Más vale tarde que nunca...

Por fín! Ya he hecho lo que debería haber hecho desde septiembre... Poco a poco...

 

Mis amigos guapisimos! Puedes verte?

Qué recuerdos buenos :)

Quien coño es La Niña Maria?

Mein Gott! Eg har vel klagt te de fleste eg kjenne her nere, men te dåkke der heima har eg muligens malt et litt for rosensødt bilde av min kverdag i <3 Granada <3.
That's about to change... Don't get me wrong, - living in Granada is great!
However, waking up in Granada after 5 hours of sleep because your neighbors choose to celebrate whatever kind of holiday THREE days early, I must admit does not rub me well. Especially when my neighbor is a Primary School, - and they don't have to celebrate anything to make a great deal of noise in the morning.

Don't they understand that people living right next to their schoolyard would like to get a good morning's sleep after a late night? I mean, they're right outside my window! Right there!

And 5 floors down. Sadly one can't see the stage that's behind the trees. But one can absolutely hear Coldplay, Gigi d'Agostino, K'naan - Wavin' Flag, and "Viva La Niña Maria!"...

Anysooo... I mentioned late night... That was for my Norwegian homies. Spending the evening in a bar, dancing and drinking, and going to bed at 2am on a Wednesday night - a school night - would be "a late night" for me in Norway. Here it's my regular Wednesday night - salsa class. It starts 22:30 and goes on as long as we want it to, más o menos, - and afterwards we usually grab a beer somewhere. So yesterday I was actually home earlier than usual and having drunk only water (which I had to buy for 2€, - 0,50€ less than a beer). And school on Thursdays doesn't start before 6pm, - my Spanish course.

Other things I'm noticing about <3 Granada's <3 effect on me: I have no hair on my right index finger. Yes, I'm that macho that I have tiny hairs on the first digit of my fingers. Except on my right index finger... Why?, I here you cry. Because of the combination of gass stove and an empty lighter which only lights the gas by its spark.

Here you can see our excellent "teapot". Just enough for one cup, - that's how selfish we are. And single. And since I, for the moment being, can't warm my hands on much else (except salsa and bachata, which is hawt!), I drink huge amounts of tea. Because, contrary to common belief, it's freezing in <3 Granada <3!

Sol i Stavanger! Og øveskya her? And only 3 degrees warmer here than in "Noruega? Hace frío allí, no?". I'm obviously not counting the fact that later today we will have 15 C here, while Stavanger still will have less than 5. And that the forecast is lying, - it's not cloudy here today.

 And we can still dry our clothes out on the terraza.

But 15 C could just as well be 5 C when we can't control the heating in our piso/apartment/leilighet/kåk. I read in almost all the rapports written by students who had done their year as Erasmus in Granada: - Find an apartment with central heating! 'Cause then you get to have a too warm room between 5pm and 22pm, and a morgue cold room and apartment the other 19 hours. My dear friends Devold, Kari Traa and Ulvang barely make it possible to stay other places than under the blankets in bed, but it's still too cold to have fun with homework in Spanish. Even with my "pantalones arabes" it is still freezing...

I'm too cold to think about Spain's role in the history of psychopathology or ponder about the correct uses of subjuntivo. I'd rather take silly pictures and complain to you. And read one of my all time favorite children's books. And hope that by some miracle it won't be as cold this time tomorrow, because then I really have to think about Spain's role in the history of psychopathology, and whether Szasz criticizes psychiatry. And what is a pseudopatient?

Ya estoy lista!

 

When I feel like

And can’t concentrate on anything school related, but still want to learn.

When every other minute I get sucked in by some meaningless distraction.

 Then it's time to fix a snack

And remember that I live in

 

And that here the day doesn't end 'till we let it! It's technically Saturday, and now I'm ready for my Friday night!

¡Pásalo bien!

Psyche!

 

Although we may all feel like this poor guy sometimes, don't worry, - it's not gonna happen.

The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of space would be a problem. You might have only a few gigabytes of storage space, similar to the space in an iPod or a USB flash drive. Yet neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage.
 
- Paul Reber, professor of psychology at Northwestern University

I love my brain <3

Catorce brasileños y una noruega fueron a Marruecos...

My first travel to Africa. My first travel to an islamic country. Some things reminded me of Guatemala. Others of Vietnam and Cambodia. And a few things reminded me of Granada, - logical, thinking how much Andalucia has been influenced by Arab culture. So many things were completely new and strange to me. Having to wear long pants and preferably a scarf when the temperature easily reaches 35 degrees during the day, was absolutely different from what I'm used to. Luckily I've had a few months in Spain to get aclimatized to warmer weather.

Before I went to the airport in Madrid with Mariana, I knew we were going to travel with two more Brazilians I know from Valencia, Maria&Mário, and furthemore 2-3 friends of Maria's from Uni in Madrid. I was right and wrong... We ended up being a group of 15. Exchange students from Bilbao, Madrid, Barcelona and Granada, and the mother of a friend of some of the girls on the trip.

Now, I can't say that I am a particular fan of travelling in big groups, and believe me when I say that being the only Norwegian in a huge group of Brazilians isn't always as fun as it might sound. Mostly because eu não falo o português! Which I repeatedly told them, but which didn't always have much effect, - and they would keep talking in portuguese. But in spite of our differences in culture, travel experiences and, most importantly, language, I had a great time! And according to them I'm almost a Brazilian now ;)

We stayed in a nice hotel situated in the heart of Marrakech, right by the big square Djemaa el Fna, one of the most famous market places in all of Africa. Here seen from the roof terrace of our hotel, where breakfast was served.

 

One day we went to a small city at the coast, Essaouira. It was good to get a break from busy and noisy Marrakech. And for me it was indescribably wonderful to see and smell the ocean again! I can never get used to not living by the ocean.

Then, the next day, we went in the opposite direction, - further east and south, to spend a nigth by the outskirts of Sahara by Zagora and the Dunes of Tinfo. We payed for a 2days (in a tiny minibus) & 1night (in a huge tent) - package which included dinner and breakfast, camel back riding, and a very friendly driver.

The camel back riding was really a lot of fun, for ten minutes. Then for the last 80 it was a pain in the butt, - in the most literal way...

 
 But dinner was amazing. The starry night sky like nothing I've ever seen before. The sunrise beautiful. And the ride back in the morning, just as painful as the first...

  

I wanted to try, taste and do as much local stuff as possible and sometimes had a hard time keeping my opinions to myself when some of the others ate at KFC or MacDonald's. But I too ordered Coca Cola to almost every meal, - following the advice of mi amiga, Kristin, who never lets me forget that once travelling with her family, she was the only one drinking Coca Cola and the only one not to get sick... And look! It's Arab Coca Cola!

 

And I got a henna tattoo. For 52 € less than the woman initially asked for, and around 13 € more than a henna tattoo is worth, I got a pretty flower pattern on my left foot and hand which I was promised would last four weeks and which now is barely visible. Partly my fault seeing that I went to a Hammam and treated myself to a body scrub and massage on my birthday, before we went back home.

Oh well... I enjoyed being a tourist on vacation! 6 days with the perfect balance between relaxing and travelling.

Bonus pic!