Det luktet vondt her! Fy søren!

Three weeks living intensively in close contact with a small group of people can come to be very trying and tiring (especially in the company of a certain rather special girl with special quirks and personality traits!)! But in no way has it been a bad three weeks, I'll just be happy to have a week and a half easter break, time to rest and relax away from the stress of well, resting and relaxing at an outdoor life school.

It's also given me time to really appreciate the dynamic qualities of Norwegian nature. Last week we were up in the Sunnmøre Alps, skiing down mountainsides. This week, just three or so hours from Sunnmøre , we were surfing, and relaxing on the beach wearing nothing but board shorts in 15 or so plus degrees. It seemed to go from winter to spring in the space of half a moment.

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But as for our week in Sunnmøre. Fantastic. Helt nydelig vær - blue skies, sun, snow. The first two days we recieved a dump of maybe 50 - 70cm new soft fluffy snow. Then the weather cleared up, culmunating in a mind blowing last day, with air temperature of about plus 10, windstill, blue skies - just perfect. Skiing up a mountain wearing next to nothing. Looking out over the Everest-eske views - nothing but snow drenched mountain after mountain. Another clash of nature - you could see the ocean peaping out between some of the peaks in the distance. Very strange being on a snow covered mountain and seeing the sea (especially when I associate sea with 30 plus degrees!).

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Coming down from the Alps we drove into spring. Back at school the spring flowers are starting to bloom, the grass is turning green. And the roads are dry! For the first time in months. Such a lovely feeling - I now understand why Norwegians have an almost holy relationship with the start of spring.

And then to the beach to surf. But it played with my core foundations! In my experience, if it's warm enough to lie on the beach just with shorts on, then it's warm enough to swim just with shorts on! But no, we had to struggle and wriggle and fight our way into 7mm wetsuits to brave the couple-degree-above-zero water. Warm beach, cold water. I hated getting into that wetsuit. It felt like a days work in itself. I was comepletely and utterly exhausted after fighting my way into it for 15 minutes. And what made it worse was thinking that back home i could just run into the sea naked if the thought possessed me! But apart from my now newly developed wetsuit phobia, it was a fantastic week. Perfect waves mostly, and beautiful sunsets every night. Summer style barbeques for dinner - sitting out in the sun. And lazy times reading and chatting and lazing around.

The mountains around Stadt - where we were surfing are spectacular - rising almost straight up from the sea. Jennifer and I walked to the top of one - a hefty hour hike up very steep terrain. We decided to try and find an easier way down... without much success. We had to slide down on our bums for much of the way, it being so steep. And we were never wuite sure if we would get to the edge of an impassable cliff.... Quite exiting exploring like this. But we made it down eventually.

Some pictures for your viewing pleasure :)

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I'll go off and try and pack for my easter holidays - the plans stand as of now - drive to bergen and stay with asgeir for a couple of days, then head down to haugasund - stay with Markus for a bit. Maybe visit asgeir's family in Hjelmeland, maybe visit May Sissel's cabin. Who knows what might happen!