By now, I am 42 days here. On the one hand it's like: Wow?! Only 42, but then it's also like already 42 days? I just thought about calculating the days that remain is my beautiful Oslo, but I decided not to. Too frustrating, and probably my international friends over here would also hate me for doing that cause then we all know that time is running too fast. I personally know already, that leaving in december will be so hard. On monday, one friend of mine, Alicia, uploaded a photo on facebook of my friends and I with the capture "family". It kept me thinking. Yes, they truely are family. Cause family for me is, when you feel welcomed and appreciated. When people are caring about you, realizing when you're not feeling well. When they know you're personality and who you really are. I'd say when you're all by yourself in a country that is far away from home, then this rather "extreme" situation makes 42 days enough to recognize your new friends as your family. Whenever I started University back home in Mannheim, the first month was also exciting and great, but I would not have called my friends family back then. That does not mean that they are not by now, but it's probably the distance to your home country that makes you feel bonded already after a short while.
One of the best information in the last two weeks I should share is that I moved out of my apartment in my student village into a different one. Everything started with my friend Naomi telling me, that their roomate, who did an internship in Oslo, moved out of their flat. When I asked if they knew, who would move into afterwards, she replied that she had no clue. Funny as I am, I was joking that I would like to move in, since my flat in building 21 was so dirty and cold. Naomi kinda ignored the fact that I was joking and told me, that she would actually love the idea of having me as a flatmate. After talking to her second flatmate Marion, another friend of mine, they were both really sweet and encouraged me to go to our Student Housing and ask, if this would be even possible....to shorten up, the next day I moved into this beauuuuuuutiful flat!! It's clean, it's warm, it's pretty....but most importantly: I have the sweetest roomates ever!!! On the first day they were waiting for my with fruits and chocolate fondue and I knew immedeately, this was the right decision :-) Now I am getting settled here and I love having those sweet girls and Gogo as my roomate, cause all of them are really warm-hearted. And also it's a pleasure to live with 3 girls and chatting all the time. Not sure if my exams will like that though, haha :)
The second good thing happening the last days was our beautiful trip to Stavanger on the weekend. We planned this trip only a week before, but everything turned out really nice. We splitted our group of 16 people into different teams, to facilitate the organization. The accomodation team found those small white wooden cabins with grass roofs in Sandnes, a small village close to Stavanger. Those cabins were the sweetest. The car group had booked three cars and drove us safely to Sandnes and back. The food team was taking care of the food for 16 people. Since it included myself I can tell you, now I am ready to have my four kids, cause cooking for 16 people was quiet a challenge, but we made it (somehow at least), so four seems really easy now haha! And I don't want to forget the cleaning team, doing a great job as well. So far we didn't hear anything from the accomodation adminsitration that complained about messing up the rooms, so I guess it was well cleaned..wohoo!
SO back to the trip, which is probably more relevant to you. Stavanger is close to the Lysefjord, a nice fjord offering quiet a few highlights of Norway. Those are particularly the Preikestolen and the Kjerag. The first is a rock that offers a view over a large part of the fjord and the second a stone that looks like it fell in between two mountains.The first photo is before we climbed up that mountain, the second is taken from the preikestolen (thanks to Miriam) and the last is me at the Preikestolen (thanks Claudia). The landscape was simply amazing, I still can't belive how impressing and untouched everything was. I could have stopped every five minutes on the way up, cause everything we passed looked crazy. It's hard to describe for people who haven't seen such a beauty of nature yet, but it's crazy. Up at the Preikestolen we had this amazing view and I felt sooo incredibly small in between this massive and big fjord and mountain area. It was really wonderful that nothing touristic was on top of the mountain, no shop with Preikestolen pendants or photobox or overexpensive Preikestolen Mountain restaurant. Just nature and us (and a few other tourists, of course).
On our second day we divided our group. While the others went to the Kjerag (I can just retell that they were really amazed) I made a boat tour as well as a tour around Stavanger and its harbor, afterwards we also had a coffee break. I really enjoyed the three hours on the fjords, getting the ..let's say water perspective of the fjord and just sitting down while enjoing the view. At the end of our day we ended up at a sandy beach close to Sandnes. It was so nice to sit down and look at the sea and not being busy. The last weeks were always full, alaways surrounded by tons of people (which is of course great). Therefore it was so relaxing to just grab some cake and sit down at the water and enjoy the last sun shines.
All in all it was a great trip with my Norwegian family, games, hiking, nature and the beach.
Other than that there was an ABC (Anything but clothes) party last week, which was fun and showed the amazing creativity people put forward when planning outfits that don't include actual clothes (okay, here and there you did see a sweater, shorts etc.). This picture shows my friends Nils (Germany), Eva (Netherlands), Brent (USA), Emre (Australia) and I before we were headed to the party.
I also had my first working shift at the U1 café (Social Science café), which was fun. But I definetly have to try out my broken pieces of Norwegian next time, the first time was too overwhelming that I dared to try talking in Norwegian. Making 10 different sorts of coffee was enough for the first day! :-D
Other than that unviersity is capturing me quiet a bit, on monday I have to turn in my first proposal for my final paper in the class "Scandinavian Welfare Society". Therefore, since another trip to the Glacier close to Laerdal starts tomorrow (yes, Manon turns into a nature explorer!!!), I'll go back to workkkkk.
Have a great day, an even better week, and talk to you soon (if the ice on the glacier hike doesn't break)
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