mandag 10. oktober 2011

A place that is important to me.

To begin with the words “I’ve been so many places in my life and time” would be a cliché to say the least, but it would be the appropriate way to start of an homage too one of my favorite places in the world.



It’s not a grand place. There are less than a million people living within the city limits. If we were to include the outer suburbs that number would rise to a little over a million. It has time and time again won several categories, best capital city in the world, worst capital in the world, friendliest people, most expensive. But to me it is the city I call home. It is the city I grew up in, the place most important to me. I've spent 24 years of my life here, now I spend every summer there; I spend every May 17th there. I have a bad habit of defending it, even if no one is actually saying anything against it. To me there is no place like Oslo, Norway



I don’t know why I feel such a connection to it. I like to say that I know the city like the back of my hand, but truth be told I don’t. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to though. It’s just such a large place. Every summer I make a plan “this year I’m gonna learn all about my city” and every year I do learn something new or find something I never knew about. But there are still many things about my city I still haven’t discovered yet, and to me that’s a good thing. It’s keeping me on my toes.




This summer something horrific happened to it, shook it to it's core, which to be honest only made me love it even more. It made me appreciate the sights, the people, the buildings, and its fragileness. I love how the people came together, to show how they weren’t going to let one mans action define them. To let one mans action tear them apart.




I cried for my city, I shed tears for the lives lost. I cried because of the injustice that this person had come here and tried to destroy something so sacred to me. This was my city, my home town, how dare he think he could pollute it, the way it was governed, the way the people in it chose to live their lives. Who did he think he was? This lone ranger on his own personal crusade, using all the wrong means to convince people of his own cause.



But my city showed me the reasons why I loved it in the first place. It came together. It shunned this mans ideals. It stood up and showed the world that no one mans ideals could crack a country, or a city. My home town showed me why it is so important to me, because when it had the chance to fall apart, it still stood up and faced the bitter music. it shoed so much strenght, the whole world was left standing, in awe, shocked over how we reacted. This summer changed everything.




So now I can’t wait for next summer, when I get to discover it in a whole new way. This summer didnt change my city completely, but we all know that things wont be the same again. I like to think that even though things wont be the same, my city will learn to live with it's scars and prosper.