Boring February

Being back to Tromsø was different, but very nice. The weather wasn’t so much. I first drove to University to meet Minna for lunch and after that home and started unpacking. The afternoon was lazy, catching up with stuff I missed, called my mum to see she arrived home safely and in the evening I met people in Driv. We all had a lot of news, so the evening was soon too short. I also met Laura, another international student who just arrived when I was gone and happened to be Eva’s roommate. I spent the whole Tuesday at the university, mostly lectures, but also delivering my new learning agreement. My home university is usually killing me with all of their deadlines and inflexibility, but this time they surprised me and sent it to me… Yeah, on the last day. Late in the afternoon a French CouchSurfer came, I showed him around a little, but then I was ready to go to sleep. I had Wednesday reserved for skiing with Nieves, so we were in Kroken at 10 sharp. Somehow I didn’t know they don’t open until 3 PM during the week. So we drove back to study in the morning and returned in the afternoon. Up and down, up and down until 7 PM was enough for us to feel our tights. After a shower we felt better and people started coming for our Svalbard meeting. We were 10, so a lot of food and talk, but we somehow also managed to make some plans. On Thursday morning Julien left for his 2-days Dogsledding trip and I was at the university again. Gym in the afternoon, answering emails after the shower and dinner at Mary’s place in the evening. Delicious lasagna – Italians, what else would you expect.  On first Friday in February I afforded waking up late and my breakfast ware waffles at the International Coffee hour. We stayed until 1 PM chatting and afterwards did research about Svalbard – me and Minna decided we are going on a snowmobile trip for sure, no matter the costs and company. At 4 PM my last CSer came – Jim from Australia. We got to know each other and in the evening he joined us for Italian dinner in Mortensnes. But before going there Eva and I had picked up Carlos – Eva’s CSer from Madeira.

Saturday was one of the coldest days here. At least it seemed so when we went downtown to see the lasso finals at Sami festival. We were spread between competition area, coffee place, post office and competition area again. After we saw the winners in men and women’s categories it was already time for lunch and with both, Carlos and Jim, we chose a new place to eat – Knoll og Troll. They have amazing sandwiches and I really want kitchen with so many choices at all times. With stomachs full they decided to freeze a bit more and headed for cable car when I went home. I washed my hair in no time and already I was at Kathleen’s place. She was already sitting in the chair, getting fresh haircut, which I was also here for. Susann’s sister, Renate was the one doing us a favour. I thought I would go through the year without getting my hair cut, especially in Norway where this costs a small fortune, but since it got unbearable, I decided to try something new and got banks Happy with my new hairstyle I got home 3 hours later and after the dinner it was time to get ready for party. One of the French guys was celebrating his birthday in Mortensnes, so this meant our preparty is happening there. Party continued in Driv and finished in Ørndalen at 4 in the morning.

Reindeer & me

If I thought Saturday was the coldest day, Sunday assured me this wasn’t the case. Not enough sleep, a bit of hangover and minus temperatures outside made the last day of the week even colder. When we reached city centre, a nice guy stopped us, saying we needed to pay the entrance. 60 kroners per person changed into 50 for whole family of 6. Athletes on skis were pulled by reindeers from Main Square down the main street to Burger King where the Finish line was. Crazy ride!! I don’t know if I would dare try this with even half of the speed they had. Btw, this year’s champion comes from Finland. We warmed us up in the city hall, where there was a small reception and fashion show with a lot of Sami clothes from different regions. In the evening we returned back home and spent the evening in house 15, playing Jungle Speed and running out for northern lights.

On Monday it was time to be serious again – university and one of the most interesting topics to me – alternative medicine. At 4 in the afternoon my mind was exhausted from following interesting lectures in Norwegian for the whole day, so I decided to do the same to my body in gym. Shower, dinner, bed and the day was over. Tuesday was same old – university, gym and dinner, but afterwards we went out bowling with our Buddy programme and 3 hours of competitive bowling later everybody was ready to go home.🙂

9^th February was time to test Zumba classes in our gym. At least that’s what I and Nieves decided. So after the morning at the university, writing one of my blogs and answering to the emails, we ate our lunch in Bodega and then we were ready to dance. It seemed too easy at the beginning, but a wet shirt at the end was proof of successful training. I showered at home and then started with the most hated assignment – laundry. I put everything in the washing machines and drove to Mortensnes, where MariaGrazia was already waiting with suitcases. She was moving to our student place. I helped her pack the rest of the things and go through her cupboard and when we started our first ride to Ørndalen; Rudolf looked like a gipsy car. There probably wasn’t a thing you couldn’t find there.  When we unloaded the car in front of her car, she went to her new neighbours for a cigarette and I ran to put the laundry from the washing machines to drying ones. It took another trip to Mortensnes, loading the car and driving to our final destination again. Somewhere in the middle it started snowing heavily, so having everything moved, made us feel even better. I for sure was ready for a tight sleep. Thursday offered interesting lectures about Sami medicine, so I was glued to my sit from 8 AM till 4 in the afternoon, when I really needed to move, so I visited my beloved gym. Step 2 became one of my favourite classes this semester – Aerobics with complicated step combinations motivate me more and I don’t think about working out so much. A looot of fun! I came home for a shower and since I was too lazy to make myself a dinner, I decided to just take the bus downtown where I was meeting Ulrik for a beer. I think we were supposed to go for a coffee, but ended up drinking couple of beers and me missing the bus. Next morning the beers from an evening before didn’t seem such a great idea anymore. Nice weather made it a bit easier to make it to the university, but no sun in the lecture’s hall wasn’t much of a support. Gym in the afternoon and I met Minna for a coffee and to give her Lonely Planet of Norway. In the evening we wanted to sing Karaoke, but no bar offered this on that evening, so we ended up in Driv playing board games. We got so competitive that our beers were in dangerous from time to time. Not bad at all. The beginning of the weekend was time to clean my room, but in the break I checked out some series. Later I prepared for the pirate party in Mortensnes and Eva made my vodka to pirate rum.

