Weekend in Tromsø

Hello everyone!

From Feb 4-8, I went off with 6 friends north to Tromso. We were lucky enough to make contact with 3 Saskatchewan students at the University of Tromso. They let us sleep on their floors and helped guide us around the city. Their help made the trip much more affordable and enjoyable!

This is 4 of the Bodo students I travelled with. Left-right Tomomi from Japan, Jen and Ellen from Ohio and Missouri and Alina from Poland.

Tromso is a city in northern Norway that is a bit larger that Bodo. The reason for going on this particular weekend was a Sami festival (Indigenous people in Scandinavia). On our first day there, we went to the University of Tromso to have a look around and have some waffles with other international students studying there. I also had my first taste of Brunost (brown cheese) here. It is very popular in Norway, and I thought that it was delicious. It is basically just cheese that is a bit creamier and smoother than regular mozzarella. It is toffee brown colour, hence the name, and has a bit of a sweet cinnamon and nutty taste to it. Very yummy on waffles with jam.

After the brunch, we went downtown to visit the Sami market. The picture shows some Sami shoes. I'm not sure exactly what they are made of but are very wwarm and have curled over toes. There were a few guesses as to why they wear "elf shoes" with the best guesses being to keep their skis from sliding off (before ski boots) or to make it easier to walk through very deep snow.

Later that same day, some of our group made it over to the polaria museum which is essentially an aquarium with some other exhibits about climate change and marine biology. It was very neat, we arrived just in time to see the seals getting their dinner. The polaria is the only aquarium in the world that has bearded seals grown in captivity.

The other events of the Sami festival were "women throwing" (not nearly as exciting as it sounds, merely the women's lasso competition) and reindeer racing. The reindeer racing was quite exciting, they would put the reindeer into a box and then a skiier would come in behind and hold the reins. When the race started, the lid of the box would fly off and the reindeer came rushing out pulling the skier behind. They went so fast. The only pictures I took were quite blurry.

We also paid a visit to the Polar Museum. This held exhibits about the history of the Polar region, exploration and expeditions. It also had a great deal of trapping, sealing, whaling and hunting exhibits. It was extremely well-done and very interesting, but quite graphic and disturbing too.

The last big adventure of our weekend was a trip up the cable car to view Tromso from above. The pictures themselves tell the story! It was beautiful with all the snow covering the city.

Maple Syrup/Poutine

So mostly it's been same old, same old around Bodo. We had quite a bit of free time last week because of cancelled classes, so there are a few things I can update on:
On Weds, we went to the waterpark downtown (as I said in the last post!) and it was really quite neat. They gave you an arm band with a little microchip in it which was your access to the change rooms and lockers. You would wave your wristband in front of the machine and a locker would pop open. Then you could put in your things, close the door and wave it again to close. I thought it was pretty cool. The water park itself had 4 pools (lanes, wavepool, kiddie pool and wading pool) also diving boards and 3 water slides. One of the slides even had different light effects as you slide down (strobe, rainbows, stars), it was alot of fun.
Then over the weekend, Tomomi and Laoka who are 2 students studying here from Japan, helped everyone to make sushi. We used smoked salmon, artificial crab, cucumber and even managed to get ahold of an avocado. The salmon around here is amazing, nothing like I've ever had at home, it's so fresh!
To repay everyone for the sushi, John and I (a fellow Saskatchewanian) made some poutine on the next day. It was quite good, and everyone liked it even though we used regular cheese instead of curds and powdered gravy. Also, thanks to my wonderful parents, some maple syrup arrived yesterday so I shared that as well. In Norway, they don't often use syrup like we do at home, they have corn syrup and a really thick molasses-y syrup for baking. They tend to eat pancakes/waffles with jam, fruit or a sweet brown cheese. One of my Norwegian friends tried maple syrup for the first time. I saw maple syrup once in a grocery store (Made in Canada was on the label!) but it was very very expensive.
And finally today I took an AfroPower Jazz dance class at the local gym. It was all in Norwegian, but still easy to follow along and really great fun. I've taken a few fitness classes there so far and am glad that I decided to join up.

The most exciting news of the week is that I am leaving Bodo tomorrow to travel to Tromso, which is quite a bit further north. I am going with 7 other international students and 3 other U of S students who are studying in Tromso have graciously offered to be our guides and provide floor space. The reason we are going is a Sami festival that takes place this week. The Sami are an indigenous northern people in Norway. We will return on Monday evening, and hopefully I will have some more great pictures to post.