Round Two

‘You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.’ -Richard Branson

Well, I’ve been back in Bø for about a week and a half now and I am already feeling restless and ready to take another trip, but have to wait for all of my class schedules before I can make any definite plans. So here I sit and wait for at least another weekend. And what to do in the meantime, well why not ski?

I am taking only four classes this semester- Norwegian (still trying to learn some Norwegian language), Telemark Regional Identity II (more about the culture in this part of Norway), Tourism and the Environment (pretty self-explanatory by the title), and  Friluftsliv: Individuals, Environs and Society (SKIING!) For my Individuals class, we are focusing this semester on the popular Norwegian pastime- cross country skiing. I get my own set of skis for the entire semester and I plan on getting all the out of them I can. There are a few tracks right outside of the school, so about a 5 minute walk from my door. Eventually they will even light up a couple of the trails so we can go skiing later in the afternoon/evening. In the past five days- I’ve gone skiing four times, and although I still fall- I’m getting better. Anyways my professor says you are not learning anything new unless you are falling and getting out of your comfort zone. There is a 4k loop I’ve done the past couple of days, and a new friend and I are working our way up to do a 20k hopefully on a weekend pretty soon. For our skis, we did have to purchase some wax and cork. The wax is used on the bottom of the ski to help you get up mountains/hills and the cork is just used to spread it in. I was surprised at how carefully and particularly my professor described the type of wax we needed to get, until I actually got to Intersport- the sports store. There seriously were shelves full of different kinds of wax. In fact my professor joked with us that it is through the different ski waxes that Norwegian children learn their colors. But I’m really looking forward to learning how to ski better and pursuing this new hobby.

Quick note about the new international students here in Bø. We have around 30 new international students here with about 10 or so staying from last semester, so compared to the 70 international students we had last semester, it feels very empty here. There are 6 new students from the States (N. Dakota, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota) and 2 from Canada, and then a few from the Czech, Latvia, Lithuania and a few other places. But I am very happy because lots of the new students from North America want to travel- so looks like I’ve found some new travel partners! Now, it’s just time to start planning! And another plus- the sun is rising at 9.04 tomorrow and not setting until 16.03- we are so close to 7 full hours of sunlight!! I have waited so long for this :)

Sending my love back home to you all! 

Night at the Museum

'I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.'  -Steven Wright

Day 1- Jan. 2^nd: Well, the second day of 2013 did not start off entirely the greatest. It was a very early morning- the alarm clock was ringing at 3.30 and then it was time to finish up packing and head off to the airport. Aimee was not feeling very well at all this morning so we took it a little slower when walking to the bus station to pick up a bus to the airport. The bus station is connected to both the metro and the train station as well and we got there rather quickly…or so we thought. We arrived at the bottom train station, but we needed to get above to the bus station. So we found some signs pointing us in the right direction, but they were locked. So we decided just to follow the exit signs to get back out on top and come in a different direction, expect the signs did not lead us anywhere and all of the doors we did find were also locked. We were completely trapped in the bottom of the train station with nowhere to go. So what do all smart college students do? Of course you run across multiple sets of train tracks. And if anyone was to ask us, of course neither of us saw the multiple signs listing how severe the danger and fine would be if we were to get caught. So now on the other side of the tracks our luck should have picked up, but it didn't. We followed the exit signs that lead us downstairs, but every door we tried again was locked. Luckily, we found a maintenance man cleaning up part of the area we were near and thankfully he spoke English. After asking him for help, he lead us back to all the same doors we tried and was equally as confused as to why they wouldn’t open. Finally he lead us back to a door and used his key to let us through and we literally ran from there to the desk in the bus station and quickly bought our tickets and hopped on the bus. We got the airport and through security with no problem, but Aimee was still not feeling well. We got on the plane and I was instantly asleep. About half through the flight I woke up to Aimee shaking my shoulder asking if she could go to the bathroom, and as I was letting her pass she informed me that she had puked and was taking her little white puke bag to the bathroom. Thankfully after that she felt much better. We landed all too quickly and hopped on a bus to the hostel. Our hostel is incredible. It’s a little farther away, but we get to stay in the old Olympic Stadium from the summer Olympics of 1952. It was originally built for the 1938 Olympics, but because of World War II, it was never held. We’re surrounded by all of the old fields and right outside our window is the soccer stadium. Also, our room is absolutely huge, especially compared to our hostel in Stockholm. We arrived at the hostel around 10.00 and instantly crashed until 2 o’clock. Then we slowly awoke and found a grocery store and stocked up for the rest of our time. We then made a nice stew, well really I should say Aimee made a nice stew and I helped cut up veggies. The evening was spent planning our few days we have here, as well as a ferry day trip down to Tallinn, Estonia on Saturday! So it’s an early night tonight and a busy day tomorrow!

