Jeg snakke ikke nederlansk (Netherlands Trip)

Dutch is a funny language. It's a bit rougher sounding than Norwegian, and listening to it made me realize how fond I have become of listening to Norwegians speak.

Sarah and I started our journey to the Netherlands Tuesday afternoon after suffering through a six hour final exam earlier that day. As far as the exam goes, it wasn't as bad as I expected but I'm still not sure about the outcome.

Sarah' friend Julia studies in Tilburg, which is about an hour and  a half south of Amsterdam. The town she was staying in seemed reallly nice. Very bicycle friendly. I have never seen more bikes in my entire life than I saw in the Netherlands this week. It was very difficult to be a pedestrian there because there were so many things to look out for when walking around. Normally you just have to look out for cars, which are easy to spot and it is easy to predict what they will do. Bikes on the other hand are not so easily spotted and they can come at you from multiple directions. And if you get hit by one, or even brushed, you will get injured. Another complaint that goes along with this is the amount of space they set aside for pedestrians. Sometimes you can only walk single file, making it extremely difficult to stay out of the bike lane like you're supposed to.

Tuesday night we met some of Julia's friends at a local student pub, but Sarah and I were pretty tired so we didn't stay long. Wednesday Sarah and I took a train to Delft which is a smaller city to the northwest of Tilburg. Like I said Delft was very small, so we didn't stay more than four hours. It was very cute though. A number of old churches and buildings from the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries. There were canals all over the place, which I thought made it even cuter. We found out that there are a lot of cheese stores in the Netherlands, and most of them let you sample the cheese. We only visited one in Delft but there were three or four in Amsterdam that we went into. Don't worry, we did buy some cheese eventually ;) On the way home Sarah and I discovered a few people eating french fries from a fast food  place. It looked like they were covered with gravy and mayo but when we asked for it, we got curry sauce and something that resembled mayo. It was really good, but I bet gravy would have been better.

Thursday Julia came with us to Amsterdam. We stayed at a really nice hostel called Durty Nelly's which was actually an Irish pub. The first day we mainly just wandered around. The weather wasn't very nice when were were in the Netherlands any of the days. It rained on and off and was quite cold-5 degrees colder than Oslo! It was definitely weather where you would need gloves. Imagine needing gloves on the 23rd of May. Ridiculous. Amsterdam isn't very big, and wherever you end up is usually pretty close to somewhere you've already been. We did get a bit confused a couple times because a lot of the areas look the same-narrow houses lining a canal. I found out that the houses are so narrow because in Amsterdam they would (maybe still do?) tax houses based on width. The smallest house we saw was only 1.6 m wide! We noticed pretty early on that many of the houses were crooked or slanting. Most of them were slanting forward. They were all pretty old. They had the same iron pieces as we saw on the houses in Stockholm, indicating they were from the 16th and 17th centuries. We asked our tour guide the second day and he explained that it is so hard to get goods such as furniture into the homes through the doors because they are so narrow that they hoist them up through the windows usually. We noticed then that almost all of the houses had hooks at the top and they were built slanting forward so whatever was hanging would not bang into the house.

We spent a bit of time walking through the red light district the first day. I was surprised at how relaxed it felt during the day. At night it got a kind of carnival type atmosphere. I never felt unsafe. Our tour guide explained that the Dutch are known for a sort of controlled tolerance. They regulate and organize things so that the government has control over them, while still being very tolerant. For example, hard drugs were becoming a big problem so the government decided they needed to take drastic action against them, but decided to leave soft drugs like cannabis alone. They decided that they would not arrest anyone for marijuana use and beginning in the 1970's they didn't. Our tour guide mentioned the first arrest was made only a few years ago. Someone was found with a very large amount of marijuana in their house. Another example is the secret catholic churches. After the protestant reformation, practicing Catholicism was banned, but Catholics still met in "secret" churches. The government was aware of many of these meetings but simply turned the other way.  Another thing they are tolerant about with is prostitution. Honestly, I did not know what to expect from the red light district in this respect. It's such an interesting way of doing things though. Prostitutes cannot work for anyone; they must work for themselves. They pay taxes on what they make. What happens is prostitutes rent windows for eight hour shifts. I'm pretty sure anyone can do it. I found this to be very interesting, especially from a sociological perspective. While it is not looked fondly upon by the government or the citizens of the Netherlands, I think what a society chooses to tolerate speaks loudly.

