Norway!

I returned home from a BRILLIANT trip to Norway yesterday, meget traet (very tired) men meget glad (but very happy!)

On Saturday morning, I was up at 4am to get to the Ungdomsskolen (the youth school) where the bus would be leaving from. On the trip with me were about thiry 14 year old students from the Ungdomskole in Silkeborg, and 4 other exchange students (Deirdre (US), Soetkin (Belgium), Nikki (China) and Hannah (US), and 3 teachers from the Ungdomsskole.

Our journey followed this route:



Our ferry ride over was very calm and nice, and not one student got seasick.

The wake from the boat:



First parts of Norway:



Then we drove 1/2 hour on our bus to a spot in the Norweigan wilderness where we simply set up our gear and began to climb some cliffs. It was beautiful weather (20 degrees) and beautfiul scenery, very different to flat Denmark.



Cliffs (not the ones we climbed):


View from the top of the cliffs:


Exchange students looking out over the view:


Setting up on the cliffs:



Me climbing:


After an afternoon of climbing, we went to our campsite to set up. It was a beautiful campsite set on a perfect peaceful in the shadows of beautiful mountains.



10pm sunset over the campsite:


We cooked dinner over the fire (Friggadella, which is basically Danish Rissoles) and potatoes with sauce. Dinner was at 7pm, but at 10, just after sunset, we ate Danish hot dogs before going to bed.

On Saturday we woke up to get ready for Water Rafting. We went to a special centre to do this, and we were rigged up by a group of English camp instructors as well as one Aussie guy from Tasmanian!



Unfortunately, my camera couldnt come on the boat. But we had a crazy time on the rafts with 10 other people, trying to steer around the rapids in water that had, until very recently, been snow. I was in a boat with the Aussie bloke, and he had a good time steering us down the river. "If we hit that point there, we will definitely capsize. Let's see how close we can get!" We eventually all fell into the water, but mostly due to friendly pushing in the calmer sections of the water. Our last set of rapids we "surfed" through, and then involved keeping the boat stuck in a point on the middle of the rapids. I fell in during one particularly big wave here, but was quickly pulled back in. It took me an hour to defrost my toes after that though!

After the morning of rafting, we went to an area where we could climb a different rock face, as well as abseil down a wall and climb up trees with some special equipment.





We came home at about 5, very exhausted from climbing and canoing. Dinner was Korn Karry (corn curry) and we also had hot dogs before bed.

On Sunday, we placked up and left by 10.

Our last meal:


The campsite once more, which symbolic norweigan flag:


We drove back to Kristiansand, where we had an hour to spare before the boat, so we went for a little trip around the town.

Icecream in Norway:


And the trip home:



The waters were about 4 metres high on the way back, and many people were quite sick. The crew gave our sea-sickness pills before we left to keep us safe, but many still felt dizzy.

I arrived home at about 6pm in time for dinner with my family and told them of my adventures in Norway.

I have only one more school day, and 3 more whole days until I leave for Eurotour! I'm very very excited about it, and perhaps it will be a little while before I update this again, but maybe I will get a quick one in from a hotel somewhere in Europe!

Re: Last post

Claire, Bådfartplan means Boat Timetable. And things grow incredibly fast! One week the trees were bare, and the next there is full folliage.

And Jacqui, the 4th image down in the last post was a birthday cake. It's a funny danish one, apparently an old tradition. in this part of denmark its actually a tradition to all scream when someone cuts of the head of the cake. Very strange to be sitting at a table when everyone starts screaming when someone cuts the birthday cake!

Love to all , Daniel