New International Mother's Group in Oslo

So i've finally set up the international mother's group that i've been meaning to establish for a while- Freya's Oslo International Mother's Group. It was something i was looking for when i first moved to Oslo and didn't find so i just felt this second time around with baby number two that i should make it happen. On posting my first meeting i discovered that while busy in the early days with baby Sebastian The International Mother and Baby Group Oslo was established offering a similar thing, oops. Obviously great minds think alike and i do think the more opportunities the merrier, i hope they do too! So if you are in Oslo and feel like meeting up with other mother's with or without your children then take a look at these pages and come along to meet some new people. I really look forward to meeting you.

update 2012 My group has a new name: Freya's International Mothers/Fathers Group

Time out with good friends

Photo by Olivia Mann http://www.oliviamann.com/

Whether it's a cup of tea shared with a good friend or some serious time away it definately lifts ones spirits like nothing else and makes every day life good again. It sounds so obvious and it's really a relatively simple thing to do, but sometimes one forgets how needed it is. I'd been getting rather low recently because for some time now my husband has been working late almost every night and weekends too with this current project which has demanded so much from him and i have been home alone with my son who quite rightly just longs for his papa and mama sometimes just isn't good enough. So to remedy things i managed to get away at the weekend with my sister and some friends to Berlin. It is something i have almost never done, although not through lack of desire, but a girly weekend away now just seems an essential thing in life and it was so easy to do, when all the babysitting etc was put in place.

We flew to Berlin on friday night and were back home by sunday night, but despite it being quite a short time away it felt like a wonderful week packed into two days. We didn't do a massive amount or fret about seeing too many sights, instead we just revelled in spending time together, sleeping in late without a little person to wake one in the early hours and just doing what we felt like until it was just too late to keep our eyes open anymore, even though we would have liked to stay up longer.

Photo by Olivia Mann http://www.oliviamann.com/

We began well on saturday morning, in terms of sightseeing at least, by going to the atmospheric and visually striking blue church, nicknamed so because of the blue light created by the floor to ceiling blue stained glass mosaic cubes that make up each wall. The official name is the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church on the Kurfürstendammand and it must easily be the most photogenic church in Berlin. It is a wonderful place to retreat to, to take a pause and contemplate things and to light a candle for someone or something. What is not obvious from the photos, but can be appreciated when seated in the church is that each of the blue glass squares is a little stained glass picture in itself. Different shades of blue, green and gold are incorporated in the design making subtle patches of glowing colour in the midnight blue which you start to appreciate as your eyes get used to the dark interior.

We were soon led by our tummies to a wonderful cafe called the Cafe Bilder Buch on Akazienstrasse in the Schoneberg area of Berlin, which we'd been told was one of the places to go for a famous Berlin brunch ....and it did not disappoint. Huge sofas welcomed us in this cosy retro style cafe and many pages of different style brunches were offered from which we had a lovely time choosing. We enjoyed it so much that we spent many hours there chatting, eating and drinking. Well when you are offered a glass of proseco with your brunch it's hard to refuse!

It was a glorious autumnal day- we shopped, we walked, we chatted and then we met the darling friend we were staying with at the Reichstag so that we could climb to the top of the cuppola and get great views over Berlin and see some of the light show/festival of lights that was happening in the Mittre/centre of Berlin that night.

The Reichstag

The Cuppola at the Reichstag

We walked back to the Kreuzberg area of Berlin where we were staying so that we could eat at a wonderful local known place which is typical of Berlin that served delicious German food, and along the way saw more sights with these wonderful light affects.

The Brandeburg Gate

Much later after some truly delicious food and fabulous company we finished the night in a local bar for Mohitos and chai lattes for me ( at seven months pregnant it was just what i felt like)

SUNDAY  

The weather was pretty foul today but we headed to the Prenzlaurberg area of Berlin for the famous flea markets at the Mauer Park.

I love places like this because even if you have to sift through lots of rubbish there are usually some gems, even if it is just visually speaking.

We lunched in a cafe on the Kastanienallee that we were lucky to get into as every cafe we passed was packed with brunching Berliners on this wet, cold day and then spent our remaining hours wandering around the centre.

Photo by Olivia Mann http://www.oliviamann.com/

I didn't want it to end, but i know that another weekend like it can be planned, hopefully soon or as soon as possible bearing in mind that i can no longer fly and in january will have a new baby. Perhaps he will be an honourary guest! It was heavenly but i have to admit that it was also really good to get home and snuggle up with my boys again.  

Sheets

Making one's bed is a boring task, well i find it so at least, until you add one toddler to the mix and then it becomes a game full of giggles and billowing sheets.

I should ask Theo to help me more often.

