A Mix of Stuff

I got to spend a couple days at the Stockholm Temple after Easter. My eye decided it was going to be red for a few days, so I had to wear my stupid glasses. I hate glasses, but I love the temple! It was fabulous. I went to 4 sessions....1 Swedish, 2 Norwegian, and 1 Russian. I must admit, though, that massive amounts of jetlag combined with temple sessions does not make for a very alert Lindsey...I fell asleep...a few times...at least. Since the temple is far away for most people in Scandinavia, there is a temple guesthouse you stay at for a week or two at a time instead of just going to the temple for a couple hours every once in a while like we do in the states. Here you do all you can in those couple days/week/weeks and then you don't come back for a long time because of the distance.


I got back to Evenstad a few days after the temple trip and all the snow was gone. When I left 10 days before that, it was quite in tact....but now it's just mud and brown everywhere. I can't wait for it to be green again. It's getting warmer and I haven't had to wear my coat any lately and it looks like I won't have to until Fall. YES! I'm ready to wear my flip flops again.


Here's the pick from before when I was talking about capturing and marking the red deer. This picture is classic! It looks like I'm a pretty hardcore "capturer," but if you knew the whole story, you'd know that really I'm just a hardcore flashlight holder. It's a very high tech and important job to hold a flashlight, you know.



The next picture will go down as another thing that Scandinavia has and the US doesn't, and I think it should stay that way. You tell me why they wanted to call a snack food "Funkies." I found this little delight in a grocery store in Sweden under the gluten-free section....that's probably why it was called that....

One more picture...I get to say that I have spent time in The Netherlands (Holland)...even if it was only 11 hours and was spent asleep in the Amsterdam airport. That still counts, right?


I have to start writing my thesis soon. I don't feel like a grown-up who is supposed to write such things...how did I get so old???

The Best Whirlwind EVER

Last week I was sitting in my room, bored, as usual, wondering how much I can't afford to come home for spring break and Easter....the next thing I know, I'm getting out my credit card and leaving on a plane to Texas the next day for a surprise trip home. This trip was not strictly for fun, it had practical purposes, but really it was just for me to get out of boredom and into some much needed happiness and fun with friends and family. I decided not to tell anyone I was coming, except for my friend Shannon who would be picking me up from the airport and taking me home.

This is my reasoning behind this trip:

Pros: a friend's birthday on Thursday at the Cheesecake Factory (oh yeah)
a friend's wedding on Friday
surprises (which I absolutely LOVE to do)
Easter Sunday with my family (which is where it should be)
take care of student loan business
renew driver's license
fun

Cons: money
be by myself for a week in the middle of nowhere while everyone else is off galavanting.

Now, wouldn't you make the same choice???? I even called some of my Norwegian friends before I bought the ticket to try and get them to talk me out of it, but they weren't there, so I gave into a little temptation and started packing. OH YEAH. It turned out to be such a good trip and so much fun surprising everyone. I did everything on my list and even got to do extra things I wasn't planning on that added to the justification of buying the ticket. I also rejuvenated myself by getting to go to the temple and having church in English. Oh how I miss that!! I had no idea that I was drained so much until I left Norway and stepped foot off the plane in Texas and felt happiness flow back into me as I saw my friends and family. It's amazing how much we can deceive ourselves sometimes. I'm not saying that I don't love Norway, I do, I'm just saying that I get a little drained by not being around anyone of my faith during the week and not being able to go to the temple. This is my grand once in a lifetime adventure, though, so I don't have any right to complain! I have been revived, as well as severely jetlagged. I am posting this at almost 3 am Norway time. You should feel sorry for me....HA!

What I got to do: hid in the bathroom of the Cheesable Factory to surprise Pammy Wammy as her unbelievably fantastic birthday present, surprised Sharon at her wedding, surprised my family by walking in the door unannounced, play Rockband...twice, went go-carting, ate at Fuddruckers...mmmm, have Easter with my family and get an Easter basket :), stocked up on some American food to take back with me, ate burritos...mmm, ate bagels...mmm, slept in my comfy bed, drove my CAR....WOOHOO!!!

I am one lucky kid.

Field Trips

A couple of weeks ago, my class went on an overnight field trip to Sweden to track a wolf pack. We tracked the pack where they had been about 4 days before to see if there were any fresh bed sites or carcasses of animals they had eaten. The trip was so fun and we found 2 moose carcasses, a jawbone from a beaver, and several bed sites where the wolves had slept. We were on skis and snowshoes the whole time and this is what I looked like 17 times during the trip....


How embarrassing...yes, I counted. I fell 17 times. We were back-country skiing and I hadn't done that yet. I had only skied on flat areas and this was through woods and hills and such, however, I had a blast and I got quite an arm workout from pushing myself back up so much. :)

About a week before this trip, I also got to see a pack of wolves out on a frozen lake eating a fresh moose kill. It was very far away, about 2 kilometers, but here is a somewhat close picture of the wolves we saw. It is quite rare to see wolves like this so everyone came out of the woodwork to come see. There were at least 10 other cars lined up across the lake with us.
Like I said, we couldn't get very close.

