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