Week Four - Complete

ALREADY ONE MONTH IS GONE!!

I can't believe it. It feels like just yesterday I was being introduced to my host family on my third day of being in Norway. Time really flies. I can now see how a year is not a long time. I have been told this will be the best year of my life, but I tried to come here with no expectations of what it would be or what will happen. I wanted everything to be a surprise and for me to able to decide what this year will be like. So far it has been great. It is like a roller coaster; you have your ups and downs and occasionally you get taken for loops, the only thing that doesn't happen is you never come to a stop. So far I have made some great friends, gotten closer to my family, and eaten chocolate. I am still having a hard time deciding which one of those is the best...
The roller coaster started out on top of the tallest hill, I was super excited to be here and meet my family. Then school started and I was extremely confused and it was hard to make friends. Then I wasn't able to use my American credit card or get any money. I felt like I was learning no Norwegian and the at no one understood what was happening. That was a low point. Now I am working my way up another hill. I have started to make friends and I absolutely adore my host family. I have met my contact person and she is super nice. I went to the AFS camp and talked with others and compared experiences.
I was never homesick, and don't think I will be. I never missed home, it was just that I wished things would be easier than they are. But, I keep reminding myself of three things:
1) The best things in life are the hardest to achieve
2) You have to go out of your comfort zone to do anything worth while
3) I will survive!

These are some pictures of me and my friends at school.

This week felt like it was a blink of an eye. One day I was dreading waking up at 6:50 to got to school, then I was at volleyball on Wednesday, and the next thing you know it was Thursday and I was on the train to Holmestrand to the AFS Arrival Camp Part 2.

At the camp I got to meet up with all the other AFSers in my region. We are region 2, we are all in between Oslo and Bergen. It was great to meet up with everyone and talk and eat chocolate. It was neat to hear everyone's stories and how they like Norway. We also had meetings with the AFS leaders who asked us if we were adjusting okay, if we were making friends, if we were having problems with our family, if we have a contact person, and if we were surviving. I basically said I am doing fine and there are no problems. The leader said I was doing a lot better than a lot of others with talking to classmates and making connections with people. So I was happy.

The camp was at a beautiful location called Sandsletta. We stayed in a house on the beach. All 30 AFSers stayed in the loft. We were all on thin mattresses laying right next to each other. Also, there was only one shower... That did not help with the already bad smell. Then all we got to eat was bread, bread, and more bread. For breakfast and lunch everyday was bread and salami, for dinner was hamburgers, tacos, and tomato soup with macaroni and bread on the side. I am so sick of bread. That seems t be all Norwegians eat though: bread, cheese and potatoes. 

This was the location of the camp

These two pictures are of all of the AFSers near me at the camp. It is amazing how close you can get with people in a matter of days when you all share a similar experience.

Now I am back in my own bed. My host dad and brother left this morning for Houston. My host dad had a business meeting there and my brother just went along. Today for dinner, guess what we had... Tortillas, made out of potatoes, with mashed potatoes smeared on that, with a hot dog, and onions and ketchup. I was all wrapped up like pigs in a blanket. Remember how I told you Norwegians love potatoes and bread... They decided to combine them into potato tortillas, wow. They were actually really good, I was surprised that I liked them. But, I decided that I am trying nay food that anyone wants to give to me. When I get back to the US no one will recognize me because of how much weight I gain. I haven't been able to find a scale, and maybe that is a good thing, I don't really want to know if I am keeping up with the slogan of AFS = Another Fat Student.

I feel like my English is progressively getting worse. I am learning more and more Norwegian, but I have started to have trouble forming English sentences and have been forgetting some words. This is not good. English was my best subject back in the states... Here, though, I feel like an English teacher because everyone asks me what something is called and what certain words mean, also how to use proper grammar. I have gotten really good at guessing what people are thinking because I have had to guess a lot by people using hand motions or sound effects. It is fun. But, I am taking Spanish in school, and that is hard. The sentence is in Norwegian and we are supposed to translate it to Spanish. So I have to go from Norwegian-English the from English-Spanish, then if I don't know a word I have to look it up in the Spanish/Norwegian dictionary, then in the Norwegian/English dictionary and it ends of taking 10 minutes to translate one sentence. 

