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!