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!

Some supermarkets in Norway don't accept foreign credit cards. I guess they don't want tourists to buy food. Never mind that their sticker says they accept Visa.

Supermarkets don't have signs at every aisle that tells you what's in that aisle, so unless you know the store you have to walk around the whole store looking for stuff you want.

At the chemist (and other stores I assume) there was no sign telling me to go to the next counter when the one I was at wasn't serviced. I stood there waiting and looking like an idiot until I noticed a queue at a different counter.

We walked up the steps to a lookout point above the town this morning, and the steps were completely icy and in desperate need of repair. Not only did they look worn and ugly, they are a massive health hazard. We came close to slipping and falling heaps of times, and Roger did slip and fall on the way down, and the only reason he didn't get injured is because he's tough and his bones don't break.

All the stores closed early because it's new year's eve. Chemists and bottle shops closed at 1, the rest at 3. Why? The new year's celebration and parties don't start until 8 or 9, and by then the stores would be closed anyway. And even the traditional new year's dinner doesn't start until 5 or 6. And then the stores are closed for 2 days afterwards. It's so inconvenient.

You a have to bag your own groceries. The checkout operator can put them straight in a bag, it would hardly take any extra effort on their part. But no, all they do (and get paid for) is sitting there and scanning items. That's it.

I'm noticing for myself all the things Roger told me he thought was weird when he was here last year.

Due to jetlag, we started falling asleep at 9:30 last night at mum's place, so we decided to go home early. Camilla wanted to see the fireworks with us, but we couldn't stay awake so she made other plans with her friends. R and I did stay awake till after midnight, but I've seen the fireworks every year since I was a kid, so I felt no need to see them again. I went to bed at 12:30, and R joined me shortly afterwards.

Today we got up at 8, and went for a walk around town. It was completely deserted, and it was a clear blue sky, so it was pretty kewl. We got some good photos and talked about all the stuff in Norway I've seen lately that's backwards and doesn't make sense (I like to do that).

At 2 we went to visit my grand parents and see my new cousin, and stayed there most of the evening, until we arrived back at dad's place at 8. After that we've just been relaxing.

This holiday has been really tiring. We're gonna need another holiday when we get back to Australia. We've driven long distances every single day to see and visit my family and relatives. Apart from 1 1/2 day in Oslo we haven't really done any holiday stuff. It would be nice to have one day where we don't have to do anything, but tomorrow we are driving back to Elverum and then getting on a plane to England the day after that.

It's been nice to see family, but I'm looking forward to going back to Australia now. Norway is too cold and backwards, and I miss my bed and my cats.

Yesterday we got up at 8:30, and at 11:30 we went out to only to find a parking ticket on the car. My first one:) I'm gonna frame it and keep it as a souvenir.

Then we drove to the beach near where I used to live and walked along it and up to my old house. I think it would be interesting to talk to my old landlord and see how they feel about me taking Thomas, or if they've even noticed or cared at all. But we didn't stay long enough to talk to them, and I didn't wanna ring the doorbell just for that anyway.

After that we went back to town and had an early lunch at McDonald's, and encountered the most useless employee ever, and also experienced the slowest fast food ever. She had problems with our order, and while we were waiting for our food she managed to mess up 2 orders, and when we sat down to eat we noticed she had also messed up our order. Lovely.

Then we went and met mum and had coffee and went through some of my old boxes and filled up a suitcase of stuff I wanna take back to Australia with me.

By then it was 3:30pm and we had to start driving back to Elverum. The drive was such a pain. Roads in Norway are not salted most of the time, and it was covered in ice nearly the whole way. They are also so narrow that if a truck is coming the other way, you have to slow down to let it pass. It's ridiculous. Norries pay a road fee every year which is supposed to be used to maintain the roads.They pay to drive on them, and no one bothers to make a proper 2 lane freeway through the country (unlike every other country in the world) and you risk your life by driving on pure ice.

We arrived in Elverum at 11 and were fed pizza. We have done nothing but eating and being fed the whole time we've been in Norway. It's nice that people are welcoming of course, but sometimes just a snack would be enough, especially as the coldness outside prohibits getting sufficiaent exercise to actually use the food we eat. Consequently we have put on a couple of kilos in the last week.

