i find it hard to answer the question "should i move to Trondheim?"

i know that i like the atmosphere, and i know i will have one friend there, and possibly more friends through him.

i don't know if i will mesh with his friends though. i never met them while i visited. i didn't even meet his boyfriend because he was away for a music festival. this friend of mine always liked to be alone with me so i never met anyone else that he knew.

also, his friends are mostly gay, and they go to gay bars and talk about gay stuff, which is great if you're gay, but might make me feel a bit like a fish out of water, like i don't belong there.

i think i need a network first. moving to Oslo without one didn't do me any favours. i didn't manage to make friends with the right people just because i moved to a place that is full of them.

maybe i should have some kind of plan for Saturday. i rarely have plans at all.

"having plans" is *usually* something social though. one person usually doesn't "have plans" to take a walk in the park. that's just something you do on a whim.

it turns out that structuring your time isn't very important if you don't have any business with other people, and nothing else demands it.

a lot of stuff you consider solitary is social on some level. a painter works alone, but he's not going to make a living on that unless other people buy his art, so it's ultimately something he does for a social purpose.

some people paint for fun, but it's a bit like knitting: there's usually some intended purpose for it, like wearing it or decorating the house with it. just painting and then throwing it away isn't quite as meaningful.

you don't really notice which things are ultimately social until you're on your own.

social activities are a big motivator for many things. even housework, because if you have guests regularly, you have a reason to maintain your home.

i was never good at working alone and doing things just for my own sake. but i was never good at making friends either, so i end up doing very little.

things you don't expect of the Barbie movie: the reviews say it's quite woke. the moral lesson is about gender roles.

they don't appear to have celery powder in regular Norwegian grocery stores. only celery salt, which isn't too helpful if you're making soup with broth cubes that are already quite salty.

i wanted to have something with celery in my spice rack. i like the Mr. Lee brand of noodles which taste of chicken and celery, but they're overpriced compared to other instant noodles.

speaking of strange spice omissions: in most Norwegian grocery stores, there is no onion powder. there is garlic powder and garlic salt everywhere, but i feel like i'm the only person in any given neighbourhood i live in who buys onion powder. the product exists but you have to hunt around for it.

you can't easily replace that with onions, because you can get a more concentrated flavour with powders. it's like crushed tomatoes versus tomato paste. you often need a little tomato paste in a pasta sauce. just fresh tomatoes isn't enough.

they don't appear to have celery powder in regular Norwegian grocery stores. only celery salt, which isn't too helpful if you're making soup with broth cubes that are already quite salty.

i wanted to have something with celery in my spice rack. i like the Mr. Lee brand of noodles which taste of chicken and celery, but they're overpriced compared to other instant noodles.

speaking of strange spice omissions: in most Norwegian grocery stores, there is no onion powder. there is garlic powder and garlic salt everywhere, but i feel like i'm the only person in any given neighbourhood i live in who buys onion powder. the product exists but you have to hunt around for it.

you can't easily replace that with onions, because you can get a more concentrated flavour with powders. it's like crushed tomatoes versus tomato paste. you often need a little tomato paste in a pasta sauce. just fresh tomatoes isn't enough.

think i figured out what makes these noodles that i'm having taste so good.

they don't really have much of an Asian flavour profile since they're adapted for the Norwegian market, so the soup mostly tastes like chicken broth.

what they do have though is celery powder. makes it taste like real soup. to a Norwegian, anyway.

the story behind Mr. Lee noodles is interesting. he was a young Korean civilian who was injured in the war there and was sent to a Norwegian MASH unit. his condition was too serious to treat there, so he was flown to Norway to receive treatment there, and was then granted asylum.

he worked in restaurants and was successful at that. hard worker. then he decided to launch Asian noodles as a mass market product to Norwegians, who weren't accustomed to those back in the 90s.

his TV ads looked like typical Korean or Japanese ads with high-tempo off-the-wall humour, and nothing like that had ever been seen on Norwegian TV, so his noodles were an instant hit.

ancient roads and buildings keep well but they were also very resource intensive to build. it helps to have slaves, prisoners and poor people if you're building everything in stone. the Romans did have concrete and it has kept well, and we could replicate that, but it's not practical to construct buildings in that way today. the steel bars in reinforced concrete can crack and corrode, which is a problem, but the benefits outweigh the disadvantages in most cases.

nostr:npub1ntysmr8w5djhpyrdm660tevx72530qjytx6dl2xpc8k8wp6s97gqykwl2f i'm a fan of construction projects that aren't glass, steel and concrete, but that's harder to build, especially if you want many floors, and is also higher maintenance. modern condominiums and office buildings don't need a paint job and nothing decomposes, which probably saves a lot of money.

