Påskeferie, andre delen

The second half of Easter break.  

So after we were done in Sunnmøre, it was just to drive up to Trondheim.  This didn't take as long as it took to get to Stranda, thank goodness.  It was, furthermore, a very pretty drive!  Were were recommended to take the Atlantic Sea Road, which was great.  This is basically just a road that is on the veeeeery edge of Norway, and really is out in the Ocean.  So we stopped and ate lunch here, and played at the edge of the ocean.

There were people out fishing in these strong currents that I'm sure were caused by the tides, and resembled mælstroms, sort of.  

You can see here the current going out to the ocean, and an old guy tryin his hand at catchin a fish.  I didn't see anybody catch anything, unfortunately for all of us.  

We got to Trondheim fairly late that night, so we just looked for a hotel, which was not hard to find, and called it a night.  We ended up staying at the Comfort Hotell right downtown, and it felt great to have a room all to ourselves (that is we weren't staying with anyone and felt like we could just do whatever).  The hotel included breakfast in the morning and waffles in the evening, which was great, and we totally took advantage of.  The hotel put us very close to Nidaros Domkirke, the famous cathedral in Trondheim:

Heather and Chad went up to Stjørdal the second day, which left me and Gustie to wander around Trondheim for a day or two, during which we watched a Norwegian scary movie, walked around Trondheim and saw an old fort, and explored the harbour area.

After Trondheim we stayed in a smalll town called Støren for two nights, during which we ate Hawaiian pizza, watched a couple of movies on tv, walked around, and went for a hike that almost killed Gustie.  She didn't actually almost die, but she did slide off a small cliff/dropoff.  There was what I would liken to a moss covered slide that was a bout 6-8 feet long, steep, and leading to a 5 or so foot dropoff, with a steep and snow-covered landing.  I snuck around the side of it, holding on to saplings.  As Gustie was trying to do this she slipped, slid down the slide, got air off the small cliff, landed on the steep snow and kept sliding fast for a short distance before some soft deep snow stopped her.  She was seriously scared the rest of the hike, but I kept reminding her that she was the one who wanted to go down that way (as opposed to the steep slope covered in loose rocks that we climbed up).  Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera, and so don't have any evidence to show you guys.  

After our very wild hike, we were thrilled to be back in our hotel room, able to chill, sleep, read, and watch tv before being picked up by Heather and Chad in the morning.  The drive home was pretty chill until about 11:00 a.m., when everybody decided to drive home from their cabins at the same time, packing the roads, and slowing us down a bit no doubt.  Once home (after a drive that went entirely faster than any of the previous chunks) I made a very starchy dinner of french fries and boiled potatoes, and settled in.  Our trip was beautiful and fantastic, but nonetheless, it felt wonderful to be back.

Påskeferie!

Spring break here is titled according to the holiday which they base it around, being Easter of course.  Norway does have a state church, the Lutheran church, so it would make decent sense for things to happen this way, which is neat.  I think I've been putting off the blog entry, because I knew it would be big and take up a bunch of time, but it needs to be done.

So, our trip started out Monday morning at 12:00 am.  More or less.  We decided to leave at midnight, which may sound crazy at first, but ended up being the best choice in the end, for sure.  Our first destination was Stranda, which is in the county of Møre og Romsdal.  It's far enough north, but it really shouldn't have taken us 17 hours to get there.  In addition to some few minor wrong turns and redecision-making, I thought that it would be a good idea to drive up this road called 51.  Well we get within maybe 70 km of where the next road that we need to drive is, and find out that 51 is closed from there on, perhaps why destinations at the end of that particular road were crossed out on the road signs, something none of us caught on to.  So we had to turn around and get onto a bigger road that went up a bigger valley.  The road ended up being beautiful, and after much much driving, we made it to Stranda, located on a beautiful fjord.  Here's a shot out the window of where we were staying:

It was necessary to take a ferry to get there, as with practically everything in western Norway.  We took quite a few ferries when were were there.

So many that I don't know where this one is going from or to.

While on Sunnmøre, as that was the name of the part of Møre og Romsdal that we were on, we saw an old town sort of museum area.  As well as a place that had a lot of old ships, though not really viking ships as we had been told might be there.  But old ships are cool anyways.  However, apparently not cool enough for me to take pictures of.  At the old town place, which was basically a showcase of old Norwegian buildings, there was a great example of soil and grass on building rooves.  

This one even had trees on it!  So I thought it was great.  We also went to a restaurant place, which required walking up 418 steps to get to, at least from the way we came to it.  But it did provide a very nice view from the top!  This was in Ålesund.  It was a nice rest at the top.

