So it’s been about 7 weeks since I’ve came to Norway. 7 weeks?! I’ll never understand how time goes by so stinkin’ fast. They say that it only gets worse as you get older and so far Ive seen that to be true. Sloooow down. I just got here, i still have SO much to do and see. There is so much I’ve done and seen already. We were looking at our schedule and within my whole 6 months here I’m only here in Kristiansand/ University less than 2 months. That’s wild…but awesome. Two weeks ago I was gone for about 10 weeks. The first 3 days i went on a little girls trip with about 9 others I’ve met while being here. The plan was to drive up to Geilo ( about a 7 hour drive from where i live) and then take a short train up to Finse to see an Ice Music Festival. This all happened, just not as planned. Instead of it taking 7 hours it took almost 10 due to multiple pee stops, picture opportunities and oh yeah, the main road being closed. It was dark and we missed the train by the time we got there. It was very late and we were tired from driving so we camped out in Geilo. Coldest we’ve ever been sleeping in -25 degrees weather. There was frostnip on a friends toe and on another friend, her nose. In the morning we woke up early to try to catch the next train…surprise! one of the cars wouldn’t start! Hours after figuring out that situation we had one last chance to catch the last train and to see the final show of the festival. We made it. We heard some sweet instruments solely made of ice and got this epic picture.
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It was all worth it and hey, if nothing goes wrong it wasn’t really an adventure. Right into the next week we came down from Finse to Evje and we went on a week long cross country ski course for class to try out our skis, go on skiing tours and try not to land on our face. You can see how well i did that last part in one of my recent blog assignments: https://home.uia.no/abigac17/?page_id=142&preview=true
The following week was full of swimming and rock climbing. I’ve always grown up around water whether that be with having a pool in the backyard, vactionaing to Table Rock Lake, Mexico etc or to now my parents living on a lake. Ive never thought of myself as a bad swimming, that is until we have to swim a certain way, to save someone’s life, while wearing clothes and only having a short time to do so. We have a lifesaving test coming up so ill be practicing until then. Wish me luck! As for climbing, i love it. I hadn’t done a whole lot of climbing/bouldering up until now. It’s a workout, its challenging but reaching the top always feels pretty fantastic. In the future we’ll be going on a week long trip more up North. We’ll be cycling there, kayaking to an island, rock climbing up a clif and most likely some fun stuff thrown in there.
My parents are coming out to visit me in about a month and i am so so excited to see them and show them around. I am not homesick at all but it will be so great spending a week with the best mom and dad out there. I’m trying to keep friends and family updated but its quite tough with never being here. I am beyond happy to be here but to be honest it can be pretty tiring considering were either off on trips or doing some sort of physical activity each class and when I’m here i sometimes just want to do nothing. But i am currently at a cute little coffee shop in the city and if you know me you know that’s one of my favorite things. Will try my best to stay on top of things and keep you guys updated with this crazy adventure !
Ha det sa lenge!
-Abbs