305 Days in Norway, with 8 Days left

Hello! I am making a point to blog today, if anything more for myself, if only to remember how I'm feeling right now in this moment after spending almost a year in this beautiful country.

I'm pretty much done with school except for a small breakfast that my class will be having tomorrow and I'm leaving to go up to Nærøy and visit were my host mom is from this Saturday before joining up with AFS again on Wednesday before heading back to The States again. So really these last two days are my last in Sør-Trøndelag.

My last week has been busy and so much fun, but its also been filled with so many goodbyes and so many "lasts." Its really actually quite sad, after living in a place for almost a year, you get pretty settled in, friends, school and routines. I think most of all I'm going to miss the people here though, I've been so lucky to have found really wonderful friends, some from all over the world that have been there through my ups and my downs. My Norwegian family as well though, has been absolutely amazing, counseled me, laughed with me and been there for me through absolutely everything, I really cant imagine having it any other way, I have been so very incredibly lucky to have them.

Last cabin trip!

Last Trondheim trip!

Last time volunteering at the kindergarten!

I'm going to miss the little things as well though, like coffee in the evenings, the smell after rain,, my host mom leaving my vitamins on my breakfast plate in the morning, seeing the sheep run around Ervika, sitting in the living room knitting in the evenings, making cookies with my brother, doing math on the kitchen table along with Ada and Johannes and even the cow crap smell on sunny days. Its not going to be easy to leave

It will of course be amazing to see my American family and friends though, of course. I can't wait to run up to them and give them all massive hugs and tell them all about my year. I'm going to miss this though, there's been so much to explore, so much to see, so much to learn. I mean come on there's not very many times in life where you have a chance to learn how to speak an entire new language fluently, or live with a family from a different culture and be able to learn and live like just any other person from it. Its been kinda amazing and I'm going to miss everything so much.

I made a wonderful country choice as well, Norway has been a wonderful country to live in. The people here, although very quiet at first, are full of love and some of the most kind hearted, most down to earth people I've ever known. The government system makes so much more sense as well, and because of this, the people  in my opinion are even happier.

I absolutely love this little lovely country and the people in it, I hope to come back many times in the future and possibly even go to University here. We'll see. All I do know is that this for now this will not be goodbye, but snakkes (talk later). Thank you everyone in The States and in Norway, for making this year possible and absolutely incredible, thank you so so much, tusen hjertelig takk.

General Update on Everything :)

So its been a long time since I've updated everything on here, but its really not without trying. I think I've sat down to write this about three times now, with each time giving up to my incredibly easily distracted self, but ya know, thats nothing out of the ordinary.

Schools just about done here, as long as you don't come up in the minority that has to take exams (and due to how late I ended up getting my ID number, its looking like I won't be included!). So schools pretty relaxed and a lot of times we are let out of classes early, or just don't have the class at all. So of course I'm not complaining at all either. 

We've also had a lot of free time as well. This weekend I've had Thursday and Friday free, so in all its been a four day weekend for us and we as well have next Monday off as well. Again, I'm definitely not complaining!

Other than school though there's been a good amount going on. Summer feels like it has really begun to hit and Norway is filled with more greenery and wildflowers than I've ever seen in my life. Baby sheep and cats are being born all over Ervika and are of course very fun to visit. Of course there are some days that the weather is crummy windy and cold. But the good ones, like today, a perfect 70 degrees and a calm breeze with blue sky's, completely make up for every cloud in the days before.

We also just recently had Norways National Day, 17 Mai. Kinda like Americas Fourth of July, just without the fireworks. ;) We had my host brothers host family from America come down to visit as well which of course was a ton of fun, they are really just a really wonderful group of people. 

On 17 Mai everyone gets super dressed up and if they're older than they're confirmation age (15) they will usually have on a Bunad. This is mostly normal for women, but some men have their own as well. You then walk in a 17 Mai parade while waving the Norwegian flag. The graduating class in high school usually does something special, as well as maybe some bands, kindergartens and middle school classes. It was beautiful weather, but it was quite windy as well so a lot of my time was spent holding my dress down to avoid having a not exactly so great Marilyn Monroe moment.

