back again (airport jinx and etc.)

im back again in good old dhaka city after a 31 hours hell of a journey! we had transits through frankfurt and abu dhabi. in frankfurt we had 16 hours transit and no hotel was provided because of our stupid travel plan. well, we had plans to meet some bloggers there who took us to kassel..it was a two hours train journey from frankfurt. the bloggers were great, most of them have come from different parts of germany just to meet us. i often wonder, is there any nation that can beat bengali hospitality? i guess not.


the journey was disastrous from the beginning. our flight was at 6.30 in the morning so we had to start for the airport at 4 am by taxi. there was only one queue for all lufthansa flights, so we lined up. after sometime, bending down to put a name tag on my bag, i noticed that my fly is wide open for the whole world to see. fantastic! i came all the way from the hotel to the airport with my flies open! going red from head to toe, i quickly zipped up, wishing i was dead then and there. i dont know why, everytime im coming back from somewhereby air, the most embarrassing things will happen to me in the airport, one incident excelling the other.


anyways, we were able to make the flight despite being in the longest queue in the world, there were some uncertainty about the luggages, but they reached safely just like we did. i am happy to see my fav dhaka again. only unexpected thing is the weather, i thought it was raining here, instead, the weather's almost like that in abu dhabi, terribly hot. to some extent, its worse than abu dhabi, the humidity here is unbearable. but there're clouds in the sky, i hope it'll be raining soon.


i think i wont go to office tomorrow. from the day after again the boring days will start, and im sure i'll start wishing that i were in oslo again!

oslo diaries 3

june 21, 2007

3 more days to go. i'll be back again in my sweet, lovely, polluted, crowded, noisy, dirty, dangerous dhaka. in fact, i kind of miss the pollution. too pure makes me sick. though i've been as messy as i can, which is a bit difficult with all the colleagues trying to teach me civil manners, i'm trying hard to be as myself as possible. i wont be mannered, i wont be disciplined. i left my family to be myself for gods sake!

i dont know what im so angry about. every little thing is getting on my nerves. i just want to go home and sleep in my bed for around 10 hours or so, then i'll be ok i guess. may be im just homesick. or only boyfriend-sick may be? who knows.

its 12 here, when i look outside it feels like its only 6 in the evening. the best part of having the sun shining all the way till 9 is you have loads of time in your hands. which is good, as almost everything is open till 9 here, you can hang around, take a walk, go to the islands, or the beach, or to any park..gosh they have so many parks here! well, they had nothing else to do with this vast mass of lands perhaps. the day before yesterday the office took us to some place called klobberhaugen, which is a log cabin in the forests up the mountains. there was a small lake too, with a little jetty, standing on the jetty gives you some kind of an endless feeling, water all around you, little waves rippling away, far at the other side of the lake the mountain goes up covered in pine trees...gives you a feeling of paradise. i stood there for sometime in the evening when we reached there...well, it was dark, so i guess it was not exactly evening, around 12 am may be. the water was pitch black in that semi-dark light, the mountain with the trees silouhetted against the ashening sky, well, it was almost like a dream. well, i know im being a bit romantic, but hell, it was so damn romantic! how can i help it?!

the next day after breakfast i found the lovebirds lost somewhere..so i went to the jetty again and sat down for sometime by myself. they went to take a walk around the lake, i found out later. i was glad i didnt go with them, i needed sometime alone i think. sitting by the water watching the tiny little waves pass by, well, its my favourite passtime anyways. but somehow, it makes me feel terribly lonely. i went around with a terribly bad mood yesterday. i dont feel comfy hanging out alone, well, sometimes its fun, but all the time...nope! even though im always left behind because i walk so slowly, still, i like to hang out with people, people i know. i've been with these two colleagues of mine since i arrived here, wherever they went, i followed. but now i feel like an intruder between them. most probably they dont even think about it, but it somehow gives me the feeling that im disturbing them or something like that. and anyways, silent love is something that i cant take. it may be sweet and all for those who experience it, but it kind of freaks me out. really!

so i think i'll be left to myself these 3 days that im here. well, its only three days after all.

oslo diaries 2

12th june, 2007

never thought there'd be mosquitos in here, and this big too! i've been sitting outside for sometime and in a couple of minutes my hands and feet are swollen like hell by mosquito bites. there was none in the city, i guess its the countryside. no place is paradise after all.

i kinda like this place we've been shifted to now. its a youth hostel, so lots of running and jumping and playing and shouting going around. its situated on top of a little hill, you just cross the hedges and you have the slopes in front of you to climb down..there's a thin road along the slopes which is a biking track i think. except for the scorching sun, which seems to be part of the attraction for the european tourists over here, everything is beautiful, well, not breathtakenly, but beautiful enough!

yesterday we went to a beach in a place called 'huk'. when i hear the word 'beach', i picture a long shoreline, the waves crashing on the sands, the wind is so strong it almost sweeps you away, its nothing like that here. its a small and terribly crowded place, but people were going like crazy over it. the difference between cox's bazar beach and this place is that this beach is really clean. the water is clean, you wouldnt think twice or thrice before getting into the water as you'd do in cox's bazar, people dont litter around, they have kept it really nice and tidy. given this tidyness, cox's bazaar beach could be the most wonderful tourist place in the world. yes, i believe that, no nationalism attached!

