Category Archives: Travels

Leaving Norway on a high note

Yesterday I arrived back home in Belgium fresh from my cousins lovely wedding from the day before. It was an early flight which also meant that I got all of yesterday to do a lot of things.

So let’s start with Saturday shall we. I woke up a bit early, because I had to go down to the shopping center to buy some last moment items including some stockings, a razor, some muesli and I also got a new adhesive strapless bra to try. After I got home I went straight into the shower and then got dressed, which took a while because it was my first time using these type of bra, so I constantly re applied them just to make sure they wouldn’t fall of during the day. I eventually got there.

We left the house at around 1pm, and then we drove to pick my sister and her partner outside of their place. The wedding took place in a nice small church called “Tanum church”. It was the same place as where we had my grandmother’s funeral back in June 2021. We met up with all the other guest and got prepared for the ceremony that started at 2:30pm. Right before it all started they realized that they had actually forgotten the rings, so that moment happend later xD. The bell rang and everyone stood up as my gorgeous looking cousin came walking down the ail. I could hear my mother’s sniffles behind me. The vows were really beautiful (hers a bit more than his) and there was some nice singing. Overall a really nice and short ceremony.

After everything was completed at the church such as mingle and a lots of photo taking, everyone got ready to head to the after party location. It was at this really nice house on top of a small hill with a great view over the docks and the fjord. The bride and groom arrived a bit later and finally got to exchange their rings under a nice white flower arch.

The rest of the night was quite straight forward. I mingled a lot with the guest, we had a great dinner buffet and there were a lot of great speeches during dinner, including my mother’s. Then we mingled some more while enjoying the desserts. They had some cakes, a slushy and soft serve machine. The slushy one was filled with rum and cola and which tasted really nice. At around 9pm the band started playing and we danced until we went home at around 11pm. I went straight to bed as I needed to be up at 6.30am the next day.

That brings us to yesterday! Not a lot happend in the morning. Just took the bus to the airport and went through all the normal stuff until I got onto the plane. We actually left on time, which doesn’t happen often. The trip was also shorter than usual by 30 min. I arrived in Belgium at around 10 am and got to my city around 12. Nathan was waiting for me at the train station and we gave each other a big hug and a small smooch. Then we headed to a smash burger place to have lunch. It was a bit of a walk, but the food was really good and the hiring posters were even better. We headed home quickly after, because Nathan still had band practice at 4pm. I might have fallen off the buss seat on the way home due to some sharp turns xD. Nathan tried to grab me, but he was too late and also too weak to prevent me from falling. I did catch myself my putting my one feet on the floor, but it was quite a funny moment. Especially for the woman sitting across from us.

The rest of the night was just spent on updating everything on my pc and do a small stream, since I missed doing that while I was away.

So this trip was overall a really nice one. Had a lot of fun with the bachelorette party and the wedding. Got to help my mother out with tidying the garage and my dads room and had some nice walks. I always enjoy traveling to Norway, but it does get a bit bored and I do end up missing home after a week, but I enjoyed this trip and next one will probably be around November, when I’m going back for exam.

Hope you all have enjoyed the post and the photo’s and I’ll see you guys in the next one ❤

Rounding up my vacation

Today is my last day here in Norway. It’s the day of my cousins wedding and then tomorrow morning I’ll be flying home. This has been a really nice trip. Being able to help out my mother with some of her chores has been a bit tiring, but I know she needed the extra hands. I am looking forward to come back home to my own place.

Nothing much has happened since the last post, which is why I haven’t written anything. I decided to just mention them all in one longer post, instead on multiple short ones, since a lot of days was just spent chilling or minor events.

My mother was gone last weekend on a girls trip to Sweden, so I got to have the house for myself. It was really nice to both get a little break from mum, but also be able to hang out with my friends that I usually hang out with. We played some games and I got to order kebab for dinner. I ordered for the usual place and to no surprise, it tasted delicious. My mother returned back on Monday and I made dinner for the both of us.

The following week, not much happened. We planted some new flowers on my fathers grave, and picked up my cousins wedding present on Tuesday. On Wednesday we sorted out all my dads cloths and put them in big bags to give to charity and then in the evening my sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner that I was cooking. On Thursday, my mother and I delivered my dads old cloths to Fretex (aka charity) and then we had a nice walk down to Grünerløkka and had a nice dinner. I had some spicy Won tons followed my Crazy Duck.

