A quick hello!

Seems like I’ve been a bit “off grid” (again), and I apologize.

It’s not like I have actually really been off grid (wouldn’t that be kinda cool to try), I’ve just been hanging around the house, in a offline all hunkered down kinda way!

Let me explain! You see… I had a fantastic trip to Italy for a few days around the month-end July/August… a trip I will tell you all about later.

Now, someone… thought we obviously had had such a great trip, that they (whoever they are) figured it be a great idea for us to enjoy our trip even more after we came home… and promptly decided that giving some of us (we were 38 people on a trip) food poison on our last evening, was a swell thing to do!

Yes you heard me right!

A few of us came home with a gift!

Some from the travel party got hit already on the way home, and I feel soooo sorry for them. Being sick is bad enough, having to deal with it an a all day travel day, sucks big time.

Me? I got home, before it hit… but then… it hit hard.

Because of the meds I take on a regular basis for my chronic migraines and tension headaches, I’m already having some stomach trouble, throw in a sever case of food poisoning, and there you have it.. a receipt for disaster.

So this is what I’ve been up to.. staying at home tending to a spike in migraines (from the trip) combined with food poisoning, and you can see why I’ve been laying low.

The ONE redeeming factor?

I’ve lost 6 pounds!!!

And, I can’t say I’m hating having lost them, now if they will just stay off, I’ll be a really, really happy camper 😉

PS. Note to self. Never, ever… eat under-cooked meat again… while traveling!

Copenhagen – AirBnb – first time ever!

As I told you in my last post, I had a wonderful weekend trip to Copenhagen, early June, and we tried out AirBnb for the very first time. I thought I would let you in on how that experience went 🙂

AirBnb
We decided to try out AirBnb, it was a first for us, and it worked reasonable well. You can find all types of places to live through Airbnb, from guest rooms in family homes to apartments and even large properties. There are options in a variety of price ranges.

We rented a small apartment/condo, at a pretty convenient location, as it was within easy distance to just about everything 🙂

We loved having a place we could call “our own”, where we could relax and do whatever we wanted. We enjoyed the heck out of the small balcony, we could take as long as we wanted in the bathroom, there was a kitchen if we wanted to make food and we could walk around in pj’s until we had to leave the house..

Now, we did learn a thing or two on this first try:

always check what the fees are in the local currency –
we had a change of fees due to the owners having had a leak from the apartment above. Since the refurbish wasn’t quite done, some of us had to sleep on a madras on the floor. As a result we got a reduction in price. Now… we thought the reduction was more than it turned out to be. The flaw? We were thinking Norwegian kroner, rather than Danish kroner – lesson learned!
check out the details on photos of the place properly – when in doubt. ASK questions!
our place was kinda cute, but we had a bathroom that had a few flaws:
– there was no curtain around the shower, so everything got wet
– there was no proper shower head (homemade, makeshift solution)
– we wouldn’t have minded if had been a bit cleaner – but then again, our standards are a bit high 😉
ask loads of questions before you leave –
REMEMBER! There are no stupid questions, YOU want to make sure the place is a good fit for YOU!
– we had asked a few questions – like was the beds in the children’s room large enough for adults, the answer was yes, but we forgot to ask if the covers/duvets was large enough for adults, which they were not 😦
– we also forgot to ask about noise level outside – turns out there was a bar right outside the children’s bedroom, where one of us had to sleep, or not sleep as it was…
– is there air-con? It was really warm in Copenhagen, and air-con would have been nice. The place did not have it.. hence K having to sleep with the windows open, not getting any slepp because of the bar mentioned above.
– ask about the closeness to things around you – we did good on this one
– make sure you have the correct address – we thought we had, turns out there was an error on the website, and we were waiting forever for the host.. outside the wrong house!

Even though we didn’t find our perfect place right away, there is no doubt we will try AirBnb again, as we loved having our own place.

Living in hotels having to meet at a certain time in the lobby, takes a little of the spontaneity out of it, having our own place we notices, put the spontaneity back into our trip.

Planning our day is easier when you can do that over a cup of coffee, with the PC close at hand to find things online, together. Sure you can do this over breakfast or meet at the lobby in a hotel, but hanging around the kitchen table or lounging in a living room when you make the plans, beats the lobby hands down, anytime 😉

Have you tried Airbnb? What is your experience?