Sunday's Entertainment

In these days when my husband has to work more weekends than not, i try to fill them with seeing friends and with fun things for Theodore and i to do. This weekend it turned out that all of my friends were away or were busy so we were left to our own devices. It was fun though and here are a few of the things that we got up to in Oslo today:

On sundays The International Museum of Children's Art at Frøen has drop in art and music workshops between 11&4pm (and for older children there was also a storytelling session).

The museum is pioneering namely because it's perhaps the first, full scale, public museum of child art, but also because it attempts to let children determine what they make and to include all of the material that's produced. They set a general theme such as "Father", "Familiy", "Disaster" - to stimulate children to begin making art and then they exhibit whatever the children make in response. The result is a remarkable variety and quantity of material from over 150 different cultures.

Theo and i really enjoyed playing upstairs in the puppet room with toys from all around the world and we also spent a while at the drumming workshop. We were packed together with lots of other children, each with their own drum or seated around one of the big drums like us and following the man leading the workshop. He showed the children how to use the drums by playing with different rhythms and how much strength was used. He was good, but after a while Theodore found the noise too overwhelming so we went out and watched from outside where the volume was distinctly reduced.  

We walked back home from the west side of the city to the east and on the way discovered this 'new' cafe (as of this summer) called the Laundromat Cafe in Bislett. It's a Danish concept combining a laundry with a cafe and the possibility of accessing the internet. It also suprisingly has a large library, with over 3,000 Norwegian and international magazines and books available. It looks informal, relaxed and seems to be where many beautiful people hang out! Through the window one can see rows of books and dark brown wooden walls, flowered wallpaper and retro armchairs, although where the washing machines are i'm not so sure. It reminded me of lazy sundays in London when my husband and i would sometimes hang out in Queens Park, first at the Farmers market where we went for fresh veggies, fruit, cakes and other delicious things and then would grab a coffee and read the sunday papers somewhere.

We actually ended up eating at the Vega Cafe, a vegetarian restaurant that offers a huge buffet lunch for very little on sundays. We had a delicious soup and a vegan and a gluten free lasagna which made our tummies very happy.

By the time we got to Grunerløkka Theo was asleep and i was able to happily browse through beautiful handmade thingsat the sunday market by the river outside the club Blå. It's open every sunday and before christmas both saturday and sunday. Here you can find Knit wear, jewellery, ceramics, glass, wool, clothes, toys, paintings, bags etc. There are always a few stalls selling waffles, jam and coffee too which makes the experience more pleasant in the winter. Sadly i had no cash with me, otherwise i would have come home with some adorable felt baby booties.

Finally we came home to make Boller with papa, which was a big hit with Theodore having not seen him all weekend.

 What did you get up to this sunday?

Happy Times

So my husband and i went out last night together for the first time in well over 6 months. That really is quite a mad length of time when you think about it. But thank heaven for baby sitters when they do appear and luckily in the next few weeks we have two more nights out booked in yipeeeeeee.
I can't tell you how lovely it was. He arranged it all and i had no idea where we would be going or what we would be doing until we arrived, i only knew where and when i should meet him. He took me to a wonderful Thai restaurant with truly delicious food. It took us both back to our honeymoon in Bali (June 2007) where we ate food like that every day, in fact our honeymoon can be charted by the delicious meals that we indulged in wherever we went fresh, light and cheap cheap cheap (and the massages,  aaaah the bliss of it all).

We chatted for hours which is something we haven't done for ages. I mean we talk all the time but there is always some distraction or we are konking out after a long day or it's in and around things we have to do. It is just very different to talk together when you are out and sharing a meal.

We then walked across the city, something that i adore, walking through the streets at night taking different routes and seeing things you might not normally see by taking the most direct route. We came across a gallery of wonderful paintings and a huge health food shop called Røtter in St Hanshaugen that stays open until 9pm every night. Here we bought some raw vegan chocolate brownies yuuuuum and the guy working there gave me a whole heap of help about alternative health clinics to approach for work. One of them was called the Frøya clinic, how appropriate is that!!

We ended up at a pub called the Underwater pub in St Hanshaugen, which was cool enough in itself, but on thursdays (and tuesdays) opera singers from the opera school, or like last night opera singers who are visiting Oslo or who usually work in Oslo, just come and sing. It was incredible, they were so good and it was just such a wonderfully different experience. Read a review of the place here.

The Under Water Pub, Dalsbergstien 4,0170 Oslo. Contact Tel: 22 46 05 26

Yeah for lovely husbands and for babysitters. I had forgotten just how wonderful it is to go out in the evening and on a date with my husband. Of course i had been longing for it but now more than ever i realise just how important it is to do it as much as possible.