Our flight to London did end up with a late departure, but this time a thick fog at our destination, and not our place of departure, was the main problem. But we made it!

After collecting our suitcase at terminal 3 of London Heathrow airport, we took the Underground and the Piccadilly line towards London center, although we got off well before that, at Boston Manor, which is  the sixth stop after leaving the airport area (lower left side of the map).

Sylvain’s sister lives with her boyfriend in the suburbian town of Brentford. His mother and brother arrived the day before we did, on the 22nd.

The Christmas meal was on Christmas eve: foie gras and bread as an appetizer, duck with cooked apples and chestnuts on the side as main course, and Christmas pudding for desert. All the dishes had a special wine to go with it... Yummy!

And after dinner: PRESENTS!

We also spent a day at the cliffs of Eastbourne, about two hours south of Brentford by car. It was good to see the sea again, but I was very happy to be wearing a windbreaker because it was needed!     

I decided to make a list of all the musicals I’ve seen, to keep track of them all. The list can be found here.

After adding a new application onto my Facebook profile, I came over this site, which has entries with maps of different kinds... My favorites are

- the Blonde Map, facts included, and

- the French kissing map

Enjoy!

Sylvain and I are supposed to be going to London for the holidays to spend it with his family. At the end of the trip, we are going to try a second time to see the musical Avenue Q in the West End... We tried it a year ago for our 1-year anniversary, but the flight from Poitiers was canceled due to fog on the runway...

Because of our bad luck then, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the news these past few days and weeks to get an early head’s up if anything should come in the way. First bad sign came some days ago, when SAS Norway (Scandinavian Airlines System) warned about a strike amongst the employees, in the form of a slowdown of the work pace...

The second bad sign is the weather. People say you shouldn’t travel by plane anywhere during the winter time because the unpredictability of the weather. For a few days now, Oslo Airport Gardermoen, and other Norwegian airports, too, has had to cancel an postpone a lot of flights because fog on the runway, and variations in the temperatures in the air and on the surface, causing the planes’ engines to freeze up...

Because of the delays, people have been forced to sleep in the airport while waiting for news. The newspaper I’ve consulted in addition to the airport website all say that the passengers should show up in good time before the flight, but expect having to wait for a long time.

Our flight is on the 23rd, and should take off right before 8am CET. In any case, I think it’s best if we expect a long delay. Fortunately, we have all day to get there...

In the meantime, we could cross our fingers and hope that Mother Nature sorts out the weather situation. We can also curse the politicians for making a very bad choice for the location of Norway’s largest and busiest airport, although we can’t do much about it...

I finished the last of my three exams yesterday... The results of the first two decide whether or not I'm accepted to the MA in languages.

I had the first oral exam - for my sociolinguistics class - the second week of December. This was a very pleasant, first encounter with exams at the university of Oslo. I've loved attending these classes, and doing the written qualification papers for it. I've been a bit disappointed, though, that these wouldn't count for my final grade, but I've done my best all the same, and have learned a lot in the process.

The exam went very, very well; I've officially gotten my first university 'A', which is as high as it can get, because we can't put a '+' after the grade. My only regret after this class, is that I can't have my teacher as my MA adviser, because she belongs to a different department.

The grammar exam went alright, too... I have no idea what my grade will be, but I need a C average to get into the MA program. I already have a 12,xx/20 average (equivalents a B) from Poitiers, so it should be alright.

I should get a letter from the university soon concerning (temporary) admissions...

Exams are approaching.

The first one is tomorrow, at 10:30am CET, for my sociolinguistics class. This is my first oral exam in the Norwegian university system...

I have a written exam for my French grammar class on Dec. 13 (Thursday next week) from 9am CET.

I have to get good grades for these two to be able to start my MA after Christmas... So happy thoughts everybody!