Skiing to the shops

My friends here at Folkehøgskole would say, "Vi har hatt sykt masse sno" which means we have had really fully sick amounts of snow. For me snow is super exciting, especially since I have grown up in a city which doesn't even get enough rain let alone snow. Every morning when I wake up, look out the window and realise it's snowing and I am just as excited as the day before. I walk around the school singing "snow, snow, snow". People think I'm crazy, but snow means snow men, snow ball flights, tobogganing and skiing. And I'm pretty sure not that many people in Perth can say they have skied to the local shop to buy bread, milk and eggs. 

Reminiscing Spain.

EF - Live The Language - Barcelona from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.

This video so makes me miss my awesome year in Spain. 

Long Sunday lunches in the sun, kalimotxo, winding alleyways, 

tapas, art museums, my international amigos, lush mountains, 

the hustle of the metro. When I get back to Perth I must take 

Spanish at Tafe. I must not forget that beautiful language. 

Edvard Grieg's House

A few Mondays ago, we were on a long minbus trip home from a very exciting trip to Florø.  On our 12 hour dive home we got to visit composer extraordinaire Mr Edvard Grieg's  summer house. I had heard about Edvard Grieg, I have listened to his music, but I am not an extreme fanatic. Until NOW! Edvard Grieg is fricken awesome!


He was 152 cm high, had a sweet moustache, spent his days composing music, hanging out with Tchaikovsky and eating oysters. He even had a special 4 tier oyster holder. This man was cool. In his younger days he was a ginger. He studied at many schools including Tanks, the same school as Ingvild! He married his cousin. Who was 2cm taller than he was. Spent his winters wearing bow ties in Italy, France, Germany and Spain. In the summer he composed music in a small wooden cabin over looking an amazing fjord just 50m from his summer residence. It was there he took inspiration from Norwegian folk music and wrote songs such as Peer Gynt.


Proud to be Norwegian, proud to be Edvard Grieg's nationality.

The back porch of Eddie's house, complete with the rose stain glass window.

Eddie's pimping dining table with the sterling silver confectionary holder he received for his 60th birthday.

Our class is convinced that our American classmate Johan is Edvard Grieg's reincarnation. Johan is also pretty cool.

My church fetish

I believe I have a borderline psychiatric problem when it comes to taking photos of the tops of churches. They are just so pretty.

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.

The redningsselkapet which also frequents our family photo albums

Internasjonal hanging with the school minibus

The hospital

Getting ready for the Eurovision show. Whoppa!

Marika taking photos for the press after the show.

Sheep head party!

The friends I made last summer.

Last summer, my aunt, uncle and I went for a four day hike in the Norwegian mountains. We saw almost no people but we saw hundreds of sheep. They were so cute, and I sort of fell in love with them. Norwegian sheep are pretty lucky, they get to roam around the pretty mountains all summer before their shepard collects them up and....slaughters them. Anyway I didn't think I was going to be eating one of their adorable heads, but this weekend I did.

My aunt told me that I couldn't go a year in Norway and not attend a sheep head party. Despite my soft spot for those cute little sheepies, I agreed. So she rang around to all the butchers in her city. All of them had sold out. It wasn't that they didn't normally have them, which is what I would have assumed. It was that so many people were demanding sheep heads for dinner that all the butchers had sold out! Who said the vikings were dead! Finally she found a butcher who was able to send five sheep heads 300km in the mail. Seriously, she just causally went down to the post office and picked up her package of sheep heads. Totally normal.

This is how they are prepared:
The hair on the sheep heads is burnt off, then they are smoked, salted and hung up to dry. The day before the sheep heads party they need to soak in cold water to get rid of some of salt. Then they are boiled in a cauldron sized pot for two hours and served up with boiled potatoes and mashed swedes. Plenty of beer and a rocket fuel strength Norwegian spirit known as aquavit is essential. They help guests to loosen up and get over the fact that they are eating the head of a sweet little sheep.
This is how you eat a sheep head:
All the guests at the party were quite excited to dig in. First you rip off the jaw, then you remove the skin off the cheeks and make your way up to the eyeballs. Yes, you then eat the eyeball and the tongue. The meat was actually delicious, just psychologically scaring to look at. Thats were all the alcohol comes in handy.

I think this is a great tradition, a real celebration of food and where it comes from. Eating meat from animals you know have had a good life, and not letting them go to waste. Dare I say it, I would do it again. Tusen takk til Åse og Ketil for en kjempe awesome helg!

24 hour soak.

Viking cooks.

Yummy tongues.

Dinner is served!

Gran Canaria. Ole!