But I am getting better at Norwegian. I can now say simple sentences and understand a lot more of what is happening. I am not saying I am near fluent, but I can understand a lot more of what is happening now than I could a month ago. Now people can't talk about me without me knowing. 

There is only 9 months left! AHHHH!! Time flies when you're having fun!

Week Three......

Well, this week was full of excitement. 

Last Sunday we went to Midtåsen A mountain that you go on top of and you can see the whole city and three different fjords. It was stunning. Then when we walked up another hill there was a mansion where one of the richest people in Norway used to live. There was a small art museum that was open to the public and another fantastic view. We were going to go see a Viking ship, but then it started to rain and we didn't really want to walk very far in the rain.

 The view of the city

 I am falling down to the city. There was a sign that said not to throw anything or anyone off the rock.

 The art museum next to the mansion.

 The view of the fjord

 The mansion

My host family

On Monday I went to school. Sounds fun right... Well at least today I received, what I think is, my final schedule. I now have Spanish class added to it. So now I have Spanish, T Math, Visual Arts, Design and Architecture  English, Norwegian, Beginner's Norwegian, and Gym. Yeah! for school.

This is my schedule. It is even in red, white and blue!

On Tuesday, nothing much really happened other than school, and I only had two classes that day.

On Wednesday, there was school yet again. I had deign and architecture today, and we are constructing a chess piece. My chess piece is the king, it is a pharaoh. I honestly have no idea what I am doing in that class, so I sit there and draw sketches and today I cut out four circles. I am supposedly using those four circles to build my pharaoh. Tonight I went to volleyball with Solvieg. I guess you could call Solveig my "host cousin", she lives right up the street from us though. She is one year younger than me and she is very nice.  Volleyball was fun, it was from 8-10PM. I was really confused almost the whole time though because the instructor spoke Norwegian and everyone who was participating thought that I spoke Norwegian. One of the women there started to tell me how to do a drill in Norwegian, I had no idea what she was saying so I just did what she was doing, I stuck a volleyball between my knees, then began to waddle away because I thought she was done talking. She wasn't and she finally got the memo that I didn't understand. I was actually supposed to just pick up the balls and give them to her.

On Thursday, after school and dinner, Marit took me to the mall. I got the "official Norwegian teenagers" rain coat. It is blue, red, and white, with a neon yellow hood. Nearly every student at my school has a similar jacket. AFS did  tell us to try to fit in. All I have bought, and worn, since I have been here has been sweaters and jeans.

On Friday, I had school again. But Fridays are my favorite school days because I only have two classes and neither require that much thinking: English and Gym. After my classes finish, at 11:35, I am free to go home and enjoy my weekend. When I got home Marit took me to the post office to pick up a package that my mom shipped me, with my rain boots in it. Then we went to the bank. Well, as it turns out, this year I will have absolutely no cash. I am going to be the only exchange student that did not go broke buying clothes and nessecities in the host country. My credit card really only works at H&M and the bank doesn't even have the technology anymore to use the American credit card. If you don't have a pin code for your credit card here, you cannot survive. When I tell people that I do not have a pin code, they look at me like I am crazy and say "NO PIN CODE, ARE YOU SURE?!?" I determined that Norway requires two numbers to survive: 1) social security number 2) pin code (for your credit card). As of right now, I have neither!

On Saturday, we had our usual lazy weekend breakfast. I live for those! Then I met my contact person for my exchange for coffee yesterday afternoon. Fist of all, Norway has the best iced coffee I have ever tasted. Second, my contact person is really nice. She went on an exchange in the Dominican Republic two years ago, her name is Martine. She offered to teach me how to sail. She also said that she has to come meet my family and make sure everything was okay, then she wanted to take me to meet her family. She said that she has a brother in my grade, but he is very in to soccer and working out, and he even goes to a tanning salon. I thought that was a little weird, until you consider that it is Norway, and that is your only option if you don't want to be extremely pale. Then I walked home, on my way home I stopped at a store to buy some dental floss, guess how much it costs... 40 Kroner, that is $6.50!! It is expensive to keep these pearly whites looking good. Then my host dad made stir fry for dinner and we had chocolate mousse and coffee for dessert.

