Skiing over a frozen lake

Today I wanted to do some cross country ski, so I woke up and send some sms to some friends and waited to see if there was somebody interested in joining. Last time I tried cross country ski was a week and a half ago and it was all ice so it was not very fun. Since it has snowed a little in Sognsvann I decided that I should give it a try.
I only got one companion and we headed to Sognsvann with our skis. Once we got there we found out the situation was not the best and that there was still a lot of ice and very little snow. We checked two trails and we decided that it was not worth it. So we left our skis and went for a hike instead. While hiking we saw lot of people skating on the lake and one or two skiing on the lake so when we were back at the beginning I told my friend that we should give it a try.
We walked to the lake, wore our skis and voila! It was amazing, it was very nice since it was all flat and I could concentrate in trying to get my rhythm right. We crossed the lake and came back. I realized that I almost got the right rhythm, although I fell a couple of times (whenever there was too many people skating they removed the little snow and left pure ice, so those regions were very slippery).
I look forward to do it again, although I would like to have some snow next time ;-)

Me, myself and I

I know I'm stubborn and I know I can be a PITA sometimes. I also know that I hate to make mistakes, and I get very angry with myself when I make mistakes. The problem is many times I don't realize the consequence of getting angry with myself and let that anger damage other people. Worst of all, I realize afterwards and it is kinda difficult for me to fix things up. To top it all, in the past two weeks I didn't do it only once but twice, to two different persons and in two completely different circumstances. Let's hope that next year I'll find a way to fix things up, otherwise it's going to be a very interesting year.

Maxbo sucks!

Two days ago I bought a small hose to connect my washing machine to the water supply. It seemed like a pretty easy thing to do, and something you will expect to find in a store the size of Maxbo. I went there after my work, and I asked for help. They told me they didn't have one, but that I could try the hoses for showers and bring it back if the size was wrong. It seemed like a good solution for me so I did that. When I arrived home I realized that the shower hoses are different since they have one side that is smaller than the other, besides they are not made to handle the pressure that a washing machine hose can. So, I packed it the best I could and today I went back to Maxbo to ask for my money back. Notice that I bought it on thursday, unpacked it and try to connect it to the hose I didn't do anything to the hose. The person handling returns told me that he couldn't accept the hose back because I had opened the bag.... I told him that I was told to do that and try to see if it was the right size and if not I should bring it back. He refused again and said that if I wanted to do that I shouldn't have cut the small ties they use to pack them (notice that those small laces are plastic, incredibly tight and besides they are cheap and they have them everywhere they need to pack hoses or cables). I told the guy how I was supposed to try the hose if I was not supposed to remove those laces. He refused again and told me that he didn't have the authority to refund me (hello, you are handling the returns section of the store...) so I needed to come back on Monday when his boss was around. Of course I asked at what time his boss was there and I'll go on monday to get my money back.
Of course, after all this Maxbo just lost a customer.

House warming party

Yesterday I finally had a proper house warming party at my apartment. We were around 20 to 25 persons and we had a great time.
I cooked four different main dishes: pancakes with ricotta, spinach and some spices, pancakes with an aromatic butter sauce and meatballs and chicken rolls with some stuffing. I'm thinking about posting those recipes on my other blog, but I'm too lazy to do it now.

La Bamba

Together with some colleagues, we have a small band and we play music from time to time. For instance we played for the company' Christmas party and everybody liked it. After our success there we decided to look for another venues where to play and since there is at least one bar in Oslo where there are Jam sessions, last tuesday we decided to go on a scouting mission.
Overall, it is very good. The music is ok and the people is very nice.
While there and listening to the music we decided to ask the bartender about how to do it in order to play music. He pointed to the drummer and said that we needed to talk to him. Since he was playing we waited for the break to talk to him. When the break came, we went and talk to him. Basically the requirements are pretty easy, come here and talk to me. They have instruments and you can bring your own if you want. For bands the only problem is to get there early to have everything set up in advance. The funny thing was that while talking to him, he asked if we wanted to sing something and he convinced me to sing "La Bamba". It was a very nice experience and despite me not being the best singer in the world I enjoyed it very much. So next week we plan to go there again and this time, we'll play a few songs. Stay tunned for more info!

