Yannani

Time for celebration!

Today was a pretty big day for both me and Nathan. I got the results from my exams which I was pretty nervous about. I got my new monitor, last buut not least Nathan & I celebrated 1 year together.

The day started with my waking up and waiting for my new monitor to arrive. I had to be at school between 9 am and 12 pm so I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be home for the package. Thankfully the door rang at 10 am which gave me plenty of time to set up my stuff. I mounted my new 24 inches to my triple monitor stand and fixed the position. As soon as I was satisfied I got dressed and headed to school.

It takes me only 15 min on the electric bike which is way faster than public transport. It’s also a nice little ride. When I got to school I went up to the classroom & waited for my turn. As soon as I walked into the teacher said “aah the super student” because when we sat down to look at the score my mouth almost dropped. I had 99% (listening/speaking) & 85% (writing/reading). We talked about how we would proceed with the next course and everything, but we were both REALLY happy with the result 😀 Afterwards, I applied for the next courses and headed home.

When I got back home I just cleaned a bit in the apartment until Nathan came home. The moment Nathan got home I decided that I wanted to give him his present. I had bought him a digital photo album and pre-loaded it with pictures of us two. He really liked the gift, but wanted it to be more “our” than “his”, so I loaded up some more pictures from our trips/travels the past year and put the frame next to the TV. Since it was our 1 year anniversary we decided to have gourmet for dinner. We had ordered a bunch of meat from the butchers and it tasted SUPER delicious.

For the rest of the evening, we just hang out with some games and watch some tv. It was a really amazing day ❤

Here’s to fresh beginnings!

2021 has officially ended and we are now ready to start 2022. This year was the first time I celebrated away from home. With a Different family and in a different country. I was super duper excited.

The last day of 2021 was a really good one. I woke up at around 11 am and prepared myself for my last stream of the year at noon. Nathan and I had plans to meet up with his brother at 6:15 pm which gave me 6h of streaming. I got to play with my friends again which was super nice since I hadn’t been able to earlier since I was away, We played some dbd both normals and customs and I really had a good time.

After I ended the stream I quickly got myself ready to head out. Thankfully the brother only lives around 15 min away from us so it wasn’t a long walk. We met up with him and his wife and immediately got into the car because we were going to have dinner at their mom’s place. The people who were there was the mum, step-dad, Nathan’s nephew and grandmother. When we walked in we saw that they were planning on having “raclette” for dinner. So the brother (who work as a butcher) had bought a bunch of different meats. Then there were some vegetables and a bunch of other things. Everything looked really good. It didn’t take long until everyone was ready to eat.

I ate so much that in the end, I didn’t even manage to finish the food on my plate. As the expression says “my eyes were bigger than my stomach”, but it all tasted really delicious and we got to take some of it home. When we were done with dinner we just enjoyed watching “Home alone 2” on the couch while eating ice cream. We stayed until around 11 pm which was perfect since Nathan and I had some plans of our own at midnight.

When we got home we decided to open the bottle of wine we bought before we left. It was a super sweet one with the taste of ….. I am not a big fan of alcohol but this one was really good and tasted more like soda than wine. When it was around 11:50 pm we headed out. Our plan was to walk to the nearby bridge that stretches over the highway. It was only 5 min away and the best place to see the fireworks from because of it being slightly elevated. Upon arrival, we heard some people starting a bit early. It was still 5 min left until midnight. When the clock stroke 12 I gave Nathan a big kiss and said “Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar” which I figure you guys can easily guess the meaning of. It was definitely a smaller show that I am used to in Norway, but that was because Belgium is way more strict when it comes to the rules. It was a wonderful show regardless. We stood there for around 15 min looking at the different fireworks before we headed home. The rest of the night we just relaxed and went back to playing some games.

I made some new years goals. One “Content creator” and second “Personal”

Content creator one!

1k followers on Twitch
Upload more content on other social media (TikTok, Twitter and YouTube)
Improve my streaming room.
Work on my streamer/gamer room.
Build up the community

Personal one:

Start traning
Get a job
Imporiving my Dutch
Maybe get a pet

I know it’s a bit late but I still wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR and let’s hope this year will be better than the last. Hope you guys had a wonderful time whether you celebrate or not I wish you all the wishes for next year and remember to stay safe.

Travelling home with new wisdom and style

Today was our last day before going home. Our flight didn’t leave until later so we visited the Norwegian folk museum first. Nathan and I had a really funny experience on our plane home!

