March Update - Spring Time!

I know it's technically April already, but since I had my best friend visiting me here in Bergen for the end of March I decided it was no crime to finish this post a little late. 

Easter is over, but it's finally spring <3

Did you do anything exciting?
It seems like the answer to this particular question is always YES!
And as I've mentioned before, my best friend, Maria, visited me during the Easter-holiday. We had a thon of fun! However, I've actually quite forgotten to document much of it, so there aren't really that many pictures to show you... I'll try to do better next month :)
However, most of February was spent with my little gang of boys. We've truly had a great time doing all sorts of things... Basically staying up all night and sleeping most of the day :D I'm so grateful that I got to know these guys!

Funniest thing that happened?
Ow... thats hard! There has been so many fantastic moments...
But one I remember was when I decided to visit one of my best friends here in Bergen, Ken Martin, when he was at work. I actually got to know him through Facebook... which I usually never do! Anyway, since I got to know him through messages and such I've actually never met his girlfriend. So when I walked into the kiosk where he works and saw that a girl was sitting next to him behind the counter, I can't be blaimed for thinking it was her... However, she acted really wired as I said hello to him, and did not seem to want to notice me at all? After the longest and most tense silence I've experienced in a while he finally presented us for each other. It turned out that she was just a friend of him waiting to catch a train, and that she thought I was his girlfriend! We all had a good laugh about it... especially Ken Martin himself!

Best movies you've seen?
As you can probably see in the sidebar to the right, I've been watching a lot of movies recently. The best one was probably Argo (rewieved here) which surprised me by being far better than I'd anticipated. Others worth mentioning are Pitch Perfect, basically Glee made into a movie... The Croods, an animation I loved more than I thought I would... And the two "older" movies Monsters, Inc. and X-men Origins: Wolverine.

Favorite edible thing?

Tapas at Zupperia with Maria <3

When Maria visited we ate so many fantastic and exciting things I honestly don't know which was best!  Standout moments were when we tried tapas, sushi and a fantastic noodle-dish with beef. Zupperia and Namo, we are coming back :)

I must also mention the black pasta I got served at a dinnerparty at Simon's house! Cool, right?

Which songs have you listened to the most?
Actually my playlists have mostly been quite similar to the ones I listeden to during February... For me, who's not that good at keeping track of all the new and good music out there, finding new music can take hours! But I kind of "rediscovered" Vices & Virtues by Panic! At The Disco... it's awesome!

"My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark" - Fall Out Boy
"Try" - Pink
"Sara Smiles" - Panic! At The Disco
"Trade Mistakes" - Panic! At The Disco
"Tokyo Ice Til Clementine" - Kaizers Orchestra
"Let's Kill Tonight" - Panic! At The Disco

Favorite material things?

Here I'm gonna be really girly actually! You see, I walked by Kicks one day and suddenly spotted a new parfume from the brand Escada. I love all their scents so I decided to smell this one as it was the limited edition spring fragrance named Cherry In The Air... Needles to say it smelled so good I actually bought it on the spot. Love it.




Something that made you proud?

I actually went jogging! Once... But still, better that none! It's been so freaking cold here that it's not been very tempting to go outside more than absolutely needed, but as I can finally feel the spring heat creeping upon us I'm going to try my best to get at least a bare minimum of exercise. I need it!

What did you learn?
During the past couple of months I've met so many new people I couldn't count them all even if I wanted to. Meeting new people is always both exciting and frightning at the same time... And I've always been one of those people who has to constantly make a choice to put myself out there and be social and talk to new people. It just doesn't come naturally to me... But the thing I've learned is to just be myself and be open about me and my life and ask a lot of questions... In doing that I'm always nice to the people I meet, but I also know that not everybody will like me or like the way I am. That's life. But in accepting that I also discovered that I had nothing to loose. Those who do not like me wouldn't have been great friends anyway, and those who take me for the person I am can become true friends :)

What are you looking forward to?
I'm actually going home again in two weeks, so that'll be this month's thing to look forward to <3

February Update - Poker, Kaizers and Oscars

And suddenly it's time for another monthly update!
I know it's technically March already, but this post took more time to write than I first thought...
For me February has been quite eventful actually. I even traveled to Stavanger not only once, but twice! So let's just get into it :)

Did you do anything exciting?
YES! A lot!
And to not make it too tiresome for you I'll just list some of this month's highlights:

- Poker-tournament where I got to meet a lot of new people!
- Got to know and become friends with a group of boys here in Bergen. They are awesome!
- Finally got to see Kaizers Orchestra live at their concert in Stavanger!
- Had my sister visiting me in Bergen for a whole week!
- Went to a christian youth-conference with great people and great concerts!
- Went to Stavanger to stay up all night and watch the Oscars live with my sister <3

Copyright: Bente (thebenteway.blogspot.com)

Funniest thing that happened?