Copenhagen – Biking the city – part 2

I’m still not done writing about the cool weekend trip to Copenhagen, that I had with with some friends, early June. Here are Copenhagen’s Friday’s, and Saturday’s excursions 🙂 And now we are here…

Day 3 Copenhagen – Sunday

Since we had such a great day biking around Copenhagen Saturday, we decided to spend Sunday on the bikes as well. As you can see from the map, we took off in a different direction of town this time around.

Botanical garden

Our first stop on the way, was Copenhagens Botanical garden (1). There is no biking allowed inside the park, so we locked the bikes outside the gate and meandered around for quite some time. For some reason there wasn’t all that many people around, which I loved. It felt peaceful, you could sit down and relax and see no one for a while. And when inside any of the glasshouses, you didn’t trip over people.

The botanical garden has as many as 27 glasshouses, the oldest one, the Palm House, was built in 1874. The Palm house is the tallest glasshouse and there are spiral stairs that leads you up into the dome, where you can walk “among the top of the palms”. You can see some beautiful pictures of the Palm House and surrounding gardens here.

We walked through most of the garden and then took a side trip out of the garden and across the street to:

Rosenborg Castle and The Kings garden

Rosenborg Castle (2) is situated right next to the Botanical garden and has a garden of it’s own, the Kings garden. Rosenborg Castle is a renaissance castle, built originally as a country summerhouse for the royal family in 1606, expanded several times until it was completed in 1624.

The castle was in use by Danish regents as a royal residence until about 1710, and since then it’s been only used as a royal residence twice. The first time was when Christiansborg Palace burned down in 1794, and the second time was during the British attack on Copenhagen in 1801.

Today, it’s a museum, where you can see, among other things, the Throne Chair of Denmark, The Crown Jewels and the Danish Crown Regalia

There are several buildings “attached” to Rosenborg Castle; Slotsforvalterboligen, The Commandant’s house and the Rosenborg Barracks, The barrack building is an old orangery complex (1709) that was converted into barracks for the Royal Life Guards in the years 1785-1786. The building was in use by the Life Guards until 1985. Today it has a small museum, and I believe it’s a protected building.

We didn’t go inside the castle or it’s surrounding buildings this time around, but we did saunter through the Rosenborg Castle gardens/Kings gardens.

After hanging around the Rosenborg Castle for a while, eating ice cream and sunning ourselves. We walked back to the botanical garden gate, picked up our bikes and continued on to…

Den Lille havfruen/The Little mermaid

Just about everyone (at least in Scandinavia) has heard about the statue of the Little Mermaid (3) in Copenhagen. It’s almost impossible to buy a postcard from Copenhagen and there not be a picture of her on it 😉

The Little Mermaid is a bronze statue based on the fairy tale of the same name by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It’s an icon in Copenhagen and a major tourist attraction.

I always thought the little Mermaid was sitting on a rock out in the water, but it turns out she is landlocked, sitting on a rock by the waterside at the Langelinie promenade.

Since there was a lot of tourist around (it was a bit crowded) we didn’t stay long before we moved on to …

Kastellet/The Citadel

Just down the road from the Little Mermaid you will find Kastellet (4) This old citadel was built in the years 1626 – 1663 (1626 initiated, 1663 rebuilt), it’s one of the best preserved star fortresses (a pentagram) in Northern Europe

In the Citadel area, there are several old buildings. A church (1704), the Commander’s House (1725), the Powder House (1712), the Prison complex (1725) and even a windmill (1847, replacing one from 1718) ++.

Kastellet is still an active military area, but it’s open to the public. You can walk around the ramparts overlooking the Øresund Strait, and the moats surrounding the citadel. It was a beautiful place to lounge around, we even had our lunch sitting on the benches relaxing 🙂

Right next to the Citadel, you will find the Gefion Fountain, and St Alban’s Church (first church made of flint I have ever seen).

Leaving the Citadel, we biked along Amaliegade, which took us right into…

Amalienborg Palace square

Amalienborg Palace (5) is the home of the Danish Royal Family. It consists of four identical palaces around an octagonal courtyard, and in the middle of it all, you can find a equestrian statue of King Frederick V.

