Kathi in London: January 2007

PICTURES PART TWO

PICTURES PART ONE

see text below :)

ANNE WAS HERE :)

Hi guys,
my friend Anne was here for a quick visit from Saturday until today. We had a lot of fun and an amazing and relaxed time! When she arrived on Saturday the first thing we did was having some Cuba Libre (which were so good, since I have just seen a few beer the last 4 weeks) and went to a club called Hulen afterwards (a cave inside a mountain). But before we left Fantoft we had another firealarm inside the building, so we took our drinks and walked all the 13 floors downstairs... What a nice welcome for Anne :)
Went ice-skating on Sunday which was sooo much fun and which we haven´t done for ages...last time when we were 14 years old I believe. So a long time ago ;) At five there was cake time in the Klubb Fantoft (nam nam) and in the evening Nils explained us how to play poker!!! Yeah - we were so proud of ourselves! We played 2 evenings in a row... I really like poker and I am so glad that I finally got the chance to learn how to play it, because so many people I know can play poker.
Monday we went to university together and of course for some coffees later... Yesterday night (Anne´s last night) we fell asleep around 1 o´clock, but woke up at 3am, because there was another....guess what? Yes - firealarm... This time we were in our pyjamas (not sure how to write this word) and when I opened the door of my room there was smoke everywhere outside on the floor. And I thought: "Shit, this time it´s real!" So we went downstairs again (13 floors) in the middle of the night. Wasn´t that funny actually... It turned out later that it was in our kitchen, somebody obviously forgot to turn off one hotplate, so there was some pasta still on the oven and it smelled so bad (still today) But thank God, nothing bad happend and there was no real fire! So when Anne came here we had firealarm and when she left, well, the same thing... I bet she´ll never forget life in Fantoft ;) But she said she liked her time here very much anyway! So thanks again Anne for coming all the way to Norway!! :-)
Lots of kisses
Kathi

SNOW!!!

Hi sweeties,
we had a lot of snow the past days here in Norway... It´s just great! 3 days ago I took a walk around a lake which is located very close to Fantoft. It was beautiful, the sun was out and I really enjoyed the quiet and peaceful atmosphere (see pictures). People from Bergen told me that we have been really lucky with the weather these days, because usually the snow is not staying very long in Bergen, because of the "mild" climate. But right now it´s not mild at all... sooo cold!
Tonight I went to a Chinese restaurant in town with a group of other students and the food was really delicious... ;-) The first picture on the top of the page shows Amanda & me. She is a very sweet girl, also living in Fantoft and she studies in Hong Kong and Canada and we got along very well from the very first moment we met each other :-)
I am fully enjoying my student life right now - it´s so nice to study in such a beautiful university. The buildings are amazing and the campus is located on a hill and surrounded by mountains. Nearly as beautiful as my home university...haha just kidding! So when I sit in the library or in one of the cafeterias I always look at these beautiful mountains...
What I like to about the academic life in Norway is that classes are really small, usually 10 to maximum 25 people and the contact between students and teachers is a lot closer than in Germany. (which I really like, because it makes it more fun to study) Class hours are also different than back home: A lesson starts -for example- at 10.15 and runs until 12 o´clock, but there is a 15 min break in between that gives you some time to buy more coffee...(as it is really essential for Norwegians and now also for me...)
I simply love the teacher of my American literature class - she is from the States and is married to a Norwegian man and together they live in the States. I think I have never seen such an enthusiastic, motivated and dedicated teacher like her. She is awesome! Basically knows everything about American literature and her English is so good...she sometimes uses words that I have never heard of before, which can be hard at times...but at least it´s pretty challenging for me!
Jeg heter Katharina og jeg kommer fra Tyskland og snakker tysk, men na jeg bur i Bergen. ;-)
As you can maybe guess I am enjoying my Norwegian language class... It´s twice a week and it´s fun to learn a new language from scratch...although I have to admit that there are a lot of similarities between Norwegian and German. I hope to be able to speak the basic stuff in 2 months. But the point is, that every little village in Norway has its own dialect, which makes it pretty difficult to understand people who are not coming from Bergen or Oslo. But actually even people from these 2 cities are using different words sometimes. Well, hope to be able to grasp most of it soon :)
I also love to sit in the local student cafe for hours and just read all that stuff which is on my reading list (it´s actually a lot) or talk with friends. Life is really relaxed in this city... People like to stay inside, because of the cold and they don´t stress too much about things... I wonder how it´s going to be when I am back in London for some days in February. Life is so different in Norway, but I am really happy to be here, because I feel it was just the right thing to do!
Tomorrow Anne is coming to visit me here and I am so much looking forward to have her here!!! Can´t wait to see here...Just hope it won´t rain too much, because I wanted to go up Floyen (a mountain) on Sunday, but with rain it´s actually no fun.

