Norwegian ladies to listen to. The gay edition

I while ago I listed a few of my favourite Norwegian artists and I promised to follow up with another post. There are actual several really good female performers in this little country. This time I'll give you the L-list.

First one on my L-list is Heidi Marie Vestrheim's Time. She's way cool, and I really like her voice and lyrics! If you want more information go here.

Second one out is the grand 'old' lady of Norwegian rock, Anne Grethe Preus. She has a distinct voice, perfect for those dark autumn evenings. Here with Vår Herres Klinkekule (Our Lord's Marble) written by Erik Bye.

An then there is Thuva Syvertsen of Valkyrien Allstars. Thuva plays the violin in a Norwegian folk-band and is best known for her curls. Normally they sing in Norwegian but here's Little Darling

Did I tell you about Josefin Winther already? I think I did... But here is her latest single Why do They Try?

Also check out Silje Hrafa. I couldn't find her on YouTube, but do visit her myspace-page; 

And there's also Hanah with Hollywood Lie

Driving around Lesbos

To follow up my previous post here are some pictures of day two of driving around Lesbos.

We drove back to our hotel in Petra after our drive around the western side of the island. The next day we got up and headed South-South East. We drove down through Kalloni, one of the biggest cities on Lesbos. We did not bother to stop since we were not in the shopping mood. We continued along the Eastern side of the Kalloni Gulf. The terrain on this side of the island was completely different form the bare naked west side. This dates back to several vulcano eruprions that burried most of the forrest on the west side(hence the Petrified Forrest). In the east side we drove through large wooden areas. We drove down to Vatera, a lovely small town by the beach. Boring, but nice.

Inspecting the beach of Vatera

From Vatera we took a dirt road towards Plomari, via Stavros. The tank was running low, I was nervous and had no idea where the nearest Petrol Station would be. I would not recommend driving this route without a Jeep and it was handy to have a 4-wd.

Dirt road between Stavros and Plomari.

And all of the sudden (after a rather steep downhill) we where in a street in Plomari that could fit just about one rather narrow car. The needle was approaching empty, I was thirsty, hungry and lost (have I mentioned 's that girlfriend sucks at reading maps? She's the superior driver, but I have better sense of direction). So, yeah I loved this part...

The narrow streets of Plomari. 

The water outside the south coast around Plomari is perfectly blue, so we went looking for a beach where we could work on the tan. We drove to the little town of Agia Isidoros. Here we discovered where all the Norwegians went. Bare in mind we came directly from Oslo, but almost none could be found in Petra (thank God!). They where all lined up on the stony beach of Agia Isidoros.

Agia Isidoros

Yeah, so that was a quick overview of our drive around Lesbos. Molivos is still our favorite place on the island, but there is much more to discover. We met alot of nice people and if you're going to Petra make sure to stop by Breeze Cafe Bar and enjoy the sunset!

Sunset from Breeze.

Here's a map that displays the route we drove. Enjoy!

Click to enlarge - Red; day 1, Green; day 2.

Vacation - like 2 months ago

Well, it's September now and quite some time has passed since the last time I blogged. Why, you ask? Well, I've been busy. I've moved home and my commuting days are over. I've been on a lesbionic vacation to Greece. More precisely Lesbos, the island known for ancient greek poet Sappho. So here are some moments from our vacation.

We stayed primarily in Petra, a town on the north side of the island. Between tanning and relaxing we rented a jeep and travelled around the island. Lesbos is the third largest island in Greece and well worth a visit. 

Here are some photos of our first day of driving around Lesbos.

View of Petra from the church

The Churcf of Panayia Glykofilousa (Virgin Mary of the Sweet Kiss)

The Jeep

Molyvos

Petrified Forrest. Rocks that used to be trees...

The beach and cliffs of Skala Erosos

Skala Kalonis

Change of seasons

It's almost June and I have not managed to write a single blogpost i May. For that I apologise. It's just that school is comming to it's end, which means EXAMS. All in all it's been a relaxing month, but seen as I am so-called Skippertak student, I tend to put all out until the last minute. I actually spent our national holiday, 17th of May, writing My Leader Philosophy. Guess what; I haven't got one. Any way, so yeah I procrastinate a lot. This being the last day in May I felt I had to provide a post.
And I'll dedicate it to the comic genius that is Ellen DeGeneres and her thoughts on procrastionation from her show "Here and Now". Watch it! Seriously, watch it. Fun fun fun 

Norwegian ladies to listen to.

