Snozzberries Taste Like Snozzberries!

'To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.' -Terry Tempest Williams


Yesterday (Monday) was our first full day of orientation, so basically it was a day full of sitting. Telemark did have its opening ceremony for all university students, where the president spoke and a musician performed. Unfortunately everything was in Norwegian so I couldn't really understand anything. However, before the singer started he did say "For all the international students, this song is about keeping your feet on the ground and kicking ass on the weekends!" Which of course made us all laugh. After the ceremony all of the international students were taken to KROA, the student pub on the other side of town, where we could get some different information about things going on around Bø. That night, at Bresias (one of the dorms) the Norwegian students taught us a bunch of games and then took us back to KROA for a 'Sunglasses Disco'. Today (Tuesday) I had my first class, really it was just an introductory class, but still very exciting! After we were taught how to use the student webpages and signed up for classes. I'm going to be taking Ecophilosophy, Coastal and Maritime Norway, Introducing Norwegian Language, The Individual, Environs and Society, Telemark Regional Identity, and Modern Norwegian Literature. It is really different from Madison, because my classes do not meet at the same time every week or necessarily at all. In fact in a few weeks I don't have any class at all until Friday morning and one of my classes doesn't even start until late October/early November. It will be really nice once I get everything else figured out because this will hopefully give me lots of time to explore Bø/Telemark/Norway/Europe. This afternoon I went berry and mushroom picking with some other girls on a beautiful path. I wish my photos could serve the scenes justice, but they can't. So here are some images from our hike, but look at these and then imagine them 500% more beautiful! Well, actually there is quite a few pictures and normally I would apologize, but it was all just so amazing!

After we decided what better way than to complete the day by cooking up the mushrooms (don't worry we Googled them to make sure they were edible) and making some delicious scones for dessert!