Goodbye to Norway!

For the past week or so I've been trying to figure out something to write explaining how I feel about leaving Norway but, unfortunately, was to no avail. In the ten months that I've lived here I've managed to make a pretty good life! I have amazing friends, a wonderful family, have learned a new language, and feel as though I have two homes now. As an exchange student you really never think that the day you go home is going to come. Ten months IS a long time, after all! It feels like I just stepped off the bus to meet my host family last week. Back when all I could say was "Jeg heter Rachael" (my name is Rachael) and "Jeg snakker ikke norsk, bare engelsk" (I don't speak Norwegian, only engelsk). Yet now I'm a year older, can speak Norwegian, and have so many more life experiences than when I left the US. I can't even imagine how it's going to be to leave here and I am so so thankful for everybody that has made this experience possible! I couldn't have asked for better friends, host family, and family home for supporting me throughout this once in a lifetime experience! I'll never forget my year here and both my exchange year and Norway will always be a big part of my life. I could write on forever but I guess I'll stop here with just saying thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody I have met here and everybody that has helped to make this year what it was! 

On a different note, though, I thought that since I haven't posted anything in a long time that I would post some pictures about the last few months here. Lots has happened and instead of boring everybody with a really long post I'll just use pictures!

In March or April I visited Denmark and met up with my grandma and lots of Danish family there!

Wearing traditional clothing on Norway's independence day (17th of May) with my host mom and sister.

More 17th of May pictures but with my host dad and mom!

Myself on the 17th of May! The traditional clothing is very pretty but also pretty uncomfortable!

The beginning of the 1st parade on the 17th of May beginning with police men.

It's really normal for sheep to just walk along the road here!

Really solid english.

At the museum on Jøa with Bjørg!

Trying to make the fish look bigger! I don't think it really worked though?

Lots of jumping

More fish with Mariana (from Portugal)!

Even more fish with Silje (my host sister) and Mariana's hand.

Swimming like the true vikings we are.

Loooots of food at the family going away party!

Namsos

Climbed up on flag pole at the Namsos lookout!

Even more jumping.

My lovely host mom at the Namsos lookout (Klompen).

Of course there was lots more that happened in the last 3 or 4 months but those are just some of the pictures I've taken! This will be my last blog post in Norway (sad to think about!) but I couldn't ask for a better exchange year than the one I had. I'll miss Norway and everybody here but I'm so thankful for the opportunities I've had here. :)

Until next time (or something like that)!

Rachael

Vinterferie/Winter break

So this time I've decided that I'm going to write this post 2 weeks instead of 2 months after what I'm writing about and I've forgotten nearly everything! Progress? Maybe? No? Anyways, I guess I'll just jump right into it. Here in Norway we have less single days off than in the states (no President's Day, MLK day, Columbus Day, etc.) and, instead, we have a few more week long breaks! Although I do, admittedly, get slightly jealous when I see everybody at home having their days off EVERY week (not quite that often but for drama's sake) it is really great when the whole week off finally comes! For winter break my family planned to travel to our "hytte" (the equivalent of a sort of a little cabin in english) for the last half week and, on the last day, to go downhill skiing. I had been to the cabin once before (in Autumn) but this time the lake in front of it would be frozen over and, instead of driving a car and boat there, we would have to get 5 people, our dog, the food, clothes, and everything else we were bringing there on a snow scooter... We had a kind of sled that we could hook onto the back of the snow scooter that we loaded the food, clothes, and myself and Mariana (mariana being another exchange student in Norway from Portugal) onto. This was a slightly "sketchy", for lack of better words, set up, and if any turn was a bit too sharp then Mariana and I could easily fall off.. But more on that later. Trygve (our driver) and Mamma sat on the actual snow scooter (oh the luxuries of having bought the snow scooter themselves..), and Silje was being pulled on the back on skiis. After finally getting everything packed onto our snow scooter we were off! At the beginning, there were some tracks from where another snow scooter had driven before us and, even with this relatively smooth driving, Mariana and I were holding on for dear life as not to fall off. Then came the point where we were driving on the snow that hadn't been driven on before and this is where it got a bit more difficult. I did, actually, manage to fall off (with the bag with the eggs inside!!!) once but all the snow cushioned the fall! However, both the eggs and myself survived and once we got readjusted we were off again! We noticed, though, that the snow scooter seemed to be struggling to pull us all when we got to the hills so Mariana, Mamma, and myself were kicked off (cue the sad violin music now?) and were told that Silje and Trygve would drive to the cabin, drop of the stuff, and then come back to get us. We decided to walk a bit in order to keep warm which was, as it turns out, quite a bit more difficult than it sounds. Every step you took you sunk into the snow and would have to pull your foot out again. This makes you pretty tired after a while. Apparently, though, I was the best at not sinking and making good footprints so I was put in the front for quite a while. It seemed to be taking them a lot longer than we thought to get to the cabin and eventually we saw they had dropped off three of our backpacks on the side of the "road". Lucky us, one of them had påskeeggs (a chocolate easter egg with cream filling) in it and after eating those we were on our way again. We continued walking, and walking, and walking, and walking until we heard our dog barking and Silje talking! We called to them to see what had happened and they said they had crashed the snow scooter. We got a bit of a laugh out of this because we didn't know what they could've crashed with.. the snow, a moose? When we got to them, though, it turned out the scooter had gotten out of control on the slippery snow and went off the side, down the hill, and into the trees. Luckily, though, nobody but the scooter was hurt. This did however mean that we would have to leave all the bags and most of the food and walk/ski the rest of the way to the cabin but, luckily, our grandparents would come the next day to pick up our stuff with their snow scooter. After a long, long, LONG walk in the snow we were finally almost to the cabin and, unfortunately, completely out of energy but myself and Mariana remembered that we had chocolate in the backpack we had with us! We sat in the snow and "regained our energy" (ha...) and made the final 200 meter treck to the cabin. It turns out it's a pretty fun story to tell and it wasn't as horribly traumatizing as I've made it sound. The rest of the weekend was spent playing card games, roasting hot dogs on the fire, snow scootering, and skiing on the back of the snow scooter. Then that friday Trygve's son and his girlfriend came to spend the last night with us! A fun long weekend but on Saturday we made our way home (2+dog on the scooter, 3 on the sled in the back, and 2 holding on and skiing).

