Fisken Fjorder: Minibus to Fløro!

The last two weeks have been busy and full of excitement, hence not very much time for blogging. My class saw a semifinal of the Eurovision song contest, I turned 21 and we had a study trip to Gran Canaria.

The daughter of my teacher, Marika, competed in the semifinal of the Norwegian selection for the Eurovision song contest. It was held in a small town on the western coast of Norway named Florø, 10 hours drive from where we live and has a population of about 8500 people. What made this trip so special though was that Florø is the town I was born in! AND I hadn't been back to Florø since the beginning of my life. It was very strange that this trip happened unplanned! I got to visit the hospital I was born in, and see the ambulance boat which my Mum worked on. It was just by chance I was sitting in Marika's hotel and saw this boat out the window which I had repeatedly seen in family photo albums, it took a few seconds to sink in before I realised. Then I ran outside, around the wharf and onto the jetty where I talked to the young dudes now working on the boat. I told them that my mum worked on the same boat 20 years ago and they replied "cool", they couldn't quite understand why I was so excited. It was a very strange feeling to know that my parents and I had lived in that town.

Then there was Eurovision song contest. In Norway it's a big deal. In fact last Friday when Egypt had one of it's most historic days of all time, it was more important for the Norwegian newspapers to have a laughable singing contest on their front covers! Our class had fantastic seats, not to far back and right in front of the stage. Just as the show was about to begin, two of my classmates Antonia and Johan started a slow clap. After a few seconds the whole audience of 3000 people joined in, pretty awesome. The show was embarrassingly corny but entertaining. We watched the Norwegian version of Justin Beiber sing a song called "puppy love", followed by a 18 year old supermodel who pranced around with backstreet boy style backing dancers. When it was time for our teachers daughter Marika, we waved banners and clapped the whole way through. She is a fantastic performer! But probably the coolest part of the experience was to sit and observe all the camera men and technical staff do their jobs. Watching the show being filmed and broadcast live was very fascinating and I realised just how many elements go into making a show like that go smoothly. Here are some photos from our road trip.