Day 2- Jan. 3^rd: Today we got up and after a quick breakfast headed down towards the center of the city. We first stopped in the central train station to buy tickets to Tallinn and sign up for a bus tour in the afternoon. We bought a ‘Helsinki Card’ which gave us free/discounted entrance to a lot of museums and free public transportation. Due to the absolutely freezing weather and some more rain, we really got our money’s worth out of the free museum part. We spent the rest of our morning walking around the Museum of Cultures and another free art museum right by it. In the art museum, it was pretty funny because the whole upper floor was dedicated to a sci-fi movie called “Iron Sky”, which is all about how the Nazi’s have a military base on the dark side of the moon and are planning on taking over the Earth. The best part was messing around with the green screen there. After a quick lunch we headed back for a free audio bus tour. We were driven all around the city for about two hours and saw lots of monuments/ buildings- the Grand Cathedral, the house of Parliament, the President’s Palace, the Rock Church, Sibelius Monument, etc.

Next we headed off to the Finland Photography Museum, but unfortunately they were moving the exhibit, so at the time it was quite small. But connected to that was the Theater Museum, which was actually quite fun because it was quite interactive and lots of costumes to dress up in!

We then headed back to the hostel for some pasta to warm us up and a quick break before we headed back to the Contemporary Arts Museum, which was closing so we did a very quick run through. The night was concluded with a stop at Molly’s- an Irish pub with some good live music and then it was off to bed.

Day 3- Jan. 4^th: Today we spent the morning at Suomenlinna- one of the largest sea fortresses in the world and it’s on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. It was built in the 1700’s when Finland was a part of Sweden and today is home to about 800 permanent residents. We hopped on a ferry in the morning and spent the day there going through the museum and walking around the small island. It was really quite peaceful and beautiful.

We headed back into Helsinki in the early afternoon and went to the Kumbukumbu or the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission Museum, which was basically a museum about some of the culture of China and a tribe in Ghana. We then headed back to the central train station for a quick break, some donuts and to warm up. After that we wandered to the Geological museum and Finland’s National Museum for some more cultural stuff. Trust me, by this time, everything starts to look the same. Luckily we switched things up that night and tried to take a tour of the Lux Helsinki. Lux Helsinki is a festival going on from January 4^th until the 8^th, where the city had hired artists to decorate certain parts of the city’s buildings or parks with the theme of ‘light’. Total there is about 12 displays. It is all to add a little bit of light during this very dark time of the season. We started at the Grand Cathedral and met up with our tour group and watched this wonderful display on the Cathedral. We then proceeded down through the city towards the Contemporary Art Museum. Here we saw a few more light decorations, both of which were not very impressive. But then we were able to see one which consisted of a fire show. My camera died, but I was able to capture this short video of it. It was so impressive. Unfortunately after that we decided to head back homeà it was way too cold and our tour guide was not very knowledgeable about any of the displays. We warmed up with some food and then planned our day tomorrow in Tallinn!

