Norwegian Saga

I’m a little busy but I wanted to give you guys some photos to look at. I will explain them all in a day or two after my Norwegian exam.

Photos.

I know it’s been a long time since I last posted. I’ve got those photos from Risør as promised and a few others.

Though I just noticed we didn’t get any photos of the town, but that’s ok because one of the other galleries has it. As I said earlier we’d visited Risør over the Easter holiday. While there we took a walk to North Europe’s largest glacial pothole, Rockwood eat your heart out. The terrain surrounding the area is remarkably “Canadian shield-like,” for those that know, I’m thinking north shore of Lake Huron and beyond. I felt quite at home in those familiar surroundings. The wave-washed rock, water (in this case ocean not lake, however the effect was the same), and the plant life all reminded me of Canada.

The day (or two) after that we went for a hike up a semi-mountain by the name of Hisåsen. From there the view to the surrounding area and ocean was wonderful. Someone leaves a book in which journeyers can leave their names and a comment. There’s a photo of that too.

So, to the photos then.

More recently Anne and I went for a short walk in the forest where there’s an animal petting type place. I’m not quite sure what it is but you can get horse riding lessons and they have goats.

In other news, my understanding of Norwegian has vastly improved from what it was in January. Though I still can’t actually communicate my ideas because Norwegians don’t understand me. All of my foreign friends complain of the same thing. We just can’t understand why Norwegians don’t simply interpret us as a dialect. Norway has about as many dialects as towns, and that’s not a lie. Most Norwegians can pinpoint someone’s town of origin by the sound of their dialect. However, that apparently isn’t enough training and ability to understand foreigners.

I’m also feeling some stress from school. I’ve got an essay to do, the nautical terminology one (which I’ve changed around a little bit) and my Norwegian exam which includes an oral component. So somehow I have to create a spoken presentation that will run four minutes.

The weather is now quite gorgeous and warm. The sun is up quite long as well and sky is blue until well after 10pm. It’s caught me off guard a few times when I thought it was reasonably early in the evening only to discover it was 11pm when I looked at a clock.

That’s all for now. Enjoy the photos.