school, more russ & everything in between...

its been awhile since ive posted and every day is filled with random adventures here... so here's just a few more unrelated things!!

it's the end of semester here... and has it ever been a good one! im going to miss the classes here - they're interesting, students care, and it's a lot more about learning and a lot less about jumping through hoops than a lot of the classes i've taken in the past (and will need to take when i get back to ubc... hmm)

here's the last class of my Development Aid and Politics course... 10 girls, talking about the politics of food aid outside on the grass :) doesn't get much better than that!! hehe.. and here's my (last!!) paper for that class, about Conflict & Development Aid. also not my very best paper, and a little on the cut-and-dry side, but it's supposed to be a resource for the teacher teaching the course in the Fall. enjoy if you decide to read it! =)

in other news... im done my last exam... for my norwegian course!! it's been tons of fun learning the language, and i've picked up enough to chat a bit so its been fun. on the downside, i've lost my french in the process... when i try to speak it with laurent, all this norwegian just comes tumbling out!! hehe.. but its not so bad, definitely worth it to learn (or at least try to!) the language of the country you're in - part of "being all there" wherever you are - for me anyways, it makes the experience that much more complete! and also, me and debbie will be moving to france mid june, and staying there for a month and a half, so i'm excited to get my french back!!

im taking an online course through UBC - the education of immigrant students! it's been interesting... a little stressful to get access to materials from Canada and trying to finish off my time here in norway, and trying to get ahead for when i take a road trip to the north of Norway with some friends in early june.. but yah, it's good. and i'm going to try to go to an elementary school here next week to do a little observing!! hopefully it'll work out, it'd be interesting!!

and back to the 17th of may...

here's me and debbie giving out our home-made "Canadisk Russ" russ cards! russ usually all get russ cards made, like business cards, and all the little kids collect them on the 17th of may! so we had the cutest little kids dressed in norwegian outfits SOOO excited running up to us all day for cards, and when we ran out, we had to tell them we had no more... and they'd just be crushed! terrible!! lol.. oh dear!

here's one more pic, with some BLUE russ we found in oslo (there's green ones too.. has to do with what you study i think!)


on a sad note for a very camera-happy girl, i dropped my camera a few days ago in a parking lot and it got run over by a car and it doesn't work anymore!! =( !!! on the bright side, joffe's letting me borrow his for now, so hopefully you'll still get to see my life in pictures here! =)

well, random collection of thoughts, but i think that's it for now! lots of last good-bye bbq's here this last week, but i guess you all know what a hot dog looks like anyways! hehe.. im leaving tonight for a little 2 day hut trip with some of my best friends here (trygve, tor arne, joffe, zuzana and andrew)... so yah have a beautiful rest of the weekend and talk to you guys again soon!!

xox!
rainbow =)

leanne in norway!! =)

wow, may 17th seems like so long ago! time for a long due update!! =)

it's been pretty crazy here - end of semester stuff, exams, etc... AAAAND i got a very lovely visit for a week from leanne!

we went to UBC together, she studied here 2 years ago, grad'ed from the GRS program last year and has been working at a very cool organization called HOPE International, where i got to join her for a semester last fall =)
anyways... trygve helped me make a fancy schmancy welcome-to-norway fish dinner... pretty impressive if i do say so myself! =)

but i was personally more impressed with myself for having done this.. :)

we got to go on a little canoe /hut trip..

where debbie was viciously attacked (almost, hehe..!) by a swooping sea gull when we landed on an island where its nest was!

and anyways, it was much fun.. a little sad cuz it was the last time i'd be hanging out with some of these guys (i've got less than a week left here in As)

but yah, it was good, AND...

and leanne fit right in with my friends! (what are you doing, trygve? you just met her!! hehe)

hehe.. more to come... soon!
rainbow =)

17th of may!!

