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)!