All in All?

All together, Mike's visit was a success!  We were exhausted, and poor thing, he had to go to work right after he got back :(  I on the other hand, have been doing straight up homework since he left, literally.  Anette also came to me and said that she was going to back to Finland for good, so I had to send her off on Monday afternoon.  I miss having her right next door, but she will be back for exams, so that made me feel better.  But...I just wanted to reflect a bit on the whole visit:

-9 days can go ridiculously fast
-France is not that much cheaper than Norway (from my observations)
-I liked the Paris subway system because you never waited more than 5 minutes at any time of day.  In Oslo you can wait a long time, especially a low traffic times
-I am insanely sick of rain
-RyanAir cares only about the flight, not the passengers
-Shops were open so late in Paris, it sucked to come back where everything closes at 4 or 5
-French people are rude, just like everyone says.  Norwegian people are just shy.
-French sounds gross, it was nice to come back and hear Norwegian :)
-I am tired of museums/artwork for a while
-Being a tourist can get exhausting
-I am a clean person, but having our stuff in my room made it feel more homey, now it feels empty
-I still LOVE taking pictures
-Europe is way cooler than the US...sorry, Mt. Rushmore just doesn't measure up!
-I am so glad I pushed myself to go through with this experience, totally worth it

Home Sweet Norway

Lutefisk!

Thursday morning we had to get up really early, once again, to call a taxi to get to the coach park to ride back to the airport.  This airport (Beauvais, Paris) absolutely SUCKS.  I recommend not going there, ever.  It is small, the people are rude, and things are disorganized.  This is where the ATM wouldn't take either of our cards, the stupid guy made me put my purse in a suitcase because RyanAir only allows one bag (even though I took it out right after we walked past, obviously), the screens didn't tell you which gate to go to, they made you wait outside, and various other idiotic things.  Needless to say, by this point, all we wanted was to be back in OSLO.  That was too much to ask though, because our plane couldn't land, we got rerouted to a different airport, from which they decided to bus us to the original one.  CHAOS!  They didn't tell anyone where to go, when the buses would be there, how long it would take, ughhhh!!  Unluckily, we had bought a 2-way bus ticket when we left from Oslo, so we HAD to go to this other airport, otherwise we would have just left from there to get back to Oslo city.  Then when we got there, there were no buses to take us to Oslo, (even though they say that if your plane is delayed they will wait) so we had to wait for another plane to land and take THAT bus.  Complete idiocy, we were tired, hungry, and just wanted to be home.  We were supposed to be back at 12, and rolled in to my place at 6. 

Being that we lost a whole day, we just got groceries (I had none left...we have a food stealer and I didn't want to lose food while we were on our trip), made some food, and relaxed that evening.  Traveling is really exhausting!  We slept in the next day (Friday) before heading to Vigeland's Park to take some pictures, as well as City Hall, and the Opera house.  I have seen these multiple times now...but they're the big (FREE!) things that everyone should see in Oslo.  The next day we went to the Resistance Museum (about the occupation during WWII) which we both really enjoyed.  I also finally made it to the Munch Museum, everyone has been telling me to go there, and it was free this time of year!  He is most famous for "The Scream" and "Madonna".  I actually really enjoyed his artwork, he has a pretty unique style.  We saw more of his work when we went to the National Gallery...so now we have seen 2 versions of "The Scream" and "Madonna" with different medias.  They hurried us out of the National Gallery pretty fast at close, so we checked out the Royal Palace quick before we headed home. 

That was our last night together, and the next day was hard.  It was so nice being taken care of, not sleeping alone, and having a little bit of home here with me.  I tried to send a bunch of stuff home with Mike so that my packing will be *easier* when I leave here.  One of Mike's planes was delayed almost 5 hours, and we he got back he accidentally got the wrong luggage :(  I have BRIGHT GREEN luggage, and somehow, someone on his flight had the exact same stuff, I've never seen it before!  But luckily our luggage was waiting there when we went back the next day (good thing we only live like 10 minutes from the airport)!

Freee Day!

