Incredible Iceland

My last trip of last semester was to Iceland, and I have to say that it was my favourite place so far. We were there for four nights, and stayed in a perfect Airbnb apartment right on the Reykjavik highstreet. The city was tiny (think big town) and lovely, totally full of charm! I also loved exploring the nature outside of Reykjavik; it felt absolutely magical! 

We arrived at Keflavik Airport on Sunday 14th December after an early start and headed to Reykjavik on the 'flybus' organised by Reykjavik Excursions. The drive takes you through the lava fields; Iceland is of course famous for the volcano Eyjafjallajökull (say that three times fast) that erupted in 2010 and caused disruption to air travel in Europe due to the resulting ash cloud! We spent the rest of the day exploring Reykjavik and seeing lovely views like the one below, just by the opera house. By the way - if you click on a picture, it will make it bigger! 

On Monday, I headed off on the Golden Circle tour - also organised by Reykjavik Excursions - all by my lonesome (and then proceeded to snapchat the whole thing. Are you really alone when social media is just a tap away?). I had wanted to do the tour when the weather was good, and I definitely made the right choice - it was freezing cold but absolutely beautiful; the sun was at sunset/rise level all day and the blue skies made the landscape look all that more magnificent.

I took a ridiculous amount of pictures that day, although the cold cold weather (-12°C) made my thumb feel as it is was seriously going to freeze off when using my phone. The first stop was at the Friðheimar greenhouse, where they use Iceland's abundant geothermal heat to grow tomatoes and cumbers. I ate some tomato soup that they had made fresh that morning and it was delicious.

The next stop was the Geysir Geothermal Fields in Haukadelur. It was the site of the first geyser documented in Europe, which was actually called Geysir. It was a really beautiful area with the little mountain, plus the contrast of the ice/snow and the steaming hot springs (which are 80-100°C) was awesome! The actual geyser in that middle photo is not Geysir though; it's Strokkur. I'll stop saying geyser now! 

The next stop was Gullfoss waterfall. It's absolutely huge and definitely makes the little trickly 'waterfalls' that I've seen before pale in comparison! I took a video to remind myself of how incredible loud it was too.

I <3 Iceland

The final stop was at Þhingvellir National Park, where the Eurasian and American tectonic plates pull apart a few centimetres every year to make an actual visible rift! In the olden days, the park was particularly important for its political use as a meeting place for the Icelandic parliament. Also, a part of Game of Thrones was filmed there, which makes me happier than it probably should. Like everywhere else on this tour, the park was just totally beautiful, and the day left me so appreciative of how beautiful and incredibly diverse Iceland is!

Snow storm! 

Tuesday was a more relaxed day, mostly out of necessity due to the terrible weather. We decided to head to a big mall outside of Reykjavik - although we missed the stop on the bus (it wasn't as obvious as we had expected it to be!) so ended up sitting on there for a while until it turned back around. The mall was a bit of a bust and we didn't buy anything, but we did make the most of the food hall there - I had a burrito and a hot chocolate. It was great.

Reykjavik Cathedral

On Wednesday, the girls I was there with did the Golden Circle tour, so I took the time to buy some Christmas presents and just wonder around Reykjavik. I found some lovely earrings featuring lava stone for my mum and I would've loved to buy more if my student budget was a little less restrictive! I also had an awesome lunch at Svarta Kaffi; a huge bowl of traditional Icelandic meat soup, served in a huge bread bun. It was delicious and inexpensive and I highly recommend it if you're ever there.

All in all, I had a fantastic time in Iceland - and I definitely want to go back, hopefully in the summer so that I can get to see the puffins next time!

Northern Lights in Tromsø

Awesome view from the plane

Alright, I'm gradually catching up on my exploits from the final part of last semester! After our trip to Gaustatoppen in October, I had a very long and very boring month of exams in November. I'm happy to say I passed all of my classes with good grades, especially considering I was learning at a Master's level with a lot less support/lecture time than is provided at my uni (and spent more time travelling than studying!). Thankfully on the 27th November I finished my last exam, and regained my freedom - along with the arrival of a good friend from university, B! B is also studying abroad this year, in Belgium.

