Hello again world!

Once again I must apologize for my lack of posting.

It's been a busy few weeks, and the few times I did try to post something, Blogger did not want to cooperate, for some reason. I tried saving the posts, publishing them, take out the pictures in the posts, set the post time to a different day, but nothing worked.
Oh, well! Now I'm back!
I just handed in my last exam of this semester on Thursday, and it feels great! It's been a great semester for school, I've learned loads, been very creative and made loads of stuff. But it's good to be done.

Other than my two big project exams, this is what has happened the last few weeks:
- We had another awesome visitor from Norway
- We've gotten a dehumidifying-system set up for the moisture damage in our ceiling (after a pipe burst a while ago and it rained inside our kitchen)
- Atlas went to the vet and got all better thanks to that
- Daniel hasn't been feeling good (but is better now)
- We celebrated Daniel's birthday
- Daniel got his actual residence card
- We had (vegan) hot dogs and ice cream on Norway's national day
- It's been sunny and warm
- But also humid and rainy
- AND I've started my new job!

So yeah, I've mostly been focusing on making my little family here feel better, finishing my exam, and getting ready for going back to work.
Now that everyone's doing fine and I have no more school work to stress about, I'll get back on track with the blogging to keep all of you who reads it up do date on what's going on here in Copenhagen!

I'll probably go deeper into a few of the things I've mentioned, but for now, here's some silly photobooth photos:

Enjoy!

Loads of love,
Malin

Moving break

A little unannounced break, there. Sorry about that!
Those of you who know me will know that I've been in Norway for the last week, by myself, making the house we previously lived in and rented ready for move-out after we rented it out for a little while.
I've been packing, sorting, packing, sorting, packing, carrying, lifting, moving, carrying, cleaning, carrying, transporting and cleaning some more. It's been a very weird week.
It's the first week I've been away from Daniel for more than a work shift in over a year, and even though I felt ok about that most of the time, I wasn't really. It may sound weird, but after experiencing so much shit with immigration agencies trying to keep us apart, it's kind of scary to leave him for a week.
So I've been crying a lot more than normal this week (not that I normally cry that much, or at all), because I've been overly sensitive, but also because I got sick the day after I got here and have been recovering since, which made everything harder and more exhausting. And because I've been on the verge of panic attacks a few times. Moving (sorting, packing, throwing away) half a house/a whole apartment worth of furniture and stuff is not an easy task all by yourself. Especially not when you have a short deadline and a virus infection bugging your throat and sinuses and a fever at the same time.
But I did it! I sorted through a lot, packed so much, threw away loads, moved big, heavy stuff and cleaned half a house. Luckily not by myself, though. Julie, our (old) roommate cleaned the other half of the house, and I got some wonderful help from my friends. Sondre and Michelle helped me carry stuff, wash, fix things and was also great moral support for me when I was confused and overwhelmed by everything. And Borgar came with his practical hands.
All in all I would be very malnourished, hungry, even more exhausted, tired, sore, a little crazy and probably still quite sick if it weren't for these guys. Especially Sondre and Michelle. They even fed me and made sure I had enough to drink!
I'm so lucky to have such wonderful people in my life.

Now I'm on my way back to Copenhagen, enjoying a quiet train ride with a cup of coffee and free internet. Soon I'll be on the plane, and I'm so happy the airport is just half an hour away from our apartment there!
Then it's time for some serious relaxing before our friends Borgar and Rikke are coming over to enjoy a long weekend of good music during the festival Heavy Days in Doomtown!

Loads of love,
Malin

Our plan (for now)

Some of you guys probably want to know what our plan for the near future is, in regards to our living situation.
We have two good friends, Bjørnar and My, studying and living in Genoa, Italy at the moment. I've thought about Italy for a long time, 'cause the city sounds amazing and beautiful, the climate is better and the temperature is more stable. Just what I need.

Image from Wikipedia

I've been in contact with the academy they're both attending, and I've decided to take a few courses there. And luckily, our two good friends have a spare double bed and an extra room they use as a studio. So we pretty much have a place to stay and I have somewhere to study!

Even though I won't get financial aid from Norway, Italy is so cheap that we'll be fine with the money we already have.
And also, living together in Italy for three months or more will make it a lot easier for Daniel and I to get him a residence permit once we're back in Norway, which means he's probably able to get a job! So it's pretty much win-win right now! We're very excited, and hope everything works out as planned. We both think we'll really enjoy staying in Italy, in all aspects.

It's going to be good.

Oh, and Daniel and I just handed in the complete application for his EEA residence card, and the lady that helped us seemed positive! Huge load off our shoulders for now, and fingers crossed!



Loads of love,
Malin

Holidays

I'm so sorry about the lack of posts the last two weeks!
We've been busy with family, celebration, eating tons of good food, seeing friends, going on a cabin trip up in the mountains, relaxing, enjoying our christmas presents, playing with our new iPad, getting into The Sims again, figuring out what to do, figuring out solutions and cuddling.