Wednesday was our last day to explore Paris.  Since our Museum Passes were no longer valid, we saved all of the free stuff for this day.  This was the only day it didn't rain.  We started out at the Carnivalet Museum, basically about the history of the city.  There were mainly paintings, art, old artifacts, nothing extremely special, but we enjoyed it.  They did have Napoleon's death mask and his suit of armor, pretty neat.  Then we headed to see the Eiffel Tower, up close and personal...Finally!  The thing is huge, Mike couldn't believe how big it was.  There were people trying to sell you stuff constantly, and it was all the same stuff!  Insanely annoying, but we managed.  We took lots of pictures, did a bit of people watching, and admired all the dogs at the dog park.  I know so many people have seen it, but it's pretty neat to think little-old-me has been to the Eiffel Tower :) 

We got a crepe with chocolate and chantilly and watched the carousel by the tower.  There were 2 couples taking wedding pictures, and they couldn't have looked less thrilled, it was really weird.  But we headed back and went to the Sacre Coeur to see the inside finally.  It looked really beautiful because it was dark by the time we got back.  We didn't know, but there was a service going on, so we got to listen to singing while we walked around, and we sat in the service for a while.  Pretty neat feeling, although we obviously couldn't understand anything.  We headed outside at 7pm to see the Eiffel Tower's "light show" where it gets all sparkly for 10 minutes at the top of every hour. 

That night we decided to hit up the Hard Rock Cafe, and apparently everyone else did too...at the same time.  We waited for about an hour, and didn't get out of there until after 11pm.  But our waiter was really funny, the burgers were good, and we got a free chocolate sundae to share for dessert.  It was a spendy bill, but now that's my 4th Hard Rock visit :)  Before we went home, we went to see the Moulin Rouge all lit up.  It looked really cool, and there were TONS of people outside.  We walked the block back home, absolutely exhausted, packed up, and got ready to get up super early to get our flight back to Norway. 

Tired Feet!

At Versailles

On Tuesday, I started the morning rough by putting hydrogen peroxide in my eye, ouch!  It was the travel contact solution Mike brought me, supposed to use a special case and I didn't so my eye was all red and extremely painful.  Anyway, we wanted to take advantage of the last day of our Museum Pass so we took the RER (train) out to see Versailles.  This place was HUGE!  King Louis XIV had it built, and he was definitely making a statement.  There were also paintings and statues of him everywhere, he was full of himself.  We spent several hours there and realized that the part you tour is only one little section of the palace.  There are also miles of garden and water features surrounding it.  Inside was filled with lots of art, old furniture, and "artifacts".  There was also a ridiculous art exhibit running through the whole castle, some Japanese artist...it totally ruined the feel, but oh well.  Audio-guides were free so we got to learn along the way while seeing some beautiful things.  It rained the whole time until we went outside :)  For lunch we ate some McDonalds...boring right?  NOPE!  I had my first BigMac, ever, and Mike had beer with his meal.  WEIRD!  We were so tired on the train ride back, but still had lots to see!

Place de la Concorde

We went to Place de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette (we saw her escape door at the palace) and thousands of other people were guillotined.  There is a huge obelisk from Egypt there and some fountains, but mainly...the traffic was crazy!  There was also the Tuileries Garden, so we walked through that a bit and realized we were right across the river from the Museum d'Orsay, so we went there...which was the beginning of our over/under estimation of distances.  Everything looks really far away on maps, but really close in person, so we walked everywhere that night, and it ended up being a LOT, our feet and legs were dead by the end of this night.  But we were glad we went to that museum.  Van Gogh's famous self-portrait was there, and we also got to see some great Monet, as well as a bunch of pointillism and pastel paintings.  We also went to their exhibition of Gerome, who we had never heard of, but it was amazing!  His paintings were so realistic they looked like photographs, very different than the approach of many other older artists.  *No cameras though :(

The Arc de Triomphe

Mike at the top with the Eiffel Tower

We then headed to our final destination of the night, the Arc de Triomphe.  We walked all the way down Champs Elysees, a famous avenue with lots of expensive stores on it.  I got my first French crepe on the way, nutella...mmm so good!  Somehow I got chocolate EVERYWHERE, even inside my jacket, which we had a good laugh about pretty much all week.  We walked under the huge roundabout that surrounds it (chaos), and made it to the top after many more spiral stairs.  I used to think spiral staircases were cool, but after walking over 1,000 of them in a few days, they are no longer fun.  There is also a "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" under the arc, very neat considering I have laid a wreath on the one in the US at Arlington Cemetery. 

That night we had planned to eat a a French restaurant, but the homey ones were ridiculously small, the tables were too close for our American taste, so we found a much less crowded one with an English menu.  Mike finally got to try veal, but I felt awful when I tasted it, baby cow :(  I had a pizza that was AMAZING, which is strange because there was no meat on it.  It had eggplant, zucchini, and lots of other veggies, and it is now definitely in my top 5 favorite pizzas I've ever eaten, YUM! 

Oui, Oui, Paris!