We woke up at around 10 am since we had to plough the snow in our courtyard before heading out. Unfortunately, my father was too ill to join us today so it ended up being just with my mother. The drive over there took around 30 min. When we arrived we bought our tickets and started to walk around. We visited the different exhibitions and walk through different areas. The point with the folk museum is to give people a picture of how the Norwegian people used to live in the olden days in different places around Norway. There were a bunch of different houses where you could walk in and see how people lived up close. Nathan found everything really interesting which was nice since it’s one of my favourite museums for the reason being that I love history. We ended the trip with a small lunch. Then we headed back to get ready to head to the airport.

Today we had to take the bus ourselves because my sister wasn’t home and my parents didn’t have the time to drive us. I don’t mind taking the bus and we had estimated enough time for everything. We were actually in fact finished almost 1h before the plane was taking off. Everything was running smoothly and on time. When we sat down on the plane I notice something interesting. We were sitting in the same seats as when we arrived in Norway aka 2E and 2F, but on this aircraft, the economy class started from row 3 which meant that we got seated in Business class. Even the flight attendant checked our boarding passes. Now neither Nathan nor I was expecting to get special treatment because of this but when we were up in the air the guy actually asked if we wanted some free drinks and something to eat. The airline actually treated us like we were business class which was super nice of them. We got € 27 worth of food and drinks which was amazing.

Once we landed in Brussels we just headed to the train station and made our way home. Got home around 10 pm and the first thing we both did was install our new SSD’s into our motherboard. For the rest of the evening, we just played some games and relaxed. Tomorrow we are heading to Nathan’s mum with some family to have a New Years Lunch/Dinner and some other plans.

I hope you guys have had a nice week and that you have something nice planned for New Year. I have already prepared my resolutions xD

Bunch of walks and bunch of foods!

Yesterday Nathan and I joined my mother on a nice walk around the harbour and then we ended with some delicious food at a restaurant. While today Nathan got to taste crispy burgers in a croissant and experience the Norwegian shopping centres

We started yesterday by taking the tram down to the central station and walking into “Østbanehallen” which used to be a proper station in the olden days. Now it had turned into a place with shops and restaurants. My mum had needed to stop by the pharmacy so Nathan and I decided to check out the sushi place called “YO Sushi” since they had conveyor belt sushi or rotation sushi. Nathan had never seen that before so we decided to sit down and have a couple of bites. After that, we met up with my mum and headed over to the new public library.

The new library was huge and had over 4 floors. They also had so much more than books. There were instruments, a sound studio, 3D printers, sewing machines and a bunch of other things. There is tons of space to both study and read. It has really revolutionised the way we think when it comes to libraries. When we were done at the library when showed Nathan the Oprah house and then we just walked around the harbour.

When we were done with our work we headed home and reset up before we went out for dinner. My parents wanted to take us to this nice Thai restaurant that they had been to many times before. I have also been there a couple of times. At the restaurant, Nathan and I decided to go with duck as our main dish. So we had duck with grapes, pineapple and cherry tomatoes with a lovely sauce. It both looked and tasted delicious.

After everyone had eaten their dish we headed home and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Today we decided to take it pretty chill. We went out to a place that sold fried chicken burgers since Nathan wanted to try one where they used a croissant as the bun. The place is called “Fly Chicken” and he really enjoyed his meal. After that, I showed him where I used to work and then we had some frozen yoghurt.

At around 4.30 pm my mum picked us up to go to another shopping centre because she wanted to buy me a new winter jacket. We first tried out the shop that she usually goes to, but they didn’t have anything we liked so we went with another one. I found a nice dark blue one that was fairly thin but also thick enough to keep me warm. Then my mum did some groceries shopping and we just walked around. I went to buy a cable for my dad and then Nathan bought a crab shell to eat later.

When all that was over we just headed home, had dinner and talked for a while in the living room. Tomorrow we are heading home and I must admit that even though it was super nice being with my family again I am looking forward to being back home again. Our last adventure is happing tomorrow so I’ll tell you all about it then.

Showing what Oslo has to offer

Today I showed Nathan different places around Oslo. We visited the food court, the shopping streets and the Norwegian winter wonderland. They were a bunch of beautiful lights everywhere.

We woke up at around 1 pm and got ready to head out. Today was another cold day outside with around -6 degrees. We walked down to the station and took the tram down to where the city kind of started and walked from there. I had already mapped out a route we would walk so that he got to see most of what we had to offer.