The second day we took a walking tour (which is where I got most of my information from the previous paragraph). It ended up lasting about 3 hours. Our tour guide was from New Jersey originally and had been living there for ten years now. He came to study and just never left. I learned a lot of history that we wouldn't ever have gotten if we wouldn't have taken the tour. After the tour, Julia left and Sarah and I made our way to the Iamsterdam sign. It was way too overrun with tourists so we didn't get to take a picture with it, but we saw it. It was situated right next to a huge museum and a really nice park, so it was nice to hang out there. Another thing we didn't get to do was the Anne Frank museum. We saved it for the second day because Julia had already been and she was going to leave before we did it but by the time the walking tour was done and we ate it was later than expected and there was a long line. I am a little disappointed about this, but we did get to see the outside of the house, so at least I know where it is. Next time.

For lunch we ate at a traditional dutch cafe. I had a traditional dutch meal-stamppot. I guess it's usually just potatoes with leftovers. My mashed potatoes had carrots in them and a big meatball on top. It was a hearty meal and was very tasty. Another dutch thing Sarah and I tried this morning was bread with chocolate sprinkles on them. It has a name-something like hagelslag. You toast the bread, butter it and then douse it with chocolate sprinkles. Quite tasty.

Overall it was a nice trip. I wish the weather had been a little better but that is something you can never bank on.

Sarah and I were so excited when we first arrived at train station. We needed dinner and as soon as we walked into the convenient store we realized it was soooo much cheaper in the Netherlands than it was in Norway! We took full advantage of this and  brought back some food in our carryons. What isn't cheap in the Netherlands is trains though...

A few more observations:
If you ask for iced tea, it comes with carbonation and is very tasty.
There seemed to be black and white cats sitting in a lot of windows
Lots of cows-like normal dairy cows
The Netherlands was very green

BBQ and a Dip

Guess who swam in Sognsvann lake today.....ME

We had a BBQ at Sognsvann and it was great. Hamburgers (Cheeseburgers), Veggies, and Bacon. Mmmm mmmm. It was another gorgeous day out. The lake was packed (see picture below). Everyone was outside enjoying the weather. A big contrast to my run this morning.

Anyway, it was certainly not my intention to go swimming. I was not prepared but I stuck my feet in and decided it was worth a go. It was the coldest water I've ever swam in. The outside air felt especially warm after and my body had a weird tingly sensation. I loved it though; it was so exhilarating! Another American (Max) went in too. He didn't have the same love for it.

Don't worry I'll have pictures of my feat up soon ;)

This last one is me on the island that I swam to at Sognsvann. Not that great of quality. It was taken from a phone on the shore. You actually don't have to swim to the island. The water is shallow enough  to walk, but it was so cold that swimming seemed like the best idea yesterday.

Perfect Mornings

I had basically perfect mornings yesterday and today. Yesterday's weather was gorgeous all day long. It got a little hot at the end (I think I'm gonna have to get used to the heat again). Both mornings I got up early and walked to Sognsvann lake. The lake is a different kind of beautiful in the Spring. Everything is green and the water looks awesome. I don't know what it is about water that can make any place seem attractive (biological?). There were two swans in the lake this morning. They were pretty interesting to watch actually-fishing for food, flying around honking (or whatever sound swans make). They were very majestic, though I made sure to keep my distant. Swans are not very nice. Today I did a little bit more walking than running around the lake, but I don't feel bad about that at all. It's Sunday morning so there weren't many people there at all. It was so peaceful and a great temperature (shorts and a hoodie). Yesterday was quite a bit sunnier, the epitome of perfect weather. I wish I had pictures for ya'll but I don't tend to bring my camera when I run.

Later today we are having a bbq at Sognsvann. Did you know they have disposable grills here? I'll let you know how that works out later.

Have a great day everyone!

National Day! Gratulerer Med Dagen Norge!

Today is Norway's National Day. In 1814 Norway's Constitution was signed, creating an independent state from Denmark (though it would be in a union with Sweden until 1905).

Most Norwegians start their day off with breakfast with friends (no matter how early they were up the night before) and then head downtown for festivities. The big event of the day is the parade. There are over 100 schools that participate. (Once you see about 30 every kid kind of looks the same), but it was cute for the first hour or so. All the kids are dressed up. Some schools have bands and baton twirlers. The best part of National Day (in my opinion) is that everyone is dressed up. Norwegians tend to dress up in traditional clothes. I'll put up some pictures don't worry. The outfits are specific to each region in Norway, so you can tell where everyone is from by their dress. Women tend to wear long dresses/skirts with embroidery and buttons. Some men had suspenders, some with fancy vests. They all seemed to have the tall socks and pants that came to just over the knee, and both genders wore shoes that reminded me of what you might think of the Pilgrims wearing. If people weren't wearing traditional dress, they were dressed up in some other way. Lots of guys in suits. Why don't guys wear suits more often? They look so good dressed up. Most women were wearing dresses. The parade was really fun. Lots of Norwegians flags waving and so many cute kids running around. Gosh Norwegian children are adorable!

