new blog!

i thought Uganda was a significantly different enough place and phase of my life than Norway to deserve a new blog of its own! i’ll add a last post about norway here soon, some pictures and thoughts from Nordkapp on our north-of-norway trip, as promised, and some last thoughts about norway altogether. it's only suiting to end off a norway blog with something about norway afterall! =D but for now,

www.rainbow-in-uganda.blogspot.com


see you over here!

xox!
rainbow =)

bordeaux!!!! =D

bordeaux!! wowwie... where to start?

okay, well, we left lacanau on saturday, after making the most of our last days of beaching...and hanging out with the kids at mickey's club


and we said our au revoir's to the club mickey crew - chrystelle, pedro & melanie =)

and had our last fills of surfing... =D


and debbie!


and then we packed up and headed to bordeaux to stay with Audrey’s family there for a few days before i was leaving for paris en route to uganda... and after a nice restful 4 weeks in lacanau, and i thoroughly enjoyed it, but i was starting to feel idle and antsy and looking forward to doing something more productive again, so i was really getting excited for uganda and my course there after a few more lazy days in bordeaux! little did i know the amazingness that was going to meet me in bordeaux!!!

first of all... we got to stay with audrey’s family, which was super cool, they were sooooo nice and hospitable and we really enjoyed getting to chat with them over nice looong french dinners in their garden!!

and THENNNN... on sunday morning, debbie and audrey and i went out to see the town

and as we were doing that... guess who we “ran into”?!!!

OUR FRIENDS FROM NORWAY!!! joffe, harold, whose place we stayed at in Trondheim on our north of norway trip, and our other friend eric! they DROVE down from norway 24 hours nonstop to surprise-visit us here, they just decided to do it on thursday and got a hold of audrey to coordinate the surprise!! definitely THE most surprising surprise i’ve ever had!! (TAKK!!!) i actually thought i saw joffe when they were walking towards us, but i’d gotten pretty used to ignoring sleazy guys in france so i looked away and kept walking when i saw them looking at me! haha... but anyways, it was super great to see some friends i hadn’t thought i’d see ever again for a long, long time!! =D

(its pretty at night too, eh??)
and THEN on monday...

i got to hang out with one of my bestest friends Gen, from Quebec, who’s in bordeaux visiting her grandparents here, and we had an absolutely fabulous day together on the town, as we always do when we’re together!

and yesterday, me and debbie (audrey had to work) went with the boys back to lacanau and spent one last beautiful day on the beach!!

it was so strange for me and debbie being back in lacanau and sitting on the beach like we’ve been doing every day for the last month, but in the company of our norwegian friends!! like 2 of my lives smushed together into one! anyways we had an awesome time, the boys all surfed and all got up!!

eric

joffe

and harold!!

gratulerer med surfing, boys! og lykke til med kilometer tilbake til norge!! =D


so its been a short little visit to bordeaux, but SO good!! such good times made it sadder to have to leave such good friends and good times again on my 7:50am train BUT.... fortunately (or, really, not actually fortunately AT ALL!)... i missed my 6am alarm this morning, and woke up suddenly at 7:27am!!!! AAAAAAH!! joffe drove me at super speed to the train station and i LITERALLY jumped on the train 30 seconds before they closed to doors (ABSOLUTE MIRACLE!!!) so there was no time for parting tears this time around!! so here i am now on the train, wishing i hadn’t taken my 40-minutes-turned-2-hours sleep and had the time for some last chats and proper goodbyes and hugs, but im definitely just thankful that i can make it to paris and catch my flight!!

so that’s it...