The Sacre Coeur

Mike arrived in Oslo safely around 4:30 pm on Saturday.  We grabbed a quick bite at Deli de Luca (my guilty pleasure) and headed home.  We packed up for Paris, chatted a bit, and went to bed really early.  We had to get up at 2:30 am to catch a "night bus" to the bus terminal...we arrived at 4 am and had to wait to ride the shuttle to the airport at 5am for a flight that left at 8 am.  Yikes!  That is one thing I dislike about public transportation, it takes forever, shuts down at night, and you have to run on THEIR schedule...super frustrating.  We had no Euros when we landed, and both of our cards wouldn't work at the ATM, but luckily I had some Norwegian Kroner, and Mike had some US dollars, so we had just enough money to buy our tickets after exchange.  We tried to find out when the next bus left, and the crabby ticket guy gave us the wrong answer, sooo we grabbed some amazing little pizzas, shared a Coke (which French people seem to think is really weird, to share?) and finally caught a bus. 

Then the rain came, of course...But we found our subway and made it to our hotel without problems!  After 12 hours of traveling, our temporary home felt pretty nice.  Our hotel is in the red-light district...literally, the "Sexodrome" is right next door, and the other side is a another sex shop.  Interesting...but it gets the job done, we're just sleeping there.  We passed out for a nap, and woke up fairly hungry.  We looked up directions for a restaurant (which ended up not existing) and headed out on a walk to see the area and get some food.  We passed the Sacre-Coeur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart) on our way, which was really beautiful at night.  There are tons of souvenir shops, TONS, which I usually hate, but for some reason I think everything is really cute, so I'm going to indulge a little I think ;)  Comment if you want a gift!  

Me in the pouring rain at the Louvre!

Today we woke up pretty early, got ready and headed out to the Louvre.  We made our way in, and started out in the Denon wing.  There we saw the Mona Lisa (!) along with hundreds of other paintings, mainly of religious background.  We made it downstairs to see a special exhibit of African, North American, and Asian art.  Also in the Denon wing was a lot of Greek sculptures...damn were they smart people, such perfectionists!  I'm in a sorority, no bias ;)

After grabbing a snack of some amazing muffins and Coke, we went to the Sully wing (my favorite) to see Egyptian and more Greek art.  This was the ONLY part of the museum that made sense...this place is insanely confusing, huge, and overwhelming.  I think it may have been a bad idea to start where we did, because it put me in a somewhat bad mood.  But all of the Egyptian and Greek art was amazing!  It just blows my mind to think how old everything is, and how talented they were.  When we finally decided to leave around 2 pm, we could not get outside, literally...we could not find how the heck to get out of there!  When we did, it was an absolute downpour, and we had to walk about 20 minutes to Notre Dame.

Notre Dame in the background :)

Biggest leaf I have EVER seen!

We had lunch, where I got French Onion Soup (IN FRANCE!) and warmed up a bit, dreading going back out in the rain.  But it was worth it, because we both loved Notre Dame.  We checked out the inside which was sort of eerie, but utterly gorgeous.  We also got in one of the last groups to climb the towers and see the city, so awesome!  That is what made me happy to be in Paris, it was so beautiful.  The bells even chimed the hour while we were there, and it gave me goosebumps.  The view was amazing, but the hundreds of tiny spiraling stairs...those I could have done without. After that we FINALLY found an ATM, also majorly stress relieving (many places take cash only, and we were running out), got some Starbucks, and we headed to our river cruise on the River Seine that runs through Paris, this was an hour long, covered many of the sights, which we beautiful at night, and we got to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up! When we returned, we walked around an area across the bridge for a while, and got the most amazing gyros EVER!  It was by far the most delicious lamb we have ever eaten...unbeatable, and cheap!  

Hallo-Weekend!

I must say it SUCKED having to get up at 7:45am for a 5 hour class after getting home from Scotland, but I survived.  Lots of people noticed that I was absolutely exhausted after being up so late every night.  Whoops!  But, it was the first session so I had to go, and I am looking forward to it.  It is my "Social Work with Groups" class, which I have already taken back home, but this is run WAY differently.  I think it sounds like it will be a pretty interesting class.

After finding out that I do have exams here, Friday was dedicated to homework (the beginnings of it).  It is mainly a lot of reading, a few papers, small homework assignments, and a huge group paper/project/presentation in my 3rd year class.  The exam is an oral exam, and it will cover three of my classes in a 15-20 minute discussion with 2 teachers.  Since I am amazing at talking :) I'm sure I will do fine, but it is still A LOT to prepare when we have absolutely no clue what to expect from the teachers.  Very different from what I'm used to at Concordia...

But then of course, it was Halloween!!  I got a few essential groceries during the day, made a pizza for Anette and myself, and we had some girl time in my room before we headed over to party with the boys at Aleks' place.  We didn't dress up, just wore cute tops and boots.  I am so not girly, but I LOVE dressing up to go out or go to a formal event.  We did our hair and makeup, and caught up on some necessary girl chat. 

