Eirik Stavem – to whom it may concern…

I am a proud member of “Bodylosjen”, a group of old friends who stay in touch via the internet and who meet yearly for a trip filled with fun and adventures. So far our journeys have taken us to:

2004: Oslo, Norway. Bodylosjen was founded, rules were written, blood oaths were made.

2005: Hamn, Senja, Norway.

2006: Berlin, Germany. First trip abroad, with Pearl Jam-concert as the highlight.

2007: Tallinn, Estonia.

2008: London, England.

The rules of Bodylosjen prevent me from sharing information about what we do on our trips, but mostly we just try to have fun and experience new things, while catching up on what our old friends have been up to the last year.

London is a great city, and I’m definitely going back there with Marianne for shopping and romantic dinners, I’ll just have to save up a lot of money first, since London is one of the most expensive cities in the world.

I made one very important realization during my stay in London: Norwegians are arrogant and rude. At least compared to the polite people we met everywhere in London.

If you bump into someone on the busy streets of London, you can be sure that they’ll turn around and say “sorry” with a smile, rather than just walk away or give you the evil eye like many Norwegians would.

This is just one example, I could give several more, but the point is that I’ve decided to do my best to not become a grumpy Norwegian myself, and rather try to be more polite myself and hopefully turn a few grumpy souls around.