The backpacking adventure

      At the beginning of the school year, the whole school went on a backpacking trip into this forest. I was both looking forward and not looking forward to the trip. I had never been on a backpacking trip before, so I was expecting it to be rough - but not this rough.
       The first day was probably one of the easiest. Oslo is situated on the edge of one of Norway's largest forests, therefore we only had to hike for about an hour and a half to find the spot where we set up our tents and spent the afternoon in the beautiful forest. It may have been a little cold and rainy but it was beautiful.

 
       However, the rain was still a problem. I woke up the next morning with water in my bed. Let me tell you, that was not fun! That morning was also cold, so I got dressed in clothes that were meant for cold weather. As started at a pace that would have killed a horse - maybe a bit of an exaggeration - we started uphill on a path laden with roots, rocks, and mud. I was close to crying during the first half hour of the trip because I was already so tired and I still had fifteen kilometers to go. It got a little better as I chose to walk a slower pace but it was still hard. As the sun came out, I realized that I had on way too much clothing and there was some stuff I couldn't take off, so I was sweating like crazy on a path with mud, rocks, and roots. I was miserable, and to top it all off, my asthma decided to start showing up. This trip was shaping up to be much harder than I thought. Long story short, I made it to our cabin. I was the last one up, but I made it.
     Fortunately, the next few hours and the next day were really nice. The school set up some activities such as nature art and blueberry picking and I had a really relaxing day, but I was exhausted.
   
        Culture shock comes not only from being in a different country, but also from the things in that country that you didn't expect. I expected that the trip was going to be physically hard, but I didn't expect it to be so Norwegian, which is probably my bad. I do live in Norway after all. Since then, I have had culture shock, but none of the instances were quite as bad as that one. Nevertheless, the trip wasn't all bad. I made new friends and learned more things about the friends I already made. So here are some pictures to prove I had fun.  
 - This is Miriam, signing off