So we stayed with that family for a few days.  Not sure actually what they're last name was, but the connection that we had was from Heather to Øystein.  He had a brother who was home at the time, Kjartan (which as their dialect pronounces it, sounds like 'Chartan'), with his wife Malin, and their small daughter Ingrid.

His dad's name was Asbjørn (which I just realized must be the cognate of the name 'Osborne', in any of its spellings), and his mother's name was Anne lise.  She was a fantastic cook, and we definitely ate well.  She also knits fantastically amazing anything.  She was making something for Ingrid at the time, but she showed us some sweaters that she made for her boys when the Olympics sometime in 94 or 96.  One morning we went for a hike along a path on the fjord that they live on.  It was gorgeous as expected.

  We also travelled to the Geiranger fjord, which isn't too far from where they live, and is one of the most visited fjords in Norway.  It's also an Unesco world heritage site.  

Unfortunately I think I have to explain this picture.  It's supposed to be ironic: the thumb is like me saying that it's "good enough", and to make me appear like I'm just satisfied with how neat the fjord is.  Only a madman would think that it's just "good enough", which is the ironic part.  It was absolutely beautiful, and more than a destination in itself.  I am not hitchhiking.  We went for a hike, at lunch, and anything else that was free.

This was more or less the end of the first half of our trip.  With that I'm gonna end this post, and save the second half for another.  This is exhausting!

"The Office" Party

Last night Teddi and Esther came over for a delicious night of fried food, candy, and The Office, which was the main event.  We began by attempting to make potato chips, which went, ok.  They were definitely greasy, and went fast.  

We then ate a bunch of (American!) candy while watching the Office, about four episodes, I think.  We watched Stress Relief, Dinner Party, Golden Ticket, and The Fire.  We had totally forgotten how jam-packed Stress Relief is with stuff, holy crap, it was fantastic.  Then we played some Rummy.

Afterwards we walked to Grivi where all of our friends were, and even more of their friends.  Some of the Spanish have friends visiting, and so does Sarah.  So we hung out for a while, and then I headed back (drove actually! first time in months and with a stick) to Gullbring to do some packing and call my parents before I left on break.  I have still not left actually, but soon enough.  Theeyun, I finally fell asleep around 3:30, woke up, packed, skyped, skated the miniramp nearby, and of course ate some stuff.  Next post, after break with lots of pics, hopefully.

Nineties yo

This last weekend was the 90s party at Kroa, where we all got the chance to dress up like we grew up.

Although I don't think I managed to dress that cool when I was in the nineties.  That's me and another girl from Madison, Teddi.  

Anyways, we heard and danced to quite a bit of 90s music and had a gooood time.  There were some creepy old people, two ladies and a guy with a mustache, who were there dancing (and I'm afraid pretty intoxicated) and fallin down... one of the ladies was just prowling the edges of the dance floor tryin to get everybody to dance (yes, including me)... quite scary.  It was nice when they were gone.  Then later on there was a creeper (who we had run into before) who was trying to dance with all the Spanish girls, so I had to protect them with my dance moves so that he would wander elsewhere.  Yeah.  I was stiff on Sunday from all of the excercise the night before!

Since Sunday I've done a decent amount of studying and skateboarding.  I was just going to take a picture of the board that I aquired, but my camera died!  So, it will have to wait.  I skated on Monday and Tuesday, not today unfortunately, but it was a beautiful day!  And I saw Espen (who I had met before) and somebody else out skating as I was on my way to do school work, so that was a tad depressing.  It had been quite a while since I'd skated, but despite skating new shoes, a new (though used) board and setup, I actually am getting my tricks back pretty quick; at least flatground tricks.  Nollie fullcabs are back already (which I was psyched! about), and tre flips are comin around as well (the nollie tres hardly left of course)!  It just feels good to do something where it feels like I'm gettin some excercise; and skateboarding has always felt so good, I was actually thrilled to get some gravel cuts on my hands from falling a few times.  There are a few things in life, mostly skateboarding, playing music and trout fishing, that are just necessary for me.

Monday we celebrated Tatiana's birthday (she's one of the Italians).  So me and Sarah walked from Gullbring to Grivi and ate some cake and hung out with the birthday crew for a little while, and then when they all walked to Naboen we pretty much just headed back to Gullbring, since we had a test the next day, which leads me to my next day.

Tuesday, we had a Norwegian test, which I think went well, but I'll of course not find out until after Springbreak, which is next week.  I haven't had literature class for the last two days, which has allowed extra study and leisure time.  

Tomorrow we have a study trip somewhere, not too sure where, but we leave at nine.  So, I'm sure I may have a little to tell y'all after tomorrow, and maybe a few other days.  It's  midnight, and I like sleep!