Saturday, October 30, 2010

Umm, You're Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road!

On Friday the 22nd, I headed out on yet another solo adventure.  I went to Glasgow, Scotland to stay with Jason for 6 days!  Jason was a German exchange student at my high school my junior year.  He has been back to the states twice since then and is really great at keeping in touch with people.  So I knew I had to go visit him, and when I saw I had a reallllly long weekend, I booked my trip!  One of my flights only cost around $10!  On my way there, I have never used so many means of transportation in one day...or even a week!  I took the subway to downtown Oslo, caught my train, rode a shuttle bus to the airport, flew to the UK, another bus, and Jason's Dad picked me up at the station in a car.  BEAT THAT!  I was nervous to meet Jason's family...but when his dad showed up, he was drunk and I could see his tattoos.  Immediate relief :)  They were awesome!

The airport I flew from was really small, so it was easy to navigate.  I'm getting much better at doing this all by myself!  I hate that RyanAir is first come, first serve for seating, some people got a little crabby...I didn't care.  My first flight, there was a group of 17 guys heading to Edinburgh for the weekend to party.  Needless to say, they were well on their way before we left.  They were singing songs on the plane and at one point, someone came on the speaker and said "Boys, you have beautiful voices, but for the sake of the passengers and crew, please quite down."  It was hilarious!

I arrived in the pouring rain, late at night, and found my bus.  When I had to transfer and cross the street, I was like..."Whyyy are they driving on the wrong side of the road?!"  DUH!  I made it to the station after about an hour and got a hold of Jason's Dad and sister, Selina.  They were having troubles finding it, but after about a half hour, they found it and picked me up.  They had been waiting at the pub that Jason works at now.  They were sooo nice, and Selina spent the weekend with us at Jason's.  She's a crazy little chica, but I loved her, she's my new unofficial little sister!  Friday night Jason worked late, so we just relaxed and chatted a bit.  He had to work and go to class quite a bit while I was there, but luckily his roomies and sister were really fun. 

Saturday night we went out to The Garage (the pronounced it like gayr-ij haha).  It was a huge place with pretty good music.  We spend most of our night on the stage dancing our butts off with each other.  It was really nice to be in a club and not have to worry about creepy old guys being all over you, such an improvement from Minneapolis or Fargo!  That didn't stop Selina from almost beating some guy up, and me getting hit in the face because I was close to another fight...ahh the adventures!  We stayed out pretty late and Jason was thrilled when we came home being loud after he had worked all night.  It definitely is true about Scottish people drinking a lot, and often! 

Friday, October 29, 2010

Boarder's Paradise.

After a fairly stressful night and getting much needed sleep, I set out one afternoon last week to relieve a little stress.  There are always guys skateboarding at City Hall in Oslo and I have always wanted to go there and do some photography.  I love photography and used to think it would be neat to do it for extreme sports.  So I finally did it!  I was at City Hall for over 2 hours and came home with over 200 pictures.  Towards the end, they were lining up and doing runs right in front of me so that I could get better pictures :)  Here are some of my favorites...feel free to comment.

I Get It Now.

I am really starting to love it here in Norway.  Time is going SO fast (just like everyone says it does).  The more people I meet and the more places I see make it hard to think about going back to my seemingly boring life in Minnesota.  I have realized that I love seeing, eating, trying, and learning new things...  I almost feel like a new person, and I don't want to fall back into my old life when I get back.  I need a change when I get home!!  I am thinking of moving out to Colorado with my brother after graduation to see what happens!

I have a friend who has studied abroad three times, and when I got here, I told her she was absolutely crazy...but now, I GET IT!  Studying in another country is absolutely AMAZING!  I am so glad that I really pushed myself into this opportunity.  I was so comfortable at home, but knew I needed to do something before I graduated and became a "big girl".   For some reason, I ended up in Norway, and I am so lucky to have met some of the people I have.  Currently...it makes me more sad to think about leaving them all here than thinking about the people I miss back home.  I will absolutely come back to Norway some day...hopefully soon!

Evenstad...Just Like Home

On Friday, October 15th, I got up really early to head into the city and catch my train to EVENSTAD!  Jordan Lutz (who I worked with for 2 years at Phonathon) and Rachel Ward are also students from Concordia studying in Norway.  Except, they live in the middle of nowhere!  Good thing for me, I had been craving the country for a while.  I love living in Oslo because there is lots to do, but being from a super small town, I was getting a little stir crazy and had the need for some nature.  After about 3 hours, I saw Jordan's lovely face waiting for me at the little train stop.  We made the short, cold walk to their campus.  It essentially looks like a farm, the buildings look older, and there were dogs and horses.  It felt amazing to breathe fresh air! 

We chatted a bit, and went to get some lunch.  Rachel and I shared a moose burger, absolutely delicious!  Apparently on Fridays at 2pm, there are free waffles, so we hit those up as well...but with sour cream and jam.  It sounds awful, but it tastes amazing, yummm!  It was really nice to talk about Concordia, reflect on our time so far in Norway, and just talk in normal English.  Jordan had bought supplies to make wine, so while Rachel did some studying, we started making a batch.  I haven't yet heard how it turned out!  Later on, Jordan, Dan, and I headed over to Kjetil's place for a Norwegian dinner he had made.  Since it was herring (YUCK!) I just went for the company and reggae music.  I asked if he was half Jamaican...when I met him he was wearing Bob Marley and constantly said "Ya Mon".  Kjetil is a super blunt and harsh person, I loved it.  We got along really well giving each other crap, it was nice to have someone who can handle my attitude. 

That night was the Halloween party at their student pub.  We got dressed up as our alter egos: girly girl, ballerina, and shadow, and had a few drinks before heading over.  The pub is small and cozy with a pool table and couches and the "bartenders" are students.  Some people hardly recognized me in my straight hair and a dress!  We had a really fun time dancing and playing cards and pool.  I tried Karsk (their moonshine and coffee), it was awful.  When I went back to Rachel's room after 4am, there were still people dancing and drinking the night away! 

Saturday night we went to a birthday party down the hall for Silje and Gabrielle.  There were delicious baked goods from Gabrielle and we played SingStar.  Blue team rocked the house!  Sadly, trying to sing in Norwegian did not improve my language skills at all :(  Afterwards we watched a bit of "Robin Hood, Men in Tights" and headed to bed because Rachel and I knew we would talk and be up forever anyways!  We did...even though this was our first time meeting in person, it felt like we had been friends for a long time.  Her and Jordan were so kind to me and we all got along fabulously. 

Sunday morning Jordan made us crepes for breakfast and we had lunch right after!  Ricardo's family made a Portuguese meal of beans and sausage for about 14 people.  It wasn't my favorite, but it was tasty and had PROTEIN which I am definitely not getting enough of over here.  I also gave Jordan a haircut (with the help of Dan) and it turned out to be pretty decent!  *At this point I have given 2 haircuts and done one coloring..Maybe hair is my secret calling?*  Before I left, I got a hug from Eirik when he got home from moose hunting...nothing like hugging a guy carrying a gun to bring your mind back to good old Litchfield, MN.  He was the one who stayed up with me until 4 am Friday night even though he had to be up really early for work the next day, what a trooper!  I left that evening at about 6:30 and got back to my place in Oslo pretty late.  I had an awesome time in redneck Norway and I would love to try to get back before I go back to the states!  I met some really great people and I have a feeling I will get the urge to get out of Oslo again!