Today we woke at 8, and dozed until 10. We've just had breakfast and done stuff online, and we are about to leave. We're gonna drive back to Oslo to return the rental car, and then get a bus to the airport where we will hang out until our flight at 8:45 pm.

We will stay at a hotel near the airport tonight, and then Qads will pick us up tomorrow morning and drive us to Nottingham. He'd better have a lot of relaxing fun planned, not a lot of food and not a lot of driving!

We are now sitting at the airport waiting for our flight, and I have noticed more things about Norway that annoys me. Norwegians are so difficult.

We walked from the car rental place to Oslo central station and found an automatic ticket machine. We put in Oslo central station to Oslo airport and got our tickets. Then we got on the express train to the airport. When we got to the airport we had to put our tickets through a ticket reader for the door to open and let us into the airport, but it didn't work. Some guy walked past and said we had the wrong tickets and sent us to the information desk, where we were told that we had bought tickets for the local train, not the airport express train and that we would have to buy new tickets to be let into the airport.

We tried to tell her that we put in the stations and were given tickets, there was no way we could know that it was for a different train. There was no sign. She refused to listen to us and demanded that we buy new tickets. After thinking about it for a couple minutes we decided to just buy the tickets and then find the other train company in the airport and ask them for a refund.

When I explained our situation to the guy from the other train company, the first thing he said was 'you won't get a refund', but he gave us a feedback form that we put our tickets in and explained what had happened, and put it in a mailbox. So we'll see what happens with that.

In Australia she would have just let us through, or at least just made us pay the difference. Not that it would ever have happened in Australia, because there would have been a sign informing us that the tickets weren't valid for the express train.

That taken care of, we wanted to go and check in to our flight. There was only one BA check in, so we queued up and waited for ages while some people in front of us were being checked in. As they were about to leave, the woman behind the counter asked us if we'd checked in yet. We said no, that's what we were there for. And she said 'this is only a bag drop, you have to use the self service check-ins', so we asked where the normal check in desk was, and she said there wasn't one.

Right. Nice of there to be a sign to that effect.

So we checked in at the self service machine, which was being difficult, but we finally managed. But it didn't print a tag for our bag. We went back to the bag drop, and it turns out it wasn't just a bag drop, she printed the tag for our bag and demanded to see our passports. So while she was printing stuff and checking passports anyway, why couldn't she also print our boarding passes? We were already there, we had been waiting in the queue for several minutes, and there was no one behind us.

We were then ready to go through security. In England you can now leave your laptop in the laptop bag when it goes through security, and because there was no sign telling us it had to be scanned seperately, we left it in the bag. But then the guy asked us to take it out, and also asked R to remove his jacket. There was no sign for either. R told the security guy that there should be signs, and he just laughed. There was no queue at security just then, but if there had been, they would be delayed by all the people who had no clue they have to take laptops out and jackets off.

There's obviously a lack of signs in Norway.

We wanted to sit down and get online while we waited for our flight, and were looking for a laptop area. Our battery was nearly flat, and we needed a power point. But there are no power points anywhere. We managed to find one in a phone area. One power point in all of the international terminal, and it's not even for laptops. You can buy up to 4 hours of internet time, but seeing as most laptop batteries only last about 1 hour, it would be useless.

Believe it or not, there's more annoying stuff: Norwegian water completely dries out my skin every time it comes in contact with it. Australian water doesn't. I wash my face and my hands and they feel normal. I do the same thing in Norway and my skin feels dry and stretched and needs moisturising. I have broken 3 nails in the last 2 days. My nails are not long and never break. I blame the water and the cold.

There's too much bread in the Norwegian diet. It messes my stomach up. I've had some tests done for gluten intolerance, and they all came back 'inconclusive', but my stomach definitely doesn't agree with Norwegian food. It messes R's stomach up too.

And Norwegians seem to think that being a vegetarian is a huge hassle. We told my fam we're vegetarians before we came here, and they all seem to think they have to make special food for us, and they have to add veggies to every single meal that we never used to have veggies with. Such as spaghetti. And when we visited my grandparents I told them that if they wanna feed us they could make a stew, and just not put meat in it. It tastes the same anyway. My grandmother said 'umm.. err.. yeah.... no, that's too weird' and decided not to feed us at all, rather than make stew with no meat.

