Sunny Days

Hello! At the time that I'm writing this it has snowed in Bø, but we will travel back in time to hear about the sunny and warm and busy

Week 39.

The weather this week was amazing, so the main goal was to go outside a lot! There was no wind, barely a cloud in the sky and it was at least 10 degrees. The trees turned yellow and red. You could tell that the chilly fall weather would come soon, but it wasn't here yet!

Unfortunately for me I had caught a bad cold. It really sucked. At least it only lasted a week. Writing tests when sick is horrible.

Monday I had the FINAL exam for Alpine Ecology. It felt wonderful to have one of my classes over with!! Plus I won't have Monday morning classes for the rest of the semester!

Then I had 6 hours of classes in the afternoon. Yuck.

After that, I got together with some other students from my Norwegian class to study for our test on Tuesday. When I got home from studying, intending to go to sleep after my busy day, one of these infamous Monday night parties was in full swing in the common house. Somehow I got swept into the excitement and let's just fast forward to getting home from the bar at 2:30 or so. It was a lot of fun.

I'm proud to report that I made it to my 8:30am class on Tuesday. My Norwegian test wasn't until 3 and I was planning to spend the middle of the day studying. But when I walked out of the morning class I saw some friends sitting in the lobby with a climbing rope. All thoughts of studying went down the drain and I grabbed my climbing shoes (luckily they just happened to be at school) and went with them.

The climbing area is a 20 minute bike ride out of town. It's a long cliff face with many routes.

I didn't bring my camera, but I stole this picture from someone else on Facebook. It kind of shows what the climbing place looks like. (photo credit to Justin Barth)

This was my first time ever doing outdoor climbing! It was more relaxing than I expected, because most of the time is spent setting up the ropes and belaying or watching other people. The climbing itself is so different than on an indoor wall because you have to choose/find your own holds. And it's more rewarding to look at a real cliff and think, I made it up there! It was a perfect way to spend time in the sun while I was still sick.

But wait! Didn't a still have a Norwegian test this afternoon? Yes. So I rushed to get some lunch and go back to school. The test was ok, but would have been better if I wasn't so tired....

In the evening I met some friends in Grivi, another student residence, to watch the movie Madagascar. We were planning to watch it in Norwegian for practice, but there were so many international students with English as a second language that we switched to watching in English for practice.

On Wednesday, I didn't have classes in the morning. But instead of enjoying the continuing beautiful weather, I stayed asleep. Mmmm. Then I had a class of "Modern Norwegian Literature: Fiction and Film" (it's taught in English) where we watched an old black and white, Norwegian, no subtitles movie. Fortunately (hehehe) I 'had' to leave early to meet Kirsten and Terri for kayaking. The weather was still beautiful and we took a lot of photos:





I felt less sick after kayaking then during my classes, so I think it's fine that I was doing stuff outside.

After kayaking, Kirsten and I got together for dinner and made a delicious broccoli soup from scratch. Successful cooking is still exciting for me...because the outcome is still uncertain each time I try...

Kirsten enjoying our soup.

On Thursday I had some classes, but in between them I did something much more exciting. I met with Håkon and Siri!! They were in Telemark and made a detour to Bø. Wow, it was really nice to hear from them about their summer holidays, jobs in Norway, and our mutual friends in Canada. Håkon was really excited when talking about his work as an international student advisor, and he is moving to Oslo to start an international advising program at a school there.

Later that day, I decided to take advantage of my gym pass to try one of the classes that were offered. Since I was still sick, I went to something that didn't sound to strenuous: stretching and relaxation. I have to say, it was terrible. After a few (too) short stretches we moved on the relaxation: laying on our backs and following the teacher's instructions to flex and then relax various body parts. Or at least that's what I thought the teacher was saying-- it was hard to hear his soothing whisper over the blaring Enya music!! Since we were laying down, I couldn't sneak a look what the other students were doing when I didn't understand the teacher's Norwegian, like I did in the yoga class.

Now, you've probably heard that food is quite expensive in Norway. Well, it's common for the students here to offset the cost a little by going on a foraging trip after the grocery stores have closed-- that's right, dumpster diving! There's usually a lot of just-expired food to be found, as well as other house supplies. Some of my housemates went on a garbage tour, and now our freezer is full of bread and meat and we had some extra chairs and some decorations and some fruits and vegetables.

We had a 'Garbage BBQ' to cook all the meat brought back from one of these night-time trips. There's a stone BBQ thing here in Breisaas that uses charcoals. It was a bit cold out but still a nice evening.

Kirsten, Aaron and I got to together for some baking to use up some of the carrots, apples, and bananas. We made carrot cake, apple cake, banana bread, and muffins!

Yum!

By Friday and the weekend the weather got worse and it began to rain. I don't remember doing anything too exciting on the weekend, I mostly stayed inside my house. The rain continued in Week 40, but that's next time's story....
Goodbye!

