The last days in Norway…wow this half year went so fast!
The last days were still very busy. We had our practical oral exam and I had my deadline for my bachelor thesis. I had a really good feeling about my bachelor thesis. I really hope that my bachelor thesis can change something in the special youth care and the use of outdoor activities. For my practical oral exam I was really stressed out. I don’t know exactly why. This made that I made some stupid mistakes or forgot some little things, but for the rest it went okay. I had a D. For the practical exam we had to learn everything that we did during the semester, like during our trips, for example paddling techniques, map and compass, knots, shelter, fire making etc.
During these days there was also time to do still a couple things with the class before saying goodbye. We went swimming, did a photoshoot (naked and only covered with knitted stuff or stuff out of nature) and did a bonfire, where we grilled sausages and made marshmallows. This day was really fun, especially the photoshoot! I’m really curious about how the photos turned out (if you want to see them too, feel free to ask 😉 ). At the end we want to make a calander with the photos! After the exams we also had a
bonfire, but there Claire already left. We also went swimming almost every day of the last week in the lake, because the weather was so good and the water was nice. Our selfmade outdoor education shirts/sweaters also arrived! They are so cool! What a great memory from this semester. It was already fast time to say goodbye to everyone, because everyone started leaving slowly. They were going home or starting their trip.
Before I went home I first had to take the bus to Oslo to catch there my flight the next day (Sunday the 13th of June). It was nice to visit Oslo short! In the beginning I was a bit overwhelmed. Oslo is really a big city with a big city vibe, everywhere high buildings, a lot of traffic and a lot of people, not something I was still used at. I made a walk through the city, where I walked past some special monuments and buildings, like a fortress, the palace, churches etc. After that I went to eat at a street food place, where were a lot of little stalls with food. This was really nice! After that I went back to
my hotel room to get a good night rest, before my flight the next morning, which went smooth. It’s still so unreal that I’m going home and I’m leaving Norway, after living here half a year! It’s a mixed feeling to go home. I’m happy that I will see everyone again, but it’s also weird to leave Norway now after all this time and all the experiences. I hope we will do fast a reunion with everyone (the plan is to go sailing!) and that I will go back to Norway! The welcome back home was amazing and seeing everyone again is also so nice, but still a bit weird to just pick up my normal routine again.
Our last trip! Because of corona we couldn’t go together with the Norwegian class, so we only went from Monday until Wednesday noon. That was a bit sad, but we were glad that we could go and with our whole class together, because of the rising numbers in Agder.
Let’s go to Randoya! We took first the bus and after that the boat and some kayaks. I went with a kayak to the island. It was fun to be again on the water. We settled in the houses divided in our groups and after that it was time for our first activity. My group and me had rowing. It was a really chill activity we rowed a bit and chilled on an island close by. When we wanted to leave we first had to search for the dog
from our teacher, because he went to investigate the island. We didn’t row always straight and against the current it was also a bit working. In the evening we had a little history tour around 
Randoya (war history – bunker) and after we threw the fishing nets out with our rowing boats. We were all excited to see the next morning if we would have caught something. This evening Elena and me looked for a good spot to put our hammock up. We decided to just put it up close to the path, because the island was full of ticks! In the night I always had the feelings that they were crawling on me, so not that good of a night sleep.
In the morning we rowed early out to get our nets back in and see if we caught some fish. We had in total six fishes!! Two flat fishes and four codfishes. The teacher showed us how to kill, clean and cut them up, after that we did it ourselves. So for dinner our own caught fishes were
planned! In the morning we went kayaking. It was cool to kayak on open sea, but also more work. The waves hit your kayak hard, so you have to keep paddling to not get 
catched by the waves and drift off course. In the afternoon we drove with a motorboat. This was also nice, but not that spectaculair. In the evening we came together with the
whole class, ate all the fishes we catches (they ware delicious!) and made it a cozy evening with singing, the gituar and the ukelele. This night I slept outside, because I wanted to have a better night sleep, than the last night.
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).
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.