Yesterday however was a nice day. I made plans to hang out with some of my old friends that I had before moving to Belgium. After meeting my mum in the city to go shoe shopping for the wedding, I hopped on a tram and met my friends in a park close to where one of them lived. Since one of them was recovering from a concussion, we just decided to keep it chill. We tried a lot of different Asian snacks and talked about what has been going on in our life’s for the past years. It was really nice seeing them again and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I’m always a bit nervous when it comes to social gatherings due to my social anxiety, but this was nothing but nice.

Today is the big day so a lot of things will happen. We are scheduled to head out at around noon. I need to run some small errands and then it’s probably just going to go very fast with the wedding ceremony and the after party. I was tasked to take a lot of photos which I’m looking forward to.

So that was basically my last week quickly summed up. As I stated, it’s been a nice trip, but I’m looking forward to be going home. Be back with my boyfriend, my pc, my own bed and back to streaming again.

Fresh prawns and great company

Yesterday we had some guest coming over and thanks to the lovely weather, we were able to sit outside and enjoy a delicious dinner.

The day started as any other day, late and relaxing. I continued watching my new series “Wednesday” before I went up for some light breakfast. Not much was on the agenda besides just preparing for the guests that were arriving at 6pm. I helped my mother out in the garden trimming some of the overgrown grass. After that it was just waiting until the guests arrived

They arrived right on time at 6pm, and one of them brought their lovely little dog. I have met them all before since they are my mother’s girlfriends since I was little. We sat outside in beautiful sunlight and started talking about all kinds of things. They updated me on their life and I updated them on mine. I told them about the boy’s concerts and how the weather had been in Belgium over the summer. We sat outside together with some nice drinks until dinner was ready.

Today we were having prawns and bread together with a side salad and some avocado. It’s quite simple, but also very popular in Norway especially during summer time. We decided to eat outside since the weather was so nice. So we ate and talked more about life.

After dinner I headed down stairs, because the guest was here primarily because it was their monthly book club meeting. So when they started talking about the book that they had read, I decided to excuse myself and head down for the night.

I spent the rest of my night talking and playing some games with my boyfriend, before heading to bed. Even though the guests were mostly friends of my mums, it was really nice to catch up and hang out with them during the evening and the food was really delicious.

Long walk with delicious food in between.

The Norway trip is still going good. I have been quite busy ever since the bachelorette party this weekend. It’s been a lot of helping my mother cleaning out the garage and going on walks. Yesterday we took a nice one and had a delicious dinner.

We started the day a bit later than usual, since I was still recovering from my headache. Our first order of business was to clean more out of the garage and bringing it to a place we call “the dump”. Thanks to our combined efforts, we have been able to clean out half of the garage in just a couple of days. This has been really nice, but also a bit tiering. After our trip to “the dump”, we headed to a small shopping centre to just do some grocery shopping for todays get together. We got 3kg of shrimps, some salmon and chicken. When we were done with the small shopping round, we headed home and had a small, very late lunch.

At around 6pm, we were ready for our daily walk. We decided to walk down along the river that goes through the city. It’s a walk that I used to do a lot with my dad, both before and after he got sick. It’s a really nice and easy walk and it was fun to see all the changes that has happened along the river bend since I walked it last. It sadly began to rain not long after we started our walk. It wasn’t that bad compared to how much we get in Belgium. We walked all the way down to food court, which I have been at plenty of times. We decided to eat at a place called “Døgnvil” since the court was about to close when we arrived.

“Døgnvil” is quite famous for their burgers, so I decided to go with a classic Cheddar and bacon, with some simple fries on the side. My mother was drawn toward one with a salmon in it, and she got a really nice piece too. It tasted really delicious and it felt really nice after the walk. When we were done eating we headed back up the path.

I was hoping we would catch the tram, since I was feeling a bit tired and it was already close to 10 pm, but my mother just kept walking until we were basically at the crossroad bellow our house. Then she decided to the tram and I decided to walk the last bit, since I didn’t want to spend € 3 for 1 tram stop, when it only takes me 10 min to walk up. When I got home I just headed straight downstairs and relaxed for the rest of the night since I was a tad annoyed that we ended up walking all the way home.

Back to Norway, in time for the party

Friday I travelled back home to Norway for 2 weeks, so that I can attend both my cousin’s bachelorette party and her wedding. I arrived quite late and just got a short sleep before it was up and get ready for an exciting weekend.

Friday was mostly spent on traveling, so not much to tell about that day. The only thing was that I arrived at the airport 1h earlier than I was planning to, but better too early rather than too late. Everything else went smoothly all the way home.

