Whiteout!

I have to say this new year got a lot more of a hectic start that I'd have liked :). But then again, a fair bit of it was rather ridiculously fun! The new year's party for starters, with the only slightly clouded view of the fireworks and our own sparklers, it was quite the way to get things going.

And then, eventually, about a month too late, it started snowing in earnest! The temperature dropped over ten degrees practically overnight, and it did so just as we'd set off for a weekend at the Kvitfjell skisenter :D.

The timing couldn't possibly have been more perfect! We got there late Friday night after hours and hours in traffic, but we were greeted by the cosy if slightly overfilled cabin with ten of us in there, and the smell of dinner! Others had done the smart thing and been on the way before the Friday evening traffic hit the road :).

Saturday was on the one hand, brilliant, with fresh snowfall all day, but on the other hand, the mist and snow dropped visibility to almost nothing every now and then. That did mean I fell quite a few times, but at least there was fresh snow to cushion the blows :).

Sunday on the other hand, was out of a fairytale! The clouds disappeared to reveal a brilliant sunny day and the gorgeous slopes, just waiting to be explored! Of course that also meant the temperature was a bone chilling -16 degrees! We countered by stopping every couple of runs to thaw and enjoy the view. It was one of the best days of snowboarding ever. Not least because my own snowboard and boots I'd bought, way back in May, worked better than I could ever have dreamed!

For a change I managed to avoid the pitfall of that one last run, avoiding too many bruises :). It was a long drive back, but all in all a great way to kick off the snowboarding for this season!

Currently: waiting for the next opportunity
Listening to: Rudimental - Waiting all night (ft. Ella Eyre)

A change of pace

Right, here we are again. Only, that's not strictly accurate this time around. :) It has been a year like no other. But then again, changing your life over a decision made overnight staring at the silhouette of the Table Mountain couldn't really be expected to have gone any other way.

For one thing, I couldn't have possibly asked for a better adiós to the boat life than that phenomenal and spectacular two week adventure in South Africa! And since then it's been a different sort of adventure.

This must have been the longest summer here for years :). I am so glad I can look back and not think of a single way I could have made any more of it than I did!! In between the cycling hiking and the few trips here and there, not to mention the occasional night out on town, it was a blast!

Then by autumn I found myself more or less settled here, not feeling quite as weird having my own place. I'm glad I managed to get the car when I did, although I still feel I need to put more miles on it. I guess that'll come.

I haven't travelled nearly as much as I used to. No more accidental trips to places I wouldn't get within a thousand miles of, were it not for the matter of having to get on a boat :). Which can be good or bad thing, of course.

I have to say, things sort of slowed down on the fun and awesome front and speeded up on the crazy busy front towards the end here, but the vacations helped with that no end. I guess there are still a lot of things to get used to. It seems hardly believable that I have been in this country for nine months already!

This time last year I'd been hoping for something new, something I didn't even know I wanted. It's really amazing, the ways in which that has come to pass! In the end, I'd say I'm really looking forward to the first new year's sparklers and fireworks in years.

But more than that, I'm looking forward to the new year, with all the surprises, all the hopes and dreams, some that might come to be, others that will fade out of memory, but each one hopefully making up another truly amazing year :). And some snow.

Felling: festive!
Listening to: Travie McCoy - Rough water (ft. Jason Mraz)

The unexpected stillness of midwinter

It was a really good vacation, all in all! Of course the timing could have been better, but then again, this is pretty awesome too! I've come back smack in the middle of the most vacation filled part of the year. I was hoping for a chance to hit the slopes, but as it's all rather inexplicably wet rather than white, I'm mostly just having some quality time recovering from my vacation :).

There was a moment as we took off from Copenhagen. It had been cloudy, miserable, and after Dubai, rather shockingly cold on the ground. But then the aircraft sort of punched through the clouds. I've long since given up on window seats, so I was caught off guard by the ray of sunlight poking me in the eye. When I did look, the bed of clouds seemed magically transformed beneath us. I keep reminding myself, looking at the overcast sky, that this is just one side of it, the other side is bright and cheerful.

The recent switch to young adult fantasy has had rather mixed results. On the one hand, it really is fairly light, and mostly quite entertainingly so. On the other hand, the hopelessly adolescent relationship drama is driving my slightly nuts. Maybe this would be a good time to start with The Colour of Magic.