Pirates

We caught the last bus to the centre and in Driv I danced my ass out. Next morning started at 11, when I had breakfast and then a coffee at Eva’s place. I took a bus to Mortensnes to get back my car and I just picked up my roommate Ingrid to go to Kraft for a Sunday class of Step interval. Hangover workout feels 3 times more difficult than it really is, but we got through. After the shower we met in the kitchen and prepared Mexican dinner for us two. 90 minutes later we figured out that our feeling of talking for hours wasn’t true, but still decided to call it a night. But since I was not ready to go to sleep yet, I went to a friend’s house to see The King’s Speech.

Monday was a usual day at the university with gym in the late afternoon, shower, dinner and a beer at Driv in the evening. Tuesday I was babysitting from 7 AM till 4 PM, sent a birthday card to Anja and worked out in the evening. Boring February🙂 finished on Wednesday, when I was reading the book for the next course the whole day, went babysitting in the afternoon and went for Svalbard meeting/dinner in the evening. I didn’t want to cook anything this time, since it takes so much time, that’s why I bought 2 chocolate cakes the day before, unwrapped them and when the girls said: “Good job, it’s really delicious!” I only replied with a simple thank you. Sorry girls, but sometimes it works.🙂 Well, I said that the boring part of February finished. It was so because at 9 in the evening I picked up Sabina from the airport. We know eaxch other from translation studies; since she had a month off from the university, she came up to the North.

The End (of the boring period)

København (Copenhagen, Denmark)

My flight left on 25^th January at 7 PM to Oslo, but I was going to reach Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, next day in the morning. When bored at the airport in Oslo, looking for a place to sleep, I was, once again, wondering why the hell did I need to book flights on different days, but 100€ more on my account made me feel better again. So I got up early, not that I slept much anyway, cleaned my teeth, did the make-up, went to the international zone and got myself a chai latte. Interesting how, as soon as you come out of only Norwegian zone, chai latte gets normal and tasty again.😛 An hour and a half long flight to Copenhagen – I slept the whole time and got out to not very nice weather.

Starbucks...

Firstly I orientated myself at the airport and right away spotted Accessorize (where I got some stuff for really cheap price ;)) and Starbucks. Yesss!😀 Ride to the centre, tourist info, train station, where I left my suitcase, and already was I sightseeing. I stopped at the Black Diamond – Library, where I bought Lonely Planet of Denmark and started starring cafes we needed to visit in this week. A coffee and a snack an hour before my mum came gave me extra energy, but the boost seeing part of my family again was incredible! We first walked to our CSer hostess’s place and after that back to the city for a dinner. We chose a restaurant in Nyhavn and later discovered we chose one of Lonely Planet’s suggestions. How convenient!😉 After that we walked back home and I fell in the bed.

My mum & me with Little Mermaid

Next morning, on 27^th, I woke up still a bit tired. My mum wasn’t, but I wouldn’t be either if I didn’t sleep at the airport or could sleep in the plane like she did. When we got out of the house, I realized I don’t have my camera on me, so I went back and searched everything through. 3 times. Nothing. I was sure I lost it, but my mum suggested going for the breakfast to exact same place I was the day before. I didn’t even believe that it’s possible, but I still asked the waiter about the camera and when I came for a glass of water 15 minutes later, he pulled out blue bag saying: “This one?” Me jumping and thanking him all the time was an obvious sign I can’t believe how lucky I am finding my camera. So ready for some photo shooting we started our tour in Tivoli; or better said, in front of it since it is closed in winter. From there we just figured out the better is too nice to be inside, so we headed a bit out of the centre, where Little Mermaid sits.  From there we took a walk around, stopped at Gefion Fountain and after the main street reached Amalienborg Palace, the winter Royal residence and just 100 meters from this palace we have Slovenian embassy.  We spend the afternoon wandering around the Medieval part of the city, in Nyhavn, at the University and accidentally crashing festival, where an amazing group Ignug was performing.

Lagkages at La Glace

Friday morning we had breakfast at home, but we were too early for entering the Rosenborg Castle, so we stopped at Juice bar. I got some great ideas for hangover-smoothies.😉 Crown Jewellery and Museum occupied us for quite a long time, so we left change of the guards out and went to Carlsberg, local brewery. Obviously we had to spend there a couple of hours and got out… a bit tipsy.🙂 Saturday started with a walk through the city and a lagkage at La Glace, more than a century old bakery recommended by our hostess and my Lonely Planet. At 11 we rushed to Gothersgade to see the whole march of the guards to Amalienborg. In the afternoon we reached the top of  the 209m high Round Tower to see Copenhagen from up above, got some energy with a lunch at Steakers and visited National Museum (mostly because of the Vikings’ history, but somehow there wasn’t that much about them).

The last day in Copenhagen was the reason we came here in the first place and wasn’t in Copenhagen at all. Moreover, it was another country. So we took a train over to Malmöin the morning, had a nice walk around among City Hall, church, closed shopping malls, when we headed to Malmo Arena after the lunch. With help of my sister, who posted on Facebook that I have 2 spare tickets, I managed to sell them. What I thought it would be a nice walk turned out to be trip to another part of the city, so we were really happy to sit down and watch an amazing game for Bronze between Sweden and Spain. After tight score the whole match Spain won after the regular time with 24:23.

