Velkommen til Oslo!

Oslo is amazing!! Yes it is considered one of the most expensive cities in the world...but maybe that's why it's so cool!
I left Bergen one Friday morning and took a looong train ride to Oslo. There at the Oslo train station I had to catch another train to reach the place where I would be staying at. A friend of Stig's was kind enough to let me stay at his house while him and his family left for vacation. Very kind family, and I had a companion in the house too! His name was Tiger! A tabby cat that likes to drink out of the bathtub!
Anyways so I arrived to my final destination at around 6:30pm. I had pizza dinner with the family, watched some Norsk Talenter (Norwegian version of Americas got talent) and went to sleep.
Saturday morning I didnt leave for Oslo until noon. I didnt have a plan as to what I was going to do or what I was going to see. The best thing to do is to just wing it.
I stepped out of the train and walked out into Oslo center. I was surprised at how many people there were I haven't seen this amount of people at one time in a long time. I can actually say that the streets were crowded. Something that I can't say about Bergen right now. Plus, there were A LOT of Middle Easterns!
I walked around the center and walked into different shops and walked along many streets. I walk with purpose, so as not to seem like a big time tourist, because if you're a tourist then shop vendors attack you!
I walked into the main mall of Oslo, called Oslo City. It was PACKED!!!!
I bought myself some rain boots because I really needed them back in Bergen and some tall black heeled boots. They were relatively cheap. In the US they would be expensive but here they were at a good price! The rain boots were $50 and the black boots were approx. $75. So good prices!!
Later that night I went out to party! I met these fun Spanish guys that were also just visiting Oslo and we went bar hopping, but since the hour changed that night we lost an hour and the bars closed earlier.
Sunday morning I went back into Oslo and toured around the whole city. I was by myself but I still had a good time. I was able to go at my own pace and do whatever I wanted. My favorite place was Vigeland park where there are 212 bronze and granite sculptures created by Gustav Vigeland. Here are some pictures!









And yes I did go to the Embassy but I obviously wouldnt have been allowed in. So I just snapped this picture and ran! haha
All in all, I would like to go back to Oslo but with someone else. Not that I didnt have a good time, I did. But snapping pictures of yourself just looks conceited!
So Monday morning I headed back to Bergen. I was sick, I had gotten a cold while in Oslo and by the time I reached home I felt horrible. I layed on the couch and fell asleep.
And that concludes my trip to Oslo.
Apart from that easter weekend I went to Geilo, a 3 hour train ride from Bergen, where there is still lots of snow! Stig's company rents a cabin there so I went up to meet up with the Fretheim's and another family that was staying with them! It was a nice weekend and Sunday morning we had a nice Easter breakfast with colored hard boiled eggs and cinnamon rolls and more!
I apologize for not keeping up with the blog! Its been almost a month now. Sorry! Ill try and keep up with it more often! Until next time!!! Hadet!!

Kidnapped by Austrians part 2

Sorry its taken me forever to finish this. Let's see where did we leave off on? Oh yes! ambulance!
So after the half an hour drive to the hospital they rolled me into the ER and just left me there. There were about 6 other people in wheelchairs or sitting down waiting. Several of them were obviously injured on the slopes too because they either still had their ski/snowboard shoes on and/or snow gear.
Now I don't know what all the requirements are in Austria to be an EMT, but I am quite sure that one of them is that you have to be tall and handsome (dark really isn't an option here in Europe). It was as if I had walked...I'm sorry, rolled into heaven.
Finally after a few minutes a nurse took me into a room and they asked me if it hurt here and if it hurt there, she moved my knee around, pushed on it, touched it, made it hurt some more, and then said I needed to have x-rays done. So off to x-rays it was! It only lasted a few minutes. Once I got out, the ambulance gods were there ready to take me back to my house.
They drove me back to Bad Gastein where they rolled me all the way to the front door of the house I was staying at.
And there ends my kidnapping. I wish I had taken some pictures of them but I am sure that would have been quite creepy!
That night I took the longest warmest shower ever, and slept the most painful night ever. But it was a pretty cool experience. Not many can say they ate shit on the alps and was kidnapped to an Austrian hospital!
The next day we took a two hour drive to Salzburg. We first stopped at the zoo and that was fun. Sebastian's zoo map got snatched by a goat, which was actually pretty funny.


Afterwards we went to the city center and toured around. Ranveig and I went shopping and touring around taking pictures. We climbed up to the castle where the view of the whole town was amazing. We got lost several times but eventually we found the group and had dinner together at this little seafood deli right next to Mozart's house!





The rest of the trip was fun. Minus the fact that I had a busted knee and had to limp everywhere. But I really enjoyed the trip a lot! At night when the kids were asleep the rest of us would stay up and play Gin Rummy! It got intense but it was a lot of fun!
Bad Gastein is a cute town and I definitely recommend going there if you like to snowboard/ski or just want to see a beautiful small Austrian town... I was going to say German haha. A lot of the times i would forget we were in Austria and keep thinking that we were in Germany. Stig said that that was what Hitler thought as well. HAHA!!
But now its been almost a month since Austria and well to quickly catch you up on whats happened and what is happening. I finished my Norwegian class. I am officially graduated from Norwegian 2nd grade!! Wish I could take another course but I will learn on my own if I have to! I went to go see Alice in Wonderland with my friend Natalia. The movie was amazing, and the theater was HUGE! It fit 200 people easy! In that one room. Who knows how many other rooms they had.
This past weekend I hung out with friends an made more friends! It was both Deyan's and his mom's birthday and they had a nice dinner at his house.
This Friday however I am going to Oslo! By myself but I'll still have fun!
Once again thanks to all who keep up with my blog and thanks for the emails!
Hadet!!!

