Bye Bye Bergen

Hello everyone,

only a few more days left and my exchange semester in Bergen is over again! Time flies! At this moment my parents are spending the night in a camper somewhere between Oslo and Bergen, but will arrive here tomorrow to see where I have spent the last 6 months and to pick me up for a last round trip through Norway.

They say when going to Bergen you have to cry twice: first, when you have to go there, because of the bad weather, and then when you have to leave again, despite of the bad weather!!

But first I still have to write my last exam on Tuesday, the day my exchange is also officially over. Until now I have written four exams and already passed two of them. Actually, since May I am not doing much else than preparing for exams and it is quite boring :)) But to relax a bit and get my mind of things I go hiking everyday in the mountains behind my student home... nothing is so relaxing than being able to put on your hiking boots and go to the mountains for an hour or two before continuing to study and as I haven't really studied a lot during the semester there is a lot of catching up to do :))) But until now, all my exams went quite well I think and I really like it that we don't get multiple choice questions but essay questions where you can write down everything you know and if you don't really know the answer you still have the opportunity to talk your way out of it! And I sometimes watch the Norwegian students write their exams, and they seem to really write down everything they know and with a speed that is unimaginable... and therefore they are able to produce answers of 30 pages and more in just 4hours!!! (my record until now is at 21 pages).

But other than studying, hiking and sometimes going to the gym, there is not much more going on as everyone has to study and the ones that already finished all their exams are also already home again, so it is also time to say goodbye :(( and it gets really quiet around here... well, apart from the now regular goodbye-parties where people come home singing at three o'clock in the night. The problem is that at 3 in the morning it is already as light outside as at noon and the birds are singing quite annoyingly :)) It doesn't really get dark outside at night now anymore, actually not at all... at 11pm the sun is still shining and at 1am it is kind of twilight outside, and as my curtains are not really light proof I now have quite some trouble sleeping. Because it is so light you don't really get tired and then wake up again early in the morning as the sun is shining directly into my room! But I still think it's kind of awesome that there is so much light, and next week we will be traveling more up north where it gets worse (or better :))

The weather is also a little better now, although the temperatures are not quite high, around 15C, we have more sunny days and when the sun is out, it is really bright and feels warmer. But good days still don't last very long as there is always rain again!

But on May 17th the weather was beautiful and it was supposed to be as on that day the Norwegians celebrate their National Day, Syttende Mai, where they celebrate their independence from Sweden and Denmark. Bergen is quite famous for its syttende mai celebrations as they have a big parade and all the Bergen people and people from the surrounding villages come to Bergen dressed up in their traditional national clothes. Every town has its own pattern and colours and so we could see a wide variety of traditional clothes on that day, which was pretty amazing to see. Norwegians are really proud of their traditions and everyone, of all ages, wears their dresses. The parade was indeed pretty big and lasted for several hours as every sports, culture, hiking or whatever club and student fraternity took part in it. Also I have never seen that many people together in one place in Norway. Norway has about 4.7 million inhabitants and I think that a substantial amount was in Bergen on that day... I would say comparable to Queensday in Amsterdam or on a Saturday during the Oktoberfest in Munich! And of course every celebration ends with fireworks!

Now that spring and summer has arrived in Norway, the tourist season also started and Bergen looks really different than during the wintertime. It is more alive, more people, all the cafes are open and all the touristy stuff, such as museums, attractions and boat tours. Also there is at least one cruise ship that arrives in Bergen everyday and sometimes upto three ships are docked at the cruise terminal which I can see from my kitchen window. Last week the Queen Mary 2 arrived in Bergen... what a huge huge ship!!! Lying in the harbor it was taller than most buildings! Some time ago there where also three submarines in the harbour. They celebrated the existence of submarines for a 100 years and therefore had an open day where you could go and see them from the inside. Of course we went there, stood in line for 1,5 hours and then where allowed to climb inside one of them and it was really interesting to see a submarine from the inside and get to know how life is on board and stuff... but I was also really glad when I could breath fresh air again, as you really get a feeling of being locked up and I cannot imagine spending days and days inside one of those submarines under water!!!

Well, I guess I will start packing a little bit now and get my stuff ready for the camping trip and for flying back to Rotterdam again on June 30th. Although I truly had an amazing semester in Norway, I am really looking forward to being home again!! So, hope to see you all again soon :))

Take care and for the last time:

Hilsen fra Bergen

Christien