I think there were about 7 of us in Aleks' room.  We listened to music, watched the usual YouTube videos (we're obsessed with Bed Intruder), played some card games, and drank.  It was a really fun time!  Eventually we headed downtown in a cab (super expensive!) and met up with some other friends.  We did a little dancing at a bar (to super old music) and ended up walking the whole way home...but not without a little drama of course.  I tried to get Filip to go in the peacock fountain at National Theater with me...but he backed out :(  And Aleks and I, having the ridiculous brother-sister relationship that we do, decided to get in a physical fight in front of the royal palace, yes we were THOSE people.  We were a little violent, but once we got home, everything was fine, just like we told the others it would be.  I have plenty of bruises, but that's what siblings do...beat the crap out of each other, no worries! 

I really love the friends I have here.  Back home, I am the person who is friends with everyone and has friends across all groups.  For once, it is nice to have a tight core group of friends that I know I can ALWAYS count on.  We call each other "The Crew" and it is so true.  We are the best and I don't know where I would be without all of them.  I love you guys, "for real"!!  Can't wait for our reunion in 2 years!!

G*Las Vegas!

Sunday was a mish-mash.  Jason didn't have to work finally, so we had some time to spend together.  We went to the cathedral in Glasgow, along with a small museum, and the Necropolis (City of the Dead).  I was really lucky to have nice sunny weather while I was there!  The buildings have so much character in Europe, I'm not looking forward to going back to the modernity of the US.  Selina came with Jason and I, but she HATES sightseeing, so we headed home pretty quickly in a cab (which are insanely cheap, loved it, especially compared to Norway)! Everything seemed (and was) so much cheaper, so I fully enjoyed the break from the expensive nature of Norway.  I forgot to mention our diets for the time that I was there: frosted flakes, pizza, pasta, and alcohol.  All a college student needs right?  We did indulge on a little KFC family meal one night though...delicious! 

The Cathedral

Sunday night we went out to a club called Bamboo, if you go before 11pm you get in free.  It was pretty dead at first, so we had the chance to sit and relax before it got crazy, which it did.  There were lots of different rooms and our little group of 5 somehow kept getting split up.  I became known as "the girl with the Arabic tattoo" when the others went out for smoke breaks.  We had a camera mishap, but Selina worked her magic by saving the battery from the floor and drying it off :)  so we still have pictures!

Jason and I at Bamboo

On Monday, Selina and I went to shop at Primark while Jason was at school.  It's a huge store with ridiculously cute clothes for cheap!  We spent over 2 hours there, Selina got a few essentials (since she just came to Scotland from Germany), and I came away with 3 PAIRS OF SHOES!  I finally got some tall boots, another pair of ankle boots, and some tiny white high-top shoes.  Somehow I fit them all in my suitcase and got them back to Norway.  Success!  That night Selina went back to their Dad's house, she's such a great girl, so glad I got to spend time with her! 

The next 2 nights while Jason was working, I made myself at home in the flat...usually watched a movie, and read a magazine in Jason's room before he got home.  Then we would chat a bit, but since he was pretty tired, we usually just got to bed.  On Tuesday Jason and I took the bus to Stirling to see the castle there.  We wanted to get out of Glasgow for a bit, and it was a new thing for Jason to see.  Of course, this was the ONLY day it rained...the one we decided to be outside.  But we found the castle, ate some homemade sandwiches from a little shop, walked in the rain, and enjoyed it.  It was there that I remembered that I am actually SCOTTISH!  I should have looked more for our family plaid, but it never really crossed my mind until I was gone :(    

Jason and I at Stirling Castle

Tuesday night I had the privilege of cutting Sam's "daisy dukes" from jeans ("trousers" because "pants" means underwear!) for his Katy Perry Halloween costume.  Him, Kieran, and myself hung out in Sam's room all night talking about old stories, friends, and fun.  They are really fun guys, super crazy kids, and it made me miss living with guys (TKE boys) back home!  Boys are always more exciting and interesting than girls.  I packed up my things that night so that when Jason got home from class on Wednesday, we could walk and see the University of Glasgow before we got me to the bus station at 2pm.  It is a really beautiful place, and I wish we would have had more time! 

The University of Glasgow

The one thing I hate about Europe...that you HAVE TO take public transportation all the time.  My flight left at 6:15, but we had to leave Jason's at 2 so I could catch my buses and check-in.  I was completely exhausted when I got back to my place in Oslo after midnight.  10 hours of traveling for a 1.5 hour flight, silly right?  I guess that's one positive to having cars back home!  All in all, I had an AMAZING time in Scotland, it was nice to speak English :)  I've already talked to a friend who studied there last year about moving there for a bit after graduation.  ...Here's to the Future!!