Last seconds of regular time of the final match

It was time for fiiiinal game!!! Denmark and France started warming up and game could not be more interesting. Plus it was my first finale match I saw live. I was, logically, cheering for Denmark, since that’s where I’d party the hardest if champions. Nerve braking game ended with 31:31 after the regular time. Extra time made the expensive tickets so much more worth their price and in the end we saw Frenchmen defending their title (and winning their 4^th after 1995, 2007 and 2009) by beating Denmark with 37:35. Train ride back to Denmark was full of sad faces, but still they were celebrating silver medal.

We woke up at 5 AM the last day, took bus at 5:20 and quarter to six we were already at the airport. My flight was one hour earlier than my mum’s, so we said goodbye and I went through security control. I thought they would be bugging me about my contact lenses liquid, but I was surprisingly allowed to take it with me. One last Starbucks coffee and I caught the end of check-in queue, but with too much hand luggage. 2 is not 1, whatever and I sent one down to the cargo. An hour and a half later I was already buying cheap alcohol and cigarettes in Duty Free. The maximum amount, what else.😛 It cost me quite some nerves before I finally saw my luggage on the belt, so I grabbed it immediately and ran to security check. I waited the line when I could talk to security and they would have let me through and for my morning to be perfect – my gate was 18, so at the other end of the Inland zone plus the escalators were broken. All of them! At least the flight attendant didn’t ask me anything, so I could board with all my 4 bags and felt pretty good about myself up until Tromsø.

New semester

January in Tromsø started crazy. Early morning seemed too early because of the darkness. I was wondering when the sun is going to come out, but forgot we still have polar night. University the whole morning was exhausting, but I got some energy with lunch and by seeing familiar faces at volunteer meeting. New students were coming to the North and we were helping making the first days easier for them. Organising my life in the evening and starting the Introductory Programme next morning. Quite interesting seing how people are confused at the beginning as we were exactly like this in August and know more or less everything about this place by now. Free food, new people, coffees with old ones was finished with improvised Quiz night. I left early because first two of my CSers were coming to town – Selena and Lukasz. We had a nice chat and went to sleep.

Bowling with new international students

Thursday, 6th of January is holiday in Austria. I was making money by babysitting in the morning and after another free lunch (how I love Introductory programme!😉 ) we took students from Health university for a faculty and campus tour. In the evening we saw a movieand after I came home quite tired, Éva called if we want to do a small party at her kitchen. We got up and when we came out Selena asked me if the light green light on the sky is northern light. I didn’t want to disappoint her by telling these are very, very light ones, so I just said yes. But 15 seconds later the whole sky was green, the shapes were dancing and we just stood there and admired it. When we managed to reach Éva’s house, everybody already knew there were northern lights and we continued watching them, also through the kitchen window. Since I had to wake up early, for babysitting, I called it a night quite soon. My 2 CSers left for Narvik and when I finished playing with children, I went home, changed and drove to Driv for cultural presentation. I left the party out for a bit of rest and hanging out with my next CSer Jupijn from Netherlands. He was coming to Tromsø for Polar night Half marathon the next day. I was also babysitting on this day, so I didn’t see it, but a lot of my friends ran it and I am quite jealous they did it. Evening was time for bowling and party at Wael’s place. Sunday morning was lazy, I was babysitting in the afternoon and we cooked Štruklji together, which I later took to the first international dinner of this semester to Åsgardsveien I started new week with babysitting in the morning, university in the afternoon and beer at Blå Rock in the evening. Tuesday I was at the university and in the afternoon I welcomed 3 German CouchSurfers: Henriette, Martin and Felix. After showing them around for a while, we joined Éva and her CSer Nico from Argentina for a dinner. On Wednesday I was searching for base layer underwear in the city, picked up Minna at the airport coming back from a month holidays at home and went skiing for the rest of the day. Both Thursday and Friday I was mostly at the university but managed to get my cross-country skis done, got the accreditation for Tromsø International Film Festival (TIFF), said goodbye to German CSers and welcomed 2 new one from the same country – Bente and Claudia. On Friday evening they joined me on CSers meeting at Verdensteathret, but I ended up going to Italian dinner in Mortensnes.

"Horrible" skiing conditions in Tromsø - view over the sea and the city.

Weekend was amazing – I spent the whole Saturday in Kroken, on the ski slopes with Henning, Eva and Ruth. There we met many more and when we decided to leave at 4 PM, we were all pretty done. Risotto gave us girls some energy, so we got out our high heels and crashed downtown. Sunday morning was providing us with missing hours of sleep and the rest of the day was more or less the same – lazy. Monday was time for university again, the same as Tuesday. In the evening I had the last practical part for the general medicine course. Just before I went babysitting for 2 hours, I met 3 Spanish CSers and otherwise I was mostly only worrying about the practical part that was in front of me. This time I could not avoid speaking Norwegian with the patients, which turned out to be very difficult and most horrifying thing for me. Got over it and drove to Kulturhuset, where I saw first TIFF movie with Eva: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. Wednesday I spent at the university and in the city, babysitting in the afternoon, watching Incendies at TIFF and picking up my new roommate Ingrid from the airport. A glass of wine with her and Kristin for catching up and off we were to bed. On Thursday and Friday I was working as volunteer at TIFF and after checking the tickets at the entrance on Thursday and babysitting in the afternoon, I met Eva, Marta, and Stefano for the most expected movie of this festival – Black Swan. Amazing!! The next day I was taking care of the cinema hall, so I was able to see Bulgarian movie Shelter, Italian Loose Cannons (which was one of my favourite ones) and French Hands Up. When I was done with my shift I met Emilia – Finnish movie junkie, who happened to be my CS guest for the weekend. We exchanged our numbers and I went to see Run If You Can with Eva, but later we met her again for Slovenian Movie The Slovenian Girl. Emilia also brought a friend, Slovenian girl from Maribor. Funny, how small the world is.  They liked the movie; I left the hall with mixed feelings. A beer at circa and we ready to go home. We had all these great plans to wake up at 8, get the tickets for the next day and catch the movie at , but we overslept. Luckily Eva was nice and got e the tickets, so I and Emilia were able to have breakfast and went to see the movie at 11 AM Basilicata Coast to Coast. A lunch break and we saw another Italian movie Our Life and Precious Lifeafter that, but left everything else out and went home to get ready for a party.

