Niké in the North

Yay, done with the exams!! Not that it was such a hard struggle time, I actually had a lot of fun during the exam period, but now it’s time to see the one big part of Norway that I hadn’t seen before (in the last 10 years at least)!

Just taking off with some dumpster diving food, a tent and some extra socks I started my Hitchike from Ås - Lillestrøm - Lillehammer - Dombås - Bud - Molde - Trondheim in 3 days and with 7 different cars and people. I was in a super fancy electric Tesla, 2 Norwegian girls on a road trip and singing along very loudly, an American Mother and Daughter constantly (for like 5h) discussing over dried fruits and other stupid things - hylarious though, and some other shy Norwegians. I stood in sunshine and in rain, waiting for the perfect ride, and then I arrived in Trondheim!

I jumped back in the student life with my Belgian friend Frederik. We went to a hut on the hills outside Trondheim which is completely ruled by students. Hiking, sauna, watching people study, nice meals, funny people and late night card games... it was fun!

Next days I wondered around the city through the beautiful green living areas and gazing at the beautiful houses and nature all around, while most people were studying or working on their thesis.

Competition for myself: get as fast as possible from Trondheim to Oslo (532km)!  Lucky me - as always - I found a nice and hylarious man driving from Trondheim to Germany, so he took me ALL THE WAY even to the front door of my house in Ås!! :D

Ps: I bitterly spend 25€ on this 10 day trip, camping, hitchhiking and staying with a friend. Oh yeah, and being invited in a holiday house by my pick-up car. :)

These were the last days of my erasmus time in Norway, and it was so to say, the best time of my life!

Skoggården’s Barn Party 🎈

We got funds from the university to throw a party, so we did! 💸 

Big BBQ and 90 people 🤸‍♂️🍽🍢🍔🌭🍗👫👬👭👬👩‍🌾

Don’t mind the exam in 3 days... we can study later!

2-day course in ocean kayak 🚣‍♀️

A night under the stars 🔥🌙✨🌭🍫

Cutting contest 

My easter holiday I spent in Stockholm! Trying to make my trip as cheap as possible (because the tap festival costs me already a-lot) I took a 7-hour bus trip from Oslo to Stockholm, spending the night on the bus, couch surfing and volunteering at the festival. There were almost 300 participants from 38 nationalities! I met people from Europe, America, Russia, Israel, Hong Kong, Colombia... Thát is wat makes tap dancing so unique. Because we are such a small community it is so easy to gather 10% of the tap dancers in the world in 1 place and meet the best dancers in the world personally. 

Jason Janas ⭐︎ Andrew Nemr ⭐︎ Michela Marino Lerman ⭐︎ Michelle Dorrance ⭐︎ Kazu Kumagai ⭐︎ Brenda Buffalino ⭐︎ Josh Hilberman ⭐︎ Nicholas Young ⭐︎ Jumaane Taylor ⭐︎ Lisa La Touche ⭐︎ Sam Weber

On day 1 we laid a floor all day, working with 20 people for 5 hours to lay a 80m x 30m floor, tough but fun work! There I met already a lot of tap dancers. On the second day I danced for 5 hours, complicated lessons but very cool! On day 3 I started to learn a cool choreography from the famous Nicholas Young from New York. Blood, sweat and tears were spilled rehearsing our chores. In just 3 days (9h class) we learned a 7min choreography that we performed on the show the last day. Amazing! Although I was not as good as most dancers (real professional tap dancers) I tried my best and practiced a lot. Due to that I got an inflammation in my foot, called ‘Shin splints’. Very fucking painful 😵. I tried to practice one more day but I had to give up... Nevertheless my fellow dancers performed a wonderful show! 

The evenings were filled with, shows, all style dance battles, Tap Jams, Cutting contests (tap battle) and parties. 🎉

One exciting event after another, my good friend Stef is coming to town! I showed him around hot Oslo - literally 15 degrees! - and we lay in the sun in the park and stuff, wonderful! Next day we planned a camping weekend, so we went to the farthest end of Oslo and started our hike in T-shirt! Never would have thought what happend next... the deeper in the woods we came, the higher we climed - the more snow came across our path! First 5cm, then 20cm and soon we were 1m deep in the snow! Didn't prepare for this... every step thinking "will I sink through or not?". Then Niké had the fantastic idea to take a shortcut via a cross-country path, which ended up being not so short as we thought! This route went over lakes - that were starting to defreeze (!). With everything covered in snow we didn't notice we were starting to cross a lake - untill we fell through the snow noticed water at out feet! Crawling on hands and knees, jumping over rivers and laughing and crying at the same time we managed to get out of the lake. But then.. we went around the lake but of course there was no path there! 2m of deepsnow, tree branches hitting us from all sides and 2 hours later -- 800m further -- we finally came by a road again!! (it was a way more tiring journey than explained here). Luckily the sun went down quite late because we only found a camping spot by 20:00. Joehii campfire and grillepølser time (grilled saussages)! Drying our wet socks and boots - accidently setting my boot on fire (now the top of my shoes are melted 🙄). The night in our tent was maybe a bit cold... Stef was really freezing!! But in the end we survived :D