I went out and took some pictures on a path not that far away from my house. This is the result.

Here is a picture of a thistel in Norway. They are a lot smaller than the Greek ones I showed you a few days ago.

I got a comment on my last entry about the water pipes-that they might look cool in black/white/greyscale as well.

So, what did I do then? Well, I decided to try it out…

…And this is the result. What do you think?

Personally, I like the black/white/greyscale version more. It looks more mysterious and “older” than the coloured version does. Thanks to emmieverlasting for the tip.

Here are a few photos from my trip to Crete.

I loved this cake, but I don’t remember the name of it…

My dad and I went on a little photo trip behind the hotel when we found this. It’s not an artwork, it is a few water pipes.

Palm trees. Something you often see in and around tourist areas in Southern Europe.

A flower/thistle-thing next to one of the roads in the Cretan mountains. I loved the colours on these thistles, so I had to take a picture!

A pier in the Southern Crete village Paleohora. With mountains in tha background.

Greek food. Again, i don’t know what it’s called.

Dramatic sunset.

Well, I might post more pictures later, because I took 1085 pictures at this trip. I could add more to this post, but then this post would  become way too long.
Anyway, I hope you like these pictures!

After one week in Crete, Greece, I’m finally home. It was a fun and interesting trip, but I’m also happy to be home.

The whole trip started last Saturday. Traveling to the airport, taking the plane, traveling from the plane to the other airport, bus to the hotel, you name it.

I have seen and done a lot. I have also eaten on a lot of different restaurants. Some were old, one were pretty modern, some had great food, and some didn’t. The restaurant i loved the most were the only restaurant we ate at on the beach. The waiters were incredible professional and I loved how one of them made his Swedish/Norwegian (mostly Swedish)  skills seem so cool. His pronunciation of the Swedish words where really good, I think. The food had a good taste.

I have also seen the mountains and South Crete. The mountains had high-quality roads and it was fun to see both olive groves and mountain villages. I think some of the roads were better than those in Norwegian mountains. South Crete where more quiet and relaxed than North Crete.

One thing I think is werid is that they used tourist buses as local buses. Tourist buses are not designed for being crowded by passengers, and that is what they did. Luckily, they had also regular local buses.

The whole trip ended by a not-so-good  trip home. In the bus that should take us to the airport, they had a guide that spoke like a robot. By using that informative voice you often hear at bigger places such as shopping centres, air port and ferries, she made every single thing (including talking about our holiday) seem boring. I was really tired when I entered the plane, but I was hard to sleep because I couldn’t pull the back of my seat down. Luckily I did sleep a little bit.

Overall, the holiday was great. I have seen and done a lot; and the summer holiday haven’t even started. This summer the holiday last nine weeks, not the regular 8.

Who said that it’s hard to make a good website layout, and does really need to be that advanced? The answer is NO. It isn’t really that hard, and almost anyone can do it.

1. Colours
The first thing you need to do is to think about what colours you want to use. You are allowed to use neon colours, but try to avoid using them on larger areas. You don’t want to send your visitors to the eye doctor just because they visited your site. Pastel colours are great to use on larger areas such as the background, neon is better for brighten up your site.

2. The header
The header image is one of the most important items on your site. This is probably the first thing your visitors will see. You don’t need to use an image of yourself if you don’t want to. How amazing your pose is, is not the factor that counts when to tell if your header image is good or not.
The header image needs to be of a certain quailty, so try to avoid noisy images such as web camera images. They are not only noisy, but the lighting often looks worse than it is.
Be lazy if you want to! Your header doesn’t need to be a super amazing graphic. Instead, do what I did; use an image that you like, add some effects and a fancy font to it, and you are done!

3. Backgrounds
This step is really important if you want  your visitors to be your readers (If you have a blog). On areas with text, never use a background with colour variation. It makes it hard to read the text. Try to keep the text backgrounds as light as possible. Let your body background be light if you don’t use divs or tables.
If you use divs or tables, then you are allowed to have fun with your body background (the background on the body tag). You can make a nice pattern if you want to, but do not go totally crazy with neon colours if not necessary. Again: the eye doctor-thing.