Healing time in Burger King

Coming home at 4 in the morning didn’t make waking up 4 hours later any easier as we assumed.😀 I also did the mistake of driving to Eva’s house, so I couldn’t get up the hill with my car anymore. But we fought the slippery hill with pushing the car a bit and made it to the centre in time for Russian movie Silent Souls. Slow movie was the perfect start of a bit hangover day, but Australian Brand Nue Dae woke us up and filled with positive energy and happiness. After this one Emilia returned to bus that took them on a long way to Finland, me and Eva sat down in Burger King to get rid of our hangover with a fat meal.🙂 We started watching The Poetry at 3 PM, but mostly slept through it, so we left it earlier in order to see 127 Hours at the other side of downtown. A bus took us back again and we saw Romanian movie First Of All, Felicia, which is the only one I regret not going out in the middle of it. At 10 PM we drove home, a bit tired of sitting in the comfortable cinema chairs for the whole week. Monday was time to be student and we spent couple of hours practicing the general examination of muscles and joints. The other couple of hours I spent in Bodega and in the evening I hosted a Swiss CSer, who started his tour to film the northern lights the next day and joined me and the other students for a beer at Blå Rock. Tuesday we were practicing the examination at the university again and I was packing in the afternoon for my trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. First time out of Norway after 6 months, seeing my mum and I was proud owner of tickets for Handball Finals of World Championship. I was more than looking forward to it!

Holidays in Norway

Friday, the 24^th December meant the beginning of the real holidays. Of course it was the Christmas’ Eve day, but for me – my family was coming. OK, not my-blood-family, but one of my closest friends, which for me feels like family.

Christmas tree at Tromsø's Main Square

I woke up at 8 AM and after a shower started my way to pick her up. I planned to stop in the city to correct the new address and to buy a travel-sized hair dryer. But I completely underestimated the snowing that hit Tromsø previous evening and was not about to stop soon.  After getting my car out of at least 25 cm snow cover I rushed to the airport hoping of not being too late. And I wasn’t – I even managed to knit couple of lines of the new scarf while waiting.😀 But then finally people started coming out and I saw Jožica. Probably people thought we were crazy (OK, at least me), but I couldn’t be happier seeing her so far away from home. We did buy a hair dryer even if I hate drying my hair this way since one hair dryer literally exploded in my hands, but after that went for a city tour. I’ve heard before that everything is closed between Christmas and New Year’s Eve (they call it a silent week), so I showed her all the attractions of my home town of the North. Since the museums were closed, we managed to see everything (except museums) before lunch and I mean everything. A quick stop at home, picked up map and off we were on the way to our Norwegian family.

First 100 kilometres went by without any problems and with lots of singing, gossiping and laughing. A call to ask where to continue, but simple instructions turned out to be a nightmare in this polar-night-time. Everything was black and with the Norwegian pronunciation of Norwegian names, which is very different from any other nation’s one, gave us some tough time and in the end we finished on the wrong side of the lake, stuck in snow. At least it wasthe right lake. So trying to get Rudolf out of snow, visiting 3 empty and dark houses and almost no signal on our phones ended in Alf and Heinrich saving us. I bet they were thinking stupid city girls, which was with small attachment of shitted pants, the exact description of us at that point. We were already starving, so when we got to the right side of the lake, into the house and met everybody, we finally started with our dinner. Traditional Norwegian – Pinnekjøtt and strooong alcohol.🙂 In the evening we exchanged Christmas presents – me and Jožica got home made honey. Mmmm! Funny thing is that we brought traditional Slovenian dessert potica and 1 beehive ending without knowing they have bees in this family. After couple of hours of opening the presents Jožica went to bed, dead from the long way to the North.

Our hosts & us

Me and the kids started playing board games and left for bed just after 3 AM. On Saturday we woke up at 11 AM and felt quite guilty for sleeping such a long time. But we were actually the first ones to get up, so we just sneaked back to bed, where our next Christmas presents were waiting. It’s funny how none of us do Christmas presents, but this year we both gt something to each other. So Jožica got very warm typical Norwegian gloves and I got my own little electronic device. Late breakfast continued outside on the farm and after a dinner we had a long board game evening. Sunday started late again, but this tempo suited us very nicely. Loaded after big brunch we headed to the lake. Frozen and with 20 cm snow on top of it, it was the perfect playground for the next 3 hours, when we started wishing for staying longer, but didn’t want to miss the plane for Trondheim. So we headed back to Tromsø and this time we made it in an hour and a half. Woohoo! So took a shower, washed some clothes, cooked a risotto and caught a bus to the airport. Another 2 hours later we took another bus, just this time from Trondheim airport to student dorm, where Guenther lives. Unluckily almost all the buildings were red and we had to search for the right number 24. But we did find it and fell into the bed.