Amalienborg was originally built for four noble families; but, after Christiansborg Palace burned on 26 February 1794, the royal family bought the palaces and moved in.

Amalienborg is just a stone’s throw from Frederick’s Church also called The Marble Church (6)

As you can see.. the sights in this city is just about everywhere… and you can get lost in the all if you really want to, but we started to get hungry and continued on past The Royal Danish Playhouse (7) down to Nyhavn to find a place to eat.

Nyhavn was packed (as you would expect on a beautiful summer day) so we found ourselves an Italian restaurant down the road instead.

After the meal we took of towards the Amager side of Copenhagen, and the Opera house. Before we got to the Opera house however, we found this really cool place where we could drink and eat (had we only known that before our so so Italian meal).

Copenhagen Street Food

Copenhagen Street food (8) is this awesome place (yes I could hang here all day) with colorful and tasty food trucks with food from all over the world. All of them situated inside warehouse 7 and 8 on the Paper island.

We had seen a lot of people hanging outside on the quay and was curious about what this place was all about, you would have laughed had you seen our faces when we walked into the warehouse… I just couldn’t stop grinning 🙂 The hustle and bustle, the smells (yes good ones) we were kicking ourselves for already having eaten. There were food truck upon food trucks, food stalls, drink stalls, music and did I mention all the great food smell?

We just had to get our hands on some of it… hungry or not.

Some sushi and a GT later, we got back on the bikes. After biking all day, and eaten our self silly on sushi (yes we did, even though we weren’t all that hungry, it was just that the food was THAT good) it was time to call it a night and head home… but… we decided to do a little detour first, as we wanted to see the Opera House, which conveniently was just one quay over 😉

The Opera house

The Opera (9) on Holmen, is an awesome building, at least from the outside. It was starting to get late so we only biked past it. One of the cool features of the placement of the Opera is that when you stand in the main entrance of the Opera, you can see the Marble Church through Amalienborg.

Just past the Opera House we saw an interesting area we just had to check out (did I mention we did a detour on our way home?)

The Naval Station – Holmen naval base

Turns out it was the Naval Station or Holmen naval base as it’s also called (10). The Naval Station used to occupy the entire area of Holmen, being the command base for the Danish navy in the years 1690 til 1990. Today, this Naval base is confined to it’s northernmost island of Nyholm, and is mostly a mix of residential, educational institutions and some military activities.

The base is open to the public, and it’s worth a trip if you are into naval ships. You can find historic naval ships and a few historic buildings like the Mast Crane.

As you can imagine, it was the ships and Mast Crane that caught my eye 😉

Christiania – again

Leaving the naval area, we found this quirky road following one of the canals, turns out the road we followed put us right smack back in the middle of Christiania (which I wrote about here).

Had I known we were biking along this narrow stretch of land close to the lake at Christiania – Stadsgraven (11), I would have moved us one street over, so that we could have followed the road alongside the lake instead, and maybe, just maybe I could have found some of the houses I had missed out on, on our Saturday trip… Oh well, now I know.. for next time!

Onward to home we biked! And ended our day on the balcony, relaxing, winding down and preparing for our departure the next day.

Where did we stay? Well, we decided to try out Airbnb, first time ever, for all three of us. How did that go? Stay tuned and I’ll tell you all about it…

And I promise, it wont take me weeks.. like this post did! It was all due to computer trouble, which is hopefully now fixed…

Copenhagen – Biking the city – part 1

I had a wonderful trip to Copenhagen with some friends, early June, and you might remember I covered Friday’s excursion in my last post, and here we are on day two…

Day 2 Copenhagen:

Saturday, we started off the day with renting bikes. Walking is a great way to get around, but you cover more ground on a bike. There are several places to rent bikes in Copenhagen, and if I could give any recommendations, it would be to rent a bike as soon as you get there. In hindsight we should have rented our bikes from day one. It’s cheap, and would have saved our feet Friday 😉 We found a rental place just a few streets down from where we lived.