(Silje and Johan skiing on the back of the scooter)

(Our dog Mizzy getting carried in the backpack to the hytte)

(Mariana and myself roasting hotdogs on the fire)

(Being a true viking and chopping wood for our fire)

("Toilet" at the hytte)

(Crashed snow scooter)

The last day of break we had planned to go downhill skiing (for my first time ever!!). This ended up being a pretty interesting day. First of all, do you know how uncomfortable and difficult to walk in downhill skiing shoes are?? Really, really uncomfortable and difficult to walk in. It turns out that the place we went to (Bjørgan-hoping all you Americans have a fun time trying to pronounce that) doesn't really get a lot of people that are learning to ski (except for the little little kids) and even they seemed to fall less than me when they don't have ski poles.... Trygve and I made our way to the ski lift which, much to my dismay, was NOT a chair lift but rather this thing that you put behind you while you kept your skiis on the ground and it just pulls you up. I did, however, make it to the top but then managed to fall when getting off the lift. When I finally could get up we (slowly) made our way down the hill (and almost broke every bone in my body in the process). We did this a few more times, each time a bit better than the last, but I'm pretty sure everybody knew about the ridiculous American in the red jacket that could not ski. Then my family decided I was good enough to be on my own (not true) and said they were going to the big hill. Silje convinced me to tag along which turned out also not being a fabulous idea. I was super exhausted from all day of skiing but we made our way to the bigger lift and immediately (within seconds) managed to fall and get all tangled up together when we tried to go up. Once we finally got on the lift i made it about half way up (probably more like 1/4 of the way but 1/2 for my dignity's sake...) and then I fell off... with a bunch of people behind me... all staring at me.. Slightly embarassing, yes. I kind of crawled/walked to the side and made the executive decision that I really was done with skiing for the day. Silje got off the lift, thank god, when she got to where I had fallen off and we made it to the smaller (almost just wrote "littler".. I can speak english?) hill and went up and down that one more time. After that, however, I was done. We ate dinner, went home, and I slept really well that night. I'm hoping that nobody I knew was there to see my fantastic skiing skills but with the masks and hats and all it's a bit hard to know..

(A rare moment in my downhill skiing career of actually standing up)

(The ski lift at Bjørgan-those anchor looking things are what you sat on)

The rest of life here is going well! Time is flying and I can't believe I've been in Norway for over a half of a year. Time flies when you're having fun! My language is coming along.. I speak almost completely Norwegian at home (aside from when I'm asking what a word is in Norwegian) and I seem to be thinking more in Norwegian than English. I find it difficult to speak English with people at home because I subconsciously (not unconsciously...) say Norwegian words as well. I forget English words a lot, too, which can be a bit of an embarassment when I have to ask people in English class to help me remember an English word. Oh well, the life of an exchange student! Aside from that, the sun is coming back, it's starting to warm up a bit, and spring will be coming soon! And I think to end it here I'll give you all a quote by the lovely Dr. Suess that pretty much sums up my feelings about the fact I have less than 3 1/2 months left here... "How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?"

(Signs along the ski trail)

(Out walking with Lilith-German exchange student- and wearing sunglasses!!!)

(Very typical Norwegian- Cross country skiing)

(Ski/walking/running trail by my house)

(Fell in the really deep snow...)

(Making it snow!)

(Nature and the like)

(Sun in Norway!!)

(One of my favorite things! Icicle wall)

(More nature)

Until next time,
Rachael

Adventures in Winter!

So it's been quite a while since I've posted (special thanks to my darling grandma for reminding me!) so I thought I'd update all you faithful readers (was that pretentious enough?) about my life here. Welllll time seems to be going faster and faster everyday. I was plannin on writing about Christmas here but all the sudden it became February? How did that happen? A sad realization I had was that I've reached the point in my year where every day that goes by means I have less time than I've been here for. I guess I'll just have to make the most of what's left! But enough with this sentimental stuff and more about life in Norway!

