Road Trippin'

Day 30: Last night in the United States

2010-10-03T05:43:00.000+02:00

Drive of the day (map):

Last full day in the United States, for now. We have found our way to a small airport hotel next to Baltimore Washington International Airport. The car has been completely emptied and we are more or less done with all packing. We are ready to leave the country that has hosted us for good and bad the last 30 days... and we are all looking forward to getting home..

We have spent the last day doing some last minute shopping - all with different needs - and another college football game. This time the less fancy University of Michigan versus Duke. Pretty fun, but not as cool as the Michigan game.

All in all a pretty relaxing last day in the states...

I will do some more blog posts when I get back to Norway. Here are some of the topics that might be discussed to some degree...

1) What have we learnt about the United States
2) How do we perceive the United States after this trip
3) Evaluation of the road trip - success/failure?
4) Sverres ten tips for a great road trip
5) Eating you way through america
6) Suggestions???

Photo summary

2010-10-02T13:43:00.000+02:00

Here are the links for all photos again:

Photos have been added to the albums almost every day:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=518575&id=657165614 (194 pics)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=526493&id=657165614 (194 pics)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=544766&id=657165614 (190 pics)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=545560&id=657165614 (160 pics)

Thanks to Erlend for great photos and being a true paparazzi

Day 29: Last day of sightseeing...

2010-10-02T13:38:00.000+02:00

Our last day of sightseeing! Tomorrow is set of for last minute shopping and University of Maryland vs. Duke in football....and then we are off.

Washington DC is different from New York in oh so many ways. While New York is fast paced with lots and lots of tall buildings and crowded streets - Washington DC is more greek/roman inspired with plenty of monumental buildings and memorials. Walking through the Mall - great place - gives you in some ways the same feeling you get walking through Rome (only that the Mall has a short and rather insignificant history compared to Rome).

Most of the monuments and memorials were larger than we actually had anticipated. The Washington Monument is one tall obelisk, Lincoln is pretty big sitting in his chair at the Lincoln Memorial, the are 760 000 graves at Arlington Cemetary and the Iwo Jima Memorial (the guys with the flag) was freakishly large (the only thing smaller than expected was the White House). Only thing about walking around seeing all these monuments is that your feet start to hurt... but again we were extremely lucky with the weather. There were no longer any remnants of tropical storm Nicole and the sun were yet again out and shining. Could in no way ask for better weather for sightseeing...

After doing our tourist obligation and seeing all the sights we god some food at M&S Grill downtown. The food was decent, but we got the worst service ever - and tipped an impressive $1,16 - in small coins :p

The recommendation of the day is to go and watch The Social Network. It is a fun, entertaining movie that gives your the story of the founding of Facebook. Good young actors and a well written script makes us all agree that this is the best movie of 2010 so far. Run to the movie theater.

Day 28: Eating grasshoppers

2010-10-02T11:34:00.001+02:00

Drive of the day (map):

Today it is raining - it is actually storming outside. Tropical storm Nicole made us chill in Frederick until check-out time and she also made the drive to Washington DC a little boring and slow. I couldn't do my usual speeding so it took a little longer than expected.

We did, after some skilful driving and a few wrong turns, find out way to the hotel - and were pleasently surprised of the standard of it. Courtyard by Marriot in Washington DC can be recommended.

The rain did stop us from doing much though. A short walk in the early afternoon - and then at night Simon and I left Erlend at the hotel to meet up with an old friend from Cairo, Angelica. We met up at this hip mexican restaurant downtown and I was stupid enough to try to eat grasshopper - it taste like crap - not recommmended...

Day 27: ...of the people, by the people, for the people

2010-09-30T14:20:00.003+02:00

Drive of the day (map)

Probably the most famous part of Abraham Lincolns Gettysburg Address - the speach he gave shortly after the three day battle at Gettysburg. And a sentence that is used to define a democracy. On the 27th day of our trip we found ourselves in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

After yet another eggs and bacon breakfast we left amish territory and headed for Gettysburg. Just a short one hour drive away from Lancaster. At first we got a little disappointed when we walked around the battlefield and saw that the museum and visitor center was closed - but we soon (or at least after 30 minutes) found out that it was the OLD visitor center that was closed... So we drove the short distance to the new center and was not disappointed.

The museum part of the center is ok - nothing special really, but they do have a great movie explaining the cause of the civil war, the war itself and the aftermath. The fact that it was narrated by Morgan Freeman didn't hurt either. After the movie we all saw our first cyclorama. A cyclorama is a panoramic painting on the inside of a cylindrical platform, designed to provide a viewer standing in the middle of the cylinder with a 360° view of the painting. The intended effect is to make a viewer, surrounded by the panoramic image, feel as if they were standing in the midst of a historic event or famous place. It was really cool. And the enhance the feeling of being there they use light, sound and even some props in front of the cyclorama. It was really worth the trip itself. What we thought was a modern painting was actually a painting from 1883 - and the artist had used 4 tons of oil paint....

After Gettysburg we didn't really have any plans so we drove to the smallish town of Frederick, Maryland. We checked in at yet another Days Inn, played some basketball, ate and did some shopping...

Photos3

2010-09-29T23:51:00.002+02:00

A third link:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=14793287&id=657165614&ref=fbx_album

Day 26: The city of brotherly love

2010-09-29T23:45:00.003+02:00

Drive of the day: (map)

The drive from King of Prussia to Philadelphia is pretty short - and after some less than skillful driving through the streets of Philadelphia we found some parking downtown. Philadelphia is the sixth most populous city in the United States (on the trip we've visited 1st (New York), 3rd (Chicago) and 6th (Philadelphia)).

Philadelphia was the first capital (1790-1800) of the United States and the home of the signings of both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. On our short trip to Philly we visisted both the Liberty Bell (no we did not lick it) and the House of Independence (no we did not visit the roof).

After getting a short lecture in history at the House of Independence we went over to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. So you must be thinking - finally some culture - but alas... that's not why we went there. The stairs in front of the museum is more famous than the museum itself - and that is only because of the Rocky. These are the famous stairs from the movie - and Erlend had to do a remake....

Philly was pretty cool, but our next goal was Intercourse. Not that type of intercourse, but the Amish city of Intercourse. We saw lot's of people driving carriages and having strange outfits - it kind of felt like driving into a different time period - at least if it had not been so commercialized...

Day 25: King of Prussia

2010-09-29T23:32:00.001+02:00

Drive of the day: (map)

So we left New York pretty early in the morning - this time heading for Pennsylvania. After a quick check on weather.com we decided to spend another day shopping - this time at the biggest mall in the United States, King of Prussia Mall.

We drove through New Jersey and hit both the New Jersey and the Pennsylvania turnpike on the way. The mall is in a small city called King of Prussia - a city named after the former ruler of Prussia, Fredrick II. The mall itself was pretty crappy, although I managet to get a haircut.

I must admit that we are getting a little tired of being tourists and we are doing less and less. We checked in at the local Holiday Inn went to the local Hooters and watched the Chicago Bears beat the Green Bay Packers (yeah!)

Day 24: Wall street shopping

2010-09-27T14:17:00.002+02:00

We did not see any real sights today....

All we did were a lot of shopping in a lot of different stores. I can strongly recommend walking up Broadway through Soho if you want to get some shopping done - you can probably find anything you need, and do not need, there...

We did go to a movie theater in the evening and saw the new Wall Street movie - stay away, it is not worth watching....

Day 23: Kane vs The Undertaker

2010-09-27T14:14:00.001+02:00

Another day, plenty of new stuff to do...

We started of the day by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge - and I were a little surprised by how the area was a lot cooler on the Brooklyn side. The Manhattan side of the bridge were resembled down Houston - unpersonal and a lot of "cold", big buildings. For people going to New York I would absolutely recommend walking (or bike) across the bridge.

If you walk passed all the big buildings (City Hall, NYPD, Justice court and so on) you get to Chinatown and Little Italy. It is not like the movies. Chinatown in New York is like other Chinatowns I have visited. A lot of crappy small shops selling things you do not need and a lot of nice small restaurants. Little Italy is nothing like Italy, but at least we got to see some sort of parade. Walking around on Manhattan on a Saturday is a challenge in itself - there is so much people....

The main attraction of the day was WWE World Smackdown Tour i Madison Square Garden. WWE står for World Wrestling Entertainment and is exactly what you think it is. It is what Hulk Hogan did, it is what former governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, did and it is was an old favorite The Undertaker is still doing. I remember watching wrestling on Sky One back in the day. Wrestling was a strange, but pretty cool thing. It is probably the event we've been to in New York with the best atmosphere. Lot better than the Yankees game and better than the Rangers game. It was quite different though. And the crowd was pretty young - it seems like the perfect thing to bring your kids to - if you do not mind the violence...

Day 22: Chillin' in Central Park

2010-09-25T16:35:00.003+02:00

Another day of New York is over, and it was another day of many impressions...

Central Park is, in my oppinion, the coolest place we've seen so far on the trip. What other place can you find such an awesome green lung in the middle of such a large city. With great lawns the size of ten soccer fields and open access this must be the perfect place for sporty New Yorkers to relax in the afternoons.

We brought our small pee wee football and chilled in the park most of the day. What you can see in the park isn't that special, but it is the fact where it is that makes it awesome. And with the temperatures we are getting (sunny and 25-30 degrees) it is pretty nice to just lay down on the grass and relax, or throw the ball around a little.

Just next to Central Park lies the American Museum of Natural History (made more known in Norway in the movie "night at the museum"). We all agree that the museum was disappointing. The museum lacks a structure that makes it easy for us as visitors to see the big picture. As a historian it is all good seeing objects from different cultures in different time periods, but it would be nice to actually see how cultures in different regions progressed alongside each other and so on... so lots of cool objects, but no structure.

Our second New York sporting event were the New York Yankees against the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees could stay ahead of Tampa Bay in the race for the first seed in the playoffs, but got thrashed by the arch rival Red Sox. Erlend saw a baseball game in Texas and I've seen quite a few over the years, but it was Simons first. He thought it was cool, but it would have been more fun hadn't the Yankees been down 10-1 after the fifth inning...

