…for urban hiking, that is.
of course, when we were told we would be hiking this weekend, I didn’t take anyone too seriously. “walking in the mountains, huuuhuu, okay, sure”, were my last words before I got onto the bus on friday afternoon, happily throwing my backpack+sleeping bag in the luggage trunk.
We got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam (what the..? traffic in Norway? yes, it does exist, apparently) and arrived at the center/hostel around 5:30PM. we hung around, ran like maniacs to pick out rooms+roomates, played KUBB (if you haven’t played it, you haven’t experienced Norway to the fullest) and had dinner, after which we headed down to the beach (more like, the sandy shore of the lake… but yes, technically it’s a beach).
On our way there we saw a dead squirrel.
It was sad.

roadkill

writing in sand is my favorite hobby

we were lucky, because it was COLD (some people actually swam in the lake,… we just pulled up our pants and experience the ‘warm’ water only up to our knees) but the sky was almost clear.

believe it or not, it’s 9PM here

Søvassli sunset

we had a big pretty campfire to warm up our toes after playing KUBB again. Wolfgang taught us some drinking songs and we just sort of hung out before heading back up to the hostel.

campfire crush <3

feet lovin’

Maelis doing it the ‘cute thang’ way

Sunset, part two.

Moonlight

On the next day (saturday) we opened the curtains expecting the beautiful sunshine we’d been promised. nah… sunshine is overrated in Norway! we get grey skies and London rain. Until the last second, I had my mind set on NOT going hiking but staying at the hostel, hanging out and writing letters. I didn’t want to miss out on a hike with the others though – opportunities to take pictures and see more landscapes, why would I ever want to miss out? BECAUSE.
Converse + rain = dirty dirrrrrty cold soaked wet muddy feet. I kid you not.
Then again, I don’t think I could have avoided that much, considering how even the pro hikers, with their super-shoes, came back looking like they’d just decided to willingly jump in the lake, fully dressed.

On our super-hike we saw valleys, valleys of pretty fluffy plants like this:

Martin likes flowers very much

Georgia, another girl and I, who are of course adventurous girls, decided to lose the rest of the group (don’t even ask, we did do it on purpose. duh, it’s not like we were too slow to catch up with the people who’d gone ahead..) and come back a different way, meaning we had to pretty much crawl through a jungle, slide down rock slopes on our asses and jump over streams to get back down to the main road – about 3kms away from the hostel. we’re skilled.