How do you manage with 4 girls, man?!

Let me start with a little introduction that might explain a whole lot why I will write this blog -only this once- in English.

Some of our classmates are made very conscious about the fact that we have a certain amount of tasks to fulfill for our home institution in Brussels, and that the regularly writing of this blog is one of them. In fact, we might have made them that conscious that their consciousness has rather become curiousness. But because we were keeping our digital diary in our mother tongue -who wouldn't?!-, they did not quite understand it.

They, as in Marilen and Isabel, both from Switzerland and our co-travellers, kindly requested Debbie and myself to write in English, just this once, so that they could read it as well.

So, sit back, relax and perhaps a cup of coffee and a dictionnary (not to translate, but to correct some mistakes) might come in handy for this session.

Here goes nothing!

Friday, with filled-up backpack and stomach -mmm homemade pizza-, Gemma Holland, Marilen & Isabel Switzerland, Debbie and myself set the sails for Stavanger. We took the night-train, a concept that is totally unthinkable and even more unnecessary in Belguim -long live our small country-, and settled for a eight hour trip through the rough landscape of Norway, which unfortunately was invisable for us due the dark shades of night.

Let me explain, in a very easy way, how the night-train is supposed to work. You sit down on your seat, slide your seat slightly down, open the sleeping-kit that comes included in the price, which contains a small blanket, two earplugs, a night-goggles meets blindfold-thingy and a small but extremely useful blow-up-yourself-pillow. After the process of installation sleeping seems to be the easiest job to do. And before you even realize it, morning breaks out and the train has reached its destination, a.k.a. Stavanger Stasjon.

Too bad it did not all went that smoothly in my case. I had the hardest time catching some sleep and I can assure you that night can be long!

But, end good, all good, the train dropped us off as planned, we camped about two hours in the station because the tourist information centre didn't open before.

A funny, but friendly old sailor, or at least he looked like one, showed us the way to the tourist information centre but unfortunately not towards good news. All hostels and cheap hotels were fully booked, except for one, which we already had found on the internet, but is located far out of the city centre. After discussing our possibilities and options we decided to do it the old fashioned backpackers-way. Let's ask some people out on the street if they can offer us a place to sleep!

Nutbags?! Yes, we are!

And with result! Islen, an awesomely friendly 25-year old young woman, became our host. We could drop off our bags in the café she worked in, because we intended to hike all the way up to the Pulpit Rock/Preikestolen (One of Norway's most visited natural phenomenons. A fjord within rocky area, where this one rock (Preikestolen) is about 604 meter above the sea level and goes straight down into the water.).
We took the ferry towards one of the islands in front of the Stavanger-coast, the island where this magical fjord is situated, got on the bus, which took us as far as it goes, but not quite yet at the bottom of the mountain. We decided to have lunch first. Get some energy and prepare for our 2-hour-hike up and another two hours down.

When that was done we had to get to the foot of the mountain, the starting point of the hike. Impossible to walk there, they told us, we would be exhausted even before we started the actual/intentional hike. Transfer to plan B: hitchhiking!

We devided ourselves up in two teams to get there. Team Non-Belgian got lucky with the first car that passed by. Team Belguim, we had to be more patient, but we got a ride after all. A friendly young couple drove us up there and gave us some more tips.

It appeared that we had a slight advantage regarding the other three, because there were dropped off at the very bottom of the mountain, while our drivers showed us a shortcut.

We finally got together and off we went!

Magnificent panoramas all over, which were registrated as much as possible, a challenging hike ('walk' would be insufficient to describe) through snow and ice, through valley's and rather steep climbs, on sneakers -woopsiedaisies-, on rocky parts underneath a nicely shining sun, and so much more. Words are simply coming in short to describe what an experience this hike and even more the result of the hike, the Pulpit Rock itself, were.

Sometimes an image says more than a flood of words (and these are just a few).

We had a lifetime experience, that nobody can take away from us!

More than five hours later we arrived back down, slightly longer than told and perhaps also expected. We called a taxi (plan C), because there were no cars driving by anyone, so that was the end of plan B, the hitchhiking. We took the bus back to ferry, from the town centre, ferry back to mainland.
After our arrival back we decided we had no time to lose. Marilen met this musician on the train, which was performing in a club in Stavanger that Saterday evening. As if we didn't have enough luck for one day she, the artist, got us in for free! Hip hip hooray for Stina Stjern! And on top of it all, she was very good!

The last bus, at midnight, took our tired butts "home". The little space of Islen was more than enough for us and as tiredness took over dreams were introduced. Goodbye wowwy-Saterday!

As another day sets in, we met Islen properly. We have breakfast and chat, all together. She asks us about our plans for today, and we were intending to go to Sola Beach. Marita, one of the Norwegian girls in our class told us about that beach, as being one of Norway's only and most beautiful sandy beaches. But Islen doesn't agree with what Marita told us. She's telling us about another beach when suddenly her sister calls with the request of taking her to the beach. Islen explains the story to her sister, about housing five international students for the night, and Islen's sister invites us along. They take us for a ride to an idealistic, almost paradisic sandy beach where we play en enjoy nature's beauty like little children. Yup, just perfect!

