The End

Although I haven't written in here in months, I've decided at least one last post is necessary. This blog has to have an end just as my exchange does, I need to tie up as many loose ends as I can. Since I last wrote I basically went on Easter with my host family, had 3 weeks of quietness for once, where I just stayed in Arendal and saw my Norwegian friends almost everyday, then I went on Eurotour with the exchange students for two weeks, then my mom came to visit and we traveled Norway, and then I cam back to Arendal to say goodbye for about 4 days. Today is my last day, tomorrow morning I head to the airport.

First a bit about the last few months, just to have it written down. Easter was nice, I got to see snow again. I basically just hung out with my host family for 5 days though, except for one adventurous climb up a snowy mountain, which I'd rather not go into... But other than that, it was a pretty uneventful week.

After Easter I had 3 weeks of peace, which were probably the best three weeks I have spent in Arendal. I saw my friends all the time. We went to town or the cafe on the weekends, or we'd hang out at each other's houses. I saw my friends so much, and I made so many new friends, though I barely had school because of exams. Two of my really good friends had their birthdays, and the last days before Eurotour I saw almost all my friends here. I love them so much I didn't even want to go on Eurotour if I had to sacrifice two weeks in Arendal seeing them. 

That changed pretty fast once Eurotour started. I'm not going to write down everything that happened, but I will say it was the best two weeks of my life with all my favorite people in the world. I honestly believe the exchange students in Norway this year are the best in the world. We're one big family, pretty much everyone is friends with everyone. Everyone is so different and unique from each other, and come from such different places, but we all get along great. We don't fight, sometimes we click off (but we have to, 30 people won't all want to do the same thing when you have freetime in a historical European city), but at the end of the day we're one big family. Saying goodbye the last day at the airport was the hardest day of my exchange by far. Once we left, we knew it would never be the same again. We would never all be together again. Most of us would never see each other again. It's impractical to think we will. Even in Norway we live hours apart, and once we leave, the distance multiplies tenfold. The thing about this year, is that it brings you so close to people, especially exchange students because in the beginning they're the only ones you can count on, but from the beginning there's an expiration date. It all ends, and once it's over, you'll never have it again.

The day I got back from Eurotour, everything about my exchange changed. I had some problems with my host family and I basically had to decide to either except the fact I would be uprooted and moved back to the countryside where getting around is very difficult for my last three weeks, or go home earlier than planned. I decided to go home early, which is why I'm writing this on June 8th, not June 28th like I should have been. I don't regret deciding to go early, it was what turned out to be best for me. It's only three weeks, I'm not an early return. I just saved myself a lot of stress for a lot of reason. But making the decision was not easy, and that it one of the many reasons the day Eurotour ended was the worst day of my exchange. It was also my birthday, but I don't like to talk about that.

The weeks since I made the decision have not been easy. I've basically been mourning the loss of my exchange. I was sad that I lost the last few weeks I thought I would have with my friends. When it came time to actually say goodbye to the ones I managed to see in the last few days, none of us knew what to say, we thought we had more time to figure it out. I think that is the only bad apart about choosing to go early. Though part of me is happy that I'm cutting the rope early. I'm not sure if a drawn out goodbye is better either. In the end it would always have been hard.

When my mom was here I showed her around Arendal for a few days, and then we took a trip around Norway to the three biggest cities in the South: Stavanger, Bergen, and Oslo. It was nice seeing it all, even though I was having a difficult time during the trip, because I was still trying to deal with all that had happened in Arendal while trying to accept I was going home in two weeks. But I got to see a lot of my exchange student friends again on the trip and say goodbye again. This time around it was easier. It was interesting to see everyone after Eurotour, because we had all changed in those few weeks. Everyone had trouble coming back to Norway, either because of host family problems, or dealing with leaving, or something back home, or something else. I feel like because we had to accept the end we all became a lot older. The end sure did look a lot closer from the other side of Eurotour. All the big stuff is done.

I came back to Arendal on Tuesday, I leave tomorrow, Saturday. That was not nearly enough time to do the things I needed to do, but I tried my best to make it work. I haven't gotten to say goodbye to everybody, I had to cancel a lot of plans by going early, and I am leaving my fair share of loose ends, but in the end none of that is important. It's about the big picture. And I just had an amazing year. I met amazing people from all over the world, and I had so many amazing experiences. Coming here was the best decision I ever made.

But it's difficult to except that it's over, that starting tomorrow, I am not an exchange student anymore. I will not live in Norway anymore. All of this will be in the past, and I just hope I never forget the people I've met or the places I've been. Because they changed my life.

But before I get home I need everyone to know that I'm still having a difficult time. I'm still dealing with the end of my exchange because it came faster than I expected. And unlike what I thought would happen, when I get on the plane tomorrow, I don't think I'll feel like it's my time to go. I'm not ready to go home, but I'm doing it anyway. So it's going to be a bit difficult for me once I get back to accept I get back. But in the end I'll be fine. It'll just take some time. I just need everyone to understand that I had a tough last month, and I need time to get over it and appreciate how amazing the other 9 and a half were.

But for now, I have to head over to my friends house to have my second mini-last-minute-goodbye party. And then I have to get home and sleep because I leave at 4 AM tomorrow.

But since this doesn't have the happiest of endings, I'm going to promise to write in here one last time, when everything is settled, and I'm home again.

Ha det bra for now.

Winter to Spring

Rotary tells you a lot of things before you leave to go on exchange. They sit you through orientations and teach you about cultural differences by putting you into groups and making you build towers out of pasta and mashmellows while half of the group is acting out different cultural extremes. We sit for hours while they show us charts and statistics to tell us a generalization of how the year is going to go, though all 70 of us are going to have completely different experiences. They tend to focus on the first six months, they tell you everything you're supposed to go through and ways to deal with it. But they don't say much about the second half of the year, after Christmas is this phase where everything's setteled and you're pretty much happy, and that's all they comment on until telling you how to prepare to go home at the very end. They say during that phase is the happiest and busiest part of your year. This is the part of the year to look forward to.