Jetlag and etc

I came back from the US yesterday. I spent a week there for work purposes, although I also visited some friends. Overall it was a very good experience and I'm very glad of having been there.
Yesterday was also the day when I had to receive the keys to my apartment, so now I can say that I'm a happy owner :-) (technically the bank owns the apartment....)
I've been thinking a lot about what buying an apartment means, i.e. besides the financial terms. And if you add to that the fact that yesterday when I came back from the US I felt home once I landed in Oslo, it means that I really like it here. As one of my friends said in the US, it seems that I've been enchanted by Norway because I talked a lot about Norway when I was in the US. I have to think about this, for now "Ha det bra!"

And life goes on....

Today I took a very important step, I bought an apartment. I made an offer last week, and everything was settled from before so today was basically just signing the contract. Officially I'll receive the keys on November the 3rd.
I have thought a lot about what it means for me to buy an apartment, basically means that I really like it here and that I want to stay. It means that I see myself here in years to come, and that I believe I can have a life here. It is a weird feeling, I've been jumping around so many times that settling down it's a total unknown for me. Now I just need to wait until November the 3rd to see how life goes on.

Tampere

I'm in Finland, in the beautiful city of Tampere. I'm here for work purposes and most of my days here have been in meetings so I haven't had the opportunity of touring it around. On the geeky side, Tampere's airport code is 'tmp' so this is the only official "temporal airport" that I know of (if you don't get it you're not geek enough).
The weather around here is very cold and it seems that winter is already "ad portas" in Scandinavia. The very good thing around here is the fact that finns love saunas and there are saunas everywhere, it is some sort of "basic right" for every finn.
Today I'm going to have my first "tour of the city" since I'm going to meet my friend Philippe who just arrived from vacations in Belgium.

Snorkeling and reality

Today I went with some friends to Gressholmen, one of the islands right outside Oslo. It was a very nice day and I had the chance to do some snorkeling. I'm surprised that the ocean floor around the island here is very beatiful, I wasn't expecting much and I got this very beatiful scenery with starfishes, crabs and other sort of fishes. I look forward to go back again and do some more snorkeling, although next time I'll get myself a wet suite since the water was a little bit cold and I couldn't stay too long there.
When I returned home I received an email from my friend Catalina. She's a very dear friend of mine who lives in Chile and she always has a way to explain things to me so I understand them. Her email was very direct, as most of her emails are, but it was so illuminating. I asked her opinion about some things and she's right on target, I wish I could just listen to her and follow her advice but knowing me as good as I know myself.....

You have to love your mom

I'm sure that any men can tell more than one story where the main character is his mom. I know I am, and I know that for most men remembering those moments where your mom stopped you from saying hello to that special hot girl because something was wrong with the way you shirt was or those times when you were forced to say hello to somebody you didn't want to and you were forced to let some lady to grab your cheeks and tell you something like: "He looks the same as his father" it is one of those memories you don't know if you should laugh or cry.
I already have plenty of such stories, however my mom (as every other mom), never stops surprising me. I just received an email from one of her friend asking me to help her to switch to Linux. Yes, my mom has been using Linux for the past 7 years or so and she has always been happy with it. She writes emails, she writes presentations using Open Office and she even chats with her friends using Kopete and the MSN plugin. And it has been so successful her experience that now one of her friends wants to switch to Linux. I have two problems with this:
1. I read the "Pringao howto" (search for it). Even if I hadn't I've helped many people to switch to Linux and it is a pretty time consuming task since all the time you get people asking you to do something they were doing with that little shareware program only available for Windows they found somewhere.
2. I live at the other end of the planet so there is not much I can do in case of disaster.
For now I'll just send some questions to that person and ask her about her plans about that computer to try to find out if my helping her switching to Linux it's a good idea or not.

Music

I thought that after Mike Patton's "Mr Bungle" there was not much to invent in music, but of course I was wrong. Today with some friends we went to a small pub located in Grunerloekka in Oslo called "Sound of mu" and there were two bands playing. The first one was called "Red April" and was a mixture between Bjork, Roger Waters and Alanis Morrisette. They were good but nothing out the norm. However the second "band" (it is actually a one man show), it was incredibly. It's called "Captain Credible" and it was the weirdest mix of music, electronic gadgets and strange lyrics ever... Honestly it totally blew me off, I have no words to describe it you have too see it yourself. In case you want to know more just follow this link.