After a while, when the kids of Islen's sister starting to get a little chilly we return to the cars and the sisters took us to two other beaches. They showed us around like real tourguides. This was better than we ever had dared to expect! We could not wish for more!

From rocky fjords until white sandy beaches with a clear blue washing up, Norway has it all to offer!

As we returned back at Islen's home, we packed our bags, did the dishes and got a lift to the city centre of Stavanger. You can not even start to imagine what kind of wonderful people Islen and her sister are! It's a comforting thought that there are still some trustworthy people out there, who also have faith in the well-intentions of others.

Thanks Islen, we owe you!

We wondered around the old city a bit, grabbed a bite and hopped aboard. Destination Kristiansand!
We arrived in the late evening, walked through the whole city to finally end up where we started in our search for our hostel, which we did book here. Debbie and Gemma needed to recharge their batteries, while the Swiss tandem and me went out for some clubbing -Is that even a word, Isabel?-. We ended up in a bar where a country-concert was being served and we got surrounded by cowboys and -girls. But our three minds agreed on not staying and because we didn't found anything else -bloody Sunday- we spoiled ourselves with sweet dreams as well.

Monday we didn't hurry to get up, took our time for breakfast as well and I got marked as a non-easy-eater. It isn't that yoghurt, milk and bananas are everything, are they?!

Also Kristiansand's tourist information centre got a visit from us. The helpful lady made our oppurtunities, options and possibilities very clear and we walked of to discuss what the plan would look like. The first stop was supposed to be the shore where you could see the sea and the city. We passed by a container-storrage-space, which was a whole new revealing world for the Swiss army. Do not forget, they do not have a see over there! So not only sea, shores and beaches but also shipping containers are "unseen"/special for them.

The fishermen's village next to caught our eye, or must I say our nose, because of the strong smell? Marilen stayed out, because of her dislike of fish, but we didn't bother to buy some real Norwegian salmon. Yummie!

We ate it by the harbor and walked up into the rocky shore next to it afterwards. That is where I got my second label: moosh. We were fantasizing about what animal we would like to be and as indecisive as I am I would turn out to be a fairly odd mutant with the bodyshape of a grizzly bear, with the white color from a polar bear, about the size of koala bear, with his ability to sleep about 20 hours a day and eat poisonous plants and with the antlers of a moose (which I accidently pronounced as moosh). And I would also be able to bare children, like the male seahorse. Told you it was odd!

We got up, and set in a walk through the old city centre (every Norwegian city seems to have one), with the white wooden houses, alongside the river to the park. Did I say the park? Just the park? I meant thé park! Three amazing lakes in between a landscape of rocks and astonishing flora. Keep on dazzling me, Norway!

Afterwards we were in desperate need of proper meal, so we made ourselves own-made-spaghetti-bolognaise. First class!

The company and coziness were the perfect combination for a Monday evening activity.

Tuesday I got my yet another nickname, and perhaps the most shameful one. I woke up and found out that Isabel and Marilen had had a terrible night because of my symphonic breathing, almost but not quite fully grown up snoring. I honestly felt bad, but the breather was baptisted.

We cleaned up our stuff, took again more time for breakfast than I ever thought was even possible, passed by the Kristiansand-church and ended up at the Museum of Arts. Normally only students of architecture and arts are aloud to go in for free, but the very nice lady found the thought of having 5 international students for a visit so charming, or was it Marilen's big effort of talking Norwegian, that we were also granted free entrance.

Somewhere along this day I was called the King of Knowledge, which I assume as a major compliment. But just to frame: name number 4!

Lighten up my mind and poster me up unto a wall, but there were some very nice and interesting works in the exhibition. I might say that culture -am I still aloud to narrow that concept (culture) down that much, after the last two months of courses?- made my day!

We passed by the fishermen's village ones more and sat ourselves down for a 5 hour trip back home. That is by the way where Marilen, who, by my conclusion, is simply crazy, suddenly decided to call me Casper. Label 5, as if I didn't have enough already... Thanks to some games, some sleep -I managed it this time- and my iPod -3 cheers for music- that went by pretty smoothly.

I would categorize the arrival home as a dual feeling. It felt safe and known, but also the adventure and mind-launching and -enriching was over and that is certainly rather sad.
I had promised Debbie to pick up her visitors together with her, because they didn't allow her to go out that late by herself.

Yesterday I slept the experience off, took some time to clean up, went to the shop to by some food for the coming days (because they all close during the time of Easter), did my laundry -that was necessary- and made some efforts regarding schooltasks.

Debbie and her friends invited me to join them to go to the IKEA to have dinner (crazy idea, isn't it?).

I wish I could tell more about today, but besides the fact that I set my alarm clock so that I could write my blog before noon and that it took me more than 4 hours to write this (including toilet-quick snacks-drink-and-daydreaming-breaks) and that I will work for my final paper for the MCI-course from now on and go to the gathering tonight in Dora's kitchen, nothing really concrete happend to me today.

So, I hope you followers from home could manage to figure out what I've been writing about and that you could master the essential. And Isabel and Marilen, I hope you girls are satisfied, I tried my best.

Ha det bra, world!

T.

King Moosh!