Beautiful blossom in Copenhagen

I have never been so delighted by Spring!

A French lesson

At Rory's request, here is the lesson I did today about Paris.

Match the photos to the name of the tourist attraction and its description!

Have fun reliving your school days!

The beginning of the end?

Even though I have two months left of Oslo time, I feel like everything is drawing to a close. Spring is (finally) in the air, and with it a feeling of time seeping away... Spring is all I'm going to see of Norway's vaguely mild weather (not that it's much of a spring by international standards). Saying that, there are still great piles of snow in the streets and a distinct chill in the air, but when the sun shines on me I am like a tiny lizard basking in its glow.
I think this idea that I'm leaving soon is also the end of term feeling, as I'm coming home for Easter on Friday. Everything at school is about mock exams and all the final year pupils are talking about their yearbook, their leavers ball and all that. Actually it's quite a big thing in Norway to be a 'Russ', or school leaver, so called because they take to wearing a little red hat during the raucous celebrations. Apparently this all kicks off on the first of May, then they party until Norwegian National Day i.e. 17th May i.e. BEFORE their exams! So it seems most them will be pissed every day during study leave. And it's endorsed by tradition... right...! This wikipedia article tells you a bit more about it, and more than I actually knew: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RussThis picture is from Mark's visit at the weekend, when we went to the Norsk Folkemuseum, which is full of different wooden houses which the museum picked up from all over Norway and transported to Oslo to show the traditional ways of life in Norway. This includes an original stave church, as pictured (much to Mark's amazement). It is entirely made of wood, and quite incredible. They decided to bring it down to Oslo by sled (!) from Northern Norway during the 19th Century, as with most of the houses you can also see at the museum. They have also transported an authentic 'town centre' and school house. Really quite a bizarre concept, but very interesting all the same!
We also did a little 'hiking' around near in the forest close to my house, walking on ski tracks and piste-ing off (gaffaw!) the very serious looking skiiers. We were also at the Munch museum, freezing our arses off eating packed lunch outdoors and generally just walking, walking, walking. Oh and drinking. Alcohol just tastes better when it's duty free.
All in all I got the impression that I was on holiday, and I still do a bit because at school there really is nothing to do, what with all the mock exams and that general end-of-term feeling. And with the prospect of another weeks' holiday on the horizon, I'm really not inclined to do any work!

Blogging fear

Having not written a blog for over a month, I've got cold feet... too much to tell all in one post. I've had visits from all my favourites and moved house and been enjoying the unseasonal sunshine... basically having too much of good time to write anything!
Here is a photo to make this a proper post and not just idiocy:
Oooh Bergen!

Hammerfest in photos

The Northern Lights

This weekend I took a trip up to Northern Norway, to Hammerfest, which has the claim of being the world's most northerly town. It was truly awe-inspiring to see that see that people live, and live well, up there where it's dark for half the year and well within the arctic circle. I was staying with a friend of mine, Elin, who moved up there from Oslo last month. We had a great time, with bottomless pots of tea (with milk, of course, she learnt to drink tea in Wales) and bracing walks around Hammerfest, admiring the striking natural landscape of fjords and mountains. We were lucky enough to also have gorgeous sunny weather, which meant that the night was clear and chilly - the perfect conditions to see the Northern Lights. We went up to the top of a hill above the town and gazed up to the starry sky, where we saw a great band of ethereal green light, almost like a wispy cloud striking out across the sky. It seemed at once to be right above our heads and yet higher than the atmosphere. While we watched, it changed and evolved, creating fleeting patterns and swooping arcs. It was magical. I was unable to take a photo as my camera lens isn't good enough, but I don't think any photo I have ever seen has done it justice. You just have to go for yourself!

London calling!

Ok, I know, I'm a bit behind on my posts, but only because of my current nomadic state... I thought I'd begin with a few thoughts on my recent much-anticipated trip to England with my friend and assistant-comrade Marie-Hélène (pictured with Rory and Rob, touristing it up, above).
Our first port of call was my mum's house in deepest rural Suffolk. It was lovely to be back again, as always. The next day we chuntered on down (across) to Bury St. Loveliness and then on to Cambridge, which did itself proud, giving us blue skies and that weird mix of hobos and toffs which only Cambridge seems capable of. It turns out this is a ridiculously beautiful city. As a teenager I mainly regarded it as being similar to my hometown, but with more shops. I realised as we walked around, however, that if I went to this place in Germany or somewhere, I would probably faint upon sight of the stunning architecture, luscious parks and the fact that they have invented their own river-propulsion method, which almost validates the invention of both the picnic blanket and the boat shoe (I mean punting, of course). It is, in a word, delightful.
It was in Cambridge that I began my mission of giving M-H a full tour of the culinary delights of our fair British isles. My first assault was the recommendation of the cheese and pickle sandwich as an appropriate lunch choice. I'm not sure how well it went down, but our penchant for putting sweet sauce with savoury produce was presented, as the cultural oddity that it rightfully is.