Back at.... home?

And the time came, and I returner back to Norway. Or should I say home? I feel a strange feeling when I realize that Norway is becoming my home, so far I tried to think always as Chile being home and any other destination being a temporary stop, but now I feel that Norway is home and that I only went to Chile as vacations... It is difficult to explain it and since I've already lived in two other countries I should be used to consider home another country and not the country where I was born.... Could it be that Norway is getting into my veins? Time will tell.... BTW, I still haven't recovered from jet lag and I still wake up around 4 o'clock in the mornings, hopefully that will disappear this week.
Yesterday I went fishing for the first time since I came to Norway. I didn't catch anything but it was a wonderful day, I'm amazed of the beauty of nature just a few kilometers outside Oslo. It is even simpler than that, I just took a bus with a friend and we had to walk three kilometers from the bus stop, it doesn't get easier than that.... Probably next weekend I'll go camping to that lake, since it was really beautiful. Let's see if I get luckier this time and I catch something ;-)

Chile

This is my fourth day in Chile. I'm here on vacations and I've enjoyed every moment. The first day I ate fish and shellfish, and I ate so much that my dad asked me if I was in prison and I was recently released or if I was eating normally in Norway. I explained to him that in Norway you don't eat that much, there is no real variety in foods and that we chileans do not know how lucky we are of having all this food available, in this quantities and so tasty .... :-) This is truly the land of plenty.
Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised with my country, it has been more than two years and my country has advanced quite a lot, however there are still some things to be improved. It really looks like a developed country up to the point when you have to cross to one of the "shanty towns". There are not many of those and you can tell that the goverment is making great efforts for improving the life of that people. If you look around, you see mainly new cars, everybody looks well fed and wearing nice clothes, there are only a few that are not having a good life. I hope this goverment and the next one can finally make that final jump and eradicate this last signs of poverty and suffering.

Sometimes

The brain is a funny thing, it goes around looking for explanations until it finds a way to explain what it does not understand. This can be verified by reading a text with some orthographic errors and some misspellings, the brain will match each misspelling with something that makes sense to each particular phrase. This can be really helpful if everything goes well and the matches are correct, but if the matches are wrong then the thing gets way more interesting. Why all this? Well, because our brains also do the same thing regarding our feelings, since those cannot be understood it tries to match them to something it can handle and logical explanations appear where they do not belong.
Because there are situations when we are confronted with things we do not expect, or we do not know how to handle, this explaining mechanism in our brains triggers and starts finding explanations for things that should not be explained. Sometimes we have the answer right in front of us but we deny it and let our brain elaborate very complicated theories about things happenning around us. My brain has been trying to explain an event that happened to me yesterday evening in a bar, for which the answer is very simple yet my brain has refused to accept and in the meanwhile it has come with the most incredible answers. The good thing is that it is finally accepting the answer, so probably next week it will stop spinning and move forward.

Bar stories

Tonight I had a really nice evening, and part of it was spent in a very nice bar. While being there I remembered a song from a singer named Ricardo Arjona, the song title is "Historias de bar" which in english is "Bar stories" and it made me realize that bars are probably one of the most complicated environments that you can find.
To start with, you don't know what's happening on the table next to you, maybe there is a love declaration, maybe somebody is breaking with somebody or even there could be a huge deal going on. It is such a public yet private space, anything could happen and you probably won't even notice it!
I wonder what happened around me, was there a break up? was there an engagement? did somebody close a deal? I only what happened on my table, and maybe that's all I need to know... why do I want to know what happened around me? how useful is that information to me?
Well, maybe it's just because I'm about to go back to my country for three weeks... maybe I just want to sit down and relax, maybe it is too late in the evening to write this post.... Maybe I should go to sleep.