We ended of the night with a couple of Heineckens and some shrimp at Bubba Shrimp (the tourist trap) on Times Square....

Day 21: A long day in New York

2010-09-25T08:03:00.001+02:00

Who knew that a day could feel so long...

Our second complete day in New York started off pretty slowly. Got up a little late, ate some cereal/crackers with cheese for breakfast, and went to the local laundromat to clean clothes. The lady running the place were helpful, but didn't think we were very economical (using a $5,50 machine when all we needed was a $1,99). But in the end we got outselves some clean clothes.

We didn't really have anything big planned for the early afternoon so we took the subway to Time Square and planned to have no plans. Time Square is as american as you can get it. Large, oversized video billboards advertising everything from new tv shows, movies and all kind of merchendise. We even got to see a live performance by N.E.R.D. (Pharrel Williams' group) - the performed at the middle of Time Square as part of some Honda campaign. After checking that out we pretty much wanted to walk around for some hours getting the feel of Manhattan. We saw Rockefeller Plaze, Radio City Music Hall, Grand Central Terminal, Empire State Building, Flatiron Building, The New York Public Library and SO much more. At the end we chilled down at a bar waiting for the hockeygame we were going to at night.

The hockeygame was pretty intense. The New York Rangers beat their big rivals the New Jersey Devils 4-3 in overtime - and we even got to watch Mats Zuccarello Aasens debut in the NHL. He did alright without making a real difference. But I think we all thougt it was pretty fun watching a game of hockey at Madison Square Garden - the self-titled "most famous sports arena in the world".

After the game we walked over to Empire State Building and took the elevator up to check the view. Pretty spectacular...

Photos2

2010-09-24T16:31:00.002+02:00

A new link for all our friends on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=544766&id=657165614&ref=mf

Day 20: The New Colossus

2010-09-23T05:24:00.002+02:00

""Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"

Emma Lazarus

So today we have visited one of the most famous statues in the world: The Statue of Liberty. The trip from the southern tip of Manhattan out to Liberty Island is just a short ferry ride - and you get great views of New Yorks skyline from the boat. For anybody considering going to New York in the near future be sure to order your trip to the Statue of Liberty ahead of time. It is no problem getting to the island, but to get inside the statue you have to have pre-ordered your ticket (for the crown you might have to order a year in advance). We only had tickets to the lower inside of the statue, but that itself was pretty cool...

After the statue we took the ferry over to Ellis Island. This is where most early immigrants had to pass through to get access to the United States. It is pretty much a museum that shows you the history and the process around passing immigration in the early 20th century. Ellis Island was a little disappointing (I think), but it was worth a short visit.

The rest of the early afternoon we spent walking around the southern part of Manhattan. We walked through Soho without even knowing we walked through it - and we ate lunch in Greenwich Village. You get a little jaded from walking around all day - so we took the subway back to our "cozy" neighbourhood. Even though our "hood" isn't all that nice we drove down to another part of Brooklyn that was a lot nicer - we even found a good sheesha (water pipe) where we got to see the last 20 minutes of the Chelsea-Newcastle game... Good fun.

We finished the day off by letting Simon beat us (or closer to kill us) in bowling and a decent work out at our gym..

Night y'all

Day 19: New York New York

2010-09-22T05:10:00.001+02:00

We have arrived in New York!

Denny's have become our new number one breakfast place. For the third time in a row we grabbed some egg, toast and bacon/fruit at one of the chains restaurants. It's a good way to start of the day.

So the only stop we had on the way to New York from Syracuse were at Orange County Choppers headquarters in Newburgh. Although Simon and I haven't really seen all too much of the show (Erlend has) it was pretty cool. It was neat seeing how they manage to tell a story with a bike, and how they incorporate their theme in all aspects of the bikes.

Then we drove on to the big apple. After a more or less planned sightseeing through Manhattan we found our hotel in a pretty crappy part of town. We were all pretty disappointed in both the size of the room and the area we lived in, but we'll make the best out of it.

On a good note Simon and I found a gym to work out at. It was pretty cool and had all the stuff we need to do the same kind of workouts as we do back in Norway. Oh happy day. Lazy days are over :)

Fotoalbum

2010-09-21T15:39:00.000+02:00

Couple of photoalbums from Erlend:

Album 1

Album 2

These are Facebook-albums so should only work for friends of Erlend, Simon and me on Facebook. 0

Day 18: Niagara Falls

2010-09-21T15:16:00.003+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

We've been to Canada and it smells like poo.

After a short drive from Tonawanda to Niagara falls we checked out the most famous waterfall in the world. Niagara falls that lie across the Niagara river between the United States and Canada are actually worth the drive. We took a short boat ride to the bottom of the falls, got pretty wet, and walked over to Canada. The view of the falls are a lot better from that side of the border, but it is a total tourist trap. Even though most of the booths selling all kinds of stuff were closed down - it wasn't really anything worth seeing except for the view of the falls.

After having no problems crossing the border back to the US, we drove on towards New York. Our plan was to get as close to New York as possible, but we failed.. We only got to the college town of Syracuse 4-5 hours north of New York City.

The main reason for this was that we wanted to do something physical. We found ourselves a Days Inn (our favorite crappy motell) and started looking for a basketball court. We found one in what might have been a sketchy neighbourhood - and played basketball for some hours. Both Lie and Simon had plenty of wins - I lost them all :( - funniest part about this though were the small kids playing on the other half of the court. I don't think we have ever heard more swearing in such a short time (I'm going to tell mom motherf*****)..

Rest of the evening we just chilled - ate at Chili's - and watched "The Town" at the local movie theater. Do not go to see it. Ben Affleck should never give himself dialog again...

Day 17: We miss Norwegian taco!

2010-09-20T03:22:00.000+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

A day of nothing...

We didn't have much planned for today. Slept in a little bit and god up to see Manchester United against Liverpool on tv. ESPN obviously don't know anything about soccer, they didn't show the game, so we had to stream it via atdhe.net. I was happy with the result, a 3-2 United win, but Erlend was not :)

After that we drove from Ann Arbor to Tonawanda (a small city just by Niagara Falls). On the way we ate mexican food at a mexican restaurant close to the road. After the meal the only thing we realised was that we were going to burp bad mexican all day - and that norwegian tacos is the only true tacos for norwegians.

At the moment we are all being interactive on our computers at the Days Inn in Tonawanda and watching New York Giants getting killed by the Indianapolis Colts....

Day 16: Go Wolverines!

2010-09-20T03:10:00.004+02:00

University of Michigang - University of Massachusetts 42-37

Even though we got a little rain early in the morning - it was the perfect day for football.

We met up with our Canadian friends a little over 8 in the morning and got a ride from them down to the stadium (with a short stop for beer and meats). For Simon and Erlend this would be their introduction to the great american tradition of tailgating. In few words it's the american excuse to meet up outside the stadium three hours before kickoff to drink beer, barbeque some hot dogs and burgers and have fun. It creates a great atmosphere before the game and gets people going.

The canadians pulled up into a random guys front lawn, payed him $30 and started setting up a tent and the bbq. Two hot dogs and a burger later we were ready for the game.

Before the game the only discussion around the stadium was how big the margin of victory would be for Michigan - during the game people were a lot more nervous. I doubt many of the readers of this blog will be interested in the dynamics of the game, but it was a close one that Michigan won 42-37 in the end.

A great game of football - and some fun new canadian friends.

Day 15: Crazy Canadians

2010-09-19T16:46:00.001+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

After chilling it in Chicago for a couple of days we again jumped in our great car and hit the road. The goal of the day was one of the most anticipated experiences of the trip. The University of Michigan Wolverines playing the University of Massachusets Minutemen.

We had a pretty short drive from Chicago to Ann Arbor which we only broke of with breakfast at a small diner in the old industrial town of Gary, Indiana. Along the way we also crossed our last timezone and are now only six hours behind Norway.

The Days Inn in Ann Arbor had fortunately some computer problems at our arrival. Fortunately because that meant we had to chill in the lobby until the problems were sorted. Already sitting in the lobby waiting were four Canadians. The four canadians offered us beer, and as the beer loving guys we are we couldn't decline. We had already talked about getting to know some locals - and even though they were from Canada - they were more local than us. They even invited us to do some tailgating with them the next day before the game. Long story told short we hooked up with the Canadians, grabbed some beers, went out and got some food, and pretty much enjoyed ourselves like crazy.

Day 14: Chicago

2010-09-19T16:38:00.003+02:00

We wanted a chill day in Chicago - and that is what we got.

We met up with our friend Suzann for breakfast - a typical diner in the middle of a big city - and went on to see the Historical museum of Chicago. It was ok - we have all been to better museums - but at least it gave us a small insight in what Chicago is and has been about.

After the museum Suzann went to work and we carried on by ourselves. We used our feet and walked up and down the two main streets Michigan and State. Lot of posh stores, lot of strange people and a couple of nice parks. Nothing all that exciting happened except we got some shopping done. Erlend and I bought some shoes, and I added a IPAD (and I am SO happy with it so far)

We jumped back in the car and drove over to our motel, which was a dump, and chilled for some hours until we were to meet Suzann again later in the evening. I guess we are getting old, because more often than not we all need to take short naps in the evening...

Alcohol was out of the picture, we were driving pretty early the next morning, so we all agreed on a relaxing evening. Suzann took us to a pretty sweet sushi place and all three of us enjoyed sushi, Having lived in California for some months I have gotten hooked to the raw fish, and although Simon and Erlend were a little sceptic they both enjoyed once they tasted it. After that we took a train downtown and walked around some more. Chicago has a cool waterfront with beaches downtown. We were there in the evening, but I can only guess how lively it will get on hot days during the summer. They also have the world's largest fountain..... but we came to late and they had turned the water of.

We ended the evening going up to a bar at the top of the John Hancock building (it was on the 96th floor) and grabbing coffee or water. They actually served still and sparkling Voss water. Kind of surreal sitting on top of one of the largest buildings in America drinking water from Voss :)

Day 13: A drive to Chicago

2010-09-16T14:52:00.001+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

Our plan was to get up early and drive to Milwaukee - didn't happen. First of all we slept longer than expected, second of all we spent three hours booking hotels in Chicago, Ann Arbor and New York. So after a quick lunch at the Quarterback Club in Northfield (a place we used to go when I was in the states) we hit the road with Milwaukee in mind.