Strange things seen in Bø

Here is a short filler while we are waiting for me to finish the post about week 39.

Strange things seen in Bø
(That title was supposed to look creepy but uh sorry whatever.)
(I admit an alternate title could be Maja's Stalker Photos)

People in the grocery store dressed up for the Cowboy and Indian themed disco night.

People portaging their canoe through main street in the dark about 8pm.

Week 38

Hi! How is your fall going?

I'm really behind on updating my blog! I will try to catch up with the highlights, starting back on September 19. Oh no, that's almost a month ago. Sorry!

So here's a summary of week 38. (It was new to me to use week numbers like they usually do here, but it's very practical! Week 1 is the first week in January and so on like that.)

Sunday, the day after I got back from Lifjell, was mostly spent studying supposed to be spent studying.

Monday I had a test and then a bunch of classes.

My schedule is really long on Mondays, from 8:30am to 6:15pm. Then Tuesdays I start at 8:30, but have the afternoon off. The rest of the week varies, with 3 or 4 classes that don't have a set schedule.

The format of classes here is to have each subject 1 or 2 times a week, for 2 or 3 blocks of 45min of classes and a 15min break. But it varies a lot. Sometimes classes from different subjects overlap and the teachers say to go to whichever you prefer. Huh.

So right no school is not too busy, but with 6 subjects (45 ECTS) and classes at 8:30 at least three times a week I'm not slacking either.

Tuesday I joined an Ultimate Frisbee group. A skilled player is trying to start up a team here. He is a super coach and I learned how to throw (is that even the right verb?) the disc better and how to play using actual strategy, oh my! Like me, many of the other participants have a lot of enthusiasm but not so much skill yet. It was tons of fun, and a bit funny too.

I went kayaking after class on Wednesday.

The club's equipment.

View of the non-rapidy part and the kayak I was using.

On Friday we played Ultimate Frisbee again, even though it was pouring rain and cold.

On Saturday I biked to an Apple Festival being held in Gvarv, another small town just 7km from Bø. It wasn't really an exciting outing. But one cool thing was trying different apple juices. It was a really windy day and I felt like I was almost being blown off the bike path. OK, ok, I actually did get blown off of it. In the afternoon I went kayaking and it was really getting cold in the water. And yes I know that personally because I practiced rolling a few times, both intentionally and unintentionally.... The water was higher than usual from yesterday's rain and the smallest surf wave tipped me!

The Applefest

Fresh apple juice being made

Types of apples

Fish for sale

Another thing I get to practice when kayaking or playing ultimate (which I don't get to in class or hanging out with other international students) is hearing and speaking Norwegian. And Danish I suppose, because I think more than half of the people in these activities are Danish people who wanted to study in Bø. Unfortunately we still resort to English a lot of the time, but at least I'm working on it a little.

The backyard of my dream house. See that orange thing in the corner of the picture?

Yeah, it's a slackline! Never mind that it's mostly just used to dry paddling clothes. ... :)... Also, cheap rent and a huge room with a fireplace in it are factors. Maybe if I get on a waiting list I could live there 5 years from now?

By Sunday I noticed that I had come down with a cold. 'Nooo!' I thought. 'How could this have happened to me?' Then I remembered kayaking in cold water...and frisbee in the rain... and windy biking...staying up late talking... and so on. So I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. Sigh.

Well, even though I was feeling sick, at least all I just had to focus on my 2 tests coming up in week 39. HA, YEAH RIGHT!! In the next update I will tell you how the 2 tests were only a tiny part of that week.

Hiking in Lifjell

Hi!

I'm going to post some pictures from a hiking trip to Lifjell, the highest mountain-area near Boe. I went there Sept. 16-18. It was actually my first solo trip ever. A great experience! The weather was beautifully sunny and the leaves were all turning fall colours. It's totally grey and rainy outside right now, so I'm happy to upload these pictures instead of looking out the window.

I left Thursday at 7pm because I had class until 5pm and I hadn't, umm, packed for the trip in advance.... I biked to Joennbu and camped there the first night. The next morning I hiked in only about 8 km and camped near Hollane. I hung out at my campsite Friday evening and the next morning, enjoying the scenery, reading an entire book, daring myself to swim in a creek, and having a fire. I came back late Saturday evening. (Mainly because I had that Alpine Ecology class final exam on the following Monday.) I have quite a few pictures so I'll just use those to tell the story.

Pack, bike. Not pictured: me, 1200m elevation gain.

Start!
Lakes

Solifluction?

Hi sheep! ...Eww, it licked me!


Waterfalls!



This is how part of the area near where I camped looked like, I thought it was really really beautiful. (Relatively warm and sheltered too, that helps!)





Uh, it's out of focus on purpose...yeah sure...





Blueberries everywhere!


Going back


Riding down the mountain in the sunset. I felt very happy!

Well, I hope you have a good weekend! I have a lot of homework this weekend/week, but I'll try to update this blog again soon because I have so much stuff to tell you about!

Maja