The bags are packed, exam turned in, and the taxi is coming in 6 hours. Time for Poland! We celebrated the end of our semester with a homemade pizza party tonight accompanied with a few fun hours of catchphrase. I never realized how American that game is until I had to explain "bubbling brook" to a Norwegian! It was great though, and so fun to relax with my good friends. We will definitely have a good time in Gdansk. I will be trying to add some posts from our hostel, so stay tuned to hear updates from Northern Poland. I'll be in Gdansk from tomorrow until the 6th of December and will be chilling at the Baltic Hostel (baltichostel.com) if you want to see where we'll be. Welp. Until the next post...vi snakkes...
Sunrise: None
Sunset: None
Happy Thanksgiving all you Americans out there! Following American tradition, I too watched football today with a bunch of Serbs. Typical. Tonight was a UEFA cup football (soccer) match between Tromsø and Red Star, a football club from Belgrade, Serbia. It was a great Tromsø night for football with the temperature at freezing and light snow in the air, and home field advantage was apparent. Tromsø played well despite the fact that the Red Star players looked like giants next to the short Norwegians, and Tromsø ended up winning 3-1! Excitement.
It was a fun night, even though I ate peanut butter sandwiches and soup instead of turkey, but fortunately on Saturday Rachel and I are going to an American celebration in Tromsø where Americans are gathering to have a Thanksgiving feast. We are responsible for bringing a dessert, so I guess we'll get to experience Thanksgiving pot luck style.
And finally, on another "celebratory" note, it is official: the sun is gone. For all practical purposes the sun's been gone for a while hiding behind the mounting, but today was the first day that the sun did not come above the horizon. Now I guess I start the longest night of my life. It's been going fine though, kind of used to it now. Now, back to writing about how the concept of motherhood does not make women more peaceful. Yep. Happy T-day!
I got on the bus yesterday and noticed a strange change: suddenly, what was normally a smooth, uneventful bus ride had turned into an unwelcomed 15 minute session on a vibrating bed. The ride was incredibly bumpy, noisey, and slow. I knew it was icy out, but this was ridiculous! When I finally got off the bus I looked down to discover a change on the Tromsø buses: chains! Now, all the Tromsø buses are equiped with chains on the tires, ready to eat up the road and ice...and our stomaches.
I guess the chains are necessary, especially now as rain has turned a winter wonderland into ice. I was able, however, to capture Tromsø before the sun completely disappeared and before the snow turned to ice. In fact, I was so inspired by the short-lived beauty of winter here that I started the following blog that I never got around to posting. It seems false now, but you can take a look at the new pictures, read the old blog and see what we enjoyed for about three days. I guess it was a sign when our snowman was decapitated that troublesome weather was a-head...eh? anyone?
Incomplete (and now inaccurate!) Blog Entry from Nov. 16:
After a steady snowfall all night and this morning, Tromsø is now officially a winter wonderland, and I think it is here to stay! It is amazing to me how the trees are absolutely covered in snow. It looks very different from South Dakota because there isn't as much wind, so the trees just droop with snow. It looks like something from an old calendar's December portrait page. Not only is the snow make Tromsø looks more beautiful, it actually adds (a little) light. We need all the light we can get!
I had a long day full of artifical lighting as I studied today at the University. And, in the midst of this studying, I took a break (or a couple) to chat with a classmate...unaware of the open ink pen under my arm. Well, much to my surprise when we stopped talking, my sleeve was newly decorated with a blue ink spot. I thought that was the end of a new shirt from Spain, but no. Once again Norwegian chemicals came to the rescue. I went to the grocery store and bought Bio-Ex, the clothing equivalent of Plumbo. I sprayed my shirt and put it in the washing machine, unable to read the exact chemicals in the product (probably for the best.) And amazingly, when the shirt emerged, it looked new! God bless you chemistry nerds.
In addition to a newly found chemical product, I also have been given a new name from my Norwegian housemate Teresa. As many of my friends know, I tend to wear my socks half on my foot and half off. Well, this trait tonight earned me the nickname, (which I think is taken from a Native American language), of "Naked Foot." Catchy, huh? Although I wanted to tell them that the correct phrase was "bare foot," I decided I liked the new name better. So here's to podiatric nudity!
We have this great game we play in our kitchen. The name is kind of a working title, but it is called something to the extent of: "Dig through the pile of lids and try to find one that fits your pot." It's great. A game for the whole family. We have one cupboard with a random collection of pots spread out over two shelves, and all the lids on another shelf. A couple of days ago I took 5 different lids before I got the right one. Now, I don't know if this says something about my abstract mathematical ability or something about the difficulty of this game, but needless to say, I need to practice. Maybe by the end of two years I'll be able to get the right lid on the first try everytime! What a day that would be. Off to make some pasta...here we go again...
Tonight on the sloppy walk back from downtown, I took an unexpected turn away from the Kebab and hot dog stands that are usually visited late at night and instead went to what could be a tourist attraction: the world's northern most Burger King, and the only American fast food chain in Tromsø. They had two guards at the door who opened the doors as if they were bell boys at a hotel instead of security trying to keep unruley drunk people from coiming. I promptly ordered a hamburger and fries for 34 kroner, which is roughly $5. Sounds cheap to me! But, let me assure you, it tasted just like the 99 cent burger and fries you get in the states. I guess I had it my way, and I think I'll be done for a while.
A few weeks ago, some "peace friends" and I realized that we had a week off after our last exam. What better to do than travel together right? So, 7 of us started looking for places to go. Most places seemed to expensive so I kind of abandoned the idea. Then, I got an urgent phone call from a friend at school. She said, "We're going to Gdansk!" And I, probably much like you, said, "G-where?!" After a brief question and answe session, I learned that Gdansk is town in northern Poland on the Baltic Sea, that Gdansk has incredibly cheap food, drink, and hostels, and that it only cost about $200 round trip from Tromsø to get there (maybe a sign that it isn't the high season?). That was enough for me!
So now, Rachel, Hanne, Marjaana, Silje, Teresa, Stian, and I will be heading out on the 29th of November for a few days in Gdansk. Not sure exactly what we'll do, but apparently the girls want to go to a spa, so I think I will go with Stian to the shipyards and see the place where a rebellion against the communist rule started. I think our trip will consist mostly of relaxing, eating, drinking, talking, and maybe some karoke? Scary, I know. I am excited to travel to a random place, and pumped to see a little bit of Eastern Europe. I have my Lonely Planet in hand, but if anyone has any tips or knows anything about G-what, please let us know! Back to writing my exam and identifying the causes of war. Uplifting stuff.