gratulerer med dagen!!! 17th of may in norway = big huge country-wide CELEBRATIONNNNNNNNN!!! everyone dresses up their best - guys in their suits or traditional clothes, and girls definitely in their traditional dresses from whatever part of norway they are from... and everyone runs around waving flags and "gratulerer med dagen"-ing ("congratulations with the day") each other!


so to start it off, tor arne & joffe, our cool norwegian friends, got up at 5am to decorate their cars in birch branches & get dressed up in suits and ties to pick us up to go to oslo super early in the morning to catch the ceremony and parade.

me and debbie decided to really get in on the fun... they have this tradition here in norway, when you graduate from high school, you're what they call a "Russ". which means you wear red overalls covered in iron-on patches & signed by friends for all of may 1st to 17th, and have a to-do list of crazy random things, like sleeping in a roundabout for a night! anyways, to get in on the grand-finale of the fun on may 17th, me and debbie borrowed tor arne and joffe's Russ pants & hats and pretended we were Russ for the day!



here we are...the canadian russ girls... a.k.a "canadisk russ"!! hehe... we even made special canadian "russ cards", which ill tell you more about when i get the pictures from laurent's camera!

anyways, we spent a super fun day running around in oslo...

where we met some of our other friends... also dressed up in their cool traditional norwegian outfits!! here we are at the king's palace, where he stood and other members of the royal family stood on the balcony and waved to everyone all day!! (maybe laurent got a good picture of him!)

and we watched the giant huge never-ending parade

with the cutest little kids all dressed up and playing in marching bands, so loud & proud!! =)

hehe... i wonder how many canadians don't even remember that our national holiday is july 1st! i actually can't remember where i was last year for it... i think maybe on a train between montreal and trois-pistoles! =)

anyways, it was super fun and i was super glad to be able to be a part of it!! and with being Russ with debbie and having laurent & our norwegian boys to share it with, i think it definitely made my experience of norway "complete"!!! couldn't have imagined a better 17th of may... and the 17th of may will never be quite the same in my head again! =D

much more to share... but it's bedtime, so it will come soon!!

xox!
rainbow =)

good news! =)

it was a hassle and a half to do it, but i did finally go get my finger x-rayed yesterday (big thanks to joffe for taking me to the hospital!)... and its still weird, but at least it's not broken/fractured!! =D im just praying it'll heal back straight!!

bergen adventures!

alritee, my exam is DONE, yay!! and that means... bergen pictures as promised!! there's a lot of them... enjoy!! and tomorrow actually is the 17th of may... which, in canada isn't so different from the 16th or the 18th... but it's norway's national day, and it's HUGE... everyone's been counting down & the country's been madness since may 1st! expect lots of pictures & stories after!! =)

but anyways... here's bergen by pictures!



the trip with zuzana and joffe started off with a scenic 8 hour bus ride over to the west coast...





well what we were awake for was pretty scenic! =)




we got to bergen and met joffe's little bro, svenn åge and his roommates, who go to an amazing christian music-focused christian boarding highschool on a little seaside (fjord-side?!) campus! (where we got to sit in on a couple of their rock band practices!)





we spent a day in the city... & saw their famous bryggen (harbour-front houses)..






and the even more famous (?? maybe, i dont know, i just made that up!) fisketorget (fish market)!!





it wouldn't have been the real bergen experience without a little (a LOT) rain!! they get something like 200 rainy days a year or something?? hehe.. but a vancouver girl's got no complaints about that!






and anyways we still enjoyed the pretty city!! =)





and.... for some reason...







i had wet feet anyways!! oops!!


but actually we were super blessed to have TWO beautiful days of sunshine while we were there... perfect for a hike in the mountains!!






we went up a cable car up one mountain (ulriken)... to the top where you can see all of bergen





and hiked 8 hours (i dont think it actually takes that long but we took it slow & enjoyed it!) over or around or to another mountain or something... over to somewhere else (fløyen) where we took a trolley back down.



absolutely gorgeous hike... here's just a couple of the millions of nice shots i took (next 4 pics)!






