The only problem was that what we were going to see in Milwaukee would already be closed for the day when we got there. So.... we decided to drive to Chicago instead. And that's what we did.

In Chicago we met up with one of Simon and mine old friends from Cairo, Suzanne. We got to try out both the local beer and a local custom BYOB (bring your own beer). For us it is kind of strange experience going to a liquer store, buy beer and then bring the beer with you to a restaurant. The explanation for this is that it is so expensive to have a liquer license to sell alcohol at restaurants that a lot of places rather do it like this..

As mentioned we also tried the local beer, Goose Island. The have four different varieties and I must admit that none of them were really good, and only one of them were decent....

Day 12: Hanging out in Northfield

2010-09-15T07:31:00.001+02:00

Day 12 is the first day with no pictures, but that doesn't mean that we didn't do anything fun. A day set of to no driving and just relaxation suited us just fine at this point. We have covered close to 2/3 of the expected driving distance and are looking forward to some days with less driving ahead of us.

Today we got up early but pretty much chilled until around lunch. The only thing we had really planned for the day was to visit som hog farms with Tyler. Simon and Erlend got their first touch of american hog farming by visiting two different farms (one with small pigs and one with large pigs). I think they both thought it was interesting to see the scale of american farming.

After that we have been pretty chill evening. We bbq'ed some beef, went bowling (Simon and I beat Tyler and Erlend) and saw Machete. Funny movie - kind of the same style movie as the Grindhouse movies and Dead Snow. I can recommend to everyone :)

Day 11: Another day of driving

2010-09-14T07:24:00.001+02:00

Dagens rute (kart):

A short update today for one easy reason - nothing really happened. We got out of Kadoka at a decent time - and expected to drive to Northfield in somewhere between 8-10 hours. And that was pretty much all we did today. Drove, drove and drove. Through endless miles of cornfield and grassland. None of us will ever say that the United States isn't vaste...

We took a short 20 mile detour down to Iowa - just to have been there - but other than that the day was filled with short stops for the mandatory training sessions with the american football, subway-sandwiches (for the 723rd or so time this trip) and new and exciting gas stations.

We did finally arrive in Northfield and met up with my old high school buddy Tyler. Good seeing him again - tomorrow will be a day of getting laundry done, visiting hog farms, american bbq and getting ready for the drive towards Chicago...

Video update

2010-09-13T05:46:00.000+02:00

Day 10: Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Badlands

2010-09-13T05:00:00.030+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

The morning after our nightly adventures in Deadwood we were a little slow to get up, but eventually we managed to drag ourselves to a local diner and get some breakfast. The plans for what we expected to be a busy days were layed down and we got ready for the last day of national monuments and parks for a while.

We started of by driving down to Mt. Rushmore, the famous faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln carved into the mountain at Keystone. As famous as the monument is we pretty much knew what to expect, but we were not disappointed. It was another example of how everything is bigger in the United States. And we could see that they have spared some room for when Arnold is elected president in a couple of years.

From Mt. Rushmore we took the long way round (thank you GPS) to the Crazy Horse Monument. Even though we felt ripped off at the gate ($27 to get in - only $10 at Mt. Rushmore) it was a pretty cool monument. I saw it when I was in the states in 2000 - and the progress of what will become the largest monument in the world is pretty slow. At least they are more or less done with his face...

Then we were of to what was expected to be the highlight of the day - Badlands. Bruce Springsteen was playing on the radio as we entered one of the strangest pieces of nature I have ever seen. Although much of the national park is grassland - some of it looks as though it is from another world. Strange rock formations and signs with rattlesnake warnings gave the whole area a feel of being outerworldly and dangerous. We did get through it unharmed though - and even got to eat Bison Burgers for lunch (did not taste much different than regular burgers).

We had planned to drive on like crazy to get as close to Minnesota as possible... that didn't work out. I guess a combination of last night and all the experiences of the day led us to fall asleep pretty early. We crashed down in the small town of Kadoka, South Dakota - and we were pretty happy with that...

Day 9: Having fun in Deadwood: Gambling, beer and brides

2010-09-13T04:54:00.001+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

The drive from Cody to Deadwood were pretty uneventful. We did have to change our oil at the Wal-Mart in Gillette, and we drove up to Devil's Tower to take some pictures, but the drive went pretty quickly and we arrived in Deadwood at around 17.00 (5pm).

For those who don't know it, Deadwood is an old western town in South Dakota. Being made more famous for us norwegians through the tv-series with the same name. I must admit that our research was limited and Deadwood was nothing like the other old western city I have visited, Tombstone. Deadwood is a tourist trap and a gambling city. Like Vegas - just a lot smaller.

What was suppose to be a short trip downtown ended up being a full night out. We ended up doing a little bit of gambling (I won back what I lost in Vegas), drinking all kinds of "local" beer and talking to two brides to be. It seemed like the only people visiting Deadwood was old people gambling - and bridal showers. It turned out to be a pretty fun night out and we were a little tipsy when going to bed around 2.00 (am).

Day 8: Cowboys in Cody

2010-09-13T04:28:00.002+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

The day started with a great breakfast at the Running Bear Pancake House in West Yellowstone. Followed by another drive through Yellowstone.

I will throw out a short video here shortly. It shows how stupid people can act. The woman in the video steps out of her car and walks towards a bison to take a picture. The problem is that bisons are aggressive and often attack people if provoked: check this

We also saw a lost bear cub looking for its mother. Pretty cool seeing a wild bear cub, but we quickly moved on. No sense in sticking around in an area were a bear mother is looking for her cub.

On the way east out of Yellowstone we actually got some snow. Pretty neat seeing snow just a few days after being in the hot desert.

Our plan was to get as far as possible towards the east, but after wandering around the rodeo capital of the world, Cody, we learned that there was a college rodeo that very night. No way we could miss out on that. It was a pretty cool (and cold) experience. I'll post some pictures and videos here, but in a few words it was one of the most american experiences I have ever had. Starting of with a prayer, followed by the national anthem, followed by american rock and country over the speakers and cowboys getting throwed of horses and bulls... all in all a good choice to stay in Cody.

Day 7: Onward to Yellowstone!

2010-09-12T02:18:00.001+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

The drive from Pocatello to Yellowstone isn't long, but there is at least one fun thing on the way: Yellowstone Bear World

This is the cheaters way to be sure of seeing all the animals that Yellowstone offers: bears, wolves, bison and more. It was pretty surreal getting the car surrounded by ten bears. Not really aggressive in any way - and probably pretty docile - but still pretty cool. The wolves, bison and other animals were kind of cool, but nothing like the bears. So for everyone that travels to the area - the park is a little hidden gem in Rexburg, Idaho.

After getting done with both the big bears and the little cubs - we drove on through the city of West Yellowstone to Yellowstone National Park. I'll say it straight away - Yellowstone was kind of a disappointment. Sure all the hot springs and geysers are kind of cool - but I think my expectations were to high. I believe that after all the cool stuff we saw in Death Valley and Yosemite we all thought Yellowstone would be even cooler - but alas.

What was both cool and uncool was watching the Saints - Vikings game at the local pub, The Gusher. The Vikings lost (and played like crap), but the pub was cool. They had an awesome chili burger and the local beer, Trout Slayer Ale, were pretty good...

Day 6: A day of driving

2010-09-11T02:25:00.005+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

The distance from Reno to Pocatello, via Salt Lake City, is 1090 kilometers (682miles), if you add the 60 kilometers of detours we drove 115 european miles (or 712miles) in less than 12 hours.... at least we got from A to B..

We expected the day to become a transport stage, but didn't really know if we could get enough kilometers done. Fortunately there isn't that many fun things to see between Reno and Pocatello and we drove.... and drove... and drove... To keep the morning stage up to Yellowstone at a minimum we had to do a marathon stage.

Surprisingly enough it wasn't that bad. Sverre drove the whole time and because of nice roads and the lack of highway police we managed to keep an average speed of close to 140km/h (85m/h). The only really cool thing we saw along the road was the Salty Flatts. This salt desert was pretty cool and completly flat. We did a quick check of the performance of our great car - the explorer.

0-60mph/0-100km/h 13,5 seconds
0-100mph/0-160km/h 36 seconds

Not impressive, but the car was fully loaded with three Norwegians and lots of luggage.

We have also discovered the genius thing of buying Subway for breakfast. By buying a footlong for breakfast - we can keep half for lunch and save time and money on the road :)

The journey of the day ended in Pocatello, Idaho. A small town just across the border of Idaho. Crashed down in a small hotelroom with some Moose Drewl and Alaskan (beers)...

Day 5: San Francisco and "the biggest little city in the world"

2010-09-09T05:58:00.002+02:00

Dagens rute: (kart)

Do not know why we got up at 5am - but we did. So why not catch the sunset at Golden Gate Bridge ? Talk about getting an early morning start - almost like we were in our 70s. We got to see the gate at dawn and it was pretty cool. Erlend got lots of great pics, and I will hopefully upload some soon.

After that we did all the token touristy things you need to do in San Francisco: the trolly, alcatraz and the steep hills... pretty soon we were running out of time and heading out of town. The time flied way to fast and we didn't get to drive as far as we would like last night. Ended up in Reno - and quickly fell to sleep - expecting a long day of driving on wednesday....

Day 4: If you're going to San Francisco (be sure to visit Bodie and Yosemite)...

2010-09-08T07:44:00.001+02:00

Dagens rute:

After more or less a crash and burn in Big Pine we started of fresh the next morning. Not really knowing what we were going to see along the way we grabbed some breakfast and hit the road...

Driving along the Sierra Nevada is a pretty cool experience. Strange peaks, prarie and lots and lots of rocks. After more or less a wasted trip to Mammoth Lakes (a town that we all would love to visit if we had plenty of time - looked like the perfect place for outdoory people) we decided to visit the town of Bodie. Bodie is supposedly the largest and best kept old western city in this part of the country. The town once had a population exceding 10 000 and were known for being the wildest city in the west.

