In yet another similarity between Norway and the Game of Thrones heptalogy, at this point in our saga, it is definitely more accurate to say that winter has come. Snow covers the country; Norwegians salivate at the sight of skis, and Bergen’s rain has become distinctly icy.

I blame Heather, who just finished visiting. Disregarding the appalling weather and six hour dusks (I hesitate to describe what we have in Bergen as ‘days’), we managed to get up to several interesting adventures.

First, a couple updates. My work is going well. I am getting quite good at ping pong. Writing a novel turns out to be more difficult than I realized, but I push on nonetheless. And, momentously, I have curled.

Like most people who watched the Winter Olympics as a child, I have always dreamed of curling, but I have never had the chance. Now I have, and I can die satisfied that I have lived. Here’s a picture of me signaling to my teammates:

Curling is awesome. You put on these silly shoe thingies, one of which is slightly less grippy than the bottom of your shoe. The other one is utterly frictionless. Allegedly this is so that you can slide along when you throw the stone, but I believe it is to provide comic relief to lighten the suspenseful intensity of your average curling match. Here’s my friend Kevin lightening our match:

Anyway, I would explain the rules and technique, but I don’t know what they are. I did, however, win MVP of the match, but that was purely because of the intensity and hustle I brought to the ice. No one brushes the ice in front of the stone like me.

Also, as my American readers will probably know, Thanksgiving has come and gone. As it turns out, Thanksgiving is not a major holiday in Norway, but an American friend and I put on a celebration nonetheless. I made mac and cheese and jello salad. The mac and cheese absolutely killed (a french friend asked me for the recipe to my “gratin“), but they didn’t really know what to make of the jello salad. As I often say, you can lead a European to soul food, but you can’t make them eat.

The next weekend, Heather arrived in Bergen. We wandered around town, went to my favorite art museum, and had a lot of warm drinks. We also travelled inland and went for a hike. There were a series of public transport hijinks – the highlight of which was our bus hitting a car on a tiny country road – but we hiked from a lovely little town (Bruvik) up to the plateau, where we briefly scored killer fjord views before nearly dying in sudden hailstorm. Despite the hail covering up our tracks and limiting visibility to a little further than nothing, we managed to escape with our lives. Here’s some pictures:

This past weekend, we hopped on a train and headed to Oslo. The trip was astonishingly beautiful, especially when we crossed over the mountains and the sun emerged. I’d forgotten about sunlight.

Oslo was great. I played frisbee (Ultimate Rainfall got second, again), and Heather wandered around. We also wandered around together. I had two favorite places: a brewery in a really warm dungeon, and the Oslo Food Market, where you can buy things like this:

That, in case you didn’t guess, is a reindeer heart. It’s also what everyone is getting for Christmas.

And now I am back in Bergen, obstinately refusing to study for my oral exam in Scandinavian literature tomorrow. Of course, it is raining, and it has been night for nearly two hours now (I’m writing this at 5pm). I come home in 11 days, and I am extremely excited. My first 4 months in Bergen have been wonderful, but it’s time to go home for a bit. I never thought I would actually look forward to the amazing sunlight of Grand Rapids winter. Anyway, I will see many of you there!