Hey all!
So I decided instead of waiting until tomorrow to start
writing, I’d just start now – then those of you who might look forward to these
posts (I’d have no idea why) could have two average length posts instead of one
ginormous one. I have no idea how much I'm going to write, it may end up being
the entire week if I get into it – but then again, it may turn out just to be a
day. Or I may quit before then and blame it on being lazy. Who knows...? SO! I believe
my blogging should re-commence from Thursday the 20th – I have been
taking notes of what I've been doing each day, but I'm a little bit clever and
accidentally moved them all around without realising. Hence they’re not in
chronological order any more – have no fear, I’ll work it out!
Thursday 20th – Sadly I can’t remember much of
the day, but the evening was utterly brilliant. It was the Christmas breakup
party – we had a lovely dinner, a traditional Danish Christmas dinner. I didn't have a dress or anything nice with
me, so I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow a nice shirt. All the film
students shared what they’d made over the semester, quite amusing! One of which
including me “thinking” and saying things like Kangaroos and Croc Dundee – it was
quite funny! I made a presentation saying to everyone that it was my last night
at Rantz, and how grateful I was to everyone for putting up with me – I was
proud to have everyone stand up and clap and cheer. I smiled like an idiot; I've seen it on the video. Anyway, I then presented an Australian flag to the
teachers, and had a massive group photo – which I should be getting back soon,
in the beginning of the school year I believe. We stayed up past midnight, and didn't die. As it was the 21st (doomsday)…
Friday – I actually slept after the party believe it or not!
It was quite a sad and exciting day for me – saying goodbye to everyone at
Rantz was quite strange. Even though I only really went there for a month, I
still can’t imagine leaving. But there was a lovely celebration with Champagne
(of course I had water) but it was nice non-the-less. I also got a lot of
people to sign an A5 (just to be unnecessarily specific) sheet of card – all the
little messages on there are lovely. I also got a ‘medal’ from some of the
girls that said ‘Rantz loves you!’ – It was a great day!
Saturday – well I flew to Norway! Was a great flight, apart
from the landing which was absolutely petrifying! It went down faster than on
any flight I've ever been on – and I have flown a fair bit. So yeah, it was
quite freaky – but the scenery as we were descending was absolutely
breathtaking. I really cannot describe how beautiful Norway is. You’ll hear
this a lot from me for the rest of the post, and I apologise in advance, but I
really do love it – I’ll be certain to go back there one day. But after all the
organising and stuff that just has to happen when you enter a new country,
going over what we planned to do and so forth. I got to meet some absolutely
gorgeous dogs – Svale and Garby (it took me ages to remember the names), and
also tried Elplemost, which has turned out to be the best drink in existence in
my opinion. It’s like apple juice, but fizzy and not as sweet – it’s
incredible! After this Asta and I went to Alise’s house, which is where we
would be staying for the week. I met her daughter, Michelle. She’s 3 or 4, and
of course only speaks Norwegian – the issue being that she really liked me, and
wanted to play. You could not possibly imagine the issues I had trying to
follow her thought process when she was speaking at me in Norwegian. IB is nothing
compared to trying to play with a little child who speaks a different language
to you. But she ended up sticking pink clip-y things in my hair and throwing
stuff at me – our first game… But she was gorgeous and we made things work out!
Then dinner – in Norway they eat a lot of fish, and I don’t eat fish… So I
ended up having to try these mini fish, I mean they were about 5cm long and 1cm
wide – It was so gross I sculled my eplemost. Fish, eugh. But the rest of
dinner was great! After we got back we watched a heap of ‘girly’ movies and ate
a ton of junk food – it was good.
Sunday – Massive sleep in, I mean like 11am – which is probably
the latest I've ever slept in. I also realised how incredibly creepy the
Hunchback of Notre Dame is – I don’t care if the audio was in Norwegian, the
evil guy is completely messed up. How did I not see this when I was younger?!
But anyway, I should move on from this... We then went Christmas shopping, as
it was the 23rd and lots of presents still had to be gotten – we went
shopping at the centre called Kvadrat I believe (can’t pronounce it still…)
That night I was lucky enough to go and see The Hobbit in 3D with a few people,
which was incredible I might add!
Monday – was of course Christmas Eve! We watched movies in
the morning and in the afternoon went to the first ‘official’ family gathering
at Kristin’s parents’ house. In Australia we generally do the whole ‘Christmas’
thing over Christmas Eve and Christmas day, presents and all – while here they
celebrate primarily on the 24th, the first day of Christmas. So we
sung carols in Danish/Norwegian (I attempted at least), presents were given
out, we had an incredible dinner and ate way too much. I was also lucky enough
to find the almond in the dessert! I realise that sounds like the weirdest
thing, but it’s a tradition in both Denmark, Norway and possible other places.
It’s basically a cream-based dessert with chopped almonds in it, there’s one
whole almond placed in the mixture –whoever finds it wins a prize! I got a
nougat bar, so was quite content. Michelle also decided to start calling be
Zoey Foey, sadly I couldn't come up with any name that I could call her that
was remotely funny – so yeah…
Tuesday – Christmas day! Sadly the day didn't feel so much
like Christmas as it’d be celebrated yesterday, so it was incredibly different
for me. So there was another gathering of people at Kristin’s Sister’s house –
we watched movies and walked the dogs in the snow, my shoes were soaking. I
kept getting offered more wine – as people drink at 16 here, it’s so, so, so
weird. People here think it’s so strange that we’re not able to drink till we’re
18, but think it’s crazy that I could drive legally on the road if I wished. So
yep, that was Christmas for me this (last) year!
So I just realised how incredibly long and boring this post
is. So the next few days I write about shall be quite vague, just so this post
isn’t TOO long!
