farewell dinner

Tomorrow night’s the farewell dinner for the Norwegian School of Economics exchange students. This semesters gone by faster than I thought it would, but I still have a few weeks after class is over to check out Europe. I thought I’d post before I have to do all the studying I didn’t do this semester for exams.

After exams, I have the next 6 weeks booked up and it’s going to be non stop traveling. A few days after my last test is Norwegian Constitution Day, it’s called syttende mai and the whole country takes the day off. I’ve heard great things about this holiday and even Norwegians saying things as far as there are no rules on syttende mai. Here’s a picture from Fløyen of the firework celebration they put on in my city to end the day.

After this my fellow Norwegian viking Graeme and I are flying down South. Real South. We’ll finally get some weather in the 80’s in Portugal. We’ll be staying for 6 days in Faro and Lisbon. Hopefully get the chance to ride some 4 wheelers and whap some lefts on the surf board (shout out to Laidlaw). One of the coolest parts of the trip is spending the whole time right on the Atlantic coast and maybe even getting the chance to do some diving in the Algarve beaches. Apparently you can see up to 30 meters in the water at this spot.

Some of you may know my cousin Andrew. He grew up down the block from me and has also got some Norwegian in him. We’ll be meeting up in Oslo, Norway after I get back from the beach. He spent six weeks there last summer and is going to hopefully show me a few spots I missed since being in Oslo for X Games. After a couple days we’re going to take the train to the mountains where I live in Bergen, Hordaland. I’ve heard this train ride is supposed to be the most scenic one in the world when Norway turns green in June. It takes 6 hours, but there’s no strand of monotony.

Once we get to Bergen we’re going to visit Ulvik, a small farm town in Norway that only a few people I’ve met have heard of. Mine and Andrew’s grandmothers heritage started in this town before they emigrated to the states. They had the surname Knutsen, along with the majority of Norway which makes it hard to look up any family heritage while we’re here. It’s pretty cool to be the first in our family to go back to Ulvik where it all started. After growing up my whole life in Seattle with my cousin this will be surreal. Here’s a picture of one of these cabin houses in the summer time.

We’ll definitely try and take advantage of the summer weather on the fjords doing some kayaking and camping. If we’re feeling adventurous with a rental car we may even hike it up Trolltunga or Preikistolen.

 

 

 

 

 

My last stop in Europe before heading home to Seattle will be with one of my French friends Baptiste. He’s moving home to Marseille for work and offered to show me around France for 9 days. I’ll be meeting him in Paris and we’ll be staying with a few of his buddies for a few days. Then we’ll drive his car down to the South of France for the rest of the trip. Spending a few days in his hometown Marseille and then a few in Nice. I’ve heard it’s pretty amazing in these cities during the summer.

I’ll post one last time when I’m back in Seattle. Hopefully bring back a few good GoPro flicks from these last few weeks in Europe. Hope springs been off to a good start back home and I’m stoked to see everyone again.

Skål

Easter Break

First off my thoughts and prayers go out to those affected in the Brussels bombing over Easter break. It was pretty eery being in the Amsterdam airport bordering Belgium at the time of the disaster. It seems like this has been a weekly occurrence during my time oversees. Everyone here preaches to keep doing you, because otherwise they win. However, there were some good experiences that were had in light of this. I’ll run through quickly a few moments in London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Prague.

London started off with a long St. Patty’s day night at the bars. The British accents were awesome and I had to keep myself from laughing a few times. This city is absolutely massive and when we took a ride on the London Eye you couldn’t even see where the buildings stopped. The clock was cool and the canals were green. I was constantly thinking about James Bond and The Bourne Ultimatum series the entire time. I’ve never seen so many selfie sticks in my entire life at the Buckingham Palace and so many impatient people on the left of the escalators. We escaped the tourist madness on the last day and had a second to walk across Abbey Road and reminisce about the Beatles.

Next stop was Amsterdam. I was excited for this one. This city is literally entirely built on the water and every single canal was flooded with bikers. I got the chance to meet up with two of my best buds Pete and Sam, as they were heading back to the States a few days later. We of course went straight to the Heineken Factory and learned how it was made, and may have had a few beers. We got flagged down for the Heineken canal tour after, and may have had a few more beers. Walking around this city was an awesome experience and The Red Light District is definitely one of a kind.

The most live able city in my opinion had to of been Copenhagen, Denmark. This place just got voted the happiest country in the entire world. I could see why by the end of the trip. It was a sunny Saturday and we headed out to the abandoned paper factory which sits out on an Island. After going to Christiana of course. The factory is filled with any street food you can imagine and it was incredibly good. We all grabbed a couple of cold ones with our food and sat out on the dock with the hundreds of other Danes. It was rare to be sunny out and we were there for probably two hours, it was honestly one of the best days of the trip. On the way back to the hostel you could see the streets packed with people drinking beer and hanging out with family and friends on benches by the canal. Awesome city and I’m definitely coming back here.

Lastly was Prague. This place looked straight out of Shrek! A huge castle sits up on a hill overlooking Old Town and all of the buildings surrounding on the canal. We were here on Easter and were treated to some of the best priced food and beer I’ve had. We ate at a microbrew for lunch one day, the home of the original Budweiser. They asked us if we wanted dark or light and kept the half liter mugs coming. Heavy set bald guys speed walked around the brewery refilling beer after beer. They would then go back behind the counter and blatantly swig their mugs the entire day which was comical. The meals would come out to about 20 USD for a full plate of food and around 4 liters of beer. We finished off the trip at the John Lennon wall and a pub crawl that has drawn crowds of up to 500 people.. So much history in this place and the prices are unbelievable.

Opening Day for Seattle baseball today. Sco M’s!

 

Paak X Games

Hard to believe it’s already the halfway month of my exchange. So much new and Bergen is finally starting to feel a little like home. This month I finally get the chance to check out a little more of Europe during Easter break. But it’s hard to leave given all the antics going on recently in Norway.

The 17 day festival, UKEN, is underway and it’s been an experience taking pictures and partying with some of these artists. One of them stood out more than all the others. He goes by Anderson Paak and recently his life was flipped up side down by Dr. Dre. He started out working on an illicit farm and then was left homeless a few years ago. He got noticed by Dr. Dre just after and was signed to the prestigious Aftermath Entertainment. Soon after he was having one of the most live Wednesday night performances on the door step of my school in Norway. He plays the drums and raps like no other artist I’ve seen. If interested, I linked the words with corresponding live songs I took. His last performance in the U.S. was for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and he’ll be in Palm Springs for any of the Coachella goers after he’s out of Europe. Props to the business school for picking this guy out.

The last weekend of February was a great one. Canada, France and I took a 60 dollar round trip flight to the capital Oslo, Norway. We were greeted by some of the craziest snow athletes in the world at X Games Oslo. Three straight days of pure blue bird and some of the best atmosphere I’ve been around since arriving here. People watched from all over the world to support their countries skiers and snowboarders. I had plenty to root for considering half of the athletes were from stoney Boulder, Colorado.

The X Games after parties were interesting, to say the least. Here’s a link to a quick highlight of the 5 day event, X Games Oslo.

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