Now it is Sunday, and it is supposed to rain today. I am not really sure what is in store for today, but it is my week to clean the bathroom, so I know I have to do that. Also, Jaran, my host brother is coming home today. He was away at law school in Bergen. So I get to meet him for the first time. Well, actually I did meet him over skype once but I basically just said hello then he hung up because the connection was bad. Well, I just got called to go up for breakfast. YUM!

Legally Blonde Moment

Do you remember the scene in Legally Blonde when Elle Woods went to the first day of law school and pulled out her pink notebook and fuzzy, pink pen while all the other students had laptops and serious looks on their faces?

Well, right now I feel like Elle Woods. Whenever the teachers say to take notes all of the other students pull out their computer and start typing. I take out a purple notebook and orange pencil from my backpack and just smile at the teacher while I try to decipher what letters they are writing on the board. Now, so far none have called me out in class and told me to leave and only come back when I am more prepared, like what happened in the movie. But they all give me the same look and ask me the same question of "Don't you have a computer yet?" My answer has been the same everyday for three weeks, "No :)".

Now my contract is supposedly being written as we speak, but who knows when, or if I ever, will get my computer. I hope it's soon because I would sure like to stop looking like the dumb blonde American...

American Style in Norway

Everyone here wears the American and/or British flag. More people here wear the American flag than the people in the US do. When I went shopping I took some pictures to show you...

 This was just in the stores I shopped at yesterday, there are plenty of people with American flag shoes and sweaters, I will try to take more pictures to show you.

Survived My Second Week

Well I'm alive! Two weeks in and so far everything is okay.

I have had some interesting experiences in the last week. Last Saturday we went to my host dad's mother's birthday dinner. We had moose and reindeer with rice and vegetables. Moose and Reindeer! I tried it. The reindeer wasn't bad, but the moose was a type of meat that I had never tasted anything like before. When I was told I was eating reindeer I felt like I was eating Santa Claus. That is what I have always associated reindeer with, Christmas and Santa. But at the dinner I also met Idar's mother, sister and his sister's family.

Then on Sunday my host parents took me to Ula. Ula is a beach area that is really pretty, even in windy conditions. 

Welcome to Ula 

This is Ulabrand 

This is Ula Beach

Monday was back to school. It is only my second week at SVGS. As of yesterday I have been in Norway for exactly 2 weeks! It makes it hard to meet new people when you can't speak the language and can't join into conversations. And I still understand almost nothing my teachers say. English is obviously my favorite class because I actually know what is going on. And we finally have my schedule worked out...I think. We have been working on it trying to get in classes I should have and classes I need and classes I want and it still  may not be done. I went to the mall with some friends one day and I know who my local contact person is too. Things seemed to work out this week. 

On Tuesday, my host sister, her friend, and I went to roast marshmallows in the forest. That was really fun. We ate about half a bag of marshmallows...

My host sister, Synne 

Synne, me, and Caroline roasting marshmallows 

Synne and me 

Synne and Caroline eating marshmallows

Wednesday through Friday felt like they went by really fast. On Friday, I figured out that my American credit card does work here as long as you let the store clerks know that you are American. They all look confused for a second then figure out how it works. Also, I got my replacement suitcase because, in case you didn't know, on the flight over when I picked up my bag from the checked luggage it was cracked. My host dad was really nice and talked with the airline and got me a really good suitcase :).

On Saturday I got to go shopping! All I am buying is sweaters, scarves, and long pants. I packed shorts and tank tops thinking that it would be warm enough to wear them... I was wrong. I also went with Synne's cousin, Solveig, who I met at her grandmother's birthday dinner, to a friends house to make brownies and watch a movie.

Now it is Sunday, and you know it is the weekend when there is ciabatta bread, liverwurst, and anchovies on the table!