being here

To begin, i believe it is worth mentioning that it is, yet again, 4AM when i am beginning this post. More importantly, it is 4AM and it is light enough that i will need to draw my curtains to achieve a comfortable level of darkness for sleeping. My flatmate, Jen, and i just took a very brief walk in the premature morning, and it was wonderful. Now i am left to debate - to sleep or not to sleep. There are many things you can get done in the early early hours of the morning when you have accidentally remained awake all night. Important things, like catching up on blogging for example. In all reality, we all have so little time when it boils down to it, and i'm a bit frustrated at my physiology for requiring sleep to continue operating properly and with good timing. Have you ever noticed how beautiful it is to watch the day fade into the evening and the evening into the night? Have you sat through the night to watch the pinpointed stars fade in the wake of a glowing horizon? There is so much good in the night. Why would there be meteor showers, eclipses, and other night-time phenomena if we were not meant to be awake and watching the open sky? Even in the hemmed-in city the night produces the photographic opportunities of which Brassai took and people like him took and still take advantage. But you know what is good for your brain? Sleep, and not staring at computer screens at 4AM. oops.

i am headed out for my Easter break trip tomorrow. This time i won't be alone on my travels, which is exciting news in itself. My flatmate, Ellen, and i will take the train (my fourth time on the night train through Trondheim) to Oslo, spend a day and a night with one of her friends, and then we will make our way to Venice, Italy. In Italy, we will be joined by Chris who is built just enough like a bouncer to make my sister feel better about our travels. From then on we head to a small town in Italy and move down Slovenia into Croatia with a few more friends. i'm pretty excited. This will be the first time in my life i have taken a trip quite like this. A highlight should be Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. We are told it is an area of incredible beauty, and the pictures you can find with a simple Google search attest to this. i would also like to see the Edelweiss flower, but i need to make sure we will be in the right place at the right time. i wanted to make sure i put in more Norway pictures before i went on my trip...how odd would it be too see the snowy pictures i take here in conjunction with the (hopefully) sunny ones i will bring back from further south in Europe!

i realized that i have written little about the basics of actually being here, Bodø, Norway, of what the life of an international student is like. It seems likely to me that i haven't written about this because the life of an international student is not necessarily always an adventure, until you think about it :) Perhaps i should write more so i make sure i remember? As with all life, you pick up a role and you adapt. Largely, being an international student is a life very similar to being a student at home, but in a different place - and that adds to the adventure, making it just a bit more intense than the adventures you find when you live as you have for the earlier part of your life.

Enough time has passed that i am very settled in. Life has taken on it's basic routine, one that is comfortably altered from my usual rhythm at home. How odd to think that i will have to change routines back to what they were before when i get back to the States and good ol' NWU. i know how to get around (for the most part), i have gotten to know my basic circle of friends, and am learning to branch out beyond what has become my comfort zone. Comfort zones are interesting; you have to take big steps to get out of them, but then they expand to meet you and you can step outwards again. i really do feel as though i could write for a very long time about this, but my mother did point out that pictures were worth 1,000 words. Perhaps this was her kind way of telling me i type too much in my posts? ;)

**hint to my family - if you hold the shift key and click on an individual picture, blogger will pull up that picture individually and much larger**

For starters, here is a picture of the best set of northern lights we have seen. i believe either Alina or Zoe got this shot. These were the ones i posted about earlier. i never expected to actually see them dance the way they did. i will miss this sort of thing when i return to the slightly more southern latitudes.


One of the first things they did for us internationals was to offer a bus tour. i am putting in some pictures from that. On the tour, we stopped at Saltstraumen - the world's strongest tidal current, and apparently a great area to fish (hooray for upwelling!)


This picture of John is not at Saltstraumen, but i thought is was just such a good one of someone fishing that i could justify putting it in here. You don't need a permit to fish in salt water.

This tide is what a maelstrom actually is, you know, the whirlpools that we see in movies sucking ships under. No, those do not actually happen, but sometimes this does look similar to what the media has hyped up. Images online are much nicer than mine. We touristy types did our best to get a good shot of the quickly flowing current on a day when it nearly froze your hands to take them out of their gloves for proper camera operation.



Here i will simply quote Wikipedia to get a bit of information about the tide to you...apparently "Up to 400 million m³ (tonnes) of seawater forces its way through a 3 km long and 150 m wide strait every six hours, with water speeds reaching 20 knots (about 37 km/h). Vortices up to 10 m in diameter and 5 m in depth are formed when the current is at its strongest; this feature is commonly known as a whirlpool or maelstrom." i have been taught a thousand times over never to use Wiki as a reliable source, but i can't help but feel it works well to give out some basic knowledge. There was some really great scenery around Saltstraumen too.




Grass on the roof! i think that is so cool!



Some of us North Americans - Jen, Zoe, Sam, Ellen, and John.




