A little background: rather than head straight to university, I decided to take a year off to work and travel. After working all summer and part of the fall, I hopped the Atlantic and landed in Norway in mid October. My dad's mother is Norwegian, and as such I have a ton of cousins, second cousins and other somehow-related relatives here. For about 5 weeks, I'm going to spend a bit of time in 4 different locations in this country, visiting mostly family as well as Lauren DeGroot, a friend from Nelson, who is in Norway for a year on a rotary exchange.
I started off my travels in Hamar, a town of about 20,000 people just north of Oslo, the capital of Norway. My dad's cousin Olav and his wife Bente live there, and that is who I stayed with for just over a week. They were extremely hospitable, welcoming me into their home and showing me around the town. Cue picture:
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| Looking out at Lake Mjøsa, Norway's biggest lake |
The weather was absolutely gorgeous when I was there, albeit cold. I spent the first few days sleeping in till 11 or 12 (jet lag) and after that I would either walk downtown or go for a run in one of the nearby parks. It was a pretty great lifestyle : sleep in, eat, explore the town, eat, relax, sleep, and repeat.
Lauren came by train to visit me in Hamar 6 days after I got there. Twas quite fun missioning around, just like old times, except in a different country. After about 4 days in Hamar we took the train back to Arna, where she is staying. Arna is on the west coast of Norway, near Bergen, one of the big cities.
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| Looking down on Arna from Arna Nipa, the mountain above the town. Kind of similar to Nelson, no? |
We spent our time hiking, eating, running, and just having fun. Some evenings, Lauren and I would team up and play Scrabble (in Norwegian, of course) with her host mother Helene and host grandma Evelyn. We somehow managed to win one of the games (all props go to Lauren, I did basically nothing to contribute).
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| We hiked up to a small hut, Redningshytta, where they served hot drinks and pannekaker (crepes in Canada) |
I went to Lauren's French class with her one day. It was a pretty neat experience, since they were learning French, a language I know, from Norwegian, a language I don't know, with a bit of English thrown in for my and Lauren's benefit (mostly mine...).
After spending 4 days in Arna, I took the train to Arendal, which is on the southern coast of Norway. I didn't really come at the right time of year, unfortunately: Arendal is a summer town, right on the ocean, but I'm sure there's still lots to see.
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| Arendal |
Here, I am staying with my dad's cousin and her family. They have a beautiful, 100-year-old house, high enough up on the hillside that I can see the ocean from my bedroom window. Hege, my dad's cousin, is a 4th grade school teacher, and today I went with her for her last class of the day, which just so happened to be English. She has a great bunch of kids, and what I found very interesting is that 50% of them are not from Norway. There were kids from Congo, Somalia, Brazil, Poland, Chile, Australia, Vietnam, and other countries that I can't remember. They're all super nice, and polite, and surprisingly accomplished in English for 9-year-olds.
Yesterday Hege took me down to their cottage, which is right on the ocean, about 20 minutes from their house. I was very happy to see that it still looked how I remembered it to look from when I was here with my family 9 years ago. They have a beautiful spot in a little bay, and seeing it again brought back fond memories of catching crabs, swimming, fishing, and spending time with my extended family in Norway.
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| The view from the cottage |
I have about 2 weeks left of my travels here, but after touring around Norway, I am (hopefully) heading down to Switzerland to do an internship that involves chasing lynx through the Swiss Alps... not actually, but that's how I like to describe it. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to be doing there, so I will let you know when I get there.
The reason for the 'hopefully' there is that I still haven't received my visa to work in Switzerland for 6 months... I'm hoping to hear from them in the next few weeks, but no guarantees.
Alrighty then, I believe that is a long enough first post. Don't be expecting regular blog posts, as I am of the lazy type and probably won't bother to write another one for a while.
Well, enjoy!
-Sonja