(I'm awesome at drawing!)

Remember the boys I said I'd made friends with? The day after I'd met most of them for the first time we all were at that poker-tournament I also mentioned. (I'll come back to that soon...) But after that we all went home to one of the guys to actually play some more games! However, at approximately 2:00 a.m. we were all getting quite hungry, so we decided to drive into town to get some kebab. Classy! We must have been quite a sight as we were four guys and one girl sitting there a saturday night all dressed up in suits, shirts and even bow-ties and (for my sake) a skirt and high heals! Anyway... The most awesome moment actually occurred during the car-ride back to this guy's house. Imagine me and four guys crammed into a tiny car, and then add the sound of Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble" suddenly blasting through the radio-speakers... And the hillarious thing? All four boys spontaneously and simultaneously starts to belt out the lyrics from the top of their lungs! First thing first... They're guys and that's freakin' Taylor Swift! And secondly... They knew all the lyrics! After that shocking moment where I realized what was actually happening I tried to sing along as well... but failed miserably as I could not stop laughing!

Best movies you've seen?
"Life of Pi" (reviewed here), "Silver Linings Playbook" (reviewed here), and the 1999-classic "Fight Club", an incredibly odd and yet massively intriguing film with a lot of fighting... even though that's oddly enough not at all what it's about. I'll have to re-watch it to be able to write a proper review, but I know it's one of the best films I've ever seen. Loved all three of them and recommend them highly!

Favorite edible thing?
I have recently been loving the white-and-blue Burn. The one that tastes like apple... I'm not a big fan of soda, but *this* is literally heaven in a bottle! Sadly it's very unhealthy, contains massive amounts of sugar and caffeine and is very expensive... I love it anyway.

Which songs have you listened to the most?
I've listened to a lot of music this month! Suddenly I decided to get updated on what the earth's population is actually listening to at the moment. That resulted in me buying more songs on iTunes than I initially planned... But right now there are actually a bunch of half-decent songs on the top-lists. Unbelievably! But because of this massive overload of newly discovered music I have a lot of favorites this month...

"Bleading Out" - Imagine Dragons
"I Knew You Were Trouble" - Taylor Swift
"My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark" - Fall Out Boy
"One Day / Reckoning Song" - Asaf Avidan & The Mojos
"Battle Scars" - Lupe Fiasco & Guy Sebastian
"I Feed You My Love" - Margareth Berger
"Running To The Sea" - Röyksopp & Susanne Sundfør

Favorite material things?
I finally decided to do something with the fact that I have to hold things up to my face to read them... So I got glasses! They took some getting used to, but now I love them!

Something that made you proud?
I made the worlds best Chinese wok one of the nights my sister was here...

What did you learn?
As I've mentioned several times by now, I joined a poker tournament. What I didn't say was that I'd never ever played (or even seen anyone play) poker before that night! I literally had to learn it by scratch when I came there... And during the first couple of rounds I had no idea what I was doing or how I should be playing so I lost round after round. Until suddenly I realized what I did that made me loose... When I stopped doing that, I actually started to win. A lot! I went as far as knocking several people out of the competition and unbelievably enough made it all the way to the finalist-table. I ended up in third place out of more than 35 players! It was awesome and completely exhausting and a great deal of fun!

What are you looking forward to?
My best friend in the whole world, Maria, is coming to visit me for a whole week around easter!
Can't wait <3

The Dragons That Conquered The World

It's been quite a long time since I first got to know the band Imagine Dragons.

Back in february 2012 they released an EP named Continued Silence consisting of six tracks. Shortly after that I actually watched a live-chat with youtuber makeupkatie95 where she talked about this band she'd fallen in love with. I took her advice and searched for Imagine Dragons on iTunes the same day. After having listened to the preview for only the first couple of songs I was so amazed I bought the whole EP right there and then! 