One of my very favorite shots of Jen. :)






The elusive John, one of the few i know who successfully refuses to get facebook.

Something else that has become part of life in general is the presence of a great hill just a five to ten minute walk from our residence. i suppose you could be a serious individual and practice you ski jumps on it. We; however, have decided it is optimal for sledding excursions. Typically now we have random sledding runs near midnight or one AM, although the first big group outing was during the daylight hours. It's great, the hill is lit all night long, which makes it a perfect place to be in the wee hours of the morning.


To begin, here are two of my fantastic flatmates. To the left is Jen and to the right is Ellen. Together we are the three American girls here. i knew we would work out as roomies when we were all disappointed to be living with Americans and agreed to make an extra effort to get to know others. It's been a great arrangement thus far. :) We also share a flat with a wonderful Norwegian named Trine. i don't personally think we would have a better room.

The view from "our" hill.



This set of pictures is one of my favorite photo pairs. If you play them back and forth really quickly you get that cool effect where they look like they move. It's a bit like those little books we used to have that you flipped through really fast and you got to see a moving scene. Did anyone else have those? i fondly remember how much my sister and i liked them. i think my favorite was one of those cereal box prizes.

roomies!

i actually really enjoy this picture of Zoe and i...especially because the result of this trip down the hill can be seen in the picture below. It was a bit slippery getting to the top of the hill again!



This day was one of the most fun in terms of sledding trips. We had a big group and it required creativity to find things to use for sledding. We opted on shovels, an old broken red sled, and a cake pan. There may or may not be a very big dent in that pan now, but it has successfully cooked several cakes since so i am not too concerned. The guys even managed a ride down the hill on this big green thing that is typically used by snowboarders.

i have to put this one in as a big thank you to Ahad for the many pictures he took that day and then made sure we all had access to. Some of these in this blog are the result of his excellent skills.


Here is the gang headed back to Høglimyra, soaked, exhausted from running up hills and maybe a bit bruised from riding down them quickly.

i have to say that well over half of the experience here is made or broken by the people. i come back to it again and again when i chat with friends here - i am incredibly blessed to have the people here who i have gotten to know.

Valentine's Day was a blast - it really isn't celebrated here in Norway, only recently has it begun to catch on. We Americans decided that just simply wouldn't do and had a pasta dinner for the majority or our building. We made Valentines and cookies (peanut butter/chocolate chip, because Europeans have no grasp whatsoever on the wonders of our dear and tasty friend, pb). People were really excited to get Valentines, and one of the comments included that they thought it was very cool to celebrate Valentine's Day as something with friends and not just lovers.

We made mailboxes for doors - i don't think we actually used the mailboxes in the end, but they were really fun to make...


We opted on cheesiness and had people make little flags out of the word love in their native languages. They are still strung up in the hallway outside our flat.


Thibault teaching John some French inbetween pasta and dessert. How to make a French "r" sound? It's in the back ish area of your throat - i was instructed to growl like a tiger to figure it out.


Tomomi taught us some origami. Coolest napkins ever!





i think i'll just post a little more landscape from one of our hikes. i really have fallen for the land here. What was life like without mountains and seas? Will i go into withdrawl when i return to the landlocked state of agriculture and it's related flatness and crop chemicals? Possibly, although the plains and open sky of the Midwest will forever possess my utmost affection.




The area where i live as seen from higher up.


Tons of these hiking destinations have little shelter-houses, excellent from simply sitting and seeing.




So you see the boat? That was my favorite part.



Hiking back in the dark and in need of a tripod. i found myself really liking the blurriness, however.

i believe that will sum up my entry for this time around. i am greatly looking forward to bringing back picture from my next two weeks. i hope to have a lot of things to write about after this trip.

To all reading, god påske! That is, good Easter :) much love to my family who will be gathering in various groups for Easter Egg hunts with the wee ones and the cooking of good food.

love from the snowy arctic. i hope Spring is finding you all happy and well :)

More pictures...finally!

Two good things to announce today - 1.) first oral exam down and passed! and 2.) the sun shone for awhile today! It's been nearly four days of dense gray clouds and a steady falling snow, the thick kind that isn't too wet or heavy and slowly muffles all sounds, leaving its own version of silence in its wake. i took a walk down the trail near our residence a day or two back and couldn't resist doing a bit of picture hunting.

It's been fun to watch the trail morph over time. When we first arrived, it was like trying to hike a large and hilly icesickle. Ice was a big problem during our first while, but snow has fallen increasingly and has provided us a bit of stable footing. Do be careful out here though, if you don't watch you steps some days, your shoe will find the icy base below the snow and the rest of you will meet the path shortly thereafter.