First I guess I'll talk a bit about Christmas (even though that was a month and a half ago...). Christmas in Norway is very different from the typical American Christmas. There's this crazy lead up to Christmas for months and months before... Christmas food, Christmas cleaning, Christmas star in the window (no extravagant American-esque Christmas lights, though), Christmas present shopping, etc. A few weeks before Christmas most people have what's called julebord (translates to Christmas table). Most people have it with their job but my family also went to one on Jøa! Everybody eats lots of food, drinks, dances, and has an all around good time! Lots of jokes and laughing (which means I pretend I know what they're saying and laugh) and is apparently a pretty traditional thing everybody does around Christmas. Then on the 24th (julaften in Norwegian) you get dressed up all nice for Christmas dinner that is generally with your family. We went to my mormor and morfar's house (grandparents on the mother's side) where lots of family was staying and had a lovely night. Ate food, opened presents (there are lots of presents under the Norwegian Christmas tree), and did some more pretending that I understood what people were laughing at!! But Christmas doesn't just stop after that. After Christmas the days have names. First Christmas day (the 25th), second Christmas day (the 26th), and I think you can figure out the rest. These "Christmas days" are filled with lots of parties and some more family dinners. These Christmas days all lead up to the New Year! Essentially Christmas break in Norway is two weeks filled with food and partying (a surefire way for everybody to put on a few pounds..). Lots of fun though! I would have to say one of the best parts was actually having snow on Christmas. Made everything a million times prettier and totally gave a traditional Christmas feel that you definitely don't get in LA. 

Now I guess I can tell you guys about my (extremely successful..) winter sports adventures. So far I've only tried cross country skiing and ice-skating/hockey (in gym class..) but I'm hoping to try down hill skiing soon! First I'll tell you a bit about cross country skiing in Norway (since I know you all want to know!). It's a super popular sport and pretty much everybody does it and is pretty good at it. There's a saying in Norway that babies are born with skis on their feet. Since there's lots of snow in winter it's pretty easy to go cross country skiing without having to drive very far (or even without having to drive anywhere at all). When babies are too young to ski their parents get a carriage-type-thing (think the children carriers that can go behind bicycles but for skis) and take the baby along with them! And once kids can stand and walk they have no choice but to ski also. They also watch skiing on TV allllll the time. They told me it's only in Winter but I'm pretty convinced that winter is 10 months out of the year here soooo I'm pretty tired of watching skiing on TV now...But back to my skiing adventures now! The first (and only time so far) that I've done cross country skiing wasn't exactly what you would call successful. Silje and I started by getting on our hundreds of layers of clothes (as the Norwegians say "there's no bad weather only bad clothes!!!") and then went outside to ski. Now, when you fall walking on the way to go skiing you might think that this is not going to be the best time ever but, nope, I just kept going!!! So we get to the place where we are going to ski, put the skiis on, start going, and then I fall within 30 seconds or so of standing up. When I got up again to start skiing I realized that my ski pole was bent. Go me! So I frantically called to Silje and, long story short, the ski pole broke into two pieces. This all resulted in Silje doing the rest of our ski trip with one ski pole and me with two. I don't think I stood up for more than 30 seconds without falling (I didn't know how to stop either so my method of stopping when I got going too fast was to fall). However, in my defense, the ground was more ice than snow! Anyways, I think our 300 meter trip took us about 45 minutes considering I couldn't make it up the tiny tiny hill and had to work on that for 20 minutes. All in all I would NOT recommend trying cross country skiing for the first time on ice. The next escapade in winter sports was the lovely (*eye roll*) day we had to play hockey in gym! The ice skating rink here is outside (it's cold enough to maintain it) which means that when it snows it snows on the ice and makes everything really really bumpy. I could barely make it across the rink without falling before having to play hockey, but once we started playing everything started to go a little down hill. Sometimes I couldn't hold on to the hockey stick and it would just fly out of my hand but most of the time I would just attempt to hit the ball and fall instead. This resulted in me having nasty bruises all over my legs but hey, you know, no pain no gain!! In this case I wouldn't recommend playing hockey unless you have flat ice to skate on... Sledding is also lots of fun! We have one sled you can "drive" (with a bit of a sketchy steering wheel) so we decided to take this down the hill big hill leading to where I live (in Fossbrenna). It was a bit sketchy when a car would come (don't worry mom and mormor we were safe!!) but it was a lot of fun and it was late at night so there were very few cars. I also went "swimming" (run in, scream, run out) in the ocean on the first of January and went "snøbading" (snow bathing) with my friends a few weeks back! In snow bathing you just run outside in a bikini or something and roll around in the snow and then run as fast as you can back inside. Lots of screaming here, too! It was definitely cold but maybe I can qualify as a viking now?? Overall winter has been lots of fun!