we stayed for a couple of hours there, one of my colleagues got into the water, another one threw rocks at me, it was pretty fun. i didnt get into the water, i dont exactly know why, may be because didnt want to get into too much hassle of taking off the shoes and socks and folding the jeans and stuffs. im such a lazyass.

on the way back here we lost our way. our guide tipu bhai got us off from the bus at an unknown place, we then climbed up a hill, climbed down a hill, went to the right, went to the left, climbed a hill again, till we lost track of time and place, then we found out that we've been walking at the opposite direction all that time, so we turned back and was going like forever till we got to our place finally. well, it was a good experience, walking up and down the countryside amongst so much greenery. wonder how living here in this beautiful place would be, though i think it'd be terribly boring...beautiful is beautiful to the eyes as long as you see it for a short time, not always.

todays monday, so got to go to the office in the morning, the guys as usual left me and anika alone, so we had to find the busstation ourselves. it was not that tough actually, people are really friendly here and everyone speaks english, so thats very helpful too. we asked directions and got to the place easily. didnt go anywhere after office today. came and had dinner and sat on the grass for sometime till the cold and the mosquitos drove me away from there. so here i am with droopy eyes, staring at the screen and yawning, dreading waking up in the morning tomorrow.. i dont want to go to the office, i dont wanna go to the office, i dont wanna go to the office, i dont wannna go to the office.....

oslo diaries

9th june, 2007

so ive been in norway for almost a week now..and its,,,lets say,`not bad´! im seeing places, which i very seldom do...and the places are nice...beautiful valleys and parks...its nice! it took a 16 hour journey to come here from dhaka. by the time i reached oslo i was too damn tired to look around..to make things worse, the office started just from the next day. yah..i didnt get any chance to recover from my terrible jetlag. well, i think ive left that behind me now, i mean the jetlag, and the homesickness too. but i still hate waking up at 7 and rushing to the office. wish it was just a tour instead of a training for work. :(

the only noteworthy thing i saw here so far is the frogner park..its a huge park...with a lot of sculptures. and a vast amount of land, green fields, slopes, fountains and all that. very peaceful...makes you want to lie down and relax. may be i'll go there again before i leave. the place where we are staying (temporarily, because the company couldnt manage any room for 21 days in a row..so we are staying at this place for 7 days, then going to some youth hostel for the next week, then again come back to this hotel for the last 7 days!!) is very close to slottsparken which is the royal palace..theres a park there also..but as i live beside it..i just ignored it..may be i'll explore it just before i leave, that is, if i get the time! in fact, we have to pass through it everyday on the way to the office, may be thats why i keep delaying the visit.

saw the pirates at the 'collosseum' which they say is the largest cinema in northern europe. its kool to see from the outside...but the lounge inside has so little space, its always crammed with people. but the theater is large, if only the movie was good, it couldve been a wonderful experience.

for the welcome dinner we went to a place called holmenkollen which is near the skijump. the skijump looked good, may be i'll try to do a little 'jumping' from there sometime. the restaurant was good, we sat in a terrace type of place from where you can see the whole city of oslo and beyond. the fjords looked lovely from up there..it looked like some faraway land, you could very well imagine the lights from the islands were some monsters eyes or something like that.

god its so boring writing this way...the reason why i started to write this entry is to keep a track of my wanderings here in norway..never thought it'd get so boring... i better stop here.



10th june, 2007

watched an japanese anime in the morning,,,well, not exactly morning, but where the sun sets at 12 am, you can very well call 2 pm 'morning', cant you? the anime was called naussicaa. the first time i heard the name i thought it had something to do with nausal activities.. :S ..actually its about a princess who is called naussicaa, she's saving everyone throughout the movie - humans, insects and even trees..and in the end she saves the whole world! well, it was a japanese anime after all!

after the movie i went out and spent the rest of day wandering through the streets. the summer festival started yesterday though i got to see it today. its full of life, yes, life! it was good to move through all that bustle and hustle..people buying and selling, eating and drinking, everyone was so lively! it almost felt like i was in london. the only difference is the price i guess. no wonder norway is called one of the most expensive cities in the world. just the other day i saw a pair of slippers which cost 250 krones, which, back home, will cost around 11 krones or so. its ridiculous, the prices of things here.

went to a castle in the afternoon, which was around 8 o'clock. i love castles. those stone gray walls, trenches, canons kind of hypnotises me all the time. this castle is called the akershus castle, i didnt have the chance to enter it because by the time ive finished watching the outside it was closing time, but the outside is pretty good too. the castle is overlooking the fjord, you have a wonderful view of the dock and the sea from there. there were so many wild flowers in bloom, for sometime i think i lost myself rolling among them. im sure if i lived here i'd have gone there whenenver i felt down or wanted to be alone. the lovers use it for spending a cosy time, who knows, may be i'd have done the same too!

on my way back i bought my dinner from a deli, the dinner was a yucky thing called vindaloo, i was so tired and hungry i ate all of that. im longing for a nice decent meal, these european/indian dishes dont suit me at all.

tomorrow we change the hotel. we are being moved to a shitty youth hostel. we girls are better off than the boys, there's only one room for the five of them, while we girls get one for three. well, something is better than nothing i guess.