Biking around Copenhagen is very easy, not only is it flat as a pancake, but almost all roads have separate bike paths on the side, with their own traffic lights and even roundabouts. It was almost like driving a car, except you were on a bike 🙂 The city is pretty much built for cyclists and there are more bikes than cars in the city centre. The people living there commute on bicycle and you’ll see people in suits, heels and skirts pedalling away. If you ever want to give cycling a capital city a try, Copenhagen is definitely the place to start,

This is what we did!

We left our apartment in the morning, got our rental bikes and took off for the day.

I’ve drawn up a map on our Saturday route, the numbers on the map corresponds with numbers mentioned in the text below:

Meatpacking district

As soon as we got the bikes we figured we needed a little food and we roamed the Meatpacking district (1) for a place to eat. The meatpacking district used to be, where Copenhagens meat industry had their businesses. Nowadays the area has turned into a more trendy restaurant and nightlife area. And it turned out we were too early and most places wasn’t opened up yet. Instead we found a small deli a few streets up, where we grabbed some food for a quick brunch, and snack for the road.

Amager

Then we took of towards a couple of Copenhagen’s allotment gardens, on the island of Amager which is a large part of Copenhagen. We decided to bike to these allotment gardens because we wanted some green time, time away from all the hustle and bustle of the city, where we could have a picnic and just relax.

Islands brygge

We biked along Islands brygge, it’s a area/street that follows the canal that separates Amager island and the rest of Copenhagen, and there are several sights along the way. One of the really cool ones are the Harbour Bath (2), an outdoor pool area. There are pools for the little ones, a large pool for people wanting to do swim training and a diving tower for people that wants to practise or just want to jump from higher ground. The area around the Harbour bath was packed with people. Some sunbathing in the gorgeous weather, some playing on the grass, and some hanging out at a oriental food festival. Right next to the Harbour bath, there is an area they have created where people can play kayak polo/canoe polo which… I’m telling you is a hoot to watch 🙂

Amager fælled/Amager Common

As we biked further along the canal, we found Amager Common. Amager Common is a large green area with fishing ponds, trails and loads of birdlife, and we hit the park right alongside the canal. A few hundred meters into the park we saw this cute little quay (3) and decide to stop for a picnic and a bit of sun.

Being restless souls (that would be B and me… K could have stayed all day sunning herself I’m sure) we continued on into the park, where we biked around Sønderbro allotment garden (danish) (4). We stopped at Sønderbro for a refreshing drink (they have a small shop), before we continued on to Bryggen allotment garden (danish) (5)

On our way back towards the center of town, we biked along the bike trails within the Amager Common (6) and it was great. The birds were singing, we hardly saw a soul and if we hadn’t known better we could just as easy have been in the middle of the countryside miles from civilization…. It’s a beautiful area as you can see here!

Christianshavn – Christiania

When we hit “town” again, we were just down the road from Christianshavn and the freetown of Christiania. Christiania is Copenhagens fourth largest tourist attraction. Christiania has it’s own history, the idea behind Christiania is that is is a free, self run society, kind of a free state within the state. They have their own rules and regulations. The place is famous for its liberal views on cannabis and it is still possible to buy hash and various strain of weed on Pusher street. They are however fighting hard to keep harder drugs out of the area.

The reason I wanted to visit the place is that the area around the lakes have all these little self built houses that are really cool (I’m a fan of tiny houses and other small dwellings). And within Christiania itself there are a bunch of quirky small houses. Since we had a dinner reservation at 18:30 and wanted to go home for a quick shower (I told you it was sunny and warm, right?) we only got to see parts of it all. But I will be back.. and maybe next time I’ll get to find some of the ones that are along the lakes, some you can see here.

All in all it was a great bike trip around the city, including several stops on the way, some sunning and a picnic on the quayside, you can easily do this in a few hours… from the moment we started biking, to the moment we were back “home”, we had been out and about around 5-6 hours.

Our dinner reservation – Høst restaurant

I have to tell you about, where we went for dinner that night. I had first come accross an article about this restaurant a while back. It had gotten rave reviews as a place you could have gourmet food at affordable prices. I checked it out and loved the decor of the place, and decided if I ever went to Copenhagen I just had to try this place out. And thats exactly what we did.

The three of us decided on their three course meal, which turned out to be a six course meal. We had some wine and mineral water. The food in the three course meal was different depending on which menu you chose, but the added extras was the same regardless. One of us had the regular Høst menu, with the wine package and two of us had the Høst signature menu but no wine package, just single glasses of wine and beer. And I’m telling you.. it was worth it.

