Posts

NN days 11 and 12!

Image
On the 11th day of our trip, we all got to sleep in. And let me tell you, it was amazing! As I write these posts days later, I am beginning to forget the details of each day, but I will do my best. We got up and met at the Sami parliament building. Unfortunately it was closed for tours because of COVID, but we got to see the library which is pretty cool. It is filled with hundreds of books in the Sami language. Pretty interesting. After that a group of us decided to wander around town before heading to a Sammy museum where we had a scheduled tour. Earlier that day I had asked Marianne if we could use snowmobiles at any point on the trip. She said it would cost a lot so we decided not to. But she made a joke that if I were to become friendly with one of the locals maybe we could use theirs. So that is what I did. We had just come out of a Sami knife-making store when a man drove by on a snowmobile. I waved at him and he waved back. I didn’t think anything of it so we just kept walking.

NN days 9 and 10!

Image
Hello Hello! I found that blogging while traveling that much was kind of overwhelming, so I decided to restart once I was back at school. And here I am! Now the school is on break, so it is just me and a few other NLC students at school. I finally have some quiet time in one place to tell you all more about the fantastic adventure! So let's pick back up on day 9. The last time I wrote was about day 8. At that point, we had just stayed with the other students at Pasvik Folkehøgskole. Lots of fun. On day 9, we woke up early, caught an 8am bus, and drove back into Kirkenes. This day was by far one of my favorites of the whole trip. We wandered around Kirkenes for a while more until getting picked up in a fancy van that would take us to the Kirkenes snow hotel. On our way there, we stopped at a famous cave where Norwegian people took shelter during ww2. We got a quick tour of this interesting area, and overall I felt like I learned a lot about ww2 during the northern trip. The northern

NN Days 6, 7, and 8!

Image
Hello again! I took a couple of days break because we spend 2 days on the coastal ship. During those two days I hardly got out of bed. Not because I was sea sick or anything, I was just having some lovely sleeps in a real bed 😴🥰. But let’s go back and I’ll do a quick recap of everyday and share some pictures!  Day 6 was our first full day on the boat. We got to eat a lovely breakfast served by the ship. It was maybe the best I’ve ever had!!  So many options!  I’m looking a little tired here 😴 Here is the ship! Polarlys is the name of the boat, it means polar light!  I spent literally all day in bed up until the boat docked in Tromsø. We ate some “American” style pizza and then had a few hours to wander around. It’s a pretty little town, but it was dark and chilly so we didn’t really get the full experience.  Here is our tiny, messy little cabin. Three of us in one cabin.  We had to provide our own lunches so most of us just made ramen. But we all had to share on water boiler. So I m

Northern Trip Days 4 and 5!

Image
On day 4, Thursday, we woke up around 11 for a late breakfast. Most is us had had the first solid night sleep since we left Agder so people were in good spirits. Sondre texted us to meet at the White House for breakfast, and as you can imagine we were all a little confused. After searching a bit we found the so called White House and went inside to eat.  From left to right we have Chance (North Carolina), Patricia (Philippines), and Yewon (South Korea)  Noah (Georgia), William (Tahiti), Yhan (Texas), Liv (Alaska), Sondre (Norway), Helena (UK) is sitting right there but she’s a bit hidden behind Merete (Germany). Around noon, we decided to take a walk up a mountain not far from where we were staying. There was a lot of snow, but it was really fun. Here’s some good pics. We went as far up as we could go while it was still light (It gets dark around 3:30) and then started back down.  The way down was much more fun than the way up. There was so much snow and ice that we ended up just slidi

Northern Trip Days 3!

Image
 Hello again! Let’s talk about the next day of the trip. After the overnight train from Trondheim to Bodø, we went to breakfast at a little cafe inside the train station. We reserved a little room in the cafe where we were able to leave our big packs while we looked around the town. Some people stayed back with our stuff, while a group of us wandered a bit. Marlene, Helena, and I walked along the harbor, played on a strange playground, explored a church, and then went back to meet the rest of the class.  Here is the Sami museum in Bodø. I only brought one pair of pants so I just wear two pairs of long Johns most days :) Weird playground?  At noon we walked to the harbor and boarded a ship called Hurtigruta. That’s just the name of the company, the actual ship had a name but I don’t remember it hehe. These kinds of ships sail along the coast of Norway stopping at one or two cities/towns a day. It’s basically a cruise ship, but relatively small. I wish I had a picture but I don’t. If you