London

I am visiting Ingvild in London for a couple of days. Left home yesterday on the 7:15 train to the small airport of Rygge outside Oslo, from which only Ryanair flies (I think). You gotta love Ryanair. My ticket Oslo/London/Oslo only cost like 150 kr (about £15 or $30). Course you have to pay extra to check a bag - it came to about twice the price of the seat, but still a cheap flight. You can sit where ever you want in the plane. It's like boarding a bus. You get on and find a seat. The atmosphere is very laid back.

Liberty Court: the student housing where Ingvild lives

I can't believe I did a "Bridget Jones" at the airport: the gate area where I was supposed to board from was closed when I got there so I found a quiet corner and settled down to watch an episode of the office on my ipad. Didn't notice that this was a 40 minute episode instead of the usual 20 minutes. Suddenly I hear my name being called over the PA system: "will Gudrun Lillekroken please come to gate 7 immediately as the gate will be closing in 2 minutes".

Ingvild at her laptop, combined workstation and source of R&R

I love England. It is the home of my imagination - or something. I learned so much English history at school as a child, all my favorite books as I was growing up were set in England or written by English Authors, and the world they opened for me was one of magic and imagination: Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, as well as the books of Frances Hudson Burnett, George Macdonald, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen...I had read the complete plays by Shakespeare twice by the time I was 12. On the train from Gatwick to Victoria Station we pass a suburg called Croyden. Here I saw rows of houses joined together exactly as I imagine in C S Lewis' The Magicians Nephew, where Digory and Polly crawl along the rafters in the attics trying to keep track of which house they are in.

Here is Ingvild's room at Liberty Court. Mine is the blue pillow.

On this first afternoon I met some of Ingvilds best friends: Marjana and Tino. They are both really, really nice people. I got a glimpse of what student digs are like. An unassuming brick building. Each flat has several rooms of various sizes. In Ingvilds flat live 2 men and 2 women. The room is tiny, but with a nice view of a quiet courtyard. There are inspections to check that the students keep the kitchen and bathrooms clean. There is a guard/doorman/janitor guy who watches the comings and goings at the front door. Apparently the main manager is EVIL.

View from Ingvild's room.

On the way to the theatre Ingvild introduced me to London's cheapest meal: the meal deal from Tesco: a sandwich, choice of chocolate, fruit or crisps, and juice or waterbottle all for £2. The chicken ceasar sandwich was really yummy, the bread fairly decent. I chose sourcream&onion crisps and apple juice.

Dancer outside the Aldrich Theatre befor the show.

The musical we went to see was Dirty Dancing at the Aldrich theatre. I didn't know the show at all from before but it was great with lots of impressive latin/ballroom dancing and a good story of how naive and optimistic idealism wins the day (and hearts).