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.
about tour cycling and told Thomas (a teacher of us) how he did his big cycle trip from the North to the South of Norway! His story was really impressive to hear! After that 
we also went to check out the bikes and tried them for a daytrip! The daytrip was really fun. It’s nice to see Norway again in a different way. By bike you see a lot more details and the tour we did, along the coast was also beautiful. I have to say Norway is a bit more hilly then Belgium and that you could feel.
was really cold, around 6 degrees! Okay, the test was a bit different then originally, we ‘only’ had to swim 50 meters and 25 meters with a ‘drowning’ person, but still. My two flatmates and me tried to swim in the sea at the citybeach one time as practice. Brr, cold! A week later our teacher Len decided that the water was too cold and luckily for us the swimming pool was open again. We did a different test in the swimming pool were we only had to show that we could save ourselves. We had to swim 50 meters fully clothes, tread water for some time, make some weird turns and somersaults and we had to take off our pants and tried to make a floating device from it, by getting air in there.
We did a German easter game ‘Oascheim’. It remended me of petanque, but then with hard boiled eggs and a reward, like coins or sweets on top of it. If you could hit the other boiled eggs and knock the rewards off, they were for you. We had A LOT of bonfires! We told stories about our trips to each other, we celebrates birthdays and we just chilled together with the nice weather. 
My package from my parents and my aunt also arrived!! It was nice to get a package from home with some typical Belgian snacks. Oh, what did I miss pudding, Belgian 
chocolate and cookies! The summer clothes were also nice to get, for the warmer days that will come and of course the hammock! That one is already used a couple times to relax in the sun on a relaxing Sunday, lovely!
We drove with the bus to Bygland. There we started with learning some basic paddling techniques and getting used to being in a canoe. After that we started our trip on the Byglandsfjord. It was nice to be in the water and we were also very lucky with the weather (for all the days). It was sunny and there was just a little wind and almost no waves on the water. The fjord is really beautiful and after some paddling we camped for the night on an island. I slept for the first night in my hammock and I slept so good!
an island and sunbathed there for some time. I really enjoyed paddling down the fjord! Finally at Troll Aktiv we slept in teepees. This night I had it pretty cold (like everyone), what was a bit weird thinking about the other night where I slept so good.
climbing, but not before a stop at a famous bakery in Evje! Finally arrived at the climbing spot we looked a bit around and did some tope rope climbing and abseiling. The abseiling was in the first moment a bit scary, because you had to just ‘walk’ over the cliff, but it was really cool to do! After that we chilled together with the group and went to bed (me again in my hammock).
Thursday:
First bike day! Our ultimate end destination for tonight was the lighthouse (Lindesnes), what was 100 km away from Kristiansand. We thought it would be cool to sleep there. We started our route along the coast. It was nice to start with this part, because it is mostly flat and there are some beautiful views. We made fast some kilometres and did an ice cream break in Mandal. After that we got back up and biked further with our renewed energy. We made it all the way to the lighthouse! The last 10 kilometres were pretty hard, because there were a lot of hills, but we didn’t want to quit so close in the end. We saw the last bit of sunset and slept next to the lighthouse. Mission accomplished!
steep hills from around zero metres to 200-250 metres height. The first was the most exhausting. It started really steep and it was also an unpaved path, where you lost a lot of speed because of all the loose little stones and sand. The second one was less steep and also on asphalt. We were glad that we already did these two hills today, so we wouldn’t have to do them tomorrow. We treated ourselves with a cold coke! After that we looked for a good sleeping spot, but we couldn’t find any place, so we biked and biked until we already did 80 kilometres. We decided to sleep on a spot, where we passed on our bike daytrip, 20 kilometres away from Kristiansand.
Today was the day with the worst weather of the whole trip. Rain, rain and rain. We decided to go for an hike in a forest (Hordnesskogen), because there we would be a little bit more protected from the rain. We made the hike more nice by doing some geocaching. After a semi nice hike, we went
back to the city centre and went to a local bakkery to drink something and visit some souvenir shops, where I found already one souvenir for someone! We also did all our groceries and food preparing, because on thursday, friday, sunday and monday the grocery shops would be closed, becuase of Easter.
After breakfast with the nice lady we were back on our way.
Today we visited the famous ‘preikestolen’. It’s a cliff. It was a really nice hike up, that took us a bit less then two hours. It was quite busy, but the hike was still pretty nice. It was not just tarmac, more walking up and over rocks. We took some nice pictures at the preikestolen and ate something, before we went back down and drove to our next airbnb.
