Winter is here!

I think it would be fair to say that winter has now arrived in Trondheim. We have had several dumps of snow in town but they have been followed by warm spells so there is not much snow around. It is funny in Norway because they are so used to the snow that no one comments or gets excited when they see snow (some even look a little sad) and this is where my foreign nationality becomes very obvious. I guess this is mostly because snow is New Zealand would always mean no school which was the biggest perk of all. Here, it is life as normal except with maybe a few more clothes when you go out. Another thing that busts my disguise is my total inability to walk on ice. It is hard for me to decide if this is because of my terrible coordination or just something that my unadapted gene pool was missing but all Norwegians manage perfectly. There is a way they walk all taking very small steps and standing very upright that works even for people wearing high heals (getting passed by women wearing high heals while I walk to school in my yax tracks is a little humiliating).

Walking home from school... In the snow and dark. Quite different from the bush track!

It has also started getting really dark really early. Today it got dark around 2.30pm and it is still three weeks until the shortest day! This is really hard because it makes you feel exhausted all the time. For norwegians they are used to it and everyone has their own little strategies for coping with it but for me it is really difficult. I never want to go outside or do anything that requires energy because when my body sees the first little glimpse of darkness I am totally exhausted. But I guess I'm starting to find my little ways to cope with it too.

There is something really cool about the darkness though... In New Zealand I know people would say 'oh it's dark and cold and snowing and I can't possibly go outside! I defiantly can't walk and I probably shouldn't drive either'. There is none of that attitude here! If it is dark you can still carry on doing the things you need to do. You can go walk or run after dark and if it is cold, well you just need more clothes! But it has taught me a really good lesson about how to just get on with things!

The finished sweater.... Well I thought it was finished!

This dark weather has its uses though and it happens to be particularly good for knitting! I had almost finished my sweater when I decided to take the torso piece off the needles to see if it fit me. It was so massive I could wrap it around myself twice and I knew that unless I went on some serious anti dieting or took on the true afs title (another fat student) I was never going to fit it.... So last Saturday afternoon I painstakingly undid the whole thing with the help of Kine. It was hard but I want it to be perfect because the wool cost me a small fortune.

After: The balls of wool all ready to be re knitted.

Anyway, this was longer than I intended! I better go work on my knitting now...