The weather was great today (except one minor setback). It wasn't too sunny and it started out with the temperature where you need a light jacket and warmed up to jackets-are-way-too-hot weather. There  was about a 15 minute period where it downpoured right in the middle of the day. That sucked. Luckily I brought my umbrella, but everyone went for the T-bane station (Sarah and I included) and it ended up being a disaster. We stood there for probably 20 minutes with hardly anyone moving in any direction. They ended up not letting anymore people into the station because there were too many. I got pretty nervous at a point that we wouldn't be able to get out of the crowd. But we did, so never fear! I couldn't believe how many people were out and about though. It was ridiculous.

I ended up on my own for a while and decided to walk up near the Royal Palace. I've actually never walked up there so it was cool to see it up close. Earlier the King was out waving to people, but we were on our way there before the sudden downpour so we didn't get to see it. Directly behind the palace there is a really nice park. I'm not sure if I mentioned but everything is green now in Oslo. I don't know when it happened but two days ago and just looked around and it was like that. Anyway, I was tired so I laid down in the park and took a nice little nap. I walked around a little after that because it was so nice out, but I was really tired when I got home. I think my face got a bit sun burnt too. It's still pretty light out right now (going on 9 o clock). There's people outside my house playing volleyball. It's such a nice night, I'll have to go out and enjoy it some more :)

All of my pictures are on facebook, so check them out!

Stavanger, Preikestolen, and Couchsurfing with Hal

This weekend Sarah and I traveled by train to western Norway near the city of Stavanger. It was an eight hour train ride there and back which was just gorgeous. For one, you didn't get bored of looking out the window. Supposedly the train ride to Bergen is supposed to be the most beautiful in Norway, but Sarah said that this rivals it in the awesomeness of the landscape. There were many mountains and lakes and pine trees. When we got closer to Stavanger the landscape got a little more rocky and looked more like farmlands. The town we stayed in, Klepp, which is about a 25 min drive south of Stavanger, was situated with the Sea on one side and the mountains on the other. It was pretty cool. There were a ton of farms around, but not like our farms. Like I said, it was rocky and hilly, and there were so many sheep!!! I also noticed a fence/walll built with stones next to nearly every house. Sarah said it felt very Scottish.

We stayed with a man by the name of Hal who works on the culture council for one of the cities. He does things like giving grants to artists or children's groups, and also controlling things like the cinema and film festivals for the area.  Honestly we couldn't have had a better first couchsurfing experience. Hal's home was so nice. The downstairs reminded me of a cabin, all wood-paneling and the upstairs was a bit more modern (a lot of stuff from IKEA). He had a friendly cat, too. Hal was so generous and accommodating and is one of the main reasons we had such a great trip. On Saturday he drove us to a waterfall called Manafossen. It was about a 15 minute hike up a rather steep hill/mountain to a waterfall. Everything was so beautiful. The drive there was beautiful, the hike was beautiful and the waterfall itself of course, was beautiful. We got to fill our water bottles up at the stream at the bottom. I love it when we get to do that.

After the waterfall, Hal drove us to another place where glacier had moved hundreds (maybe thousands) of giant rocks into a big pile. Learning about that stuff in Earth Science class was so boring, but it was awesome to see up close what nature can do. (Take note of that all you teachers out there-field trip!)  Hal told us that there was a battle during WWII between the Norwegians and the Germans there, but the Germans had a hard time because the Norwegians were able to hide in between all the rocks. Also on Saturday Hal gave us a short walking tour of the town of Stavanger. It's really pretty, and doesn't feel too big. The old part of the town is a bunch of white, wooden houses on cobblestone streets. There was also a pedestrian street where all the houses were painted different colors. Finally, we closed Saturday by visiting a monument of three swords near the sea. The monument was built to commemorate the famous battle by the viking kings to unite Norway in the 900's (don't quote me). A man by the name of Herald Fairhair was the victor and the "pioneer of unification" of Norway. Supposedly there were twelve different kings competing that day.