So to everyone I'd just like to say: it's really simple, just do the same food, and leave out the meat.

And you don't need a protein supplement to be vegetarian, veggies have heaps of protein in them. We don't eat meat because it's healthier, meat is bad for you, but it doesn't mean we can't eat meat. We'd just rather not most of the time.

And for all you australians who are complaining about paying $1.30 per litre of fuel, consider us who just bought 43 litres and paid over $100! - it's $2.46 per litre here in Norway.

England is frickin miserable! We've had a thick fog all day, which has limited our view to about 100 metres in any direction. It has been drizzling/raining all day, and it's frickin cold! Warmer than Norway, but still. Why do people live here?

Anyway, we returned the rental just about on time. We pointed out to them that the speedo was wrong, that it showed 100 kph we were actually doing 93 kph, which meant the total kilometres it said we did were higher, and we would be charged too much. Surprisingly, the rental guy didn't need any convincing, he just changed the total price. 

We had a few hours to spare before we needed to be at the airport, so we found the restaurant with the free wireless internet where we ate before we left Oslo the last time and had lunch and a chat with Camilla.

At 5 we got the express train to the airport, which led to a series of problems of its own, and there were also several other annoyances there which you can read about in my previous blog entry.

When we arrived at the hotel in London at 11 we repacked all our stuff, seeing as we now have an extra suitcase with stuff I decided I want to take back to Australia with me. We went to bed at 1 am and got up at 7, because Qads was due to arrive then. He was a few minutes late, which allowed us to have free breakfast. When Qads and his brother finally arrived, we spent the next 3 hours driving to Nottingham.

We walked into Qads' place and smiled and said hi the way you do when you meet new people. They were new to me at least, Roger visited a couple of years ago with Olivia. Qads' mum smiled and said hi too, then she said something to Qads in Urdu (or whatever they speak). When we went out to see the town, Qads told me that what she had said was 'what's wrong with Marianne? She doesn't seem very happy. Olivia had a much happier personality'. So after talking to me for 5 seconds, she decided she doesn't like me and that I'm miserable, and she said it right to my face in a language I don't understand. Nice.

Well, I would just hate to disappoint her. When she makes Indian dinner for us, which is the only thing she makes by the sound of it, I'll decline and tell her I don't like Indian. That's the truth anyway. And I won't bother with the whole friendliness thing. I'll be civil of course, but that's it.

We have been out to see Nottingham today, and went to the Gallery of Justice, which is an old prison. After that we found a shopping centre and a rock shop, and Roger aquired a rock which he gave to me. Awwww:)

Tomorrow we will check out a Robin Hood castle and the caves.

It was actually sunny for 3 days in a row, which is pretty good for England. There was still a pretty cold wind tho, so it didn't do much good, other than us not getting wet as well as winded on.

As planned, we saw the Robin Hood castle and the caves under Nottingham. I thought they were natural caves, but it turned out they were all man made, and used to be rented out for people to live in.

After seeing everything there was to see in Nottingham, we decided it was time to go to Southend to see Roger's fam. Qads was nice enough to drive us, and he also stayed at the BnB with us. Then he had to go home because he's leaving for Pakistan soon, and we went to find fam. We spent a large portion of yesterday at Sarah's place (Roger's aunt's best friend's daughter) and met her puppy Alfie, the most adorable little westie. About half the day was spent playing with him. We just couldn't help ourselves.

We then went to Sandra and Vic's place (Roger's aunt and uncle) and this is where will stay until we go home Australia tomorrow night. I can't wait to go home.

I forgot to put this on my list of annoying things.

When you go to McDonalds, and you wanna eat in the restaurant, you pay 2 kr (40 cents) extra per item, than if you take it with you.

I guess that means you don't have to clean up after yourself. That extra money must be so they get paid for the extra time they spend cleaning up after people in the restaurant, mustn't it? Or maybe you have to rent the table you eat at?

We are still at Sandra and Vic's place in Leigh-on-Sea, but we are going home tonight:) I can't wait to get home! England is such a shitty little country. [Also see my list of annoying things about England]

We leave here at 5:45 tonight, it's a 1.3 hour drive to Heathrow, and our flight is at 9:45 tonight. That means we will be home Friday morning Brisbane time.