The food was great, the restaurant itself was cosy and really cool and the service was impeccable. All in all a great experience. And… we didn’t have to break the bank 😉

After the restaurant, we biked back home and ended up, just like on Friday, on the balcony planning Sundays excursions.

Stay tuned for Sundays trip…

Copenhagen – weekend trip!

It’s been a month, I can’t believe how fast time goes, and I’ve been out of touch. I’m sorry!

It’s been a full, almost hectic month. It all started with a long weekend to Copenhagen, quickly followed by an impromptu trip to England, then some busy days back in Norway preparing my yearly barbeque party, which by the way was awesome 😉 Then Thursday last week was midsummer night with bonfires and here we are, back to catching up on my blog 🙂

I’m sure you were expecting the next installment in my “Touring my neighbourhood” series, and there will be more of that. But first, in the spirit of catching up, I thought maybe you would like to join me in Copenhagen, as we had a wonderful trip 🙂

Me and a couple of friends (B and K) took of for Copenhagen early morning, Friday June 3rd, for a bit of a weekend R@R. We were hoping for a few nice days (Friday to Monday), but we never expected it to be as great as it was. We are talking sun, sun, sun… and did I mention sun? Yes, and warm.. like shorts, t-shirts warm… could easily have lived in a bikini if we had brought any with us… warm. Yes, it was that kind of weekend 🙂

We stuffed quite a bit of things into our trip, and I will tell you all about it. I could just write it all short, and add a few pictures into this post, but I figured, why not let you guys join in on our fun, so here it is a play by play on what we were up to. Guess I just created another mini series, Copenhagen this time 🙂

We came into Copenhagen around 11:00 am that Friday, ready to start our day. First thing we did was get to the place we were staying so we could drop off the luggage, and change into shorts, singlets/t-shirts and sandals. And then we hit the streets!

23000 steps (my friend K, keep tracks of her daily steps, so it turned into a bit of sports checking everyday how many steps we took) later we came home late at night, all exhausted having walked “all over” Copenhagen.

Where did we go?

Strøget

Since we were two girls and only one guy, you know we had to do a little shopping, right? 😉 And we figured, “why not get the shopping out of the way, right away” and onwards to Strøget, Copenhagens pedestrian street, we went. Strøget is one of Europe’s longest pedestrian streets, which makes it fun to walk around, as there are no cars getting in the way, and it has a wealth of shops.

Not only is there loads of shops, ranging from cheap chains to the most expensive chains, but if you look around while you are walking the streets, you will see quite a few of Copenhagens sights and attractions, like churches, fountains, the City hall square with the City hall towers, the Kings Nytorv square with The Royal Danish Theatre and more.

Nyhavn

When we were done with the shopping, it was time to sit down and enjoy a drink and some food. Copenhagen is rich in places to eat and drink, but one of the ~~most~~ popular places to hang out is in Nyhavn which you will find in one end of Strøget.

Nyhavn is a small area along one of the canals (that there are bundles of), with a string of colourful houses and restaurants. It’s a perfect place for a drink or a meal. During the summer months and especially on warm sunny days, the place is packed with people and street musicians. It’s quite common to see people hanging around with a beer in their hand, either in the restaurants or sitting at the quayside dangling their feet 🙂

So why wouldn’t we join in the fun?

Life just don’t get better than this.. wouldn’t you say?

Nyhavn was packed with people, but we did find a place to sit down, as you can see from the picture above 🙂 I love hanging out in outdoor restaurants, on a hot summer day/evening. It’s a perfect place to people watch, and relax… preferable with some good food and a drink or two 😉 We spent the rest of the day just lounging in Nyhavn, until it was time to mosey back home. Where we hung out on the balcony of our Airbnb apartment (more to come on that) until the sun went down, planning our next day’s adventure…

What we did?

I’ll tell you all about it in my next post, which might be worth a read.. as I’ll take you on a tour of Copenhagen…

Touring my neighbourhood – Utstein abbey!

