What a past few weeks its been! I traveled to Norway! The night before I left was Halloween, which is not as large of a holiday here, but still exciting. In Europe you dress up it must be as something scary, not just anything like we do in the states. As I was waking up at about 6 the next morning, I didn't go out to any of the many Halloween parties, but we did have trick-or treaters, and I showed Jose how to carve a pumpkin! It was his very first,and I could tell he was quite impressed. Carving pumpkins is without a doubt my favorite part of Halloween.
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| We carved Halloween Vegetables! |
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| Aashild cut my bangs! |
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| Drawing Katie's Tat |
The next morning I started off for Oslo, my flight was out of
Barcelona, so I had a 6 hour car-share with some lovely people. Good
flight and I finally made it to Oslo at 8 that night, where my
fantastic friend Katie was waiting for me. She has been studying in
Norway this semester, and we were so happy to see each other, thousands
of miles from our homeland, its hard to explain the odd feeling of
relief. We made our way through the cold rain to our friend Aashild
house. Aashild is a Norwegian friend we both know from Holden, and she
is studying medicine in Oslo. We had a lovely evening, in which
Aashild cut bangs for me and Katie actually got a tattoo! Of a Orca
whale that I drew. Aashild is practiced at giving tattoos, and it
turned out great. That night we also went to go jump in the ocean. I had
been craving cold water for a good two months , and it was fantastic to
jump into the atlantic, it was a fairly populated area, and we got more
than a few stares as we stripped down to our swimsuits. An eventful
first night to say the least. The next day I had lunch with some
norwegian relatives, on my mother's side. I met my third cousins and my
second(?) aunt? We had a fantastic time, and got along very well, they
are lovely people. I hope to return at some point to visit them and
possibly meet the many more relatives we have scattered around Norway. I
am realizing more and more the importance of family ties as I go
through life.
When planning
this trip with Katie, we planned that we would travel to somewhere in
Norway, but she would surprise me with where and why, and take care of
all the preparations. Sweet deal! I was very excited, and love being
surprised. We boarded a train, and she informed me that we were headed
to Stavanger! Where? Stavanger! Ok, Stavanger is Norway's fourth
largest city situated on the west coast. The great thing about
Stavanger right now is that there is the world's annual street art
festival. COOL! I am a huge fan of street art (not name tagging with
spray paint mind you), making ordinary, everyday things interesting and
beautiful. Needless to say I was very happy. We arrived in Stavanger
the next morning, and checked into our lovely B and B, and proceeded to
explore. Its really a lovely city, everything is beautiful and
organized. Our favourite was the old town, where there were small 200
year old houses lining cobblestone streets. They were all whitewashed
and with flowers and plants everywhere. We went to the exhibition for
street art, and that was amazing, not to mention all of the fantastic
works you could find all around the city. We saw many, and got lost a
lot wandering around. We also took a ferry tour of the fjords, I was
struck by how much it reminded me of Lake Chelan in Washington. Norway
in general was ridiculously beautiful, a bit like a dream now. I had a
wonderful two days in Stavanger with Katie, and we boarded the night
train back to Oslo. My last morning in Norway I went to the Vigeland
Park, which I absolutely loved, what a prolific artist! It was and
incredible sculpture park with a lifetime of works by Gustav Vigeland,
they were all of people and they were just amazing. My time in Norway
was great, it was so interesting visiting the place I have heard so much
about. I intend to return at some point, hopefully for a much longer
time, and to explore the nature more. This next weekend I'm heading to
Morocco! Blog about that soon!
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| The Best Coffeeshop in the Universe |
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| Vigeland Park |
oh nostalgia!!!
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