Living on my own

Today I was listening to some Queen music and I happened to listen to that song. Despite being very simple, it is a very deep song. After that I listened to "Don't stop me now" and again, another very simple song with a lot of content. How can anybody write songs like those?
Well, the reason why I'm listening to music and paying attention to it is because I decided that it was time to start playing guitar again, so last saturday I went to a recommended music store and I bought myself a new electric guitar. Since I haven't played guitar in almost 13 years, my fingers are literally bleeding, but I'm having the time of my life. I'm a little bit rusty, but what the heck, it has been a long time since I played electric guitar.

It's done

And the day came and went. Last Tuesday I had surgery on my knee and everything went ok. Incredibly enough, I'm feeling very well. Except for some dizziness because of the pain killers but besides that my knee seems to be doing pretty well and I have recovered a great deal of movement on it. I had a doctor appointment on Wednesday so I had to go out of my apartment, it wasn't as hard as I expected although I felt a little bit dizzy. So far, so good. Let's see how this keeps evolving.

Execution date

And the time came, I'll have the surgery on my knee next tuesday. Which means I need to prepare everything since after surgery I'll be walking with crutches for some time. It is going to be interesting to get out of my apartment since I live in a third floor without elevator.
Anyways, the best thing is that I'll probably be ready for the ski season so I'm looking forward to that.

Not again

I'm not sure if this comes from heaven to even out my body or what, but I just received the results from the MRI to my right knee and the verdict is very bad: "You have a total ruptur of your front ligament in your knee", which means I'm out of sports for a long while. As promised, after recovery I will not play football outside south america again.

"Whole" night parties

I like to have fun, sometimes it might as simple as having a glass of wine and a nice conversation or sometimes going out for parties. I also enjoy waiting for the sunrise before going back home, it is so nice to walk with the fresh air in the morning.
I must admit that when I say "waiting for the sunrise", I mean a normal sunrise... something that happens somewhere between 05:00-06:30 in the morning. Last saturday I was in a very good party and I decided to go home around 2:30 in the morning and it was already clear. This norwegian nights confuse me, the party started outside around 16:00 with a bbq, and we went inside around 22:00 after the sunset, and by 2:30 it was day again.... who stole my night? I think it's going to take some time for me to get use to the idea of the "midnight sun".

Dancing weekend

Despite the fact that last monday I was injured while playing football (if this is again a torn ligament I swear I won't play football outside south america ever again, the rest of the world does not know how to play football) I went to a cabin trip where the main topic was dancing and dancing.
Everything started yesterday at 11:33 at Majorstuen T-B stasjon where we met with the rest and took the subway to begin our hike to the cabin. It was a very interesting three hour hike to a place called "studenthytta", somewhere in the middle of Nordmarka, outside Oslo.
Once there, we had lunch and then rest for a while. We started sometime around 17:00 dancing salsa in a "rueda", we did this for about 1 and a half hours and it was very fun. After that we stop for a while and had something to eat. After some time we started dancing again. This time we had rock and roll, salsa and bachata. We danced almost all night, I went to bed around 2:00 am since while dancing salsa I hurt my right knee again (yes, it is not smart to dance salsa with a hurt knee but if this is torn ligament I won't be able to do it for a long while so I better enjoy it now).
Today we woke up, had breakfast and then we started the cleaning. Around 12:00 we were ready to go, and started the 45 minutes walk (yes, we took a different route this time) to catch the bus. All in all it was a surreal experience, dancing in the middle of nowhere with nothing but trees around it is really wonderful. I'm looking forward for the next trip!

The islands

Last sunday I went with my friend Thomas to the islands near Oslo. It is a nice trip, and the most amazing thing is that you can use the same ticket that you use for buses since the ferry is still part of the same transport system.
Don't imagine islands like caribbean islands, this is Oslo after all. These islands are small, cold and with a vegetation that is very different from palm trees and coconuts. But overall, they are very nice and very relaxing. I spotted a few places where snorkeling could be an option, so I need to get snorkeling equipment (I already checked and it costs around 2000NOK to have a decent equipment) and wait for the temperature to become a little warmer and then I'll go snorkeling and see what's out there.
The only problem in the islands is that it was forbidden to start fire except in two specific spots, so barbeques are out of the question. I hope I can go tomorrow again, if it's raining they may be very interesting.