That weekend, we headed to Tromsø. Tromsø is in the North of Norway, within the Arctic Circle (70 degrees North). I highly recommend looking at its position on a world map - it's even further North than Iceland is. The plane journey there from Oslo takes around 2 hours, which is longer than it takes to fly from London to Oslo! We had assumed that we would arrive to be knee deep in snow given the whole 'Arctic Circle' thing, but there was almost none there at all - my snow boots turned out to be incredibly unnecessary...

Tromsø's Arctic Cathedral -
the most Northern Cathedral
in the world! 

One of the strangest things about Tromsø is that during the winter, there is two months when the sun doesn't rise above the horizon (and in the summer, there are two months of sunlight 24 hours/day!). I found it quite unsettling, and I don't think I could live there for any long period of time; there were a couple of hours of daylight/dusk when we were there, but once it got dark at 2pm I would start to feel like I should be heading to bed! On the plus side, those two hours of light were super beautiful - like a constant sunrise or sunset. 

On our first day, we checked out the town. It's a small place to be dubbed a city, but full of the traditional wooden houses you find in Norway. Being there before Christmas was cute too - lots of decorations were up, and they also had a Christmas tree lighting festival. We also realised that Tromsø (like all of Norway, really) is a rather expensive place to be a tourist - hence why I haven't done much of the touristy stuff in Oslo yet! In the night we tried to take a walk to a nearby lake to see if we could glimpse the Northern Lights by ourselves, but it was too foggy (and walking around a lake in the dark seemed like a creepy idea). 

Tired & happy after the hike! 

On Sunday we wanted to go up the nearby Mount Storsteinen on Fløya, to get a view over the city. You can get a cable car to the top, which B did, but given the good weather and my new Norwegian lifestyle (ha!) I decided to hike up! It was 423m upwards and I think about 3 miles or so, and took me just under an hour with multiple stops to admire the magnificent views of the nearby mountains.  I have to admit that it probably wasn't the safest idea; although there wasn't much snow, there was quite a lot of ice and at one point I slid about 5m back down a rather vertical bit of the hill. Oops. Nonetheless, the sense of achievement that I gained from doing that was awesome, and it made the view from the top look even more amazing! This was actually my favourite thing from visiting Tromsø.

Originally, we had hoped to do dog sledding whilst we were up there but the lack of snow meant that this wasn't possible, so we decided to book a tour to see the Northern Lights instead. We did the tour on the Sunday evening, and went with Arctic Guide Service who promised to take pictures of us (yay!), were really helpful when explaining about the best night to go and see the lights, and even gave us a much appreciated student discount! 

The evening was a long one as we headed off at 6pm and then returned at about 2am, but very worthwhile! We were taken to three different areas around Tromsø, far away from the city lights so that the Northern Lights wouldn't be dulled. We were very lucky as the first location (the picture on the left below) had an incredible display after around an hour of waiting; the lights were extremely strong and dancing right above us, it was awesome. My favourite location was actually the second one we went to, though - we sat on a frozen lake surrounded by mountains, gazing up at the stars and the (less vibrant) lights above us, and it was beautiful.

The third location we visited on the tour was Ersfjordbotn. We didn't see any lights there, but we decided to head back there and visit during the day because it just looked like an incredible location. We tried to do it on the Monday but somewhat unhelpful bus drivers meant that we ended up missing the very infrequent bus there, and therefore missed the daylight, so we did it on Tuesday instead - but unfortunately, the weather wasn't quite working with us and it was super cloudy. Nonetheless it was a fun excursion out of the city, and also the first time that there was a bit of snow.

As well as all of these things, we also enjoyed a nice (free) lunchtime concert at the Tromsø Domkirke and watched the seals being trained at Polaria. It was a really enjoyable few days, and I will never forget these special moments! 

A Weekend in Sweden

So in early October (forever ago!) I headed to Sweden. The main purpose was to visit an old friend, M, that lives in Lund, and on the way I stopped over in Göteborg (AKA Gothenburg) for a night, and was lucky to have a guided tour of Malmö courtesy of another friend on the way back. The awesome thing about visiting Lund/Malmö is that you can easily get back to Oslo by flying from Copenhagen - super quick and easy! 

