Kissed by Winter

April was a crazy month. Firstly, a very good friend come to visit me. We went to Milan, Rome, Vicenza and Venice and had a splendid trip. The next week I spent a weekend in Istanbul, Turkey. Despite the 

torrential downpour of rain during the majority of my trip, I think Istanbul is a beautiful city and I want to go back!

And the month of April ended with a lovely trip with the Perackis' family to Norway. The last weekend of April was a four day weekend thanks to Primo Maggio (May 1st), or Labor Day, in Italy. I went with the family to visit Micha's brother, his wife and kids. We arrived Saturday morning and had delicious homemade crepes. That evening we walked to the shore and had a barbecue. The next morning we woke up early and took a ferry to Oslo. We went to the Norsk Folkemuseum, which was huge.

On Monday we took the ferry to Oslo again and walked around the town. We saw the King's house, his boat, the Oslo Opera House (incredible architecture) and some other sights in the city. I wanted to check out the Nobel Peace museum, where they had an exhibit on Afganistan, but it was closed.

Overall, Norway is a beautiful place. It wasn't crowded at all and things seemed calm and quiet. There were a lot of troll statues at souvineer shops, and although I would have loved to send everyone a postcard, it would have cost a fortune.

One thing I didn't know about Norway is how long the day is during summer. It was so weird to see the sun high in the sky at 8pm. The sun didn't set until 9:15pm, but it was still really bright at about 10:30pm. During summer, the sun doesn't set until past 11pm. I bet window shades are big sellers in Norway.

Anyway, I'm back in Italy now with a little over 2 months left in Bergamo. Then Leros, Greece for two weeks, then being a tourist in Italy and Spain, then ??? before coming back to California, followed by even more question marks.

The King's house

Sunrise

 Around Town

 Reindeer? Whale meat?