Bye Bye November

Well, November has come and gone and although it certainly is not warm out, it certainly is not that cold here in southern Norway. So far the winter has been quite mild, though of course it is just kicking off. Fortunately, I wont have to endure its full force given that next week Jeanette, little Emma and I will be leaving for Mexico. We will most likely be staying for the duration of the winter and are looking forward to a tropical Christmas with family in the sunny Yucatan. As I am aware I wont have that many more opportunities to go out and shoot before I leave I decided to head out today to the woods. Here is the result.

Longholm!

A couple of moths ago I made my way down to southern Denmark with my mom (who was visiting up here in Scandinavia) to attend my cousin Shauna's wedding. The ceremony was held in an absolutely gorgeous church complete with viking runes and medieval interiors. The reception was held at Lungolm caste, which was also the place most of the guests (myself included stayed). As you can tell by the photos this place was absolutely insane, just absolutely beautiful. It was so much fun to be there for the wedding and visit with my Canadian family! All and all it was an extremely successful trip!

Netherlands!

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record... but yeah, I have not posted in a while since things have been, well, insane. Between Emma, working and trying to keep the house halfway decent I am afraid there has not been all that much time for blogging. Anyway, about a month ago I made my way to Holland for a job interview. This of course gave me some time to run around Maastricht and Amsterdam which was lovely. I don't really believe in genetic memory, but there is something about Holland that just clicks with me. Every time I arrive I feel instantly at home, its just awesome. That´s all for now, hope you enjoy the photos.

Busy times...

The past month or so sure has been eventful. With Jeanette and I welcoming Emma in to the world, defending my masters thesis and all the new sleepless routines which come along with having a baby... its fair to say that things have been a little crazy around here. But alas, everything is coming along quite well... I have been interviewing for jobs and feel hopeful, my defence went well and most importantly Emma is doing super well. I have been taking quite a lot of photos, but of course 99% of those have been of the baby. We have however had really good weather this past month and have had the chance to make a few trips out to the beach and around nearby towns. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Emma Margartia

Well, she is here! My and Jeanette's daughter Emma Margarita was born last week (June 13th) in the hospital in Frederikstad Norway. She was almost a couple weeks early but came to us very quickly and in perfect health. Needlness to say, Jeanette and I (and our families) are just thrilled. Thank you to everyone for the good vibes and messages, we are over the moon!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

The Bowie reference sure is apt. Many a changes these days. If you follow this blog you will have probably noticed I haven not posted in well over a month and a half... which is rather atypical. The reason for this was that after my Baltic trip to Finland/Estonia real crunch mode on my masters thesis really got underway. It was quite the ordeal but I am happy to say that I finally submitted my thesis yesterday! The other major change since March is that my wife Jeanette and I have moved out of our tiny apartment in Oslo and in to a new place in Østfold (her home town of Moss to be precise). Since then the weather has really taken quite a sharp turn, all the snow is gone and we have been blessed with intermittent days of wonderful weather. Moss is a very small place and there is not all that much to do, but there are lots of parks and biking paths... so that is cool. I do however miss Oslo and really hope we can find an affordable place there sometime next spring/summer. Jeanette is now over 8 months pregnant and doing wonderfully; its really crazy to think that this time next month I will be a dad (fingers crossed!). What a trip. We have all the baby stuff set up and are anxiously counting down the days! I am now in job seeking mode which is of-course not that much fun, so if any of you fine readers know of any jobs opening up in the region, give me a shout! Anyway, hope you enjoy the photos.

Guest blogging!

As readers of this blog know last week I travelled to Finland to participate in the Nordic Sustainable Campus Network seminar. I was asked to write up a blog post for the Grønt UiO blog... so if you are interested check it out.

Also, over the past few months I have written up a couple short articles/interviews for the Norwegian Latin American Network (NorLARNet) blog. These can be found here.

That´s all for now!

Baltic Adventure part 2: Tallinn

After things wrapped up at the NSCN seminar in Espoo I made my way to the docks in Helsinki to catch the boat to Tallinn. The boat was quite decent and really quite fast... which of course was nice. Tallinn is really charming and is a interesting mix of medieval and soviet influences. The city was damaged quite heavily during the second world war, but they have really done a good job of fixing it up and bringing Estonia's capital back to its former glory. I had quite a nice time walking around the city taking photos, however the one major downside was the weather which was quite cold indeed. One of the nicest things about Tallinn is how cheap it is, especially when you compare it to Helsinki or Oslo. Even in the most touristy parts of the old city it is not that hard to get yourself a decent meal and beer for around 8 euro... so yeah, loved that! Anyway I hope you enjoy the photos.