It’s our trip! Part 1

Hey hey hey! It is Monday, best day of the week. Let’s get this trip started. We woke up at 7am and met at the bus at 7:30 to pack it full of stuff. After that, I ran to Hilde’s office and she helped me book a doctors appointment to try and solve my face issues. That will most likely be after break. By the way, Hilde works in the office at Agder. Very sweet person :). We had a quick breakfast, packed a lunch, and we were off!  I’ll add some pictures of the inside of the van, but we are pretty crammed in here. I am in the back left corner of the bus, which is one of my favorite spots because I can lean on the window and sleep. My favorite 🤩. They had an issue with the air conditioning, so it was soooooooo hot. By hot I mean people were taking off clothes and sweating like crazy. Like hot hot. At first we just thought Marianne (Who is driving) was just torturing us back here, but we later learned the AC doesn’t work and they needed to uncloud the windows or whatever that’s called.  After an hour and a half drive, we arrived at this adventure park type place. The plan was to go rafting. The weather was rainy, cloudy, and gray. Fun. We were given wet suits, jackets, life jackets, helmets, and shoes. Under the wetsuit we all wore thin layers of wool to keep us warm. It was a crazy experience. We had some training at first, and then the boats began to enter the actual river. Well actually it’s a man made river controlled by a dam. I managed to get super lucky for a couple of reasons. First of all my boat guide guy was amazing. He’s from the UK, and he had a great sense of humor. Second of all, I was on the first boat, so we got to experience everything first. And lastly the people on my team were just stellar. Helena, Marlene, and Nora. Along with 3 German people who are not a part of our school. They were just also there for the day so they joined us. They were all really strong and experienced at rafting so the rest of us didn’t have to work super hard😂. Only one person fell out (Merete from Germany hehe) other than that all swimming was intentional. The river is pretty short, so we did it twice. The last time we stopped at a rock in the middle of the river that is in the perfect spot to jump off. A highlight of life for me right there. Running, jumping, landing in freezing water, lots of water up the nose, frantically swimming to get out of the current, and finally being pulled from the water. I may or may not have done it twice🙄. After that, we hauled our boats onto a trailer and walked back to the cluster of building. Changing into warm, dry clothes was one of the best feelings ever. We climbed back into the bus. By the way, the global class is also with us on this trip. Their teacher is driving them in the other van. And now here we are, it’s 15:33 or 3:33pm, and I have my legs over Helena’s lap in the back of the bus. This next leg of the journey is a 4 hour drive. Fun. The scenery is beautiful though, and I have some good music downloaded so I will be fine. Okay. I’ll update tonight or tomorrow. :)

View from one of our stops! Beautiful😍  

Helena drinking from the biggest water bottle over ever seen.

Moi, Helena, Marlene, and Pia! This was before rafting I think. We would have been sopping wet if it was after. 

A nice shaky view of the van. And there’s Keegan sleeping too. Fun stuff.

Another great view, oh and Ethan is there too hehe.

Alrighty. It’s Tuesday. 7:02 am. I feel like death. We are off to climb a mountain. After the long drive yesterday, which included about 4 bathroom stops, way too much construction, and many wrong turns, we got to our destination when it was getting dark. Turn out a destination was a cluster of cabins on the side of a big, beautiful lake. Rather stunning if I do say so myself. It was also pouring outside, so that added some fun. The night was uneventful. Each cabin was given some stuff to cook with (Meat, soup mix, etc.) and left to fend for ourselves. So that is exactly what we did. Made dinner, ate, and went directly to bed. Bed felt amazing. And yet here we are. In the hot bus again. At 7am on a Tuesday. More updates to come. Yay. Kidding though, I love this kind of thing. I love random events and weird stops. I can even appreciate a long drive. Okay bye now 🕺🏻. 

The bathroom in our little cabin.

Little cabin! 

Little cabin kitchen!

Our 7am view

This is where I slept. Very comfy. 

Heyooo! At the top of Gaustatoppen currently. Many pictures to follow. From the top of this mountain, you can see 1/6th of Norway’s land mass! Insane! This is also the 7th largest mountain in Norway! It took us about 3 hours to climb the 3.2 mile hike. We packed breakfast, lunch, and snacks last night, so we ate while walking. Now I am sweaty and my legs feel like jello. 

Okay so this is a weird way to  show you where we stayed last night. But there is a cluster of people a little bit under the words Norway. That’s us. We are parallel to Oslo.

Here is our whole group!!

The view from the top is stunning😍

Once again we are in the van. After the hike, we got to take this weird train thing back down. This weird train thing was inside the mountain tho, so first we went down to the base of the mountain, and then out. It was interesting. Very chilly. But holy crap we got lucky! It was so sunny today, but yesterday was pouring rain and fog. We are making the 2 1/2 hour trek into Olso!! Whoooooo! Kinda pumped to be there. We have a mystery activity this evening (As in Marianne won’t tell us what we are doing) and then we head to a hostel where we will be staying for the next two nights. I’m thinking I’m gonna post this tonight just for funsies. Let me know if you have any questions! Bye :) 

Beautiful view!

Noah had been Marianne’s assistant for the last few days. He does an amazing job easing the tension. Marianne's job is not easy. Go Noah! 

I got more ice cream… and iced tea too

This is how we got down the mountain! It looks like a toy train from the outside. 

Okay! Well. The surprise was an interesting one. So interesting that I am not sure if my crappy writing will do it justice! But here we go. After a chaotic 2 hour drive, and by chaos, I mean CHAOS, but will get into that later though, we arrived in Olso. We found a place to park near the center of Oslo, suited ourselves up, and the Marianne passed around camping mats and blankets. She still hadn’t told us what we were doing, so the whole blanket and sleeping pad thing made it even more confusing. She then led us through a maze of little streets until we arrived at a big brick building. Okay. So we are gonna take a pause. I need to go listen to Sebastian tell ghost stories. So we are actually just gonna be done for today. Suspense am I right?