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!