A couple of months later I was thrilled to discover that the very first song to be featured in the fourth season of the TV-series Glee was "It's Time", Imagine Dragons' lead single. After that suddenly everybody knew the song! Friday they were even invited to play on the Late Show with David Letterman...

Like a lot of the bands I've been liking lately, their music can be put under the category indie-rock. Normally that's not the kind of music that gets featured on the radio or becomes number one hits around the world... So you can picture my surprise and amazement when Imagine Dragons suddenly became famous all across the world through the end of 2012 and start of 2013! Chances are pretty high you have heard a lot of their songs on the radio already... Radioactive? It's Time? Demons? Tokyo?

The funny thing about this whole story is that Bergen, the Norwegian city in which I'm currently living, was one of the first places Imagine Dragons got to play in front of an international audience. As early as 2011 they cought the attention of Frank Nes, the General Manager of the annual summer festival Bergenfest. He flew the then unknown band all the way actoss the Atlantic and never regretted doing so! Today, in 2013, they are one of the hugest rising stars in the music industry world-wide, but they never forgot the people who believed in them in the beginning. This summer they're headed back to Norway and to Bergenfest, and now they are the headlining act!

Like I said they released an EP named Continued Silence in early 2012. In September they also released their first full album titeled Night Visions, but unfortunately this was limited to the States only... Here in Europe we had to wait until early 2013. But it was worth the wait. I absolutely loved it, and so did luckily the rest of the world!

Radioactive and It's Time, their two singels, are two of my favorite songs of all time actually. Other great ones from their album includes Bleeding Out, On Top Of The World, Demons, Amsterdam, Tiptoe... and just about all of the others as well! The entire album is brilliant and a world-class masterpiece.

If you haven't already, run to the nearest record-store and get Night Visions at once! You'll not regret it.

January Update - Back in Bergen

I recently got inspired to make a "January Update" after watching one of Kalel's videos on Youtube (WonderlandWardrobe). You should totally check her out! I took the liberty of stealing her questions and added some of my own, so here we go...


Did you do anything exciting? 

Well... I'm back in Bergen for my second term at the University. Even though it was a little sad to leave my family and friends after having spent an entire month in Stavanger, it was also kind of refreshing to come back and start all over. For those of you that didn't know, my first semester as a student actually failed miserably .. But I'm definitely both stronger and wiser this time around, so my hopes are up and I'm thinking positive thoughts!

I also feel obliged to mention I recently celebrated my 19th birthday! It was the day before I had to leave Stavanger, so I managed to gather a bunch of my best friends. The result: I had an awesome day!

Funniest thing that happened? 

I share kitchen with no less than seven other people, so when I make dinner I tend to meet one of them at some point. The only problem about this is that I'm terrible at multitasking! It's like my brain can only keep enough information to complete one task at the time. With this in mind I'm sure you can picture what happened when I met some of my flat-mates while making dinner my first couple of days after returning after the holidays? Trying to catch up and keep a conversation while cooking was just an impossibility... So there I was, small-talking to the best of my abilities, and all I did in the meantime was finding knifes and bowls and frying pans and move them around a lot to nurse the illusion of being seemingly busy. It must have looked *so* awkward! 

Best movies you’ve seen?
I actually haven't seen a lot of movies this month... There are quite a couple currently playing at the cinemas I wish I'd seen (such as Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi and Les Miserables) but I've seen some older dvd's. The first I have to mention is an old film noir in black and white named "Double Indemnity". A friend recommended it for me, and I'm glad he did! Even though it was from 1944 it was really exciting and had brilliant actors. Totally worth watching for movie-lovers!

Yesterday I finally got around watching "Braveheart". It's been on my list for quite a while, and when I got it for Christmas it was only a matter of making time for a three-hour-movie. I knew I'd like it, as some of my all-time favorites include "The Gladiator", "Robin Hood" and "Troy", but I was quite surprised by how good it actually turned out to be! When it managed to bring me to tears only ten minutes in, I knew I was up for a rare treat...