I love music, I love ladies and I feel it's my duty to turn your attention to some of the finer things in life and in Norwegain music. So here are some young, Norwegian, talented femal aritsts. Enjoy, an please comment if you find anything you like.


Among my absolute favorites is Ingrid Olava. She's talented, beautiful and an real entertainer. I love watching her live! Here's "Treasure and pain"



I've loved Maria Solheim since I first heard her song "Lady of my life". (Subtext people, subtext)Unfortunately I can't find a the original musicvideo for that song, so I'll give you another goodie of Maria: "Too many days"



My third pick was the runner up in Idol in 2004, Margaret Berger. She's an electropop singer and songwriter. Not normally my cut of tea, but I'll leave my path at times. Here's "Will you remeber me"



And last but not least in this round of Norwegian femal artist is one of my favorites. She, like the others are quite young and talented. In the beginning I didn't care much for her, but then I dreamt about her, and now I love her. -Don't worry, my girlfriend approves. She's from a family of musicians. Here's Elvira Nikolaisen with "Love I can't defend"



I hope you enjoyed this one. I'll try to make another list with some of the older ones.

What's in a word?

I’ve been thinking about the Norwegian language for some time now. And especially the use of words like homosexual and homophile (in Norwegian homoseksuell and homofil). I’ve been searching around this great thing called the Internet and can’t wrap my head around one major difference between the Norwegian language and other close related languages like Swedish and Danish. It seems Norwegian is one of the few languages which mainly uses the word homophile when referring to lesbians and gays. I seldom hear homoseksuell used in everyday Norwegian when referring to a lesbian or gay person.

A quick google advanced search shows there is a difference between English and Norwegian.
English results: Homophile occurs on 57300 pages. Homosexual gives about 13 300 000 hits. In other words a huge difference!
In Norwegian however homofil gives approx 644 000 hits while homoseksuell gives 487 000 hits. Homofil gives 157 000 more hits than homoseksuell.

So why is that? The numbers of hits are not really that interesting. What I find peculiar is why Norwegians use the more “romantic” version of referring to a persons sexual orientation, were English speakers and even our Scandinavian relatives mainly use the “sexual focused” homosexual?

Most of you probably know the definition of homophile and homosexual, but I’ll write it anyway. The term homophile is favored by some because it emphasizes love rather than sex. So in other words homosexual triggers the "sex thing" in many people’s minds.
Though I’m not sure if homophile really is “more romantic”. I have a feeling homophobes would gore in all possible wordplay with a too well-known and similar word for child molesters. This, however, doesn’t seem to be a problem in the Norwegian language, even though the words are very similar in both languages.

But anyway why do you think that is. Does your language use homophile or homosexual, and which one do you prefer?

One week off. What to do?

If you ever come to Norway you’ll discover we’re a religious people. And with religious I mean we have plenty of days off from work due to public Christian holidays. This does not mean we go to church. Norwegians go to their cabins in the mountain or by the sea. A proper Norwegian pack his or hers car full of food and evacuated the city. It’s also crucial to bring skis and clothes to stay outside as much as possible. If possible we even prepare our food outside. Therefore hot dogs are very popular. Gilde, our biggest hot dog producer, change the name of their hot dogs from “Barbeque Hot Dog” to “Easter Hot Dog” during this period. 

Easter vacation is big business. If you want a product to sell just make it a season product. In Norway we are obsessed with beer made for the specific season. We’ve got; Christmas (jule) beer, Winter beer, Spring beer, Easter beer, Summer beer, Autumn beer, and Polar Night (mørketid) beer. All in all special beer for every season!

The Danish Carlsberg sisters enjoying the sunset.

Hm, this was supposed to be about Easter. Darn. Well, here are some pictures of what I’ll be doing.

Skis for everyone

Proof of me skiing

In the boat-house

Yatzy, Tuborg and sunbathing

 Happy *gay* Easter.

Because you deserve it.

So, there's this chick from Norway. She's a great singer and songwriter. She has great hair (we're currently rocking the same do) and bonus; she's gay. What's not to like?


Here's a Robyn cover Call Your Girlfriend




And her very own Trend




Last but not least; The Size of the Dog

So, what's up?

Time flies when you’re having fun. So as the commuting lesbian I am, there’s not much fun going on.

