Last Day in Norway!

Today is the last day in Norway! A day full of cleaning and packing! In the afternoon we managed some time to finally climb up to the top of the ski jump and see the whole city! 956 steps later we reached the top! Pheegan too! Despite the near out of breath feeling, it was a neat way to say goodbye!

In the evening we had a get together with one of our program directors from HiL and said goodbye to all the buddies and international students! Tonight we have our last hurrah at the bars and nightclubs and then get on a train to head back to the states Thursday morning!
It has been a long, but quick semester! I feel so fortunate that I was able to meet so many people and was able to travel to so many places in Europe and Scandinavia! It was an unforgettable journey! Next stop, the United States!!
Thank you to all of those who read about my time here and I hope you enjoyed seeing Pheegan! Hopefully the next time I head somewhere, Pheegan's Adventures will continue...

Happy Syttende Mai!

The Norwegian Day of independence was a fantastic celebration that I took part in! Syttende Mai Norwegian style doesn't really involve fireworks, but a ton of parades and outdoor concerts! Oh, and the best thing of all is they all get dressed up in their traditional Norwegian bunads! They we are with a couple dressed up!Men and women, and even all the small children had on the dress that originates from the region they are from. We made it to the celebrations in the downtown area for the children's parade and the Russfest parade. We sat in the park and listened to concerts by traditional type bands. Although at one point they started playing Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and James Bond! To make the day even better they had ice cream and food to eat everywhere! I managed to find the cookie dough ice cream! Yum! It was quite the celebration!!

Dublin!

This is my last trip before I make the long flight home! This time we landed in Dublin! After a day of travel on Tuesday, we made it to the city! We checked out our hostel and the surrounding area for the following days before crashing for the night. We managed to spot the Temple Bar, not far from where we stayed!Our first full day began with a visit to Trinity College, where we thought we were on a tour of the college, but accidentally joined a paid tour for about 5 minutes! Whoops! We wandered around and found the bookstore and the Book of Kells - a must see! We then had lunch at a pub called Cassidy's which is apparently owned by the relatives of Bill Clinton! Who knew? In the afternoon we hiked it over to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour! It was a 7 story building with a glass bar at the top! I learned way too much about beer, but got a free pint out of the deal! Not bad, but I was the only one to finish ~ you don't let beer like that go to waste ;)

That night we hit up a pub for some authentic Irish dancing and singalongs!
Day 2 was our shopping day! We went to a couple cheap stores and then walked through Clery's and Co. - the oldest store in Dublin! In the afternoon we ventured by bus to Dun Laoghaire, a place from the book P.S. I Love You, but there wasn't too much to see and we ended up bumming around taking random pictures. That night we hit up our 7th and final Hard Rock Cafe of the whole semester! Later we hit up a night club called the Think Tank and had a great time!!
Day 3 started a little slow and we saw the landmarks of Dublin. First stop Dublin Castle, then St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, and finally Old Jameson Distillery! We went to Murray's pub for supper and some last minute music!
The next morning we were off and back to Lillehammer before sundown, which I must admit is about 11:00pm here!

Weekend in Trondheim

As an end of the year get together, we Americans, the international students, and the Norwegian buddies planned a huge trip to Trondheim for the weekend.

We met up on Friday night, after the Gullstein trip, and headed to Egon restaurant on the top of a tower that rotated to view the entire city! It was gorgeous and we had a pizza party that tasted, in my opinion, the closest to pizza at home!
The next day we saw the sights of Trondheim! We came across the only cathedral, the Nidaro Dome, where St. Olav was buried. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon cruising through the street fairs and shopping malls. For supper we all met to grill out by the old fortress in town. That night a huge card game of Mafia was played Spanish style amongst a big group! So fun!
The last day we awoke and took the long bus ride home - back to Lillehammer! Great last moments with the internationals and buddies :)

West Coast - Gullstein

Our final group trip was to the west coast of Norway to a fishing village called Gullstein. We spent about six days there with one of our professors from Lillehammer as our Admiral of the 7 Seas!

Day 1 we left Saturday morning @ 1am to catch a bus to Trondheim, where after exiting the bus a bunch of us crashed in the bus station for a few hours while waiting for an afternoon ferry. Two ferries later we arrived on the Island of Tustna! Here we were greeted by Admiral Birger and made our way to our cabin of Gullstein! That night we had fish soup for supper! Not bad!

