This month I went on two trips: a trip to Hardangervidda and a trip to Randoya. I will tell you about these trips in another post. Crazy that this was already my last full month here!
We had some theoretical lessons (online) as preparation for our trip to Randoya. We learned about rules of the sea, sea and coastal and coastal navigation.
The two first weeks of this month were pretty chill. There were a lot of holidays. We didn’t have a lot of lectures, because the other part of the class was on their fjord to sea trip. This two weeks were filled with fun things and learning for the exam and working for my bachelor thesis. We had an fun international dinner. I made ‘snowballpudding’. Some dishes the others made were: ‘stamppo
t’, bruschetta, some German dessert – apple crumble cake, some pasta and some Spanish dish – spanish tortilla. When the others were earlier back than expected because of the bad weather, we had a girls night, because the boys were doing a boys night. It was a lot of fun! We also had a workshop 
making breadrolls by the two Danish people in our class. It was really fun and they were also really tasty! Recipe down below. The rest of the time we chilled in our hammock, made bonfires and studied for the oral theoretical exam. My exam went great! I got an A!! After our exam Elena and me went to Hardangervidda to hike there. We came back just in time for the Norwegian national holiday (17th of May). It was really cool to see that they really celebrate their holi
day here, not like in Belgium, where we do not really anything. There were parades, a boat parade, a little concert, where were more international students partying than Norwegians, because of the rainy day and in the evening there was a firework, that I went to watch with two others on Holmenkollen, where you have a nice view over the whole city. My package of my boyfriend 
and his family also arrived this month! I was so happy with another package and more pudding and all the other things that were in there! The photos they sended, where also really cute! Another thing I did this month already was buying some more souvenirs for everyone, because it’s already almost time to go back home (CRAZY).
In the third week we had two days kayaking. I really liked kayaking and being on the water! Unfortunately we only had one day of kayaking, because Len our teacher had to go in quarantine and we also. Luckily we had the next week our theoretical lectures, which we could just do online. No worries Len tested negative! After this we went on our Randoya trip!
Last but not least it was my birthday this m
onth! The 27th of May! In the morning my two classmates, who live with me decorated the living room and gave me some birthday presents! From Claire I got some nice food covered in chocolate and two muffins (the muffins here are 1 euro and really good!).
Elena baked me a berry crumble cake, bought me a Chouffe and knitted me a headband. Thanks girls, you made my day already!! I also made ‘soesjes’ and they worked out okay, after that I thought that they were ruined! After that I spend the day 
with Elena, Luca and Antje on a beach (Unneroy – an island with a lot of sheep) were we went in the water, enjoyed the nice weather, had a BBQ with hotdogs, marshmallows 
and beers and slept outside all together in our hammocks! The next day I woke up with in the sun in my face and a nice view onto the water from my hammock. That day Elena and me went to the zoo of Kristiansand, because we got a free ticket from our university, how nice is that!! It was a really nice zoo, where the animals had lots of space! There were even some attractions, like a bobsled.
Weather update: Most of the time good summer weather. Really nice for all the trips, activities and weekends! Rainy days on the lecture days, what a good timing is that!
COVID-19 update: The numbers went up! More restrictions! Let’s hope that I don’t have to go in quarantine if I come back, we are now in a red zone! Light panick….
Recipe breadrolls:
MAKE THE DOUGH
!experiment! Try, fail and learn
- yeast: mix with water
- longer rise = less yeast – longer rise is preferable
- fat: melted butter, oil, cream, milk
- egg
- flour: normal, wholegrain,…
- spice: a lot of salt!
- sweet: sugar, honey, cinnamon, cummin
- southern: oregano, thyme, rosemary
- seeds and grains: sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds
- !not too much
- fruit + vegie (pumpkin, beet, apple, carrot) – ! cook before to keep moisture in dough
BAKE
- let dough sit overnight in the fridge/outside with a wet towel on top (let it rise)
- set oven on high temperature
- make balls with it and fold the dough under itself, so you get tight surfaces (!take dough from the sides, don’t break your whole surface)
- rest of the dough you can let rise again after you folded it (every 12h in fridge/every 6h outside fridge)
- put some fat on top
- put extra seeds on top
- put in oven if oven is warm and let bake until goldenbrown (around 15 min)
- check by looking at the bottom
- ENJOY
some possible hikes, nice spots to see and how we could get there. After our oral theory exam we checked the weather forecast and that was okay, not that nice but not much rain. We made the decision that we could leave tomorrow. That meant doing a wash, going to the shop and prepare our rucksacks and food. We planned to do a four day hike, where we started at Kinsarvik, go up there by the four big waterfalls, walk through a part of Hardangervidda and walk down using the way of Trolltunga. We also needed two days for traveling with the bus. That meant we had a trip of 6 days waiting on us, so we also needed enough food and gear for 6 days, so a pretty heavy rucksack.
Today we walked the waterfall hike further. The first three waterfalls, where pretty close to each other on a nice hiking path, where we had to walk in the wild nature on rocks and
tree roots and cross some rivers. The fourth waterfall was a bit further away and there the hike became also a bit more challenging. Next to the fourth waterfall was a really steep part, where we took our time for with our big and heavy rucksacks. We made it up to more than 1000 meter heigth. After that we saw more and more snow and
became a bit worried. We expected to see some snow laying on the plateau of Hardangervidda, but we hoped that we could make it through. We struggled a long time at 
a big lake that flowed into several small rivers. We couldn’t pass there with our big rucksacks. I jumped once over without a rucksack and investigated the area that was waiting for us. I went up a bit more to see if the snow stayed the same or became less once we were completely
up on the plateau. Unfortunately there was still pretty much snow. I went back down, where Elena was waiting and we decided together that it was not a good idea to go further. It would be possible, because we could walk around most of the snowy parts, but we didn’t know what would be waiting for us deeper in the plateau, so we decided not to risk it and started walking down again.
We walked down further and checked the weather forecast for Trolltunga, where we would first end our hike. The weather changed and they forecasted rain. We decided to not go there and walk up and down, because of the weather. We also heard from classmates that we walk itself was not that special but that just the view at Trolltunga was
nice. We already did a really nice hike with also during the hike beautiful views so we decided to call this our trip. We took our time for the rest of the day and searched a good sleeping spot. We slept in a park, what we thought was a good sleeping spot, this time without sounds of waterfalls, but apparently some teenagers also thought this was a good spot to throw a party.