Göteborg

I absolutely loved Göteborg. It was beautiful weather for the time I was there, and it was such a fun little city. I stayed in a teeny tiny box room in STF Göteborg city which was not cheap, but it was perfect because it was right in the centre of the city which meant everything was within walking distance and I didn't have to muck around with public transport (plus there was a decent breakfast included). 

Whilst I was in Göteborg, I visited: the Horticultural Gardens (lovely even in Autumn!); Skansen Kronan (an awesome old fortress, seen above to the right, and which gives the incredible view of the city that you see below); Rohsska Museum of Design and Applied Art (not really my thing, as it showcases furniture of Swedish design and whatnot - but it was free!); Museum of Fine Art (also free, and pretty cool as I quite like old art. They had an exhibition of Van Gogh at the time, too); City Museum (AKA Göteborgs Stadsmuseum, this was also really great and contained stuff about the city's history, the vikings, & more cool stuff); and I also walked around Haga and the surrounding area, which is a lovely old neighbourhood. I think I was only there for about 30 hours total so I managed to squeeze in a fair bit, and just walked around looking at a ton of stuff too.

I would love to go back in the summer to visit the archipelago and some of the islands out there, too. After all, it's only a bus ride away from Oslo! 

Lund

I headed to Lund via train on the Friday evening. I have to say, trains in Scandinavia are much nicer than in the UK - super clean and no graffiti in sight. Unfortunately, my timing was off a bit and my friend was really ill with one of those nasty 24 hour bugs when I first got to Lund - not much fun for her at all! But I know her family really well so her mum and brother picked me up and I went to stay in their house for the night. It was really lovely to catch up with them, I have such fond memories of them all from my childhood and now even more to think back on!

On the Saturday, M felt slightly better and we headed off to the 'Punschfesten' in the evening - literally 'Punch Party'. It's a formal dinner organised by one of the many student nations (a little bit like sororities/fraternities) which featured entertainment before, during and after the dinner, and quite a few free drinks. Yes, that meant wearing a long dress and pretending to be a little bit fancy. Of course, everything was in Swedish, but I was sat with some friends of M who were nice enough to give me a general overview of what was going on. It was a lot of fun (I didn't get back until 4am), everyone was really nice, the food was pretty good, and I got a fun insight in to what it must be like to attend Lund University where they have multiple events like this!

On Sunday we explored Lund a little bit, starting at Kulturen. Kulturen is a funky little open air museum that features traditional buildings from Sweden's history. It was really cool, nice and educational (can you tell I like history museums?) and M and I went around reading every placard in full - my favourite way to explore museums! Afterwards we checked out Lund Cathedral which is home to an Astronomical Clock that dates back to 1425. I didn't actually get to see it play, but I think this youtube video does a pretty good job... In general, Lund seems like a really lovely University town. The buildings are old and often covered with vines, there are cobbled streets and plenty of green spaces - it's idyllic!

I left for Malmö which was en route to head home on Monday, after a really lovely weekend with M. Isn't it awesome how with certain people, even if you haven't seen them for years you just click right back together with them on the next meeting? Now she's headed off for her own study abroad adventure down in Oz - I can't wait to hear about it!


Malmö

I really wasn't in Malmö for very long at all, but I lucky to get a whirlwind tour of it courtesy of my friend R, who I actually know from when I participated in the Study India program a couple of years ago! Overall, Malmö made a good impression on me (kind of just like a bigger Lund); the area of Lilla Torg was particular pretty and I liked the area photographed below a lot - you can see the bridge that connects Sweden to Denmark if you look close enough!

All in all, I had a really lovely weekend. Seeing new places is really awesome, but I think catching up with friends may be even better. I feel very lucky that being in Oslo this year has given me the opportunity to do just that! 

Turning 21 & A Trip to Bergen

This post is almost a month overdue but... it's official! As of September 22nd, I joined the ranks of the 'real adults' - I am now 21 years old. No more shirking my responsibilities (although I'll still try!).