Trondheim

Monday started late in the morning. We bought breakfast on our way to tourist office, where we got the schedule of opening times during the holidays. It’s hard to travel in this time! But we saw some attractions and when we passed the cinema and bought tickets for Ben Affleck’s movie The Town. Since we had some time before the beginning, we had a quick shopping tour and discovered a nice shop with even nicer lingerie. But we didn’t have much time and they were closing anyway, so we decided to come back the following day. Before going home from the centre we stopped at Rema and bought salmon, rice and some vegetables. Luxurious cooking in Norway.🙂 Tuesday was cathedral time – we woke up later than planned (but that’s what holidays are about, right? ;)), had breakfast and got going to Nidaros cathedral, its museum and Crown’s Jewellery. Through the museum we debated Vikings, Runes, history of connections between Scandinavian countries and more. We learned that Norway came under Denmark in 1521 after Sweden broke out of the Kalmar Union. After Denmark was attacked by the UK, it entered into an alliance with Napoleon and had to give Norway away as it found itself on the losing side in 1814. Norway was from now on part of Sweden, but Denmark kept the old Norwegian provinces of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. A tour to the other side of the city, a coffee in Dromedar and it was finally time for shopping. Our first destination: Lingerie!!😀 A walk through the shop and when we couldn’t hold it anymore we headed for cabins. We occupied 2 of them for next 2 hours deciding what colour, what combination of top and bottom and laughing. When they announced they are closing in 10 we came out with a mountain of clothes, but took some of them to the paying point. Salmon for dinner again and early in bed. Yeah, right.😛 The next morning we climbed to Fortress, where you get a nice view over the city. Later we did sightseeing in the part east from the centre, but after first 200 meters of small shops and cafes didn’t like so much more and returned to our relaxing point – Dromedar – on one other way, where we stopped in Ting and Åhlens. Planned shopping tour fell into the water because the lack of time, so we drove home, packed, had a dinner and came back to the centre to take Flybussen. Since we were to early we afforded a McFlurry in McDonalds and realized we were surrounded almost by black people. Interesting. At 11 PM we  reached Oslo central station after an hour flight and 20 minutes of express train. When we looked at the map of the capital in Trondheim, we realized our room was very close to the centre, so we decided to walk the whole time and spare money for more lingerie.😀 Half an hour walk because of all the luggage, getting our keys and loving new beds.🙂

Our first day in Oslo was actually the last day of opened museums, so we didn’t waste time. We woke up very early and had breakfast on our way to Munch museum. The Norwegian painter is one of my favourite ones, so I was nervous what Jožica would think about him. But worries were superfluous because she loved it. We went through twice, picked our favourites and got some souvenirs from the museum shop. Second target was the Cultural History Museum, which was a bit disappointing. We expected a lot more from Vikings era, but luckily the temporal exhibition about runes saved it. After a round in National Gallery, which was quite interesting, we visited our last museum – Nobel Peace prize museum. First floor is exhibition about this year’s price winner Liu Xiabo, his work, imprisonment, manifestations, China, people’s rights and much more. Being an outsideror living in the world of free speech (at least comparing with China) I was swallowing word after word after word. Second floor started with plays for children we couldn’t skip and continued with Alfred Nobel’s life and Peace laureates. Closing time was the reason we left the museum much earlier than we wanted to. In search for a dinner and exhausted from too much culture Jožica received a call from her boyfriend. He was supposed to be flying to Oslo at the moment he was calling so something didn’t seem quite right. And I could read it from her face – missed plane. We headed home and after dinner and shower it was time for bed. Last day of old year we woke up late in the morning and after brunch we went out for a walk.

Change of The Guard

Our destinations were Tourist Info and all the sights on the main street, from Train Station to Royal Palace. When the sun went down and it got colder, we headed to our room, relaxed with a movie and prepared reindeer with sour cabbage and potatoes. Very tasty New Year’s Eve dinner gave us energy to wait outside for the New Year. Walking fast was not helpful when we had no idea where to go, so we did the final countdown on the street of Oslo, but then rushed to the top of the Opera and admired at least 15 fireworks over the city with couple of hundreds of people. But eventually cold got to us and we returned back home.  New Year started amazingly – looong sleep and a nice breakfast.🙂 When we finally managed to get out, a sunny day was waiting for us. Program for today started with cemetery and all the famous Norwegian that are buried there. After Krogh, Amundsen and many more the only one we kept missing was Ibsen. After half an hour of walking her, there and back here and there we gave up and went to see the change of the guards at Royal Palace and spent most of the afternoon in Vigeland’s Park. A coffee and closed City Hall later we were on our way home. We had some more reindeer for the dinner and we decided to finish these holidays with a beer in a bar close to our hotel, where they had good music and foreign beer. Jožica was returning home on the next morning, so I walked her to the main station and afterwards I headed alone close to where we were staying the last couple of days, where my CSer host lived. A nice guy, who first gave me the key of his apartment and we sat down for a coffee afterwards. He was working on his new apartment and I was out the whole day. First I spent 4 hours in now my favourite museum – Nobel Peace Prize Museum, went to see the City Hall from the inside and had a long coffee break, reading the news and writing this blog. When I finally didn’t want to write anymore I headed home, where I met my host’s roommate and together we saw a movie. Don’t remember the title but it’s because it was not worth it. I had tons of plans for the next day, but a long warm shower washed away half of them and the other half was ruined by shopping. Sales got me 3 new dresses and lots of fun.

Northern light from the airplane

When I was just thinking whether I do or do not have enough time to go to an exhibition in The National Library, I saw 2 familiar faces on the street, Nadi and Johanna. All very pleasantly surprised walked together to Grünerløkka, chatting and catching up on our Erasmus stays. When they decided they want to go for a coffee, I returned back to the apartment, packed the last stuff and took a train to te airport. A small delay and already was I flying back to Tromsø and polar night. But nights up here have their own magic and I saw amazing polar lights from the airplane – this time also in pink. Landing under the clouds meant all the people on the ground could not see them so it made me feel special coming back home.