Favorite edible thing?
Asian food. I'm obsessed. And we're *not* talking about fast-food or something... Homemade all the way! With good guidance from my cook-books I have managed to conjure dish after dish using stuff like soy-souce, rice, chicken, beef, sherry and rice-wine. Hungry anyone?

Which songs have you listened to the most?
I actually bought a lot of albums these past couple of weeks. However, the one I was most excited about was no doubt "Night Visions", Imagine Dragons' first album. I'll write a separate blog-post for that little piece of wonder. All I'll say for now is that it did *not* disappoint!

Top tracks:

"Radioactive" - Imagine Dragons

"Siste Dans" - Kaizers Orchestra

"Burn It Down" - Linkin Park

"Hall of Fame" - The Script

"Miss Atomic Bomb" - The Killers

Favorite material things? 

I got new headphones for Christmas... enough said!

Something that made you proud?
I have successfully managed to set up a budget for the entire spring! I've also accounted for all the money I've spent in January so far. I hate math, so this was quite a feat for me!

What did you learn?
To cook! And also not to "steal" money from my food-budget to buy other stuff. I tended to do that a little too often in the past...

What are you looking forward to?

A lot! My best friend and I actually booked our summer-vacation recently, so in a couple of months I'm officially headed to London for the first time! But I won't have to wait until then to do something fun, 'couse the Oscars are soon upon us and I'll of course be watching the entire broadcast live together with my sister! I'm actually so pathetic/awesome I'll throw myself on a plane to Stavanger to be able to keep our Oscar-night-tradition <3 I was also very happy to find out she'll be visiting me here in Bergen right after that. 

But before all of this comes an event I've been awiting for half a year... In less than two weeks I'm going to Stavanger to see Kaizers Orchestra live in the new concert-hall! They'll be joined by Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, so I'm not overestimating when I say this will be epic!

My Dubstep Room Tour

A lot of people back home had asked me to do some sort of room tour of my new room/apartment in Bergen... And a room tour you will get!

I searched Youtube for inspiration, and all I found were girls using half an hour to literally talk about every single thing in their rooms. It's plain to say I found them boring, bragy, poorly edited, and unproductively waisting my time. Therefore you won't be getting an in-depth storytelling-tour showing off and describing all of my things. I did it my way, as I always do.

As you can probably see I had a lot of fun editing this. I used it as a training exercise in Final Cut Pro X. I got the editing program over a year ago, but I've not taught myself how to use it properly and I hardly know a fraction of the possibilities there are hidden in the program somewhere... I'll need hours to understand half of the things I can do there!

I quickly have to apologize for the picture quality of the video... It's really bad! It had to, or else I wouldn't be able to upload it here. But I do wish for a new camera that can actually film in HD <3

The music in the video is called Crystallize and is made and preformed by dubstep-violinist Lindsey Stirling. She is awesome! I'll probably tell you more about her later, but check out her music video to the melody http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHjpOzsQ9YI

Well, now you know how I live :)

I Just Have To Dance

I have always loved to dance!

Ever since I was a little kid I've been constantly dancing around. Although, then I most frequently had to dance the "men's part" since my little sister was the ballerina/princess of the house. (I had very short hair back then, so if you didn't look closely I could probably pass as a boy!) I even tried to choreograph her and make up some sort of "real" dance, but unfortunately that always seemed to fail. We were a wired couple that did not always cooperate too well.

The sad part of this story is that I didn't know/realize/remember that I could actually start dancing in a group. As a hobby of sorts. I tried almost everything else though. Gymnastics and volleyball being some of it. But was too tall to be a gymnast and not passionate enough to join a volleyball team. Eventually I gave up all kinds of sports and started reading. That at least, I found that I was good at!

From seventh grade until ninth grade I suddenly started to read so much I ended up doing nothing else. Reading is a very good thing to do, and it surely raised my grades quite a bit, but it can also be too much. Happily I realized that before things came out of hand, and I started to hang out with friends and such. I never fully stopped reading though, I just read less than before. My "salvation" of sorts became my best friend and the sparkling interest for movies.

About two and a half year ago I suddenly told my dad I wanted to start dancing. I don't know how I got the Idea, but I can only guess the "Step Up"-films and "Save The Last Dance" had something to do with it. There was just one little problem... I started dancing HIP HOP!

