Summary of the Winter break

It’s been almost 3 days that I’m back at the college after travelling to Germany and Maastricht in the Netherlands. I would admit I loved my time in Kiel and Hamburg the most. The people were friendly and things were cheap too if compared to Maastricht. Of course, clothes were cheaper in Maastricht since we were there during Christmas and they were on sale.

I got the chance to try Asian food everyday and I also tried Turkish and German food (the real one). In Hamburg, I managed to get up at 7.30am and got myself ready for a long walk to the Northern part of the city, if I’m not wrong, to the Binnenalster lake and the Ausenalster lake, which were opposites. What confused me was that I posted a picture of one of the lakes on facebook with the caption “Binnenalster lake at 8.40am”, then a German schoolmate commented that it’s not a lake, it’s a river. However, if I put Binnenalster river on Google, there is no relevant result. But anyway, it doesn’t look like a river.

Found a nice restaurant while walking.

The walk to the lakes with my friend was the most unforgettable one, personally. Also, we two were the only people who actually went out far away from where we were staying. Thanks to my dad for giving me experiences of reading a map and developing my curiosity about things around me.

Oh, and I bought some souvenirs too. One of them is a small ship with “Gorge Fock” label 🙂 Cool eh? I don’t really understand how my interests are more into such thing like buildings, ships, architecture etc. I guess I just like the old stuff or history, though I don’t like reading long texts. This discourages me, in a way, as people in Cambodia have strong opinions against girls having interests in architecture and construction. Anyway, I’ll try figure out myself what works best for me in the future.

We celebrated our New Year at the Maas river and it was the first time I saw lots of fireworks. They were all over the city and everywhere I looked, I saw fireworks. One disadvantage though, people were drinking and spreading beer around and we, who were laughing, unexpectedly tasted the alcohol too. It was, after all, really great and I won’t forget my first New Year celebration in Europe.

Back in Flekke home

Waking up quite late this morning (10am), I went upstairs to find my host parents and probably to have breakfast. But I couldn’t find them and later found that they were working on their paintings and blogs. This weird feeling when you can’t find anyone and so you just wander awkwardly around the house.

Then I went back to my room checking out information about the Extended Essay that all first years are going to write. I’m personally interested in all the subjects I’m taking so I’m still a bit indecisive on a specific topic. In a way, I want to link Physics to Environmental Systems and Societies, ESS to economics, and Maths to Economics. However, we can’t write on 2 subjects, so I’ll probably write in Maths since it’s my most favourite subject, though I’m not good at it. Also, since I want to study computer science, I believe this subject will increase my opportunity to get into the university I want.

At 11.30, I finally found somebody to talk to and that’s my host mom. As always, we were discussing about issues around the world like plastic surgery, poverty, allocation of the world’s resources and travelling. Some countries spend a lot of money on plastic surgery, while others are starving and this is awful. However, we can’t do anything about this but through discussing and sharing, we are playing a part.

I am recently looking for a hairdresser with a reasonable price because I know I can’t find a cheap one in Norway. So during lunch, a Thai schoolmate offered me a haircut after the break and my host parents told me to consider it again by giving supportive arguments that I shouldn’t receive the haircut. It was quite hilarious of how we all made jokes of the haircut business and how successful my Thai schoolmate is 🙂

And finally, it was time for my 10 minute packing. After 45 minutes, I was home again in Flekke and I surprisingly found myself to be happy. I was complaining about the stressful life when I was here, but I never realized that I could ever miss this stressful and remote place. I was really happy and I went room by room hugging everyone and I kept smiling the whole evening. I guess I’m in a very good mood and now I’m preparing to go to my rektor’s house for dinner along with other 30 students.

The bench in front of Finland house

 

Early Christmas Eve’s dinner

It’s still 10 days away from Christmas Eve (if my maths is correct) and I already had the Christmas dinner with my host family. What worked as an appetite was our conversation which was of so many topics, mostly funny and weird ones.

Adding to the vegetarian dishes, we were talking about animals! And by animals, I mean the scary and strange animals *evil grin* . It was quite diverse in terms of culture since besides a Cambodian, there were a Sri Lankan and Thai. We share a lot of common traditions and many more things, so the conversation we had was just extraordinary. We went from talking about Christmas celebrations, common practices to strange animals. Surprisingly enough, I have found that the animals that I’m scared of are the animals I have eaten. Please don’t get shocked or judge me by that. (I’m very nice!) However, the thing is I like to try different things and no matter how disgusting those would be to me, I still say “All is well, I might not get a second chance.”

We finally decided to change the topic to NATURE, which then goes back to our vegetarian dishes. But there’s not much to say here.

By the way, during the dinner, there was a big wind which fascinated me a lot. So I went out with only my sweater and pants (no thermal underwear) and stood outside for a few minutes just to get the sense of how warm it is. Honestly, it wasn’t freezing but it was totally fine and this reminds me of home, where I can normally sit outside and look at the stars.

And finally, we got our Christmas present. It was a pair of hand-made gloves with Norwegian design. I like them a lot and they will surely remind me of the old Norwegian lifestyle, that they usually tell me about, whenever I wear them.