Happy New Year! :*

Lazy Interregnum

On December 15th I woke up before alarm clock started beeping. It’s because Anne-Sophie has this wonderful waking up light with birds singing, which starts half an hour before you should wake up. Waaay better than my crazy alarm clock on the phone I start hating every evening before waking up on the next morning.😀 Bus to the airport and flight to Tromsø, photo here, photo there, lunch and off we were – my guest and Jula to my favourite museum here, University museum of Tromsø, and me to the university for the meeting about spending Christmas with Norwegian families. A lot of gløgg, sweets and I got my information. Christmas close to Fjellfroskvatn, sounded like a good plan.🙂  Our programme for the evening was Home Alone in Verdenstheatret and later dinner at Jula’s place. She was leaving next morning and we gathered for some tacos and tortillas.

With Anne-Sophie on top of Storsteinen

On the next morning I overslept for the last time in this year, went to get keys of my new house and brought Jula to the airport. She was not the only one flying away, so we spent at least 2 hours saying goodbye to everybody. Late lunch at the northernmost Burger King with Anne-Sophie continued with a beer at the northernmost brewery. In the evening we drove to Åsgardsveien – Anja made štrudelj and it was served with ice-cream.  After lazy Friday morning we took the cable car to amazing, but his time freezing, view over Tromsø. Frozen we went on a shopping tour for typical Norwegian products and chocolate to Sweet Heart. In these days I learned my guest is also in Swiss army, so the logical thing was to visit Military museum, but unfortunately it was closed for the winter. A delicious dinner finished Anne-Sophie’s really nice stay here and off she was to the airport.

Saturday and Sunday were my off days when I was suppose to move. But a bit of partying, skiing and saying goodbye to some more people made me move everything on Sunday afternoon. Luckily Stefano was there to help me move my big bed – can’t live without it anymore. I thought I would be done in couple of hours, but it took these couple of hours just to get everything from one place to another and almost the whole Monday to sort things out in my new room. In-between I brought back my old and Arve’s keys. In the late afternoon i got another visit – this time combined from my home university and EILC in Oslo, since Günter was part of both. He felt like at home immediately which made my hosting so much easier. A dinner in the evening to say goodbye to Oana, Kriszti and Franci. Tuesday I was trying to get my address changed everywhere needed and in the afternoon I went babysitting. When I start in the afternoon I usually stay 2 hours, but this time 4 were planed. And what was supposed to be 4 hours, ended just little before midnight. Getting kids to bed required some convincing since playing makes so much more fun (I knoooow, I remember!), but also kids run out of energy some time. So I had time to see a German movie Rabbit Without Ears¹. So many truths!🙂 I met Günter at Verdenstheatret and after a tea on my and a beer on his side we drove back to Ørndalen. Wednesday, 22^nd December, I woke up at 5 to bring Stefano and Arianna to the airport and  babysitting the whole day. I was hosting a dinner at my new place in the evening for those still in Tromsø so close to Christmas. Besides me and my guest Günter, also Ruth, Alexey, Éva and Niels from Sweden (who I actually knew from CouchSurfing). We finished the six pack of beers I got for giving the ride in the morning and Günter flew to Oslo before going home for the holidays.

My last day before the holidays I just wanted to do nothing. I have this habit of doing nothing the whole day once in a while and when I’m bored of that it means I have enough energy for couple of weeks. Usually this lazy day comes just after the exams, but this time I didn’t have a chance to have one because of travelling and having people over in Tromsø. Not complaining at all! Just doing exactly what I needed to on this particular Thursday – recharging my batteries.

¹German: KeinOhrHasen

Lillehammer

After exams you usually need a break. Ok, I try to take my whole life one big break and enjoy it as much as possible. But after the exam I wanted to travel a bit and also see European Handball Championship. It would be a pity to have it in the country where I am at the moment and not take the chance. And since Slovenia was playing in Lillehammer, this Olympic town was logical choice.

Destination: Lillehammer

After the dinner with Minna and Henning, we went for a beer with a lot of Erasmus students to Driv. I came back home half past midnight and, of course, nothing was packed. So for an hour I chatted with Kinga and Giorgia and packed my little suitcase. How hard can it be to pack  a hand baggage-sized suitcase for not even a week, right? Well, I still find it impossible!! My mum woke me up at 5 AM and I asked myself once again, why the hell do I always need to fly so early?! And the answer was clear – because the tickets are the cheapest at this time. I took a shower, had a breakfast and warmed up my car, which was covered with 20 cm of snow from the evening before. Also Jula joined me – so she could bring Rudolf back home and take care of him while I’m gone. I was too late for check-in for the first time and when they gave me a seat at boarding gate, I realized I will also be sitting in the front of the plane for the first time. I could have slept the whole flight, that this time lasted for 3 hours since we couldn’t lend right away because of the fog in Oslo, but I stupidly knitted the whole time. From time to time even I don’t understand myself, so good luck to everybody who tries it!😛

Norwegian Olympic Museum: Sarajevo 1984

At the airport I bought a train ticket to Lillehammer and off I was reaching this small city around noon. I called my CS host Nicolai and we met at his College where we chatted for a long time, while I also replied to some emails and got to know a lot of his friends. Nicolai told me he’s writing his home assignment about Argentinean regime and he got me really interested and we went from Argentina over Europe’s old dictator regimes to deciding we are hungry.🙂 After shopping in Kiwi, we prepared the dinner and at 9 PM I was already half asleep. After sleeping only 4 hours the night before was this expected.

