..to the first entry of my Scholarship blog!

If you asked me a couple of years ago whether I thought I was going to spend a year diving in the most exciting waters in the world, exploring and learning more about my favourite subjects – and getting to know amazing people at the same time – I would tell you to stop dreaming and get on with whatever you were doing. Because this is a dream.

But, I want to start my story at the beginning. I was still in England when I learned that I was appointed as the 2010 European Rolex Scholar, and of course I had to call my mom and dad in Norway right away to break the news. So, my first experience with the Scholarship was actually a £55 phone bill.

A couple of weeks after the interview and everything at Stansted, I was back in London for The London International Dive Show 2010 (LIDS 2010). I can only say – wow!

Never been at a dive show before, and it was such a good experience meeting all these cool people – having nothing but their passion for diving in common. It makes us a colourful and some times hysterically funny group of people. I finally got to meet the 2009 European Rolex Scholar, Filip Wolski. He was my chaperone for the weekend, and did the greatest job showing me around and introducing me to people. I also got to meet the second European Scholar ever – Rich Somerset, Igor Valente and Delia Ní Chíobháin – the 2007 and 2006 Scholar. You guys are super-cool!

At the dive show I also got acquainted with one of the other sides of the Scholarship (but the people, I mean) – namely the sponsors. It feels really weird when you enter the part of the Scholarship when sponsors start giving you things. As a student one has a very limited budget, and it is almost unreal when you suddenly can go diving with the equipment you might have dreamed of trying for years. So, Leo from Fourth Element, and Neil & Ian at Northern Diver – thank you for the dive gear (and your patience when I was so sweaty I had to take a break from fitting). I look forward to using it!

My next experience was the official award dinner in New York City. I can not express in words how exhausted I was when I got back to Norway. But it was a good kind of exhausted.

Well, I do think that the fact that my return flight got delayed almost 13 hours might have something to do with it, but still. I had been looking forward to meeting the other 2010 Scholars – and I can tell you one thing, they did not disappoint me. Will and Josh are two of the most enthusiastic and hilarious guys I have ever met – and I am really glad that we might get to travel together parts of the year.

I also finally got to meet Lars Stenholt Kierkegaard, my Scandinavian Coordinator, who has been helping me since my first e-mail entered his inbox some time during the autumn of 2008 – thank you for your everlasting patience (especially when it is obvious that I have no idea how to send an image file).

The NYC weekend flew by doing coordinator meetings, a visit at the Rolex building for our watch fitting, an informal reception where we were introduced to the OW-USS family, the seminars where you could hear about all the cool stuff previous Scholars have been up to, the official award dinner at the Explorers Club and last but not least – the delicious Sunday brunch at Mike Emmerman & Pat Stockhausen’s house. In between we even got to go to the theatre (and Will and me got lost in Central Park and spent 2 hours walking around – a promising start on a year of traveling around the world!)

At the official award dinner I was lucky enough to sit next to the representatives from Rolex, John Flaherty and Anthony Ruberecht – and I have to tell you – they gave the motto ”Every Rolex tells a story” a whole new meaning to me. If you ever meet them – make them tell you the story that lead to the Rolex watches being called ”bomb-proof”.

As you probably know by now, during our stay in New York we were supplied with lots of exciting stuff: a Cobra 3 diving computer from Suunto and a Bluefin housing from Light & Motion and the latest news from Olympus to mention a few things – and I want to say that it is going to be exciting to get to dive with so much quality equipment this year.

I want to thank all of you I met in London and NYC for giving me a breathtaking start on my Scholarship year – and the best part is, it is only going to get better!