Everybody that knows me can tell you I'm NOT a hip hop kind of girl. I've just not got "swag". But one always learns best from failure, which I also did eventually. It took a whole year though. Then I finally came with a really good idea: jazz-dance! Everybody in my class had danced longer than me, but I loved it, and soon I started to fit right in. Pointy toes, straight arms and legs, pirouettes... I suddenly realized this was me. My genre at last. I even joined in on the gigantic Christmas-show "Aladdin". Don't we look sparkly!

After a year I moved up from level one to a level two class (out of three). Everything suddenly became much harder, and I found I had to really work to get to the technique right, but the challenge was accepted, and I was really enjoying myself. And while taking my jazz-dance class, I also completed half a year of ballet (to get better technique), and almost half a year of contemporary.

Even though this sounds like a happy ending, I'm afraid I must say It's not... You see, I hurt my right-hand wrist doing a pirouette in our basement. The roof was too low. Don't ask how I managed to do it, but I shifted something inside my wrist, and suddenly it became sore and stiff. This all happened after Christmas last year, and ever since I've never been able to fully recover. My doctor told me it's sort of an on-and-off thing, and that it can mysteriously disappear or re-appear, and that it could take years to get rid of it.

In addition to my bad luck, I manage to injure my knee too! I'm not entirely sure how that happened either, but I think it just happened while walking in Paris this summer. If I was to describe it to you, I'd say it feels like it would do if you stood up straight and someone stood in front of you, put both hands on top of your left knee and gave it a hard nudge. Not a nudge from behind, couse that would just make your knee bend and you'd fall. But a nudge the other way. The way a knee is not ment to bend...

Today it's been almost seven months since I last danced. I miss it so much it's difficult to explain. Just the freedom and joy and grace it brings. The feeling of mastering something when I finally get a move right. If you are a dancer, you know what I'm talking about.

Yesterday I packed away my dance-shoes and my ballet-clothes. I decided to take half a year off dancing to fully recover from my various injuries, because I've recently moved to another city, and because I needed the time to study as it's my first year at the university. All these are good and justified reasons, but I'll still miss it. Can't wait until the day I can un-pack my dance-shoes again...

Codename: "Dinner"

One thing about living alone

You suddenly have to feed yourself

No one will call you

To freshly cooked dinner

Or even

Remind you that you're hungry

Man up

Make your own food appear

I found...

It's really not that difficult

Sometimes

It's even kind of fun

Ten things I've learned this week

1. I love internet

I mean... If I didn't I wouldn't have a blog, a frequently used Facebook account, a Twitter account so that I can stalk my favorite celebrities, a Youtube account so I can make playlists and comment videos, a university user-account (because I have to), a Google account to check my mail, an Empire-online account to keep me updated on movie-news and so on... I figure you get my point. Nevertheless, we finally got Wi-Fi here, and I've been using it well!

2. Cleaning is necessary

This wednesday my fellow "room-mates" (living in the other rooms on this floor) and I finally got together to wash everything in the entire kitchen and the two bathrooms. I can honestly say it was about time. Probably it's been over a year since anyone did it last time, and with eight people sharing one kitchen and two bathrooms you can only begin to imagine how dirty it was! After almost three hours I'm finally able to stay out there for a longer periode of time...

3. Fridges are useful

My mother and I bought a mini-fridge when she was her last weekend. Now I can hardly imagine how I'd be able to live without it! There's a big fridge out in the kitchen, but it's ment to be shared by eight people. Which is probably five or six too much. Now that I've got my own I can fill it up and live on it for a week or two! And best of all, I can make myself some breakfast before I get dressed and put on makeup and such. It's brilliant!



4. Food is expensive

I have always known that food costs a lot of money. Especially in Norway. But exactly how much was a tiny surprise. When I bought all the food I needed to fill my fridge I actually ended up paying 890 kroner! In US dollars that would be 155$... That's a lot. Luckily I won't have to pay that much next time I'm buying some food, because some of the things I bought are things that last a very long time. Well, it'd be easy to live on a diet with prices like that!

