Do you ever wonder what Noah would have done if it would have been below freezing when the whole 40 days and 40 nights thing started to happen? Would he have built some kind of eco-dome to support the animals, and if so how would they have enough oxygen and how would it smell...or maybe he just would have built a house? Thoughts like these enter your mind when you enter approximately the 6th day in a row of constant snow. It is deceivingly beautiful, and it falls so slowly and lightly that you think there is no way that it could possibly accumulate...but it does.
And it has now engulfed our mailbox, our porch, and soon our entryway. This has seriously tested our unspoken rule about not buying a shovel for the house. No one in the house has ever offered to buy it, and we have never really had a conversation about n
eeding it, so we just continue to create a small walkway through the huge pile of snow to the street. . .It usually works alright, until the piles of snow go to your waist and the path gets narrower and narrower...and let me tell you it's difficult to mirror the stride of someone when the dryness of your groin is at stake. Now we walk out of the house and arrive to the street with two matching white legs. It's too bad white jeans aren't back in style or we would be in fine shape.
It doesn't look like it will let up any time soon, but tomorrow the mail comes again, so I'm excited to see what the mailman does. 
In the meantime, I'm going to wiki "the construction of bio-domes." Hopefully see you in 34 days.
APPENDIX
As a late addition to this blog, today I have to ask again what's up with the snow. It's not falling as flakes in the shapes that we used to make out of construction paper. Instead it's falling in small, condensed balls, like dippin' dots from the sky. Does this mean that the future of ice cream is finally here? As exciting as that could be, it is quite strange to see people using umbrellas to seek refuge from the pellets of snow. Take cover, the dippin' dots are here.
Even though winter in Tromsø lasts from October until May and is completely dark for about half of that time, the one consolation we have is that it's never as nasty as winter in South Dakota. Sure we get a lot of snow, but it's never that 20 below, blowing snow, blizzard, cancel school kind of weather. Well, until today. I made the mistake of coming to school today in my first ever Tromsø blizzard. The wind was whipping off the fjord sending snow upwards and downwards at the same time. Meanwhile, I was attempting to walk up the hill to the peace center, which is a little steeper than most of the hills in South Dakota. The only thing falling faster than the blinding snow was the snot dripping out of my nose, which gave me brief distractions from attempts to see how close the peace center was...and by peace center, I don't mean world peace. I mean the center of tranquility, warmth, and internet connection. And how great it is. Too bad I have to go back out there eventually, to relearn what winter is all about.
The past four days have been filled with everything from man eating Korean monsters to military juntas which can only mean one thing: the Tromsø International Film Festival! It is a huge event that fills downtown Tromsø with thousands of eager movie fans. This year I am volunteering which means I can get into the movies for free! I have been running from theatre to theatre trying to decide what to see, and am off again soon to try to get a left over ticket for the short film festival competition. Thus far the best film I've seen is "The Cronicle of an Escape" about Argentina in the late 1970's. Full reviews of all the films will be up soon...after I rub the glaze from my eyes.
My housemate Jostein comes from Kirkenes, which is the Norwegian town next to the Russian border. I'm not sure if this is the reason or the excuse for what happened about five minutes ago in the kitchen. He asked me if I had ever had reindeer heart. Since he asked in Norwegian, I wasn't quite sure I understood what he meant. He then leaned into his fridge and pulled out a frozen reindeer heart in a plastic bag. Now, this wasn't like tripe when it doesn't look anything like what it actually is...this looked exactly like a heart with the valves and veins in perfect view. He pulled out a knife and in stereotypical Finnmark fashion cut off a piece of the heart and ate it off the knife. Well, I couldn't miss this
"opportunity" so he cut me a piece, and I choked it down. It tasted a little nasty...maybe like very over-cooked roast beef. Maybe it would have tasted a little better if I hadn't seen him holding it front of me like the Indian Jones movie while I ate. "Kalima!" Now, off to eat our homemade pizza. I better make sure the heart doesn't sneak in underneath the corn...and seriously, who eats corn on pizza besides Norwegians?!
Hello again from Tromsø!
It's dark today, but the crisp air and deep snow are welcomed signs as I return to my life in Tromsø. It feels great to be back and sitting in the reading room..."reading." I'm still carrying a few signs of Americanism like the dollar bills in my wallet and the baseball cap I'm sporting today, but I think soon they will fall victim to the cultural imperialism of Norway.