A couple of weeks ago, some friends from US and Germany decided to come visit me for a few days. My friends are really into being out and about, so I figured I should at least try to keep them occupied. So guess who turned into the occasional tourist guide… yepp, me 😉

We drove around the area, looking at all sorts of sights, as there are quite a few things to do here in my region (Rogaland county). It’s a great place to visit.

As we roamed around, I thought.. maybe I should write about what places we’ve/they’ve seen.

Which again spark the idea of doing a small series on – Touring my neighbourhood – just in case anyone else decides to put the Stavanger region on their travel map!

And I’m kicking it all off with Utstein Abbey.

The first day we covered a couple of historic sites, one of them Utstein Abbey (Utstein Kloster)

Utstein Abbey, is Norway’s best (and only?) preserved medieval monastery. The abbey is located at Klosterøy in Rennesøy municipality. About 30-40 minutes drive away from Stavanger.

There are bundles of history related to Utstein. I won’t be telling you everything, because the internet does this much better than me. But a few details can’t hurt 🙂

Utstein is mentioned in the history records going back to the 9th century, as it was cited as one of the residences of King Harald Hairfair, after the battle of Hafrsfjord.

There are some indications that the history of Utstein is even older, as Klosterøy and neighboring, Fjøløy, is rich in trace from prehistoric time. There are about 170 burial mounds registered here, the finds give no clear impression of these graves being from the elite environment, so it’s believed that local kings have had control of Utstein before Harald Hairfairs time.

But, let’s get back to the Abbey itself!

Most of the Utstein monastery were built in the second half of 1200 (1260) in a Gothic style, but there are indications that there was a religious building here even before that, as the baptismal font in the Abbey is from the 1100’s and there are reminisce of Romanesque style in the eastern wing (which originally was a freestanding house) dating back to the 1100s.

The church is unique in its kind in Norway, with the tower located midway between the chorus and ships.

The abbey was dedicated to Saint Laurence and was established during the reign of King Magnus in the middle of 1200s. The abbey was dissolved in 1537 and later came into control of the Garmann (1786) and Schanke (1885) families in Stavanger.

Utstein Abbey today, is run as a museum, course and conference center and even a few concerts are hosted here (oh, yeah, and there are rumours that it has it’s own ghost to).

It’s a beautiful place to visit, have a small picnic or just meander around, as the area is great for walks!

Even in the winter, the grounds are beautiful!

Love to check it out from above? Here you go. A short YouTube video just for you 🙂

You want more on Utstein Abbey? Hopefully these will do the trick.

Region Stavanger – official tourist website

Stavanger Museum

Spotting History

Houston, One bag only – how did I do?

You might remember that due to a loss of luggage on my US trip in 2014, I decided to go carry-on only this time around (at least on my way to the US 😉 ).

I got all my ~~shit~~, sorry stuff, all tucked into one carry-on + a handbag, and onwards to Houston I went.

How did I do with the stuff I packed? To much? To little? Just enough?

I have this dream to one day travel with so little that it will all go into a small bag/backpack. I dream of being able to just saunter over to catch that bus/train/flight, having people wonder where my luggage is, because it couldn’t possible be just that small backpack I’m carrying…

With this ~~unrealistic~~ goal in mind, I was sure I had packed way too much. Well! Guess, what.. I’m obviously so far away from that goal, that it’s not even funny, as I used almost everything I had packed!

So why don’t we just get to it, the good, the bad and the… 😉

Never used – the grey stuff !
Turns out the weather was a bit colder than I had anticipated, and I never really got to use the summer clothing that I thought I would live in 😦 That left my thin long sleeved shirt and tank tops firmly tucked away.

For some reason or another, I ever opened my book or used my packable shopping bag.

Will I keep them on my list for future trips? Well, yeah, duh… I live in tank-tops and thin shirts when the temperature is right. Book(s)… off course, I can’t travel without a book or two.. that is just not done 😉 And that tiny packable shopping bag, will come in handy someday, I’m sure! (I use it all the time when I’m at home! )

The used stuff – The rest of the list I used, but there are room for adjustments! this is when I need to explain the yellow stuff!

1 nice top – used once – not because I needed to, but because I wanted to, since I had packed it after all. Could have done without, as I had a nice t-shirt I could have used instead.