Hope you are all doing great in Germany - good luck for all the upcoming exams!!! I cross my fingers for you guys!
Speak soon - 1 mio kisses
MUA
xxx

600/700 meters above the ground....

MORE PICS FROM MOUNTAIN TOUR

This trip was so wonderful!!!! Really cold, but still perfect! Great group of people and a lot of fun! :-)

TRIP TO ULRIKEN

HUHUUUUUU!!!!!

Heeeeelllllooooo sweeties ;-)

alles klar?! What´s up guys? U survived the storm in Germany? I was listening to 1live Radio yesterday and I couldn´t believe what I´ve heart. The worst storm since 20 years? That´s pretty scary... Anyway, hope you are all well and doing fine these days.
I had a really crazy weekend so far... Went downtown Thursday night into a bar called Scotsman. It was so much fun, because we were about 20 Erasmus students on the dancefloor (some of us really drunk, but not me ;-)) showing the Norwegian people how to party!
But I have to agree to some rumours, that some of the Norwegian boys are really aggressive sometimes when they drink, but only towards other boys. I really don´t like it. But what can you do?! I guess just stay away from them. It was really late when we came back home and so on Friday there was no way for me to get out of my bed in order to attend a lesson, which was at 10am. That´s the good thing about being a student and since this will be my last "real" semester I just gotta enjoy it, right?! But apart from that day I really have a lot of reading stuff to do for my classes. Right now it´s even a bit frightening when I look at all these reading lists I got from my professors... To give you an idea: I have to read one book on regionalism about New York, since I am taking the American literature class and I have to finish it by end of next week. Then there is another essay waiting for me, that needs to be done by Wednesday and 3 more articles for English. But sadly that´s not the end of it. There are another 95 pages on mass communication which I should read until Monday. But to be honest, I don´t think I´ll be able to do it all - it´s just too much. And apparently I am doing something wrong, since I am the only one here who has all that stuff to do. Well, let´s see how it goes...
I thought about that birds thing again and yes, sometimes I come home late at night and they are already singing. BUT: They are also singing at midnight. So it must be a funny thing about Norwegian birds. :-)
Friday evening we had a party up on the 16th floor, called the "82 days of rain party" and to be honest sometimes I feel like being at an American colleage or something. This party was so wild, some girls ended up using the firehoses so that there was water everywhere on the floor. Luckily I was in one of the kitchens at that time, so I was not soaked to my underwear. Some time later the firealarm went on, because some dork blew smoke of his cigarette into the alarm system. So by 3 am we had some people from the fire departement visiting us... As you see Fantoft parties never get boring... haha
Tomorrow I have a date with some people playing some basketball in the gym. I wonder how much I can still play - haven´t played for ages since I left Schalke 04 ... ;-) as a former basketball super talent... hahaha
Ok guys, have a good night, I really miss all of you over here! But next Saturday Anne is coming over to visit me here. I am soooo happy about it!
Lots of kisses
Ciao
P.S. This is my luxurious room and of course the "Brathering" is sitting next to my bed! Thanks again for this wonderful Christmas present Mama and Papa ;-)

MY NUMBER

Hi guys,

what´s up?! I just wanted to let you know, that I have got a phone in my room, here is my number:

+47 55 27 6511

Always happy to hear from you!!!

@herb: off to the gym now, so that I´m in a good shape when I see you next time in the States!! ;-) hehe

Loads of kisses

xxx