Win Win Win

Fjordtrip Wednesday was awesome. Nadine and I picked up this French girl, Laure, from Couchsurfing, and then the three of us went down to the docks and caught the boat out to Rosendal. The boat was sparsely filled and we were the only tourists. The fog was so thick at first that we couldnt see anything, passing under the Sotra bridge we could barely see the outline. It started to rise later so we could see a thin line of shore and houses, but still dense grey above and below that. Then later the mist thinned out a bit and we even had a few minutes of sunlight. I took so many pictures that the workers came over and told us that we could actually go out on top (just none of the commuters normally cared to). So up we went and enjoyed the minute of filtered sunlight through the fog. :)

I was surprised when we arrived in Rosendal because I only recognized the church a bit, in the fog I couldn't see any mountains or anything else and it was a bit anticlimactic to arrive. But the trip wasn't that expensive and I hadn't spent hours working up expectations over photos, so I was pretty relaxed and luckily so were the other two girls. We walked up and took some pictures at the church, then followed a path I had read about up the very low mountain next to the town. The fog was thick but very scenic and atmospheric wrapping around the fences and trees and sheep. It all felt very medieval even when it barely felt like Norway, it was still cool! Got some artsy shots of my feet running down the paths, and, at the top, the three of us balancing on the thin wooden boardwalks. Then, realizing we couldn't quite make it up all the way (and that there was no view to make it worth it), we stopped and ate lunch on a rock in the fog before heading back down.

On the way back down the fog started lifting just a bit. No longer did we feel encased by white and grey. Before long we could see a bit of water down below. And, as we came out into the village, we could see a mountain emerge clearly from the mist. And then, we realized that among the clouds, we were looking at patches of snow. There were big, snow covered mountains, right in front of us! The weather continued to clear and for the last half hour in Rosendal, we had glorious sun, blue skies, and mountains!!! Unbelievable! I was so, so, so happy that Nadine got to see some of Norway in decent weather. We looked behind us after a long time and were shocked to see more mountains there! We were surrounded! A real fjord!!!

Wednesday morning I said goodbye to Nadine! It was such a lovely visit, speaking Norwegian and reminiscing about Spain and Germany and chatting about languages and all the rest. :) Just the same a week is a decent amount of time to have someone over, even a great guest like Nadine who happily does the washing up and makes tea! So it's nice to have my tiny room to myself again in some ways!

Then it was time for the ski trip! Subsidized by the university for students, it was quite a good deal although having to rent all the ski stuff made it a deal more expensive. I played with the idea of renting mountain skis from the outdoor club. It would have been 1/4 of the price, but they're not nearly as good for downhill and they don't have my exact size. I'm glad I didn't do it that way in the end.

This was my third time skiing downhill and it was great! I felt like I had the basics down this time and could really enjoy myself from the get-go. Lorna and I spent the day on blue-rated slopes without falling. I played with trying to move faster as the day went on, sometimes I felt like I would fall but I never did, not doing that at least. It was really fun to have the confidence in doing the basic things and be able to test my limits a tiny bit. I know now that I can just go skiing and, at least on the easy-intermediate slopes, give it a go on my own, without falling unless I'm playing around, trying something out. :D And that feels good!

But we did decide to take the chair lift way up to the top, where we should have been able to take blue all the way down. But the fog was really intense and we were quite nervous when we realized how high up into the fog the chairlift went. Then it was hard to follow the markers and even the other people, and with the avalanche risk we were really afraid of accidentally going off-piste. We ended up on a red-rated slope for awhile which was a bit tricky but we actually managed. When we got back to a blue area, the piste was really narrow and that was actually harder for me! No room to turn, and I'm not as good at snow-plowing as Lorna is! So I fell about three times in a row there, my only falls of the day but the first one especially was not nice, the skis didn't come off and I wished they had, my legs were twisted around but once I got the skis off and stood up, they were pretty much okay and I was able to keep skiing the rest of the day.

Awesome! :D

Today I met Magda to work on our presentation for class. She took me to this really cool student 'cafe' hidden away in the University. Couches, board games, books, microwave, tables, really relaxed. You can get some cheap food, coffee, hot chocolate, etc... and for the drinks its not even mandatory to pay, there's just a donation box. I got hot chocolate and paid the suggested donation of 5 crowns. This is so so cheap for Norway. And no problem eating your own food, etc. I almost wished I had to study more often here, the place was so great!! When I have to write my papers after Denmark, I'm going to go there. :D

We had computer problems but in the end we finished the presentation in exactly the perfect time and were able to present without issues. Then we went into groups for the quiz showdown. I was absent Thursday so I couldn't help that much with the first part of the quiz, and anyway both teams did very well and were about evenly matched. Then the last question, for a lot of bonus points, was about the Norwegian national anthem! Which no one knew but me, apparently. :D So we got so many bonus points for that that my team won handily. Yay!
 
On the way home, I checked my mail. Still no micro curries from Nash (;_;), but I did have a postcard! From my suitemate Elin! It was a picture she took secretly of me during my birthday and sent using a phone application. Super cool. :D

I went home, ate super Norwegian fish-sticks and potatoes for dinner, had a Faroese lesson with Uni, and then joined Emma and Lars for awhile. The two of them have had a very long, hard, but hilarious to hear about week. But we drank a bit and Lars told me all about the three Norwegian national anthems. :D This was his idea actually, so funny after what I'd done earlier in the day. I knew also about one of the older ones but not the 'official stortinget' song. So something new as well. :D Lars kept doing cheers with me when I knew random things about Norway. ^^ They really like to feel appreciated here. We all joined in for rousing renditions of various national songs, I did an awful Star Spangled Banner and we debated what the best national anthem for the States would be. And Emma told me I could have her plants and other things from her room when she moves out. (But I'm so sad that she's leaving.... when I said that Lars said, "oh yeah, that's what I should have said." Apparently, when Emma gave him the offer of something from her room, he just said, "Yeah, I'll take your kitchen tongs." XD)

Downstairs for Club Alrek. I ended up playing a Norwegian game that they told me I couldn't play if I didn't speak Norwegian. I said I did but I realized the game would be quite hard at my level. Still it's a relaxed environment and I decided to give it a go and have fun with it anyway. Basically you get a difficult word/acronym/foreign term, etc, that no one is really expected to know, and you write a definition for it. They put those definitions together with the real one, and read them. You vote for the one you think is right. Then, you get a point for everyone who voted for your answer, and you get a point if you voted for the right answer. At first I did awful, I mean everyone could tell which answers were mine because of the unimaginative vocabulary and the bad grammar at times. :D But still it was fun, and I learned some words. Ffinlo came and joined my Team Foreigner effort. We got a few points from guessing a right answer or two, one decent made up definition, and Lars right before he had to leave randomly, accidentally voting for our answer.

But still we were way, way behind. Until we won. This was how -

You get a ton of bonus points if you actually write the correct definition.

- One question was - What does the Latin expression "Quantum scio, non est." mean?

- Another - What do Faroese people mean when they say Mikudager?

"As far as I know, it's not that way." and "Wednesday."

Win Win Win. :D 6 years of Latin education, so much Faroese studying, all so worth it haha.

But yeah, just a few great days, fun times! I love all my roommates and all the other people who live here in Alrek! Great community. <3