LACANAU, Summer 2007... another chapter of my life completed, with many good times and memories. =) and just a closing word of wisdom from having lived in france this summer : “merci beaucoup” = thank you very much; “merci beau queue” = thank you, nice bum!

hehe.. and now i’m off to Uganda (en route right now at Heathrow airport)... yet another place and phase of my life where another adventure awaits!! thanks for journeying with me!!

much love, beaucoup d’amour, mye kjærlihet (my versions of french & norwegian, i dunno!)

rainbow =)

life and times of lacanau océan

it’s been a long, long while! yikes! i’ve been wanting to put up a new post for ages... but internet’s been so expensive BUT... i’ve very recently discovered a beautiful ocean-front restaurant here that has free wireless internet!

it's a little pricey, but at the usual 1.25 € / 15 minutes for internet I’ve been paying... i figure if i’m here for long enough to put up a blog post, this cute little pina colada’s still practically free! ;)

anyways... it’s been a really nice, low-key couple of weeks here... we mix up what we do a little bit, but playing with kids and hanging out on the beach is pretty standard as long as it’s nice out! here’s what i call a “perfect” day:

8:30am – alarm goes off... wake up, get myself ready, have some breakfast, slather on some sunscreen and grab my Bible and head to the beach to hang out with God for a bit

10:00am – start work at Club Mickey!

hehe... we didn’t end up getting very many babysitting jobs at all... but i found this kid’s play place to volunteer at, so i’ve been working here in the mornings! the kids are super cute & some of them are really chatty so it’s a fun way to be practicing french... and the kids are pretty forgiving when i get a little tongue-tied in french! so yah, fun mornings filled with sand castles and bouncy castles, trampolines and dips in the pool. =)

1:00pm – go home for some lunch... maybe stopping by the boulangerie across the street from our house to get quiche or a fresh still-warm baguette!

2:00pm – my favourite lacanau activity...

surfing for the afternoon!! Club Mickey has some surfboards they rent out, and they’ve been letting us borrow them, super nice of them! and the water’s actually warm enough not to need a wetsuit, so a whole afternoon of free fun!! and for the most part, the other surfers have been really friendly... i’m not very good, but yesterday i was out there on my own all afternoon, and there were a bunch of other surfers out there, and one of them would wave me to paddle over to where the good waves were, and whistle and point behind me when there was a good wave coming so i could catch it & give me thumbs up’s every now and then! super encouraging! =D

6:30pm – bring my surfboard back to Club Mickey and...

grab a nice frenchie chocolate croissant for a snack on the way back to the beach!! hehe.. well, this DEFINITELY doesn’t happen EVERY day... this was just in celebration of my sister Nessie’s birthday, since i couldn’t be home in vancouver for it! =) hehe.. but yah, when the sun’s out, it’s still nice and warm on the beach til about 8pm, so some nice relaxing reading time in the sun fits in nicely here. =)

8:00 or so.... go home, shower off and chop up a nice salad for late european-time dinner

(which we often take back to the beach along with a blanket!)

9:30ish... maybe rent a french movie (with subtitles!) or go for a stroll around town or a walk along the beach to watch the sun go down...

and eventually crawl back into bed in time for a good 8 or 9 hours of sleep!

hehe... well, not every day is exactly like this, but the Mickeys/surf days are definitely my favourite! debbie and i sometimes make crepes for a nice breaky outside on our patio...

wednesdays are kinda fun too... a big town market in the morning to buy fresh veggies and try cheese and wine & french baking & stuff... some of the vendors know us now, and it’s nice to chat with them!


some other things...
i missed out on Canada Day on july 1st but saturday the 14th was France’s independence day... so the whole town was buzzing, and we finished off the day with getting ice creams and taking them down to the beach to watch fireworks! =)

(hehe.. reminded me of many good times at summer fireworks on the beach in vancouver! a little less crazy coming home after though, i must say!)

i got to reconnect with a good friend Vivien in Bordeaux last week, who i met last year while studying French in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec... a girl that i prayed together with every day (see on my blog from last summer)! She was in Bordeaux for the year on exchange... who would’ve known we’d both be here in another French city across the Atlantic a year later!! it was very cool to catch up on the year gone by!!

and then we had a little UMB reunion last weekend when Audrey came to visit!! she’s actually from Bordeaux, but was in Norway with us... the one that me and Debbie had that ski adventure with back in January!