We then that evening ate "Sod" a really traditional Trøndersk (the area that I live in) meal. Really yummy lamb meat balls with carrots and potato, normally served with flat bread and ginger ale. Its also normal for the kids on this day to kinda have free range on whatever they want to eat. So of course, my brother decided to beat his record of fourteen individual ice creams in a day this year. He ended up completing his goal, but however spent the rest of the evening very quiet and ended up coming to the resolution that maybe this will be the last time that the infamous, "ice cream record", will be defeated. 

A friend and I also took a trip down to Oslo in Northern Norway! We were lucky enough to land thirty three dollar tickets round trip with a train so we decided to do it! We took a late night train there and back so we went down Thursday night and came home Saturday morning. We were lucky to see a lot of the different sights as well such as "Frogner Park", "The Scream by Munch" and the Opera house. We as well met up with another foreign exchange student from Brazil that showed us around some more cool parts of Oslo, such as the more international demographic area of the city and a pretty sweet park to sit and eat Kebabs in.

The sleeping arrangements on the train were difficult to say the least (one Norwegian sized two person chair row to sleep across is never the comfiest), but in all it was a really fun trip filled with some great sites and great friends. A very well spent thirty three dollars.

Well like always, I could definitely keep on going, but in complete honestly I don't want to spend another second sitting on this couch inside with the weather being as beautiful as it is outside today! Hope everyone's well! Snakkes!

God Påske fra Norge! Happy Easter from Norway!

Hello! We recently celebrated Easter here in Norway! And oh my gosh was it different than from The States, only in the best possible ways though! :)

The first really large difference was that we had a week and a day free from school and most businesses were closed on the Holy Days and took on an "Easter Schedule" through the rest of the week. It was really actually most comparable to what we do during Christmas, minus the wrapping everything in lights of course.

My family spent most of our time up at our cabin through Easter. We had quite a bit of rain/snow stuff while we were up there so I worked for a lot of my time on my knitting, but we were blessed with wonderful weather the last two days that I was there so I was able to take part in my family's annual  Easter Ski Race and go out on a ski trip the second day! Sadly, I have to say I did not win first place in the ski race, but I was very satisfied to be able to say I only fell three times! Cross country skiing is not exactly on my list of strong suits, haha! But, some kind Easter chickens came to visit us afterwards so of course it was all ok. ;) 

Other than all the falling, I do actually have a lot of fun skiing! Its kinda like just going on a hike, just with skis on instead of boots and usually always ends in some kind of chocolate, grilling hot dogs and hot coffee, so who would dislike that?

Påske kyllinger! Easter chickens!

Typical Norwegian food when out on a Easter ski trip. Kvikk Lunsj (like Norwegian Kit-Kat) and oranges! 

I also went to church on Sunday with my Norwegian Grandma, because that's my Easter tradition. I found it to be very different than the American Christian church, mainly being not so loud! But it was nice anyways and the church was beautiful as well!

The view to the right of the church of the fjord! Pretty beautiful, but not the best picture!

We also of course got Easter candy! We each got maps of the general area of where ours was around the house and we had to go out and search! Mine took probably too long to find and ended up taking three people, but eventually I had my first Norwegian Påske egg!



In all it was a really fun Easter break, definitely one I will always remember! Hope everyone's was great as well. :)

Poland, my Fifth Visited Country

Last week I was lucky enough to go with my family to Poland for a long weekend trip! We were there along with other family members to visit my older host brother who is studying at a university there and I really had just an amazing time. The whole trip we were blessed with wonderful weather, great food, stayed at an amazing hotel and like always, spent our time with great people.

For those that don't know (as I really did not know much about it before coming here), Poland is a country in central Europe and is an active part of the European Union. The language is derivative from Russian and quite honestly sounds insane. The entire time I was there I just kept on thinking that it was such a good thing I did not decide to go on exchange to a place with a language like that, I've kinda had enough trouble learning Norwegian as it is, haha! 