I celebrated with my friends here and had possibly the best birthday night I have ever had. We played drinking games, ate brownies, laughed a ton, and then went out to a club (LaWo. I think). They even got me a couple of lovely presents which I was absolutely not expecting! I am seriously in love with everyone here and so grateful that I have met them - they are all wonderful and make every day better.

The Royal Palace, Oslo - & Mum!

Then, my parents arrived! They stayed in Oslo for four days (with really lovely weather), and then we headed to Bergen for a few days (with really rainy weather). It was lovely to show them around Oslo to my favourite places, and also to discover some new favourites with them (Louise restaurant & bar, I'm looking at you). I think it's fair to say that on a one day organised coach trip around Oslo (whilst I was in lectures), Mum & Dad probably saw more of Oslo than I have - they were able to give me some suggestions!

Oslo Rådhus

A random lake near Voss 

Anyway, on to Bergen! We opted for the seven hour train journey to get there, and I do think it was worth it (though I was glad to fly back to Oslo). I almost finished an exceedingly lengthy book (about Finland), and of course, there were some lovely sights (including snow-covered mountains!) - plus, apparently, we went through the longest train tunnel in Europe. Exciting?! Unfortunately when we got to Voss, we were told the railway was closed from there to Bergen and we had to get a bus instead. A definite bummer, as I'm pretty sure there would have been some very pretty views between Voss and Bergen - and I also get super carsick if I try to read on buses. Lame.

We stayed in an apartment found via Airbnb which was right in the centre of Bergen, next to the theatre and just up from the Lille fountain - a perfect place to be as it was only a couple of minutes stroll from the main attractions. The first thing we did in Bergen was head up Mount Fløyen on the Fløibanen. I would've liked to hike up, but my mum is on crutches after breaking both her ankles earlier this year, so that wasn't an option. It was a quick 5-minute journey up there and it offered some great views over Bergen - definitely worth it! I had no idea that Bergen was as big as it looked from up there ('second biggest city' doesn't mean much when you're in a country of around 5 million people... and the capital only has 600,000 of them). Although when you're in the centre of it, it really doesn't feel big at all (more like a large town).

Yeehaw cowboy

We also headed to Bryggen - the old wharf of Bergen which has a bunch of beautiful wooden buildings. It's also incredibly touristy and full of souvenir shops all selling the same thing, but that doesn't detract from the charm; it reminded me of towns that you see in Old Western movies, with a feeling that the buildings were all leaning together. Lovely! The fish market is also in that area, although I couldn't quite understand why it was such a huge attraction (unless you actually want to buy some fish). The big black lumps of whale meat were pretty grim to see!

The other main thing we did was take a 3.5 hour cruise to Mostraumen with Rødne Fjord Cruises. Again, the weather was a bit rubbish with a lot of rain and clouds, so the views perhaps weren't as idyllic as they could've/would've been on a sunny day - but it was time well spent nonetheless! The tour operators were very friendly too, and the captain even gave us the special treatment and took us up to the 'control room' (I'm pretty sure that is not the right term for that bit of the catamaran) - I think she appreciated that my Dad, as a former lifeboat helmsman, actually understood all the technical stuff! (I clearly did not.)

I had a really lovely time with my parents, and of course I was sad to see them go as they flew out of Bergen and back to the UK some hours before I did. But I also got to spent that day with a good friend from University who is on exchange there, so that was nice. Even better was the brownie cake we baked - I still dream of it. Although purely based on the amount of rain that falls in each city, I'm glad I chose Oslo for my exchange!

All in all, another great week! I seem to be racking up quite a few memorable ones over here - and that won't be stopping any time soon!

Hiking to Kjerag

Last weekend, a group of friends and I headed to Lysefjorden to hike to the Kjeragbolten. This was the first time I've got out of Oslo into Norway!