We finally have a plan that looks real good, and we can take it easy for now!
We have an appointment for the application at the police station on Tuesday, and hopefully it'll go smoothly.


We had a real nice, cosy and busy christmas eve with my mum, little sister, uncle, aunt, cousins and my aunt's mum. My cousins are only 4 and 6 and they are all over the place, so we had tuns of energy draining fun with them, before we had a real tasty dinner all together! And there were of course presents!

In between christmas and new years, we went up to Gautefall with 10 other friends for a few days. It was very nice and fun, loads of snow and a great cabin!
And on new years eve we cooked some nice food and had a small pot luck dinner at our friend Arja's place with most of our lovely bunch. We had loads of fun, loads of nice talks, while we listened to good music. Right before midnight we headed down to the river to watch the fireworks from there. It was a real good evening, and I'm lucky I was surrounded by all those awesome people.

I hope everyone had a good holiday and had fun celebrating new years! I wish everyone a very happy and fantastic new year!



Loads of love,
Malin

Flying home for christmas

I'm back in Norway! Back home, back with my hubby!
After a really nice visit from Bjørnar, My and Lotte.
Bjørnar, My and I didn't sleep all night before we left for the aiport, as we had to leave at 3.15am.
I slept on the bus ride to the airport, and on the plane. And took some random photos.

It was nice to land in beautiful, snowy Norway, in nice and fresh air.

I got worn out big time from the trip, and now I'm ill again. Gah!
But it's so so nice to be back with my wonderful husband again.

We already had tickets for The Hobbit at 6pm on Saturday, and we were both super excited to see it.

It was so amazing!


We spent this day relaxing, and watching The Fellowship of the Ring.
Gonna keep on relaxing, keeping warm, cuddling and watching movies till I feel well again. And that is absolutely fine with me!



Loads of love,
Malin

The wedding!

Saturday the 10th of November 2012, we got married.

10.11.12.

In Nedre Telemark tingrett, Skien tinghus, the ceremony room, at 12.15.

The day

Daniel woke me up at 8.30am with coffee and breakfast in bed(!), and we enjoyed that together before I had to take off. My mum drove me to Brevik, where I met Annie and Christine, 'cause they were gonna get me all prettied up with Christine's make-up and hair magic! Their dad drove us to the hotel, we were there at about 10am, and started getting ready.

Christine is really good at make-up and hair, and she did an absolutely amazing job. I got dressed in my fancy wedding clothes, and I was really happy with the way everything turned out.

Photo by Christine Aurora Weber

Then my uncle came to pick up me and Annie to go to the court house.

The judge welcomed and greeted us, and our 12 guests took their places, got their cameras ready, and we sat down and got started. Our judge was extremely nice, but her English was pretty bad. But it was still a very good ceremony, and we were surrounded by great family.

My mum and little sister was there, my dad, my uncle, aunt and cousins, my grandma and her husband, my best friend Annie, and my two new brothers: Daniel's brother David and his husband Jakob.
There was a great amount of photos taken, it was a touching ceremony in a tiny, little, nice and intimate room.

We said our "I do's",  put each others rings on each others fingers, had a nice kiss (a bit of a snog perhaps?), and signed the papers.

I was so nervous before the ceremony, I have no idea why. But it was beautiful and I was so happy!


Annie was our photographer, she used my fancy king camera (Canon EOS 5D Mark II) with a 24-70mm F2.8 L lens for the day, and she took some really great photographs.
She and Daniel's brother David took a bunch of nice photos of us and the entire family both inside and outside of the hotel. It was beautiful.

 

After the wedding and the photo shoots at our hotel (and some coffee, didn't get too much sleep the night before), we moved down to the wedding dinner venue. There we got together with more of my family, some I barely get to see, and it was so so nice. We had some really tasty tapas dishes, we got some gifts, and everyone enjoyed themselves.

After all the dinner guests left, a few of our friends came down to the dinner venue to share some left overs and something to drink with us. Together with Annie and Christine (who stayed for dinner), Michelle, Sondre, Benedicte, Daniel and Lexie came down, and we had some elderberry juice, some cava and some more coffee.

Photo by Benedicte Eikenes Thomassen

After that, we moved our booties up to Arja's apartment, were a big bunch of our friends were! It was amazing to see them all together again! Arja was awesome for lending out her place for the evening, and Ann Charlotte made the place look absolutely lovely, just for us. It was the greatest.

We also got some more cool gifts.

Gosh, I love the people I'm surrounded by!

It was the happiest and greatest day of my life, I got to marry the person I love the absolute most, and I got to celebrate our love and big day with my amazing family, a small part of my lovely new family, and some of my really awesome friends!

Loads of love,
Malin, the new, loving wife!