Apparently this is an odd winter for Bodø. The locals have informed us that this time of the year usually doesn't have snow that sticks around like this. Thanks to the ocean, Bodø's snow will melt and then freeze often, going back and forth until it becomes much warmer. i get the impression that we should be getting more wind than the we have as well. Not that i mind. It quickly curbs your enthusiasm for being outdoors when you realize that Norway must have been the one who taught Nebraska to utilize its wind power, especially the cold wind that likes to blow into your face and right through your clothes despite many layers. If you give it a looking at on our dear friend Wikipedia, Bodø is supposed to be one of the windiest cities in Norway, and a family of locals informed Zoe that the wind will typically blow enough to coat their windows with salt, as they live close to the water.

i don't mind the weather at the moment. We are getting the type of snow that we don't get enough of in Nebraska - the calm and peaceful type that coats everything. i couldn't have been happier with my walk in its fuzzy silence. i met only one skier and saw another individual out walking his dog. Yes, everyone skis. If you hear someone joke that here the babies are born with skis on their feet, i have to inform you that we have found this to be only a small exaggeration.

On top of seeing tons of skiers, i'm starting to realize just how active people like to be here. If they aren't out skiing with their itty bitty children following and slipping bravely behind, they are out walking dogs, sledding, snowboarding, or just simply out somewhere. One of my favorite sites is the many babies being pushed in their strollers, rosy cheeked with blankets tucked up to their chins, and the picture is made complete by the adorable little hats on their heads. The slightly older ones tend to accompany parents by being pulled everywhere on sleds. The little ones seem to mind the cold even less then we do! i also really enjoy the snow-covered bikes lining the sidewalks near our student housing. They sit patiently awaiting a lasting snow melt. It seems that the Norwegian answer to bikes and snow-covered streets is the kick sled. i've seen some people with them (though they do not seem to be extraordinarily common), and i have to admit that i want one. They typically have a seat and two runners. One person will stand on the runners and kick the sled along with their feet. Someone can sit in the seat, or i have seen several individuals put their backpacks there instead.

We didn't notice this amount of activity as much at the beginning of our stay, but it is as though Norway has woken from a sleep after its period of short and dark days. Granted, we were impressed with the number of people out in January when we arrived. Even though the sun remained in captive hiding behind the mountains, dog walkers were everywhere and the dedicated skiers weren't very hard to find. We learned pretty quickly that reflective clothing is an essential component in any good Norwegian's wardrobe.

The trail just the other day was lovely in the falling snow, and today i had another walk with Zoe during a break in the precipitation. i have noticed that few seem to go off-roading on these trails, so i tried on my walk alone. i quickly realized why when i instantly sank over my knees in the snow. i had a fun time wading through and escaped to sit under a tree to think for awhile. i love it that you don't have the ambient sound of traffic where i am, only stillness if you are listening at the right time. i left only when my blood had slowed enough to allow the cold to seep through my clothes to a distracting degree. Today, Zoe and i decided to explore more area off the beaten path. We were gleefully wading through thigh deep snow this time. It was great!


i have decided i love walks...both when i am accompanied by only the tracks of a lone skier and when i have the company of good friend. The trails are very very well kept here. You can see the lights in the picture. When we arrived, it seemed as though the trails were even more well lit than the streets! They also have tons of signs all the way along, so if you read Norwegian and know the local geography, you can easily find where you are going. i have no clue; however, what the sign below means; i just liked the smiley face a whole lot :)























Look! Moose tracks! :) Or at least i'm pretty sure. They were definitely the tracks of something large and four-legged that could plow through some serious snow. i chased their trail for a little while, but i don't actually savor the idea of a face-to-face moose encounter.

Norwegian houses in the snow.

i suppose the real reason i started this post was to share pictures and tell a little bit about travels...i guess i should get to doing that.




















It could be that i originally began this post when i didn't feel like poring over The Selfish Gene by Dawkins any longer. At the moment i would assume that that was certainly a plausible cause. Either way, i did begin it fairly early for once. :) Here are some fun pictures from Stockholm. i have blatantly robbed several of these from Lacey...she does a great job with photography. She and her camera can be seen taking in the view right outside our hostel. Stockholm is actually on a really great archipelago, and would be just as cool to see in the summer as in the winter. To the left i put in a map, the pinkish shade is the city of Stockholm. Even though the temps were well below freezing there were lots of touristy boats plowing through the ice. Our hostel was right along the cold cold water.










We crossed this bridge every day on our walks into the city or to the buses. Our hostel was located directly across from the ship you see. i feel as though i should know the name of the bridge as it is the subject of many many postcards, but i can't seem to find it anywhere. The island we stayed on is Skeppsholmen and the STF/IYHF Hostel is located on the street Flaggmansvägen and is building #8, just in case you end up in a cab with a driver who doesn't know where to find the place.






















We spent our first day exploring the narrow and winding streets all filled with touristy shops. It was great fun to just walk amuck and see what was to be seen. We returned to the hostel to cook supper and see what we could do in the following days.