Shorts – used once – really too cold, could have just as easily stayed in jeans that day – but will off course, always be part of my summer list of things to bring.

Swimwear – I brought a pair of swim shorts in addition to my bikini, I did use it for three minutes the one day I was hanging around a friends pool, but I could have very well done without it. Will I bring it in the future? I think it depends where I’m going, for how long and how much I’ll be in the water.

Fleece – used only once or twice – turns out I used my “nice fleece” most of the time, and my “nice fleece” would probably have been enough – even though it was great not having to worry about my clothing when I was climbing a tree at Brazos bend 😉

Rain jacket – never used – but I could have needed it, on my trip to the beach, if I would only have remembered to toss it in the car – it was freaking freezing 😦

Thin outer jacket – only used on my travel days, to and from Houston – could probably have managed without, as I could have used my super thin rain jacket instead.

Shoes – I brought 2 pairs, one pair of Eccos that I’m testing to see if I can use, as my one pair only, for travel + I brought a pair of light runnings shoes, as I thought I would be doing a lot of walking due to me not having a car. Turns out, my Eccos would have been enough, which was great to find out, as this has been my ultimate goal. One pair of shoes + sandals/flip flops will be my staple going forward.

Sunglasses – I alway bring two pairs, one for light sun, one for heavy sun – I think I really should consider getting a pair that adjust according to light, as it’s a pain carrying two, especially since I only used one of the pairs 😉

A note regarding Ipad/Laptop – I know a few of you wondered about me bringing both laptop and Ipad on my trip, and I want to clarify! Most of the time I bring only my Ipad and Iphone, but this time around I had intentions on spending time on my blog and some other computer stuff.

Yes, but still.. (you might say) – you can do a lot of blog stuff on the Ipad! And to that I say, yes, I agree.. but as my ipad is a mini and it’s nice to have a proper screen for serious work, you can see why I choose to bring my super thin and light laptop that weighs only 2,5lbs. 🙂

Laundry
You’re wondering if I needed to do a lot of laundry to get by? Not really, I had my t-shirts washed once and had a couple of washes on undies and socks. The rest of the stuff lasted until I got home.

Coming home
So how did I do on my return trip? Did I manage to squeeze it all into my carry-on only? Well… no, I did not. Mostly because I had bought a few things on this trip. Some stuff for me (things I had ordered online, that was waiting for me at my friends place) and stuff for my friends. So returning from Houston I checked my small carry-on suitcase and a extra bag + carried a small backpack as my carry-on.

The stuff I bought?

Some jeans and t-shirts, margarita mix for me and my friends, beef jerky, Moleskine journals and some craft items (for a future project), some “flip flops/sandals” and bags for use on future travels (I will tell you all about these items shortly).. hm what else.. nope I think that was it 🙂

Future trips
I realise I still have ways to go, to get down to my backpack only luggage. I’m sure I will reduce my list as I move along, and I’ll most likely start moving into carrying less while washing more, somewhere along the line.

I know I will get there in the end, and can’t wait to test this out even more, on my next trips. A long weekend to Copenhagen in June and one to Italy in July.

And guess what, you’ll continue to be in my loop, as I whittle down my packing list 🙂

Any suggestions on what not to bring (beside PC) on my next trip?

One bag only!

On my last trip to US in 2014, my luggage was lost for all of 4 days. This time around I decided that there was no way I was letting that happen to me again! And I could think of only one way to achieve this for sure… yepp, you guessed it.. carry-on only.

So before I left for my trip, I pulled out my little green carry-on (4 wheel version), and did my best to fit it all in. And guess what? Packing for two weeks, including extra stuff for a friend.. I did it! It all fit in my green friend + a handbag (for the stuff I needed on the plane, like pc, ipad, toothbrush, book ++). Talk about getting down to “basics” 🙂

So what did I bring? Well, too much if you ask me.. but for some reason it was as good as I managed at that time!

Here we have it… my list of items:

More than enough stuff, wouldn’t you say?

I writing this 6 days into my trip, and I’m curious to see, how much of this I’ll actually use throughout my trip. I’ll keep track and write a follow up, when I get home. I’m hoping I can tweak the list going forward..