I had a smooth trip back, albeit with quite a few stops. In an effort to save a few bucks, my itinerary included stops in Sioux Falls, Minneapolis, Chicago, Amsterdam, Oslo, and finally Tromsø. Oddly enough, I spotted a Luther classmate, Megan Clarke, on the flight to Amsterdam so we had fun catching up and sharing Europe graduate school stories (she's graduating right about now from her one year program in the UK). Finally, 27 hours after leaving home, I staggered to the Peace House and was greeted by the newest member: Gjermund. He opened the door to my incessant doorbell ringing and just stood in the doorway until I explained that I lived there. He seems like a great guy though, and as Stian and I learned last night, a fellow Settlers of Catan player.
I was quickly thrown into Norway upon my return. I headed out to town to meet Rachel for a beer at Blå Rock and then we headed to a cafe where there was an acoustic night featuring all the hippest Norwegian songs. I started to fall asleep about 10.30pm so I had to head home for my cozy bed. I think my body has to adjust to the new dimensions because I definitely drilled my elbow against the wall in the middle of the night!
I followed up the excitement of my return with a busy first full day in Tromsø. I enjoyed a run across the bridge in the snow and became the newest member of the local gym called SATS. I then headed to the university where I took a Norwegian entrance exam. It ended up being three hours long, but I think I did pretty well. There were 17 students and I think 12 are accepted into the course, so hopefully I'm in the top 60%! I do think that the questions were a bit biased against me though because we had to write an essay about European immigration and fill in the blanks in a story about Baghdad. It's as if they were trying to isolate the American!
So life begins again in Tromsø. It's always fun to return to friends and a schedule and a sense of purpose (which will hopefully be the thesis). Tromsø is as beautiful as ever and even the kitchen was looking clean through my rose colored glasses. It was a fun and busy holiday season and now I can look forward to my family coming to visit my other home in Norway in June! Until then, time to...read. oh yeah. read. Here I go...
Happy Holidays from South Dakota!
It's been a busy holiday season around the Meyer house with activities basically every day since I came home. Lots of fun relatives, gift opening, singing, talking, and even a Christmas Day 5k
for the family. We needed to run off all the great food we've been eating. It's been more of a Christmas extravaganza than a Christmas vacation, but fun none-the-less. And as one of my international friends noted, just like a postcard! It's always great to see the family and friends and enjoy a postcard Christmas, but I feel this year more detached from the US than I have before. I guess I really am carving out a life in Norway.
One of the biggest changes has been worrying about weather again. It's great in Tromsø that all I have to worry about is not falling on the driveway and running to catch bus 32, but now that I'm home and have to drive everywhere, I'm glued to the tv (ok, the internet) trying to figure out if it will be icy. The colored maps appear every five minutes during the news, and I'm never quite sure if there is actually a threat or if they are just trying to get people to watch the news by selling fear. I guess either way it worked. Plans have already been altered to try to beat the storm coming tonight in order to escape to the east.
The other crazy change was going out on the town in Brookings with my brother! Now that John is 21 years old and can legally drink, we enjoyed a night in downtown Brookings together, along with about 10 of my high school friends and my college roommate Paul 
who surprised me and showed up for some hang out time. It felt a little strange going out with high school friends because we never really have since we grew up always being underage. Just feels different without those crazy Norwegian and international folk. Fortunately, one of my friends went to college in Brookings and was able to give us the full tour of all the desireable and undesireable night spots in Brookings. A good learning experience. We had a great time together and spent the next morning recovering with lots of water and episodes of "The Office."
I hope everyone had a great holiday season and will have a fun New Year's. Like Rachel said, if you're reading this I've probably been thinking about you, so feel loved because you are. I'll be enjoying a little more relaxation the next week and will fly back across the pond on the 8th of January. Until then, relax don't do it when you wanna go to it.
I made it back! It was a relatively smooth trip back, and as always, it feels great to be at home with the family. I spent the night last night in Amsterdam with a fellow couchsurfer who treated me to a relaxed and comfortable stay. I just hope I remembered to turn her toaster off...can't remember...
after sleeping in and seeing the sun for the first time in two months, i flew over the Atlantic and made a tight connection to arrive in Sioux Falls to see my mom, brother John, and sister Andrea all waiting. We had a great time eating Mexican food and catching up. Should be a lot of eating and catching up in the coming weeks. So fun!
So now, I've almost made it to midnight. Time to go to bed and try to find this so-called Central Time Zone. I'll believe it when I see it...or feel it.
God Jul from South Dakota.
