Sorry for the delay

Wow, so I am sorry for not posting more often. As you guys can imagine I have been really busy lately (ok, so a lot of the busy is chillin with friends but w/e) Okay...so since last time....um, wel, our first concert is this weekend. I am playing in three ensambles. The first is me (on the bassoon), marius, karolina and arild (on cellos), sigurd (on bass), Jon (drumset), David (soprano sax), adrian (piano), and ?(i dont remember his name, on electric guitar). We are playing Blue Rondo a la Turk. It is a jazz peice and quite difficult to play but lots of fun. Next I play accompianment for the german girl, Solveig and anne on the piano. Solveig is singing a germen song called Ballad van der Sexualle Hugheit (the ballad of sexual addiction) It is interesting, it is a parody of opera and she and I are supposed to play/sing "ugly"...thats kinda hard to do in front of a bunch of people. Next, I am playing a small diddy with the group that is playing Moon over Bourbon, its cute, piano, drum, bass, electric, singer, cello, sax and bassoon. And finally i am playing in this very pretty swedish folk song. Tuve is the singer and she is just gorgeous in this song. SO yea, we are hoping to make some recordings eventually, i know the sound guys would love to give ti a try.

I have made a bunch of friends here but 3 really good ones. We are like a little group, we do averything together. In this group is a girl from the theatre department called Mari Anetta, she is the only one that doesnt live in tunheimen (my dorm building), next, there is Thor (pronounced- 'toor') he is studying sound editing and production, he lives down the hall from he next to the last of our group, Marius, he is in the music program with me, he plays the cello. We love to hang out and our 2 most favorite things to do are; 1- walk about 15 minutes to the harbour and sit out on the docks watching the marine life under us, and; 2- walk like 5 minutes down the road to the old monastary where there is a stone peir that goes out into the water and we love swimming out there in the day (tad bit chilly, it is the atlantic :) and we love packing a snack and blankets and lay out there watching the stars on a nice clear night, with the ocean right there, there is barely any obstrutions. A few nights ago we brought pizza out there and watched the stars for about 3 hours, spotting 4 right above us that we decided represented us and we promised to be friends forever....so sweet. I love it here. I am actually researching different schools around norway and thinking about applying to some. I just love norway that much, the only thing i miss about home is the people.

Going on Three Weeks

So I am now reaching the 3rd week of school here in Norway. I have started my extra classes and i have advanced art on Tuesdays, Jazz dance on Wednesdays, and I will be playing in a community Wind Band on the main island in a few weeks on Thursdays but until then i have the second half of the day free...yay!! My building had to do the entertainment for this saturday night and we made a play about a plane that is highjacked by three nuns but one turns out to be a russian spy and i play the annoying american tourist who won't stop talking about linedancing and is eventually set free by the nuns because they cant take it anymore. I am so happy I linedance and the nuns take out their machines guns and have to forcibly throw me out of the plane...its fun!!

I am making a lot of friends now, the building i am in, Tuneheimen, is the largest and all of us are becoming a big (around 30) happy family. It's fun. I also have student norwegian teachers 2 nights of the week so i am getting to know them. A couple girls i hang with have me teaching them how to speak ghetto properly...its so cute when they say it with accents. I am learning how to improvise in my music classes and it is very hard but fun. There is just 3 cellos and me for classical musicians so everyone else has done improve but we have to learn it because we have 2 group composition projects that must be completed in the next few weeks. I will try to get a recording of those projects to show you guys.

Well, I am tired of being on the computer so I'm gonna end this blog.
I love you all and miss you very much

The Glacier Hike

So on Thursday the entire school headed off to some town (i cant remember the name) and we dropped our stuff off at a kindergarden and then began the 2 hour hike up the mountains to this beach like spot right by the huge waterfall that was the melted runoff of Norways 3rd largest glacier. There was a huge bay-like pool at the bottom and it was super clear and bright blue in the sun. Some people went "swimming" in the huge pool after the warm hike but by "swimming" i mean running into the water and back out to dry off and get dresses, i stood in the water to cool off as i forgot my swimsuit and was only able to stand for a minute or so as it was ice cold.

We made some campfires ad grilled some food and once everyone had had their fill, 10 or so of the people continued up the mountain with Steinar (the principal like person....they dont have principals) and the rest either headed back to the school or lazed about a bit before finally heading back. I was one of the few to go up to the glacier with my friend Tina. It was a very hard hike, especially after the 2 hour one getting there. It was all uphill with tons of rocks and super muddy and slippery. There were times when i saw the girl in front of me sink into the mud up to the top of her boots, as i was in tennis shoes i hopped about trying to avoid the mud at all costs. When we finally made to the glacier everyone was exhausted. Steinar told us some of the history of the glacier and we just sat admiring it. It was ice blue and quite immense with a huge waterfall flowing out from under it. Everyone began heading back and Tina and I hung back to take some pictures. We headed back down the mountain to find two guys (i feel bad but can't remember their names) crawling down off of an immense rock that had, presumably, fallen off of the mountain a long time ago. They said that if we were looking for good photo opts. then we had to go up there. Tina looked unsure but i scrambled up the rock and froze at the top. Layed out before me was the most gorgeous sight i had ever seen. It wasnt the glacier, it was where we were headed. Tina joined me and we both stared at this unreal beauty. In front of us, two huge mountains, covered in trees met, making a v-like opening. In front of the opening was the bright blue bay that people had swan in earlier and behind the v were more mountains in a faded light, looking almost like a painted backdrop for a movie set. We sat on the rock forever looking at the mountains and behind us at the glacier and even down at a valley type of place at the base of the rock that looked like the setting of a national geographic movie. Finally deciding it was getting late we headed back.

One the way there and back we had to pass through a couple of sheep pens. Some of the sheep were very happy to see us and followed along until we reached a gate, others (mainly the males) trued shooing us away but there were 80 of us and a few of them...we win. We slept in the gym of the kindergarden that night and headed back to the school the next day, stopping at an ancient mansion that had housed maney of Norways barons. We got a tour through that and then it was back to school. I fell asleep as soon as I got to my room, missing lunch and almost missing supper. That was one of the best trips I had ever taken.