Today we visited Stavanger. At first I was not that excited about this city, because I didn’t find a lot to see, but after seeing the photos of the other who already been here I got
my hopes up. Sadly it was like I first thought, not so special (maybe also because everything was closed), but we made the best out of it! We visited the harbor, the chruch, some famous streets (Ovre Holmegate – colourfull houses 
and Gamle Stavanger – white old houses). After that we went to a local park and chilled there for some time in the nice spring sun. We drove already away from Stavanger and stayed in a nice simple little cabin, on our way back to Kristiansand.
We had an other lesson about map and compass, but then
given by classmates, who know a lot about this topic. The lesson was a full daytrip, where we all learned to guide the group with our map and compass and how to locate ourself. The last thing we did was rock climbing. We learned first all the safety stuff and after that we just had fun climbing and belaying each other.
We all left together at the university with a bus and drove to Hovden, a three hour drive north. We stayed in a cabin in Bjaen, a little more north then Hovden. It was the first time after the other ski trip that I was back on my skis. We did a short trip around in the surroundings, with a new group and as instructor again Tim.
our skis. That’s a lot! This time we switched instructors, so it was the first time that I was in a group with Len as instructor during cross country skiing. He was really different as instructor, what was also nice to experience. Tim would really take a role as leader and focused on the skiing. Len focused more on the whole experience, so also everything aournd skiing and let us do more by ourselves. I was still not the best in skiing, but already better then first and I found it also more fun. You also noticed it in the group. 
People focused less on themselves and just surviving and more on the others and the social aspect. We also focused that day on map and compass and we even talked about avalanches and made in half an hour a surviving snowhole for one person. I didn’t think that you could make something so fast in the snow, but after 30 minutes it was there. It was not comfortable, but good enough to survive a bad storm. We also tried to find a person under the snow with our avalanche probes. Don’t worry we just digged a
hole in the snow, where a person could lay in and the others could just stand above. There I realised that it is really a challenge to find people in the snow and that you also had to be lucky. The first time I pocked was a couple centimers of the person laying there. I could have just missed him as this was a real situation. That’s crazy to think about! We also saw this day some wild reindeers!!
the other part of the group just started digging straight down where our sleeping area was going to be. When the sleeping area hole was deep enough they also started digging to the entrance so that these two things got connected with each other. After that we had to make the roof. There were two possibilities for this. One was like an iglo, where you just saw blocks out of the snow and put them on top of each other. The other way was that 6 people were standing in the deep hole with a tarp over them and that all the others threw gently snow on them. All the snow would settle, because of the throwing, the compressing and the heat the bodies in the middle would give off. I did with 5 other girls the second option! It was a really cool experience. You felt the weight of the snow on you, but not that it was heavy. We also felt it settle after some time, so we could get out through the entrance tunnel one by one. After that was done the
biggest work came, making the sleeping area big enough for six people. That was a lot of digging, sawing, throwing the snow out… . We worked a whole day on our snowhole, but then it was finally ready! It was just big enough for all of us, so quit cozy but it would work! For the night we also had to do some stuff for safety, like marking our entrance clearly, have shovels ready inside and outside the snowhole and texts our instructors before we went to sleep and when we woke up. It was a cozy night, with not a lot of space in a selfmade snowhole.
We all packed our stuff again and left the snowholes. We went down to an area with a mountain. We climbed this mountain by going zigzag all the way up (luckily without our
rucksacks). Almost at the top our instructor told us where at the mountain could be avalanche risk and just at that moment we heard the snow under our skis settle. We all faded a little. Our instructor told us fast that we didn’t have any avalanche risk, where we were standing (what we 
obviously already kwew but still). The mountain was not steep enough. After that we went up a little more and enjoyed the view that we got on top (and the wind). After that we went down and back to our cabin to dry our stuff that was wet and to make us ready for another night outside. This night we went even closer to the
cabin, at a place where was snow but also trees and other vegetation growing. We made in groups of three emergency shelters with our tarp, the snow and everything else we could use.
The week went by so fast! In the morning we went back to our cabin, cleaned everythign up and then already went back home with the bus.
We had a lot of sun and almost no rain/snow. The bad thing about that was that it was way to warm (above zero degrees almost all the time). That made that the snow conditions were really bad, so we had to use different wax then normally. We had to use ‘klister’. This wax is really sticky. The good thing about is that you can get up hills, but the bad thing about it is that you slow down when you are going down and that snow sticks on your skis. Not fun, but bettet then no wax.