My TV has 15 channels and none of the show any the good TV-series airing at the moment. No Pretty Little Liars, Glee or Lip Service!


Poor me! What am I to do? There are only so many shows with serial killers one can watch and I think I’ve maxed out my quota with Criminal Minds, Dexter, and CSI. Besides these shows have too few lesbians. And if they are there you can be sure it’s either a killer lesbian or a dead lesbian. I guess it is Gods way of punishing us and it’s very creative…

But thanks to the all mighty internet I can watch PLL online. Thank you [insert religious figure here] (I’m an atheist, so I don’t care) for bringing well written lesbian storylines to a computer near me. Storylines that enables me to feel Emily’s heartache, and Paige’s doubt and fear. I feel like I’ve been there and I can recognize my own youth in their storyline.

And it’s good. Cause not everybody is blessed with a understanding and accepting family. And maybe even if your family is accepting it can be hard to come out anyway. You never know. Your best friend can turn on you, your grandmother might disown you and you know you’ll never be able to go back. Because once it’s said it will always be there.

But Paige’s “if I say it out loud… If I say I am gay, the whole world is gonna change” is one of the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen. I struck me right in the stone that is my heart (kidding, I cry all the time, even of commercials). And it’s wonderful, because we need real and heartfelt stories from time to time.

Lesbians are people too!

The Les/Bi list

AfterEllen.com, my favorite webpage is currently doing a poll to select the 10 most popular les/bi-an women. The Les/Bi list

Here are the rules:

Cast your votes now for up to 10 of your favorite out women. They can come from any field (entertainment, music, politics, literature, etc.) but...

1. They must be publicly openly lesbian or bisexual.

2. They must be female (Our brothers over at AfterElton.com are doing a separate companion poll identifying the top 50 out men.)

3. They must be contemporary, living public figures. (So, cool as they are, no Gertrude Stein or Barbara Gittings, etc.)

So here’s my selection:

1. Kim Friele (Norwegian gay-right activist)
2. Ellen DeGeneres (No introduction needed)
3. Margrethe Cammermeyer (Former Colonel in the National Guard and gay-rights activist. Glenn Close played her in the movie Serving in Silence. Read the book and watch the movie.)
4. Portia DeGeneres (Do I really need to spell this one out for you?)
5. Gro Hammerseng (Norwegian handball player and captain of the national team)
6. Billie Jean King (Tennis player and the first prominent professional female athlete to come out as a lesbian)
7. Sarah Waters (British author. Lovely books, and the BBC makes great moveis of them as well)
8. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (Prime-minister of Island and first openly head of government)
9. Rachel Maddow (American radio personality, television host, and political commentator) Aka the coolest woman alive!
10. Sarah Warn ((Just in case you’ve been living under a rock and just discovered this blog by accident) writer and the former editor of entertainment website AfterEllen.com)

So that's my list. It's not only packed with huge stars and people from glossy magazines. I included some of the more experienced girls like Friele, Cammermeyer and King. These are our predecessors and the ones that got us where we are today. All three had tremendous battle with their system at the time. That being politics, armed forces or sports.

Fjellet / The Mountain

Something is happening in Norwegian film. Hurray Hurray!
There's a new sheriff in town and he almost spent all his money making this movie.


Here's a sneak peek at Ole Giæver's Fjellet (The Mountain)



With: Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Marte Magnusdotter Solem


Here's a little google translation of the plot from filmweb.no.
Nora and Solveig are back in the mountains where they had a traumatic experience two years ago. Instead of sharing and being present in the pain along with Solveig, Nora has shut herself up and is keeping Solveig at a distance. Solveig has therefore taken the initiative for this trip, so they can get to the bottom of what happened so they can face the future together.


The mountain is a film about grief and reconciliation, which we eventually get up close to the two women and reveal deep wounds, shame and despair. There is also a movie about hope and how far people are willing to go for each other. About the games to meet together and what you have to fight alone.


What’s said:
0:26 I feel like it don’t know you anymore
0:34 What is it you want us to do here?
0:40 We probably both had panic, but managed to stay totally calm and just ... sing for him in harmony.
0:59 If you don’t come up on that mountain with me, we can’t be together anymore
1:17 You shall not be alone
1:25 Can I ask you a question
1:31 Do you remember Vetle, our son?

After I wrote this post a new clip was posted on youtube. Here's THE MOUNTAIN with it's acctual subtitles!

I'm looking forward to it!