It is very uncommon for Polish people to be able to speak English as well though, and if they do its very limited which is definitely something I took for granted going on exchange in a place like Norway. Almost everyone here can speak English and very exceptional English at that, so I've very rarely felt like I couldn't get my point across. Anyways, in a place like Poland which is pretty much the opposite, you can  probably imagine I had some pretty interesting encounters! Eventually I finally came to the conclusion that waving your arms around and making a rainbow of different faces can sometimes be the best form of communication possible.

Regardless of my very poor sign language, it was very cool to see a culture so different than Norwegian or American. Architecturally it is indeed very old European with tight streets and tall buildings with very little green, but the amount of Russian looking church steeples  and godliness of the furnishings was really not something I had ever seen before first hand. The one sad thing though to see in this beautiful old city was the amount of graffiti that plastered on just about everything.

We spent a lot of our time site seeing around and as well did quite a bit of shopping because of how incredibly cheap Poland is in comparison to Norway. I as well went and played Laser Tag and drove Go Karts with my host Dad and brother and other members of the family (which of course was a blast!) and ate probably a months amount of food and deserts in the four days we were there! Totally not healthy but calories don't count when your on exchange right?

I could probably go on, but I'm currently up at my family's cabin celebrating Easter and I think I've been cooped up alone long enough. Hope everyone is doing well and God Påske (Happy Easter)! 

   

Åre!

Last weekend I was lucky enough to join my host family up to Åre in Sweden! For those, boring non slalom skiers (Kidding... mostly ;) ), Åre is a really large ski resort that the World Cup for skiing has been held at and is absolutely gorgeous. I really had a great weekend and it was so great to get back on skis again! I used to race when I was really young so I spent a good amount of my time on skis as a kid, but it had been a while since then, so I was worried about jumping back on again. Thankfully though it was just as easy as it was when I was nine and I had a lot of fun. Didn't break anything, didn't fall... to much, rented a perfect pair of skis, stayed in a "Ski In-Ski Out" appartment and spent my weekend with amazing people. So yeah, I think I'm pretty darn lucky :)

My host family on the slopes! 

Looking over at the lake Are sits off of from a ski run

You Can't Have a Rainbow Without the Rain

Hallo alle sammen or hello everyone! This last week has been a little wild, like when AFS said "You'll experience some roller coasters on your exchange", they really were not joking around. Of course though that was completely expected and metaphorically, I was the kid to decide to jump on right upfront and put my hands in the air, or I suppose that's how it feels. Luckily though, my host family and friends have been a great support system and have really been there for me through the good days and the ones that I've felt the roller coaster took a little bit too quick of a drop. In an exchange there are a lot of high points, but along with that, there are as well a few lower ones as well. The good thing about those at the time, oh so horrible downs though, is you learn a whole lot from all of it. In all honesty, I'm just as happy to have had the little bit more difficult experiences just as much as the easy and fun ones. Although the fun experiences are a hell of a lot more enjoyable, with lack of another less-cheesy expression, "You can't have a rainbow without the rain."

So yes, that's been my week, good and tough, but mostly good. Hope everyone else is doing good as well. :)

Here are some irrelevant photos.

Ok, so in Norwegian the word farts, means speed. Now, I probably should be more mature and try to not find the sign that says "30 farts" on the side of the road so very funny, but come on. Its kinda great.

Always Something to See

Quite a bit has happened since my last blog post and my last months here are filling up and going fast. My most recent "large experience" has been recently traveling to Røros, an old mining town that is just beautiful and full of history. I was a little disappointed because I forgot my camera and my cell phone had a break down.. so sadly I don't have too many photos, but I had a great time! Met with great people, saw a beautiful town and ate great food. Even got to taste the very traditional "Rakfisk", a fish left to ferment in a airtight place for a few months and then eaten in a variety of ways. I think its a bit of an acquired taste, but hey I'm not completely viking yet, right?


