Velkommen!

I arrived in Norway Thursday morning around 8:30AM local time. The flight was one of the shortest I've had in a while (7 hours from Newark!). I landed in Oslo and Marius picked me up from the airport. We went to his parents' house before driving to Bergen, and his mom had a very nice breakfast prepared for us. There were nice bread rolls, peppered mackerel, various cheeses and sliced turkey or ham, fruit, and my favorite from Christmas called gomme! It was mostly Norwegian style breakfast, but they said the fruit was because Marius remembered fruit at our breakfast table in MI. What a nice greeting to Norway!

We spent about 8 hours driving from Oslo to Bergen, where we have an apartment. The views were so different from when I visited in December. Everything was green (as compared to covered in snow), and the fjords reminded me of South Island New Zealand. My camera was acting up so I didn't manage to get pictures along the way; however, Marius has a couple on his iPhone from the glacier and car ferry. I'll try to put them up soon!


When we arrived to Bergen, we unloaded the car and decided to take a walk to Ulriken so that I can try to run up it today and get back to training for the Stoltzen Opp that is at the end of September.

Carolyn gets in town tonight, so today I have to tidy up the place and try to organize everything I brought over. Borghild is going to take me downtown to show me the campus and help me find where my classes will be held.

I would be lying to say I'm not nervous. Last night it kicked in that I'm here for a while this time and things will be hard -- English isn't the first language, I have to try to know my way around the city for classes, and other situations like that. It will be a challenge, but that's what will make this experience stick out from my time in New Zealand.

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