Phew.

I've spent an exciting afternoon so far reading articles about Icelandic language politics and purism. It really makes me proud of my own mongrel of a language, I have to say. I think one of the many reasons English does so well for itself is that it's well up for being influenced by other languages. Apart from the odd grammar Nazi, no one really minds what you do with it as long as they can follow what you're saying. It's really very flexible, no?

Lysfesten

On Saturday evening I didn't put on enough jumpers, and wandered into town for Lysfesten, a big event they have every year where everyone assembles in Festplassen and sings Christmas songs, they turn on the Christmas lights and have a big firework display.

I arrived nice and prompt while they were still warming up. While they were doing that, they rest of us cooled down. A lot. It was freezing. In fact, it was well below freezing, and the fire torches they were giving out didn't really do much to help matters. They were fun though.

Merry Christmas, from everyone at Bergens Tidende

They had an interesting array of people lined up to entertain us. They're celebrating 200 years since Ole Bull's birth this year, so we heard a bit about him, and then some rappers came out and rapped about him, which was a tad odd. They had a load of kids bundled up in cosy jumpers and Santa hats enthusiastically singing us Christmas song. They were a bit tuneless, but then so was I, and I did insist on singing along to the ones I knew. This one's my personal favourite, but I haven't learnt all the words yet because it goes on for a while:

They actually didn't sing this one though, they just played the music. I sang it :)

I ran into some friends after a while, which was good because it meant I could dance around to warm up and not look as stupid. We were determined to stick it out until the fireworks though, even though I was beginning to wonder if my fingers/toes would ever recover. I need to get better gloves before I go to Tromsø.

Here's a nice video of the proceedings that I stole from NRK. I have a video of the fireworks, but you can see them here as well, and you don't get the occasional camera shake due to loss of sensation in fingers.

Photo taken somewhere up Fløyen, I would guess

And just to give you all nightmares, a horrendous photo of me with my torch:

It's a look, I guess

An evening stroll

This evening I decided to brave the cold and go into town for the opening of Pepperkakebyen (the gingerbread town). I arrived really early, and no one else was there yet, so I decided to catch the furnicular up one of Bergen's mountains to see if I could take some decent photographs of Bergen by night.

It was freezing on top of that mountain. To be exact, it was -12. I hope you appreciate the photos, because I wasn't sure at the time if my ears were going to survive the experience!

After I'd taken my photos, oohed and ahhed a bit about the view and hidden in the gift shop long enough for my fingers to thaw out a bit, I trotted back down again to see if any progress had been made on the gingerbread town front.

I timed it just perfectly, arriving just as the honourary mayor of the gingerbread town (she had a mayor's chain thing made of gingerbread, it was well cool) was giving her speech and cutting the ribbon. It was quite a big event for a lot of people, because last year a couple drunk guys managed to get in and smash it to pieces the night before it was supposed to open. But this year, security had been increased tenfold, so everything was perfect.

This is a song from a Norwegian children's book which has been stuck in my head for weeks, so I was very happy that they had hung it up outside

They let us in for free, I think because we'd hung out and listened to the speeches and stuff, and it was the sweetest thing ever (excuse the almost-pun). There weren't just gingerbread houses, there were gingerbread churches, castles, bridges, buses, boats, planes, oil rigs, lighthouses etc. It was incredible. Most of the contributions seemed to come from nuseries and companies who'd made gingerbread versions of their own buildings and things.

I was admiring a particularly handsome gingerbread harbour when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round and blinked in confusion as a reporter from NRK (Norwegian equivalent of the BBC) asked me what I thought of the town, and then waved his microphone in my face. Argh.

Yes, it's a gingerbread oil rig


Gingerbread ship with a gingerbread lighthouse behind


Gingerbread fairground ride

I trotted round a couple times, leaving soon after the incident with the reporter. I was feeling decidedly Christmassy, which is wrong really considering it's still November, so I thought I'd go and take a photo of some of the street lights as well:

Tomorrow they're having some sort of big Christmas lights party in the town centre, and I have it from a reliable source that they're giving out flame torches and stuff. I like fire a bit too much...