My other experience was traveling to Sweden over winter break! One of the really awesome things with being with AFS and coming to Norway is that I am allowed free travel as long as I comply with certain rules and guidelines, so a couple weeks ago I took advantage of that when I traveled to Stockholm! I stayed with my Swedish relatives and had a wonderful time. Stockholm is so beautiful and my relatives were more than hospitable, as well as just a joy to be around. In Norwegian I would definitely say my visits were "Koselig." Instead of taking this entire post trying to explain this wonderful word, I found another blog that explains it completely. Yes, I know its a bit long, but you have to promise to read at least the first paragraph, its kinda great.

http://afroginthefjord.com/2014/02/02/how-to-make-things-koselig/

I used every day of my trip to the fullest which was wonderful. In the seven days I was there I got to visit five different museums, met so many amazing relatives, saw a few of the many subway art displays, ate wonderful food and got to view almost the whole of Stockholm! Its a place I can definitely see myself returning to, even with my full week, I don't think I even put a dent in what in what Stockholm has to offer. Yesterdays old city meets with the industrial modern architecture of today and supports all faces of the matured city flawlessly, with small boutiques tucked into buildings from the 1700's and tall aged trees tucked between some of the most industrial squares. If you ever have a chance to visit this historic, wonderful city, I would without a shadow of a doubt suggest it.

I've put some pictures from my travels so far down below, but I think that this is where I will be leaving this post! Hope everyone is doing well and enjoyed watching Norway kick butt in the Olympics, haha, HEIA NORGE! ;)

By the seaside in central Stockholm

Gamla Stan

View at lunch at Modern Museum, looking through a glass.

Drottningholm Palace

Out to lunch in rural Stockholm 

Summer home in Brama, at a not so summer time.

Shops tucked into tight squares in Gamla Stan 

Roros Church

Shopping square 

Old homes leading down to the old mining location

Norwegian Manners

So before I start this, I need to lay out that none of this is to reflect badly on Norway, my experience, or people here.  I think that writing about things that are in a sense "under the surface" in a culture is just as important as how amazing Norwegian chocolate is (maybe not quite as important as that, but close), or holidays. To clarify as well, I don't think that really anything here is necessarily bad, and if anything its just culturally different than what I have in my country, so with this in mind here is my experience with Norwegian manners. :)

Growing up I can always remember hearing from my Mother or Father, after given anything or after anyone ever did anything specifically for me, "Now what do you say Mary?" and of course, like any other American kid that didn't want a timeout or "THE LOOK" from my parents immediately replying with, "Thank you" and the same with any other kind of social etiquette we identify in The States. That's just what we do.

In contrast though, I have not once seen any parent or guardian say that to any child in Norway. In fact, there is actually no direct translation for the word please. But, not saying please and thank you for everything here in many instances is simply just not considered rude the way we think of it in The States. Instead of saying "Excuse me", most people will usually just go on their way around you without a word and after bumping into someone in a hallway most people will just reply with more of a "Oii" instead of an, "Oh I'm sorry" like we would in the US. That's just what they do.

After living here of course I'm not drawn back by someone quickly replying "HA?!" when they don't understand me instead of an "Excuse me", but at first I won't lie it was tough to get used to. I had to kind of come to a realization though that not everyone thinks the same way as I do and in a different culture people are raised differently as well.

People do still say please and thank you of course, but its just not held the same importance. There may be absolutely nothing wrong with that though. Maybe we use words like "Please" and "Thank you" too often. But, maybe in Norway we use it too little. I think on this topic though there is really no black and white decision that can actually be made. Its just cultural differences, but to me that's one of the things that makes this world that we live in and this experience to be able to see these differences first hand and broaden my view, so very cool.

Norwegian Christmas

Very happy to say I'm finally starting this very long overdue blog post! Unsure why its taken me so long to update but at least here I am! Figured it was best to post before this weekend was over, I'm expecting the next couple of months to be pretty busy with a few trips that I will most definitely have to blog and take a ton of pictures of!

Anyways, Christmas in Norway is very different than Christmas in America! First, it runs a whole lot longer, but they don't get ready for it as early as we do. Christmas here really starts after Christmas Eve and runs into January, so you can really celebrate it through your break. Through Christmas beak many people meet up with family, have people over for coffee and there are a lot of party's and things like that. People also usually get very dressed up when they go to any of these gatherings and especially on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so that was really special and I definitely got a good wear out of my one dress I brought here, haha! Luckily though, my host sister and I are about the same size ;)