Running in the mornings

I decided that the best I could do was to start running in the mornings, so I started running near 7am following the river trail. It is awesome, the air is really fresh and to my surprise is full of people running, doing exercises, walking dogs or simply walking. It is kinda weird, since it is still cold (for my taste), but the days are getting very bright and the sun is coming, slowly but surely. This experience reminded of what a norwegian colleague told me once: "norwegians are sun worshipers", which when said was weird since sun seems a very scarce resource around here, but now that we have a little more, people seems to be going out and doing lots of activities outdoors. And norwegians seem to even become more social and sometimes they even smile....
Anyway, coming back to the runs, I decided to start my days like that. Running, taking a shower and having breakfast. Totally perfect for me.... except that I have to do it slowly. Last week I overdid it and my body resented it, so I had to stop running for a few days. I plan to restart next week.

Hey! Running in the rain!

They say there is nothing better for your body and mind that exercise and fresh air, so despite the fact that yesterday (technically today) I came home at 05:00 after a birthday party, I decided to go running.
It was amazing, I ran on the river trail which is very beautiful and it is a moderate level of difficulty. I went from my apartment all the way to the big waterfall near Grunerløkka. That took me about 15 minutes and it was just to warm up. After I decided to sprint the little hill next to the waterfall for a few laps... it was amazing, it was raining very heavily and it was very hard because the little hill is very steep, plus the added rain making it very slippery but it was totally worth it. It was a little painful, specially the last sprint but quoting a colleague from work: "pain is just weakness leaving the body"... I decided that I will try to recover the physical shape I had when I was 17/18 years old when I was able to swim 4,000 meters and play waterpolo for 2 to 3 hours every day. I'm not sure if that is a realistic goal, but it is for sure worth of trying it. I already found where to go swimming, I haven't registered yet but I think it is time to do it.
Well, to finish the running story the way back to my apartment was a little hard since it is completely up the hill, but I made it all the way without stopping so, little by little I'm regaining my shape.

Desilusiones, Heridas

Decidí escribir este post en español porque no quiero arriesgarme a escribir algo en inglés que puede no representar lo que siento.
Objetivamente, aqui estoy teniendo una vida bastante buena. No tengo mayores problemas en ningún plano excepto en el lado personal. Al principio no lo noté, pero ahora estoy notándolo cada vez más: los noruegos me hieren bastante fácilmente. Lo que es peor, no lo hacen intencionalmente es simplemente su manera de ser. Cuando creo que por fin puedo confiar en alguien, me encuentro con la sorpresa que esa persona ha estado ocultándome gran parte de sí. Digo que no es intencional porque los noruegos son bastante reservados y nunca dicen nada, pero cuando conoces a alguien y desarrollas una relación de "amistad", al menos yo espero que esa persona confíe en mí y me diga que es lo que pasa, no espero descubrir de sorpresa que lo que me habían contado no tiene relación con la realidad.
No sé si voy a ser capaz de soportar este tipo de cosas mucho tiempo más, ni tampoco sé si me voy a acostumbrar a ellas, pero de seguir asi me voy a tener que buscar algún otro país, porque de lo contrario voy a terminar volviéndome loco.

Thinking about software patents and stupid things like that

Despite the fact that I love open source and that I love the idea of sharing knowledge, I worked 18 months for Microsoft in Redmond. I cannot say that I had a terribly bad time, I enjoyed working there and I enjoyed living in the small town of Issaquah.

However when I left (actually when I accepted the job offer), one of the points in my contract was to never divulgate or talk about what I learned about Microsoft technology. That means that after leaving Microsoft I cannot tell anybody what I know about how they do things on their products.

At some point that seemed kinda ok, after all I accepted the terms. However last weekend, it happened to me that I found a way to improve one part of a product very drastically. The irony is that I cannot tell anybody, nor can I tell to Microsoft people..... so that made me wonder, what the hell is wrong here?

I've been all these days trying to find an answer for that, but the only one that comes to mind is that preventing people from sharing knowledge in any way is the MOST STUPID idea ever!