Every bathroom sink has 2 taps - one for cold water and one for hot water. So how do you get warm running water to rinse your hands? It's either freezing cold or scolding hot.

It's cold and miserable most of the time, and electricity prices are ridiculous. 25000 people died of cold related illnesses last year. 25000! In Norway, which is heaps colder, you get maybe 1 or 2 a year.

And even when the sun is out, there's still a really cold wind, so there's no point in the sun being out except to light up the ugliness that abounds.

Brekky tv is all formal. The guy wears a suit and the woman a formal outfit. They sit on an uncomfy couch in a cold a sterile room, and are obviously uncomfortable. Why don't they sit there in their pj's and some hot chocolate in a loungeroom setting with a log fire burning in the background? Doesn't take an einstein to think of that. (although Roger thought of it, so I'm not sure)

Their news is more like a current affairs show. They have a story and then interview someone in the studio at length about it, before moving on to the next story. And again the guy sits on an uncomfy couch in a sterile blue room, and the person he interviews sits about 3 metres from him. Completely unnatural and uncomfortable.

We went to the cinema, and there were no seats in the waiting area. So as people started arriving for the movie, they had to sit on the floor. There were heaps of people sitting on the floor along the wall by the entrance to the cinema rooms.

And also, the Baskin-Robbins were you buy your snacks for the movie only had 2 people working in it, so there was a long queue. We got some lollies, and queued for about 10 minutes, and when we got to the checkout we decided to get some chocolate thickshakes as well. First one of the guys working there told us they were out of chocolate ice cream, and asked us to pick a different flavour, which we did. He then told us to wait for a second after scooping out our icecream for the shakes, while he left to do something. We stood and waited for about 5 minutes before he came back and told us they had no milk, so we could get no thickshakes. So we ended up wasting about 10 minutes while we queued and paid for our lollies. A Baskin-Robins with no milk?!

They didn't turn off the lights during the  movie. They dimmed them, but you could still see everything around you quite clearly.

We were walking around the seaside area of Westcliff-on-sea, and found a pier to walk out on. We started walking out on it, and saw a sign that said 'the longest pleasure pier in the world' and some woman in a booth shouted at us. We went back to see what she wanted, and she actually asked us if we had tickets. Tickets to walk out on a frickin pier! A pier!! We said 'screw it, we're not paying to walk on a pier'.

People are so loud at restaurants! In the few days I've been in England I've been to several restaurants, and every time I've had to shout for other people to hear me. The noise is just deafening! I've been to heaps of restaurants in Australia, and I don't remember ever having to shout, even when it's been busy.

The English brag about being the greatest civilisation on the planet, but they are not. After seeing the galleries of justice (old prison and court were humans were treated as animals until 1990) and the caves (man made caves which were rented out for people to live in until the late 1800s) in Nottingham, it becomes quite clear that the English were a barbaric people.

The local post office in Leigh is from the 1950s. There are 2 old guys working there, behind glass walls with little holes in them, making it nearly impossible for them to hear anything you say and you have to push the coins under the glass when you pay. If you're sending a box you have to weigh it yourself, and they don't even have digital scales, but really old looking analog ones.

There's unbelievable ugliness, like brits have no sense of what looks nice - whatsoever. We were walking along what passes as the beach here. This seems to be a popular place for people to go for an afternoon walk with kids and dogs etc. Something to be enjoyed. Apparently, someone decided the beach needs a walkway, and dumped some asphalt all along the edge. They made no effort to make it look even remotely nice. We walked along it and I just couldn't get over the ugliness of it.

Compare it to this one in Australia:

or even if you wanted to do it cheaply, it still doesn't have to be incredibly disgusting looking as illustrated by this one from Redcliffe in Australia:

It seems England has a ridiculous amount of crime. Everywhere you go there's a sign that says 'this place is protected by CCTV' or 'there's a £100 fine for improper use of this', and they even have ads on tv for people with identity theft problems!

People insist on kissing you on the cheek whenever you meet and whenever you leave. I find it extremely annoying. I don't mind women doing it so much, but I hate having men touch me. (It doesn't happen in Norway or Australia. No guy has ever kissed me or touched me in any way in Oz.)