This year I also got to tree hunt for our own tree for the first time! My family owns a uncultivated property close to where we live and after about a half an hour of searching with my host brother for just the right tree we finally found a little crooked, but perfect in just its own way tree. It was a bit tall, so much so we actually had to buy a few extra Christmas ornaments for it! But it turned out really beautiful and to me it was one of the prettiest, and simple Christmas trees I had ever seen. Honestly, I would prefer the Norwegian Christmas tree over the American one any day. The trees themselves are not as full as the American trees and not so full of ornaments, the lights are light bulbs that look like candles and at least in my home we had a really simple star as the topper. Maybe its just my host moms way of doing things, but I was really impressed with our pretty Norwegian tree.
The timing for the tree is different than what I was used to before as well. With my US family we put up our  tree in early/ middle of December and take it down almost the day after Christmas, my family here put up their tree only a few days before and we had it up just until the second week in January.

My host brother standing with our tree, I think he's almost 7 ft so you can imagine how tall our tree was!

Really beautiful hand knitted Christmas ornaments that were being sold at a Christmas fair near where I live. I actually got one from my host aunt that she knitted for Christmas in black and white :)

My family also had an advent calender starting December first and going until Christmas Eve. Myself and my host brother and sister all took turns getting calender gifts every three days. I got some candy, socks for skiing and a full sample set of Burts Bees products. Yep, felt super spoiled :)

Our Advent Calender

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day up at my family's cabin so we actually had a white Christmas! Believe it or not it was completely green where I live in Norway the entire season and I think actually warmer here than it was in The States! I had a great time celebrating Christmas, I even got to try true Norwegian cross country skiing! After spending the majority of the time on my "rompe" ,I quickly realized that I am much better at slalom, but I had fun anyways and would definitely go again!

Skis hanging outside our cabin

One of the buildings on my host family's property sits and the outhouse behind it (yes yes, of course I had to include a picture of the bathroom!)

Christmas Eve myself and 11 other of our family all got dressed up, ate a really great dinner and afterwards opened up our Christmas presents! I think I probably got more presents this year than I have ever gotten before, so thank you everyone for that! Felt very special :) The next day we had a special breakfast and spent the day in the cabin watching Christmas specials and visiting before sitting down for another special Christmas dinner, I haven't weighed myself quite yet but I'm pretty sure I gained at least five pounds through Christmas... at least...

Christmas Eve Dinner

Ok so I think I'll end this on what to me is one of the best things through Christmas, FOOD. :) The Christmas food here is very special and most of it is only sold, made and eaten at this time of the year. I think we have a few similar things in the US, but I don't think we have so much. I definitely can imagine how great having these kind of traditions may be to help it really to feel like Christmas and to look forward to every year. 

 Lutefisk

Honestly, after eating Lutefisk about three times now I can conclude that I really like it! Not a strong fishy flavor at all, the consistency is at first a little weird, but paired with bacon, potatoes and peas I really like it! Honestly that is something I never thought I would say, but I was really happily surprised and look forward to hopefully making it in The States next year (To my American family reading this: Yes, you all have to eat it, no choice). 

Not my picture, but what we eat looks exactly the same!

   

Jule Brus

This is super sweet soda is bubbly and yummy and is a favorite with kids!

Side note: See the white line around the top and bottom? Norway recycles their bottles after being cleaned and sterilized, so that's the reminisce of the soda it was used for before!   

Rib

Pork cooked in the oven with a crunchy layer of bacon on top! Yumm... My past vegetarian self would kill me for this one... 

Pine Kjøtt

Cured lamb ribs that are very salty and are made just how they did when there was no refrigerators(this isn't my picture because I forgot to take one...).

Jule Kake

For Christmas my host mom made 12 different kinds of cookies. All were so amazing... The thing I really like about Norwegian cookies and cake is that none of them are too sweet. Of course this means you can just eat more and more of them, which ends up not being so great for your waist line, but hey I'm only here for a year, so I figure I can afford it. ;)

Alrighty, I could go on because even with all of that there are so many things I have missed, but now looking at the length of this blog I think I will have to end this here. If that was too long to read and you just ended up skimming through, I'll sum it up, I had a wonderful Christmas in Norway all because of my wonderful host family and friends, one I will definitely always remember it for the rest of my life. Thank you everyone. :)