Christmas is in town!

Already before we left for the Lofoten there were signs of Christmas. Stores were filled with gingerbread cookies and many more amazing Christmas treats. But when we came back to Oslo the whole city was wrapped in Christmas! Buildings were covered in fairy lights, even trams were decorated with fairy lights! In stores the products got their own Christmas packaging from milk to flower and chips, even beer got their own Christmasedition.

But most importantly the Christmas markets opened. Yes plural, they are everywhere. At school, in the botanical gardens,... everywhere. There was the big one with a Ferris wheel, a super Instagram-worthy light arch and an ice rink. Together with the whole Erasmus group we decided to go ice skating there, only to arrive to a puddle. The ice had melted and we couldn't skate. Who would have guessed this would happen in Norway! So of to school to watch a movie we went!

As the Christmas spirit grew, the temperatures became colder. First -7, -10 until one day we hit -13. This was a day best spend inside with a big mug of hot chocolate.

cookie inspired by "the scream"

With Christmas approaching the need to bake cookies grew as well as my hunger for lasagna! Since I didn't have an oven, it had been ages since I ate my favorite dish. So on this particular wonderful evening a few of us got together and had the best winter evening one could imagine. A good lasagna, great company and wonderful cookies! I needn't say more!

On the 5th of December the Dutch Erasmus students decided to introduce the other to our amazing tradition of Sinterklaas. They had organised a secret Santa evening for us. a great evening with a lot of laughter and great atmosphere. My birthday was approaching and we still hadn't had any significant amount of snow. And I reaaaaaly wanted snow on my birthday.

A few days before my birthday I was in luck! It started snowing and it didn't stop! After an evening adventure on the metro, we headed to a park near our apartments and started makings snow angels, snow faces,... and met some very friendly snowmen. We discovered Oslo in a whole new way and were walking through Oslo's snowy streets until 2 am!

Then a few days later it was my birthday. I finally turned 20. Now something they didn't tell me before coming here, was that you can only enter bars and clubs if you're 20 or older. Being 19 it was bedtime for me after the preparty. So after a day full of snowy hikes, ice skating on an actual frozen icerink, great food and obviously great company, it was finally time to pass that security guard! I showed my ID and got IN!!! The feeling was amazing and the club was okay.

Now it was time for business again. Once again schoolwork needed to be done, and the delivery was this week! After struggling a great deal with my website I had worked on something I am actually proud of! To finish the job we had to write an essay about the process. And like that my semester in Oslo was done. Fancy schmancy website: https://liess-first-project.webflow.io/

When walking around in Oslo in winter you will notice some things you wouldn't see in most other capitals. You notice a significant amount of snow board and ski gear! And on the subway even more! Why? there are plenty occasions to do winter sport only a metro ride away from Oslo. So on one of my last days we decided to go for it as well. We took the metro early in the morning and went skiing till the sun went down. Skiing with sunset was a wonderful end of this journey. And just like that it was time to go home.