The big day was yesterday. I had to wake up at 7 am to shower and get ready for my mum to drive me and my sister to my cousin’s place. There we met up with all the other guest, and received a goodie bag with various items. We all got a nice T-shirt, a bracelet, a pink cowboy hat and some snacks and drinks.

After everyone had arrived it was off to Tønsberg and the house we had rented for the weekend. It took us about 1h to arrive to the house, and we had to leave as soon as we had unloaded the car. Our next stop was the trotting track where we had arranged it so that my cousin got try out trotting racing for herself (with supervision). We were a bit late, so the horse had been waiting for almost 30 min, but it went well and the bride to be enjoyed herself a lot. We stood on the side line with drinks and cheered. When they had ran a couple of rounds it was off and ready to head into the city for some lunch.

We ended up sitting in the park and had small games and quiz (which I did terrible on) before we ordered some pizza for lunch. We all shared stories and just got to know each other before heading on to the next activity.

Our next stop was Escape room. We got put into two teams of 6 and were given to different rooms. Our was about us being kidnapped on our way home from a night out. We were actually so bad that we needed several hints and even with those we barely made it out in time. We had like 1.5 minute left on the clock, but it was a lot of fun to try and fail solving all the puzzles. The other team did much better than us, but they apparently also had two members who were very excited and active.

For the rest of evening we just had dinner by the docks at a place called “Haveriet”, where I ordered a chicken tagliatelle with Smirnoff of Ice raspberry. My cousin even got a free beer from a guy at another table. We headed out to our last place for the evening afterwards. Where we played some shuffle board and got some more drinks.

My sister and I headed back to the house at 10pm already, because she had a headache and even though a part of me wanted to stay with the girls, I also wanted to make sure that my sister got home safely. We both went to bed when we got to the house. I did hear that the other girls were up until around 3 am just party and drinking.

Today we just woke up, had a small breakfast and then just prepared to leave. We discussed in the car about how the evening went, and we all agreed that even though it was a really fun day + night, the fact that one of the guest had her baby, dog and husband with her, which meant that she constantly needed to keep tabs on that. The fact that her behaviour made people a bit annoyed also kind of ruined the night. She and some of the guests just up and left earlier, without saying goodbye or cleaning up the room they had slept in. So we all came to the conclusion that she probably shouldn’t have joined or only joined for part of it and then gone home.

The bride to be did have a lot of fun, despite that little piece of drama.

After we got back to my cousins place, we just said goodbye to the remaining guest and my mum came and picked me up. The rest of the day we just went for a walk, changed some light bulbs, visited my dads grave and had a nice dinner. We were suppose to buy new ones, but forgot that things are closed on Sundays.

So that was the end of this weekend. Tomorrow we are planning on doing some tidying in the garage and then probably go for another walk. So far, I’m enjoying the trip.

Sunny walks, ramen and shrimp sandwich.

The past two days we have had really nice weather and therefor decided to head out during the afternoon to get some more walking in before I head home on Sunday.

Yesterday we went to place called “Fornebu” which isn’t too far from where we live. We had a nice walk in a park called “Nansenparken” which is named after the famous Norwegian polar explorer Fritoff Nansen. The park wasn’t that big, but we don’t walk that fast so it still takes some time before we made a full circle. The park also used to be an old airport and the main path we walked down used to be the run way. After the walk we headed into a small restaurant which was located right beneath the flight tower. It was a small Korean cuisine place and they had all kinds of Korean dishes included chicken ramen.

My father tried a bibimbap while my mother and I had a chicken ramen. When the food arrived I will admit that it didn’t look as astatically pleasing as the ones back home in Belgium. It was also served in a metal bowl which always feels a bit off for me. The broth wasn’t too bad, but the noodles tasted really like the instant ones you get from the store and they were a bit undercooked. Chicken was alright and so were the rest of the veggies. There were no Bok choy which was unfortunate, because I prefer it over green onions. Overall I would rate the ramen a 4/10. It’s sadly the worse one I have had so far in my life, but the rest of the day was nice. Didn’t do much other than watch some TV in the evening with my parents and hang out with my friends.

Today we headed on a bit longer trip. Took the car and drove to a place called “Jeløya” which is a small island outside a city called “Moss”. We started having a nice small lunch at the café and I had a tradition shrimp sandwich served with lettuce, mayo and dill. It was really good and defiantly topped yesterday’s ramen. After we had eaten we had a really nice and long walk along the sea side in lovely sunshine. There were some tough places especially for my dad, but fine for the most part. It was also A LOT of birds just chilling by the waterside. When we had made a full circle we saw a small art exhibit before heading home.