It started with Mathallen which is a food court located right before you enter the crowded part of the city. In there you have a bunch of different restaurants from Asian, Mexican, Italian etc, but you also have some places that sell some interesting things. Nathan and I decided to try out a sandwich place since we hadn’t eaten breakfast. He had a spicy cheese chicken sandwich and I had a cheese chicken with spinach wrap. They tasted super good and even had some hotness to them which we both like. Mine came with ALOT of sauce so It was a bit messy to eat xD

After the food court, we walked further into the city until we reached a store called Yummy Heaven. I told Nathan that this was the best candy store in Oslo. Naturally, he was interested so we went inside to take a look and ended up buying a small bag of mixed candy. Then we carried on walking through the walking street past another food court that I wanted to show him but they are temporarily closed because of Covid.

Our next stop was Power aka one of the biggest brands for electronics. Since we had a gift card for 1k NOK aka around € 100 we decided to take a look inside. We had already an idea of what we wanted to buy but it didn’t we decided to take a look around regardless. Unfortunately, they didn’t have what we wanted there so we had to go to another one. There was one close to home that we decided we would stop by.

Next, we visited Oslo’s store for anything anime/manga related. Neo Tokyo was our next stop. Thankfully it wasn’t too far away from the electronic shop plus it was inside a small shopping centre so we could warm ourselves up. In this store, they sold a bunch of different anime related things. They had also expanded which was new for me too. Nathan did not find what he was looking for but still thought the store looked cool. Apparently finding the right merch from the “Fate” franchise isn’t easy.

The last place we went to was the small winter wonderland that Oslo has every Christmas. It isn’t as big as the one in Brussels and it’s way more expensive, but it looked just as beautiful with all the different stands and everything. We did not buy anything here because there wasn’t anything too interesting plus we only brought hand luggage which means we are limited to what we can bring with us home, but we walked around and mingled with the crowd. After we had gotten something to drink we decided to head home. We walked up to the subway station and waited for our subway.

Before we headed all the way home we made sure to make a stop at the electronic store “Power” that was at Storo to use our gift cards. We had decided to both go for one “Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 NVME SSD 500GB” each. They cost just under 1k NOK which meant that we had used up both of the cards. All we gotta do now is install them on our pc when we get home. These also get screwed straight into the motherboard which makes them super faster with a bit over 3k writing speed which is 7x faster than a regular SSD. I can’t wait to put my games on it such as “The witcher“. After this, we finally went home to relax.

Today we had to take away pizza for dinner since my parents wanted to relax from making all the Christmas food. The food was amazing and tomorrow we are headed out with my family which can go both ways.

As always I hope that you guys have had an amazing day too.

The family Grut meets Nathan

Today we had a family party with my mother’s side of the family. My aunt, uncle, my two older cousins including boyfriends. It was also their first time meeting Nathan.

The party started at 5 pm when the guests arrived. We served them some champagne and everyone got to greet Nathan. Then we sat down by the fireplace and started chatting while my mother finished up the dinner. There were a lot of catching up conversations and the rest of the family were very eager to get to know Nathan better. They asked about his work, where we lived and what I was doing. I told them about my dutch lessons and our experience with the embassy.

When it came to dinner we had made it into some sort of buffet where there was a bit of everything. Some smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, bread, cheese, leftovers from what we had on Christmas eve and a bunch of other stuff. Everything tasted delicious. Nathan got to taste some Norwegian akevitt, which it seemed that he liked. For dessert, we had some English Christmas pudding with vanilla sauce. Nathan couldn’t have any because he is allergic to fruits which is the main ingredient in an English Christmas pudding.

After everyone had eaten it was time for some more presents. I got a new body cream, a dress (which I’m not really sure I’ll use too much) and a wool jumper. They were really nice presents and even if I might not use them a lot it’s the thought that counts. The guests left around 9.30 pm.

The rest of the night Nathan and I just relaxed in our room played some TFT and watched some Netflix before heading to bed. Tomorrow we are planning on heading out into the city to see what’s going on there. Looking forward to that.

Going home for that Norwegian Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope everyone is having a wonderful time through these troubling times, This year Nathan and I are spending Christmas eve and a week in Norway.

I started the day with my oral exam in Dutch. The exam was online which meant I could do it from home. It started at 9:15 am and lasted 15 min. We went through the different subjects such as; family, moving, use of present tense and doktor. I was feeling super nervous but in the end, I felt that it went better than expected.

Our next task was to prepare for the flight ahead. We still had to pack and tidy the apartment a bit. The plan was to leave at noon, but we weren’t ready until 12:45. We went to the bus station and waited for the bus. We hoped we would be able to take the train that left at 13:19, but we were just too late when we arrived. Next one left at 13:49 which would give us 40 min to go through everything at the airport. All this made me really stressed.

