When I arrived in Norway I thought about blogging frequently when I experienced a lot. Though this thought appeared not to work out practically, after two very full and fun weeks I have only now some time to update you (and the English version took even 10 days longer...). For persons without a lot of time a summary: a beautiful and fun trip to Geiranger fjord, a real Dutch Queen's day, a delicious Chinese dinner and I bought mountainbike for the upcoming spring! And now with some more words.

The last weekend of April (Friday-Sunday) a trip to the Geiranger fjord organized by ESN Trondheim was scheduled. ESN stands for Erasmus Student Network, this organization organizes all kind of activities for students with an Erasmus scholarship from EU, and actually for all international students here. Friday morning the bus to Geiranger left in front of my door. The trip from Trondheim to Geiranger fjord took about 8 hours, which is a standard travelling time in Norway. On the way already some opportunities to get te know my 48 travel mates. Of all the travels mates I only knew 2, and those I met just 5 days before. After a lot of nice views, the first viewpoint on the Geiranger fjord at the end of the bus ride was absolutely a high light of this day. The steep mountain slopes on both sides of the small fjord are put on the UNESCO list for a reason.

At the side of the fjord, near the town of Geiranger (200 inhabitants) our group was staying spread in 10 cabins. After a short ‘get to know each other' with my cabin mates, we went together to the BBQ spot near the fjord. Norwegians like to BBQ a lot, even when it is just 5 degrees.

And to get the real Norwegian experience even more, three people dived into the ice cold fjord water. After some games in the neighboring cabin it was time to go to bed. Saturday a change of program because of the weather conditions, no boat trip and no hiking trip, but the alternative was a visit to the modern fjord museum in Geiranger and to another view point by bus. At this view point we even got into a small snow shower with a restricted view. The view as you will never see it on post cards, while it is the most common view on Geiranger over the year.
Together with my cabin mates we prepared a typical meal from the Trondheim region: sodd (a soup like meal with vegetables and meatballs). Our cabin was a nice representation of the very internation trip (left to right): a Brasilian, a South-Korean, a German, a Turk from Azerbaijan and a Serbian.

After the heavy meal the German and the Turk dared to dive into the fjord, while the rest was looking at the site (including myself) dressed in our winter coates.

Later on the evening it was time to party in the crew's cabin. A typical Norwegian party, everybody brings some own beer and puts this in the fridge. Together with our cabin we divived the high beer costs very accurately. Sunday, after a short night the first view on the fjord showed us the start of a sunny day. The plan was to make the boat trip, but sadly enough the boat had engine troubles. So we only made a hiking trip. From the spring environment in the valley, where sheep went into the meadows for the first time, we hiked to the snow border. Wading through the snow (some in a t-shirt) we reached a spectacular water fall, where you could even go behind after some slippery climbing.

After a lunch and sunbathing in the snow we went back into the valley. At the end of the afternoon we drove back to Trondheim, were we would only arrive at the start of the night.
Monday after working I had to go to H&M, and luckily orange is a fashion colour this year, even for gentleman (you could even get orange trousers). I needed an orange t-shirt for the ‘Dutch dinner' in the evening this 30th of April, Queen's day! A ‘Facebook' initiative of some Dutch studens here, we had dinner with nine Dutch students, and had some typical Dutch mashed potato dish and apple pie for dessert.

After dinner we moved to another common kitchen of one of the Dutch, to have typical student house party in a Dutch way. Some enthusiastic ones gathered a lot of orange/red/white/blue decorations and food (with some supply packages from The Netherlands). And as the evening proceeded the party became more international, more than 50 visitors, and the music became after to compulsory ‘Dutch hours' some more diverse.

This was probably my most fanatic Queen's day celebration so far in my life... Tuesday May 1st was a holiday her, Labour Day. In the afternoon I recovered from the weekend trip and Norwegian Queen's day enough to go to work for some hours. Wednesday my supervisor was back from a long weekend as well and I could move on with my project again.

The next Saturday it was time for a special dinner, a Chinese PhD-student from the Geiranger trip invited me for a Chinese dinner. She invited some European friends to taste Chinese culture, a nice opportunity! On the way there, I met Moritz, a German with a map, so we found together the apartments above the car garage. Here lived in total 7 Chinese, they called it themselves Chinatown of Trondheim. Apart from the group of Chinese, about 10 Europeans were present, some I knew, among them a Dutch guy from the Queen's day celebration. The meal started with several delicious rice dished and several other Chinese specialties. After the dinner I played a very nice, Chinese variant, on the game Werewolves.

On Sunday night game time again, with some Geiranger trip people. So apart from the wonderful fjord, this trip gave me some nice contacts in Trondheim.
On some days the thermometer reaches 10 degrees already (tomorrow even 12!) and on sunny days it really looks like spring. Though I am curious when the leaves will show up, except for some small buds there is not much to see yet. To experience spring and summer even better I bought a mountainbike from a Belgian student yesterday. So this morning I went very fast downhill toward university, and tonight going home took some more effort.
P.S: if you like to see more Geiranger fjord pictures, have a look here: https://picasaweb.google.com/nicoclaassens/ESNGeirangerfjordTrip?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNKblsuYnqzY7QE&feat=directlink