anyways, we’ve got one last week here – we’re moving out on saturday and i’ll be staying in Bordeaux for a couple days before heading down to Uganda it’s been really nice to have a bit of a break, between an awesome but crazily busy semester in Norway and an exciting but probably-just-as-crazy 2 months coming up during my field course in Uganda. Debbie’s sister Jenny is visiting from Morocco this week so that’ll be fun too!

hope you are all doing well and having a wonderful summer!! take care and talk to you all again soon hopefully! que Dieu vous benisse! (God bless!)

much love!
rainbow =)

first bit of life in lacanau

just a quick blog for now, because i didn’t prepare it ahead of time and internet here is so expensive!! but just a few pics of life in lacanau!

me and debbie just had 5 days of surf lessons... we started out scared for our lives of the big waves, and now we’re riding them, so it’s been super fun!!



flowers and all...i LOVE my board!! hehe we’ll keep renting boards every now and then between babysitting jobs (hopefully!)!! we haven’t actually had any yet... we got a couple calls from the signs we put up in bordeaux, but we’re not living there anymore, so hopefully people will see our signs here soon! we’ve upgraded our signs... hopefully some of these ones will catch someone’s eye!! =)

our first french crepe meal yesterday... to break our 10 day just-fruit “cleanse”... which im not even really sure is actually good for the human body, but anyways it was fun doing it together... and it makes the baguettes and french cheese we’re having now even more exciting!

especially when it’s a picnic at the beach!! (with bordeaux wine!)

and one last pic... the sun going down over the water! so pretty! =)

so yup.. this is home for the next couple weeks!! =)

love you all... talk to you guys again soon!!

muah!
rainbow

north of norway! =)

alriteee... north of norway... where to even start? 5500 km of pure amazingness... wow, i have seen more in 2 weeks than i think than i should deserve to see in a lifetime!! not only that it was stunningly beautiful and a whole lotta fun... but i also saw much much of God... which i might save to tell you about in my next update, but i hope i can share at least a little with you in pictures, with the couple of pictures out of the 1800 we took!!

the road trip crew: me, laurent, debbie and joffe!!
our first stop....

TRONDHEIM!!

our feet after deciding to brave trondheim all day in bare feet! we continued on our way... making some pretty darn amazing road-side stops!




these were all seriously side-of-the-road pit stops.. that buttercup one is from a grocery store parking lot! =D
anyways we continued on til we got to brønnoysund... where debbie and laurent caught some fish while i slept on the dock (we actually caught and ate a lot of fish on this trip... in lofoton we didn’t even buy other groceries.. we’re just like, we better catch some dinner!!)

and we began our amazing gorgeous scenic picnic spots...

and we made sandcastles, played some volleyball & frisbee... read a bit and slept the day on the beach!!!
oooh but just a little hike up from here.. is one of my favourite spots of the trip... a little hike up to a hollowed out hole/cave that looks through to the water and little islands on the other side... it’s like looking out into a dream lost world like peter pan or something!

which, to me kind of sums up well what norway has been! it was kinda random that i ended up coming here, i actually ended up choosing UMB for my exchange mostly because i wanted to take their field course in uganda, where i’ll be going in august. i couldn’t tell you anything about norway or even point it out on a map by the time i was accepted to UMB... (luckily my Bible study girls at UBC helped me out with some helpful hints like “the cheese slicer was invented in norway” hehe..) but once i got here, i just absolutely fell in love with it! it’s sooo beautiful in every way!
anyways... yah.. lost world!!

me flying into the lost world!

okay, from here, all the days kind of blur together... partly because we stopped having nights at this point, and we just drove/stopped/slept whenever we wanted, and partly because i’m not much of a map girl, but so i’m not really sure where all these places are or what order they happened in, but i’m sure you guys don’t really care, and in my mind, it was one big amazing memory anyways! =)
another amazing side-of-the-road stop at a waterfall!!

