Back from winter's slumber

It has been several months since I last wrote something. I don't know what happened. I all of a sudden lost my *mojo* I guess you can say; fell into winter's hibernation cycle and now I have finally awoken.
Many things have happened since Christmas. I went to Namsos, which is further North than Bergen and Trondheim. It was beautiful up there, everything white and cold. A cozy Christmas. Norwegians tend to use that word a lot. Cozy. It is not a word we as Americans are used to saying. We do not describe to things as being cozy. But I like it, it's appropriate for many things and I find myself using the word more and more now, even in English.
After Christmas, I came back to Bergen to spend the New Years with my friends and boyfriend. We had a nice dinner at my place, played games, drank some wine, and went out to shoot fireworks and watch them light up the sky. Here in Norway, one can buy fireworks. You can buy little ones or a BIG box the size of a suitcase that holds maybe 40-80 fireworks of all different sizes. It was something special to light up your own fireworks, and have the whole neighborhood come together to conjoin their massive explosives!
Janruary-April has been really nice, seeing the winter disappear and transform into Spring. Baby Kaisa also disappeared and transformed into Big girl Kaisa. She is nearing 20 months now and she is so big! She speaks so much spanish now! It makes me feel like a proud mother. Alva and Ulrikke have also grown up so much in these last 8 months. Alva is really great at the violin and Ulrikke a great dancer. I'm going to miss the girls so much.
This past month of May has been really evenful. First we celebrated May 17, Norway's National Day. It was unfortunately raining that day, like always, but Aleksander and I still went to the center to enjoy of the parade. We met up with our other friends, Andrea, Quetza, Kenneth, Javier, and Daniel and went to have a coffee, wine and beer, at one of my favorite cafe shops here in Bergen called Vågens. Afterwards, we bought food to make a nice pasta and salad dinner and walked to Daniels house and ate and watched a movie together. It was a very COZY day!
Two weeks ago I also went to Oslo. For Aleksander's birthday I bought him concert tickets to see his favorite band Kamelot. So we took the 8 hour train ride to Oslo, Norway's biggest city and had a great time traveling together.
Last night, however I returned to Bergen from my latest travel. Stig Fretheim, my first host dad bought me an amazing trip to Northern Norway, for my birthday. It was a 4 day trip, from Wednesday to Sunday. On Wednesday I flew out of Bergen to Oslo, and from Oslo to Trømso, Norway's third largest city. There I spent most of the day touring around. I went to see the Artic Cathedral, I took a cable car up on of the mountains called Storsteinen, meaning Big Rock, and I went to see the Polar Museum.
That evening, I climbed aboard the Midnatsol (midnight sun) ship and departed the port of Trømso heading towards Honningsvåg. Honningsvåg is the main city of an island called Magerøya which is part of Norkapp, the northernmost municipality of Norway. The trip on the cruise boat was amazing. You look out and all you can see was snow covered mountains, and there is no night. Hence the name midnight sun. But, unfortunately, there was too much overcast to see the sun. That however does not bother me, the sun is the sun, it will always be there and I know what it looks like. The whole point was to have the 24 hours of light, to take in all the beauty Northern Norway has to offer.
After landing in Honningsvåg on Thursday morning, I took a bus towards Alta, a city a few hours south. On the bus ride I was surprised to drive by many reindeer. I had never seen one before. And no Santa Claus movies do not count. I learned that the laplanders, or Sami people, would breed reindeer and take them to the Northern coasts during the summer.
In Alta, I stayed with one of Stigs friends and his family. Very nice family. Most non Europeans often say that Europeans are cold, but once you get to know them, enter into their homes and share time with them, you find that they are some of the kindest people out there.
The family showed me Alta, and took me to see rock carvings. Whether these rock carvings were from the vikings or the Sami people, we do not know, there is a debate as to whome they belong to.
The trip all in all was very exciting, and beautiful. As well as tiring, since it was all travelling. Plane, boat, bus, car! But I would love to do it again. Maybe next time I can go with Aleksander! That would be something special!
Well my people, it seems that that is the summary of my last 5 months.
In one week I will go back to San Diego for a one month vacation. What happens after that is still a surprise for those who do not know me personally. I will come back and announce the great news.
I would like to write during the summer, if time permits me, but this blog is about Norway, not San Diego. So I leave you and I wish you a happy summer.