Tonight my sister is planning on cooking us some chicken and broccoli for dinner and we will see if my parents and I will watch some TV in the evening. Tomorrow is my last day and we are planning going down in the city and walk by the harbour. Then on Sunday morning it’s off to the airport.

Family Birthday Party

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.

Back with family

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.

Weekend with a criminal twist!

This weekend was really packed. There were so many things happening. Got to meet up with a bunch of lovely friends and had one of my best time at TwitchCon.

The weekend started with my friend Yungul arriving on Friday. He was going to stay with us for the weekend, because on Saturday we had plans to attend TwitchCon where we would meet up with more friends. Nothing much happened that day. We just got bubble tea and then headed home. We were originally planning on going to the a carnival, but both Yungul and my boyfriend were quite tired so we decided to move it to Sunday and just spent the rest of the day chilling, gaming and just getting settled.

Saturday was the big day. We woke up at around 10 am, ate something small before our friend picked us up and we drove to Rotterdam for TwitchCon. We arrived a bit later than planned because we got stuck behind two suspension bridges, but at least there wasn’t a queue to get in by the time we arrived. We presented our tickets, got our badges and goodie bags and headed in to the event. The event itself wasn’t as big as it has previously been, but it was a decent amount to things to see. We met up with a couple of streamer friends and most of the day was just spent walking around with them and hanging out.

They did have a artist gallery area which I went into at least 3 times. I bought myself a couple of nice things. A Espion beanie, a red panda mouse mat and a Sylvion key chain. My friends also got some things for themselves. I even did my first IRL stream from the convention, which was really fun. We did disconnect twice, but besides from that both the audio and the visual was good, so I might do more of those types of streams in the future. We peaked at 14 viewers which is more than we usually have during streams.

We stayed until they closed at 6pm and then we were planning on getting something to eat, but non of the places around the even had space for us. There was also a rock concert happening, so there were a lot of people in the area. We eventually decided to just hang out for a bit with our friends and then get some MacDonald’s on our way home.

After driving and picking up the food, we just headed back to my apartment and hung out, watched some YouTube while we ate. Nothing more really happened on that day.

Sunday we were planning on going to the Sinksenfoor, which is like a huge carnival that is being held close to us every summer for 4 weeks and I thought it would be a fun experience for Yungul. He did however sleep until 4 pm, so we ended up being there during the evening, which wasn’t that bad. The temperature was nice during that time. We did have some showers of rain, but nothing too bad. At the carnival we did a couple of things

We first took a ride called “Big Splash” which was just your typical water log ride. Then we did some small attractions. One where you got an X amount of balls, depending how much you pay and then you roll them up a lane and try to make them fall into 1 of the 5 holes which had different scores on them. I hit the 500 score 5 times, which definitely is a personal record. The boys hit 1 x 500 each. After that one we did where we had like a gun with small pellets and tried to shoot down cans and then the last one we did was archery.

We also tried a couple of foods and drinks. I had a Cuba Libra and then I tried a corn dog for the first time. We also ate like a potato slices on a stick. I had a lot of fun overall ^^

Fast forward till today. We headed out at around 4 pm so that we would have time to get something to eat before Yungul had to catch the train to the airport. Sadly the public transport perfectly lined up so that we missed the one bus and one tram and had to wait until the next one. We got the city, got some more MacDonalds and then headed to the train station.

After I left Yungul I decided to pick up some bubble tea on my way home since I was in the city. I picked up one those scooters that you rent and headed over to bubble tea place. After getting my order I was heading back towards where I usually take the buss to get home. I found one of those dedicated parking spots for these things and tried to park it, but every time I pressed “end ride” it told me to confirm that I was standing in a parking spot. I used my camera and even though the app did say that I was in a parking spot, it still didn’t allow me to end my ride. It took me like 5 attempts on 5 different locations before I finally got to end my ride. Then it was off to the bus which were suppose to arrive at 18:50, but for some reason that bus just vanished. When the bus did arrive I went on and sat down. I already started to fall a sleep since I was really exhausted and my feet hurt. I forgot to activate my tickets and two stops in there was a control and I got fined. So today was a REALLY bad day for me, especially mentally. Straight after I got home I headed to my bed and did a smoll cry. Now I’m just going to hang out with friends and try to decompress for the rest of the evening.

Despite the fact that today was horrible, I did have a fun time from Friday till Sunday. I’m ready to go back to normal and not going anywhere for the next months xD I hope everyone had a nice weekend and didn’t get caught without a ticket.

Ending it with a wonderful company and dinner

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.