Dunes & Tunes

Yes, I’m back from my vacation at Gran Canaria/Playa Del Ingles, and it was, as expected, really great! I’ll honestly say, we haven’t really done that much of the island though, not at all actually. We have been walking a lot around Playa Del Ingles and seen most of that, we have been doing some shopping, we have been doing some sun bathing – but I’m afraid, mostly we’ve been drinking beer and partying, and I’ve loved every second of it. Not so happy about the slight hangover I’ve had every morning though, but nothing a few hours sleeping in the sun and then a fresh cold beer couldn’t cure!!

So, what is there to say about this vacation besides it’s been great? I have one really big recommendation for all of you who might be heading down there: “Dunes & Tunes”. It’s an Irish bar on the beach promenade. My friend and I were stopped there by this really cute waiter on our second night and when we also noticed the very good singer our choice was made. And it turned out to be an excellent choice, not only for that evening but for all the other evenings there as well!! It’s a really nice pub, and they’ve got live music in the evening (and in the daytime I think but we were never really there that much in day time (yes except for our second last day when we had lunch there)) from half past 7 till half past 1 in the night. There are two singers (one after the other!) and they’re both really great, so entertaining! So, the pub is great, and the music is great – what makes it really terrific, so excellent, are all the people working there. They are so friendly and service minded, and with a great sense of humour, and well, what can I say, but, if you ever do go to Playa Del Ingles this is the place to check out. That is, if you’re not the typical stupidly drunken Scandinavian who’re thinking that being as loud as obnoxious as possible is the best way to behave, because, well, I’m sure they’d still take good care of you there (I know they will because I did saw a couple of these elements actually have some beers in the pub when I was there) but this wouldn’t really be your place, you would then belong in the more noisy places like Kasbah or something. But for all you other people, who like good music, nice friendly people, meeting new friends and be able to talk with them, and perhaps even do some dancing (but not to that terrible noise the discos down there seem to call music, it all sounds the same!) this is definitely the place to be! And, oh, NO I’m not being paid to write all this. It just seems that when you’ve been to a place and had such a great time, it really seems worth mentioning. If we hadn’t found “Dunes & Tunes” we would probably still have had a great time, but it might not have been excellent!

And now I’m afraid it’s back to reality. I have some catching up to do on my internet course and I have to keep on writing my novel “Dreamland” that I’ve started on through the course. I am also planning on trying to put together a novel for a competition to write a contemporary novel, I think the deadline is some time in September. I have an idea, but staying in my head it’ll be hard to hand in, so I’d better start trying to write it soon.

I am also today writing an email to the accommodation office at the University of Chichester. I have to start thinking, seriously, about where I’m going to live when I move there in September.

And this is what’s on my mind for today I think.

And I'm off again!

Easter has come and gone without anything very significant happening. Fortunately, tomorrow I'm off to Gran Canaria and Playa Del Ingles for a week of fun, joy and partying in the sun - so hopefully more significant things to "write home" about will happen there.

Reading and stuff

I definitely have to get some sort of small recorder. It’s always when I’m in bed at night, in the darkness that all these ideas come to me about stuff I want to write, not only like short stories or novels but also what I’d like to put on my blogspot as well. You see I’ve experienced so many times, the minute I then turn on the light, find my pen and paper, it’s all gone. It’s like the daylight scares every creative thought out of my head, and I don’t now how many nights I’ve been lying in bed thinking all these fabulous thoughts and just knowing I can’t turn the light on to write them down because there’s not a chance in hell that I’ll actually be fast enough to write it all down before it’s gone. Then a small recorder would have been the perfect idea. Of course, it might actually be that the reason why all these great ideas from night time disappears in the sunlight is that they weren’t so great after all – but if I had them recorded at least then I could listen to them in the sunlight and decide wetter or not they are any good.

Last night I was thinking about all these things I wanted to say about the two most recent books I’ve read. They’re both Norwegian and very far from my usual genre of fantasy, horror and sci-fi, I’ve still enjoyed them though. I would of course never have bought them myself, because I never do that – I do realize that I really should by something else than my usual category of literature, sort of to broaden my horizon and get some new inspiration so that I won’t keep copying others when I try to write my own stuff. However, every time I’ve got my mind of buying something else, I just can’t seem to get it done, it all seems so boring to me. It’s like, the fantasy literature gives me a kind of high, kind of an escape from everyday life that other kind of literature don’t. It’s like this world, without magic and fantastic creatures is just, well, too boring to me, so that’s why I need to escape into another world where anything is possible. Anyway, so I got these two books for my birthday, and I have of course ended up enjoying them a lot, I find that I most often to the few times I actually get around to reading something “different”.