When we arrived at the airport I tried to move as fast as I could. We were super lucky because there was no line for the security which saved us a ton of time which made me really happy, but little did I know that the plane would end up being 1h delayed anyways xD

It all started with a 30 min delay. Then when everyone had boarded the plane we got an announcement that someone from the previous flight had forgotten their brown hand luggage so the entire staff had to check if it was on the plane which took almost 30 min. After that was resolved they had to resume the process of loading the other luggage into the plane which added another 30 min. So at 4 pm we finally took off and we landed in Norway at around 7:45 pm. Then we had to have the police check our registration form and we thought they would want to see our vaccination pass, but the guy just said “it’s fine I trust you” which made me wonder if he does that with everyone. After that, we stopped by the duty-free to pick up some alcohol before we went to get tested. When EVERYTHING was done we finally found where my sister had parked and headed over. Then we were on our way home.

During the car ride, we talked a bit with my sister since this is the first time anyone in my family has seen Nathan everyone was very curious. When we arrived home we got greeted with both of my parents, a lovely tree and some amazing food. We still had to wait for a bit until dinner was ready which gave my parents some time to get to know Nathan. Then finally at almost 9 pm dinner was ready. We were having a classic Norwegian dinner.

That consists of a bunch of different sorts of meat. The main attraction is the rib steak of pork where the giant challenge is to get the skin the perfect crust with crunch. Then you also have meatballs and small sausages. For the side dishes, you usually have red kale, jam, potatoes and different causes. The entire meal is really delicious but also contains a bunch of fat xD. It came from when Norway was a poor country and Christmas meal was when you finally enjoyed some great food together with your close one.

After dinner, we prepared ourselves for the presents. We went around opening different presents from both friends and family. Nathan and I got each a pair of tall soft socks and a gift card. Then I got a jumper from my sister. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any presents for my parents or my sister which I will have to find during my time here. By the time everything was done it was already midnight and everyone were ready to head to bed.

I hope you guys had an amazing day too or if you celebrate today I wish everyone a very merry Christmas. May you celebrate with either family or friends and with some amazing food. For those who do presents I hope you get something nice 😀

Winter wonderland Brussels

This Saturday I and Nathan went to Winter Wonders in Brussels. It’s basically a giant Christmas market that stretches around different locations within Brussels centrum. It was great fun and I can’t wait to tell you guys all about it.

Our plan was to arrive in Brussels by 3 pm, but we ended up sleeping way longer than expected. The bus was also super late which meant that we had to take the next train and everything, so we didn’t arrive until 5 pm. It was already dark so all the lights looked amazing though.

We started by walking to the “grand palace” where they had put up a giant tree with light and people to place their own ornaments. We got our event bracelets which made sure that we were allowed to buy stuff from the stands. We walked down and everything looks so beautiful. All the light and all the people really gave the perfect holiday vibes. There were tons of stands that sold everything from food, clothing, jewellery & a bunch of other things.

We walked around for around 2 hours before we decided to head home. Since it takes us almost the same amount of time to travel there. On the way home, we met some interesting people. First was the train conductors who made a joke about confiscating the coconut balls that we bought from the market. The second was a drunk guy on the bus who asked the driver if he could stop and wait for him because he had to take a leak. Surprisingly the guy complied xD.

All in all, it was a rad weekend and we are getting closer to Christmas. It’s less than a week left until Nathan and I are heading to Norway to meet my parents. We are staying there for a week so I’ll keep you guys updated. It will be the first time my parents meet Nathan which I’m kind of nervous about…but we will see how it goes. I also have my oral exam that same day so it’s going to be a bunch of nerves xD.

Dutch test & baked potatoes!

Today I had a written test about the subject “Family” from my Dutch lesson. After the test, I met up with Nathan in Antwerp. We went to a new eating place he recommended & to the MediaMarkt.

I had to take public transport rather than the bike since I was going to the city straight after the lesson. I managed to time it correctly and met up 10 min in advance. Before the break, we had a regular lesson where we learned more about things related to apartments. It was quite a stressful part because we kept having to pair up for different exercises and my partner wasn’t really the best when it came to me learning things. So I was surprisingly looking forward to the test so that I could just work individually.

After the break at around 11 am we got handed our test. It consisted of 3 parts: one listening, one where we read a text and gather the needed information and the last one where we had to send an e-mail to a friend telling them about a family with the giving information. We got their position in the family (father, mother etc), their age, what did for work and what they liked to do. Overall, I think I did pretty well. Part 1 and 2 weren’t way easier than I expected. I struggled a bit on the 3rd one, but that was about it.

