segunda-feira, 2 de novembro de 2009

17th – 19th Oct: All the (Nor)way!

After the adventures from Friday, Saturday started with getting up and finally getting to know the other ppl! It was really funny to be again with an international group, even though you can’t really compare IAESTE and BEST ;)

Moving on, breakfast was very good, with a lot to choose from [including brown cheese :P], and with pocket lunch to be done by us ;) We eventually left, late of course, to see the city. Trondheim is not that big, but it’s really nice and even though the initial “city rally” turned into a simple walk around the city, it was great. One of the highlights was that I went to look for a Sissel CD and found the “Northern Lights” concert for about 25 €... way too expensive :( but they gave a great news when I asked if they had anything else from her – they had her “Det Best” CD and *on sale* :D So I got her CD for less than 12 € in Norway :P Oh, yeah, I also had my biggest bun ever here in the library café eheh

The tour in Trondheim finished with a boat ride to the island by the city – the boat could only take 10 ppl at a time, so we split into 2 groups and I was on the 1st one going there. It is a really nice place and we had lunch there. By the time we had seen it all, taken a lot of pics and finished eating the next group came. It was also the time where the cold was starting to be felt because of the growing wind :P so it really was the perfect time to get back to the city ;) We went back to the school were we were sleeping and I went for a shower and then I helped with dinner – a traditional soup with small meatballs, which base is sold in big buckets and we only had to cook the carrots (which I managed to convince to peel first :P) in small pieces and the potatoes. Well, I actually liked the soup in the end – smth that Ivo doesn’t recall cuz we was sleeping all the dinner time lol Saturday night ended in the Student Society, where they had concerts in the context of the “UKA” (?) festival going on. It was a dancing night that ended at 2 am – the hours at which all bars and discos close in Trondheim :P

Sunday was about getting breakfast – and I was happy I was one of the first to get to the table cuz food was disappearing and by the end of the meal there was no milk, yellow cheese (*) or bread left :P – and packing our stuff. In the morning we went to the Archbishop museum and got to know a little bit of the history of the city by the guide (a very friendly and smiling lady – but really smiling all the time). Next we moved to the cathedral – Nimandos – where the other guide (and old lady, not so smiling :P) told us the story of the building. The IAESTE Trondheim weekend ended with pizza lunch in the TV tower rotating restaurant! It was pretty cool cuz the scenery that you’re seeing is always changing and you get a nice view from the city and surrounding form that height.

After lunch we had some of the goodbyes and headed to the city centre. I eventually met Monica and we spent a couple of hours talking – it was a really nice time and probably the longest time we had ever spent talking in a row up until then ;) – and then met Ivo to head to the bus station.

On the way to the bus station my trolley, which was already missing one of the handles and one side of the “pulling handle” – l both broken on the bumpy train travel to the Cph airport – finally said goodbye to the “pulling handle” (aka it broke completely). It was one of those cartoon moments where I was taking the trolley and at a certain time I just had part of the handle in my hand and the trolley was laying in the middle of the road. Anyway, we managed to get to the bus station on time to get the night bus to Oslo – ok, not so perfect to sleep as a normal, cosy bed, but still pretty good ;)

Monday was spent in Oslo, which was also a very nice city – and the weather was great! We got the Oslo Pass to use the public transportation without problems and to see the Museums, so, after paying to use the toilet in the train station :P [nothing is for free over there!!], we headed to the Statue park. It was nice and the most memorable moment was when we met a group of “sporty mummies” ;) They were running around one of the squares and the funny thing was that they’d run once, check on their babies, run again, check on the babies, .... Well, most of them at least :P One must be too afraid to leave the baby while she was going for the round and was running with the baby car!!

After the statues we headed to a small peninsula where there are a lot of Museums. We checked the Viking one, the “Folks Museum” where they had a lot of old houses, the Maritime museum and we had a great view of the city. This part also included missing some buses (or bus stops :P) and walking a bit, but the weather was so great it wasn’t really a problem :) Oh... and we had a great view of the islands and the fjord of Oslo from there :)

Back to the city, we went to find the Portuguese Embassy, close to the Royal Palace. It was so unidentified I actually passed by it and didn’t notice!! Ok, security measure and so on, but they could at least have a small plaque saying it was the embassy :P The Spanish one, on the other hand, was very easy to spot – an I must say it is somehow funny to see an embassy with a big flag in the ground level and then see the clothes drying in the balcony on the 1st floor just above it eheh After the embassies we headed to the university area looking for a cheaper place to eat smth and we ended up in “Texas Burger”. Well, it wasn’t that expensive, but for Oslo, it was a pretty good deal :P The rest of the afternoon was spent watching the City Hall [which had free-to-use toilets :P ], the “river side” and the Opera House. Then back to the train station and to more adventures...

In the Oslo Pass guide there was an information saying we could use it to go to the airport, only needing to buy the extra route from the end of Oslo network to the airport, and so we did. And then we noticed we’d arrive (if the train wouldn’t be late...) 10 minutes before the check in closed. Since we didn’t know how long it would take to reach the check in from the airport train station and since we had had already plenty with adventures with trains, we ended up buying the express train ticket, not included in the Oslo Pass, but which was only about 20 NOK more expensive than the extra route we got :/ but at least we managed to arrive to the airport on time [and they we applied for a ticket refund – but we haven’t received the money yet :P]

And the weekend was almost over and I though not much could happen. Right. I was wrong.

To start before the airplane left we were asked to distribute better, because the weight was not balanced – and if you remember my relationship with airplanes, I basically use them cuz they are practical in some situations, but they’re really not one of my major loves in live :P Hearing this didn’t help that much, but I did my best to sleep the whole flight lol

Got to Aalborg airport and we thought “well, now we’re finally in Denmark, almost home!”. Again, wrong lol We though there was a train from the airport, but no, we had to wait around 45 minutes for the bus to take us to the train station. Got there 5 minutes before the train to Aarhus was leaving, but we took around 4 minutes to find out where the track was and where to buy the tickets. And we got to the train track just in time to see the train woman look around, get in the train, close the doors and leave. AND SHE SAW US!! $%#&&#%!$#”

“Ok, let’s see when’s the next train... in one hour... ok. Oh, we’re not going to make it on time for the last bus!”. Yeah, you guessed it right – we got to Aarhus after the last bus had left, so we had to take the taxi, which was not so expensive. Then, finally home. And sleep. And getting up in the morning to go to work :)


PS – Did the “brown cheese” got you thinking?... Well, they also have “red cheese”, which I tried in the library café, but it was sweeter and I wasn’t such a fan :P Anyway, for brown cheese check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunost


PPS – BEST shows us a lot of Europe and what each country has, so I got some Bamsemums (Nidar's soft marshmallow bears, covered with milk chocolate) before leaving! Oh, I missed them! :D

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