4. Fonts
Fonts used for longer texts should be basic serif or sans-serif fonts. Crazy fonts are cool, but they might be hard to read if your text is long.
Your headlines can be whatever font you would like, but please try to keep it readable.

5. Learn CSS
This is the most important step. Learn some basic CSS, and make it look like you have some control over your layout. No one likes “missing” sidebars and chaotic items. Your CSS knowledge is the key to everything.

6. Check in multiple browsers
Do you have a number of browsers on your computer? Check your site in all of them, because your site does not always look the same in every browser. You can also use browsershots.org.

Was these tips helpful?

Yesterday was my last day at secondary school. The whole graduation ceremony went fine. Some received their diploma with the wrong hand (it’s possible), but luckily I didn’t. The whole ceremony, with entertainment included, lasted for about two hours. After the ceremony, we went to a classroom and celebrated with old pictures, food and speeches. I ate pasta salad and cake.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed by my parents to bring my dSLR, and my other digital camera didn’t have a loaded battery, so I wasn’t able to take any pictures. Anyway; the room was decorated very nicely, you were almost not able to tell it was a classroom.

It is still werid. All those people were amazing, and I do not even know if I will see all of them ever again.

On the other hand; I think this summer will be special. I am going to meet many of my Norwegian relatives (Honestly, I did almost not even know I had some. I’m only 1/4 Norwegian). I will also travel to a country I haven’t been to in 12 years (when I was around 4 years old). I will also travel to Denmark (which I have been to quite many times) and another place in Norway.

Flowers means summer to me. I hope these images will  give you that “summer feeling” as well.

Tomorrow is the big day. The day that I’m done with secondary school. Yes, it’s the graduation day, and I have reasons to be both happy and sad.

Firstly; I’ll be done with secondary school. How cool isn’t that? It is an ending of a huge chapter in my life, and I’m ready to start a new one. Secondly; it’s summer! Two months of doing whatever and having fun. And; 12th of July is the day that I’ll know what school I’ll start on in the autumn. There is one school I want to start on, but I don’t get sad if my grades aren’t good enough.

Well, it’s school, but you are meeting real people. I have known these people for either 10 or 3 years. And now comes the time where I’ll not be seeing 99% of them for a long time. That’s sad, and what makes me worried. I don’t know how I’ll react on it.

First: It’s June,and the summer holiday is not that far away. What kind of weather do you expect?

Well, I know what I’d expect on a day like this. Blue sky, sun and hot temperatures.

Oh no, the weather here in Oslo is gray, and the temperature is a little bit too cold. We are never sure if it will rain or not. The clouds looks like whatever it looks like when it is going to rain, but most of the time it does not. You can not trust it, and you need to be dressed like you do when it rains at most times. Boring!

A few weeks ago, the weather was actually nice. It was as sunny as I would expect, and you could be outside without any problems.

I hope the weather is getting better, but I do have to wait and see.  The main fact about stupid weather is that it is boring. And even better: I’m going to a place where the the weather is much better than here in Oslo quite soon.

This is obviously not in Oslo, but it’s that kind of weather that I want! (This picture was taken in Tunisia, December 09)

Q: What is the weather like where you live/are?

I made this drawing about a month ago. It was made in MS Paint.

I do not have much training when it comes to digital painting. Not traditional either.

What do you think?

Today is the big day! I’m finally 16 years old, believe it or not!

When I woke up, I got some gifts from my parents, my brother and my sister. I got 1500NOK ( €188,59 – 226,84 USD - £155,36), three tops, two Lipsmackers (Cola and Fanta ), a hair clip and the CD Blood Death Ivory by Angelspit.

I was really happy with the gifts, especially the money and the CD. I mean, what kind of teenagers doesn’t like getting some money?
Since you are not able to get the music I love in CD stores in Norway, you have to order it online (no, I’m not afraid of ordering online since I have ordered a lot of makeup before). Angelspit is one of my favourite bands, and getting one of their CDs is really cool. I didn’t get the actual CD today, I just got a letter that said it’s being shipped, but that is okay.

Later, we are going to a restaurant (as I said yesterday), and after that; eating marzipan cake!