Since I finished the test around noon I got to go earlier which is always nice. I took the tram to the city where I waited for Nathan to show up. We ofc first went to get bubble tea (It’s a tradition now) where I got a Virgin pina colada with mango bubbles. It tasted really good. While drinking our tea we walked towards the restaurant. It’s called “Kumpir Eethuis”. We first thought it was closed because of its terrible lighting until I noticed that people were getting served and we went in. The restaurant specialises in making baked potatoes. The menu looked so interesting and there were a lot of different choices to pick from. I went with the “Doner with garlic sauce” and Nathan went with “Chicken with a cocus and curry sauce”. I managed to almost finish my potato but the potions were really big. My goal was to at least eat up all the meat parts. Nathan didn’t have the space for everything.

After we had left and walked away from the restaurant I suddenly realise that I didn’t have my bag with me which meant I had to go back for it which was kind of awkward. I also managed to walk in circles trying to find the way to MediaMarkt. At the MediaMarkt I was looking for LED strips for my room which I can’t wait to install. We also bought an extension block for all the contacts.

Nathan also told me where the name Antwerpen came from. So hand = hand in dutch and werpen = throwing. They just removed the H and changed the D to a T. There is also a statue in the city close to “groenplaats”

Detail of the statue of Silvius Brabo throwing a hand. The statue is in front of the Antwerp town hall (Flanders, Belgium).

So after a long day, we finally headed home and just relaxed for the rest of the evening. Since we both were really full from the baked potato place we just had a small dinner.

~ Anna

Crazy exciting weekend!

This weekend was filled with a lot’s of fun activities which were so fun. We were outside more than we have ever been since the summer vacation in June.

So this weekend aka 30th and 31st of October Comic-con was being held in Brussels. As soon as I found out I asked Nathan if he would be interested in going there with me and he was happily agreed, so we purchased two standard tickets for Saturday. I was so excited and couldn’t wait. I haven’t been to such an event since around 2016 because of different reasons such as money and friends.

In the days leading up to it, I also went to the hairdressers. If you don’t know I had a birthday stream with different goals where one of them were to dye my hair. I decided to go with black and dark green thinking that the timing would be perfect with Comic-con and Halloween just around the corner. Ended up spending almost 3h at the hairdressers and the result was way more subtle than I expected, but I didn’t mind it too much because it was still a new colour and a fresh cut.

On Saturday we decided that we wanted to be there around 1-2pm. The total travel time was around 1h45min because we first had to get to Antwerp, then take the train to Brussels and then another bus to the area. The trip went pretty smoothly and I really enjoy train trips and seeing new things along the way. As soon as we got to where the event was being held we showed them our ticket and vaccination certificate and then it was onwards into the event.

It was soo big and so many people of different ages from kids to adults. There were also so many amazing costumes and stands. There was clothes, food, action figures etc. My plan for comic con was to find something from the Demon Slayer anime more specifically some Nezuko merch. We walked around for quite a while checking out everything including a small area for games and the food quarter where we ate lunch. I didn’t see anything I wanted which started to make me a bit upset and as soon as I saw a Nezuko figurine it got sold to the person right before me. Thankfully Nathan spotted a box in the background and alerted me. I bought it without hesitation and was so happy. Shortly after we found another figurine and naturally I wanted that one too. I bought way more than I thought I would, but everything was soo worth it.

We also made sure to keep hydrated and eat whenever we were hungry. Our main “meal” was a bowl with chicken curry, rice and salad and Nathan had a giant sandwich with pulled pork and some salad in it. Later on we I got some Onigiri since I was curious about how they tasted and we both had some bubble tea.

We ended up staying almost until the event was done and left around 6.30 pm. Our trip back home was not as smoothly because we took a train which had more stops and we also had a delay which made the train have to wait 20 min at a station. We weren’t home until 9 pm. So we were both pretty exhausted and just chilled for the rest of the evening.

The next day aka Sunday was Halloween. Belgium doesn’t celebrate it the same way that I was used to in Norway with small children dressing up in costumes going “trick or treating”. So for us, it was just a normal Sunday, but I did decide to have a small stream for the occasion where I played the new update of Phasmophobia with friends and a new game called SOMA which is about robots in short terms. The stream was way more amazing than I thought it would. We had so much fun with Marbles on stream and some of the amazing people from my community gifted multiple subs. At the end of the stream, we had gotten 30 gifted subs and 325 bits. We also drew a winner of the giveaway and revealed our next emotes. You guys are so incredibly generous and a tiny bit crazy, but I really do appreciate all the love and support.

So this weekend has been the most fun I have had in a long time and it’s thanks to all of you guys. I hope you also have had a lot’s of fun.