Sunday was the highlight of the trip. Our main reason for visiting was to hike to Preikestolen (Preacher's Pulpit) which, if you don't know or haven't googled it, is a huge cliff overlooking the Lysefjord. We were worried about the weather, but it ended up being a perfect day. The sun was out until we decided to hike back and the rain held off until we were driving home. What you do is you drive to a car park (beautiful drive) and then you hike the rest of the way up to the cliff. The hike up is timed at 1 hr 50 min and back at 1 hr 40 min. The first oh, 8 minutes or so is really really steep. I was questioning my resolve at first, but Hal assured us that that was the steepest part, though not the most difficult in our climb. There were three or four big climbs were it was mostly just flat out climbing up rocks. It was never something I thought I couldn't do though. Some people had brought their children and their dogs with them if that gives you any clue, and it was very well tread so it wasn't too hard to figure out how to follow the path. Even though it wasn't too difficult, I was very proud of myself and my body. I was worried about being sore the next day, but surprisingly I felt very good. So, good job body. The hike itself was beautiful, even from the first 15 minutes there was a great view. Once you got closer to the fjord though it was gorgeous.

Once you get to the part we call Preacher's Pulpit, you spent a bit of time peering over the edge, usually by getting down on all fours and then laying on your belly. It's an awesome feeling to look over, and it's pretty far down. The main part which you would think of as Preacher's Pulpit is a pretty rectangular space and juts out from the mountain. There is a crevice starting to form and eventually they think it will drop off into the fjord, but not any time soon of course. It's not all that though; there are plenty of other places to look over the edge, and you can even climb up a little higher (Hal did and hopefully I will be able to show you some of his pictures later). Sarah and I dangled our feet over the edge, too (Hal has a picture of that also). Now THAT is a crazy feeling. It's funny because "me" at home thinks she would never be so bold as to stick any body part  over the edge of that cliff, but I did it, and it was awesome. At one point Sarah and I tried to peer over the edge as far as we could from our sitting position with our feet dangling. It was scary and we both felt like we were sticking our heads way out there, but looking back at the pictures, it's not even impressive. Hal got some really great photos of Sarah and I, and I will share them with you as soon as I have access to them.

The hike back wasn't too bad. Yes, we just wanted to get home, but it was far less tiring than the way there and I appreciated that. Some of it was kind of fun and I got pretty bold hopping from rock to rock. On one of the longest climbs, it probably took us a half our to get down. The fun part of was picking which rocks to step on and which path to take, because there wasn't really a defined set of rocks. Some people had a hard time with it and others (experienced climbers or idiots) leaped from rock to rock. Anyway, it was a great experience, both the hike and the time we spent at Preacher's Pulpit. This whole trip, but especially at Preacher's Pulpit, I just kept asking myself, how can anything be so beautiful? Is this real?

I think I am officially in love with Norway. Jeg elsker norge.

Monday was uneventful. Our train didn't leave until 2:30pm but Hal had to go to work so he dropped us off in Sandnes and we took the train to Stavanger in the morning. It was downpouring when the day started, though it did clear up later. We sat in a cafe until the shops opened and then wandered through the streets until we deemed it was acceptable to sit again. We went into a really cool cafe that had tons of books and board games and drank tea and played Yahtzee before lunch. It ended up being sunny by the time we left and the train ride back was beautiful.

I've found that the weather has been very unpredictable lately. Usually whatever the day starts out doing, it won't continue later. Like today, the sun is out, the skies are blue and it's only 8am. I bet this afternoon will get cloudy and maybe even rainy. It's like Norway wants the weather to be equal, so you get a taste of everything. And if I haven't mentioned before, the light is very confusing. It's light really early of course and also really late. I think the fact that it's light so late is way more confusing than when I got here and it started getting dark at 2 or 3pm. It's so hard to tell what time it is. Last night we came back at 10:30 and it was dark outside but the sky was still light blue like the sun had just recently set (which it did).

I forgot to mention something about the train ride back. A came up to us and asked if Sarah and I would make sure her grandfather (who was also traveling on the same train) made his connection at Oslo S so he would get to the airport. He was 95 yrs old and spoke basically no English or Norwegian. He was so nice and sooo smart though! I think we decided he was from Serbia. It's funny because Sarah just went to Croatia (which is closes to Russian) and so she knew a couple words that he also knew. It was so interesting, because we were basically able to understand the gist of what he was saying. Of course there were times where we also had absolutely no idea. We learned that he was a professor of politics and philosophy at some point and that he studied a bunch of stuff, and has traveled quite a bit. He went to visit Volvo in Sweden in 1970. Yeah, that's about all I got. But it was such a cool experience. I hope he made it home okay.

And that wraps up this story. I'm only a few minutes behind schedule. I have a test in a week and soooooo much to do before then. Enjoy the post and I will get Hal's pictures to you as soon as possible. Have a wonderful week!