"Goodbye God, I'm going to Bodie" - entry in little girls diary.

After walking around the cool old wooden houses, we hit the road gunning for Yosemite. Yosemite is one of the most famous national parks in the US. And hopefully some of Erlends pictures below will do the park justice.

Day 3: Death Valley and beyond

2010-09-06T16:04:00.002+02:00

Dagens rute:

So we left the city of sin at around 2PM sunday - after managing to get a flat battery and calling AAA. Note to self - do not leave cooler plugged into the cars power outlet over night... at least now we have learned that lesson.

After what felt like a pretty short drive we ended up in Pahrump - a small, scattered little town on the edge of death valley. At the local gas station we asked if there was anything worth seeing in Pahrump...."well, the only thing I can think of is the whorehouses", said the clerk. We drove on.

Death Valley is probably one of the strangest places any of us three has ever seen. Dry and stony. If anyone ever wants to go there - we can highly recommend it - especially the drive up to the scenic view Dante's View. Your standing on close to 5000 feets height and looking down at an dried up lake called Badwater with the elevation of close to -300 feet. Pretty wicked sight...We watched the sun set over the valley and you can't really imagine any settlers getting over that valley to California back in the day. At 9PM we measured a temperature of 42 (109F) at the bottom of the valley. It got dark quickly so we tried to push on to get some distance behind us and the next days drive a little shorter.

One problem that we hadn't thought of was the fact that it is Labour Day weekend here in the States. That means that getting a motel was a lot harder that we had expected. After driving through the cities of Lone Pine and Independence without finding anything we got the last room at a typical small american motel here in Big Pine. We all fell to sleep like rocks within minutes....

Day 2: Why not do a hit and run at a gun shop?

2010-09-05T19:33:00.003+02:00

Dagens rute

It's early morning in Vegas and we are getting ready to leave sin city. Yesterday was eventful and you could classify us as a tired trio leaving the hotel within the next 45 minutes. Here is a small recap of yesterdays events - perhaps a little modified here and there.

We started day two of with a typical american breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, french toast and some fruit. The next two hours we spent driving around trying to find different stuff we wanted for the car. It was pretty easy to find a GPS, but finding a cooler that we could plug into the cars power supply was harder. After visiting autozone, pep boyz, best buy, bed bath and beyond and more we finally found one at Wal-Mart (perhaps we should have checked that one out first). Oh well, at least we found one. I haven't mentioned it yet but the highest temperature in Las Vegas yesterday was 45,5 degrees (114F) - so a pretty hot day. Kind of nice to have a cooler when we are heading for Death Valley later on today.

After our long search for a cooler we figured it was time to shoot some guns. We went to a cute little gun range and decided to try to fire some weapons. Erlend decided to try a tommy gun, a uzi and a saw, Sverre tried a .44 Magnum, a remington military issue shotgun and the saw and Simon tried the .44 Magnum. Pretty fun stuff! When we were done shooting we figured out that we should have paid before we actually shot our bullets - nobody was ready to take our money when we left the range - so we just left...

Later in the day we met up with a friend of Sverres from the US, Chris, and went down to old downtown Las Vegas - fun to see, but not all that much.

We have arrived!

2010-09-04T12:55:00.000+02:00

Viva Las Vegas!

After a long gruelling trip across the Atlantic we have finally arrived in Vegas - or we arrived at Vegas some hours ago and have spent our time here so far winning and losing at slots and poker.

The trip went fine, although because of a delay from Oslo our luggage didn't arrive at hour hotel until around 3.00 am this morning. Didn't matter though, we went out and grabbed some mexican food (and a couple of xx amber) before hitting MGM Grand. Erlend won a little, Sverre lost a little in poker (and as always there were bad beats involved) - Simon didn't really play poker, but won a little at slots.

Not really hitting any bars tonight, but might be a wetter night tomorrow. Don't really know what we are going to spend our day doing tomorrow, it was 40 degrees (104 F) when we landed at 20.30 (8.30pm) this afternoon and it is suppose to get even hotter tomorrow.

T-1 day

2010-09-02T11:32:00.000+02:00

So here I am - in my moms apartment in Oslo - pretty much just waiting for tomorrow. Sitting inside, even though it is sunny outside, sorting music and making playlists. We got so many hours of driving over the next month - so might as well be certain to have enough music to drive the others crazy.

How many songs of Scooter should I put in each playlist? This one for sure: Nessaja

Yesterday was my last day of work, even though I've already taken a couple of phone calls today, and I took the train from Bergen to Oslo last night. See some great pics underneath :)

I'll be meeting the other guys, Erlend and Simon, at the airport tomorrow morning... and then we're on our way..

Only five more days

2010-08-29T08:56:00.000+02:00

So it's sunday morning - and our trip to the US is only a few days away. As always I start to pack way too early, and I will for sure forget something anyways. But at least it gives me some sort of satisfaction in knowing that the trip is getting closer by the day.

Not much else is going on in Bergen at the moment. Just finishing up preparing for my vacation at work - being sure that I pass along all information that needs to be passed on.

No changes have been made to plans, but as always there are room for improvement.

T minus 19 days

2010-08-15T20:08:00.000+02:00

It's getting closer...

More stuff is booked and the three of us are getting more and more excited!

We are going to check out New York Rangers vs. New Jersey Jets on the 23rd of September (maybe Zucca will play) and New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox on the 25th of September.

Other than that it is mostly work for all of us, but I hope to get more active with pictures and everything as soon as we arrive in Vegas.

A little more than a month...

2010-07-24T11:39:00.001+02:00

Time flies...
Fast...

It doesn't even feel like summer yet. It might be sunny and 20 degrees outside, but it still feels like spring. Might be because this is my first summer in a full-time job - and I have no vacation until September. And to quote a pretty crappy song - "wake me up when September comes (I know it is suppose to be ends....)

As for the trip it is still on. I am pretty sure that my friend Simon will be joining Erlend and I. We have also secured a geeky american guide in Gettysburg (that is you Angelica) and will hook up with a long-time-no-see buddy of mine from Northfield (living close to Boston).

So even though I'll miss bergen and (some) of the people here - the open road of the US seems pretty nice right about now. And I must admit I like to drive - and since Simon doesn't have a license (WHAT!) Erlend and I have to do all the driving anyways.

Plans shaping

2010-07-04T16:52:00.000+02:00

So we have progressed a few steps over the last week.

The hotel in Vegas is booked. We will be staying at the fashionable New York New York on The Strip. Having stayed at MGM Grand a couple of times earlier we decided to try the hotel across the road. I, and probably Lie, will also play some cheap freeze-out tournements at The Luxor.

We also booked the car we will be driving. Because of the number of miles we will be driving we have decided to rent a SUV. Mainly because we will be seated a little higher on the road which will give us a better overview. Also a SUV is safer in a inprobable crash. So we have booked an Jeep Grand Cherokee.

The third thing we booked were tickets to the University of Michigan versus University of Massachusets at the Big House september 18th.

Some current news: I've back to eastern Norway for a couple of days attending a friends bachelorparty. It got crazy, but I will only share a few keywords: a nazi uniform, a priests uniform, paintball and a horribel recording of Bon Jovis "Living on a prayer".

I am leaving Oslo on tuesday heading back to Bergen for a couple of months of work before going stateside.

That's all folks!

Planning a trip...

2010-06-27T00:36:00.000+02:00

I am back in my hometown of Notodden for close to two weeks, and as my fellow Road Tripper Erlend lives in Notodden it is the perfect opportunity to do some planning.

To summarize what we know so far:

- We will arrive in Las Vegas on September 3rd of this year
- Tyler might fly down there and hook up with us
- We plan to drive through Death Valley and Yosemite on the way to San Francisco (no drinkin' in LA)
- Hopefully we will have a floor or a sofa to crash on in SF
- There are two possible routes after that (either through Sacramento - Reno - Salt Lake City -Yellowstone or Portland - Seattle - Yellowstone)
- We will be looking for bears and wolves in Yellowstone
- Hopefully there will be a rodeo in Cody, Wyoming
- We will rock Deadwood, South Dakota
- I will be back in Northfield shortly after the Jesse James Days 2010 (probably won't make it to the beer tent though)
- Next stop Chicago
- On september 18th we hope to be at the Big House attending University of Michigan vs. University of Massachusets
- Oh Canada
- On september 25th we hope to be at Yankee Stadium attending Yankees vs Red Socks
- too much spare time - what to do
- We will be going back to Norway on October 3rd

... to be continued

Under construction

2010-06-12T07:53:00.001+02:00

After months and months with no blogging I am back - and this time I am bringing a friend.

On September 3rd a buddy of mine, Erlend Lie, and I will be travelling to the States once more. This time for a month long road trip coast to coast.

Above this post you can see the prelimenary route - but if for some reason you think we should visit you - let me know by posting here or sending me an e-mail. What is certain is that we will be flying to Las Vegas at September 3rd and leave from Washington DC on october 3rd.

Last month in the US

2009-09-10T18:44:00.005+02:00

Notes from a jock

2009-09-10T18:16:00.003+02:00

There are exciting times ahead...

I feel the need to express some thoughts on how the English Premier League has started, the coming NFL season, and the NCAA football season.

I must admit that even though we lost our first match of the season against Burnley, Manchester United still have started the season well. The win, deserved or not, against Arsenal was big and we need to keep winning matches like that if we are to get four in a row. Chelsea look strong and must be considered the most intimidating and biggest challenger. Liverpool are as always disappointing every fan wearing the wrong shade of red, but things might turn around for them as the season progresses. I do not believe that Tottenham and Manchester Shitty will be able to keep winning, but they might give Liverpool and Arsenal a run for the Champions League spots for next season.

Speaking of the Champions League I am not too happy about this years group stage draw. We have a poor history against Besiktas, it is always hard playing away in Russia against teams like CSKA and the german champs Wolfsburg have a fierce strikeforce. We should go through, but it might not let us rest players in 'easier' CL-matches...

On to the NFL. Am I exited? Oh, yes. From this paragraph I will only talk about football (the american style) so to all you Norwegians that are completely uninterested... go on to the Hawaii post.

