The Sunday excursion, plus some other travel-related thoughts.

Stavkirken at the Norwegian Folk museum! This was the main attraction of our Sunday excursion, and I'm glad I was able to take some shots of the exterior, as well as some of the interior even though they didn't turn out that well. We actually spent Sunday morning prior to this adventure at Sogn student residence with Damon and his crew, enjoying a delicious Hong Kong style breakfast and chatting together. And, in fact, the evening ended in a very similar fashion, with a German film called "Lola rennt" that lacked English subtitles. That was okay with me, however, because I could actually understand the Norwegian subtitles passably well. I'm getting better! ...sort of!

Monday morning I did, unfortunately, have to take Jennifer back to central station to see her off back to Germany, but I'm so glad she was able to visit even if only for a weekend. And it seems like my luck where visitors are concerned is only getting better, since at the beginning of June I am going to have a visit from my dear friend Vonnie as well! I mentioned her back at the start of my trip when I was stranded in Glasgow, since she very kindly offered to phone me and keep me company for a little bit as I was quite lonely (and cold). It will be very nice to show my other BFF around my favorite corner of Scandinavia.

Barring any day excursions into the fjord that my friends and I might make, I have at last planned out the rest of my adventures here in Europe. On 11 June (after Vonnie's visit), Mike, Tim and I are taking the train from Oslo S. to Bergen, where we will stay until the 14th, before presumably coming back to Kringsjå. I've even gone so far as to book my flight to England for 4 July, where I will spend some time with my family and friends before going back to America.

At the moment, my scheduled departure from the UK is still the 31st of July, which I have contemplated moving up some since that is an awful long time to be in England, but at the same time I wouldn't mind taking the opportunity to do some traveling within the country; I haven't done that in a proper way since I graduated high school and spent my summer at Cambridge in 2005. I'd love to go back to Cambridge for an afternoon perhaps and visit all my old haunts, or take the opportunity to travel up to Scotland and give Edinburgh a chance to properly repair my image of Scotland; my one and only visit there was pretty awful, though those were special circumstances, weren't they? If I have the time, I would also like very much to visit my Aunt Sylvie and cousin Michaela--and her daughter Toriah!--in France as well, and visit the Basque region. I'd be there in July, in time for perfect weather and glorious sunshine--and I would have the chance to practice my French again!

Sometimes I feel like I've been in this country for years rather than just months, and I mean that in a good way. My friends here are all remarkable and wonderful people who made this experience the gem that it is for me, and I'll never forget the memories we've created together. Man, listen to me, getting all sentimental while I've still got two months left to spend with them, and three months left before I go back to America. I should just enjoy the time I have left!

Jeg hadde ei Jennifer!

I'm sure my Norwegian is wrong there, but oh well. :) As usual, you can go here for more pictures.

My dear friend Jennifer visited me this past weekend, and this morning I had to escort her to Oslo S. so that she could make her flight back to Germany, but that certainly didn't stop us from having one wild and crazy time! Well, certainly crazy. ...perhaps nerdy and snarky are better words. We're not exactly the wild or crazy type.

We started off the adventure at Waldemar's on Friday night, mine, Tim and Mike's favorite pub, but the real adventuring started on Saturday morning when we hurried to make the T-bane up to Holmenkollen. Tim served as our adventuring compatriot for the day, and he very kindly took most of the pictures of Jen and me together so that we wouldn't have to go pestering complete strangers. As you can see from this photo, the view of the fjord is just as spectacular during spring as it is during the winter, and I am delighted to say that my good friend seemed to enjoy this first adventure into Oslo immensely.

I do have to say, however, that this Saturday was the single most bizarre day I've spent in Oslo yet, and I've been here for four months now. For one thing, the russes were out in abundance.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with russ tradition, but Wikipedia actually dedicates a pretty detailed article to this particular aspect of Norwegian society. Russes are Norwegian high schoolers (videregående skole is their equivalent to high school, I believe) weeks away from graduation, who partake in an excessive amount of partying and general silly behavior traditionally from May 1st through 17th until their exams. The red (and blue) overalls are apparently a requirement, and they aren't supposed to wash or remove them except for sleeping purposes. Sounds a bit, uh, scary. For some reason they're out rather early this year, but I managed to snap lots of pictures of them.

Here we spy the russ in their natural habitat, sporting their bright scarlet seasonal plumage.

And here we find even more russ doing nothing particularly useful in Vigelandsparken. But even more peculiar than red-clad Norwegian teenagers chilling on sculptures of oddly positioned naked people was, well, this:

Why yes, those are Danish flags billowing in the breeze in front of Rådhuset! Why were there Danish flags everywhere? I don't know, but I blame the gigantic, 30 meter tall lego statue. It seemed quite suspicious to me. Actually, these peculiarities just made the day all the more exciting for us, and I'm delighted Jen was able to see such eccentric aspects of my favorite little European metropolis. I'll write another entry detailing our adventures on Sunday; I just wanted to touch on the highlights of Saturday for now.

Hadet!

A Deutschlander decides a bit of Norsking is on the agenda!

Tomorrow, I get one of these!

A Jen! Assuming all goes swimmingly at the airport, of course. Iceland, no more vomiting up ash and volcano, at least not until Monday evening, svp.

I've got a general idea of what we'll get up to during her visit. Friday night, we will introduce her to Uglebo, the student pub lurking beneath Sophus Bugge on Blindern campus, and then afterwards scoot along to mine and Tim's favorite haunt these days, Waldemar's. Saturday morning we'll head up to the end of Holmenkolbanen (line 1) via both T-bane and bus so that we can get some gorgeous shots of the fjord in spring time, and also spend an insane amount of kroner on the reindeer steak that I still have yet to eat in this country. I figure we can make good use of the rest of the afternoon by visiting the Munch museum, then perhaps taking the ferry across to Bygdøy so she can explore Kon-Tiki and the Norwegian folk museum. Maybe the Viking ship museum, too. Sunday will probably be a little more chill after walking our feet off on Saturday, and then on Monday, alas, I will have to ship her back to Germay. ): Sad day, sad day.

It has come to the point in my trip where I need to look at planning out the rest of my travels instead of just saying, "Oh, I'll do that later." It's a little bittersweet for me to realize that I'll need to start planning out when I will be flying to London, and from there back home to Huntsville, but I've done a lot of traveling over the last four months and should probably cut myself some slack in that regard. And who's to say my traveling will necessarily come to an end once I'm in America again? After all, there are still quite a few Canadian provinces I haven't seen, and I still haven't gone to Mexico.

Ahh, the possibilities!