I mean, our civilization came to this point precisely because people shared knowledge. Can you imagine somebody like Newton being requested not to express his ideas? (DISCLAIMER: I'm not comparing myself with Newton in any way, it's just to show the point). Or imagine Descartes being forced to shut up, or Voltaire, Pascal, Einstein..... it simply does not make sense.....

So to summarize, patents are very stupid specially if the patent system is broken and you give patents to everybody. Or if you are allowed to patent something, throw it into the basement and come up some years later complaining that people has "stolen" your precious intellectual property.... (if it was so precious, why the hell you didn't use it before?). Or even worst, if the system allows you to shut up people and generates ironies like not being able to tell anybody about your ideas not even the ones that showed you the idea in the first place.....
Please legislators of this lonely blue planet, don't listen to the "intellectual property" lies that you hear, just ask yourselves the same question that I've been asking me these past days: "How can I accept a system where I cannot tell what I think not even to the same person that told me the idea in the first place?"

Skiing in the alps

Last week I went to France for a few days since Eastern in Norway is a big holliday. Despite some problems with my return flight (read previous post), it was an amazing experience.
I went to a little village called "Le Freney d'Oisans", very near to two main ski stations: "Les deux alpes" and "Alpe d'huez". I stayed at a hotel called "Le Cassini", and that by itself was a wonderful experience. I've traveled a lot and I was totally surprised by this hotel. It is simply excellent. It is a little hotel (not more than 20 rooms I think), it is very comfortable and the food is simply superb. I look forward to the next skiing season since I'm going back.
Now coming to the point of skiing: I simply have no words. It was amazingly incredible. I skied on "Les deux alpes" both days, and I had very different conditions. On Thursday, the sun was shining and the snow was perfect. I went to the glaciar (3200m), and I skied all the way down. I skied for about 8 hours and it was simply perfect. When going down, the "easy" way was closed because there was not enough snow, so I had to take a black slope called "The Valentin". It was very hard, very steep and above all incredible large. However, I managed to survive it.
On Friday, it was a totally different situation. There was a "small" snow storm, and everything that had little snow was now totally covered. Very good since many other slopes were ready to be used, but not so good since the wind was strong and the visibility was very bad. However I decided to go ahead and I went again all the way to the glaciar. It was a totally different place, the wind was blowing and the visibility was very reduced. I had to buy new lenses in the shop at the restaurant near the glaciar since mine were not up to the task. After a nice hot chocolate I decided to go down and I found out (not surprisingly) that most slopes were closed for safety reasons, however there was one slope open so me and some other people there went down that way. It was an amazing experience, going down the mountain with the snow falling, very limited visibility and a strong wind was simply superb. I mean, it was really tiring and it took almost two hours to get to where we were going, but it was totally worth it. After that, I ate a pizza at the restaurant and then continued my way down to the town. Luckily when I got to the last slope, the easy slope was open because I was too tired to even think about taking the black slope again.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience and I look forward to do it again. But next time I'll stay for at least a week there.

Mental Note: Don't ever fly on KLM again!

