Hiking to Kamtjønn

This weekend me and three friends hiked in the south end of the mountain range Trollheimen in Norway. We used the NTNUI Koie “Kamtjønn”. The NTNU Student sports club (NTNUI) maintains 23 hiking cabins for the use of students.

It was a beutiful hike with fantastic weather. Some of the pictures are here or you can view all the pictures in the flickr slideshow.

Stian and Elise with Blåhø in the background

Elise, Marianne and me, almost on the top of Blåhø

Elise claimes to be afraid of heights

Sian looking forward to a bath

Stian diving in Kamtjønn

Hiking over the Hamre ridge on sunday

Me and Elise on top of the world

At Rensbekksætra, only 6 km away from the car

Dear Georgia

It is truly disturbing to watch the news about the armed conflict in Georgia. I just got off the phone with my dear friend Nino who is in T’bilisi. She was worried and she was currently trying to convince her little brother not to enlist.

David was in his home village when I talked with him 20 minutes ago, he was worried about his number of friends who were going to the front lines. Still he was in a very positive mood and hoping that the whole thing would be over in two or three days.

For me personally it was very good to get hold of at least these two friends of mine down there. There are many other that have not reached tonight, and I wish you all the best and as you I hope for a peaceful solution to this conflict in the very close future.

We played football with a group of kids in gudishvilis garden, and in the end I gave them my favorite Samfundet t-shirt to remember the strange norwegians who dropped by.

To you my dear friends from Gudishvilis garden, i wish you all the best and I hope you will keep your positive attitude.

End of mission presentation

Last tuesday I had my end of mission presentation in Norwegian Red Cross, and it’s in a way a finalisation of my misson in Armenia. To those of you who weren’t there I have now uploaded the slides so you can hava a look at them. Be aware that this is only the slides, and it does not give you a very good impression of how my stay was. But it might be enjoyable to look at the pictures in my presentation.

I hope you enjoy it.

Youth Delegate, final presentation

Clearing my desk

This will be my last post from Armenia. I am now clearing my desk on my last day in Armenian Red Cross Youth. Everyone else has already left the office, I’m sitting alone, dreading to shut down the computer and put it in my backpack – that’s the only thing left before I’m officially finished working in Armenia. The power button.

It’s a strange feeling. I’m feeling sad. I’d like to stay longer but at the same time there are a lot of exciting projects waiting for me at home, and I’m looking forward to getting started.

Armenia has given me a lot through the last nine months, a lot of great experiences and memories. I have gotten fantastic friends, who I know I always can rely on – I have gotten a family in a way.

Things will change now, this blog will also change in the next month, it needs a new title. Even though I’m leaving Hayastan, I will still follow Armenian Red Cross closely and the Armenian society. In other words: This is not my last post about Armenia.

I like Armenia, it’s people, the mood – I’ve even come to like the traffic – which is a scary though. I have a suspicion that it’ll be a bit hard to readjust to the Norwegian systematical society. Time will show.

I will miss you Armenia – so long, and thanks for all the fish.

Hitchhiking video

Hitchhiking

Originally uploaded by Trygve.u

This is just a short clip I shot on our way to Tatev this weekend. It was a fantastic trip and we had a very good hitchhiking experience. Here is a clip from one of the trucks we rode with.

Update from Strangeways

My friends form Attila the bus has updated their blog at www.internjet.no with some soundclips (in Norwegian) in their latest post, and I strongly recommend listening to “Shardakbekjennelser” og “Georgisk snut”. Go visit Radio Internjet!

If you’re wondering what Strangeways is you can take a look at my previous post about Strangeways.

They have also uploaded a bunch of photoes to the Strangeways pool on Flickr, if you have some minutes to kill, take a look. Here is one of my favorites from Cecilie, the “Telephone in Kurtaisi”.

Youtube surprise

I started out the day today checking that the the projector works and ended running some youtube on the wall in the office. First I youtubed “red cross” and saw Jamie Collum with Uganda Red Cross. Then hoping to find some cool action from Norway I searched for “Red Cross Norway”, but to my great surprise I see my own name in one of the top search results!

It turns out someone, reading my blog, has created a slideshow of my pictures based on my blogposts and pictures from flickr. It mainly focuses on my trip with Strangeways, click here to see the video on Youtube.

AIDS Candlelight Memorial March

On the third sunday in May organisations and groups worldwide arrange candlelight memorials for the victims of Aids and to raise awareness on HIV and protection.

In Yerevan, more than 60 Red Cross youth volunteers marched through the citycenter with candles this sunday. By posters and talking with curious bystanders they managed to get a lot of attention on this important case. Several bystanders also tagged along and followed us to the square by Moscow cinema where we filled an HIV ribbon on the ground with candles.

After the march, volunteers and others went into the  cinema and watched the movie Transit.

I hope to write more on this event, meanwhile I hope you will enjoy the pictures.

Red Cross Youth Delegates evacuated from Lebanon

My friends Trude and Camilla, who are working as Youth Delegates this year in Lebanon Red Cross were been evacuated from Lebanon over to Syria and flown back to Norway last weekend. On the 8th of May Camilla wrote the following on her blog:

- After two months of relatively calm the situation in Lebanon has seriously worsened during the last two days, and the whole thing is now very scary.

[...]

Now I know a little better what real stress is. It is not myself I worry the most about; I am being taken good care of by the Red Cross, and if the situation demands it I will be evacuated from the country.

From her blog post “General strike and violent demonstrations in Beirut”

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten published an interview with Trude and Camilla on the 10th of May while they were still in Syria.

[In norwegian, translation underneath]

- Vi ble utstyrt med skuddsikre vester og annet sikkerhetsutstyr, men det var ikke så skremmende. Den beste beskyttelsen man kan ha i en sånn situasjon er Røde Kors-merket, sier Helgesen til Aftenposten.no.

[Translation from norwegian]

- We were equiped with bullet proof vests and other security gear, but it wasn’t too scary. The best protection one can have in such a situation is the Red Cross emblem, says Camilla Helgesen to Aftenposten.no

From the article “Trude (23) og Camilla (27) evakuert fra Beirut” at Aftenposten.no

I am glad to know that my two friends are safe back in Norway, while I still share their concern for the situation in Lebanon.

Disturbances in gravitational force

I visited Garni temple on thursday together with my two friends from Trondheim, Leif and Elise. During our stay there we discovered some disturbances in the gravitational force and at times we just had to hold on to the closest thing available not to float of into space, and this phenomenon has followed us here to Tbilisi. We experienced a severe incident at the border crossing to Georgia, as you can see from the picture below we were extremely lucky to get hold of this pole.

More pictures from our trip on flickr!

*Update

As our claim about the disturbances in gravity might sound a bit strange to some people I am putting up a bit more evidence to prove that this actually was actually the case.