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!

I made R drive me to a betta showroom yesterday, because I rather like bettas and also wanted to acquire some smaragdinas. I wanted a breeding pair, but the guy who worked there could only find a male, so we left to get some lunch while he looked for the female and called a coworker etc.

When we'd finished lunch, we noticed a comic book store near where the showroom was and decided to go in and have a look. The place was of course full of nerds and thousands of obscure comic books I'd never heard of. I found it very cute:)

Just for fun, we decided to ask if they had any Nemi comics, because I knew it had been translated to English for the UK, but have never seen it here in Australia. I didn't expect him to have heard of it, but he instantly knew what we were talking about and said they could order some hardback collections (they didn't have them in stock just then). He also said he didn't know it was originally Norwegian, because it translates "extremely American", and we pointed out that Norway loves Usa, and he said "I know, just look at their bands!" and rolled his eyes.

It was funny:)

We returned to the fish place where the guy had found the female. They are very pretty fish, and I've wanted them for months, so I'm excited to finally have a pair. I already had a small female which I bought a month ago but she was too young to breed. (I bought two but one committed suicide by jumping out through the tiniest hole about three days after I purchased them.) She's only about 1/3 of the size of the new adult ones, and is totally fascinated by the male and followed him around for several hours. This is the male:

 

I love the grumpy look:)

This is what I love about living in a big city like Brisbane rather than a small village like Ålesund where I grew up. Because there are so many people there's a market for every obscure little interest you could ever think of and stores which specialise in them, like comic books and bettas, and I'm sure there are heaps more which I haven't even had the imagination to think of yet.

Why don't desktop computers come with a built in battery that allows them to detect when the power goes out and then automatically hibernate?

It would have two advantages: 1. No damage to the computer from suddenly losing power, and 2. it would save everything you were working on.

Why can't the manufacturers think of that? I'd definitely spend some extra money on a computer with that feature.

On Thursday, R and I went to Eagle Heights as a pre-birthday trip. It's a small village on Mt Tamborine, about a 1.5 hours drive south-west of here.

It's near the world's 3rd oldest national park and lots of wineries. It's a very touristy little village with lots of interesting shops. Unfortunately, the weather turned bad yesterday, and stayed bad until we left today. It was raining, foggy and windy, and a freezing 23 degrees (brrrr!). But we still enjoyed ourselves. We enjoy going away and staying at hotels/B&B's, seeing different areas and just hanging out together.

The photos have been posted here, and my photo site has had a revamp so you can now leave comments for each photo, yay:) R rebuilt the album system from scratch, because he is a genius.

Here's a talk from former university professor Ken Robinson on the current school system and why it's dated and obsolete. It's 20 minutes, but it's rather entertaining and interesting.

I have mentioned how I find the current school system useless in my post on the ancient school system.

Today is my 27th b-day. I'm such an old fart. (Or 'old hag' as one of my friends called me...) We're not making it a big deal, just me and R going out to dinner in a bit.

When I got up and went to the bathroom to have my shower as usual, I found this card waiting for me:


Not only does it have a cat on it, which is my favourite animal, but it is also baby blue, which is my favourite colour:) R always puts so much time and effort into picking out the card, it's so sweet:)

And when I'd finished my shower and went into the kitchen, this is what awaited me on the dining table (minus the bottle, as that was delivered to our door with some flowers a bit later):


This is everything I got after I opened it all:


The game is the collector's edition of Assassin's Creed which Qads gave me. He recommended it to me a couple months ago, but I never got around to buying it. The books are from Olivia and R's parents. My sis Camilla got me the flowers, the champagne and chocolate (she ordered them online and they were delivered to the door). The shirts, chocolate, cats and jewellery are from R.

Here's a close up of the jewellery:


A few weeks ago I stumbled across shanalogic and thought everything was really cute, so I made a wishlist which I sent to R and pointed out that my b-day was coming up. He had a look at it and said 'nah don't like it, I'm not gonna get any of that' but it turns out he bought everything on my wishlist:)

Stuff from my parents and grandparents has not arrived yet...

In Australia and the rest of the English speaking world one says 'happy birthday' on someone's birthday. In Norway you say 'congratulations'.

R couldn't believe it when I first told him this, because in English the world 'congratulations' is only used when someone has achieved something, like a promotion. In Norwegian it's used for anything - new pants, new car, Mother's day, Father's day, birthdays etc.

I used to think that the word just had a different usage in Norwegian, but I have now come to the conclusion that it must have a different meaning. To congratulate someone on their birthday in the English speaking world is like saying 'congratulations, you survived another year!' which would only be an achievement if you were more likely to die than to live in the past year.

The way one celebrates a birthday is also very different, at least from the age of 45 and up. In Norway this is done by arranging tables in an E shape, where the person/couple being celebrated always sits in the middle of the longest section with immediately family or closest friends on both sides. The other guests have assigned seats in the form of a name tag. Men usually wear suits and the women dress up accordingly. Someone will have rewritten several famous songs to be about the b-day person (or the couple who got married, as the same system is used for wedding receptions), and at least one person will have written a lengthy speech about them. You are expected to sit in your assigned seat and sing along and listen to speeches until the multiple course meal is finished. After that you can get up and mingle and sit wherever you want.

In Australia it's all a bit more relaxed, no matter what age you are. A b-day party is simply a bunch of people showing up wherever the party is, usually outside someone's house or in a park, and then they all just hang out together - sit wherever they want, eat whatever and whenever they want, talk to whoever they want, wear whatever they want etc. You get the idea.

Another thing I find fascinating is that Aussies make b-days kind of a big deal. You're supposed to make a big fuss of the b-day person and the fact that it's their b-day. In Norway we never really did anything special for my b-day, we just had some cake with the fam and that's it. Wrapping paper is just there to conceal the gift, so you just tear through it as quickly as possible.

Here on the other hand, wrapping paper shows that a lot of thought was put into it. People will spend ages just picking out the wrapping paper and card, because they have to pick a favourite colour or something that the recipient will find really cute/pretty, or preferably both. (Like the card R picked out for me which had both my fav colour and fav animal.)

When receiving a gift you look at the wrapping paper and appreciate the effort and thought that was put into finding one you would like, and you open it carefully so you don't tear it. Qads, our friend in the UK also sent me a gift - an xbox 360 game - and when we had the gift opening thing, he was watching via the webcam on Roger's laptop. So he also thought it was a big deal and wanted to be part of it, and he's a muslim, and they don't usually celebrate birthdays at all.

Aussie people will call you and send cards on your b-day, while in Norway people can just as easily decide to just send an email or a text (even if they are immediate family). Roger's parents sent me a card and gift and they both called me on the day too.

My first b-day in Australia I found this all a bit weird and couldn't understand what the big fuss was about, but I have now come to appreciate it, and prefer it over the Norwegian way of not really caring.

:)

My latest blog entry was deleted. Just so you commenters out there know what happened...

And I have some kind of food poisoning. Fun.