Once again trying to describe it..

You know your life is truly amazing when it gives you a feeling like it cannot be real; like you’re in a movie or a dream. I had that feeling again tonight and I can’t help but smile when I get it.
I was walking out of Norway House and two students were walking by singing very nicely, which almost gave me the chills, but at least made me look around me in the quiet dark, at the amazing nature and the good feeling of being so close to some many truly amazing people that when someone half an hour earlier had written “come over” to me, I was there in like two minutes.

I try so much through this blog, to express how special this place and opportunity is, but it’s hard. I strongly encourage possible applicants reading this to apply!

Also, here’s a link to a photo-contest we have from Ski-Week. Students are uploading photos for best action shot, best landscape, best wipeout and best overall. They should be uploading until March 9^th, so check it out once in a while J www.friluftsveka.tumblr.com

Valentine's Day

It's Sunday afternoon, not even dinner time yet and I'm done with all my homework :D Except for that I gave myself until Thursday to finish my EE book and I have barely started... So here comes more blogs.

I have never been a big fan of Valentine's day. Of course it is cute, but really, what a waste of money. I am not saying I am more of a fan of it now, but I did have my first fun, cute and special experience of it this year. Our SOS Children's Villages Group had set up a blind-date/karaoke/cafe, so I had signed up. Also, they had been selling roses, so when I came back from Children's Theater and walked into my room there was two roses on my desk. One with a note from Samuel and one without a note, that I assumed was also from him. I was wrong. Apparently SOS has been having a "bring-out" service where you could order flowers for someone, but they would give it, so you never knew who it was. I still don't know.

At the cafe, I got paired up with Fabian from Guatemala who had also bought a rose for his blind date, and it was a lot of fun getting to know him and seeing people humiliate themselves on stage for the karaoke and Sam also gave me another rose.

Now, unfortunately, the roses are dead and lying in my trash-bin, but I do still have the notes hanging on my wall, giving me a smile when I think about this experience :)

One thing is for sure..

Actually a lot of things are.. Today I realized I have a ton of blogs about experiences ready to write and too little time. They will come! The thing that is for sure is that I am NOT born with skis on my feet, like a lot of the other Nordics :)

Yesterday I came back from an amazing ski-week or "friluftsveka" with all the first years and I must admit that it was one of the best experiences here so far.
We were split into four groups, 25 in each, and we all, in different order, went through two days of cross country skiing, one duty day at the hostel (helping in the kitchen and cleaning) and one day of down-hill.

Sunday we arrived at Stryn Youth Hostel and two groups at a time we went out for 1-2 hours and tried out having skis on. Monday my group went down hill and if you showed that you could stop properly and turn, they allowed you to move from the baby slope to the big slopes. After lunch they let me go up, but I didn't because I am so terribly afraid of heights and the lifts were gonna kill me. Tuesday we had our duty day. I made breakfast and evening snack, so I had the day off to go into Stryn and check out a 'real' shopping mall (not very big though) :) Wednesday we had our first day of cross country in the rain and snow, so we were all soaked in the end, so far not anything that exceptional.

Then Wednesday night I went on an optional Lavvo trip and slept a night in a tent in the snow with 15 others. It was AMAZING! We had so much fun and though it was a little cold, it was totally worth it. From here it was awesome enough to make up for every other rainy day. The next day of cross country was full of sunshine and dry weather and therefore good moods. We got to talk to a lot of different people that we have not talked a lot to yet, shared rooms with new people, talked more to the teachers and basically just had a lot of fun, not thinking of the IB and activities, but just focusing on having a good time and sharing this together.

So through the falling, the rain, the tiredness and the Swedes and Norwegians making fun of the non-skiing Dane and pushing her down ( :) ), the sun, the fun and the long-run made up for everything. It made us closer as a class and it gave us a new boost of energy to go back and rock this UWC world.

Group 1 - after the Swedes pushed me down again

The Lavvo we slept in, the day after when we took it down

Go Hostel!

After a looong day of skiing, waiting for the roommates to be done showering :)

Ready for skiing!

