Hiking, lots of hiking :)

Hei, hei!! Another delayed response, but this is me catching up :) so …Sunday. Sunday I slept in, or at least tried to sleep in later. It is quite difficult dealing with the early sun because I wake up in the morning and freak out because I feel like it is 11a with it being so bright, but in actuality it is only 6a. I feel like once I get used the constant light is when darkness will appear. Ashley and I made no plans for Sunday but thought that it would be great together to walk around the northern part of the island, so we did just that. It was nice to have the day to ourselves. We started by walking across the northern shoreline and grabbed a few shells then headed towards the student hostel, Ordalen to see if any of our new friends were out. We didn’t see any other ISU (international students) but we did run into a group of Norwegian kids. There were two eleven-year-old girls, two nine-year-old girls, and an eight-year-old boy—all adorable. They immediately approached us once we were in view and as soon as they realized we were from the USA, they got excited about practicing their English. It was a lively conversation and we spoke for almost twenty minutes. Ashley and I said goodnight and continued our journey back to our hostel while learning a bit more about the other.

On Monday, our last day of orientation, we were scheduled to meet early on the campus so that we could board busses to venture further northwest mainland to Grøtfjord, a small beach place lined by steep mountains that looks beautifully north to the Arctic Sea. When signing up for the trip, you could choose one of three choices: be on the beach all day to play sand sports, go hiking up the mountain, or go fishing. I, along with a majority of the other ISU students chose hiking. We first dropped the students off on the beach who either chose to stay there or fish and then were dropped off ourselves a little bit a ways from the beach at the bottom of a mountain, there was a beautiful lake near as shown here:

It didn’t seem difficult at first; walking through forestry incline but quickly got steeper and one could feel it in their legs. It was incredible how the horizon kept getting prettier and prettier the farther we got up the mountain. Once at the top, almost three hours later, everyone was taking pictures of the beautiful landscape. And there were reindeer!! The guide did mention halfway up that there were many last year and didn’t know if we’d be able to see any but thankfully we did:) it was breathtaking, all of it. The climb down took less than half to get up but seemed much more dangerous because of rushed unsure footing.

Once at the bottom, it was amazing to look back up and see where we had been and I wanted nothing to do but then to get in the water. I grabbed a quick bite to eat, put swimsuit on and with friends by my side started walking towards the water—which got more intimidating the closer it got. We took off running, screaming, and almost tripping, we were in the numbing cold waters of the Arctic. So cold that we ran faster to get out than to get in. Freezing water but who can actually say they have swam in the Arctic?! The rest of the day was filled with sauna, beach volleyball, and conversing with new friends. We finished out the beach day with presentations about each country represented by every student from that country. A lot of students whether it was one representative (like Australia) or 38 (like Spain) confirmed or argued points of culture that were stereotyped by other countries. There were a lot of songs sung, dances danced, and lots of laughter. There were seven Americans and because we are so diverse culturally as a country anyways, we decided to do the Hokey Pokey. It was a hit ;)

From the small island of Tromsø to Grøtfjord, way North ;)

See? I really did swim in the Arctic!

 It was beautiful in Grøtfjord, just like it seems is everywhere else in Norway. And I look forward to much more hiking in the future. This morning Ashley, Johanna (from Germany) and I went into campus this morning to finalize registration and take care of other things on campus. Once finished stopped by Café Bodega to have a delicious waffle---cheap! and with nutella of course:)  It has been nice to relax tonight and being able to Skype home:) I don’t start classes until next Tuesday; the 21^st so this next week could get a little interesting! Our plan is to go into the city center tomorrow so that we can get and start using local phones so that we can keep in touch with the other students here:) We will explore the city center more than we have been able to and will definitely be taking a lot more pictures!

Welcome to Grøfjord

I miss home a lot and think non-stop about friends and family. There is a lot of good change happening in my family!! I have been thinking a lot about the Cobbers who will soon be invading Moorhead, and the XCers who are at Park Rapids this week. After coming here and dealing with this system, my heart aches for Concordia like never before. Thank you all for reading and have an incredible day, night, afternoon where ever you are in this world right now!!:)