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 :)