Weather here also seems to be something I'm asked about a lot (considering it's reeeally different than in the states) so I'll talk a bit about that now! I can sum it up in pretty much two words: It's cold. Now, it IS cold but you actually get pretty used to it! In the beginning I thought that 5 or 10 degrees celsius (40 or 50 fahrenheit) was cold but now that's a pretty warm day. It's averaged around -5-0 celsius (20-32 fahrenheit) this winter so it hasn't been too brutal but it's not so fun when it gets down to -20/-25 celsius (-4/-13 fahrenheit). The Norwegians say "there's no bad weather, only bad clothes", though, so as long as you have enough clothes you shouldn't be all that cold! In the winter we had very few hours of sun (from around 11 or 12 until 3 pm) and a majority of the time that sun was covered by clouds. However the sun is starting to come back and make everything a lot nicer looking and in the summer we'll start to have the midnight sun! When there's lots of snow and sun, though, everything is insanely bright so you have to be careful about snow blindness. We also have gotten quite a bit (by my terms) of snow here. Currently we have about knee deep snow but they're really good aboout plowing everyday so the roads and sidewalks are always clear. Before the winter came (and I'm assuming after it goes, too) we got a lot of rain. We've gotten rain during the winter, too, and it's really gross when it rains on top of the snow! Everything turns slushy and icy and slippery and really the last thing I want to do in those conditions is go outside. We've had pretty nice weather as of late, though. It's currently around -9 celsius (15 fahrenheit) but we have sun! Coming back to LA in July is going to be pretty miserable as far as extreme weather change goes, though, so I'm hoping it gets a bit warm here before I come home so I can get used to it again!

Last but not least I'll talk about school and language and all that good stuff! School here is very different from school in the states. They get a lot more funding from the government, I believe, and it makes a huge difference. Everybody has their own laptops that you use in class and science classes and the like have a lot more money to buy supplies for experiments. Schools are also inside (obviously..) and a lot more relaxed about many things! You can leave school whenever you want, without having to call your parents from the office, and the schedules are a bit more like college schedules. You don't have the same classes everyday and some days you start or end early. For examply on Mondays I start at 9:50, have two lessons of english, lunch, two lessons of math, and then am done at 1:30. On Tuesdays, though, I start at 8 have two lessons of marketing, two of Norwegian, lunch, two of psychology, and then two of gym so I'm done at 3:20. Everyday is a bit different which, I've found, keeps you from getting too bored with the same routine everyday. Some classes also require more time than others. For example, we only have two hours of gym a week whereas I have 5 of math and 4 of Norwegian. Each class requires a different amount of time. The grading system is also in numbers (1-6) instead of letters and there are only semester grades (no quarter grades). The other big difference is that there are different types of school (for lack of better words) that you can choose. This way you get to start your career early (i.e. if you want to be a construction worker you have two years of training in high school, then an internship for a few years after where you get paid half wages or so, and then after you can be a full on construction worker). There are different "lines" of school you can go such as cooking, hair cutting/coloring/etc., ambulance, health and social, music and dance, and many more. This gives quite an advantage to people because they get to have a headstart on their career before they even get to university! A bit about language, now. My Norwegian is coming along (not as fast as I'd like) buuut my family and most of my friends speak only Norwegian to me and I try to speak only Norwegian back! Sometimes I have to speak what I call "Norwenglish" (a Norwegian sentence with a few English words thrown in) if I don't know the word in Norwegian but it works. Before, though, I would get so excited when I could understand what someone said to me and then respond in Norwegian, but now I just think about how ridiculously NOT Norwegian I sound. I guess this could be considered progress in some sick twisted way, though, so baby steps! It seems as though my Norwegian is learned in really big steps. I'll be at the same level for a while and all the sudden, out of nowhere, I seem to get significantly (to some extent) better. The language is still a bit difficult in class as the teachers talk reeeeeeeally fast... I can also read from the book but it takes me about 10 times longer than everybody else. Most of my teachers are pretty understanding of this, though, so I'm glad about that. Another thing I've noticed is that I'm starting to be able to hear when people are speaking different dialects (there are 498576395703 different dialects in the Norwegian language) which I definitely could not before. I got pretty excited about that (it's the little things when you're an exchange student...) so the language is coming along! Skyping people from home is always a bit of a challenge as well. There are some words that I always say in Norwegian (yes, no, maybe, etc.) even if I'm speaking English which I tend to carry over when I speak English to family and friends back home! This usually ends up a bit like "Nei..faan..no æ har ikke... FAAN I haven't done that yet". Oh, exchange student problems. I'm loving it here, though, and couldn't have asked for a better year so far!

Hadet bra and until next time!

Rachael

Typisk norsk mat- Typical Norwegian food!

         - Brunost: This translates to “brown cheese” in English. Brunost has a bit of an acquired flavor. It’s less like a cheese (although it is a cheese) and has a bit of a sweet taste. It is a hard cheese but has a different consistency than other cheeses. I’ve obviously done a really good job of describing it but guess you’ll just have to come to Norway and try it youself! It is generally eaten on bread plain or with jelly (really good with raspberry jelly!).

-          -Potatoes: Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes every night!! I mean really I think that if Norway were to have a potato shortage everybody would starve to death… However, boiled potatoes (that you skin at the table after they’re cooked) are the general choice but sometimes French fries or a different potato dish is prepared. They’re probably so popular because potatoes are easy to grow in the harsh cold here in Norway (not that I know anything about growing potatoes I just kind of assumed there).

-          -Bread: So. Much. Bread. Bread for breakfast, bread for lunch, bread for snacks. Basically they eat a lot of bread in Norway. Usually eaten with meat, jam/jelly, egg, leverpostei, and/or cheese. Sometimes a few slices of cucumber and/or red bell pepper are placed on top, too. I’ve been told it’s because it’s fast and easy to make for breakfast and to bring to school for lunch. The bread is usually eaten as an open-faced sandwich (one piece at a time) and people think it’s really weird that we eat peanut butter and jelly in the states.