5. I'm lost without keys

To get in to my room I have to unlock three doors. One to get through the main entrance, one to get into my floor and one to get into my own room. It's easy to see I'm kind of attached to my keys. Or... should be. I learned that the hard way (as I always seem to do) by forgetting my keys inside when I went to the grocery store. You see, I joined one of the girls from my floor, and then I didn't need keys on my way out. What I forgot was that she was only buying one thing while I had an entire list, so naturally she finished before me. When I finally got back to our house I suddenly froze outside the main entrance painfully aware that I had no way of getting in. Since I've not yet been as smart as getting the phone numbers of the other guys in case a thing like this should happen, there was nothing to do but wait. After ten minutes of laughing about how stupid I'd been someone from third floor luckily came out. They looked a bit surprised to stumble upon a girl outside their door, but I just thanked them and rushed in. I'd not locked my room (the keys were inside) so I just had to knock on the door to my floor and explane to the girls in the kitchen exactly how blond I am on the inside...

6. Plastic is hard

I bought some very nice, black boots in Barcelona that I've used quite a lot lately. The problem is that the soles are made of plastic. Which means they're not too good for walking long distances. And I've been walking quite a bit this week. Solution: Change shoes once in a while!

7. TackIt is mandatory

If you don't already know what it is, it's some sort of chewing gum not ment for chewing. You simply tear off a piece and use it to stick things to the wall for example. Every student should have it since it's illegal to put up nails and such in all apartments. It can honestly be used for anything. Like putting up a gigantic world-map and a Pirates of the Caribbean-poster...

8. I'm too good at cooking

I love dinner! It's the best meal of the day. And with some help and inspiration from my parents I've become quite good at cooking. The problem is... I'm used to cook for five, not just one. Thus, every dinner I've made this week have been too big for just one person! I fortunately solved the problem by saving some of it for later... So actually I've just cooked half of the meals I've eaten, the other half only took some heating.

9. How to start a washing machine

Don't judge! I have actually never washed my own clothes... Luckily It wasn't too hard to get my head around. Yesterday I even washed the soap-thing (the drawer you put the soap in) by hand! It took forever since there were soap-rests stuck in there from a looong time ago. Washing dirty and grose soap-drawer? Check!

10. TV-series are best on DVD

Living all by myself is all right for the most of the time. But sometimes I find myself missing human voices... The solution became TV-series! Castle, Rookie Blue, So You Think You Can Dance, the entire first season of Game of Thrones, and my current project: White Collar. Game of Thrones surprised me by being really good! And White Collar is so much fun I can't help but giggle out loud from time to time. Luckily there are still four seasons to go!

New home, new school, new town and new people

It's been a while.
But, I think it's fair to say I have kept busy :)

I've promised myself I'll never apologize or explain myself... so I won't. Not because I don't have good and sometimes exciting explanations, just because it'd be way too boring for you to listen to (read)!

Well... First thing first: I do not live in Stavanger any more. As I have briefly mentioned to those bothering to read the "This is me"-section, I am now a citizen of the beautiful, cold and wet city of Bergen.

There was also a reason behind the moving: I'm now officially a student at Bergen University! Monday 13th of August was the first day of my time as a student in Media Science. (I don't really know if that's the correct translation from the Norwegian word, but it basically means I study everything concerning the media in general... at least I think that's what I am about to study?)

Since it'd probably be a tiny little bit problematic studying in Bergen while still living in Stavanger, I therefore got myself an apartment. Basically it's just a room, since I share kitchen and two bathrooms with seven other people... But still, to me it's become my own little house <3

It's still far from finished, but it's getting there... My housemates, who live in the other seven rooms, seems nice, so I recon I'll like it here :)

Nobody told me how much work it actually takes to move from one house to another!

(Taken before I'd had the time to make it all messy...)

In addition to moving and starting to study I've also been traveling A LOT! Lucky for me I'm not afraid of airplanes. You see, last week my best friend and I went to Barcelona! Yepp, right in the middle of everything I somehow managed to find the time to go on vacation. It was fantastic, and really hot and sunny, just as Spain should be. Some pictures may appear later...

I'll try to make a new update within a couple of days, although not yet having internet in my apartment is a mayor problem for the time being. However it's being handled with recent trips to the library... :)

Tomorrow I probably have to get started on the miniature mountain of school-books that has to be finished before Christmas. (Tidying my exceedingly messy room, drinking tea, eating a lot of chocolate, and watching some more of my latest addiction: "Game of Thrones" will probably also be on tomorrow's schedule...)