We arrived safely at Brisbane airport at 9:15 this morning. It was raining on and off, but it was 27 degrees, which means you don't have to put on thermal underwear and 3 layers of clothing just to go outside.

The journey from London went quite smoothly. I slept the whole way from London to Bangkok, and about half the time from Bangkok to Sydney.

Bangkok airport is stupid. It's a new airport, only about a year old, but they managed to mess it up quite thoroughly. The plane only stops to refuel in Bangkok, so you get off the plane for about an hour and then get back on the same one. When you get off the plane, you can see the waiting area for the gate right next to where you exit it. But instead of just opening the door into that area, they make you walk all the way through the airport, (about 600 metres) up a level, the full length of the airport again, and then down a level to the waiting area.

They also make you go through security again before you can get back to the gate, as if you weren't checked just before you got on the plane. Any drinks you had on the plane and were saving you must now throw away because you might have magiacally made them too dangerous for the next flight. After security you can make your way to the gate, which is blocked off as a secure area, even tho you have just gone through security and should already be in a secure area. As you enter the gate area, there's another security check, but without the metal detector. The guy simple opens your bag, has a quick peak, and then says 'ok you can go'. As if I couldn't be hiding anything under my book or the camera. For Roger's backpack, he just iopened it and lifted up the trackpants that were on top of everything else, then closed it again. Yep, real thorough check there.

After the 2nd security check, they check your boarding pass and passport, before you can even enter the gate waiting area. So once you're at the gate, there's no leaving.

And the airport seems to be completely lacking any shops or cafes. Everything everywhere is sterile concrete and aluminium. It's a cold ugly place.

Retarded.

It was very nice to arrive in Sydney. Bangkok to Sydney is like going from an empty steel shed to a nice cosy loungeroom. The people speak properly, they are friendly, everything is reasonably priced and the temp is agreeable. After only a short wait, we were on a plane to Brisbane.

I was very happy to see the cats, and they seemed very happy to see me too. 4 cats home alone for 2 weeks means the house is a bit messy. Especially with some cat poo in Roger's office cos we left shredded paper on the floor for them to play in - They must have decided it was cat litter, and after Olivia cleaned that up, they still used the room as a toilet and left another 3 presents for us in there.

After I had done some cleaning (both of myself and the house) and unpacking we decided to go to Aspley. R needed new glasses as his old ones broke on the first day of our holiday, and we also needed some food. But the car battery was dead because it hadn't been started for 2 weeks. So we had to get the battery charger out and wait about an hour before the car would start.

R did what he needed to do at the optometrist's and we went back to the car. It was dead. Seeing as the battery needed replacing anyway, we crossed the road over to the hypermarket, which did have batteries, but not the kind we needed. We walked on to BP, which didn't have batteries at all. On to Shell, which also had no batteries. I then suggested calling Olivia, so she could pick us up and drive us to an auto store, but R said he knew where they would have batteries, so we walked further up the road to Mobil. They didn't have batteries either.

R decided to call Olivia. And his phone battery died. (shouldnt have left it switched on the whole time during the flights from London) Excellent luck. I suggested trying a phone booth, and we found one. I then asked if he knew O's number. He didn't, and she happens to not be listed in the phone book. R tried turning on his phone long enough just to get her number, but it kept dying just as he was about to open her contact details.

Everything was going wrong for us. So in the end we called some battery people to come and put a new battery in the car, a possibility we knew of all along but wanted to avoid because it would be the most expensive way to get a new battery.

The battery people said it would be 45 minutes before they could be there, so we went and had lunch, then went back to the car to sit around and wait. R tried his phone again, and it stayed on long enough for us to get O's number off it. Not that it was any good to us by then. By the time she would have gotten there and driven us to get a new battery and then driven back again and R having to put it in, the battery people would be there.

So we waited. The battery guy finally showed up, 20 minutes late. The battery change went nice and quick, and we could finally get to the supermarket, get some food and go home. The whole thing took about 4 hours.

It is 4 am. I woke up around 3 and realised I wasn't going back to sleep. It's weird tho, I never had any jet lag problems the 2 previous times I flew from Europe to Oz, and I had no probs when I was here on holiday for 3 weeks and then went back to Norway.

