David's Journal

Up until a few days ago, the weather was excellent. Warm, summery, clouds painting the sky in beautiful, interesting ways. Not unlike in the picture below.

But now it's gone completely schizophrenic. I went for a walk today, left the apartment with the sun shining and then got caught in a hail storm half way through.

Yesterday was Norway's constitution day, a national celebration where many people dress in their traditional regional costume and head downtown for a big parade. Norwegian flags are everywhere and the spirit is really patriotic. It's a cool day. This one was the coldest in fifty years, four degrees and it snowed down to three hundred metres. A little more extreme that a New Zealand spring but no less unpredictable.

To be honest I didn't actually make it in for the parade, I was too busy sipping champagne and having a delicious breakfast in true Norwegian tradition. So thank you David (a Norwegian who visited us in NZ) for an excellent party. Then I met up with Tobias (another Norwegian who visited us in NZ) and we had a look around the city where there were huge crowds milling about in drinking establishments. Having decided it was really too cold to keep wandering round we headed back for a BBQ, which is another traditional seventeenth of may activity I believe. So thank you Tobias for another excellent party.

I've been out and about doing other things in the past few weeks also. They have just finished building an opera house here, a cool design incorporating angles, glass and white marble into an impressive structure that can be treated like a giant park. My pictures don't do it justice but you can see how the angles are slight enough that people can walk all over it.





I haven't actually gone to the opera there, or ever come to think of it, but I am assured that it's very nice inside also.

The next big adventure was my first outdoor rock climbing experience. I've been indoor climbing before but as I found out it is entirely different. Here you can see me attacking the first climb.



These pictures illustrate the bit that I found the hardest to get used to, which is trusting the friction between the almost vertical rock face and the rubber on the sole of the climbing show to support your whole weight as you push yourself up. Till I got that I was just tiring my arms and hands out trying to do everything with them. In the end though I was able to get up places that I seriously thought would be impossible for me, which is a good feeling.



Meanwhile, on Endor's forest moon...



It was a great day, gorgeous weather, amazing scenery and for days afterward I felt like I'd been beaten mercilessly with sticks. But in a good way.

I've been here now for a month, with two to go and it feels like the time is really flying by. I've finally figured out the bus ticket system, to my dismay as it turns out - I was saving heaps by using it wrong. Still, walking has its perks, like the picture below I took taking the long way home one day.