My 23rd Birthday

On Tuesday it was my birthday. I had been a little sad that I was going to have to spend it in Oslo, especially since it had been very grey and rainy, and May 1st is a holiday here so there was a high risk of being rained-in with nowhere to go, since everything was closed. I therefore got the loveliest birthday surprise when I woke up and saw that it was super sunny! I had the very best day! 

I woke up around 7 and went to the kitchen to get some water. As I opened the door, my housemate squealed 'happy birthday!'. She had been up since 5, cleaning and decorating and preparing a surprise breakfast for me. I was almost crying, it was the sweetest thing! She had bought my favourite cake and as I opened the cupboard to get some tea, I begun to find little post-it note coupons stuck to many of my belongings:

We ate breakfast together and then I went back to my room to call my boyfriend. I had received a couple of parcels over the previous couple of days and I was dying to open them! The first was the book Contact, by Carl Sagan (which I've been spending my days reading by the lake) and a couple of super cute moomin pillowcases. I will show you pictures once I get back to England - I'm saving them for my new bedroom! 

There is a little island about 5 minutes away from the mainland called 'Hovedøya'. It's my absolute favourite place here. It's really small and very beautiful. My friends and I walked around the little coast, before clambering up onto the hill to have a picnic. It has such beautiful views of the fjord and the harbour and was a lovely place to sit and have a picnic.

After a couple of hours, we decided to go down and sit by the water. Of course I wanted to paddle, so we wandered around in the water for a while, collecting shells and avoiding jellyfish! By now it had gotten so unexpectedly sunny that we all got little red stripes across our cheeks and down our noses!

On the island there is a ruined monastery so we spent some time exploring there before catching the boat back to the mainland. We went inside and collected some more food, before going to the lawn behind our flats and having a little barbecue. After the sun had set and it had begun to get cold, we went inside for some tea and cake. We then spent some hours in the kitchen, laughing and giggling and chatting. Honestly, I don't think I've laughed so much in such a long time, it was beginning to hurt!

After our tea and cake, we wandered outside to look at the stars. It wasn't really dark enough but we managed to see Venus, Mars, a few constellations and Vega. I was a happy girl :)

It really was the loveliest day! 

Thank you all for your sweet comments and congratulations for completing the challenge. I know I have been bad at visiting you and commenting but I promise I will come by and visit you soon. It's the end of the university year, so I'm pretty busy at the moment!

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