-          -Food in tubes: An odd thing that I was not at all (and really I’m still not) accustomed to is food in tubes. They have kaviar, bacon and cheese (in a paste… in a tube…), ham and cheese, etc and it is eaten on bread (I guess if you don’t want to eat actual ham and cheese). I haven’t quite gotten the nerve to taste it (I know, I know gotta try everything) but I just have this strong feeling that food in a tube should solely be eaten by astronauts in space that have access to nothing but…

-          -Kebab: This is a dish commonly eaten when out to dinner. Not the same at the American “food on a stick” kebab but rather it’s a pita bread with some kind of meat (I prefer chicken but I think beef is more popular) in some kind of sauce with a garlic sauce over it. You can, however, opt to get a kebab plate instead where the meat is on top of some little pieces of pita bread and you get salad and French fries too (my personal favorite)!!!

-          -Pizza: Pizza (especially of the Grandiosa variety) is very popular here. Grandiosa is frozen pizza that young people in Norway seem to eat a lot of! It’s not too expensive (by Norway standards... pretty expensive by American standards) and easy to get. They have many kinds but I think the original one has ham on it (Norwegians also eat A LOT of ham) but you can get them with all kinds of meat on them. Here in Norway they always have lotsss of meat on their pizza... At least two or three kinds on each pizza. They also put sauces on their pizza when they go out (either a bernaise or garlic sauce generally) and the garlic sauce is actually quite tasty!

-          -Fiskepudding: Yes this actually means fish pudding in English and no you don’t eat a bowl full of chocolate pudding-textured, fish-flavored pudding. It comes in a block of a firmer “pudding” (think more like flan…except not really at all). Anyways, I would recommend that you don’t eat this before it is cooked because then it tastes disgusting and exactly how you would imagine a block of blended fish to taste like. However when you fry this stuff up in some butter it’s not half bad! If you ever find yourself in Norway I would recommend trying this.

-          -Lutefisk: I’m not sure if this has a translation to English but most of you have probably heard horror stories of that fish cured in lye in order to preserve it and then being brought back by water. This is that. Now I have to admit that I have not yet tried this yet but I will be this Saturday if all goes as planned! I would say about 95% of the people my age that I’ve asked don’t like lutefisk but most of the parent/grandparent generation does I believe. I have been told that it’s not the taste that makes it so horrible but rather its extremely gelatinous consistency. I’ll report back to you guys in the next blog post, though!!

-          -Vaffel: Translates to waffle (as I’m sure most of you could figure out through super critical thinking!!). These aren’t the super thick Belgium-esque waffles we eat in the states but rather thin soft waffles generally eaten with brunost, sugar, jam, or jam and sour cream. Filed under: Really good food.

-          -Risengrynsgrøt: Also don’t know what this translates to exactly but it’s something along the lines of gritty rice porridge (or something like that). The translation makes it sound gross but it’s actually really good! If made from scratch it’s kind of an all-day cooking deal. First you cook rice in some water and then you add way more milk than you think will actually cook into it. For a few hours it looks like it will just be rice in a bath of milk but it finally all cooks together and is essentially rice porridge (not gritty, though). You serve it in a bowl and make a little indentation in the middle in which you put butter. Once the butter melts into a pool of fatty melty goodness you use your spoon to drizzle it over the whole thing, put lots of sugar and cinnamon, and voila you have risengrynsgrøt! Because my host mom’s boyfriend here is a farmer we have this every Saturday when we stay with him. Which brings me to….

-          -Butter!!: Now this doesn’t mean we eat butter by the spoonful (although I have seen my little kid cousin here do that...) but butter is pretty much a staple in Norwegian food and cooking. You cook your meat in it, put it on bread and sandwiches, and pretty much add it to anything. The big difference from the states and here is that here you would eat a sandwich of butter, ham, and cheese! Sounds gross but is actually quite tasty. And last but not least...

-          -Tacos: Now these aren’t the tacos we eat at home in the states and are not (by any means) traditional tacos but they are, however, very tasty! I think that most people use the soft shells (my personal favorite) and you eat it with meat, sour cream, a little salsa (a lot for the American), lettuce, cucumber, red bell pepper, corn, and cheese. It sounds kind of odd but is actually very tasty. I know the AFS-ers from Mexico and such may disagree, though but these are definitely very Norwegian-esque tacos.

That’s just a bit of a look at some typical Norwegian food I’ve eaten/eat while here! There’s tons of stuff I didn’t mention (because I didn’t want a ten page paper about food AND because I don’t know how to spell half of it) but thought I’d just give you guys a little glimpse at day-to-day life here. I’m going to try to do a series of posts about typical day-to-day life here but since I’m not very good at keeping up with this blog you’ll have to wait for another day when the school internet goes out for an hour…

Until next time!

Rachael

Catching up on life and such!

Well I guess I better write on here since it's been a month and a half since my last post. It's been an amazing two plus months that I've had here (ahhh more than two months already...it's going too fast) and so much has happened! I'm sure I won't remember all of it but I'll try to fill you all in on the best stuff.