Isn't that just great.

The other day when I got up at 4, I managed to wake R up as well and he decided to get up. It was then about 4:30, and we decided to go for a walk.

It was a rather annoying time to walk. There were spiderwebs about every 2 metres, and Aussie spiderwebs are not like Norry ones. In Norway they are hardly visible, they are really fine and break if you just look at them. Aussie webs don't. They are pretty thick and easily seen most of the time, and when you walk into them, they don't break. They just stick to you. To get rid of it you have to roll it up around you hand and then drop it.

And that's what we kept walking into. We have decided to never walk that early again, in the future we will wait until someone else has walked there before us.

Anyway, I digress. When we were almost back at the house, it started raining a little bit. Not proper Aussie rain, but tiny little drops. And consequently there was a rainbow. A whole one, and it was double as well. In Norway I've only ever seen half ones, and never a double one. It was too big to fit in one photo, but R put some photos together:

I might attempt to get rid of the blockiness, but I think it looks pretty kewl like this too. Here's another one:

The other day when I got up at 4, I heard Julie whinging about something. I couldn't see her because it was still completely dark and I was sitting in front of my computer. I called her over, but she didn't come, so I just left her to it. She had been whinging more than usual since we got back from holiday anyway, so I didn't think much of it.

At 4:30 it started getting lighter, and I noticed Odo and Beanie looking at something outside. Julie's whinging had been pretty constant, and was coming from the same direction, so I decided to investigate. I looked out in the garden, and there I saw Julie sitting under a tree, whinging. I was in absolute shock to find her outside, and imagined having to fight her and lift her by the scruff of her neck to get her back in, as she can't be lifted normally without trying to scratch me to death in a panic. But I was lucky, she was so happy to be presented with the opportunity to go back inside that she came running when I opened the door.

I had no idea how she could have gotten out. The outside area has been cat proofed by Odo himself. (If he can't get out, no one can, the little Houdini.) I hadn't consider that Julie is about half the size of Odo. She got out again, and I caught her in the act. There's an opening in the wall in the outside area which has vertical bars in front of it. It also had plastic mesh in front of it, but we took that down when we painted and never bothered to put it back up, thinking that the gap between the bars would be too small for the cats to get through. And it is, Julie got her hips stuck every time she went through, then tried to go backwards and then couldn't get her shoulders back through, and then went forward again and twisted her hips sideways to get through. She's the only one who's small enough to get through.

The only reason Julie hasn't been allowed to go out after we moved to Oz is because in Norway she always used to wander off, and would be gone for 4 or 5 days regularly, and 10 or 11 days occasionally. I was of course worried every time she did that. But here in Oz there is also a law that says cats are not allowed to leave your property, and wandering cats can be caught and you have to pay a fine to get them back.

But Julie was out several times, and proved that she could stay in the garden without wandering off. She did jump the fence a couple of times, but she only went into the neighbours' gardens and was back pretty quickly. So I decided that she can go out as long as she stays in the garden, and she has. And she seems sooo much happier and relaxed now. She used to come to bed with me every night in Norway, but has never done it here. Until she was allowed to go out. Now she's little miss cuddly. And she never wanted to come into the house either, she spent all her time in the outside area. Now she's in the house whenever she's not outside in the garden, and has found a favourite spot on top of the scratching post in the lounge room.

She's very good and never goes near the road, so there's not much extra risk in letting her out. And I would rather have her live a slightly shorter life and be happy, than to live till she's 20 and be miserable the whole time anyway.

When I was about 10 years younger, I used to enjoy playing a game called Transport Tycoon. I was good at it too. I have a thing for old games, and I recently decided to install it again. But guess what?! It doesn't work with XP! You can download an XP patch for it, but I failed to get that to work. So I thought 'bugger it, I'll just get it off ebay'. When I asked one of the sellers if it works with XP, I was told 'No, but I'm sure you can download a patch for it'. For some weird reason, no one ever made a version of the game that works with XP.

Why not?!?

If anyone knows how to get the XP patch to work, please let me know.

My new debit card arrived today:

How cute is that?! I was gonna have a photo of Julie and Thomas together, but it turns out I only have 2 photos of them together which are actually worth looking at, and they didn't fit the card very well. I'll get Julie next time.

