A quick update

It's been a while since I last posted, so here goes a quick picture update of the last two weeks. In that time I've been down to Stavanger, eaten a sheeps eyeball, had a visit from home and said the first of many goodbyes here.

With my buss card here, I can travel down to Stavanger fairly cheap by bus. (you can see Stavanger and Bergen on the lower left of Norway)

It takes about four hours, and two weekends ago I decided to make an impulse trip there to visit Hannah, an exchange student from Australia who lives there. It just so happened that Kate from Canada was visiting as well, and I had an amazing weekend with them.

The bus had a screen where you could follow where we were

Kate with a dutch caramel waffle

Stavanger

Me, Hannah and Kate

Hannah's host family lives on the ocean, on an island which you have to take a little ferry to. We swam, rowed, played scrabble, drank amazing coffee and just layed outside and enjoyed that strange yellow ball in the sky that they apparently call the sun.

Oh, and ate sheeps head. Remember how I said in one of my last posts HERE, I'd never eaten smalahove in Norway. Well that changed in Stavanger. 

The meat on the head wasn't all that bad; it was pretty much just the cheek you could eat.

but this.....

was the grossest thing I've ever eaten.

The optic nerve was still hanging out the back of the eye, and it was so big! Hannah even had to take the eyelashes off hers. Ususally you just see bones in the scrap bowl, but imagine what looks like a set of false eyelashes clinging to the side?

Thanks to not wanting to be a wimp and the "try everything" mentality of being an exchange student, I shoved the entire thing in my mouth. Thankfully nothing "popped" like I thought would happen, there were no juices. It was just like a giant stringy fatty ball that took FOREVER to chew. I just tried to tell myself I was eating something else, and tried not to look at the head sitting on my plate with the gaping eye socket.

excited about sheep heads

Staring it in the eye

The long chewing process

It was such a great weekend! (apart from the eye haha)

Thursday my art class had our last day of wandering in the city:

Hard to believe I won't be going into 3rd year with them in the fall! you can see some of our class's art on the walls

Silvia and me

Bergen...suchh a gorgeous city when it doesnt rain!

Friday night Marlies and Annalea came to visit!! Marlies went to school with me, and Annalea is her older sister. They've been travelling around Europe and decided to make a stop here. SO amazing to have them here, and we had an insane amount of fun!

It was strange to have so much english in the house again, and interesting to be constantly switching instead of speaking one or the other. Dinner table conversations were entertaining!

We wandered in the city, hiked up Ulriken:

...and back down.

I never knew just how hard it is to hike down a steep train when you're laughing so hard that your knees keep buckling!

We decided that eating a tub of ice cream with forks was cheaper than buying individual cones:

And hung out with trolls:

We took advantage of the long days and went hiking up arnanipa at 10 pm on Monday night. And didn't come home until 1:30 am, thanks to deciding to take a break partway down and make "music videos" (or, well, walk funny to music in front of the camera) 

I don't know how to get the videos off facebook, but once I get them from Marlies I'll post a couple here if I remember.

They left Tuesday evening on the night train to Stockholm.

Tuesday evening I also had a little going away get together with my art class, and made them pancakes. We sat outside, ate, took jumpshots and went down to the beach for the sunset of the longest day of the year. Some pictures:

Pancakes in the sun

Toppings: everything from maple syrup to strawberries to whipped cream to brown cheese :)

Vilde and me a little after sunset. (11:30ish maybe)

Jump!!

So that was a quick summary of the past two weeks, today was the last day of school. So I'm finished with my extra year of high school in Norway; it's been a good one!

Just a few pics I took about a week ago (while up on skype watching the canucks game), since I still can't get over the fact that it's 1:30 am and not completely dark out:

Sunset at 11ish

Midnight

2 am

3:30 am

4 am.

2 weeks left here as of today.