we even found us some nice waterfalls to play in! =)









and super nice scenic spots for lunch breaks!!







we were starvin mcmarvin by the time we got home around 10:30pm (and crazy thing is that it was still light out!), but lucky for us, svenn åge is a super cool little bro & he and his roommates marius & leif made two huge delicious pizzas for us from scratch!! hundre tusen millioner takk, boys!! =D



we had a nice relaxed day hanging around the house the last day before we had to go home, and took a nice little rowboat ride in the afternoon... to get groceries !!



or... i should say, svenn åge & joffe took a ride!!




why are WE doing all the work here??!! haha..






anyways we had such a nice time with the boys we had to bake 'em a cake



and give them (chocolate) medals for being such great hosts!!



actually we wrote them a poem too.. not sure if you can read it from the picture and im not sure if it'll make any sense anyways, its in both english and norwegian and actually i made up half the words so they'd rhyme =)





haha but it was much fun... last picture with the Kongshaus Boys before running to catch our bus home (minus leif unfortunately, who missed the thank-you ceremony! =) )



but yah... great fun!! ha det bra, bergen! we'll miss ya!!

happy Mother's day! =)

im not sure how to say that in norwegian... Gratulerer med dagen mors? maybe! but anyways,

happy mother's day, mom! =)

love you!

back from bergen! =)

hey hey! im back from a beautiful week in Bergen... and ive got lots of pictures to share, but unfortunately i've got to be studying for an exam on monday (well, not quite so unfortunately... such is the life of a student!), so it'll have to wait!! but here's something fun for now...

Q: why did the moose cross the road?



A: CUZ WE'RE IN NORWAY AND THATS WHAT MOOSE DO!! =D ahahha.. alritee maybe i'll keep my day job and get back to studying! but anyways in case you ever need to call a moose, here's a little lesson for you!! enjoy!

have a good weekend & we'll talk soon!!

xox
rainbow =)

anyone know anything about weird fingers??

i thought i'd put this up here too... just in case someone might be able to help me out?? i've been to the doctor here and it took me 3 hours and $25 to get an appointment... only to have him call a friend to recommend a finger splint. so needless to say, im not planning to go back...

but i was playing volleyball and im not sure exactly what happened but probably hit the ball funny on my finger. and anyways, now it's bent like in the picture. i can straighten it if i pull it straight, but it bends as soon as i let go. it's not super painful... it hurts a little to the touch on top of the middle of the 3 bones in my finger, and theres a bit of a bump somewhere in there, and it hurts to push the bent part even more bent... but other than that, it's not painful.

i thought it'd straighten itself out by now, but its been 2 weeks and its still bent funny. i've been taping it straight and making home-made splints out of a cereal box... should be doing anything else??

råde! =)

more fun picture time!! on wednesday me, debbie, zuzana, trygve, john fredrik & jan eivind made another nice visit to another norwegian family...

tor arne's place in Råde!! it was super nice - we chatted with his parents and his sister all night (in norwegian!!!)...

and then took a hike... up into the forest! (the picture's actually from in the morning.. =))

to a big old wooden watch tower... where you can see over the trees to oslo & all the surrounding towns

and we spent the night under the stars!! beauuutiful!

view from the top... mighty high from up here!!

and here's debbie... cooking up a nice norwegian breakfast!

pølser & lompe... ie, hotdogs in potato pancake things... breakfast of champions! =)

hehe.. and rushing home in time for *yay*... 6 straight hours of class on thursday!! zzz... hehe all good though. tomorrow morning, me, zuzana and joffe are hopping on a bus to go to bergen (big city in norway!) til friday morning!! crazy i know, with end of semester and exams around the corner... but this is what happens when you plan ahead and work super hard for a couple weeks and finish off everything for the rest of the semester... it pays off!!! =D and plus actually im gonna study lots of norwegian with joffe on the trip, so it's almost like its an educational excursion ;)

have a great week and talk to you guys after bergen!!

xox!
rainbow =)