The group of us made 7 altogether:

• Julia (German, blonde, beautiful, sporty)
• Imke (German, blonde, beautiful, sporty)
• Käti (Finnish, blonde, beautiful, sporty) (do you recognise a trend here yet?)
• Pekka (Finnish, blonde, handsome, sporty)
• Angus (Australian, blonde-ish, handsome, sporty)
• Gavin (Canadian, brunette!, handsome, sporty)
• And... me. (English, brunette, alright on a good day, the least sporty person to ever have lived in Norway, ever) (I'm not even joking, I regularly see 80 year old ladies sporting their trainers and hiking stick things as they run off somwhere)

A spiffing group of ladies and gents

It was a bit of a trek to get there from Oslo - we hired 2 cars, left at 5pm on Friday and got to our accommodation in Brokke after 10.30pm. On Saturday morning it was another 2 hours to get to the hike from Brokke (although admittedly we did have an accidental ~30 minute detour because the sat nav lied to us). The scenery was beautiful - mountains, forests, lakes and sheep everywhere! I wasn't a massive fan of some of the roads though which had crazy twists and turns (this is a pretty accurate depiction) - nice to look at, but not so pleasant to actually drive on without inducing the need to vomit.

We hired a 10 person cabin in Brokke (Furestøyl 19) as originally we thought there would be 9 of us, and it was pretty amazing, I could happily live there. We all agreed that we wished we had more time to enjoy it but the only thing it was missing was a jacuzzi!! (We're scratching that itch with another cabin trip for the end of October, though.) The kitchen in particular was excellent for the preparation of our pre- and post-hike pasta feasts - what else could you possibly want?

 

I certainly didn't appreciate this graph before setting out

Now: the hike. My preconceptions of hiking have been based on the fact that in South West England, you get a few undulating hills but otherwise it's basically flat (AKA, it's more of a walk than a hike). I had a small concern that the hike was described as 'demanding' and 'for experts' online, and my friend Bee (who is currently traveling around Europe in a van) warned me that Norwegians don't mess around when they say something is physically demanding - I didn't listen.

When we started the hike, it was raining. And windy. And misty. That made the first hill (mountain?) really fun to go up, because the first hill (no, really, it was more like a mountain) is extremely steep, and to make it better, the rocks you are walking on are huge and extremely smooth. It's kind of hard to grip rocks like that in the rain! Luckily at some parts there are chains drilled into the rocks for you to hold on to - I am about 400% sure that if they weren't there, I would've fallen down the hill and broken my face. (Also, thank you Pekka from stopping me from slipping once, too!). At the top of that incline I genuinely thought that I might be dying - my heart, and for that matter, my legs, have certainly never worked that hard before!

Midway up the first hill, breathing hard already

This is when I discovered that 'hiking' means that after barely managing a crazy vertical rock-climb, you have to go downhill again. And then uphill... and so on. So, I got down that hill, and I almost quit right there when I stared in horror at the next uphill section. Luckily, the girls that I was with are some of the best people alive and were incredibly understanding and basically acted as my own personal cheerleaders for the rest of the hike - they literally cheered for me at points. They are excellent humans.

'This is a pretty valley' I thought, whilst trying to avoid thinking about the next bloody hill

Admittedly, the next two inclines were a whole lot easier than that first one, anyway - the first uphill is the longest and steepest by far; the second has a fair bit of grassy/muddy areas where it's easier to dig your feet in so you don't slip; and the third, though mainly huge rocks and a bit slippy again, is relatively short compared to the first and also has handy chains to help you along.

A decent view

It felt like it took at least 6 hours and a week's worth of effort but in reality, it took us about 1 hour 45 to get to the Kjeragbolten (they recommend 2.5-3 hours, I must secretly be a pro)! Oh man, seeing that rock for the first time was a great moment - the realisation that I could actually hike up some crazy hills and not die was pretty great. I'm not sporty at all and my affair with the gym has only been going on for a few weeks, so I was really proud of myself for getting there and only slipping a handful of times (and not breaking my face).

Of course, after all that I HAD to get a picture of myself on the Kjeragbolten! I'm not scared of heights so that didn't worry me and by that point the rain had stopped, but it was extremely windy on that rock. My mother was not best pleased when she saw the photo - sorry Mum!