Wednesday – So I remember the showing breaking, so that was
rather awkward. We went to another family gathering/dinner and again I ate way
too much (go me!). On the way home I was lucky enough to see the Three Swords
stature – which was utterly incredible. Sadly the photos are pretty dodgy since
it was dark outside, so all you can see is a white blob which is me. I fell
over as well, so my pants were muddy and gross – that summarises Boxing day!
Thursday – probably my favourite day all up, we did so much!
We went to this beautiful place called Byrkjedalstunet (it looks like I just
face planted the keyboard huh?) – Which is essentially a café and shop inside
the mountains! It was so beautiful I just loved it. I made friends with a billy
goat, and saw heaps of native stuffed animals. Trolls are also a big culture
here, so I saw a massive amount of troll based souvenirs and statues. We had
lunch at the café, which only really consisted of traditional Norwegian cakes,
which taste incredible! Then we went back, on the way saw frozen waterfalls in
the mountains, gosh – I cannot explain how beautiful it was. I absolutely loved
it.
Friday – was yet another incredible day. We went to what I believe
to be the restored huts of Vikings – okay my explanations are terrible, it was
called an Iron Age Farm. Now, before I went my hair was lovely and curly, it
was just a good day for the mass which I call my hair – and it was incredibly
windy. So my hair looked like an afro for the rest of the day, which was great.
I realise how irrelevant this may be to some people, but gosh it impacted my
day hugely! After we went to Old Town Stavanger, and saw the entrance of the
Sardine ‘museum’, it’s not really big enough to be a museum, but it’s
essentially a museum. Then walked around a lot and I bought a few presents
including this brilliant Rubik’s Cube! I was way too excited. Anyway, I saw cathedrals
and old buildings and all sorts. After another lovely café which used to be a
significant persons house (don’t remember who) we found a chocolate shop and I
finally tried chilli chocolate fudge, which is incredible! They also have a
partnership (this specific chocolate shop) with a band that’s really big in
Europe at the moment, even though I've never heard of them. But basically they
made this adorable CD and chocolate set! Gosh it was so unique and interesting,
I thought it was great. But wait there’s more – after this we went to yet
another famous shop I’ve never heard of, Moods of Norway, supposedly they have
shops in Australia, but I’ve never seen any. But what’s so interesting about
this store, is that they focus greatly on tractors. I mean there was a full
tractor in the middle of the store! I actually found this shirt it said “Boyfriends
come and go but tractors last forever” oh my gosh I fell in love with it (sorry
Josh!). There was also line dancing steps on the floor and gosh it was just
brilliant, I absolutely loved it – the clothes were pretty good too. One final
noteworthy thing for Friday, the have chocolate coated crisps in Norway, and
they’re amazing – that is all.
Saturday – turned out to be quite a lazy day actually. We
watched the latest American Pie, which I think is a proud moment for me since I've
never watched any of the movies and am frequently shunned by people about it,
actually – it’s just my taste in movies in general. For dinner we went to an
Indian restaurant, another first for me – don’t judge. But I loved it! We went
back to Elisabeth’s house and had chocolate cake, and I tried taking pictures
with the doggies but I scared them away. That was pretty much all of Saturday.
Sunday – We left Norway on a 10:20am flight, came back and
had burgers. That was pretty much it. Oh! Going through airport security I left
my phone in my pocket while going through the metal detector doorway think –
proud moment for me…
So in summary over the course of the week I've seen many
wonderful things and fallen in love with both Norway and mint tea.
Time to start on the next week! Don’t worry guys, it’s only
Thursday for me at the moment, so it’s not as long…
Monday – We went to walk to the dogs in a forest, so they
could be left off the lease. I have to say that it so reminded me of England, I
felt rather homesick for England actually, even though I've hardly lived there
at all. But I continued being my usual clumsy self during the walk – while
walking the dogs managed to get my shoelace caught over a stick. As in the loop
went over the stick so it was attached to my foot. I didn't trip once, no I
tripped 3 times before I realised there was a massive stick attached to my
foot. It was so embarrassing, but I started talking to this lovely American
lady because of it. She started talking about all the female dogs in heat at
the forest, and that’s where I left. She left too, we were in the car park, but
yeah – started to get ever so slightly awkward. We came back and made Lefse,
which is an amazing desert – I have some to bring back with me to Australia
(thank you Kristin!) so people who put up with me on a daily basis at home (+
Josh) get keen! And of course it was New
Year’s Eve – I went to a party with Asta and what felt like 1000 other people
(only around 400-500) in some place. It was fun, everyone jumped off chairs at
12 though, which really confused me.
Tuesday – After sleeping for the majority of the day, I sat
around and did nothing all day, it was great.
Wednesday – Started off as being another lazy day, but
around 2 I think I went into the shopping centre with Asta and a couple of her
friends, it was so much fun . Afterwards we went back to Camilla’s house to
watch movies. Did you know that there’s this really weird channel here in Denmark,
where it shows recordings of the kid show characters sleeping? So the kids go
to sleep at 8 or 9 at night, and they can watch other people sleep! It has the
countdown for how much longer they have to sleep as well, it’s really creepy.
Oh, we were thinking of watching “I don’t know how she does it” I got the
Danish movie title to be translated to English, and they call it “Lady on jump”.
WHAT?! I still don’t get it, how do they get that? But that was pretty much it.
Thursday – Today, I finally stopped procrastinating and
finally wrote this post! I can see why I didn't want to; it’s almost 2,500
words long! Gosh I'm good at making very simple stuff seem incredibly long and
complex. Oh well.
Hope you all had an incredible Christmas, New Year – and just
a great couple of weeks in general! I’ll upload a post full of pictures soon.
And as you can see my original plan of writing two posts went out the window, as did my plan about only writing a little for the past week... So enjoy this one (maybe)!
Zoë xx