I shouldn't finish without mentioning the best film I've seen in a long time. A Very Long Engagement. I can't for the life of me figure out what kept me from watching it sooner. The story, poignant and set in the backdrop of war, is told with such tenderness! The plot has more surprises than most thrillers, and better ones too! But mostly it was Audrey Tautou's stunning eyes.

Currently: hoping for some snow
Listening to: Jessie J - Alive

Mile markers

As it turns out, doing the same thing over and over again, but at somewhat longish intervals can be quite enlightening. Well, maybe not enlightening, but definitely entertaining :). On what used to be the regular trips to visit family in Asansol and Shantiniketan, this turned out to be particularly true on a few occasions.

One was while catching up with some friends on a terrace, down the street from the apartment where I grew up, where we'd spent hours playing cricket a bit over a decade ago. The view had changed. Not imperceptibly, but almost completely! It's not like the old landmarks had disappeared, but all the newer buildings and apartment blocks seemed to have outgrown the old respectable height of three or four floors and loomed above the rest. It was interesting trying to pick out the bits that were still familiar and wondering what it would all end up looking like in maybe another decade.

Later that day four of us school-mates, rather fortuitously at the same place at the same time, decided to drive out to what used to be one of our favourite high school haunts, a not too easily accessible and to be honest rather unglamorous spot on the bank of the Damodar River :). We made it in good time for sunset. This being a winter following a particularly rainy monsoon, the river had overrun all the little sandbars we used to love lazing on. There was even a ferry, where usually, or at drier times of the year, people would simply wade across, from sandbar to sandbar, from one bank of the river to the other.

The thing that was probably the most innocuous but left the greatest impression, was the drive back to Kolkata. It's something I used to do maybe once every couple of months, and for years, I never really paid too much attention. To the patterns of the fields punctuated by villages. To the occasional sets of power lines marching off into the distance, apparently aimlessly, going from nowhere to nowhere. To the village kids, fairly used to the vehicular traffic, but still quite entertained by anything not a local bike-trailer, truck or lorry.

In the gaps between the knots of populated areas I decided to roll down the window and drop off the speed. I wasn't in a hurry, it was mid afternoon and I had hours in which to get back to Dumdum. The mid-winter weather was perfect, the air refreshingly cool as it shuddered past the open space. I noticed that the fields had been harvested, leaving them a bit colourless, I guess I missed the verdant green of the unharvested crops. The fields stretched out, flat, all the way to a distant horizon, which faded off into the haze like a question.

There was something immensely peaceful about it all. Was it the passage of the better part of a year since the last time? Or was it the weather? Or was it just that for a change, I felt I didn't have to go as fast as the road would let me? :) Either way, it's been a good vacation. And as I had predicted, all too soon, it's over. I do have another couple of days or so till the flight back to Oslo, but some of that will be spent packing. Sad thing is, I had just about gotten used to the sleep cycle here...

Currently: wondering when the snow will come
Listening to: A$AP Rocky - Fashion killa

Oh Michael/Mike/Ernest!

I guess muscle memory is a real thing. Not to be harping on about the same thing, but I continue to surprise myself how easily I've gotten back to negotiating traffic here, from behind the wheel that is :). I suppose a decade is long enough to pick up a few things that will be hard to forget.

I've been a bit occupied these last few days. But in between, I've managed to find time to finish with All Clear. Some books are just hard to read. And I don't mean bad, but just plain difficult. Of course it didn't help that for the most part I kept wondering what on earth happened to the author that wrote To Say Nothing of the Dog!

Okay, so let's back it up a bit. There is an ending, thankfully. Happy or not is open for debate, but it's not all doom and gloom. But the ending doesn't make up for the deary and painful progression of chapters whose sole purpose seemed to be to be a constant propagation of fear, pain, hurt and suffering. And the rare, oh so rare spot of light hearted irony.

I mean, I get it, the war was a terrible time. And there were those who made the best of a really bad situation, in different ways. But you kinda got that within the first third of the first book. Did there really have to be two whole books full of the same?! The reading had to be done though. I was way too invested in the characters to just leave them floundering, possibly dead, amidst all that chaos.

Now that it's over, I think I'll start on something a little more, well, fun. Cassandra Clare seems interesting. I guess I shall find out soon. In the mean time, weather's been absolutely beautiful! Barely a cloud in the sky the entire week! And on top of that, temperatures around the high teens except for the middle of the day. I should really make the most of this before getting back to the deep freeze of a proper winter :). I should also take some photos. Of something.

Currently: still a little out of sync on the sleep
Listening to: Zedd ft. Foxes - Clarity