which of course we had to stop and play in

we stopped again later to climb a million (or maybe just 1100) stairs

that we may or may not have been supposed to climb... but i dont think any of us saw any signs saying otherwise ;)

but anyways the view was well worth it!

just look how excited we are!!

hehe... we drove up to Bodø... to the farm where our friend Kristin from UMB lives... i can’t believe she LIVES there.. amazing! i wondered if the cows knew how lucky they were to have such a gorgeous view.

kristin’s goat...

kristin’s goat getting mad at debbie

it was so beautiful we stayed 2 nights & enjoyed our last showers for the next week... how’s this for a pancake breakfast??

joffe and i also took advantage of their oven to bake some cookies for the road!! (12 dozen...!)

our next stop was saltstrummen, which is famous for fishing, i think... we didn’t catch a whole lotta fish, but joffe went in after a big one that we were trying to reel in for an hour. the line broke afterall... but at least debbie reeled him back in!

we had couple pretty ferry rides along the way

until we got to Lofoten... which again, is absolutely beautiful... beauty that these pictures don’t do justice to!


climbing...

and island hopping on lofoten!


that night in lofoten was defintely my favourite home during the trip!!

it was also where we saw ...

our first midnight sun!! and woke up to mountains, beach, crystal blue water... and bleating sheep!!

really cute little friendly ones!!

hehe... and a little morning yoga

this was our next camping spot, where we lost 8 hooks to catch 3 fish for dinner.. hehe, but the place was still beautiful..

another roadside spot for a mid-drive picnic... which never fails to amaze me!

okay... next stop was nordkapp (the northest point in europe! well, almost the northest – we went to the very northest!)... which was really absolutely amazing, and kinda the pinnacle point of the trip but that’s a story in itself that i hafta explain in my next update...so i’ll save the real pics for then! but yah... hehe for now, reindeer on the road on the way up to nordkapp (which we saw plenty of, as well as moose!)

and here we are... the northest tip of europe before you hit ocean!

and hammerfest- the northest CITY in europe..

where we caught 15 fish!! unfortunately i think our cameras had run out of battery at that point so there’s no pictures to prove it! but anyways... from there, finally heading back south... a long long drive back through finland

where we got out of the car and ran across the borders... and sweden (unfortunately passing thru sweden in the middle of the night so we couldn’t stop at an IKEA!)
and we stopped for a couple days at joffe’s family’s cabin, cooked ourselves a grand 3 course fish dinner with all the fish we caught in hammerfest... and yah, rested up and enjoyed having a home for a few days, and finally drove the rest of the way back home... with a stop in HELL, so we could say we’ve been to Hell and back!

(we’re at the train station in Hell.. and “gods” means “cargo” (like goods) in norwegian =) )
and one more important stop to dance in the street

to celebrate our 5000 km mark!!


GRATULERER MED KILOMETER!! =D ie... congratulations with kilometres!! which is funny only because you "gratulerer med" everything in norway - bday's, national days, mothers days.. and so on!
what a trip!! what a roadtrip too!! i didn’t want to sleep in the car (but i definitely did... tons!) cuz i’d be missing the scenery... i mean... even the view from my side mirror was amazing!!

hehe.. what a trip. no words even for it... just amazing & God is amazing. and just as a bonus, i officially know how to drive standard now!! =D (just don’t ask about all the times i stalled in the middle of the road).

anyways... its just 42 pictures... but i hope you enjoyed the little trip up to the north of norway with me! =D there’s still a little bit more to come about nordkapp... but yah, hope you liked it! you can check out debbie's blog for some more pictures. and if you ever get the chance, take a vacation to norway... it’s really incredibly beautiful! =)

but yah... im in france now, and i’ll make the most of being here now. me and Debbie are going surfing today!! =D and we’re still looking for babysitting (or even better, live-in nanny) jobs... so do keep that in prayer. thanks / tusen takk / merci beaucoup!

love you all & talk to you soon!
rainbow =)