So... Brett Farve in purple! Can the Vikings be a Superbowl contender? Most experts think the Green Bay Packers will challenge the Vikings in the NFC North, and most experts believe the Eagles will win the NFC Championship game. I believe that if Farve can stay healthy and not get the type of injury he had in New Jersey last year the Vikings have a great shot at not only going to the playoffs, but making it to the Superbowl.

Vikings have one of the best run defenses in the NFL, they have one of the best pass defenses in the NFL, they have the best individual offensive player in Adrian Peterson (who will get more room this year since the Vikings will have a real QB), they have an intimidating defensive line with Williams, Williams, Windfield and Allen. I believe Favre will not have the same implosion against the Eagles that Jackson had last year...

There is no doubt that the NFC North is strong this year. Jay Cutler and Matt Forte in Chicago, Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay and a young and exiting QB in Matt Stafford (first pick in last years draft) in Detroit. Hopefully the Vikings can win 12 games and get homefield in playoffs.

The AFC features a bunch of tough teams, but I believe that the Vikings (if they get there) will meet either the San Diego Chargers or New England Patriots in the SB. Both teams get great players back from injuries, Tomlinson in San Diego and Tom Brady in New England, and both have easy conferences that will give them lots of wins and homefield advantage through the AFC playoff.

On the the NCAA. For the followers of College Football that reads this, if any, it is a really exciting season this year. Most of the top ranked teams won pretty easily in their first game, except the Sooners heartbreaking loss against BYU, and both Florida, Texas, USC and Alabama are all looking strong.

I still want to make people aware of my new school, University of California - Berkeley. The Cal Bears are coming of a decent season last year and with their amazing tailback Jahved Best leading the team and being a Heisman candidate they might stir some things up in the PAC10. Are they going to be able to stop Tim Tebow and Florida... not likely... but they might get to the BCS game, or at least a BCS bowl game. It might come down to their homegame in Berkeley against USC later this fall.

A short last comment. I believe the Vikings should draft Tim Tebow next spring. If the Vikings do as good as I expect this season they will only have a late first round pick, but Tebow will not go early. I believe he could be the perfect QB to lead an Adrian Peterson based offense...

A month worth of blogging

2009-09-10T17:51:00.003+02:00

I barely remember writing a blogpost.. that is how long it's been. But I will try to capture the last month in the US in not too many words.

Last time I wrote, August 17., I was just a couple of away from going to Hawaii.

Hawaii is the kind of place that is really fun to visit once, but I don't really think I'll be going back there anytime soon. It is kind of like going to Rhodos, Cyprus or Mallorca. The weather was perfect and I did lots of fun stuff, but it did not really live of to the illusions created by movies. The food was good, but expensive.. like everything on Hawaii...

Enough whining, I did to do a couple of things I have always wanted to do. Skydiving and surfing. Skydiving was a pretty unreal experience, but I recommend everybody to try it once. A crazy feeling to jump out the open door of a plane. The 35 seconds of free fall was awesome, but it was over way to quickly. Surfing was also great fun and I did at least manage to get up on the board and catch a good bunch of waves (which was pretty easy considering the size of the board). All in all Hawaii was good relaxation and did get a little bit of a tan, even though I don't really have the patience to stay on the beach for hour after hour.

After Hawaii I spent the last weekend in San Francisco going to the Outside Lands Festival with David, Kim Joar, Per Kjetil and Anita. The festival was for me a big letdown. Beastie Boys was replaced with Tenacious D (who sucked) - what a joke! Pearl Jam was decent, Incubus was decent, Modest Mouse was decent and the only really good (or weird) concert I went to was MIA. A strange display of weird dancing and bad singing, but fun.

At the moment I am in Northfield, Minnesota after a visit with my american family in Duluth last week. i got to see the whole family again and it was good times. First time I've seen little Braeden and the little bugger is huge.

I am staying at Tyler's house and are looking forward to a couple of days with a really american small town festival, Defeat of Jesse James Days.

Another week gone by

2009-08-17T21:28:00.005+02:00

And then came Monday...

So another weekend is over... not that many left now. On Thursday I will be leaving sunny California and go to even more sunny Hawaii. Funkyzeit!

I am no longer as exhausted as I were after the exam, but it was a long weekend.

Friday we went to a football game and saw the 49ers marginally beat the Broncos. It was fun, but a little bit cold. Fun to see a game live again, been a long time.

After coming back from the game I expected to get a good night sleep before getting up early to see the first couple of games from the EPL. But alas, someone decided to come sneaking in and waking us all at 2.30am. Thank you Kim Åge and Diep, it was much appreciated. That said, something good came out of it. I got most of my Berkeley exam paper done between 4am and 7am that morning. And I watched Wigan bean Aston Villa and Arsenals thrashing of poor Everton.

Saturday a bunch of us went in to town to see the Richard Avedon exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It was interesting, but I actually enjoyed the Robert Frank photos they also displayed. After the exhibit we went out for a few drinks and sushi - I am getting really hooked on sushi. Went to a great place called Tsunami Sushi downtown. We might have been a little noisy, but it was all good. After dinner I was a little tired and took the train home while the others partied on. The cost of getting old :)

I just love that the Premier League is up and running again. A decent start for United. 1-0 over Birmingham is not that impressive, but compared to the start we had last season... Along with most of the other favorites, Chelsea/Arsenal/Manchester City, we got the first win. Arsenal was impressive, but pretty much scored on every chance. Chelsea got lucky with Drogbas pass going in.... and Liverpool lost away against Spurs. Najs!

Last night my room (Kim Åge, Dan Robert, Pål Bjarne and I) were invited to lasagne at one of the girls' room (Janicke, Heidi, Benedikte and Diep) and we now know that about 50% of all girls are bitter most of the time. The lasagna was awesome though. The night was finished off with us guys watching Rocky 4 on tele. Ivan Drago rocks!

Tune back next week for a hawaiian update!

Exhausted...

2009-08-13T21:26:00.002+02:00

So much for trying to be better at this stuff...

Well, to excuse myself, I have had sooo much to do the last couple of weeks. Since my last update I have been tied up with work and more importantly the business plan for school..

Lack of sleep is a key word here and I pretty much went into a coma after our presentation last night.

I'll come back to that stuff, but more importantly. I've become an uncle again! That is right, my brother Jostein and his wife Lene got a son this morning. Little August was born on the 13. of August... Fortunately they live in Bergen, so I will be able to see the little rascal right from the get go (at least when I get back to Bergen in a months time)

Back to the exam. For the last 10 days or so we have pretty much spent every evening working on the business plan for our fictional product HavFrisk. It was more work than expected and I am pretty much running on empty at the moment. Fortunately we presented it yesterday and are done with it. So the next couple of days will be nothing more than relaxation...

The only fun thing I have done the last couple of weeks were the Rock the Bells concert last Sunday. It was pretty awesome. A perfect venue for a one day festival, and we were all pretty much just laying on the grass listening to hiphop. The line-up included Nas, Damian Marley, Busta Rhymes, BigBoi, The Roots, House of Pain, Krs One, Talib Kweli, Raekwon and MOP. But, I must admit that the surprise artist were my favorit. It might be the fact that I am a little old school, but when Slick Rick entered the stage I got stoked. 'La di da di' and 'Mona Lisa' are awesome songs.

So what else is worth mentioning. Not much. I am going to the movie theater tonight to see Funny People and tomorrow a bunch of us are going to see a preseason game between San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos (Football). The weekend will mostly be set aside to write a couple of papers for school, but I'll be going up to San Francisco on Saturday....

Rock on!

Time fly

2009-07-30T19:17:00.005+02:00

Hmm...I am getting worse and worse at this blogging stuff...

So much has happened since last time I blogged and I'll try not to make this into a novel.

Last weekend was crazyness. Almost all the Norwegians at the entrepreneurship program went to Las Vegas for a weekend of fun. And even though I know that everything that happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas I'll try you guys a brief summary of the event. No pictures yet, but I'll try to find some decent ones and post later this week.

Seven of us left SFO on friday afternoon and amazingly, due to misunderstandings, we lost Peder at the airport. Kind of a bad omen for the weekend, but fortunately he got himself on the next plane and joined the rest of the crew some hours later.

I have a friend from high school in Minnesota, Chris, that works as a teacher in Vegas and another friend from Minnesota, Tyler, that flew down there as well. Tyler was there for one night only and Friday we went down to downtown Las Vegas. This is seperate from the more wll known strip and you can get a lot more for your money. I can truly recommend the penny slots at Le Bayou. As long as you play and tip you can pretty much get as many free drinks you can handle. In fewer words Norwegians and free alcohol is not always the best combination.

Later we went to two different night clubs, Rok and XS, and the latter was by far the most fun one. A huge club over at Wynn Encore that really rocked. Got a little tired towards the end and stumbled into bed at around 4.30ish.

I was as usual up way before the others on Saturday morning and, as the g33k I am, spent a couple of hours doing some schoolwork before Pål and I went to play poker. It was just a small 22-player $35 freeze out at the Luxor and I finished on the bubble (4th) but at least it was a couple of hours of great fun and I got unlucky at the end. Lost with full house against straight flush.

At around six most of the guys met to have dinner and we followed that up with a stretch hummer ride up and down the strip. The hummer ride ended at Ceasar's Palace where we clubbing at Pure. Somehow we got fooled doing table service, which pretty much means that you pay an amount up front to get in front of the line, get three bottles of liquer+mixers and get a VIP table. It seemed expensive to pay $150 to get into a club, but since you didn't spend much money after that the night was cheaper than the first one.

The coolest thing about Pure was the fact that DMX was hosting and did a full set of old classics. He might have been drunk or high, but it was an awesome concert at the whole club was bouncing. I was dead tired after the concert and went home early at around 3am still singing DMX songs....

Next morning was poker again, we did the same tournie, and I finished 3rd this time. At least I cashed and can brag about doing that in Vegas. This time I was a little lucky during the tournement and hit both four of a kind and straight flush along the way.

