Vinter Vonderland!

The first word in the title is actual Norwegian. The second is me having fun. Apologies to Norwegian readers!

Yay snow! Fresh powdery snow! How can I study when you're around?? *Jumps out window*

*Thump!* Just kidding. I walked out of the door like a normal person. So anyway, we were blessed with snow yesterday, and today was the perfect time to enjoy it. I went for a walk in the Nordskogen on campus, my favorite place since I got here. With the new snow, it was a whole new forest to explore. I even found a new path, since I was having fun following the only two other set of foot prints (one dog, one human) through the wild blueberries.

All those little plants the path is going through are Norwegian wild blueberries, or just "blåbær" in Norwegian. They're small, but very sweet when dried--I haven't tried them fresh yet since I got here just past their season.

Here's a closeup of them:

I also saw some cool fungus on the way:

Reminds me of this scene in Fern Gully. These are just the temperate climate winter version!

After following the small path back to the main trail, I went to the lookout spot I always visit on my walk.

Yep, it's winter now. And this is the light we have at 1:30 PM.

It usually doesn't look like almost sunset if there are no clouds, but the sun is very low all day, just traveling along the horizon to the Southeast to the horizon Southwest. We get pretty nice sunsets sometimes over the student housing buildings, not-so-aptly named "Pentagon".

Not THE Pentagon, just Pentagon, its bizarro Norwegian twin. If you're curious, it's just because there used to be 5 buildings here in a pentagon shape. Not very exciting.

And walking back I had to take yet another picture of the lone oak in the hay field.

I meant to post this earlier, but better late than never.

I saw these in the market and didn't buy one, but my roommate Ingrid did, and before she left for Christmas she said I could have it. They were kind of expensive for something they just taped a stensil on...or however they did it. Cute but kind of disturbing. Is this a new variety of apple?? That must be what they get up to in the mysterious Biotech building on campus.

My main goals for January are:

1. Find topics and possible sites for my master's thesis

2. Study Norwegian with two new books and watch Norwegian TV shows--I'm starting to find a few good ones--reality TV, for instance, is usually really simple (read: dumbed down) that I hate in English but in Norwegian is easy to follow and fun!

3. Go for walks in the forest--big check for that one today!