Fiji 1: Certified diver

This is the island I had my six dives and the exam that made me a certified diver. It is a tiny island, and if it had not been for the diving, we would have gone crazy after five days there.

Diving in Fiji is fantastic, we could access the reef straight from the beach. We just put on 30 kilo of equipment and walked down into the water. A bit of a work out, but surely worth it.

When I was a little girl a used to love being in the water, but the last years I've grown scared of it. If somebody had told me a year ago that I November 2008 would be swimming under water for an hour and enjoying it, I would have laughed. It is incredibly scary, but oh so fantastic. You really get the feeling that you don't belong there, and it fills you with a feeling of respect.

The end of a fantastic year

I hope that I never forget how lucky I am.

Next Saturday I will leave for Fiji and stay there for two weeks.

My parents will come down to visit me for Christmas. That's the best present I could ever get.

Then we all fly up to Sydney for New Years Eve, where Kristine will be joining us.

The picture is from Gibraltar when Kristine visited me in Spain.

2008 has been the best year of my life, and it looks like the ending will be just as awesome.

It just happened

I never decided to, but suddenly I was writing English in my blog. My blog is a personal one, it is a place where I write what I feel and what I experience. It is not a normal travel blog, because I'm not so good with updates. Sometimes I don't feel like writing, I only write when I need to. I will always express my thoughts in whatever way that feels natural to me. Right now, writing English actually feels more natural than Norwegian. I hope that whoever read my blog before will continue to do so, even though I have changed the language.

While preparing for exams...

Ah, the wonders of the internet.

If eBay can sell me ABC journalist Philip Williams (Yeah, I know, I misspelled it) it is a bit disturbing. But then again, maybe I can bring him to my exams in Broadcasting?

Life is a journey

I’ve subscribed to Paulo Coelho’s blog, and it is fantastic to know that every day a part of this man’s wisdom will be posted to my inbox.

Today’s Question by the reader :Benio
Published by Paulo Coelho on November 6, 2008

Before and after you became an author, you continue to travel around the world. Which travel was most influential to you?

Today. All wanderings are important since you can extract from anything in life a teaching, something that will make sense to you.
You have to look at life itself is a pilgrimage. Every day is different, every day can have a magic moment, but we don’t see the opportunity, because we think: ‘Oh this is boring I’m just commuting to work.’ But we are all on a pilgrimage whether we like it or not and the target, or goal, the real Santiago, if you like, is death. You must get as much as you can from the journey, because - in the end - the journey is all you have. It doesn’t matter what you accumulate in terms of material wealth, because you are going to die anyway, so why not live? When you realize that you can be brave and that is the first tenant of any spiritual quest - to take risks.

The last years I've traveled far. My journey has taken me further than I've ever thought I’d get, geographically and mentally. I am enjoying life more than ever.