You see, I have this dream/wish/hope that I one day will manage to withle my list of things I pack for a trip, down to something that will fit in a small backpack (yes, something way smaller than my regular carry-on) 🙂

Will I succeed? Well… I guess, only time will show…

Minimalist packers out there? Any ideas about reducing the list? Yes, yes please… I need all the help I can get 😉

Leaving on a jetplane!

Off to Houston I go…

Flying my bony little butt over to a bit of sun, warm weather and… the frozen margaritas off course 🙂

Can’t wait to hang out with my friends, some of them I haven’t seen for at least 18 months. It will be nice to catch up.

While I’m on the plane, I’ll be working my fingers to the bone writing my next blog post. Which means I’m still going strong on my 21 day challenge.. in case you were wondering 😉

Well I’m off.. plane is leaving in a few minutes, see you soon!

PS. For anyone out there roaming the net looking… If you’re thinking my home is alone, think again! It’s got people 🙂

PSS. Oh.. guess what I found on youtube… good old “Leaving on a jetplane” by John Denver, enjoy…

UK a packing sum up!

About a month ago I had a trip to England with my friend B, where we were trying out the somewhat “minimalistic packing” routine. Yeah it wasn’t all that minimalistic, but we did each manage on hand luggage only, even including bringing stuff for my mum and brother (Norwegian chocolate is a big thing 😉 )

So how did I do with what I packed? Well, as I suspected I did over pack somewhat, but not as badly as I thought I had done. Since the weather was a mix of everything between one evening of lounging in shorts in the garden, to crashing rain and cold weather, I used almost everything in my bag with the exception of a couple of tops, and a scarf. I have however found a couple of ways to streamline, so that next time, I will bring even less for a short week in UK (except next time might be Christmas, and we all know that is dress up time in mums house… hmmm… that might put a dent into my light packing plans..).

Did I lean anything from my trip? Yes Actually that would be a resounding YES.

I found that I loved how easy it was to navigate with a small wheeled carry on, how easy it was to roll it through the streets to get to the London underground, how easy it was to lift and carry when there was no other options, how easy it was to find space for it on the train and on the plane. It was so easy I don’t think I’ll ever want to go back to big suitcases, it was that easy 😉

I did have one more revelation!

After having meandered around in London for a couple days, I came to the conclusion that the less you drag around with you, an easier time you have (yeah, big shocker, I know 🙂 )

Every time I’m out and about on travel, I carry stuff with me in a handbag or small backpack. Having issues with my shoulders, I made B drag the backpack around this time. And what a relief, not really having to carry ANYTHING!!!

I do realize that it’s futile to think that I will be able to continue to never carry stuff around, as I’m THAT person who always need a bottle of water at hand, a small bag with my medication (just in case) and when there is no safe at the hotel, have to keep my passport with me. But, having had a couple of days in London where I was not the designated backpack carrier this time around, I’ve realized I need to re-evaluate, how much I really NEED to lug around.

When we were out and about, I kept my wallet and phone in my jeans pockets. Passport, medication, water, rain jacket, small camera ++ was in the backpack B carried. I quickly started to feel like a nuisance when we were wandering the streets of London, as I was forever digging into the backpack. To get a bottle of water, sunglasses, dig out the camera, and stuff all that crap back in, over and over again.

So I’ve realized that, for the times I wear clothing that don’t have “huge” pockets, I need a small (very small) cross body purse/bag, that is just big enough to hold on (temporary basis) things like water, wallet, phone, sunglasses and a small camera.

Even though I’m trying to only buy necessities this year, I think there might be a small purse purchase in my near future, if I can find the perfect bag that is. It needs to be light, have a good strap and I would prefer, good internal organization. I would love if it was possible to clip to my belt loops so I wouldn’t really need to carry it cross body, to save my shoulders, but guess that might be a tall order (unless I find someone who can make it for me).

I love the look of this little Cath Kidston bag, and this one at Tom Bihn seem to have some nifty solutions, but since I tend to like to see/touch the product before I buy, I was hoping to find something a little closer to home.

If you have any suggestions on geat little bags to use for travel, oh, yeah, and what to carry in it. I sure could need a little help 😉

Conclusion! Never use a big bag again, if I can avoid it. Now goal! To downsize even more 😉

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And I’m kicking it all off with Utstein Abbey.

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