New Year, New Adventures

Hello, and happy new year!

On December 21st Dolly and I left for Santiago de Chile, to attend Catherine and Diego's wedding. We left the apartment in the morning at 6 AM and flew to Oslo then to Frankfurt for our connection flight to Sao Paolo, Brazil. As we were ready to enter the runway in Frankfurt, it suddenly started snowing heavily and literally 5 minutes before our scheduled take-off the airport closed down. It was about 8 PM and now we were told to wait in the plane for updates on the weather conditions. Dinner was served, and hours passed as we sat in the plane watching movies and playing chess. Finally at 2 AM the storm had passed and the runway had been cleared, and we took off for the 12 1/2 hour flight to Sao Paolo. Seeing the positives, a total of 18 1/2 hours in that plane has done service to our patience and increased our tolerance for long flights!

We missed our flight from Sao Paolo to Santiago de Chile, and had to spend the night at a hotel in Sao Paolo. At least we got a bonus visit to Brazil, though most we saw was the hotel, a great many shacks and Super WalMart. Buying a bottle of water took us about 40 minutes waiting in line, and combined with other experiences we began to sense that services and systems could need some improvement in Brazil. After 60 hours on the road we arrived in Santiago de Chile on the 23rd of December around 2 PM. Our first trip to South America, and our first Christmas in a tropical climate. Videos of the magnificent adventures to come!

Back in Norway on the 12th of January, and I had no particular plans for my upcoming 30th birthday the 15th. When I came home from work that friday around 6 PM, Dolly told me to sit down in the Stressless and wait for the three course dinner specially requested by me - onion soup, entrecote with mushroom sauce and caramel pudding. She served me champaign and I suddenly heard a faint miao, an unmistakable utterance of our cat Josefine, who spent Christmas in Volda with my parents. As I asked myself how she could be here and not still in Volda, and as I turned around to see if it was really her, I was suddenly met with a jubilant, whiste-blowing parade comprising my parents and grandfather with birthday hats. A great surprise and it made the ensuing weekend more than worthy a 30th birthday celebration! We had a great party with friends in our apartment Saturday night.

My New Year's resolution was to start writing a diary, so I can remember more from every day. Dolly gave me a small red diary for my birthday and so far I've been writing regularly, and enjoying it very much. There will be plenty of adventures to write about this year, such as a trip to Japan in the end of March, to Egypt in June and Stockholm in July. And then there will be all the unforeseen events that make up the essence of everyday life. Those I will resolutely treasure in my diary.

Simon