#AND i finally got a good view of the heron(s?) that have been hanging out since we moved here and everything

[readymades2002]

it really has been a good few days for birdwatching im just so nervous seeing them right now </3

[noitanorjassa]

23/8/2022

First week in Norway has passed. I got here with first a night train and then a bus, and the traveling time was almost 22 h in total. It was very nice to see the nature change into the usual Lapland version, and then the hills got bigger and bigger and turned first into Saana in Kilpisjärvi and then finally, into mountains with snow on top of them.

The weather has been very autumnal and rainy but it surely does not bother me; I´m more than happy of having sensible outdoors temperatures after the heatwaves of Europe.

My apartment is a student housing block, a giant 13 floor- wood paneled structure on top of a hill. The last building before the forest area in the middle of Tromsøya (the island of which most of the city is located). For some twist of luck I got my room from the forest side of the block, and from the 13th and highest floor. The view is amazing, I can see to both east to the forest area and south to the city centre, and during the nights the lights twinkle up from the mist like jewels from the sea fog.

I had my first lectures today; Faulkner & American modernism and the other in criticism and theory in literature. I have one more lecture about the literature of the indigenous people`s of North America, and I probably look forward to it most of all of these courses. I  had to buy this 2 kg, 2700 paged monster of a book from the Akademika -shop on the first floor of the UiT (Arktiske Universitet i Tromsø) library building, but I sure do think it contains a good summary of everything that has been going on in the field of literature studies and analysis during the past 120 years, with also interesting articles about ancient Greek that I have not read before.

I`m not going to lie, my first week was a low one with feeling out of place and lost, but luckily my 14 norwegian roommates were and are super helpful about that, and try to help me settle in as much as they can. One of them even baked vegan chocolate cupcakes for me, and that made me tear up a bit. Such a nice and heartfelt idea.

On Saturday last week I went to a long walk around the skiing tracks that start from Tromsøhallen and go around and around the island, but mostly they are lockated on the forest/nature areas of the island. It helped me feel more like home, I have always been a fan of long walks and nature and such, so it was nice observing the grey heron birds chilling on the Prestvannet -pond/small lake. They seem comically large compared to seagulls and ravens and crows, and they make a weird honking that used to startle me when I had my window open and I heard it for the first couple of times. I spotted a grey heron nest on the large spruce trees I see from my window and now I really wish I had some kind of binoculars, so I could keep track about their bird life more.

The past week I have been too tired to attend any parties but I will fix that tomorrow and go to this little hang around thing of literature students. Who knows if I make more friends.

I`m really waiting for the nights to darken so I could lay in my bed all night with the curtains up and just lay in the light of the Auroras. The sun set time was at 22.10 when I arrived and now it`s one hour earlier, at 21.10. The same thing has happened with the sunrise times, it was 3.00 and now it is almost 4. The days get darker with a pace lot faster of what`s familiar to me but to be honest, that is one reason I am here. I have always loved Lapland and the North more during the long, dark winters with the daylight is a 5 hour long hue of the prettiest, most colorful sunset that fades into the green, purple and red of the Aurora Borealis.

The only downsides so far have been the non existent metal music scene and the price of food, both of which I expected but not to this degree. But I guess I will just have to make a do with the situation.