The Return to Rallarvegen

On Sunday we took the train back to Rallarvegen, where we'd been on the mother of all walks the month previously, to see what it'd be like now the weather's colder. It didn't disappoint. Snow, icicles and frozen waterfalls galore.

We didn't walk to whole 21km down to Flåm this time. Instead we walked about 5km down from Myrdal, where we got off the train, and then back up again. We like to think we earned our lunch, which we had at Vatnahalsen Høyfjellshotell. 10km in the snow is certainly nothing to sniff at.

I made another video slideshow of our adventures, below:

We had a lot of fun playing in the snow. It was the nice powdery variety that doesn't get you wet even if you roll around in it. Not that I did that... ahem. We also tried to see if we could play icicles like musical instruments, but apparently you can't.

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I thought I'd include a selection of my favourite photos again, outside of the video slideshow. Hope you like them!

Pepperkakekaos

On Friday we decided to have a 'kitchen evening', which means invading Lonnie's kitchen so we can use her oven to make things that would usually be impossible. She doesn't mind though. The chat's good, and we all get to eat too much.

We started out by making our own pizzas. They were well yummy. It's easier for us to make our own pizzas, because Lonnie's vegan and doesn't eat cheese, and Sara's completely obsessed with cheese. I feel kind of left out really, as I seem to be the only person living at Fantoft that doesn't have weird eating habits.

Next we started making gingerbread. Every winter Bergen hosts the world's largest gingerbread town. People from all over the city make gingerbread houses/churches/whatever to contribute to the town, and I was determined that we were going to make one.

Me rolling out gingerbread dough using a vase, because we didn't have a rolling pin (not the most flattering picture ever, I know)

The undecorated result, right before it collapsed for the 100th time, but we got it sorted in the end

While we were waiting for the gingerbread to cook, we decided to make shortbread. It's kind of become my speciality since I came here, because I kept being asked to make something Scottish. I found a really good recipe too, so you might all get shortbread for Christmas.

World's yummiest shortbread, I kid you not

Sadly, our gingerbread house didn't get delivered to the appropriate place in time, so it's not going to be part of the gingerbread town, but we're still going to have a great time over-decorating it. I have plans to visit the town at the weekend though, so I'm sure you'll see photos of it soon enough.

Hardanger in a nutshell

Last weekend, we all piled onto a boat on Hardanger Fjord for the last trip of the season. It was wet, windy, cold and foggy. We were all well-prepared though, except perhaps for ropes to anchor us to the deck in case we got blown away.

It was actually crazy windy.

We took the boat across the fjord to Eidfjord first, where it was announced that we were going to be staying for a couple hours. This caused much staring balefully at the pouring rain and closed shops (nothing's open on Sundays in Norway). But we all put our trooper hats on, and trudged around in the rain for an hour, before it finally let up and we could get our barbecues going.

Coming into Eidfjord.

Taking cover for a couple minutes.

Food!

Finally we were allowed to get back on the boat, and they took us on a sort of zigzagging tour from town to town along the edges of the fjord. It seems the locals use the boat as a sort of ferry between neighbouring towns, because we kept stopping just long enough to let just a couple people on.

It was dark by the time we finally landed in Norheimsund, where the bus was waiting to take us back to Bergen. I quite enjoyed the journey in the dark, watching all the Norwegians getting on and off the boat on their way home for the evening. I think this would definately be a trip to do again sometime when the weather's not so dreich.

Holy crapola.

Just got the scariest email EVER from one of my lecturers. He wants to use my short essay about case systems in Old Norse as an example text in one of his classes this afternoon. With a load of Norwegians.

Eep.

Raske Menn @ Edderkoppen

One of my main reasons for going to Oslo, at least that weekend, was to go to a comedy show at Edderkoppen Teater.

These guys make me laugh and they teach me new words and expressions - what's not to like? It was an hour and a half of pure joy. The guy next to me almost couldn't handle his joy. I wondered if I was going to have to resucitate him at one point the way he was gasping for breath.