I have flown on KLM two or three times, and in Air France two or three times also. Before and after AF adquired KLM. However flying with KLM has never been a pleasant experience and today they just confirmed it.
I flew to France for a short break last tuesday on Air France and I returned today on KLM. To start with the problems they charge me for my skies! When I went to France on Air France I was able to carry my skies for no extra cost. But when returning the lady at the check in told me that in KLM I'm only allowed to carry 20kgs in total, since my skies weight about 7.5kgs + ski boots 3kgs + clothing I was clearly over the limit. Notice that KLM and Air France are theorically the same company, so why the hell rules are different? Since I didn't have a choice I paid (60 euros!), and I expected to be the last of my problems. I should have expected more troubles since they only give me a ticket to Amsterdam and they told me to check in again in Amsterdam (my route was Paris-Amsterdam-Oslo), but since I'm optimistic I didn't think about that.
When in Amsterdam I was directed to the transfer center where a lady explained to me that my flight was oversold by 15 persons, so they would try to find me a place.... way to go, they could have just given me a inflatable boat and told me to sail my way back to Norway....
I arrived at the gate, and the lady there found me a spot, so I thought the worst is over, what could go wrong now?............ Of course, lots of things....
Before departure, a lady came and ask me how many pieces of luggage I had check-in and I told her two. She asked me for the numbers since they were about to unload one package because they didn't know who was the owner (Dear Airline managers, you ask all these questions when you book, then you ask them again when you check-in, and in my case they asked me again when I paid for something that it was supposed to be free, so HOW THE HELL YOU DON'T KNOW WHO WAS THE OWNER!?).... I checked my luggage numbers and what do you know? They were about to unload my skies.... At that time I was really beginning to wonder about the possibility of sailing my way back...
Finally we got to Oslo, and I was just starting to feel better when...... they lost half of the plane's luggage..... don't ask me how, don't ask me why... one would think that finding luggage in a small plane like the 737 is not a big problem, specially since there were no connections between Amsterdam and Oslo but they managed to do it.... So, me and half of the plane were waiting and asking questions at the luggage service and they gave us some forms to fill-in. Boy, I was pissed off at that time, and I just wanted to go home and forget about all of this. Luckily I started filling the form and waited for about 40 minutes because somehow they found the other half of the luggage.
So in short, remembering my previous experiences with KLM and topping everything with today I decided that I will avoid flying on KLM as much as I can, and if I was you I would do it too.
Weird side note, how the hell Air France and KLM are so freaking different? I mean, everytime I 've flown on Air France I have had a very pleasant experience but everytime I go on KLM problems start. Dear Air France Big Kahuna, could you tell your KLM colleague/underling/whatever to improve their service? Since now you own KLM I guess you have some kind of power to change things. A very humble request.

Cabin trip

This weekend I went in our company's annual "Cabin Trip". It was perfect, we went to a nice location outside Oslo (about 2 hours) and we stayed there friday afternoon, saturday and half sunday. It was perfect!
I had so much fun, I skied saturday from 9:30 to 16:40+ (actually they stopped the ski-lift with me and one colleague still on it), and sunday I started at around 10:00 and finished at 13:30. I'm really tired, but it was totally worth it.
Of course we have two parties at night (and the corresponding after parties!) but for me the best was skiing and enjoying the fresh air on the mountains.
I look forward for the next trip, and I hope that I can make the same thing in France for eastern, since I'm going there and I haven't decided what to do. I know that I want to spend a couple of days in the alps and a couple of days in Paris. My plane goes to Paris, and then I plan to take a train to east/southern France to go to the Alps. To be totally honest I never thought that skiing was so much fun.

I owe you an apologie Belgium

Our last encounter was weird, neither you neither I were focused and we didn't try to make it work. It's true, we had fun and it wasn't a painful experience but I decided that I had to turn around and I did it.
I'm sorry that I left you at that time, I'm sorry that I didn't realize how beautiful you are and how entertaining you can be. I'm sorry.
On these last four days I came back to you, and this time I had no expectations. I wasn't trying to achieve anything or to prove that I took the right decision when I left you. No, it was simply because I wanted to relax and take life as it came.
And you received me with open arms, and didn't even mention our last encounter. I was so surprised, I couldn't believe it. It's true, it wasn't perfect... but, will it ever be?
I have only one thing to say to you, I'm sorry.

Reaching out/Giving up

I wouldn't say that I'm a terribly social person, in fact I can be classified as a kinda "shy" person. Despite that, outside my country I'm always classified as a social person. Here in Norway the same thing happened, for some reason I'm again classified as a social person, not only that but I'm classified as a very social person.
However everything has its limitations. I can say that I've been trying to reach out people, but so far I could say that I have reach two and I've half reached three more. Which is not bad if you consider what I said in the previous paragraph, but anyways the problem is that people here sometimes simply ignore me. I would prefer somebody telling me "Please stay away from me" than simply ignoring me. Or to say it correctly, politely smiling and avoiding me.
Is it so difficult to be honest and say: "stay away from me"? or is it that difficult to be nice to somebody? The thing that gets me the most is the fact that if I reach people they are very nice to me, but the moment I stop reaching they do not react. Maybe is Scandinavia, maybe it's me but definitively I do not get it. I mean, wouldn't be easier to just be the same all the time? if you are not interested in me trying to establish contact, please say it so. If you are, please try to show some interest, because it is hard to understand what is going on.
But as somebody already told me about Scandinavia: "it is difficult to distinguish between a rock and a person", I didn't believe it at first, but I'm starting to believe it now. Please people from Scandinavia, be a little more "emotional" and try to express your anger, happiness, interest or lack of interest because for somebody like me that is used to be able to understand people based on reactions... I still cannot differentiate people from rocks!