Fastelavn

Tomorrow is the Danish "Fastelavn"; a carnival, close to Halloween, where kids walk around houses in costumes singing a song that asks for buns, but mostly nowadays receives money or candy. Also, they will hit a wooden barrel, taking turns. The one who makes the hit that makes the candy inside of it fall out is titled the "Cat Queen" and the one who makes the hits, taking down the last wooden board is the "Cat King" - it comes from old, old traditions. You can look the history up yourself :) There is also usually a competition for the best costume.

We celebrated today, since us first years are leaving for Ski Week tomorrow morning. Here is a group picture from our gathering at brunch with "fastelavnsboller," cupcakes and pancakes :)

New roommate

Say hi to our new roommate that Benedicte brought home today! (Only one of them is ours) I hope he survives, because he's a pretty good listener :) Haha.

Birthdays

For me, it's a pretty big deal making sure at least my closest friends here gets a memorable birthday, since I think most countries have a lot of traditions around this day and it might be hard not to be at home.

For the Danish birthdays, it's a tradition that we wake up the person by singing the Danish Birthday song (I dag er det ... fødselsdag), take them to breakfast/brunch where we've also baked cakes, bread ect. and then sing again in the Cantine for everyone to hear (... har fødselsdag + 3 instrumenter).

An example of a Danish breakfast table

In general it's a tradition after the birthday-kids wish, that some sort of celebration is thrown. Some have "drop by and say happy birthday in the room" and others have a get-together with their closest friends. Some (mostly boys) gets pranked, while others prefer nothing at all. '

Today was my boyfriends birthday and another unwritten rule, is that in general the girlfriend/boyfriend prepares the event, of course only if there is a relationship. Since this weekend is also host family weekend, Samuel had asked me to wait and celebrate it on Monday, and only invite his good friends (30+ people!) Therefore, last night when it turned midnight, I had asked the college to stop by the Saturday Night party, say happy birthday and throw him in the snow - a little revenge for all the times he's thrown me in the snow :) After that I had him come to my room where me and Kathrine (danish second year) were waiting with a Danish birthday cake (lagkage!!). This morning I woke him up with breakfast/pancakes on bed and otherwise it's been a cozy, normal day. Tomorrow night we're having a cozy arrangement for the 32 invited people and a lot more cake and sweets. I hope he'll enjoy.

Here's some pictures from my cake-making process: (unfortunately never got a picture of the finished cake, but it did taste yummi!)

Happy Birthday to Sam :)

Snow, snow, snow

So after sliding down the hills of Campus on plastic bags with my Norwegian co-year; Christine today, we were laying in the snow, looking at the fjord and I asked her if she knew how much snow fell over the last couple of days and she said about 30-40 cm.! :D Unfortunately, it is hard to tell from the pictures.

Today, after dinner there was a huge snowball fight arranged between The Nordics and The Rest of the World, but since the Balkans, Russia and a few other countries decided to Allie with the Scandinavians, it suddenly didn't look like such a lost war. In the middle someone yelled "FIRST YEARS AGAINST SECOND YEARS" and suddenly my 'team' was outnumbered by the second years which resulted in it being more like everyone against everyone.

This is how one looks after being back inside for a little while:

Happy weekend!

Living in a fairy tale

Sometimes I can't even describe to you, the feeling I get when I walk around this place. Today, I literally felt like I was part of a fairy tale. I really felt like I was walking around the campus of Hogwarts! It was snowing when I woke up this morning and still is and it's neither hard snow or storming, but just a whole lot of (wet) snow falling straight down from the sky.

I was walking back from the Amnesty group meeting for our room dinner and I did almost not meet any people on my way, I just saw the snow, imagined the fjord somewhere under all the white, while I could hear the Performing Arts EAC's music silently in the background. It is moment like those where I almost get goosebumps thinking about the nature of Flekke! It does feel like magic.

Apart from that we had a power cut from 10-2 (which should hopefully lead to faster internet soon!) so we were reading in the candle light in economics and sitting by my desk with candles and the snow outside was just very amazing.

I do love my life :)