Lacey and the Swedish horses that we were all too cheap to buy. These horses are all still handmade in Sweden, even the ones at all the tourist shops. They are really called Dalecarlian or Dala horses because of the province in which they originated. They began their existence as childrens toys and now seem to symbolize Sweden in general.

Here is a very cool alley and a great example of what the streets were like that we wandered through. This is a side street with a really cool antique shop.

i definitely have a thing for signs and street lights, and the icesickles made these very pretty indeed.

Lacey and i

We played games such as pick-up sticks, BS, Who am I? and Naked (a combination of Taboo and charades, apparently also called Triple Threat) when we got back to the hostel. We relaxed, and settled on the plan of purchasing a two-day Stockholm card to get around with public transportation and get into various tourist attractions. We mapped out a basic plan and headed to sleep very satisfied with ourselves.

A land of ice and ships - here you can see the steam or fog, whichever you would call it, rising off the water in front of our hostel.

Our first destination was the world's first open-air museum called Skansen. It is a HUGE area all full of Scandinavian history. There are original building from all over Sweden. It was established by a certain Artur Hazelius who noticed that Swedish life was shifting majorly away from its traditional country roots. He started preserving items in the 1870's. This decade began with over 3 million of the 4 million Swedish people living in the countryside, but in close tie with industrialization, the country was rapidly developing an urban society. We spent a good amount of time wandering around the different areas.





























There was even a section devoted to Scandinavian animals. This is the closest i have ever been to wolves, and there was a very friendly moose as well as a wolverine. Just as a note, wolverines look way too cuddly to be so nasty. There were also some incredible seals with eyes as black as their coats. i still don't think i will ever stop being amazed at animals' ability to live in such areas of the world, especially in the waters. My absolute favorite fellow is the big owl who simply didn't seem to mind us at all. He is a Great Grey Owl.

Barns - unfortunately i can't remember the year these would have been from

Here Ilke pretty adequately demonstrates just how cold it was while we were being all touristy. Somewhere around -26˚ C one of the days i believe (that's something like -15˚ F for all of you North Americans out there). Ilke's water froze solid in her purse, and we periodically had to stop to thaw out our toes. It gets much colder as you go inland here in Scandinavia. It was much warmer in Bodø when i was in Stockholm!

i had to include the sign to the right. Oddly, there was a tropical aquarium type area connected to Skansen (it didn't seem to quite fit with the theme to me...), and this sign was on a lot of doors. The humor here seems slightly morbid to me.

The gang! :) have you ever noticed that the best part of traveling is often the people you are with? It was really wonderful to get to know Adi, Vanessa, and Ilke during our stay in the city.

We headed next to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is one of the only 17th century ships that have been preserved. It sank on its maiden voyage in 1628 after barely clearing the harbor. It was found again in 1956 where the brackish waters had preserved it. It seems that poor design and stress from higher-upers to quickly complete construction were the ship's demise. It was a huge scandal that involved trials, testimonies, etc. Whatever the reason, i thought it was pretty great to see. The thing is huge! And i felt as though i was near the ship on the Gooney's or seeing something that would show up in Pirates of the Caribbean.

i have found that i really love being near the sea. i will miss the site of it and all it entails when i leave.

We attempted to explore the night life, but had little luck finding anywhere affordable. We ended up returning to the hostel for another night of random games. The next day was similar...exploring tourist sites and taking advantage of the Stockholm card we had purchased. My new found friends catered to me, and we made a stop at the Moderna Museet so i could see what was there. i was pretty happy with the collection, but my goodness, try explaining how you feel about modern art with a language barrier or two to muddle things up! i have enough trouble explaining my viewpoints to my friends. Pippi Longstocking is a big deal in Sweden, seeing as the author is Swedish; Lacey grew up with the stories and i like them as well. After our adventures in the realm of modern art we headed to none other than the Pippi Museum - Junibacken. We were the only adult-type people there who didn't have kids to justify their presence. Result? Just be kids :) i need to see if i can swipe some of the picture of us playing on the sets. We also went on this really cool ride that took you over various sets and scenes as it narrated a story...all of us over-20's thought is was very very cool. Below are some pictures from the tower where we took in the ice-cold sunset. And yes, the trails you see on the flat land are the trails of skiers. Shocking?



The last bit of time was spent in traveling to buses and the planes. One trip successfully taken! i was very sad to leave the company of a former housemate and my new found friends. Hooray for future internet connection to the people you randomly meet. Whatever they are up to, i hope it is treating them well. Below are some random pictures i thought i should include. Lacey did the panoramas, i don't know if they will show up very well, but i hope so!









Thanks to everyone for a great trip! and happy weekend to anyone following at home. thoughts and care from the snowy arctic :)