December 5
Running with ice pics on my shoes for the first time and then headed to Oslo S to buy my train tickets to Lillehammer for tomorrow since they wouldn't take my American credit card online for some reason. :/ After finishing that up, I then walked around downtown and picked up a few souvenirs for people as well as a an official Norwegian sweater for myself. :D Getting a bit more Norwegian every day...
December 6
Off to Lillehammer! :D I met up with Eva, Franzi, and Zita in the morning and we caught the train to Lillehammer. I just knew that they were planning on going, but I didn't find out until last night that the reason they were coming was for the Nordic Skiing World Cup!? I had already bought my ticket, thinking we were just taking a little day trip, but this made it 10000x better! Lillehammer is famous for hosting the Winter Olympics in '94 and I also knew it from the series on Netflix that I watched a few episodes of before coming to Norway, to see if it would be similar. We got there a little early and so we walked on the shopping street, checked out the lake, looked inside the church, and even found a mini ski jump that I played around on. :) Once it got closer to the competition time, we took the shuttle bus up to the Lysgårdsbakken ski jump (used for the 1994 Winter Olympics) and met up with Nina who was there for a press project. We wandered around for a bit and took some really pretty pictures because we were so high up and before we knew it, the ski jumping started! It was crazy and I don't think I could or would ever want to try it, but they looked awesome doing it! Fabian and his two friends also made it there and we all got pretty much front row spots to watch them landing. I expected there to be more people, but it was absolutely freezing, so I think it was mostly family and die hard ski jumping fans. I was wearing two pairs of EVERYTHING and I still felt like my toes were about to fall off because we were standing on snow. The actual jumping was insane to watch (one guy wiped out) and there was even an American jumper (Nicholas Fairall, although he was one spot away from making it to the final round of jumps). In the last two jumps one Norwegian, Anders Fannemel took first, but then in the last jump, Gregor Schlierenzauer (an Austrian) beat him by 3 points and won the competition. It was an exciting end and while it was a little disappointing that Norway didn't win (because they are amazing at the winter skiing events) it was awesome to even have the experience to see everyone jump! After the competition ended, they handed everyone torches and we lit them and walked across the field and back into town where we got some hot chocolate to warm up and then took the train home.
December 7
Sleeping and thawing out from yesterdays festivities...
December 8
Geneticsssssssssss
I did take a break to watch "Love Actually" with Lotte and Frieda though. :) We were supposed to go see the new Hunger Games movie, but all of our schedules were packed with finals and we were running out of time to schedule anything, so we decided on an easy movie night at home. :)
December 9
More studying for Genetics. I got my exam results back for all of my other classes! I got B's on everything, which I was really happy with because in Norway, the only way you can really get an A is if it is absolutely perfect and then your answers will most likely be offered to the rest of the class as an example. So I was glad to take B's for my Psychology paper, my Political Utopias Exam, and my lab reports for Genetics.
December 10
Genetics... XP
December 11
Crunch time and final cramming preparations! I also did laundry and talked to my coaches about what I need to do over break if I am going to join the team for the remainder of the diving season. :$ Wish me luck on Genetics! I will definitely need it!
Running with ice pics on my shoes for the first time and then headed to Oslo S to buy my train tickets to Lillehammer for tomorrow since they wouldn't take my American credit card online for some reason. :/ After finishing that up, I then walked around downtown and picked up a few souvenirs for people as well as a an official Norwegian sweater for myself. :D Getting a bit more Norwegian every day...
December 6
Off to Lillehammer! :D I met up with Eva, Franzi, and Zita in the morning and we caught the train to Lillehammer. I just knew that they were planning on going, but I didn't find out until last night that the reason they were coming was for the Nordic Skiing World Cup!? I had already bought my ticket, thinking we were just taking a little day trip, but this made it 10000x better! Lillehammer is famous for hosting the Winter Olympics in '94 and I also knew it from the series on Netflix that I watched a few episodes of before coming to Norway, to see if it would be similar. We got there a little early and so we walked on the shopping street, checked out the lake, looked inside the church, and even found a mini ski jump that I played around on. :) Once it got closer to the competition time, we took the shuttle bus up to the Lysgårdsbakken ski jump (used for the 1994 Winter Olympics) and met up with Nina who was there for a press project. We wandered around for a bit and took some really pretty pictures because we were so high up and before we knew it, the ski jumping started! It was crazy and I don't think I could or would ever want to try it, but they looked awesome doing it! Fabian and his two friends also made it there and we all got pretty much front row spots to watch them landing. I expected there to be more people, but it was absolutely freezing, so I think it was mostly family and die hard ski jumping fans. I was wearing two pairs of EVERYTHING and I still felt like my toes were about to fall off because we were standing on snow. The actual jumping was insane to watch (one guy wiped out) and there was even an American jumper (Nicholas Fairall, although he was one spot away from making it to the final round of jumps). In the last two jumps one Norwegian, Anders Fannemel took first, but then in the last jump, Gregor Schlierenzauer (an Austrian) beat him by 3 points and won the competition. It was an exciting end and while it was a little disappointing that Norway didn't win (because they are amazing at the winter skiing events) it was awesome to even have the experience to see everyone jump! After the competition ended, they handed everyone torches and we lit them and walked across the field and back into town where we got some hot chocolate to warm up and then took the train home.
December 7
Sleeping and thawing out from yesterdays festivities...
December 8
Geneticsssssssssss
I did take a break to watch "Love Actually" with Lotte and Frieda though. :) We were supposed to go see the new Hunger Games movie, but all of our schedules were packed with finals and we were running out of time to schedule anything, so we decided on an easy movie night at home. :)
December 9
More studying for Genetics. I got my exam results back for all of my other classes! I got B's on everything, which I was really happy with because in Norway, the only way you can really get an A is if it is absolutely perfect and then your answers will most likely be offered to the rest of the class as an example. So I was glad to take B's for my Psychology paper, my Political Utopias Exam, and my lab reports for Genetics.
December 10
Genetics... XP
December 11
Crunch time and final cramming preparations! I also did laundry and talked to my coaches about what I need to do over break if I am going to join the team for the remainder of the diving season. :$ Wish me luck on Genetics! I will definitely need it!