Here in Norway they have very few random days off (only in May) but instead we have different times when we have a week or so off. Our first one was a few weeks ago and called "Høstferie" (translates to "autumn break" basically). It went by too fast but it was nice to spend so much time with the family. For the first few days of the holiday I stayed in my family's cabin. This cabin is by a lake (once again I have no idea how to spell the city name) and has no electricity or running water. That means that you have to walk maybe 4 meters to the toilet (and avoid the bear!!) and its essentially a hole in a piece of wood. If you want to shower you have to warm the water on the (gas) stove and put it in this big jug to pour over yourself. I guess you could also go swimming in the lake but it's preeetty cold (more on that later..). The first night it was just me, Trygve, and mamma. We played lots of card games, ate food, laughed a lot, and had a such a fun time. I also went fishing for my kind of first time! The next day we went out on our little boat, that I'm still convinced is going to sink one day that I'm in it, and set the nets to catch some fish. (Honestly, though, I don't remember which days we did what so just pretend this is a super accurate description of my life when really it is just with the days jumbled up). That night mamma, Trygve, Simen (Silje's boyfriend), and I all sat around and played lots of card games. At one point I decided that the losers would have to go swimming in the lake (pretty sure I just wanted to be a viking and brag to the people back home, though). I ended up being one of the top two but took mom's cards so that she wouldn't have to go swimming (once again confirming the fact that I'm pretty sure I wanted to go swimming). I went swimming though (like a true viking!!!!) and I didn't die. Back to the fishing, though, the next day Silje, Simen, Trygve, and I went to collect the nets and fish we caught. I pretty much just sat there and avoided frostbite and falling out of the boat but I did help collect the net at times, too. We ended up getting quite a few fish which then needed to be cut and prepared to cook. I was slightly grossed out but Silje threatened to revoke my viking status if I didn't do it so I decided to bite the bullet and cut and gut the fish. The verdict was that it is pretty much as gross as I thought but now I have the valuable life skill of knowing how to prepare a freshly caught fish. I think pretty much every night can be summed up with lots of food, card games, and laughing so I'm going to skip to the next day. I, jokingly, said that Silje and I should go boat around the lake but mom and Trygve thought it was a good plan so before we knew it I was heading out in my 30000 layers of clothes to set the fishing nets again! With Silje as the driver we attempted-and pretty much failed- to set the nets. The first time we were trying to put out the net Silje gassed the boat a little too fast causing me to fall backwards onto the seat (don't worry it gets better) and tangling the first net. Then when we got a new net ready and I was about to start it out Silje gassed the boat way too fast again and next thing I knew I had fallen over the seat and into the water in the back of the boat tangling two more nets together.. GO ME. Silje was dying of laughter up in the front while I struggled to untangle myself from the net in the back of this tiny boat. I'm pretty sure that vikings don't fall down in boats and become entangled in fishing nets, though, so my viking status may have been revoked at that point. We got Trygve to come out and drive the boat-after untangling the mess we made- so that we could actually set out the nets without killing the American and we successfully caught some more fish (which we got the next day). After getting the fish the next day we had to go home because mom had work the next day and Silje and I had to go to water polo. That Thursday (I think) we went to visit Johnny (Trygve) in Jøa and hung out there for the rest of the break. Håvard and I went to a party on Saturday night and that was a lot of fun! Then home Sunday for water polo practice and back to the world of not understanding anything at school Monday... I had almost forgotten that school was in Norwegian until I got to class and was reminded pretty quickly that I had been wrong.

The next weekend (I think?) Silje and I went to Stavanger for the Junior Norwegian Water Polo Championships (that makes me sound a lot better than I actually am). After an issue with ALMOST not having permission to go from AFS, we were off to Stavanger! Lots of driving and waiting later (those of us that had the later flight basically set up camp in the airport) we were on the plane. I found out on this trip that my sister is not the biggest fan of flying which is actually quite an understatement. That made for lots of fun for me and not so much for her. Our plane stopped over in Bergen to let some people off/get some new people and then the take off again (Silje's favorite part..). Anyways, we made it to Stavanger in one piece and then bussed and walked to the school that we were staying at. Everybody from the team was staying on air mattresses in a big classroom (which meant that half of the air mattresses ended up deflating in the middle of the night) and then we would walk to the pool in the morning. We were all up bright and early to eat and leave for the tournament. We played two games the first day (I think the boys had three) and then Sunday we had one game before we had to catch our flight. The girls ended up getting 3rd place and the boys team 2nd. It was a fun, albeit tiring, weekend! After taking our plane from Stavanger to Trondheim, we had to then make the long drive back to Namsos where we made a pit-stop at McDonald's in Steinkjer (the closest one to Namsos) and learned that apparently Americans use significantly more ketchup than Norwegians... Back home after that, though, and then another week at the lovely Olav Dunn Videregående Skole.

