INGRID (ENGLISH VERSION)

FIRST YEARS IN NORWAY

I was born on the 25th of July, 1996, a few minutes after my sister, Monica. My mum decided to give birth to a natural environment, thus Monica and I were born in the sea, in the Arctic circle, in a small town of Finnmark, Northern Norway, which is called Kirkenes and is very close to the Finnish as well as the Russian borders. We used to live in a village, Elvenes, located about 5 kilometres away from the Russian borders and our house was built on a bay, Kongsgambukta (Bukta means bay in Norwegian), as shown in the photo above. My background is multicultural, as my mother, Niki, has a Russian origin and my dad, Thomas, has Greek and Romanian ancestors. However, my roots again trace back to Norway, as my great-grandmother from my mother's side was from Nordkapp and also my dad's surname is Sorensen. Furthermore, both parents of mine were born in Kirkenes and here's where their other 4 children were born too.

Apart from Monica, I've got two older siblings: a brother and a sister. Daniel is 15 years older than me and Johanna 8 years and a half older. This makes Monica and me the lastborns of the family, as we were the last ones to get out of our mother's belly. However, I believe that above everyone I was always closer to Johanna, and we have still remained as such. We have many similar traits in our character and she can clearly understand the way I'm thinking. But anyway we have strong bonds as a family, although we live very far from each other.

My father had studied history and ethnology and in a way, this fact has made a huge impact on me. My mother wanted to become an evolutionary biologist and she indeed studied biology at university. However, both of them eventually pursued a career in acting and have performed at shows at the theatre. My mum had very long blonde hair and many people thought she looked like someone between Meryl Streep and Loreena McKennitt. When she ceased to dye it, she looked more like a granny, telling stories at her grandchildren around the fireplace. My dad had long blonde hair tied in a ponytail. He used to narrate stories to me, which came from all over the world, when I was young. He had travelled to many exotic countries and because of that I had removed every bit of racism from myself, since a very early age.

Both parents of mine were as well excellent musicians. Thus, I had a good perception about music, since I was almost 2 years old. My mum had me sit in her laps and she was teaching me  the piano keys, by ear at the beginning. I think that Daniel and Johanna did the same with her, even though Daniel is the only of us, who became devoted mainly to film music. Monica was the only one who didn't want to learn to play the piano. On the contrary, she started violin lessons at a local music school, when she was 5. Now as far as Johanna is concerned, she really liked singing, apart from playing the piano. She had a very loud voice and always in a good shape, so I was always excited to listen to her singing. Furthermore, I learnt to play the accordion by my father and later at school, I learnt to play the harp. I started to experiment along with the piano keys, when I was 2, however I was 4 when I systematically started lessons with Kati, my mum's sister. Kati was a piano and music teacher in Kirkenes High School and Junior High, while at the meantime she was working at a mini market at the centre. She really looks like mum, though she's much older and has a bit shorter hair. My mum has also two younger sisters: Lina, who is a psychologist and lives in Oslo, so I've seen her very few times (four years ago I met for the first time my cousin, Astraea, because she was a fan of the band) and Maija, who is a comedian and has also appeared with my parents at the theatre.

Kirkenes is a small town, but nothing prevents it from being multicultural. To start with, it borders with Inari, Finland westwards and Murmansk, Russia eastwards, where my mum comes from. That means, people were speaking Norwegian, Kainu/Kven (a Finnish dialect), Russian, as well as Sámi, as it was located near Lapland and the place itself was as well the Norwegian part of Lapland. This fact always impressed me and gave me inspiration in order to want to learn about other cultures of the planet. Since a very young age I liked to learn about things that were happening around me. I suppose that this is related to my background, which consisted of a wealthy education. I could read since a very young age, since the presents I used to receive  consisted mainly of books. My parents were those, who were usually buying me many books. And when I grew up a little bit, they used to buy me children's books about science and history. I believe, indeed, that this is the main reason why I started to wonder about many aspects of life and about the world around me.