‘Get busy living, or get busy dying.’ –Stephen King
So I know it’s been a while since my last post- Sorry! So I’ll
give a short update about what I’ve been up to since my weekend in Stavanger.
On Saturday of this past weekend, we took a nice walk to Gvarv, the next closest
city to Bø, for Applefest. There was delicious apple everything- apple cakes,
ciders, artwork, etc. I bought a nice big bag of apples and I still haven’t
eaten them all.
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| Eplekake med is! (apple cake with ice cream) |
That night there was a ‘Cowboys and Indians’ party at Kroa, the
student pub. It was kind of shocking for us American students for them to have
this as a theme and it interesting trying to explain to all of the other international
students why it was so offensive and never would happen in the US. Sunday I
bought a plane ticket for a trip to Prague Oct. 31st till Nov. 4th.
I’m going to meet my high school friend Angela Pappas, who is studying abroad
in Spain for the semester, and spend a nice long weekend in the city. On
Tuesday night, my friend Katie and I learned how to make ginger beer from one
of our Norwegian friends. It is quite popular here for students to brew their
own beer as a hobby. So our first batch is in the process and won’t be done for
three weeks or so. That night a bunch of us American students got together to
make some apple pie from our Applefest apples for Coffee Hour. Coffee Hour is a
weekly Wednesday get-together in the school cafeteria with free food, tea and
coffee. On Wednesday, I also had my first midterm in my Norwegian Film and Fiction
class. (Yes, everyone, I AM in school right now and I AM taking classes-
surprise!) It was an essay exam about a novel and film we read/watched call Kristin Lavransdatter. I probably should
have studied some more, but I hopefully didn’t do horribly. That night, there
was ‘Open Scene’ at Kroa, which is basically open mic night. There was some
standup comedy, a couple of dancers, a really great band and then few people
played the hardanger fiddle. Bø claims to be the home of the modern hardanger
fiddle, which is why on their shield they have three of them. Last night I had
the most amazing time. My Norwegian friend Christine had my friend Katie and I
over to her house. Her roommates and she made us traditional Norwegian
meatballs, potatoes, mashed peas and an amazing apple cake. The food was so delicious and it was so great
to be in a real home.
Today, I went on a field trip for one of my class to
several different locations in West Telemark. Our first stop was at Vesås farm,
which is the birth place of the famous Norwegian author- Tarjei Vesaas. We
spent some time looking around the farm and were even invited inside for a
tour. The part of the building we were in was built in the early 1600’s.
Next
stop was Grimdalstunet, the home of Anne Grimdal, the artist who created most
of the decorations on Oslo City Hall. There were a lot of her sculptures placed
throughout the yard. Many of them involved animals, and my favorite were all
with bears.
After eating lunch here we headed to the Hotell Dalen which is the
largest wooden building in West Telemark and hosts many important guests, like
the royals.
Finally we stopped at the Eidsborg stave church and the West
Telemark museum. The church was established in the 1300’s and was beautiful.
Unfortunately it was all locked up so were couldn’t go in. The museum was
pretty interesting, just your basic history museum.
Tomorrow, bright and early,
at 5 a.m. we leave for our journey into the Arctic Circle and we’ll be spending
4 days or so in the Lofoten Islands. Here's a map with the Islands circled.
Keep your fingers crossed for me that we
get to see the Northern Lights!
Sending my love back home to you all!
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