Julie has been allowed to go outside during the day lately, but I want her inside by sunset. Cats are nocturnal, and if they're gonna get into trouble, they'll do it at night.

She has been out all day today, and didn't even come in when I fed the others, which was just before sunset. I went out the back and called and called and there was no sign of her, which of course made me think all the worst things that could have happened to her. R then suggested going out the front of the house and call her, so I did. After about a minute she came crashing through the bushes, her face all covered in grass seeds and cobwebs. She was all cuddly and talkative and lovely.

I walked her around to the back, as she hasn't realised she can come in through the front door yet. She was still all cuddly and clingy. But she didn't wanna follow me towards the door, so I went and got treats, and gave her some just outside the door. Then I moved to just inside the door so she would have to follow me in to get it. (She can't be picked up without panicking, and I didn't wanna fight her.)

She knows all my tricks by now, and she decided the treat wasn't worth it and set off across the garden. I followed her and offered her the treat again, but she had gone all cold and selectively deaf. R got a can of cat food out and started opening it and made sounds on the bowls, but she completely ignored it and jumped the fence. I called her and shook the container with the treats, but she had apparently lost her hearing temporarily.

And then she was gone, and will probably be gone all night. I've put out a bowl of water for her so she won't pass out from dehydration. She's been out in the heat all day with nothing to eat or drink...

Silly kitty is too damn smart for her own good.

Today is Australia Day. I was interested to see how it would be celebrated, as it is a part of the Australian culture and I'm Australian now. We turned the tv on and went through all the channels, and there was nothing! Only all the normal shows you get on a saturday.

R: It's just an ordinary day, it's not a big deal. Hardly anyone celebrates.
M: That's funny, in Norway there's stuff on all day on every channel.
R: Every channel? What kinda stuff?
M: Parades. Except it's not proper parades it's just kids walking and waving the Norry flag.
R: Hmm.. Yeah I've noticed that about Norway, they do things they way they think they should be done. Australians do what they want.
M: Yeah, cuz they don't have the inferiority complex that Norwegians do. Nowegians are obsessed with what others think of them.
R: That's prolly why they're obsessed with being number 1 on the UN ranking thing.
M: And in interviews with celebrities who are visiting they always ask them what they think of Norway.
R: Yeah, when we were there everyone kept asking me what I think of Norway. I should have told them it's shit.
M: *giggle* Yeah that woulda put them back in their place.

(For the record, R doesn't think Norway is shit, it would just be something funny to tell people.)

So Australia Day came and went and I didn't even notice it. There are a few people who celebrate it, and there's a big concert at the Gold Coast with artists from all over Australia, but for most people it's just an ordinary day.

And because it's on a Saturday, the public holiday is on the following Monday, unlike in Norway where you just miss out on a day off if a public holiday is on a Saturday or Sunday.

Most women seem to think that they are equipped with breasts for the sake of their (future) children. This is a misconception. We have breasts for the sake of men (and lesbians).

Obviously, the mammary glands are there to produce milk. But why are they covered in fat? Some people say it's insulation because producing milk needs a high temperature.

Wrong.

Other animals with obvious 'breasts', such as cows, horses, goats, sheep etc, have no fat around their mammary glands. When they are not producing milk they go completely flat, and all you can see is the nipple.

And if they were covered in fat for the sake of insulation, why are we constantly carrying this fat around? Obviously, if that was the case we would only produce an extra layer of fat around upon getting pregnant. Carrying this fat around all the time is inconvenient, and so it doesn't fit in with the 'survival of the fittest' theory.

Even our closest relative, the chimpanzee, has no obvious breast. They have a long nipple which is easy for the baby to get a hold of. Humans don't. In fact, the fat can get in the way, and some women have to pull all the fat back while their baby feeds so that it doesn't suffocate.

As you can see, there are no advantages to having fat around the mammary glands. So why is it there?

Have you noticed how obsessed men are with breasts? Yes? That's why we have breasts. It makes men like us more.

I have told a bunch of women this, and they all seem to have trouble believing it, even tho it makes perfect sense. It's like women want to think they have breasts only so they can breastfeed, and that men like breasts 'is only a bonus'.

Weird.