In total Vegas was a little expensive, but a whole lotta fun. I think most of the crew had lots and lots of fun, and so did I. The next couple of weeks will include a lot of schoolwork, the business plan we're doing is due august 12th....

Pictures will be posted later...

Can't wait for the season to start

2009-07-20T19:27:00.002+02:00

August 9th seem so far away...

The pre-season/silly season is a little bit nerve wrecking. There is the excitement of signing players you expected to get (Valencia), the excitement of the surprise signing of players you would never guess would wear the right red jersey (Owen), and the utter disappointment of players signing with other clubs then your own (Benzema, Ibrahimovic, and on and on and on). But what it all boils down to is the increasing anxiety of the upcoming season: Will the team perform like last year? Will the loss of Ronaldo haunt us forever (like Beardsley haunts the scousers)?

The first pre-season matches have led me to believe we will be as strong as ever. History has shown that when the biggest names have left Old Trafford others have excelled (Cantona/Beckham/van Nistelrooy) and I have absolutely no that in the abilities of Sir Alex to create another winning team and bringing number 19 back to Old Trafford.

I know 3-2 and 2-0 over a composition of Malaysias best 11 aren't the most impressive results ever, but we are winning matches (compared to teams which names will not be mentioned) and our strikes are scoring goals. The fact that Rooney, Macheda and Owen (2) have all opened their scoring accounts is significant. What is even more important is the fact that they are scoring scrappy goals. After van Nistelrooy left us we have struggled to get a pouncher in the area that can get the rebounds and tap in the easy goals. Owen is that kind of a striker, Rooney is getting better and better at it, and it seem like Macheda might have learned a thing or two from Solskjaer last year at the reserves.

So hopes are high for the coming season. I do not really feel that the other top teams have strenghtened their teams. Liverpool has signed Glen Johnson - which kind of surprised me considering the season Arbeloa had last year - but he will have an impact and create more width for the scousers. Chelsea has signed Yuri Zhirkov - the phenom from Euro '08 - but I am unsure if his impact will really bring the blues closer to the title. He might give them another option on the left side, but I will argue that both Ashley Cole and Joe Cole gives them better options on left back and left winger. Arsenal - if they can be considered a top team based on last year - has signed Thomas Vermaelen from Ajax. The 23 year old defender might an unknown entity for many has proven to be a steady central defender and should give Arsenal another alternative and might give them a little more confidence in defence (Arsenal (37) let in a high number of goals last season compared to United (24), Liverpool (27) and Chelsea (24)) .

While Chelsea and Liverpool have not sold any significant players, both Arsenal and United have. Even though Adebayor did not have the best of seasons for the gunners last season he had an impact and presence in every game he played. The questions is if Arshavin can keep up the form he had at the end of last season when more pressure will be put on him. Bendtner, van Persie and Vela should also be able to produce goals so my prediction is that Arsenal will not kick themselves for selling him when the season starts.

United on the other hand has had significant losses without really filling the needs so far. The sale of Ronaldo might come back and haunt us, but it was the right thing to do. He was not happy at the club and nobody wants players that want to leave (Beckham/van Nistelrooy). Just as significant is the loss of Tevez to City. It is typical for Ferguson though. No player is bigger than the team and we are not willing to pay players insane amounts in wages. I believe that if Tevez had really wanted to stay at United he could have. When the negotiations fell down earlier this year it was because Tevez wanted the same wage as Ronaldo....

To complete my analysis I do not think the other teams in the Premier League are stronger than they were a year ago, but United might be weaker. I do not believe the gap between number one and number four will be 18 points this season. I do not believe the gap between number one and number seven will be 37 points this season. But I do believe the top four will be United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea.... in that order...

Sailing, eating and beer pong

2009-07-20T07:52:00.003+02:00

Almost monday and I have had another interesting weekend in the Bay Area.

Friday was a totally relaxing evening. A little BBQ and a little poker. Fredrik lucked out and won, but it was great fun and we were to tired to go out.

On Saturday Innovation Norway hooked us up with sailing in the San Francisco Bay and it was a great day for it (besides the fact that it was too sunny and we all got sunburned - again). We sailed for three ours and got great views of both Golden Gate Bridge, Sausolito, Tiburon and San Francisco. I must admit that I am usually not that big of an boat person, but the whole sailing experience was totally relaxing and is highly recommended.

After the boat trip we had a few hours of relaxing before dinner at a small italian restaurant on Green Street, Vicoletto. The restaurant in itself didn't look that impressive from the outside, but the food was pretty decent. If anybody ever visit the place, however unlikely, I can recommend the Gorgonzola salad and the Veal Vicoletto.

As the truly model student that I am I had decided not to drink during our boat trip and the restaurant visit (I was driving), but somehow we ended up having a party at our apartment. It didn't start until close to 11 pm, but the party really rocked. A perfect college party with lots of music, people and beer pong.

The party ended, an hour after the old man (me) went to bed, when the cops came and threw the remaining partyers out of the jacuzzi. The total tally for the party was more than a 100 cans of beer, some Jägermeister (Go Daniel Go), some Baccardi, some Whiskey, two complaints by George the local security guard and one relocation (from our place to Fredrik, Andreas, Ole M and Kjetils place). Lots of fun, but must admit I was a little tired this morning.

Today I have pretty much been lying on the coach watching movies and sports on television and working on the marketing part of our business plan. A pretty ineffective day, but at least I got some work done.

and one more thing...
Go watch Brüno!
That man has no limits what so ever - Run to the movies...

Fredrik losing in beer pong...

San Francisco by the sea..

A bunch of Norwegians at Vicoletto

Vikings on a boat...

Pictures from the last weeks...

2009-07-19T19:27:00.003+02:00

Our great office! I am in the cubicle back left....

Wine tasting in Sonoma County with our boss Maher and his family.. Chardonney grapes at one of the winerys.

Maher and his daughter. This is from the early stage of the wine tasting...got a little boring for the little girl after a while.

Me as a Berkeley tree hugger...

We are trying to teach our co-workers the basic Norwegian words....

Jazz hands..

The half-blood prince

2009-07-16T08:53:00.002+02:00

Just came back from the movie theater and felt like giving a short review of Harry Potter and the Half-blood prince. It was a worthy intermediate film before the two last films - but the wait will be boring. The next movie isn't schedualed until next summer and there is bound to be some sort of a delay along the way...

I must say that it is impressive keeping up the good standard of the movies in the series so late in the series. The books are of course by far better, but I get kind of a Lord of the Rings feel to the franchise...

Wine-tasting in Sebastopol

2009-07-15T18:37:00.002+02:00

And then is was Wednesday again....

Since last time I wrote there has been quite a lot going on and I have been keeping busy. I will try to summarize some of it...

The days leading up to last Saturday was filled with a lot of work in regards to the group project we are doing here at Berkeley. We had to present a preliminary business plan for our company on Saturday and we had to prepare (more or less) for that. It went OK, but we kind of realize that we will have to continue to work (more than we want to) on the plan in the weeks to come.

This last weekend (+ Monday) Anita (my co-worker) and I went with my boss Maher and his family up to their house in Sebastopol. It was a really nice, relaxing weekend with a little bit of wine and champagne tasting on Sunday. If anyone ever visits the Sonoma area I can recommend going tasting. First of all it is a really fun experience to check out some of the many hundred winerys in the area, and second of all many of them are free....

Yesterday and today has been all work so far, but at least I am going to check out the latest Harry Potter movie tonight...

Tomorrow is another day of school and I have way to much to read before then....

Another week of work

2009-07-09T01:21:00.002+02:00

So it's Wednesday and half the week is gone... so fast...

Last weekend was a blast. When I wrote my last post I didn't really have that much planned for the weekend, but it was a certainly an eventful one...

Friday the few of us that were left in Mountain View spent the evening pretending to be Bruno in the jacuzzi and scaring of both Ukrainians and Hawaiians. The evening was rounded up with about an hour at tiny bar downtown Mountain View that us Norwegians have named "the hole in the wall" - I don't think anybody really knows what it is called... And Ole doesn't really remember much at all...

On the 4th of July we, Fredrik, Kim Aage, Ole and I went to this crazy houseboat party organized at some local Norwegian fireman's place. It was pretty sweet to be able to stand on the roof of the boat watching the fireworks go of while there where thousands of people cramming together on the pier.... Kind of a surrealistic experience... I'll try to steal some pictures from the others to post... We were all kind of tired from fridays Mountain View adventures so the night didn't last that long - Ole drove us home sometime between 1 and 2 am.

Sunday was pretty uneventful with tennis during the day and a trip to the movie theater during the afternoon. We saw Public Enemies which turned out to be a pretty crappy movie, but at least Fredrik got to eat a large popcorn with extra butter. Some consolation for the total trashing he got in tennis I guess...

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week has been going fast. Work is really good at the moment and I am given a lot of responsebility. Finally I some of the fruits of all my boring research is showing and I am starting to get some grasp on the partnership/affiliation program Faculte is going to run.

It is also great news that Notodden finally got three points in the Norwegian 1. division and that they are clear of relegation again.

Manchester United have also signed their third player (unless you count youngsters) this week. Bordaux's 20-year old striker Gabriel Obertan is ready for the reds and hopefully he will be a great addition to the squad. My expectations for him this first season are not that high, but he is a great prospect and could hopefully be developed by Fergie into a future star.

A weekend of relaxation

2009-07-03T22:36:00.002+02:00

As most of the other norwegians travel south towards Los Angeles, Joshua Tree and St. Barbara I am finding my self in a total state of relaxation here in Mountain View. While the others probably are stuck in 10 hours of traffic I will bee playing tennis and lying poolside...

It is of course 4th of July weekend and I do not really know what I will be doing tomorrow, but I do not worry... I am pretty chill at the moment.

So what else is new? Yesterday was school and that was pretty ordinary... although I have found my favorite place in California. It is calles Yoghurtland and the sell yoghurt icecreams buffet style.

Last night I went to Blockbuster and rented five movies: Frost/Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler, Gran Torino and Fired Up (I needed a light crappy high school movie as well). I have seen the two first so far and Slumdog is a really feel good kind of movie. It also contains one of my new favorite songs: M.I.A. - Paper Planes.