ALSO. Last week I got to go see some actual collaring of deer. A classmate of mine invited me on one of the trips where we sat in the car next to the big pile of hay known as a "feeding station" where some red deer were eating. We inched up closer and closer to the deer and then when we were close enough, my friend darted one of the deer by leaning out the window. We found the deer after it had fallen asleep and collared it with a GPS collar so we can get data on where the deer goes. I just stood there while they did all this stuff, but at least I got to go. :) I held a flashlight, that was my contribution. There is a picture of me with the deer, but I don't have it yet. I'll get it and you will see that the deer looks pretty dead, but no worries, it's alive and has no idea that I got a candid picture with it. Needless to say, it is exciting to live here sometimes and go on adventures like this. :)

Another field trip was last weekend with all the international students in the area. Mostly I went sledding and made a large snow-deer/llama (you can choose what it is...).

AND. Here are some pictures of the icicles outside my window. So cool. I wanted to reach out and lick them, but thought that might be a bad idea.

I hope everyone's doing great. I miss you all!

Why Norway makes me Fat

This is called brunost or brown cheese. It is completely Norwegian and completely tasty. You just eat it on bread or these big cracker things they call hard bread (which is gross). They say most people that aren't from here don't like it, but I'm not most people....as you know. I love it. Cheese makes me happy.




Oh Good ole Walter! What would I do without your chocolate. This is my favorite candybar and I keep eating more and more of it and can't stop.

These two things are just two of the reasons why I get fat, the other one is that I just can't seem to stop eating. Even when I'm not hungry, I just want to eat whatever is in site. People say it's from the cold, but I think that I just really like to eat chocolate and cheese. Who doesn't???

Harry Tur and Such

Last weekend I got to go to Sweden!! It really wasn't that big of a deal because it was just over the border to do a little shopping because it's cheaper there, BUT I can say that I've shopped in Sweden now. :) When people take trips across the border to Sweden like that, they call the trip a "Harry Tur" or a Harry Trip. For some reason if something is kind of a dumb thing to do they connect it with the name Harry....so since the Norwegian government doesn't benefit at all if people go shopping in Sweden, some politician called it a Harry Tur. So I went on a Harry Tur to Sweden. I wanted to get a picture of a Welcome to Sweden sign...like they have for all the states when you drive, BUT there was no sign! What a bummer. They need to invest in a sign so I can take a picture of it.

Also, I gave my church talk in Norwegian last week....yes, in Norwegian. That was soooo very stressful. I had to write it in English first way in advance and then get it translated by a friend into Norwegian. It's hard just to write it in English in advance, I usually don't do my talk until the night before or morning of, so that was a bit of a struggle. So....I read the talk in church and it may have been the longest 10 minutes of my entire life.....but I got through. I've never not wanted to give a talk so much as I didn't want to give this one! Everyone said I did a good job afterwards, but I think part of it was them just being nice.......I hope I don't have to do that again any time soon.

Last weekend I stayed with my branch president's family (the Breiviks) and on Friday night Sister Breivik was cooking dinner and I wanted to help. I decided to be clever and try to use the Norwegian that I know, so this is what I said: "Kan jeg hjelpe deg med ingenting?" After I said this, she started to laugh....that means I said something wrong....uh oh....so I asked and she said I asked her "Can I help you with nothing?" Oops. Still learning.

Classes are going great! Today I learned about wolves for hours and I was in heaven, if only every day could be so great! Friday we are taking a field trip north where we get to track wolves. So so so fun. Pretty exciting if you ask me!! We tracked moose last week and my group won ourselves some chocolate because we got the closest in our tracking exercise. I have discovered that one way to my heart is through Norwegian and Swedish chocolate. I am getting fat because of it. Oh well, at least I'm happy.

The Coolest Valentine Caterpillars EVER.

This year I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day a bit more than I usually do, but only because no one celebrates it in Norway. I don't like to be like everyone else. :) Here is a look at what I created....also, at home, we usually have sugar cookies so I made some of those, too...in heart shapes of course. I'm also sporting a bright pink shirt today. Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

I ski

It's official, I can now say that I ski and I have been dog-sledding. I can't say that I ski well, you would know if you ever saw me....falling down. I have a blast, though. I bought a pair of cross-country skis a couple weeks ago and I absolutely LOVE skiing now. I don't have a pic of my actual skis, but here's one from the first time out on the frozen river....


Another great thing is dog-sledding. I finally got to go!! First there was too much snow, so we couldn't go, then there wasn't enough snow, but then it was perfect. The pictures are a little funny colored and they don't do the experience justice, but at least I got some documentation...


(that's me in the third pic) :) they're justing sitting there so I could get on. If you notice, one of the dogs is even laying down. We ain't goin nowhere.

I am having myself a good time here in Norway! I also finally picked a topic for my thesis. I will be analyzing a census of all the different types of predators in Northern Sweden....oooh. (predators are the animals, not the people, just thought I'd clarify...)

Oh, and since I've been so bored here lately with a lack of things to do until classes start, I've taken up knitting....yes, I'm making a scarf. I also have been baking bread, I can make some kick-butt cinnamon raisin bread. Molly Mormon here I come!!! So, all in all, my new hobbies include taking walks in the winter wonderland I live in, skiing, knitting, and baking bread. :)