Over and out

This is Oslo-based blogger # 8459 reporting for duty for the final time. The cases are packed, the bedroom is empty and sparkling, and bloody summer has arrived! The omnipresent Oslo themometers were showing 20 degrees, and, as if by magic, its population got out its collective pair of shorts. At Sognsvann lake, I even bore witness to some bikini-clad bathing by some extremely brave and rather overly-optimistic Norwegians.
And I'm getting that all too familiar feeling which is somewhere between deep melancholy and jittery excitement which comes from leaving a foreign place you have come to love and going back home to a place you know you love. But this time it doesn't feel like I'm going back, but more like I'm moving forward. Forward to a new stage of my life - my wanderlust satiated (for now) and with a desire to be a real adult person with a real adult job. I just hope I can remember this feeling... I think looking back over what I posted about being an assistant will help me a great deal!
It's satisfying to look back on myself a year ago, just stepping out of the 'Durham bubble', knowing nothing of these Nordic types, ignorant of caviar in a tube, the wine lottery, the great outdoors, how to pronounce ø, æ and å, what is feels like when your hair freezes, how to make a campfire in the snow, living twelve floors up, caramelised goat's cheese, online washing machine reservation systems, russ, beers that cost £6, Gustav Vigeland... the list goes on. On the train back from Sweden I composed a list of my best memories of Oslo, and here it is for your delectation:
1. Listening to various French people fantasising about cheese and/or dishes you can make with cheese.
2. Drinking beer with Marion and M-H on Marion's roof terrace.
3. The times my lessons kicked ass.
4. Walking along ski tracks with Mark Bennett.
5. M-H's face at the julebord (staff Christmas party).
6. Hiking in Stockholm with my bottes de sport.
7. Early evening on the quai in Copenhagen.
8. Taking notes during Meet Joe Black on my first night in Norway.
9. Drinking afternoon tea with M-H in Walberswick.
10. Being told my English was bad by a waiter.
11. Sunbathing with my brother at the General's bath house at Oscarberg fortress.
This list of course means little or nothing to anyone else, but they were the times I was the happiest (and/or highly amused, which amounts to the same thing) during my sejourn in Oslo. To that list (which I made about a month ago), I would add:
12. Being at the 17th May parade.
13. All the times I went to cinemateket with M-H and Jordan.
14. Goofing around with Chi-He, Jo and Meghan in Vigelandparken.
15. The arrival of Spring.

On that note, it is time to bid this blog adieu and turn instead to the problem of how I'm going to get my suitcase shut...