Day 2 we got to try fishing with our lines and a board, no rods. We also took turns rowing in Birger's authentic Norwegian row boat. Later in the afternoon we sat out in row boats on the lake and tried fishing - no luck! Took a walk and found a little farm with cute little lambies! Finsihed off the day with a group dinner and a fun quiz with Birger about the island and norwegian coast life.
Day 3 Hiking day! We set out early morning to find a couple cabins half way up a mountain! Took a little over an hour of slight uphill walking, and we found it! The cabins were well furnished and stocked with food for anyone to visit, use, and pay for. They are quite unique! That night we had a fishing extravaganza out on the sea with Birger's main boat pulling two row boats behind him full of all of us to see what we could catch! A lot of us managed to snag one and I even caught one! I couldn't hold onto it or I would have dropped it! Thanks Kevin!Day 4 we had some of Birger's friends come and visit us to learn about building boats, rowing, sailing, knotting tying, and making flutes from a willow tree! Yea we were wilderness girls that day! The local press even came and interviewed us about our visit and we will be in the Norwegian paper some time soon! That night we had a card championship with Birger, who is undefeated, and I unfortunately took a close second behind him! Too much fun!
Day 5 we awoke to pancakes and an early start to visit the local Nursing Home and craft store. At 3:00 we had an appointment on the shrimp boat so we could make it farther out to sea and catch some big fish! It was so unbelievable rocky and wavy, but still a pretty fun time!
Day 6 we took a hike over to another island that Birger knows well and he showed us around. We saw more sheep and it unfortunately poured on us! That night was our grill out night and I proudly made sliced potatoes with butter and garlic on the grill which were a big hit! That final night we had a talent show planned which included dances, speeches, slideshows, and songs! We ended with a game to reminisce our time together as a group in Norway!Day 7 we cleaned and packed up, took the ferry back to Trondheim and met up with our Norwegian buddies for the weekend!
I personally loved this group trip the best. It was super relaxing, got to hang out by the sea, fishing, checking crab traps, playing cards, hiking, and eating fish for every meal!

Two Intense Weeks

Here is a little update . . . After the return from Bergen, we no longer have classes with the school, but two weeks left of intense religious studies with a Concordia professor as well as finishing papers and projects! It is like finals week, but we managed to have some fun in between! Most of us girls out having a good time!Yes, there have been plenty of days where we have classes until 4:00 and then spend the rest of the day researching and working on homework. Yet on the other hand we have found some downtime to hang out in Lillehammer and see our international friends again! We have enjoyed a couple nights in where we have had random conversations around the dinner table after making suppers like our attempt at mac and cheese! Delicious, yet not quite Kraft! We have made a couple appearances outside our flat walls going to visit the international students, out to Bingo - one of the nightclubs, the local Brewery for drinks, and a neat bar place Nikkers was quite the night to remember in Norway! That's Kevin and I with our Captain Morgan glasses!!Also mixed in, we have had time together as a group included our leaders and visiting professors where we enjoyed a chili feed together, attended a mosque and muslim prayer service for learning purposes, and even made a return trip to Maihaugen to see the open air museum this time around. This week has turned a little busier with international students going away parties/grill outs, our schools choir concert that a few of us participated in, and a celebration called X-russefest is taking place with the High School students, a long-going tradition in Norway! It is like a month long celebration of partying where they wear red, blue, or black colored pants as part of graduation! Here I am with a bunch of guys who have previously graduated in red pants! It is a bit tough to explain :) We finish off this week by heading west to a fishing village called Gulstein where we will spend 6 days living in a peaceful fjord village area and just relaxing! Then comes a weekend in Trondheim, followed by four days in Dublin! The end is drawing near and I hope to be returning as scheduled on May 21st back to the states!

Bergen~Norway

This weekend, despite the fact that we had 3 days of rest after spring break, 5 of us were ready to see a little more of Norway! Bergen is a city on the west coast that has some gorgeous and well known fjords! We took off Thursday night and stayed on a night train to arrive Friday morning. We had one day to sightsee in Bergen before our tour on Saturday. We started by seeing the home and museum of Edvard Grieg. He is Norway's well known composer of Morning Mood and music to Peer Gynt. They say he was short and Pheegan liked that about him ;) Then we walked around town and saw the famous pier side storefronts while souvenir shopping and enjoying the unbelievable weather. We read somewhere that Bergen only gets 60 days of sun and we were fortunate to take 2 of them!! Saturday we headed to the train station to start the tour. We hopped on and off of buses and trains to see the mountain ranges, waterfalls, and forests as well as the boat ride in the fjord! It was truly amazing to see and was wonderful to sit, relax, and enjoy the view! The following day a few of us had another day in Oslo, seeing the last of the sites we missed previously this semester! This time the weather wasn't as slushy :) We visited the National Gallery and saw "The Scream" by Munch, the Royal Palace, Parliament (+Pheegan), and picnicked in Vigeland Park to end the visit!