I can't remember exactly what has happened after that but there was definitely a lot of school, failed attempts at understanding Norwegian, and amusing attempts at speaking Norwegian involved. I suppose this means I should update this blog more often but it requires a certain amount of motivation that I seem to be lacking. It's starting to get pretty cold here and we've even had quite a bit of snow (A LOT for me and not so much for them). Turns out snow is really slippery to walk on and I'm sure I look slightly reminiscient of Bambi in that one scene where he is attempting to walk on the ice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSh1eLrxiqs... This scene is actually me walking). I got my snow shoes (snow boots not like those tennis racket things), though, so at least I haven't fallen yet! After walking up and down hills on my way to and from school and almost falling countless times, I have seriously considered being that loser exchange student that wears those spike things on the front of your shoes to make it easier to walk (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimhVJowf0w2aUA0nXQvfrN9tclNkGdStWAORPB7SGbOePh89NABERzvjXfPRETzKWPm95qG5U3ODaDkKx1x7IHbpm6xVqehcNAb2-o8YG2TkI-gfWOy9OwTRzQiuRxd1VrkIxhOKxJIdM/s1600/cleats.jpg) but I just can't quite bring myself to do that. Sometimes I miss the sun and warm a bit but it's so exciting to have a white, snowy winter for once in my life! They don't really celebrate Halloween here and Thanksgiving is non-existent (obviously) but Christmas is a big holiday. They have Julebrus (christmas soda), gingerbread-type cookies, and tons of other exclusively Christmas time food that is sold in the stores. It is all sooo good and I could drink Julebrus all day (it would probably make me sick, though, considering it's basically liquid sugar). My Norwegian is coming along-a lot slower than I wish- but I'm understanding a lot (as long as it is spoken slowly) and I can say some things (both helpful and random). I'm not sure what else to put here but I will try to update this blog more so that I can actually remember everything and write a more accurate post about my life here!
Hadet bra and until next time!
Rachael

The first two weeks

I can't believe that I've already been in Namsos for two weeks! These first couple weeks have been quite a whirlwind of happenings and have gone by so fast. My first week of school went well, although I understood almost nothing, but I've talked to lots of people (in English, of course..) and am beginning to make friends! My teachers are very understanding of the fact that I can't understand or do much of the work in their classes but I'm trying my best to do as much as possible (and thanks to the nice people sitting next to me for trying to translate what the teacher is saying). The rest of the week went well and I didn't get lost walking to or from school at all! On Friday, my host mom went out to Jøa, the island where her boyfriend Trygve Jonny-I can spell it now!-lives, and my sister, Silje, and I stayed at home. During the day on Saturday I went to the mall with a friend to walk around a bit and get milkshakes and later that night Silje and I went out to a party. We had a lot of fun and then made our way over to a food place that was open late. After hanging out there for a bit we trekked back home and crashed for the night. The next day was spent relaxing and watching movies as we were exhausted from the night before! School the next week was almost the same, although I am starting to understand more words here and there and can sometimes figure out what the teacher is saying.
Trygve Jonny's birthday is tomorrow so we went out to Jøa for the weekend to celebrate his birthday! To get there you drive 40 or so kilometers to a ferry and then take that to the island. It's a tiny little island, only about 45 square kilometers and a population of 500, but it is absolutely beautiful and everything just seems picture perfect. We first went to visit my mom's parents, as she grew up there, and they even have their own sign on the road (pictures to come when I get my cord). I was greeted with a huge hug from my Norwegian mormor and then we went inside for tea and cinnamon rolls-homemade, of course. Although they don't speak English (much of the older generation doesn't) it was good to meet them and very comforting to be at a grandparent's house. We then went to Trygve's house where we were going to stay for the weekend. I got to peek in at the cows in his barn and then went inside and met his son who was visiting for the weekend (this time I won't try to spell his name..). Aurora, my host cousin (?), was also there for the night. Later that night my mom stayed home with sleeping Aurora and Trygve, his son, and I went to the pub right down the road! It was so cute inside and like nothing we would have in America. We sat down and after a while I introduced myself as "Jeg heter Rachael anddd that's about all the Norwegian I know". Once people know I don't speak Norwegian, though, they all speak to me in English and I met quite a few people that night! There was live music, too, which was lots of fun as well. There were some pub songs that everybody sang along to, as well, and at first I didn't know them but since they were in English I was able to get some of the words pretty fast. Later in the night when there weren't many of us left we sat down and people played guitar and sang songs and it was such a fun time. I love the small town aspect of everything there as nothing like that would happen back at home. It was definitely a fun night spent with great company. The next day we hung out for a bit and Aurora, Mamma, and I went on a bit of a tour of Jøa. It is such a cute town but we weren't able to get out of the car much as it was rainy and cold. Later my Norwegian mormor and morfar came over to celebrate Trygve's birthday. I had made chocolate chip cookies and my mom made cheesecake (oste kake) and another type of cake with cloudberries (molter kake?). We all ate and laughed (I just laugh when they do since I don't understand) and had lots of fun. We went back to the pub that night but it ended up not being open so we watched Fast and the Furious 5 (why are there 5 of them?) and then slept. All these days of rain have a way of making you pretty exhausted.
Today was a day of relaxing. We watched some TV and movies (it's mostly in English with Norwegian subtitles so I can listen and try to read along) and just hung out until we had to go home. The ferry ride is very short at only about 5 minutes and then we went home, with a few stops on the way. The language barrier is definitely still there but hopefully I will continue to learn more and more Norwegian everyday! Mamma just said we will start speaking more Norwegian around the house tomorrow so I think I will have to keep up. I'm having such a blast so far, though, and I'm sure the rest of my year will continue to be just as fun. I get the question "why Norway??" a lot, but I have yet to regret the decision to come here (although winter hasn't hit yet..). I think that's all for now, though, and I'll continue to update here when I have the time!
Ha det and until next time,
Rachael

First days in Norway!

