This is the blog of a Norwegian (Marianne, aka 'M') who moved to Australia in 2007 to be with Roger (aka R) and feels lucky to have escaped a comparatively communistic country with ridiculous weather!

Yesterday was R's b-day:) I woulda written yesterday of course, but we got busy. We had some friends over for a small party here first, then we went bowling where R kicked butt as usual, and then we went to the gold class cinema and saw Transformers.

He got some very kewl gifts. Olivia gave him an R2-D2 droid thingy, which responds to about 100 different voice commands, Qads got him a moonphase light, and my gift hasn't arrived yet so I can't say what it is. It's a surprise:) It cost more than I planned for, which means I am unable to pay my last Norwegian electricity bill, but R is worth it:)

It's really weird to think about that it's almost exactly a year since we first met in person, and one year ago on his b-day we were in Bermuda. Good times:)

R has been to Usa a few times and I have not, so the other day I asked him

Me: Are Americans as friendly as Australians?
R: *laughs*
Me: What?
R: Americans? Friendly??
Me: ?
R: They're rude. I went into a Subway restaurant in Florida and the staff behaved like someone in their family had just died. It was really cold and uncomfortable. They didn't smile or anything. When I went into a pharmacy in Salt Lake City, Utah the girl at the counter just stood there staring at me, no smile, no 'can I help you' - it was like I was a major inconvenience to her and she despised me. I spoke to someone I knew who had lived in Usa his whole life, and he explained the reason for that is that unemployment was low and shop assistants didn't care if they kept their job or not. But then I found the same attitude everywhere, with people on the street. Bump into someone and they keep walking. Do that here and both people apologise.
Me: So I guess the only reasons Norries have the impression that Americans are friendly are because they are rude and cold themselves.
R: Probably.
Me: Everyone Norry who has been in Usa keeps saying that they're all so friendly and outgoing..
R: *laughs*

R and I were at the shopping centre a couple nights ago, and R showed me a small shop called Candy Time where they sell chocolate from around the world. They had a lot of chocolate from Usa and R has been telling me about American chocolate, so I decided to try some of them. Here's the choc we got. The American ones are on the left and the British ones on the right - apart from BabyRuth which is American and was put with the British ones by mistake o_O

All of the British ones were pretty good, apart from Yorkie which is just plain.

On to the American ones. Every single one of them had peanuts in it. R told me he was unable to find chocolate without peanuts when he was in Usa. That's not a good start, I don't particularly like peanuts in chocolate..

First we tried BabyRuth. It has a weird name, like a lot of American chocolate. It was completely tasteless, apart from a vaguely nutty taste.

Then we had 3 Musketeers. Another weird name for a chocolate. It's identical to Cadbury Whip, but is completely tasteless.

Hershey's Milk Chocolate. Here's a famous brand. Everyone in Usa eats Hershey's. And I have no idea why. This particular one tasted and smelled like vomit, and I was unable to eat more than one piece of it. I thought I was gonna throw up. According to Olivia, it tasted like they had used sweetener instead of sugar, and milk that had gone off.

Hershey's Cookies'n'Creme. This is white chocolate with cookie pieces in it. In fact it's mostly made up of cookie bits, with some chocolate inbetween. Tasteless, apart from the vague cookie taste. Was able to finish it, I just didn't want to.

Hershey's Take 5. Has pretzels in it, which was the only part of it I could taste, and even that was pretty tasteless.

Hershey's Smores. Couldn't finish it. Not sure what the taste was, but I didn't like it.

Hershey's Whatchamacallit. Like true Americans they were unable to think of a good name for it. It was completely tasteless. I seriously could not taste anything.

And that's it. 7 different chocolates and they were tasteless at best. I dunno how Americans survive, or how Hersheys stays in business.

Bill Bryson wrote in one of his books, that going to Europe and having their chocolate after growing up in Usa, was like having an orgasm in his mouth.

The last of the Harry Potter books was released today. I'm not one of those fanatical fans of the series, but I have read all the books and would like to know how it all ends, so I forced R to get up early and drive me to the shopping centre first thing in the morning.

Entering the shopping centre there were people with HP books everywhere. Some couldn't wait till they got home apparently and was reading while they walked or had sat down to read. I thought 'oh no, there's gonna be a crowd'. And I was right.

We went to Borders first, the biggest book store. It was crowded and there was a loooong line of people waiting to pay. I figured that's where everyone went first, and decided to try the other, smaller book store.

It was even worse there. The line of people went out of the bookstore and about 30 metres into the foodcourt. But with the help of a sign we realised they were all waiting for their pre-ordered books.

I hadn't pre-ordered, so I simply walked into the store, picked the book off the shelf, and went and paid for it. And there was no line at all at the regular checkout.

Funny:)