As I said, in bed late last night I was thinking about all the things I wanted to tell you about these books and what thoughts they made in my head and everything, and today, I just feel empty. Oh, yeah, the two books are: Tormod Haugland – “Inkarnasjon” and Heidi Linde – Juggel. Both are books of the contemporary genre. The first one “Inkarnasjon” is about a writer who’s struggling to write and keep in touch with the real world at the same time. The second “Juggel” is about a woman in her mid thirties who has to go back to her old home town for a funeral, the story is written partly in our time today when we learn about her life now, and partly as a flashback to the year she was 14 and the things that happened to her and her best friend then. I guess what I’ve really learnt from these two books is that a story doesn’t really have to be about anything out of the ordinary to be interesting, it is actually possible to write story about everyday life and still make it interesting. I would have to argue though that “Inkarnasjon” most be mostly interesting to those who aspire to be writers themselves, because they can sort of recognize the struggle that the main character in the story is going through, I know this is why I liked it. And it’s for some of the same reason I enjoyed the other book as well. The writer, Heidi Linde is a couple of years younger than me, and from the small city of Kongsvinger, which is about 60 km from where I live – and when her main character has these flashbacks to her teens, and these memories about talking about boys, and parties and stuff with her best friends, trying out alcohol for the first time, playing in the school band – I was thinking this is just how I remember it with my best friend at the time. That is probably how writing about everyday life can be made interesting; you have to write a story that many people can recognize themselves in, because if you feel that a story is somehow about you too, then it is interesting!

I’m sure I had lots of more thoughts about this last night, but as I said feel rather emptier now.

It’s Easter, which doesn’t really differ from everyday life for me now, since it’s not like I get time of from work and go on holiday or something. I’m off to visit my aunt and uncle in Son for a couple of days, on Saturday I’m hoping to have a little get together with some friends – and other than that – I’m just waiting for Wednesday 19th of April to get her so I can finally go on my holiday to Gran Canaria which I’ve been looking forward to for such a long time.

Happy Easter everybody!

Missed me?

I'm not dead or anything, still haven't got much to write about though, or more like, I probably do have things to write about - but I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing these thoughts with all the world on the internet, so considering that I don't really have that much to write about.

My life just, well, goes on; I write and I go for long walks, or dance, or do aerobic excercises, or oh, what ever. I probably watch way to much TV, or rather, it's not that I do watch THAT much TV but now it seems like there's something on every evening that I feel I need to watch. So, as I'm currently lacking things to write about, well, I guess I could share my TV week with you, that shouldn't be revealing to much about myself, or......?

Monday:
Criminal Minds, TV 2
Cold Case, TV Norge

Tuesday:
C.S.I Las Vegas, TV Norge
Philly, TV 2

Wednesday:
Lost, TV Norge
Without a trace, NRK
Supernatural, TV Norge

Thursday:
Law and Order: Special Victims unit, TV2
CSI New York, TV Norge

Friday:
Beat for Beat, NRK
Nytt på nytt (Sorry, don't know the English title of this one, it's a program where 3 people with 2 guests sit and talk humorously about the news of the last week), NRK

Saturday:
Heartbeat, NRK

Sunday:
One Tree Hill, TV Norge
Gilmore Girls, TV Norge
Charterfeber ("Charterfever", a reality show about tourists on charter holliday in Gran Canaria, I'm hoping to catch a glimps of places I've been or places I'm planning to go!), TV3

So, that's my TV week. I'll have to ad though, the only ONE of these programs that I really really don't want to miss is "Lost", this is the one I'm recording if I'm not at home when it's on, all the others I could easily miss - but as long as I'm home and not doing anything else....

And of course, I mustn't forget, every weekday at four I actually also watch re-runs of Ally McBeal, but that's just because our family always have dinner in front of the TV, and I can't seem to find anything else at that time that seems sligthly interesting - and I loved Ally McBeal the first time it was on, so I enjoy it now as well!