      I can't believe I have already been in Norway for 5 days! It feels like it has been very short and very long at the same time. There was quite a long journey to arrive to my home in Namsos (Fossbrenna to be exact) but it was most definitely worth it. People from the US going to Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Russia, Belgium, Hungary, and the Czech Republic (I believe) all met up in New York for a night and two days of an orientation before departing for our countries. Lots of "team building" and "why Norway?" while we were there but it ended up being a good experience as I got to meet many other students in the same position as myself! Many of us then flew to Iceland together (you have to be 20 to drink there..) and then went our seperate ways in Reykjavik. Due to AFS's extreme carefulness, we had a full 3 hours once we got through to our gate in New York. At least there were lots of stories to be told during that time. Unfortunately, I was extremely nauseated and had a bit of a stomach ache while going both to Iceland and from there to Norway. Our first "culture shock" (AFS terminology) experience was most definitely ordering food in the Reykjavik airport. Everything from a sandwich being 850 kroner (we found that Icelandic crowns translate about 125 kr:1 USD) to completely different languages. On our flight to Oslo, 5 or 6 of the back rows were completely unoccupied so we were able to sprawl out and get some much needed rest. After arriving in Oslo, all 5 of us Americans went to get our bags and meet up with the rest of the people studying in Norway for this year. We found a great big group and (yay, us!) we were one of the only countries wearing mandated travel shirts. That looked good for the Americans. Anywho, they sat us down and made a large group of extremely sleep deprived, excited teenagers wait far too long to get to the hotel (can you tell how thrilled I was at this point?). Once our bags were all loaded up onto the bus, we got in and, even though we fought it, most of us fell asleep at that point. AFS would not let us nap at the hotel in order to get over jetlag but the 40 minute bus ride was not too big of a deal. After arriving at the hotel, we jumped right into orientation! It was set in the middle of what appeared to be a forest by a lake and was a very beautiful place. My room was almost like an apartment with a bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen- and for the first night I had the entire space to myself as the students from Mexico ran into some visa-related trouble in Germany. For those 3 days (1 full and 2 halves actually) we ate really good food, played the tapping game and "I'm a ridin' on my big fat pony" more times than I could count, and met tons of great people from all over the world that I hope to see again! The highlight of the orientation, though, was probably the country talent show. It was recommended that we bring a national costume of some sort and maybe do some sort of dance or song from your country. We decided that the US had nothing worthwhile of that sort (aside from the "Star Spangled Banner"..boring) nor did we have any talents (*ahem* aside from mine and Rebecca's juggling) so instead we decided on a skit that perpetuated the typical American stereotypes. Myself and another girl played the "valley girl" role where we smacked our gum, twirled our hair, and played dumb (we were almost scary good at it) while the other two girls stuffed pillows in their shirts and were the "fat americans" and our only boy played Pauly D from Jersey Shore. It was fun and got some laughs from the people that understood it. That night we all said our goodbyes and those of us in the Northern regions of Norway prepared for our last plane the next day. Our last plane went from Oslo to Trondheim where we met up with some Norwegians that had gone on programs with AFS before who then rode the bus with us to where our host families were having their orientation. After lots of tired hugs and hellos, we were able to eat while they finished their orientation. Then we drove the 2 hours home with my host mom, Oddrunner, and her boyfriend who's name I probably could not spell if I tried. They were very sweet and I could already tell that I would get along very well with them (especially when they told me it was fine to sleep). Once we got to the house I met Silje, my host sister, they showed me around a bit and I even have my own room (pictures to follow when I obtain a camera cord)!
                On Monday my host mom brought me to my school to have a meeting with the counselor and the two other exchange students from Germany that are staying in Namsos. School is very different from the US where you do not have the same schedule everyday and you do not have all of your classes everyday. So on some days I start school at 10 instead of 8 and some days I end at 1 instead of 3:30. The classes are hard and so is the language but "it's not good, it's not bad, it's just different" (yay more AFS terminology!). On my first day, I walked to school and I don't think I have ever had more of an overwhelming feeling of wanting my mommy. However, I made it and felt a bit better and proceeded to find my counselor who then brought me to my main class-where I have Norwegian and history class. I introduced myself to everybody, which was extremely nerve-wrecking, and took my seat in the class front and center! The teacher tried his hardest to translate the lesson on globalization into English for me as did the people I worked with in groups and for that I was very thankful. After that class Lisa, the other exchange student, and I had to talk to our counselor to see what class we had next and to find out when we would get our school-issued laptops (yes, everybody gets one). We had sociology for the next 1 1/2 hours and met some more people there and then had gym with the same people from our main class. The teacher explained the game-some sort of mix between baseball, cricket, red rover, and football-in Norwegian, and some people tried their best to translate for us but we were still a little lost. Although we participated in the game, for all I know I could have completely ruined everything for the team! I was talking to some people, though, and they said it was fine. I then walked part way home but my host sister passed me just as I was starting up the hill part on her motorcycle (more like a vespa) and gave me a ride on that! It was overall a good first day- although I did feel a bit like a little kid on the first day of school ever times about 100- but I am excited to have all of my classes and begin to develop my Norwegian more. I wish that it was a lot easier and faster to learn a language but I know I will have to work hard at it!
Ha det bra (goodbye) and until next time!
Rachael