Salut!

Hey y'all! I'm alive and well, back from Norway.

I've decided that I'm going to make separate posts with pictures of my adventures in Norway along with details about them.  So stay tuned- those are a work in progress.  I really need to find the motivation to do that and not do nothing :P

Just an over view: Norway was incredible.  I cannot thank enough my amazing hosts, Ron and Joy Lohse.  Ron is cousins with my father, and they've been living abroad for years now.  So I didn't know them very well until this weekend, but I'm very glad to have made the voyage and spend time with them.  I'm not very close with the Lohse side of the family, and I've never really understood why.  I'm very close to my intermediate family, plus Uncle Dan, Aunt Sofia, and Lohse side grandparents.  I don't know why things are this way.  We aren't hostile or anything like that, but we just meet up a few times a year and that's mostly it.

Anyway, I'm very glad to have gone and get to know family.  And it was weird walking into their home because on the outside it says "LOHSE" and I was like, huh! That's my name too! And I can say it correctly.

So I'm going to save the details of our hiking adventures for the individual posts, so I'll talk about the other things here in this one.

I left on Thursday afternoon, having a layover in Frankfort.  There weren't any hitches in my travels (which I am thankful for) but I realized I know no German or Norwegian.  The only thing I know how to say in German is "I love you" (which I did get to tell someone, after telling her that's the only thing I know.  She then taught me how to say thank you haha).  I can't really say I've been to Germany... but I think I'd like to say I was there.  I plan to go there sometime in the future, I know my European adventures are faaaaar from over.

Norway is a beautiful country.  If you love nature, Norway is a great place for you.  As I was told, it's a very socialist country, so a lot of things are expensive.  What is free is exploring nature- so that's what we did.  We hiked Preikestolen, Manafossen, and Kjeragbotlen.  Y'all will see pictures soon enough.

This isn't easy hiking, tell you what.  I have never gone hiking before coming to Norway, so I really had no expectations.  This weekend I found out that I don't have a real fear of heights, as some of you saw on the photos I've already posted on Facebook.  It was one of my favorite trips ever.

Luckily Ron and Joy speak English and so do most people there, but when I was in the airport on the way back, I knew nothing that was going on around me.  I'm sure I could have asked someone, but I didn't really need to.  For example, they had a TV playing pubs (advertisements, but the French word.. My mind is set in both languages right now) and they were in Norwegian and I had absolutely not idea what was going on.  I think this is what people who come to visit me in France have/will experience(d).

Once I got back to France, I immediately felt at home.  It was like coming back to the US after spending time abroad and not speaking the language.  It was like coming up for air after "drowning" in other languages.  The feeling made me feel at ease and back at home.  It's crazy to think France is becoming a home for me.  I know if I ever made it back to Montpellier I'd probably lose my poop and start bawling, because I know for a fact that place is home to me. (Just thinking about it is making me choke up a little.) To go back and wander around the Polygone, Place de la Comedie, that one park by their l'Arc de Triomphe where we'd eat baguette and cheese, the panini shop, kebab world? Ah. It brings back so many memories.  When I'm on the metro here, and they say the stop "Europe" I swear they're saying "Corum".

Le sigh.

I never planned on going back while I was here, the train tickets are rather expensive, but maybe me, Andrew, and Sarah can go for a day trip when they come, just so they can see where I used to live (I'd take you, Brad, but I don't think we have enough time :( but hey! We're going to freaking London!).  Maybe take the tram out to my old homestay, and see if Kaia is still running around. ;fiejfiaowejfaiow my feels.

I'll have to see what papabear thinks.

Anyway, tangents I didn't mean to go on.  But maybe that's the beauty of blogging? Who knows.

I never know what time it is back home.  I'm really bad at math :P

Still trying to figure out what I'd like to do when I get home, to live in Iowa City, Quad Cities (btw it took a lot out of me to not spell it "Quads Cities" if anyone else speaks a language with agreement, you'll understand) or somewhere else.  The world is my oyster. Wahoo.

Okay, I'm going to go look into trains to Montpellier! Maybe I will go back home, after all :)

A bientot et plein de bisous!