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!