Slovenia vs. France

Friday morning was relaxed – late waking up, breakfast and online newspapers, some emails and I then my destination was Norwegian Olympic Museum – from the very early beginnings of modern Olympic games until last ones in Vancouver. Couple of hours went by extremely fast and since I forgot Slovenian flag at CSers place, I bought my lunch and went back to cook it. Nicolai returned home with his sister and her boyfriend. They both study in Poland and came to Lillehammer just for the championship. The first game we all cheered for Slovenia who lost again France and the second one for Norway, who beat Hungary by 21 goals. Saturday I was up early and took a long walk to other side of the city, destination Maihaugen. Examples of Norwegian architecture from all over the country kept me busy for the whole morning and just after noon I paid a visit to their souvenir shop. I got some ideas for Christmas present I wanted to send home and stupidly decided to by it somewhere else,  but didn’t see it nowhere else. An afternoon in the city centre and evening in front of TV, computer in my lap and an endless debate with my host and my initial hostess Marte, who just returned from London.

View over Lillehammer from the top of K120

Sunny Sunday morning I spent between Lillehammer’s houses and  at Lysgårdsbakkene – ski jumping area. This site was built for the Olympics in 1994 and has a chairlift to the top. I walked all the 954 stairs to the top and watched practice held on the K120 jumping hill (the other one is K90). In the afternoon I firstly bought a ticket for Sunday’s matches, visited Christmas market in the centre and took a walk to lake Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake. Lunch and it was already time for the matches. King Harald V of Norway was expected on Friday’s matches, when the hall was also sold out, but this happened first on Sunday. In first one France beat Netherlands by 2, second ended with win for Hungary against, and in the last match Norway lost its first (and as later seen also only) match on this championship against Sweden. Definitely saw enough handball for a long, long time.

Norwegians are amazing fans!

I planned trying out the Olympic ski slopes, but since I forgot everything, I decided to shorten my stay in Lillehammer and so I took a train to Hamar in the morning. After a short orientation walk I visited the Vikingship (named so because of its shape)  – Olympic arena, where long track speed skating and bandy of 1994 Winter Olympics were held. A long walk to the other site of the city – Domkirkeodden, where a well known outdoor Heldmark museum is and late in the afternoon I continued my trip to Oslo.

My host for the evening was Michael, Czech friend from EILC in July. Since he was not at home from his job, I first rang a bell at Andrea’s room, another friend from the same country and same course. I gave her an excellent excuse not to study, but after catching up by a cup of tea, we finally started being more productive – she studying, me knitting. When Miša returned home it was like the language course finished yesterday. Priceless! At 11 PM when we were almost sleeping, Nadi knocked on his door and what was supposed to be just quick hello finished 2 hours later.🙂 Tuesday Miša was gone very early because of his exam, I joined Nadi for breakfast and met her brother. He was leaving today and after a city tour we waved him goodbye from Oslo S. From there we continued on Karl Johans gate to Royal Palace and to harbour, where Christmas market was situated. I like Christmas market in Ljubljana and I just love those in Austria, but this one… It started with the price for one glass of mulled wine – 60 kroner, which is more than double the price of the strongest one in Graz. OK, nothing else expected for Norway, but still ruined Christmas spirit a bit. So me and Nadi found a nice café, I don’t remember the name of, for a tea and after some window shopping returned to Sogn. Cancelled dinner was replaced with a kitchen party and improvised drunkenness just to shock one of my hosts’ roommate. Just before going to sleep I said goodbye to these friends and changed the accommodation to Anne-Sophie, whom I was flying to Tromsø with on the next morning.

Studying period

Me and my promises…🙂 One of my friends’ new year’s promise to himself was not to quit smoking, since the opposite one never works. I think mine should be “My blog should NOT be updated regularly” since this obviously works fantastic for me.🙂 But I’m not skipping anything, so even if I forgot a lot of things, I am continuing where I left. 22^nd November – start of boring period, called Studying.

Monday I spent at home and read a lot about Gynaecology and Obstetrics. In the afternoon I had enough of it and went to Fitness centre for Kondisjon class. Tuesday started better – Anja and me met in the centre and went for a tee to Åsgarden. We both agreed we missed coffee-times with our friends in the city. Not because of the coffee, but because it’s so great to catch up and discuss everything from time to time. She also recommended me a book – The Secret, which I will read soon. Before we knew it, it was 2 and she went babysitting and I went to Giæverbukta. On same morning I found bill lying on my table and still had time to return it, so I did this since it was still not working in my car. I checked in Coop if they have wool, but instead found a hand-luggage-sized suitcase for only 100 NOK. After so much shopping I returned to the university for my Norwegian class and after that went to Kraft again. On Wednesday I was studying in the morning, then went to pay my cars service and off I was to Student Counselling centre. I wanted to hear about an email I got couple of days before about spending the Christmas with a Norwegian family. Line, our International Coordinator explained us that every student who applies is suppose to get a family based on our interests, wishes etc. And they invite you to their homes for a day or two. It sounded awesome and a girl who was a part of this project last year described her experience so nicely, I decided I wanted to try. We just finished in time for my Kondisjon class in fitness centre. After a quick shower Maja came to my place and we baked chestnuts.

First skiing - through Ørndalen

Thursday was all about studying in the morning, but in the afternoon I met Mikel in the centre to buy the handball tickets. Norway was playing a tournament before the World Championship and they played one match in Tromsø. Perfect opportunity to see them, but guess what – the tickets were sold out! I think this never happens in Slovenia or any other country, specially for the women’s game, but handball is too popular in Norway. So sadly we were doomed to watching the game in home sofa, which is, on second thought, not so bad as well.🙂 On my way to the car I passed H&M and couldn’t resist going inside and once again I promised to myself not to do it ever again.🙂 Rushed to Norwegian class and my day improved when I got home and got a positive reply on my CouchSurfing request for Lillehammer. I based my travel there on getting a place to sleep first, since the hostel was occupied already. So with a provided place to sleep I booked the flight tickets and went to get some exercise – skiing through Ørndalen with Henning. On Friday we repeated what we’ve been doing the whole week – lights with the coffee in the morning, studying most of the day, but evening was time to relax. It was Maja’s farewell party. Almost Slovenian girl was going back to Croatia to finish her studies after successful IAESTE practice here.

