Adventures of Norway: Paris, Berlin F.A.M area, Groningen and Amsterdam.

Hello again,

I hope all is well back home! Christmas and The New Year have all come and gone and life really hasn't slowed down too much here in Oslo. I'll start with the 'boring' information and save the juicy stuff for the end today. I need to make sure you actually read the whole blog ;)

To begin, I have FINALLY finished the semester and I am now awaiting the results for two out three classes from the previous semester. The majority of my friends, and by that I mean all of them, have gone home for the semester break. The first left before December 5th and the last of them left on Sunday the 22nd. It is crazy how quickly a student village can quiet down! haha I know that I will miss all of them, but this is part of the experience. With Christmas approaching, I started to plan a Christmas dinner with any students staying in Oslo. The group was around 12 people and lowered to 6 by Christmas day. It was nice to be with others on Christmas. At the same time, I never really realized how much being with family on Christmas meant to me!

Now, why don't we get down to the real business here. As you can hopefully tell from the title of this blog, I was recently traveling through central Europe. If you weren't instantly interested, then you should probably sit down for this one. For real, Paris was an amazing trip! I headed out with my roommate Sarah on the 15th of December. We arrive in Paris exhausted, but still excited to see all that Paris had to offer! I'm going to try make this blog as short as possible, so for large sections I will use picture intertwined with small descriptive sections.

 Let's head to Paris! Sarah and I went to Paris on the 15th through the 18th (19th). We saw what seemed like everything in Paris from the Louvre, to Napoleon's grave, to the Eiffel tower. Below you'll see pictures of all of this and more with captions.

Giant Christmas tree @ Lafayette

Sarah and I just doin' some beauty shots

Eiffel Tower fist night

It's not that much taller than me...

View above the Louvre, famous for its unique design and the Mona Lisa

Me feeling short 

Smile, Mona!

Brent...never mind, I'm just gonna take the picture..Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame

Napoleon's Dome

Napoleons Casket. Big chair for a little man to sit in....just saying

Paris for the Eiffel tower

Eiffel tower from the base

So for the most part, you can see what my Paris trip consisted of! Sarah and I were set to come home on the 18th of December. However, as we all know, if I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all! We missed our flight and had to re-book our flight for the next day. A 3 hour trip home became a 33 hour trip. Sarah and I make jokes about it already...well, I do..... (had to include that part just for Sarah!) haha.

I was in Oslo throughout the 26th and on the 27th I headed out to Berlin for my first solo trip. Berlin was equally as nice as Paris. I was able to see a large section of the still standing wall, Check Point Charlie, The Radio tower and so much more. Here's a picture preview of the city.

Famous Section of Berlin wall. Google "East Side Gallery" and you will undoubtedly find out more about this section.  

The captions read "Moscow, China Everywhere else and Berlin" and was meant to compare the world they lived in.

Large free style art section 

Another famous section. Like I said, Google can tell you so much more than me. My apologies. 

Jewish memorial with German Flag in Background 

Memorial to the Dead Jewish of Europe. 

Crowd scene around Brandenburger tor

Berlin Radio Tower

"Are you dying to live of dying?"

Berlin was a great time. I ended up meeting with a good friend in Berlin, Nils, and he invited me to a small New Year Celebration. It was great and the people were amazingly friendly. It was a great feeling to know that people from other halves of the planet can still find so much in common. If any of them read this, I just want to say thank you again! I had a great time in Berlin. After Berlin, I headed to the Frankfurt am Main area to meet up with Manon and Marius. Frankfurt was nice and I spent time looking around the city know for its sky scrapers. Manon, Marius and I also headed up to Heidelberg.  Heidelberg, a small city near Frankfurt, is known for its Castle atop a small 'mountain'.

 Outside of Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäu

Inside of  Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäu

Römer Strasse in Frankfurt

Römer Stasse 

Römer Strasse

 Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäu

View from Heidelberg tower

Huge Keg from Heidelberg castle. Bringing it home for Amber and Andrew's new bar haha

Castle from Below

It was a great time seeing Marius and Manon again and I hope to see both of them and the rest of the Germans again! After the Frankfurt am Main area, I headed to Groningen in the Netherlands to see my Sarah (my roommate) Eva (friend from the Netherlands) and Miriam (friend from the Netherlands. I chilled with all of them for a few days and was able to wind down before heading home to Oslo. I went to Amsterdam my final day in mainland Europe. I didn't really take any pictures in Amsterdam. But, I can say that the city was crazy! I mean, Amsterdam was even crazier than I ever expected. I plan to also head back to the Netherlands so hopefully I can spend more than 5 hours in the city haha. 

I certainly hope this entry wasn't too long nor too short haha. You'll all hear more about the beginning of this semester soon. 

Thanks again for reading and as always look forward to more Adventures of Norway!