On another note I am a little stunned and a little excited of the signing of Michael Owen. Nothing would be more fun than him scoring the winner against the scousers on Anfield in October....

Word out

Antonio Valencia

2009-07-01T00:22:00.003+02:00

Antonio Valencia signs for Manchester United

Very nice!

Week update

2009-06-29T23:25:00.002+02:00

Wow!

It's been way to long since I last updated my blog. Sorry to all my faithful followers (all three of you). I promise to do better.

So what has happened since last update? A little bit of everything I guess. I'll do a short, or maybe long, chronological update.

So last update was exactly a week ago. Most of last week was pretty much the same every day. Work - Tennis - TV - Bed....

But work wise it is becoming more and more fun. Last week I worked on making recommendation towards what type of affiliates system Faculte should work on and what actors we should contact. And I have gotten myself a title: Business Development Manager - sure will look good on my resume...

On wednesday we went and saw Transformers 2 - Rise of the fallen, and it was a decent movie. Not as good as the Hangover or the first Transformers movie, but worth watching. (

My tooth was still hurting last week so on Thursday I got myself a root canal. Did not hurt at all and the dentist was really good, but expensive. Close to $1300 and then I'll need to get a crown after that...very najs

After my trip to the dentist we all went to Berkeley for school. I found (or was shown to) the best Yoghurt/Icecream place I have ever been to... sooooo goood. Lots of fresh fruits and stuff... (http://www.yogurt-land.com/) If you're ever close to one of these - buy one...

School was also pretty fun. I was knocked up on lots of vicodin so I found myself being pretty active in class. Do not remeber if I where saying anything productive, but at least I was there.

Friday was another workday and we went out in Mountain View afterwards. A pretty fun night out at a small bar. I will try to get hold of some pictures (my camera is still broken - I must consider buying a new cheap one) and show you all.

Saturday we (Paal, Peder, Brit, Haowen and I) went and saw Oakland A's lose to the Colorado Rockies, but for most of us going it was a new experience and pretty fun.

That was everything I guess - oh, wait - I got sunburned like a ... yesterday at the beach in Santa Cruz... For some reason I though sunscreen on the back of my legs where overrated... No pictures - and that might be a good thing..

So long and thanks for all the fish

The Hangover

2009-06-22T19:50:00.004+02:00

Good morning America (and Good afternoon Norway)

Just wanted to you all a quick note this morning. Go and see a movie called The Hangover (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119646/). It is well worth the watch and an easy and entertaining movie.

A weekend of work

2009-06-22T01:52:00.002+02:00

It hasn't really been a eventfull weekend, but I will try to update everyone on the few things I have been doing.

Yesterday started of pretty boring with school from 12-16. Had to drive from Mountain View at around 10 am and we weren't back until close to six. The afternoon was spent eating Taco Bell, which didn't suck as bad as my coworker Miki told me, and working on my Masters thesis. I know I can be a g33k sometime, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do...

When I went to bed at around 11.30 pm I had planned to sleep until morning, but the guys I live with had other plans for me. At 1.30 am they woke me up and told me that my buddy Jack (Daniels) missed me. So instead of waking up early to continue my writing I didn't get to bed until 5.30 am.

I am a little tired today, but at least I got up and are sitting in the common rooms at the apartment complex working on my paper along with Jannicke. A pretty boring weekend, but at least Pål and I are going to see The Hangover at the movie theater later tonight...

For some reason I have really started to eat a lot of sushi. The local grocery store sells ready made california rol, salmon rolls and tuna rolls and they are pretty good... Just thought people would like to know that.

And we are planning a trip to Las Vegas towards the end of next month.... Awesome!

TGIF!

2009-06-20T02:10:00.002+02:00

Almost done at work for the weekend at today has been a fun day at work. Writing a blog post for the companies site (if the boss approves it) and doing some research on possible speakers at an online conference we are hosting... Times flies fast when you are having fun.

So what else is new in Cali?

As I whined about earlier I had to go to the dentist yesterday. No clear conclusion, but he did at least give me a vicodin type of drug - so at least I can dope myself if it starts to hurt again. The dentist gave me a referral to a specialist, but I will have to wait and see what NAV says regarding coverage...

Yesterday was also the first day of classes at Berkeley and I thought it was fun. Everything was case based and we were all pretty much discussing what strategic decisions the entire class. Tomorrow is more classes - which sucks - because it would be nice to have the weekend of, but you can't always get want you want.

Another thing that sucks is that my camera broke yesterday. I kind of got broke at St. Cruz last weekend but started working again, but this time it seems more serious. A little worried that some sand got into the camera at the beach. A buddy here, David, is a engineer wannabe and is trying to fix it... let's hope he is better at that than playing tennis.

Tonight promises some tennis and BBQ - so hope to enjoy the evening without toothache or breaking anything...

Ansa Travel Insurance

2009-06-18T09:23:00.002+02:00

Just a short comment after my talk with Gouda. They are generous enough to cover up to 1000 kr ($150) in dental costs... Wow! That really helps if I need a root canal.

So to all you Norwegians reading this and considering getting Ansa (Gouda) Travel Insurance when going abroad - don't.

One more day in the sun...

2009-06-18T08:32:00.002+02:00

The clock is 11.30 pm in California and I am staying up just to call Gouda, my travel insurance company not the cheese, to check if dental care is a part of my insurance. Let's hope so, I am going to the dentist to check my tooth and get a quota tomorrow....

Other than toothache the day has been pretty boring. A long day at work followed by a little schoolwork and a couple of bbq'ed burgers. We have all been getting ready for our first day at Berkeley tomorrow )and some of us are worrying about pop quizzes and angry professors). Fortunately the guys at Faculte are letting us work from home tomorrow so I will try to do a little work before going to dentist - and hopefully a little after. Work is a little boring at the moment - I am pretty much just reading up on the competition and their partners and evaluating what type of partners and affiliates Faculte should contact. It involves a hell of a lot of googling and watcing online business presentations and demos. If anyone are interested in hearing about anything that relates to online presentations (content or production) just let me know...

Signing off from Mountain View, California...

Just another day at work

2009-06-17T03:59:00.002+02:00

The clock strikes 7 pm and I am still at work.... and oh so tired.

On Thursday I have a class at Berkeley that starts at 5 pm and I would have to leave work at around 2 pm to be able to drive over there, eat and review the articles and case for class. And that is the reason why I am still at work - gotta make up those three hours somehow....

On top of that my tooth hurts. Some months ago I had a tooth fixed, but unfortunately not well enough. I gotta find an American dentist and get a root canal. Woho. Can't hardy wait.

That's enough whining for one day. There is less than one hour until I can go home, go to the gym, work out, and then jump in the jacuzzi afterward... Maybe even open a bottle of Dos Equis or Shiner and totally relax....

Santa Cruz

2009-06-15T04:46:00.005+02:00

Welcome to Santa Cruz!

Santa Cruz is famous for skateboards, surfing and being one of the spots on the Californian coast with the most shark attacks. Fortunately we did not get attacked in our short five minute pacific ocean swim. Today Dan Robert, David and I decided to go for a short road trip to one of the most famous spots on the Californian coast. It was a short 40 minute drive in our little white Kia and we rocked our way over with Beastie Boys playing loudly on the radio.

It was a awesome beach with not to many people and more than enough space for us to throw our hackysack around. The water was really cold at first, but we couldn't let a chance to take a dip in the pacific pass us by. The wind was blowing, which resulted in me not feeling how well the sun overtanned by body and my arms are as red as boiled lobster. Right now I am sitting lying on the sofa chilling and being pretty determined to stay here for the rest of the evening.

Yesterday was another pretty chill day. I got in a little work-out with a little tennis and basketball, but mostly I was being a g33k and spent most of the day reading articles for class, working on a report for work on monday and doing a little work on my masters thesis.

Friday was my second day at work and it was pretty similar to thursday. Out boss, Maher, is pretty cool and did yet again by us lunch. This time at a great little french cafe that served awesome crepes. Other than that they told me to work on some suggestions for strategic partners and I did pretty much do that all day. If anybody want to know anything about stock photo sites be sure to let me know.

I hope everybody is updated and enjoying my typing frenzy.

David (on the left) and Dan Robert enjoying the beach at Santa Cruz.

A cool old Herbie at the pier. Look closely at the colored guitar in the back window.

I do not have a role in the remake of "honey, I shrunk the kids" the truck is just huge...

Apartment complex

2009-06-15T04:38:00.003+02:00

A couple of quick pictures from the apartment complex. I know we are spoiled rotten. The pool just below is one big jacuuzi... Najs!

First day at work

2009-06-12T15:41:00.002+02:00

Yesterday was my first day at work and it was pretty exciting. The company I work for only have four employees in the US (Some more in Romania and India) and yesterday I got to meet them all (Maher, Miki, Mark and Karim). I will mostly work on corporate development and creation of strategic partnerships. Pretty nifty :)

Under you can see the front of our building, but I will try to remember to take some more pictures at work today, and some more at my apartment complex during the weekend.

I work with Anita, but it doesn't look like we will work on the same things. She will mostly work on content on the website and the development of the interface of Faculte.

Where we would we be without GPS? Nobody really knows...

On wednesday we were up at Berkeley again and got some stuff sorted out in regards to school. It seems like it will be quite a bit of work, but fortunately Faculte seems to be really flexible in regards to working hours and so on - so I am sure that if school gets hectic they will let us take a day off or leave early..

Other than that the days so far has been pretty similar. Eating burgers/prawns from the BBQ and jumping into the jacuzi with a beer when it gets chilly in the evening.

I also sent a couple of messages with Leah (Matt's wife) and I will be flying out to Colorado sometime this summer. I just have to check with school and work what time will be most suitable. Really looking forward to seeing Matt, Leah and little Braedon...

That's all folks...

I've got a job!

2009-06-09T07:51:00.005+02:00

Then the jobinterviews were over and I ended with a company called Faculte - http://www.faculte.com/ - and I am pretty excited. It is a small company (only four employees in the us - and now two interns) that works with a broadcast solution for online creation of video presentation... exciting!

