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!
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