Home, Sweet Home... And Not So Sweet Things

I have safely arrived in my home in Norway. The journey was without any troubles. I had a great evening at my friends house before taking the train early the next morning from her city. It was so relaxed and fun. Thank you, Bianca! :-*

I arrived on friday, everything was fine that day, on saturday i suddenly felt really sick. And that evening was not beautiful. At least the night was okay besides one trip to the bathroom around 4 o'clock. Today I'm better, but still feeling very tired and zapped of all energy. But yesterday evening I took a walk with my roomie and a shower afterwards, that's always a good thing. Tonight we will go to a friends birthday party, we'll see how much of a party it will be for me.

Now I want to share a few pictures of my current home:
 This is the part of my room that looks presentable. When I lived here this was my room, now it's still occupied by some stuff of the girl who lived here, but recently moved out. It's nice, because it's not an empty room.

 View from the living room. the forecast said it would be raining all the time, which did not surprise me a lot, it's quite rainy here. So this is a wonderful surprise.

View from the front door. Oh, I love it so :)

Absence...

My friends,
I have been "away" a lot. There are a few things going on in my life, one I already told you about is my trip to Norway, which I kinda stress about. In addition I have some intense learning to do. I have an exam next wednesday about church history and I'm not really good at this (dumb) memorizing. Last night we had a concert with our Gospel choir, which I was the presenter for. I was kinda stressed about that too. So, now you know, why I have been away from here. Too many things filling my head.

The pictures were taken yesterday at this tea house while preparing for the role as a presenter:

I am actually going to Norway this year.

Dear friends, I am almost crying here. I am going to Norway this year (I didn't last year), and I guess I forgot how much I missed it. Now I am sitting here, just having booked the flight which will take me home in the beginning of february, and I want to go RIGHT NOW.

While Norway is not my actual birthland (that's Germany), I was born again in Norway in 2008, so it is kind of my second land of birth? I feel so close to Norway, it has taken my heart. I never missed Germany as much as I miss Norway. I had even once written a little "song" about that.
I feel closest to God in Norway. But I think that has something to do with the people around me. One person there once got the picture of a tree blooming even though the ground was dried out and cracked. That is me in Germany. It was even more true only some months ago, I had no christian friends, now I have a church I go to, where I have gotten to know and love some fellow christians. But it does not go as deep as what I experienced in Norway. So I am looking forward to hang out with God and it to be easier. I am not very good at reading the Bible and praying, but there I have people who are so full of passion and interest, that it's easy to be a part of it. And it feels so right, as if that's the way I am supposed to be.

I feel that this says kinda "not good" things about my friends here, but don't forget: I love you, I do not love any of my norwegian friends "better" just because they are christian and talking about it. It's not about that anyway. It just feels so natural to me, and every time I am in Norway my tank gets filled up and I take it with me to Germany. My spiritual language is norwegian as well. My Bible is norwegian and I am praying in norwegian.

But why do I feel like crying? It's not only happiness I think. I am quite the control-freak person, I like to work things out beforehand and know exactly what is going to happen. This time I am L.A.T.E... Usually I would have booked my flight in november or december (cheaper as well!), and beforehand check with the people I am going to stay at. This time my flatmate/best friend said beforehand, that she didn't even KNOW if she would be there AT ALL. Like, I could be staying there without her. That is such a weird thought, maybe that was why I put it off for such a long time. Usually I would come home, to MY home, and live there for my vacation, some days even in my old room. This time it wasn't even sure if I would be staying there at all.

I wrote this some days ago. By now things have quite resolved and my best friend is at home and I will be able to live in my old room for two weeks and one week I will stay at a school. If the house of another friend is done when I go there I will stay with her for about a weeks time. We will see how it turns out.

I decided that it was partly my travel nerves which made me feel like crying. Now that I accepted that, I still feel a little queasy inside, but my head is able to relax more.

Ostfriesland

 So, I gave away some pictures of a weekend away at a friends home over a month ago, stating I would share more, now here it goes.

I love the bird prints in the sand.

I am not usually going away from home. I did this time and I really enjoyed it.

I am a girl from the city: I couldn't live with socks getting peeled off my feet in boots ;)

Trousers getting dirty ;) I liked that too :)

This is the trail we left.

This is how rooms look like when I get to live there ;)

Cat hair!

Telephone Table

Another set of pictures I want to share with you. This is my telephone table and the picture wall behind it. I love just everything about it :)

It has three drawers which hold my notebook, printer paper and tissues. The picture in the red frame with white dots shows me. I have glasses on, but I really got my glasses at 18. So these have windowglass in it. I'm a stone collector. I love it when they have stripes and colours, my table holds my small collection. In the back there's a dutch book about composition of homes, I like that it says: "Enjoy your home", I really do that. Don't forget to see my awesome retro phone! It doesn't show which number is calling, or if anyone called while I was away: Fewer obligations ;) I got it for free from a friends home.
Below the table there's a box with things that need mending. to the right is a basket with gardening things.

The butterflies are from a deceased couples house(I wouldn't have bought them, but otherwise they would have gone to the trash). They are black and yellow-striped.
The turquoise frame has writing in it, things like: Work on things that are meaningful to you, let someone help you etc (in english!).
The top left picture shows my family on my fathers side, with all my aunts and uncles (2 pairs) and my cousins (6).
The one in the middle is a picture my big sister made me when I was born. The ladybuf is called "Marienkäfer" in german, and Marie is part of my name.
To the right there's a photograph of me and my brothers and one of my sisters in front of a fireplace on holiday in danmark. We've always been to the north on holidays and didn't have a fireplace at home (my parents do have one now, too bad this winter was too warm).
You can also see my table and my bench. And my spare matress ;)

Christmas at home

Soo, I hope everyone had a wonderful christmas time and new years! I felt kind of stressed about christmas this year, because I had very little time to think about all them presents (2 sisters, 2 brothers and the parents). My little sister did a great thing: She just gave me something to give to her. This was amazing.
It's so much food and people three days in a row. I find it really exhausting.
But it was wonderful. I want to share some (bad quality) pictures from home.


This years christmastree, my sister and I decorated it. We do it on Christmas Eve and my dad usually hangs it on the ceiling, so it can't fall.

My  family around the livingroom table. Having eaten clementines, packed up presents, just sitting around talking.

 This was my bed for 3 days. It's in my old room where I lived before I left for Norway. I didn't know that I missed it, but it felt so good to hear the rain on my roof-window again. :)

Christmas Time with the girls...

We made some cookies and had loads of fun: Chocolate everywhere ;)

The others did this for 6 hours and we have loads of cookies :)

With the same group of girls we had a Christmas Dinner, which was really nice. Because they don't want their picture shared here I just show you my outfit:

 

I really like this picture <3 Thanks, Rubiluby 

Well I want to share a picture of the atmosphere as well, so my sister has to survive this. Love you.