Next on the agenda was a bracing seaside walk and flying visit to East Anglia's other noteworthy city, Norwich (sorry Ipswich didn't get a look in - it is just too awful). We took our walk in Walberswick, which combines the merits of a cutesy village green place and classic Suffolk shingle beach. The walk was made more exciting by the fact that a job lot of timber had washed up on the beach, which had apparently fallen off a Russian ship somewhere in the North Sea.
As you can see, we were also lucky enough to have blue skies, though the sea was pretty rough. My second culinary assault came at this point, with a visit to an eerily empty tearoom in the village.
We avoided the ciabattas at £8 a pop and went instead for the classic English breakfast tea and accompanying scone. Heaven! A lovely English time had by both of us.
On the Saturday we were London-bound with Rory - I had my first experience of driving in the capital, which was a nightmare, to say the least. This was the point at which my love affair with satnavs ended, abruptly. But we managed to make it to Rob, Jim and Simon's before I chucked it out of the window across the four lanes of on-coming traffic it was trying to make me cross. These three cheeky chappies live in Shepherd's Bush, or 'The Bush' as they affectionately term it. They were to be our hosts for the weekend, or as it turned out, long weekend, as I will get to later. And fabulous hosts they were, plying us with tea and comfy beds. We spent the afternoon on a worldwind tour of the city - Soho, Picadilly Circus, Westminster and Buckingham Palace - basically the tourist staples, which left us feeling tired out and a little bit queasy. Abortive attempts were made to meet up with our gaggle of Norwegians who had been let loose in the city for the day, but they seemed quite happy on their own, which wasn't too disappointing. We did our bit by meeting up with a teacher from our partner school in Ramsgate, Clarendon House, who also happened to have been working at our school in Norway last year. He is a jovial spaniard by the name of José, who will feature later in the Ramsgate leg of this tale.
Sunday morning arrived with a distinct lack of motivation on our part to leave our aforementioned comfy beds. We were treated to another British culinary classic, this time instigated by Simon - the great Full English Breakfast. It was time for Rory to leave for Brighton - sniff - where he had a meeting, but M-H, Rob and I ventured once more into the metropolis for a visit to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern. It was as we stepped out from the gallery that it started to snow. We were excited, and amused. Snow in London! It doesn't happen all that often. As we watched the blizzard from the pub window later that night, we started to get just a little bit worried. The buses had stopped running, so we had to bribe a taxi driver to take us home, crawling along the road as cars were slipping and sliding all over the place and we saw at least two broken down buses.
We awoke the next morning to see London at a standstill. No trains running out of London, half the tube paralysed and no buses whatsoever. Our planned trip to Ramsgate was, of course, impossible - there was nothing we could do but stay put until the next day. But we made the most of it! We put on our best woolly jumpers and headed for the park at the end of their road. We made ourselves a 7-foot snowman and had a more than satisfactory snowball fight.
Turns out living in Norway hasn't dulled my love of the powdery white stuff! NB: I mean snow. In the afternoon we got bored so went down to the Shepherd's Bush Vue (note to francophones: why the feminine ending?!) to catch Slumdog Millionaire, to see what all the fuss was about. It turned out to be a good film, making me feel all warm and fuzzy on that chilly winter's evening.
Unfortunately the fun had to end sometime - we were off to Ramsgate the next day to justify the school giving us time off to go on what may appear to some to be a holiday. Of course Ramsgate had had not one flake of snow, making our story somewhat suspicious. We spent the afternoon shaking hands, getting a tour of the school and generally feeling like a pair of dignatories. We went off to explore the delights of Ramsgate, which, I have to say, I hope to not to sample again any time soon. It has the classic symptoms of being a small coastal town, too far from anywhere, with inhabitants who have a penchant for binge drinking (didn't remind me of anywhere...). It was a bit of a shock after London. This was made up for by José and his girlfriend taking us for a lovely dinner at a place called The Belgium Café which did lovely seafood served by a swede called Kevin.
Our last day in England was spent at the school. We had hoped to be able to take a look at some lessons while we were there, but this didn't really work out, so we were instead sent to watch the school play, an interpretation of The Sound of Music. Now... The Sound of Music has its place. I can't say I don't know all the words to all the songs, but this was TOO MUCH. I kept trying to think back to my own school days... I'm sure the acting wasn't quite as wooden or the singing quite as ear-splitting. As you may recall, it is a musical that calls for yodelling. Yes, yodelling. Need I say more? I think the problem may have been compounded by the fact that it is a girls' school, with a few boys only admitted to the sixth form, so candidates for the male roles may have been a little thin on the ground. Needless to say, we were glad to escape in our minibus to Stansted. Inevitably we had a slight passport-losing drama on the part of one of the kids, and a big cringe on my part at the rudeness of the very same kid to the teacher organising things at that end, but eventually we were back on Norwegian soil, with just a slight tinge of regret...