took turns to hold the newly baptised child and it was all in good fun all together. Talked to my second cousin about their new house which they moved in last December and also told people about how things went in Belgium. We stuck around till around 6 pm before heading home. We stopped at a small deli to buy two slices of cake for my sisters birthday celebration tomorrow.

Rest of the evening will just be spent on relaxing, gaming, making some noodles, hanging out more with my friends and my family. Tomorrow is my last day before heading home and I must say that I’m feel ready to head home. I love spending time with my family, but it doesn’t come without a bit for drama attached to it which I try to avoid as much as possible especially when its family related.

Yesterday we got a little visitor. My mother had made plans to meet up with her friends that she grew up with and one of them owns a dog. The person did not want to bring the dog with here because of several reason. So began our day of dog sitting..

The day started at around noon. My mother’s friend came over and dropped off the dog while waiting for my mother to be done at the dentist. After they headed off we had to wait until my dad was done with his appointment at the dentist, which wasn’t done before 2:30 pm. We were planning on heading to some kind of museum, but because it took longer than expected we decided to just walk along the river.

Here in Oslo we have a river called “Akerselva” which I’m sure I have talked about multiple times on this blog. Long story short; There is a river that travels throughout the city. In the olden days it was used to separate the east side to the west, but now it’s just used as a nice walking place for a lot of people.

We drove down to the shopping centre. Usually we would take the tram, but due to my fathers condition which requires us to bring a walker plus we had the dog. We decided to take the care down. The walk was really nice. We did get a little bit of rain towards the end, but besides that it was alright weather throughout the walk. The entire thing took around 1h. After that we just took a taxi back to the centre and then drove back home. We didn’t do much for the rest of the day besides heading over a close by nursing home because my sister had forgotten her dinner. The people there get to meet the dog, which I’m sure they found really nice.

Rest of the night was spent eating more kebab and watching tv. We decided that the dog would sleep with me since my sisters room is quite messy atm. That was yesterday.

Today we also were in charge of taking care of the dog, so we decided to go to the Botanical gardens in the city. We were planning to visit an art museum, but that was before we knew that we had to watch the dog. The weather was still gloomy so we weren’t out super late, but it’s always nice revisiting places that I used to go to as a child.

The rest of the day we just waited until the owner came back together with my mother to pick up the dog. We all had pizza together for dinner and then just spent our night as usual. Tomorrow is the big day of the baptism so that’s going to be fun. Meeting the rest of the family and my cousin’s child as well.

Yesterday was a bit more active day. First we had to wait until my mother was done at the dentist and then we all headed down town a one the most famous parks that I have been in several times to eat lunch.

The day started around 11pm after my mother was done with her appointment. She came home to collect me and my dad and then we all headed out. We drove down to “Vigelandsparken” which is a park filled with sculptures from an architect called “Henrik Vigeland”. We didn’t do much else than having lunch since my mother had to go back for a second appointment at 1:30. I had a lamb sausage served with potato mash and two kinds of salads. My parents had a toast with mushroom and pesto. My dad wasn’t able to finish his dish so I had one of his toasts.

After my mum left my dad and I headed out of the city to a place called “Henie Onstad Art centre” which is basically a place that has multiple different art exhibitions. Today they had an Japanese exhibition, one called “Fifty Shades of black” and a couple of others which I don’t remember. We were there for around 1h and looked at multiple ones before eventually heading home.

While waiting for dinner to be ready I just hung out with my friends and did some games. It also randomly started to hail for like 30 min, which was quite interesting. Today’s dinner was a salad with scampi.

The rest of the evening was just spent playing more with friends. We played tft until like 4 am xD.

Today was a not a really eventful day. I had an appointment with a clinic today to swap out my birth control implant.

This day started quite chill. I just woke up and got myself ready to head down to town for my appointment at the clinic. As someone who is in a long term relationship using birth control is a no brainer. I figured out quite early that the pills wasn’t really the best solution for me, because I would have to keep track of taking them regularly. I therefore decided to go with something more effective and barely requires any hassle. In Norwegian we call it “P-stav”, but it’s generally know as an implant.

I’ll sum it up quickly for those who doesn’t know what it is and might be interested. So you get a prescription for something called “Nexplanon”

Nexplanon is a form of contraception, or birth control. It is a small, plastic rod about the size of a matchstick that is inserted under the skin of your upper arm. The implant releases a hormone called progestin, which prevents ovulation, or the release of an egg from your ovaries. It also thickens the mucus in your vagina to prevent sperm from entering your uterus.

This is something I have been using ever since I was around 19 years old. It’s really easy and the only thing you need to is just to swap it out every 3 years. On a side note, as any other birth control product this does make your cycle unregulated.

Anyway, I head down to town since my appointment wad at 1 pm. I was a bit delayed since they had changed location since last time so it took me a bit to find it again. I went in sat down and just waiting for my turn. Then when I got called we just walked into a room and started the procedure. The whole thing even went so fast that I had to sit in the waiting room 10 min after to make sure I didn’t have any bad reactions to the anaesthesia.

After my appointment I head to get some late lunch. When itcomes to kebab in Norway there is only one place I go to called “Bislett Kebab House” . If any of you guys are from Norway and enoy kebab, I’m sure you know which one I’m talking about. Their kebabs taste really great and the you get so much for your money. If you go with the meal of the day you’ll get a 0.5l soda and one kebab for 99kr or € 9. The actual kebab you get varies depending what day it is, but the deal is really decent especially after you see the potion. Today’s deal was a Dönerkebab and I just went with a cola. The food ofc didn’t disappointment and taste just as delicious as always. If any of you guys ever go to Oslo and want a tasty kebab, you should try this place out. It’s in my opinion the best place in Oslo.

Rest of the afternoon was quite chill. My parents had to take care of some things so no a lot happen. The only thing left for for the day was dinner and some TV time. My dad made salmon with some mushroom maceronies and some vegetables. After that we watch some TV before getting ready for bed.