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

Leaving already!

As the big day quickly approaches (7 hours but who's counting??) I can't help but freak out about everything. I don't have this paper which will obviously be the one that doesn't allow me to get into Norway, our copy machine isn't working (of course), etc. etc. I do know, however, that no matter how stressful these next five days will be, this will easily be the best year of my life thus far-and for many more to come. It's so weird thinking that I have been talking about leaving forever but I never actually thought it would become a reality. I am, however, so excited to meet my host family and get out of this hellish southern California summer heat. Thank you to everybody who has been so supportive throughout everything and I will miss all my friends and family immensely! I hope to be able to write here again soon.
Until next time,
Rachael