Other than that we moved into our new apartment - and it looks insane. I took some pictures of the apartment I live in, but I will post some more from the area as soon as I get around to doing it. Tomorrow I have the day of and might go up to San Francisco to chill or I might stay at our apartment and work with my master - not decided yet....

What else is new? Not much, but it is sunny and warm and everyone is enjoying themselves at our new apartment. A bunch of us played a little tennis and basketball today - before we went out and celebrated our new jobs - although we got hustled at a thai restaurant..

Now I am a little tired and pretty much ready for bed...

Finally I promised Jannicke - a fellow student - to post a picture of her on my blog. I took the best one I could find....

San Francisco - Day 3

2009-06-06T16:29:00.003+02:00

Good morning world. Today is a big day. We are all moving in at Mountain View and getting our nice apartments. http://www.oakwood.com/furnished-apartments/furnished/US/CA/Mountain-View/prop17.html#propDetail

Yesterday was pretty much all about sightseeing and a little shopping. Some more norwegians participating in the program arrived and we went all out to eat in the evening. A nice day on which I managed to get a little sunburned by the Californian sun...

The picture above is from when Pål and I did a little sightseeing in the morning. Visiting the San Francisco Bay Aquarium and the Norwegian Seaman's Church (Do not worry it was all for the waffles). I got to admit that San Francisco is a pretty cool town, especiall if you get away from the downtown area and all the touristy places - although you can get quite tired from walking up and down all the steep hills.

San Francisco - Day 2

2009-06-05T15:40:00.004+02:00

Picture 1 - Alcatraz

Picture 2 - Golden Gate Bridge

Picture 3 - Very steep streets in SF

Picture 4 - Pål and I at the entrance to Chinatown

Picture 5 - Some collegy trail at Berkley

Well another early morning and another update from "the land of the free and home of the brave".

Yesterday was another touristy day were we pretty much just tried to get to know the city a little. It started of with a trip out to Berkelet to check the school out witch of course ended with all of us buying plenty of Berkeley clothes and other stuff... but it was all good... nice and old and big school...

Then we to the BART-train back into downtown and walked around for some hours.

I am still jetlagged and had to go to bed at nine - it might be that I am getting older - who knows.

Not much more exciting to tell you all about day two - but we got to see most of the main sights from afar and had fun at an ancient arcade with lots of old videogames and similar stuff..

That's all for now

Sverre

Jetlagged in San Francisco

2009-06-04T13:23:00.002+02:00

Good morning - Good day - Good afternoon. It's not always easy to let the body know what time it really is. Right now the clock is 4.25 am in San Francisco and I am sitting at the charming Lori's Diner because there was no way in hell that my body wanted to sleep any longer....

But as you all understand I have gotten myself to San Francisco, I have checked in at the hotel and right now I am trying to get the time to pass...

It was a long and pretty boring flight - I did enjoy the great inflight entertainment though (Confession of a shopaholic, pink panther 2, and some other shitty flick about a mall cop (played by kevin james)... but hey - I made it - still more or less sane...

I am posting my first impressions of SF, I know I do not take enough pictures - and a lot of them are of poor quality - but I am doing as well as I can..

Oops

2009-05-30T12:08:00.003+02:00

Let's hope this doesn't happen again :)

Out of Bergen

2009-05-30T08:18:00.002+02:00

So my journey has begun. Left Bergen yesterday and have arrived at Notodden for a short first stop. It is of course a little sad to leave everybody in Bergen behind for the summer, but I am hoping that the experience from the states will be crucial getting the job I want...

The next days will consist of nothing pretty much just more packing and more goodbyes. And hopefully a little shopping with my mom on tuesday. Yes, I know I am spoiled...

When in Rome....

2009-05-28T07:23:00.002+02:00

Lose is the first word that comes to my mind...As most enlightened people already know Manchester United lost yesterdays final in the Champions League to Barcelone. 0-2. And it is not like we can blame the referee - cry for ungiven penalties - be outraged of all the missed chances....no Barcelona won fair and square.

I guess you can learn a little about people while watching soccergames. Some people have compassion and some get nothing by joy out of other peoples misery. Simon for example is no big Barcelona fan - never has been or never will be - but since most of the people watching the game at his place were United-supporters he had to yell high and loud in joy as Bercelona crushed a weak United-team. Sometimes it should be allowed to hit people across the head with 2x4s..

Today is also the last full day in Bergen for a while. Tomorrow morning I am driving home to Notodden with Stian. A small Road Trip - perhaps a short preview of the road trip we might take this fall.

3rd of June suddenly doesn't seem so far away and I must admit I always get a little anctious of leaving. I am the kind of guy that packs his bags a week before leaving and double checks everything at least twice - I still usually forget something....

I just saw a movie that I didn't like

2009-05-21T07:01:00.002+02:00

Stay away from the movie Angels & Demons... it is pretty much the worse movie I have payed to see in a long while...

I have no idea what Ron Howard was thinking while making this movie - but he must have been high on something. I might have had to high expectations from reading the book and actually enjoying the first movie (The Da Vinci Code), but this was not 100 kroner ($15) well spent...

I just saw a movie I liked

2009-05-19T08:55:00.002+02:00

I have never really been a big fan of the whole Star Trek thing, but I might just become one. After watching the latest Star Trek movie last night I just got an urge to see the rest of them. I must admit that I haven't watched any of the old movies or any episodes of the TV-series -and I am starting to sense that I am missing out....

Oh well - back to the movie. Why not use my former journalist skills (if I ever had any) and give you all a short review (that is if anyone is still reading).

First of all the movie is directed by J.J. Abrams - the guy that created Lost and Cloverfield. That might not be a good thing some of you might say, well I beg to differ. Neither Lost nor Cloverfield may be sensational, but for me they are both great fun. And so is the latest Star Trek flick. A surprisingly well casted movie with the likes of Zachary Quinto (Sylar in Heroes), Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings) and Eric Bana (Munich, Troy).

I will not bother you all with a lot of talk about the plot in the movie - I am sure there are lots of well articulated plot summaries out on the web - but I would like to say that the movie has managed to hit the spot right on in regards to making a movie with enough references to the old movies along with enough action, up to date special effects and one-liners to capture the interest of people like me.

Off I go - ordering Star Trek on play.com

Accepted!

2009-05-13T18:36:00.008+02:00

Wow, amazingly enough the american embassy decided that I was qualified to enter their country once again. So now it's only a questions of time before I once again set my feet on american soil.

Things are pretty hectic in Bergen these days - and I had my worst migrene attack ever just the other days. Lost the ability to focus completely for a couple of hours - which of course was pretty scary. I ended up at the hospital, after my mom started talking about tumours and yelled me into going. The doctor just smiled, said it was nothing and billed me 300 kroner ($50). Money well spent!

Well that is it for now - not that much exciting going on. Well back to making lasagna.

Back in Bergen

2009-05-11T18:58:00.004+02:00

After a short visit to Oslo to get my visa for the states and go to Pernilles bapthism I am back in Bergen...

I must admit that the idea of having to go to Oslo to say hi to a visaofficer and answer a couple of questions that they already have the answer to is a little bit of a waste. At least I had already planned to go east this weekend, but I feel sorry for all those that have to spend thousands of kroners just to show their face at the embassy...

Sunday I finally got to see my sisters little daughter Pernille Anne to which I am Godfather (For the third time - almost feel like Marlon Brando). Of course I gave the little child a Manchester United-body and song some great United-lullabyes. She fell right asleep dreaming of Ryan Giggs running down the wing....a future norwegian national team player for sure. It was a nice bapthism and great food afterwards - so all in all a pretty good day...

The weekend was not made worse by Uniteds 2-0 trashing of our rivals Manchester Shitty... Only two more wins needed.

Less than four weeks to liftoff... Ordered my travel insurance today - even more money flying out the window...

Ecstacy

2009-05-06T06:27:00.004+02:00

There it is - 3-1 victory away at Arsenal and 4-1 on aggregate. Rome here we come.

A classic display of effeciency gave Manchester United a second consecutive berth to the final of the Champions League were we will meet the winner of todays game between Chelsea and Barcelona. Although Barcelona might be seen as the hardest team to play I would have to admit that I much rather meet them in the final than Chelsea.

Time passing by

2009-05-05T07:55:00.003+02:00

So now it's only 4 weeks until departure. Starting to get a little travel itch, but it's all good. I am the kind of person that hos to have everything ready days in advance. So yesterday I checked if I knew where all the cords for my camera, viedocamera and everything were. Fortunately I found them all - at least the ones that came to mind.

While looking for the cords I came over some of the videos from when I spent some months in Egypt. Pretty fun watching a drunk Simon jumping around in his boxers hitting the angry german Anders with a pillow. Good times.

At the moment nobody knows that I am writing a blogg, so it's actually more of a diary for myself. Guess I gotta let people know sooner rather than later.

Today is going to be another exciting day. Just got up and I am meeting Simon, Jøran and Magnus at the gym to fit inn a little workout in an otherwise busy day. At least there will be some fun tonight with poker and the second semifinal in the Champions League. Hopefully United will follow up there 1-0 win at home with at least a draw at Emirates, but you never know. I'll be crossing my fingers.

Guess that's it for now

June 3. - Time of departure

2009-05-01T10:38:00.000+02:00

Still under construction. I still don't know how good I will be at this blogging stuff, but I will try to keep everyone interested updates at least a couple of times a week. Just so you know what is going on and how I am doing.

Short synopsis:
June 3. I will be flying out of Oslo to yet again go to the land of the free and home of the brave... or so they say. San Francisco is the destination this time around and I will be spending a little under three months in the city by the bay. After that a roadtrip is in the planning phase, but we will se what comes of it.

In San Fran I will be doing a half&half intership and school. One afternoon per week I will be attending the Center of Entrepeneurship and Techonolgy at the University of California, Berkeley and the rest of the week I will be working full time for a newly established technology firm in the Silicon Valley area (the company is yet to be decided). Everything is put together by something called Gründerskolen here in Norway and is a cooperation between several norwegian universities and the norwegian government.

As for now I am going to Oslo next week to get my visa, but other than that I am looking forward to some hectic months in California.