<3

Pictures from the actual show that I stole from someone else because we weren't supposed to take pictures:

In an extreme effort to avoid my Icelandic homework - ahem - I've subtitled a video of one of their older sketches (below). It didn't take me that long, and I've paraphrased a bit in some places. This is perhaps their best known sketch, where they attempt to take us through the history of the world in five minutes, paying special attention to Norway of course. Enjoy!

For some reason, near the end, my subtitles start lagging behind a bit. Hope it doesn't ruin it.

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Outside Edderkoppen Teater

Siân's Magical Adventure in Osloland

I visited Oslo at the weekend - yay! Been a while since I was there, for me anyway, and it was nice to spend a couple days somewhere a bit different (the last thing I did before I left Bergen was to fall over in the snow and rip my hand to shreds, so I was especially glad to see the back to see the back of that). In order to cram as much as I could into a limited timeframe, I decided to do an organised tour which included a couple things I hadn't seen before.

I hopped on the bus bright and early, and greeted my fellow tourers, who were mostly Irish or German, but I also chatted a bit to a very nice Danish couple. I could actually understand them too, much to my surprise. We heard a lot of good stories from the very enthusiastic tour guide, and I heard them all three times, because she delivered them in Norwegian, English and German. So for me it was all a bit like this:

"We are about to turn onto Karl Johans gate, the main street in Oslo, which starts at the train station and ends at the palace. It's about 1km long. We are about to turn onto Karl Johans gate, the main street in Oslo, which starts at the train station and ends at the palace. It's about 1km long. We are about to turn onto Karl Johans gate, the main street in Oslo, which starts at the train station and ends at the palace. It's about 1km long."

It was mildly irritating at first, but I got used to it, and sometimes she gave extra information in one language that she missed out in another.

First we went to Vigeland Sculture Park. The park was sculptor Vigeland's life project, and you can't find any of his fascinating works anywhere else. He was particularly interested in the cycle of human life.

I especially liked the ones of children and elderly people, which means I didn't really take a lot of photos of the stages inbetween. Seriously, some of them looked like they were alive.

Next we went up the hill to Holmenkollen, the new ski jump that they're building for the Nordic Championships or something in February. It was quite interesting, but they haven't quite finished everything yet.

Next we went to Vikingskipshuset (The Viking Ship Museum). I've been there multiple times in the past, but I really like it so I was quite happy to trot round it again. They hd a couple skeletons that I'd never seen before, which were fascinating. They reburied them after they were discovered in the 1800s, but dug them up again in 2007 because they were afraid they'd completely disintegrate. There's already not much left of them because graverobbers broke their original tomb casket thingie.

Next we popped up the road to the Maritime Museum, where we saw and amaaazing film of footage recorded from a helicopter flying down the coast of Norway. It maybe sounds a bit lame, but it was well cool. Unfortunately they've got it pretty well protected and I haven't been able to dig it up online so you guys can see it :(

We finished up at the new opera house. I'd heard a lot about it from friends who'd visited it before, and from a Norwegian musician I like who cheerfully told me that 'walking up the opera house is Norway's new favourite outdoor pursuit'. So I walked up it, and almost fell down it again (it was a bit icy). Twas quite nice, but it'll be better when they've finished developing the land around it. It's kind of surrounded by building sites just now.

It's supposed to look like an iceberg..

After that (busy day, no?), I trotted along to the national gallery to have a look at The Scream. I've been trying to see it for years now, but something always gets in the way, such as the gallery being closed, or it having been nicked.

Skriken (The Scream) by Edvard Munch
I saw it - yay! It's a bit bigger than I thought it'd be.

They had a whole room of his work, including his perhaps second most famous work, Madonna. I actually wondered if I liked that better. It's quite brilliant when you actually see it.

Madonna by Edvard Munch

I also saw Brudeferd i Hardanger (below), which is perhaps the most famous painting in the whole of Norway. I had no idea it was there. It was a very nice surprise when I spotted it. It's very lovely - the picture below really doesn't do it any justice. It was painted during the Romantic period.