Day 4- Jan. 5^th: Whoop whoop! Spent this very cold day in Estonia today!  We had to get up super early to catch our 8.30 ferry into Tallinn. Since being here in Europe, I’ve taken plenty of ferries, but never one this big! It was huge, but unfortunately, I was way too tired to go exploring and spent the two hour ride napping. Soon we arrived in Tallinn and, after seeing the size of the city, realized all of our planning and timing was pretty unnecessary. It is quite small and in fact, we got everything we wanted to do done by 2 o’clock in the afternoon. We walked around all of the Old Town and saw St. Olav’s church, the Town Hall Square, the Christmas Market, Freedom Square, St. Catherine’s Passage, the Great Coastal Gate, parts of the Town Wall, lookouts over the city, the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin, and the Palace. And of course, our day wouldn’t be complete without at least one museum to warm us up, so we headed to the Museum of Occupations, and learned all about Estonia’s occupation by the Nazi’s and the Soviet Union> Our afternoon was spent satisfying our consumer side as we wandered through the more modern side of the city and spent a few hours in a mall. After a really satisfying and cheap meal at a restaurant in the more modern city, we headed back into the Old Town to have a look of it at night. To be honest, I felt like I was entering an amusement park. The tower gates’ were lite up, there were people in costumes and souvenirs booths all over. We meandered through the market once more and headed up for a nice night look out over the city. We then slowly made our way back to catch our 9 o’clock ferry back to Helsinki. Now, it’s off to bed.

Day 5- Jan. 6^th: Last day in Helsinki and now I’m in the airport waiting to leave for Norway. This morning was pretty slow. We packed up and ate some breakfast. We then headed off to the Grand Cathedral to attend a Lutheran service in Finnish. We were given a bulletin in English so we could follow along, which was nice, because Finnish is a very strange language. We then made our way down to the market right on the harbor. We spent some time looking over all of the different booths, but the cold air and wind from the sea soon lead us back to the tram stop and some nice warm food at the hostel. Soon enough it was time to head to the airport. Aimee was hopping a plane to Denmark and left an hour or so earlier than I did, but I was way too cold to even think about exploring the city more, so I headed to the airport with her. After my flight gets in, I’ll get on a train and be back in Bø at 12.30 tonight!

Here's some pictures from Helsinki

And here are a few from Tallinn-

Sweden and Finland were very wonderful, but I’ve come to two conclusions about the cities. 1.) They want your hands to suffer from the cold as they love to eat your mittens/ gloves. I lost one of my mittens the first day in Sweden and Aimee lost one the first day in Finland. All over the ground too we were finding single gloves/mittens lying around. Often we were tempted to pick them up to make a full pair, just to keep our hands warm. 2.) I am going to start a charity to collect shovels to donate to the city. NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO SHOVEL THEIR SIDEWALKS HERE!! It is so ridiculous! I have never walked through so much slush in my life! Good thing I brought my boots :) 

Tomorrow I start up classes again and also meet all of the new international students coming in for the spring semester. Time to be on my best behavior as I have to make some new friends- going to be hard as I’m so stinken tired. Anyways, I hope you all had/ are having a wonderful Christmas break! Love and miss you all so much!!

-Marissa

Stockholm Syndrome

'Life is like a firework. You gotta ignite the fuse and make it beautiful.' - Unknown

For the rest of my Christmas break I’m splitting my time between Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland. Today (Dec. 28^th) I arrived in Stockholm and will here until the 2^nd of January. I’ll be traveling with a coworker from Sugar Creek Bible Camp- Aimee Lenth. I’ve worked with her for the past two summers, but I don’t know her too closely. Still, it is so entirely wonderful to be reunited with someone from camp, because I miss it there so dearly. We arrived in Stockholm at around 6 p.m. and then took a bus into the city, and after finding our hostel, we desperately needed some food. So tonight was pretty simple and we just spent a few hours at a restaurant nearby eating and chatting and getting to know each other a little better.

Day 2- Dec. 29^th: Today unfortunately, it rained for most of the day and was quite gray out. We spent the morning/early afternoon at the National Museum looking at lots of wonderful paintings and collections. One of the collections was on Swedish style from the 20^th until 21^th century and so it was very strange to see some of the things I own (a scissors and table from IKEA) on display. We then walked around parts of the old town and a small market, and did a little bit of souvenir shopping. Afterwards we headed to a grocery store to pick up some supplies for the rest of the week and headed back to the hostel to make dinner. While in the kitchen we met a guy from Maine, Peter, who’s been studying in Spain. He joined us for our supper and then we all headed on an evening tour of Old Town. Afterwards we headed to pub for a drink and then to a small restaurant for some ice cream!

