My First Week

My first week in Norway has felt like a month. There has been so much crammed into such a small amount of time that I don't even remember half of the things that happened. It was only last Sunday that I met my family and now it already feels like I am home. My host family consists of the nicest people you could find in Norway. I feel so lucky to have gotten them as my family for a year. Everyday feels like a new adventure and a new start. I wake up and think, I am going to talk to do this today, and what I think I will do never actually goes as I had thought.

Everything is different here. From the food, to the school, to the stop lights, to the juice. First lets talk about food. An average Norwegian breakfast is bread with meat and cheese on it, but my family was nice and bought me honey nut cheerios so it would be similar to what I ate at home. Then for school lunch you have what is called a "matpakke", literally translated to packed food. It is basically a sandwich. But not an American sandwich that is meat and cheese between two slices of bread, but an open face sandwich. And you don't put it in a brown bag with some chips and fruit on the side, but it is only the sandwich either in a Tupperware container or wrapped in a special white paper to give it the effect of looking like a paper bag. Now lets move to dinner: this week we have had salmon (with vegetables and bread), meat cakes (with potatoes and surkål, which is like sauerkraut, smothered in a brown sauce), and fish cakes (with vegetables and potatoes, smothered in a yellow sauce), and an Italian soup (with bread). We of course had dinner the other two days of the week I was here, I just forgot what we had. The meat cakes and fish cakes are a traditional Norwegian dishes.

This is a picture of the fish cake in the yellow sauce. 

Everything that I have tasted so far I have liked, except for the surkål. Luckily, my host mom said that we probably won;t have that very often. 

Now the driving. In Norway the roads are very narrow, however, two cars going opposite directions manage to go on the road at the same time. Do you want to know how? Well, one drives on someone lawn or through someones driveway to get past. The street lights warn you with a yellow light not only when the light is turning form green to red, but also from red to green. Norway's largest highway is a whopping 4 lanes across (2 on each side at the widest part)!!

Today I got to go sailing in the Sandefjord Fjord with my host dad and Nezzoz, the dog. It was fun and the fjord was gorgeous. There were even small cottages on little islands in the fjord. My host dad also told me who lived where and what they did to make all the money in order to buy the house fjord-side. 

This is me steering the boat (don't worry I didn't crash...) 

A picture of the fjord. 

Me and Nezzoz 

Nezzoz in his cute life vest!

Yesterday I got to go on a walk in the woods with my host mom and Nezzoz. That was beautiful. Being a girl from Southern California it isn't everyday that you walk into a forest. It was weird because the forest was right next to the road, which was right next to houses, and a block away from the water. Usually when I think of the forest it is a deserted area with only trees and elves.

The view from atop a mountain. 

My host mom and Nezzoz. 

TREES!!

Learning Norwegian is a pain and not being bale to understand anything anyone says is even worse. Hopefully by Christmas I will be knowing at least some of the language. I had English class today and I thought I was in heaven... the teacher spoke English!! She explained everything we were doing in English and only spoke Norwegian when the other students did not understand. What we were going over was how to analyze a novel, which was what we learned in th or 7th grade, so I felt pretty accomplished.

Well I survived my first week and lets hope I can survive the next 10 months!

First day... Oh my!

So today was my first day of Norsk skole (Norwegian school). I did not understand one thing! It took forever to sort out what classes I was and was not taking, then there was a lunch break, and next I went to my first class. My first class was art. The teacher had me introduce myself, made fun of my accent, then had me sit down. Thank goodness two girls introduced themselves because I was so confused at what was happening that I was afraid my face would permanently get stuck with wrinkles in my forehead and one eye brow raised. The teacher spoke only in Norwegian except for when she asked if I understood anything she was saying and if I was having fun (my answers were kind of and yes). It is hard to have fun though when you cannot draw, everyone on the class is extremely good, and you cannot comprehend what is going on. I met two girls today and they helped translate what the teacher and students were saying. I cannot wait for English class on Thursday and Friday. Oh, and did I mention the school schedule is not the same any day of the week for two weeks?!? That's right, so it is so confusing Norwegian students even get frustrated. Plus, everyone here seems to be a lot more attractive. So that is a little distracting...

Tomorrow, for the second day of school we take a class trip to the beach to make sand sculptures. Hopefully it will get better, otherwise it will be one heck of a year!

He det bra!!
(Good bye)

Jeg er i Norge!

Hallo! Jeg er in Norge!

Hello! I am in Norway! Tomorrow is the last day of orientation camp, then I get to meet my family. I am super excited. Packing was awful and traveling for 12 hours was exhausting, but being here is surreal.

The departure orientation was in New York.

My mom and I in New York the day before she had to leave me with AFS.

The picture right before I was left in the hands of AFS and left for Norway!

These are exchange students from the US. They are going either to the Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden, or Norway

This picture is right after we got into Norway, fresh off two days of travelling.

At orientation we had to put on a talent show showcasing our country. We decided the USA didn't have any talents so we made fun of ourselves. While most countries sang a national song, danced a national dance, and wore national costumes a couple of us stuffed our shirts with pillows to be fat, the other two girls played the role of stupid valley girls, and the boy played Pauly D from Jersey shore. We improvised the whole thing and it actually went pretty well.

Well I have to say goodbye to all the AFS kids tomorrow and say hello to my new host family. I will see some again at more orientations, but some I won't. It is kind of sad, but I am extremely excited to finally be able to meet my host family.

Not Long Until Norway!

It is only 10 days until I am in New York at my orientation camp with many other AFSers going to Europe. Then after that, it is on the 23rd when I leave on my flight to Norway, connecting in Iceland. I arrive in Norway on August 24th and head straight for the arrival orientation camp. Then 2 days later, on August 26th, I finally get to meet my host family! Then on the 27th, I start school.

I am super excited and can't wait to go. It is becoming so much more real. Two years ago when I started to become interested in studying abroad it sounded like such an abstract idea. I began talking with my principal and he told me I was the first person in 30 years to go study abroad. Then about a year ago when I started filling out my application I could only imagine what it would be like, to start a new life, to get thrown into a different country and become familiar with and live in and around a completely different culture. Then, at the end of March when I received my host family I was bouncing off the walls. I had finally found out who I would be spending a year of my life with. About a month ago it became a lot more real. I began actually thinking about what it would be like to leave everyone and everything I know. You get taken away from your family, your friends, and the culture you have grown up in. And now, it is less than two weeks away and I am extremely excited. I know it will be hard to leave everyone that I know and love for a year, but it will be a life-changing, once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable experience that I am able to take part in.

Though it will be hard at times, I can't wait for my life to change!