Bad photo of amazing northern lights

Saturday was not very productive, but I managed to read couple of pages and I also knitted a bit. In the evening Andrea was celebrating his 20^th birthday, the day when he was officially allowed to enter Boccaccio without sneaking in.🙂 He made 6 courses dinner – of course all of them were pasta – and they were amazing. We all were trying not to get full after trying the first one. My plan for this evening was to go to the dinner, have a beer or two, but go home after that in order to study next day. But I fell for a stupid idea and started playing “If I were you” with Henning, whose first challenge was: “If I were you, I’d go out tonight.” Mean, right? After some drinks somebody shouted: “Aurora borealis!” and we went freezing in front of the house to see the most amazing northern light we had by that time. It was green all over the sky and they were moving like snakes. AMAZING!!

Thanksgiving

So we headed to the city with the last bus and since Driv was empty we didn’t feel like waiting for it to fill up and went to Gründer instead. My early night ended in bed very early, just in the morning. That made my waking up a bit harder on Sunday, but somehow I still managed to make my plan work. In the afternoon I tried 2 new recepees – one for spinach with pine nuts and second one for eggplants with tomatoes. These were my side dishes for my first American Thanksgiving. I had no idea what to expect, only what I knew from movies, but it was even better. Jula’s place was full with international student and everybody brought something. Ingrid, Jula, Sarah and Kristin prepared turkey and it was, like Benjamin desribed it, frightfully lovely.

On Monday, 29^th November, I woke up already at 6 AM, made the lunch while eating breakfast and so Jula and me headed to Kraft to get some exercise before sitting in the library studying the whole day long. In the afternoon I met with Minna and Henning to study some more., but after that it was no-more-books time and I met Jula again to go to Verdenstheatret to see movie Anonyma. It is about the 2^nd World War, but not the typical one – this one tells a story about the last month of the war in Berlin and the first month after the war was finished. Definitely recommend it! Tuesday started in the library, what else. In the afternoon we had the first meeting for the Introductory Programme of spring semester. New students were coming and we, the “oldies”,  were part of it. The schedule was the same as it was for our week with one exception – no fjord trip, which is understandable in the winter, but still…  kind of sad, because this trip really is nice. Norwegian class and Jinglestep and Kraft and my day was finished. Wednesday morning we needed some extra energy, so we went to the Artificial Sunlight lamps. I met Anja and planed 10 minutes developed to a very interesting debate on Yugoslavia, Slovenian independence and much more political aspects. We don’t learn about the recent history in the school and I was only 3 when my country got independent, so I find it very important and very pity not to know more about it. I still managed to study a lot and with our study group we covered Medical Genetics this time. When we got out of the building an unpleasant surprise waited for us . it was raining! We had already a lot of snow, but it started melting and rain was washing it away. A look to the temperature scale showed +5°C and I couldn’t believe my eyes! I overslept a bit on Thursday , so I did my super-speed getting dressed and met Benjamin in Coop. We both got the coffee and drove to the lamps. Anja was there again and we got into our debate again, this time including other nations, since people from Switzerland, Poland , Germany and more were there. After productive studying it was time for our last Norwegian class this semester. We got our certificates and ate a lot. And by a lot I really mean a lot! Friday we again repeated what we’ve been doing the whole week again – lamps and studying. The evening was reserved for Finnish dinner in our laundry. On Saturday me, Minna and Henning met already in the morning. It was the last weekend before the exam, so we were taking it very seriously and studied the whole day. In the afternoon me and Arve, my roommate, drove to Coop to get ribs for our Norwegian Christmas dinner on Sunday. After calculating how much we need, we decided to take “only” 7 kg of meat.

My first sushi

Evening it was time for Sushi dinner with the girls. We finished also a lot of wine and with some other drinks in hands we headed to town a bit after 10 PM. We missed the bus just for some minutes, so the time we would  spent waiting for the bus, we walked to Stakkevollan, where one preparty was happening. After 3 days of plus degrees it was -8°C again and everything was slippery as hell and me and Ingrid needed almost half an hour to walk 10 minutes distance. Tempted by going out I resisted when Jula was definitely going home and on Sunday morning I was very happy doing so. Me and Arve started Sunday with waffles and music from former Soviet Union countries. Refreshing.  We spent the day preparing ribs in traditional Norwegian way and welcomed our guests at 6 PM. Talking, laughing and eating finished late and after everybody left, Arve convinced me to watch a movie and I first went to bed when I couldn’t keep my eyes opened to follow the story on the screen.

Dance show Frikar

Last 2 days before the exams we spent in the medical building, going through everything from this semester. Beside studying I only visited Kraft to relax from sitting behind the books and saying goodbye to Ingrid, who was leaving for the holidays or hello to another friend from EILC course on Oslo Kinga and her friend Giorgia, who came so far north to see the northern lights. Wednesday was THE day and we met in front of our exam room already at 8:30 AM. I didn’t expect to sit in the room from 9 til noon, but that was exactly what happened. Our exam was not as easy as expected, but it was done and it was time to relax. Waffles and board games in the afternoon in Bodega, afterwards a coffee with Erik, a Slovenian guy on Erasmus in Kristiansand and I rushed home to get ready for the dance show Frikar and dinner. Studying period and the exam were done so we were celebrating!