kickin it in norwegia

k so
wow
i'm bad at keeping up with this
are any of you still reading this?

the task of a post about family time proved far too overwhelming for my computer (which couldn't handle uploading the pictures) and my own sense of initiative (i tried once then was too overwhelmed by the task to try again, so just gave up).

so instead of a full post about family time, i will just tell you the best part. the highlight, if you will.

three words: ice. cream. truck.

i will paint you a picture:

me and jenny. sitting on our beds at a tacky-fancy bed and breakfast. the curtains match the bed spreads. we are in a little town on a little island that is all deserted and ghostly in the off season. it is dark out. but not too late. 7:30pm, perhaps. we are doing homework.

a noise outside. a bell. in the distance. getting closer.

we look up at each other. eye contact. a conversation between sisters. a conversation without words...
that sounds like an ice cream truck
holy crap, that sounds like an ice cream truck
are we doing this?
we are doing this
run and get money from mom, i need to find shoes
...eye contact

we run down the hall. we grab money from mom. we run outside.

we are wearing socks on the cold cobblestone.

darkness.

a light at the end of the street. a truck. a white, square truck. danish is being spoken in the distance.

we approach. a man with a dog and a little girl, saying favel to another man standing by the lit up truck. the man with the dog is holding a box. A BOX OF ICE CREAM.

we speak words. incoherent slews of english words. we are too excited to make sense. with are met with a confused look by the man next to the truck. he doesn't speak english. let alone giddy-spewey english. wildly we gesture. ice cream! ice cream!
we look at the sign. we point to it.
we want one of those
and one of those
please

more gesturing. more danglish.
not possible to buy just one of each. must by a box.

en hel kasse.
a whole box.
awesome.

we choose the tastiest looking ice cream cones.
we buy a whole box.

we yell thankyous.
tak
tusind tak
tak skal du have
all the danish thankyous that we know

we yell and we laugh and we run in our socks back to our house.
we sit on our parents bed and the four of us each enjoy two ice cream cones.

four words: highlight. of. my. life.


k now. anyways.
back to the present.
so it's easter break here.
and we get a week off. which, because i only have class on wednesday and thursday, is actually 11 days. and because i flew to norway instead of going to class last thursday, it's actually 12 days. awesome.

quick summary:
-spent two nights in Bergen at Eyv's apartment with him and Esta. awesome. i love bergen. i want to live there. forever. it's amazing. it's like a combination of victoria, jasper, and the place where Wallace & Grommit live.
-spent one night at Eyv's family's country house with him and Esta and his parents. also awesome. a quaint little country house on the shoreline of a norwegian fjord. complete with a composting toilet, fishing rods, and the best vegetarian-food-cooking mom i've ever met.
-spent one night at Eyv's family's house in Haugesund (with him and Esta). also on the edge of a fjord. no wait, a sound. there is a difference, apparently. explored some cool historical sights around what used to be the center of norway.
-spent two nights at a totally hilarious hospital hotel in Stavanger (with just Esta). went to two cool museums, one of which featured an exhibit about homosexuality in nonhuman animals. a whole exhibit. with big huge colour photos. holy crap, i love norway.
-left Esta and took a boat back to Bergen. did homework in a cool coffee shop. stayed in a hostel that was totally great cept it had the worst beds in the history of horizontal surfaces. didn't sleep much.
-today: took the train to Oslo. went and saw the original "Scream" painting at the national gallery. very cool. drank coffee and wandered and read my book and wandered and drank more coffee.

tonight i'm staying in a hostel that i'm pretty sure i saw featured on America's Most Dangerous Prisons on sunday at Eyv's house. it's all kinds of awful. but whatever, just for one night. i think i'll sleep hugging my backpack. if the next hostel i stay in doesn't have lockers, i'm going to carpenter one out of another bed and used that to store my stuff in (the major downside of travelling with a laptop and non-pocket-size camera).

but when i came back after my wandering, there were three very friendly german girls in my room, so that made me feel better about this place. then i went in to the shower and when i came back out, there was a man lying fully dressed in snow-suit gear on the bed next to mine. boots and a tuque and everything. oh hello. no answer. sleeping? nope. eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. deaf? maybe. he got up a few minutes later and when into the shower. from the sounds of it, he showered five times. like, water on for a few minutes, water off for a few minutes, water back on, water off, etc. then no noise for 30 minutes. then all of a sudden, he reappears around the corner, fully clothed in his snow suit gear. lies back down. snores for a while. gets up. leaves the room.

i am so unbelievably and profoundly confused.

but anyways
bedtime now.
tomorrow i'm leavin early and flying to munich, then train to würzburg to see blenheim people! yes! blenheim people! people who nicole and i lived (and worked) with when we lived in blenheim, nz! awesome! great! holy crap! i'm so stoked!

hope you could stay interested despite the lack of pictures.... i'll try to put some up when i get back to kbh next week.