This was the actually the
easiest hill of all the hills

We stayed there for about an hour, getting photos and eating a bit of lunch and whatnot before heading back. The journey back felt much easier, although I think we actually slipped more on the way back. I must admit, it felt pretty good to see the guys slipping too, particularly as Gavin informed me he is basically a pro-hiker that lives in the Canadian mountains all year round (fact: he is actually half mountain goat - I witnessed him leaping up the vertical side of the hill like a crazy person). The rain also stopped on the way back and the clouds lifted, which was nice.

So - in total it was 5 hours (with a 1 hour break, so really 4 hours) and 8.8km (it doesn't sound like much, unfortunately distance does not account for the fact that I essentially climbed up Mount Olympus). I didn't die! My legs hurt for three days afterwards and a week later I still have bruises from slipping countless times, but my face is perfectly intact. That's a success if there ever was one! And, most importantly of all...

 I would TOTALLY do it all again! 

Sightseeing in Copenhagen

Last weekend, I visited Copenhagen. The main reason for this was to see my sister who was on holiday there, and to meet her fiancé and his family (all who are really lovely!), but we managed to fit in a whole load of tourist stuff too! I thought I would recap the best bits here.

Bus & Canal Tour.

We bought dual tickets for a Hop on Hop off bus and boat tour (with a 10% student discount!) that took us around Copenhagen with an audio guide, and gave us the freedom to jump off wherever we fancied it. We actually went around all the routes that were offered and there is probably no better way to see a city in a short space of time! I particularly liked the boat tour and seeing areas from the water (instead of the busy streets!) such as Nyhavn, the Carlsberg factory, Kastellet fortress, the Little Mermaid, the Opera House, Trekroner Fort and tons more.

Strøget Shopping Street.

We stayed at the Palace Hotel for a night which was perfectly situated to strolling up and down this street! We didn't do much shopping but it was just as interesting to people watch, window-shop at Georg Jenson and Louis Vuitton, watch (or avoid) some of the more interesting street entertainers, and also to see the huge Lego store (I didn't realise such a thing even existed). There's also a Hotel Chocolat there which we graced with our presence a couple of times!

Amalienborg Palace.

AKA, "that one with the horse statue in the middle". This is where some of the Danish royals live and it was (of course) very nice and, inside, quite grand. We went into the museum there which was very interesting and taught me a lot about the Danish royal family, as well as showcasing certain studies and sitting rooms as they were when the specific King/Queen was living in them - quite interesting to see how fashions have changed. I have heard that it is not half as impressive as Kronborg Castle, though, which I would like to visit in the future.

National Museum.

This was great! We spent just a couple of hours there (I would spend all day in a history museum if given the chance) and wondered through the main exhibits on life in the Viking ages. It was really fascinating and I couldn't believe the age of some of the artifacts, including an Aurochs skeleton from 8300BC, the body of a woman preserved perfectly by a peat bog (she was originally placed there as a sacrifice to the gods c.1400BC, I think), and a bunch of runestones. It was super interesting!

Christiania.

Described as the 'hippy freetown' that follows it's own rules, I originally thought that the ideal that Christiania was founded upon in the 1970s sounded quite nice. In reality, when we visited, I realised that it was just where people went to buy and smoke marijuana - there was nothing special about it at all, just a bunch of drug users lazing around and not contributing to society. I was really disappointed by Christiania and it strikes me as a complete waste of space! Especially as there is a rather lovely lake situated right there.

Copenhagen Zoo.

Not the best zoo I've ever been to, but fun for a few hours! The penguins and bears were particularly cute and entertaining. However, the zoo staff had also strung up and were skinning a dead impala in front of a bunch of children which I found very disturbing (not something I would want my future children to see!) and definitely put a bit of a dampener on the visit.

Other Thoughts...

Although I was a bit wary of Copenhagen on the first day (being sworn and shouted at by cyclists will do that - oops - I'm a tourist and I was just getting on the bus!) it definitely grew on me. It's very different to Oslo. There were people everywhere (and by that I mean they were all getting in my way) and it was surprisingly expensive to be a tourists there (moreso than living in Oslo!). I loved just walking around Nyhavn and Gammel Strand and taking in the atmosphere. Although I still prefer Oslo, I would definitely go back at some point!