nostr:npub1ntysmr8w5djhpyrdm660tevx72530qjytx6dl2xpc8k8wp6s97gqykwl2f yeah, we have some examples of that, but there is usually some kind of effort to preserve the character of historical areas. Europe does that a bit more than other places. of course this leads to tourism and you risk having the place turn into a theme park.

nostr:npub1ntysmr8w5djhpyrdm660tevx72530qjytx6dl2xpc8k8wp6s97gqykwl2f gentrification. i don't consider it very desirable but it definitely happens. when all the moneyed people find a neighbourhood, they move there because they like it, but the money changes the place. moneyed business people buy up old shops and turn them into hipster places.

nostr:npub1ntysmr8w5djhpyrdm660tevx72530qjytx6dl2xpc8k8wp6s97gqykwl2f mixed density is something you see more and more here. when i visited Trondheim, it was full of cranes because they're erecting new condos everywhere.

nostr:npub1ntysmr8w5djhpyrdm660tevx72530qjytx6dl2xpc8k8wp6s97gqykwl2f the issue isn't that there aren't enough cities. it's more that a lot of people want to live in certain ones, and in certain parts of them, and compete for that.

nostr:npub1ntysmr8w5djhpyrdm660tevx72530qjytx6dl2xpc8k8wp6s97gqykwl2f there isn't much good land for that. and one of the biggest assets Norway has is scenic landscapes. it's kind of famous for that. there is a lot of political noise when land is rezoned for urban or industrial usage.

my friend who lives in Trondheim is from the same town as me.

some time ago, he received a big fat envelope in the mail from the municipal administration there.

it was a survey. they wanted to know why he had moved away. many smaller municipalities out in the districts are being slowly depopulated as people move to the cities.

he joked that he should have replied "because i'm gay". you can't live a gay lifestyle in a place like that. it's too small and conservative.

also, there aren't really any good jobs there. even if you find one that's a good fit for you, it's likely to be with the only place in town that needs people with your qualifications, so there is zero job mobility.

there isn't much the local government can do to change this, especially with their modest budget. they can't force anyone to stay.

it becomes a negative feedback loop on multiple levels. the people who lack dreams and ambitions stay there. all the interesting people leave, which makes it less attractive to interesting people. the place doesn't grow, and because it's not growing, people don't come there, so it doesn't grow, etc.

it's understandable that homeowners in villa areas aren't too happy when the city wants to zone the neighbouring plot for condominiums. they're pretty ugly and impersonal. i don't like them either.

but where are you supposed to house everyone who is now migrating to the cities? the trend is clear. globally, fewer and fewer people live in rural areas, and just a few years ago, the world flipped to mostly being urban.

when you say "ordinary people" now, they're more likely to live in a condo in a city than a single family home in the countryside.

and just recently, "average person" flipped from being Chinese to being Indian. population growth has slowed down in China but not in India.

i guess i like places with people and events in them, but not to the point where they're overcrowded.

some of the wooden buildings in Trondheim were in serious need of maintenance. i was told by my friend that some landlords just want them to collapse so they can build something new there that will make them more money. "it's capitalism" he said.

also, the city is growing and there's only so many people you can fit in such relatively small buildings. in terms of housing needs, it makes sense to tear down the old stuff and buy up farmland to turn it into condominiums, malls and parking lots.

it just doesn't make me happy to see that though. that's not what i want around me. but when a place stops growing, it quickly goes stale and starts fading until it's a ghost town.

repost of street art i saw in Trondheim, because i want to say something about it.

i can't say i've ever seen anything like this in Oslo.

street art, yes, but the focus on dreams and creativity. that vibe isn't as big in Oslo.

everyone comes to Oslo to sell their stuff, but they don't necessarily live here. this is where the money is, but is it necessarily where the spirit, heart and creativity is? Trondheim felt like it had more of a heart.

nostr:npub1t6qgftxwktglnaana3kx2uls59qe7taujuvje0yd9uf9kutryd2s5ghtd2 how many times have you been fired?

nostr:npub1t6qgftxwktglnaana3kx2uls59qe7taujuvje0yd9uf9kutryd2s5ghtd2 life gets a lot easier if you can rely on others for help. you're not gonna get that if they don't like you.

nostr:npub1t6qgftxwktglnaana3kx2uls59qe7taujuvje0yd9uf9kutryd2s5ghtd2 maybe for having what everyone around you seems to have. living life instead of sitting alone in your apartment like a prisoner.