Norway and Belgium!

First of all, I just thought I'd mention that I'm safely in Istanbul, listening to the evening call to prayer from the Blue Mosque (and various other mosques)-- it's 4:50, aka sundown, aka time to pray again!

Norway and Belgium were so much fun! After I left Portugal I stayed in Paris for two days (in a youth hostel), then flew to Oslo and took a train to Brumunddal, where my friend Anne-Lise lives. In the week I was there I (in no particular order):

-Took walks on ice and snow and slipped various times (never fell, pretty proud of myself for that!). I love snow! It snowed!
-Saw a huge ski jump
-Went to Oslo and:
--saw a norwegian tv station headquarter place
--saw an old fortress
--bought a hat with earflaps (yes, I'm still really excited about that)
-Went to a Norwegian high school in Hamar
-Went to a Norwegian folk high school in Lillehammer (look them up, they're cool!)
-Saw "The Polar Express," "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," "Stardust," "Love Actually," and various friends episodes. It gets dark early, so we watched a lot of movies.
-Saw a ruined dome church in Hamar
-Baked pancakes, french toast, and gingerbread (peperkake!!!!!!!) and ate a lot of gingerbread dough. yum.
-Ate moose and reindeer and lots of brown cheese (it's good, look it up). Then made a moose meat fajita the next night for dinner.
-Watched as it got light at 8 in the morning and dark at 3... beautiful sunsets, though!
-Had fun trying to figure out Norwegian kroner (approx 9.2 kroner=1 euro, or something like that!).
-Ate lots of yummy norwegian chocolate
-Learned some Norwegian, which is a fantastic language! Really beautiful.

So, summed up, Norway was awesome! Sorry if you don't like reading about my adventure in bullet form, I'm too lazy to write paragraphs right now.

Next stop: transit. Train from Brumunddal to Oslo, plane to Amsterdam, change planes, fly to Paris, sleep a night at a friend's apartment then take a train from Paris to Brussels. four countries in two days! woo! I accidentally bought a first class ticket on the train, so I got food and free wifi! pretty nice, but on the way back I made sure to get a second class ticket for half the price.

Belgium!
In Belgium, I:
-Went out with my friend Vreni (whom I was visiting and hadn't seen for a year and a half!) and her friends from a club she's in to go bowling. Failed miserably, but I've always known I'm horrible at bowling. Vreni won! woo!
-Went to Leuven, Belgium's student city, with the coolest town hall I've ever seen. soo cool! Lots of bikes. Ate lunch at a pasta place with Vreni and a friend of hers who had been on exchange in the US. Tried to order in flemish and failed. haha. Explored shopping streets, woo!
-Went by myself to Brugges because Vreni had classes. Brugges is absolutely beautiful! I have fallen in love with Belgian architecture.... all the houses lined up together with their step-like rooves and bricks and designs... very cool. I went to a museum there and saw some tapestries and lace... Brugges is famous for lace. Quite cool. Cold, actually, though not as cold as Norway. No snow in Belgium, but some rain! Had glühwein (hot wine), which they sell in cute little cabin things on the streets.
-Got to know the fantastic Belgian train system very well.
-Went out to eat in a steak-and-french-fries restaurant where they were serving wine from my friend's host mother's vineyard in Portugal. coincidence!!! It was funny.
-Went into Brussels where I saw Vreni's school (very green--they painted everything green...) and a christmas market! It was awesome: lots of little cabins selling clothes, hats, candles, more gluhwein and hot chocolate, etc. Plus a skating rink, ferris wheel (with a VIP cabin for 75€ that comes with a bottle of champagne... thought that was funny), ice sculptures, and decorated trees. It was quite cool and made me wish we had chirstmas markets in america... not just walmart.
Except at one point they decided to "make" snow by spraying out suds into the air. Looked like snow, but then we were all covered in suds. haha.
Then we went to the Grand Place, which was beautifully decorated with a lot of lights and a big christmas tree, plus a nativity scene! absolutely beautiful :-D.
-Ate way too many waffles. yum!

Yesterday I hung out with Vreni in the morning, then took the train back to Paris (I guess I just need to stop by there every couple weeks? haha) where I stayed the night in a hotel near the airport, then flew here, to Istanbul, where it's quite warm and very unlike Norway and Belgium! Met my dad and the airport, then got to this hotel, where instead of chocolates on the pillows I got a pretty little container of turkish delight (if you don't know what it is, look it up. it's good).

From one incomprehensible language to another... haha.

Thanks to those who have been reading!

Tchau