Day 3- Dec. 30^th: We started the morning with a breakfast with Peter and then we headed off to the free new/modern tour of the city. Again, unfortunately today was pretty rainy and cold, so that was not too fun. But the tour took us around all of the newer buildings and I learned that H&M was established in Sweden as well as Skype and Spotify.  But the coolest thing we saw was the building/bank where there was a robbery in 1973 in which the psychological phenomena- Stockholm Syndrome- was coined. A man took several hostages during the robbery and the negotiations with the police lasted over a week and by the end of the week the robber and the hostages were such good friends, that later life, one of the hostages was the best man in the robber’s best man. After the tour we headed over to the train stations just to make sure we could catch a train for our early flight on the 2^nd. We then decided to hit up some more museums to get us out of the rain. We ended up going to both the Dance Museum and Music Museum and, after claiming we were 19, got in free to both of them. The museums were very interested and very interactive which was fun- especially in the music one. We then headed back to our hostel for a quick snack during which we met 3 guys from the UK- James, James and Shawn. We talked with them for a while, but then headed off to see The Hobbit in 3D at a theater right down the road- it was in English with Swedish subtitles. It was so incredible! The scenery is amazing and I thought it fit in very nicely with the first 3. Only problem was, whenever the elves or orcs were talking- it was only translated into Swedish, so we had no idea what they were saying, otherwise there was no problem! We then headed back, by this time it was pretty late, and made a late pasta dinner. Since we had so much extra pasta, we shared some with our new friend Shawn and spent a little time talking again and now it’s off to bed!

Day 4- Dec. 31^st (Happy New Year!): Today we spent the morning at the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship build in the late 1600’s during the 30 Years War for the King of Sweden. At its time it was the largest, most expensive and most ornate ship ever build in Sweden. However, before the ship even made it 1 nautical mile, it complete sunk. In the 1960’s the entire ship was brought to the surface and over 95% of it is preserved and on display at this museum. So many things were preserved and it was really quite an amazing thing to see. Afterwards we spent time walking around some of the parks that were over in the museum area and along the harbor, but soon it was cold and rainy, so we headed back to the hostel for a while to relax and warm up. Our main goal for tonight was to find a Mexican restaurant. And after plenty of searching and walking, I can tell you that no Mexican restaurants can be found in Stockholm that are open on New Year’s Eve. Instead we found a nice restaurant in the Old Town area and had a couple of drinks, but soon they too closed. Surprisingly the streets of Old Town were very empty so after some walking we ended up over on the newer end and stopped to get some ice cream J Then it was time to head down by the harbor to see all of the fireworks. It was seriously crazy. They were coming from everywhere- and lasted until 1.30 or so! After seeing our fill of fireworks we then headed back towards Old Town and then off to our hostel for a nice piece of toast and a warm bed! Happy New Years everyone!

Day 5- Jan. 1^st 2013!: Last day in Stockholm- bummer dude! Today we slept in pretty late, and then headed down to the central square to ice skate. On the way we heard some drum beats and saw what looked like a parade. We followed the noise and found out that it was the start of the changing of the guards. We followed them for a while towards the palace, but didn’t stay to watch the whole thing. Instead we headed back to the rink and ice skated for quite a while. A good way to start the new year. We were there for about an hour before two of our new friends- Shawn and James- came and joined us. We skated together for a while and then headed towards Old Town to walk around and see it more in the day time. Unfortunately, it got dark too quickly and began to rain, so we headed back to the hostel. Together we all made a massive dinner and ate. We spent the next few hours talking and soon it was time to pack up and now it’s time for a quick nap, before having to wake up at 3.30 to go and catch our flight to Helsinki! So long Stockholm!

Here's a quick collection of photos from Stockholm-

I hope you all had a wonderful and safe New Year’s celebration. This year for my New Year’s resolution, due to different positive and negative experiences over here, I’ve decided to memorize every country in the world, along with their geographical location and capital. Wish me luck! And good luck to all of you who have taken on a challenge/ resolution for 2013!