Kidnapped by Austrians! Part 1

So this past week I went to Bad Gastein, Austria!!! AMAZING!!
But let me first say that this blog will be very long with lots of pictures and details! Ill do a day by day play by play!
Friday, we left at around 11:30ish am to the airport. There we met up with Ranveig, Stig's cousin, and the other family that we were going with. Rune, Fanny, and their two kids, Andrea, 3, and Johan, 2. We were a total of 9! Funny/Ironic thing is that Rune and Stig are both from the city of Voss, and Fanny and Zoyla are both from Caracas, Venezuela! So we were a tri-lingual mess to begin with, Norwegian, Spanish and English.

Sebastian, Andrea and Johan
We flew from Bergen to Amsterdam where we caught another plane to Munich. There in Munich we rented a van and drove the two hours to Bad Gastein, Austria.
We arrived at House Binder at around 11pm ish, tired and ready to sleep. We were greeted by Hella Binder...yes Californians, her name is Hella. For those of you who dont understand the irony here, let me explain. In California, we use the word hella as a sort of "hell of a lot". For example, "I'm hella tired" or "she's hella stupid".
So I thought it was cute that here name was Hella...Hella was hella nice though.
Anyways, so the next morning we woke up, had breakfast and got ready to go skiing!

This is the house we stayed at!

A sign in front of the house! i loved it so much that I had to share it with you all.

Isn't it amazing. And no this picture was not edited. This is it.

Lengrennski!!!! Jeg kan go paa ski.

Sebastian skiing. 2 years old and he's got it. Its the Norwegian in him.
That night Ranveig and I went to Felsentherme. A spa in Bad Gastein. It cost 15,50 Euros for full access to all the pools and saunas.
Here are some pictures from the internet. i didnt take my camera into the pool area, obviously.





Now the bonus part of this was that there is a nudist area there. Yup, you guessed it, I did it. No bathing suit allowed, only a towel or nothing at all. And funny thing is, that's where Ranveig and I spent most of the night. We went into the saunas, swam in the pool, more sauna and then we went outside. It was soooo cold, but we swam in the outdoor pool.
During our whole visit there were these two younger guys, we werent quite sure what they were, Finnish, German, Austrian, who knows, but we kept bumping into each other but you can tell that we were all trying to act mature and not look and act as if it were the most normal thing in the world....but come on! Well we saw the guys in the outdoor area again, they had just come out of this cave. So I asked them what was inside, they answered "very hot". So we went inside, and sure enough it was "very hot". There were several other people in there, but there was this one naked Finnish guy performing some sort of ritual fanning exhibition with his towel, passing the heat around the whole room and fanning hot air into each persons face...mind you he was naked, but it was relaxing.
Afterwards we went to Christl Bar where we had pizza, Ranveig had beer and I had Irish coffee, and rum and coke.

Ranveig

Meg (me in norwegian)
Sunday, Ranveig and I stayed at home while Rune and Stig went skiing and the moms and the kids went to Felsentherme.
She had to study and I had an online test to finish. We finished at around noon and decided to join the moms and kids at the pool and went back to Felsentherme.
Monday we rented a snowboard for me and I went snowboarding with Ranveig. Now I know how to snowboard...in California, but in the alps? CRAZY! Instead of the straight shot down there are trails that you snowboard down, trails that are only a few feet wide and where they curve and where you cant get near the sides because if you fall you'll go flying 20 feet down. Well I was not used to that and I looked like a rag doll plummeting down the alps.
I was sooo sore that night, my ass, and knees and wrists hurt. But we rented the boards for two days so I knew I had to suck it up and knew that I was going to go for it the next day.
Sure enough on Tuesday we were at the ski resort at 10am and I was on that lift by 10:15am. The snow that day was ice hard, so every fall hurt ten times more. i felt bad that Ranveig had to keep waiting so I finally convinced her to go without me. So she finally did and I kept going at it until at one point this ski-er skied right over my board causing me to fall forward straight on my knee. I stayed down for a bit in pain from the impact but got back up again and went for it again, but my knee all of a sudden just gave out and I fell again. I kept trying and trying but it was as if my leg had fallen asleep and would not hold me up. A ski instructor saw me and asked if I was ok. I thought I was and said yes. "Well let's see you get up" she said to me. I tried again and no luck. Much to my dismay she called ski patrol. I kept telling her no, but she said I should have them take me down the mountain. Fine. So ski patrol came and lied me down on the ski bed and skied me down the mountain. Once there they said that they called an ambulance and that it would be there any minute. Horrified I said no, i didnt want to go to the hospital, but they kept saying "Yes, it's important and better to get your knee looked at by doctor. Could get worse". "Well can I at least tell the family that I'm with that your taking me?" "You can call them from the hospital, the ambulance is here", "But I can go find them, theyre not far" "It is better for you, ok ambulance is here bye". So there I go half an hour away to the hospital.....I will end this blog now, since it has gotten a bit lengthy and I am tired. I will continue later this week...so stay tuned to find out what else happened. Hadet og god natt!