Life

This week has been (so far) one of those weeks that you cannot say if it was good or bad. On the good side are the salsa lessons that started last wednesday, so hopefully I will improve my dancing skills (which are not that many, if any at all), and the fact that I finally started a cooking blog (you can visit it here).
On the not so good side we have some work related stuff that is not going as expected. Fortunately nothing too bad, but it took a big toll on me.
I also decided to go to Belgium to Fosdem. Well, actually I'm going to drink beer but my main excuse is to go to Fosdem. I will visit a monastery where they brew the best beer in the world. The strange part is that you cannot get that beer outside the monastery, they do not mass produce and they only sell it on a cafe owned by the monastery and in the monastery itself (more information here).

Today++

I was thinking about naming this post "Thinking about the future" (a mirrorish version of my previous post) but in the end I realized that this is not about the future but about what to do next in my life.
This week was weird, Nokia offered to buy the company where I work and that was unexpected (At least for me). I came here for two reasons:
1. I wasn't having a good time in the US
2. This is a small company that feels just like home
Point 1 is still valid since I'm not in the US anymore, but point 2 is about to become invalid since I'll be working for a very big company.
On the personal side, things are going well. I enjoy my life in Norway and despite some minor "misunderstandings" with norwegian culture, I have nothing to complain.
So if I mix the two things, I'm in some kind of unstable state.
Or maybe I'm just thinking too much.

Thinking about the past

Today for no particular reason I decided to go through some old emails to try to remember how was my life at a different point on time.
First of all, sometimes I even surprise myself... I've done things that I shouldn't have done, and I have let some other people do things that they shouldn't. I'm also impressed that things that once upon a time caused me great pain and suffering are no longer causing it, it's a weird mix of feelings but overall I think most wounds are healed.
Second, I think I don't regret anything of what I've done. This seems like a contradiction given the first point, but it is not. I realize that I've done things that I shouldn't have done, but it is also true that if I haven't done them I wouldn't have learned. It is also true that if I haven't been hurt by others, I wouldn't have learned either, so that's why I do not regret any of my past actions.
Third, I'm a very drastic person. After going through some emails, I realized that I'm either black or white, but never gray. It's kinda scary, because sometimes it might be better to be less confrontational, but ... what could I do? I realized that I've tried to be more "gray" but it never worked and in the end the reason why most people get close to me is non other that me being so damn drastic.
Fourth, I should be saying "I'm sorry" to so many people... but I don't feel like it. I only say "I'm sorry" when I mean it, and if I haven't said "I'm sorry" to you is because I don't mean it, so I still think that I took the right decision no matter what happened between you and me. Yes, you might say that the last statement is selfish and you can call me anyway you like, but I still won't say "I'm sorry".
Fifth, I have never exchanged recipes by email... so I think I need to start doing that. Given that I love to cook, and sometimes I even cook just for the fun of it (my coworkers are really happy about that because whenever I feel like cooking and have the time to do it, I bring something to work), I think I need to start exchanging recipes or maybe even uploading some recipes here. Well, if anybody is interested just let me know.
Now that I read everything I wrote I think I was needing this post, I had a lot of things to say.

Skiing

Last tuesday I decided to join some people from the office and go to ski. For the records, previous to that date I have never skied before so I bought some ski clothes and I decided that I will give it a try before buying skies and boots.
I had a lot of fun! It must be said that I hit the ground like 2,000,000 times, that I crashed two persons (one random person and one friend that was trying to teach me) and I even crashed the ski lift house.... I don't know if the rest were ashamed of me and my lack of skills for ski but I had a lot of fun.
On the weird side, after crashing the guy I didn't know we managed to switch skies and I only noticed when I went to return my skies and the guy in the counter told me that I was the other guy because I was returning a pair of skies of different size!
The good thing is that I liked it very much, so I'm looking forward for part 2 of learning to ski!