This is going to incredibly long, so get ready. The past two months have been non-stop and incredibly busy. I'm going to start with when we got back from Bodø because that's where I left off. I remember we got back to a good amount of snow, and for once I wasn't excited because I figured it would just go away after a few days, because that's what kept on happening. I was wrong. It snowed and snowed and snowed for two weeks straight, almost everyday. By the end I think we had over 4 feet of culmative snowfall. Most days it just snowed a few inches. But there were one or two days where it snowed a foot. I distinctly remember one day where it was basically a blizard outside, it snowed half a foot while I was at school. But Norwegian's have this thing about not letting the weather get in the way, so somehow I found myself kicking through snow to go to lunch in town with my friends. And also Norwegian school is only ever cancelled if there's so much snow that they can't open the door to the school. That afternoon I went to see some friends on another island than where I lived and we had to go up a hill in two feet of snow to get to the house, and ended up sliding down when we left. I loved the snow though, it was really pretty. The first time I looked down at the snow on my gloves and realized they were perfect little snowflakes I was really excited. I spent those two weeks between Bodø and Wintercamp hanging out with my friends and playing the snow. It was actually really nice to just be with my friends and at home with nothing major happening. But that changed pretty fast.

In the second week of February I went to Wintercamp in Nesbyen with almost all of the other exchange students in Norway (28 out of 30 of us). Us oldies (ones that have been here since August) got to meet the new kids that came in January because they live in the Southern Hempishere. They were really cool and they fit with our group really well. We spent the week doing winter sports and activites and just getting to hang out with each other. We stayed in cabins, we skiied during the day, and crammed all 30 of us into the biggest cabin to hang out at night (which started at 5:30 when the sun went down back then...). There were three groups; North Americans, Austrailians, and South Americans (and the France and Taiwanse exchange students). Of course I was put in North America, who were all the best because other than Florida many places in North America have the capability for winter sports. I campaigned to be moved to the South America group after the first day, because 1) climate-wise, South Florida is South America, 2) some of them suck and unlike competitive North Americans they wait for each other. But I never got moved and was happy by the end of the week when I was finally good enough to be toward the front on the way back from our 12 kilometer cross-country ski trip. We also did some downhill skiing, I had a really bad start at that, and the instructors weren't "real" instructors. So once they left me alone I figured it out and by the end of the week I got it down. I was not allowed to try snowboarding because I was told I would be "a danger to myself and the people around me".

Apart from skiing, we also had two bonfires and a moose hunt. Sadly we did not find any moose. Every night after dinner we had free time so we went to the biggest cabin to hang out, and some nights we would separate a bit into a few of the other cabins. No one was actually there to watch anyone at night so we were free to pull pranks on each other and stuff. One night I somehow managed to talk some of the South Americans into running around outside through all the cabins shirtless. There was another night where two people went around all the cabins and through snow in everyone's faces while they were sleeping, because they were bored at 4 in the morning. One night the Brazilians had a mini carnival in the cabin because it was carnival in Brazil and they were homesick. Almost every night was something different, but most nights we went to sleep by midnight because skiing all day was so exhausting. But anyways, thank you Grandma and Grandpa for paying for me to go to this trip, it was really fun!

When I got back from Wintercamp I had approximately 3 days at home and one and a half of those at school before I left to go to Belgium to visit another exchange student, Emma, from Florida. I got a huge culture shock from going to Belgium, because I had not been away from Norway and Norwegian culture for over six months. It was cool to see how another and it's exchange students work, because since it's such a small country with so many exchange students, Rotary there is very different from Norway. It was really nice, but in the end, I have to say I prefer Norway. I left my house in Arendal at 8 o'clock on Wednesday, from there I took a bus to town, then walked 15 minutes through a tunnel I didn't know existed to the train station, then I took two trains to Oslo, waited an hour in Oslo, then took another train to Rygge, the town with the cheap airport, then took a bus to the airport, then got on the plane 3 hours after arriving at the airport, then arrived in Belgium, and got picked up at the airport by Emma and her host parents. I got to their house at 11 o'clock at night. It was a very long day. The first full day I was there we went to Brugge in the Flemish part of Belgium. It was about 2 hours by train and near the ocean. Brugge is called the Venice of the North and going there felt like stepping back a few thousand years. It was really pretty and we took a boat ride through the canals and walked around for  few hours, then bought french fries and waffles. That night we went to Tournai by the French border to meet up with some other exchange students for a few hours, I didn't see too much of that but it looked really nice. We spent the entire next day in Brussels, we went shopping and saw some of the tourist stuff and then met up with exchange students again that night and went all around Brussels again. On my last full day we went to Liege and took a train from there to go to Maastrict in the Netherlands with Klaudia, who is also from Florida. That was really cool because even though the train was only like 20 minutes, you could tell you changed countries. The Netherlands was really cool, and I could understand a lot of Dutch because it was pretty similar to Norwegian. Then that night we went to Liege to see exchange students again. That's what I mean by exchange students in Belgium are different, they see each other pretty often, when I went four and a half months without seeing my exchange student friends in Norway. But I think I prefer that because I had the opportunity to make Norwegian friends and immerse myself in the culture a bit more. On my last day in Belgium we did not do anything because I was suffering from extreme blisters on my feet (a big thanks to my converse) so I just slept until we went to the airport in the afternoon.

I think it was good for me to leave Norway for a bit at that point after I was settled in. I started to really miss Norway when I was in Belgium. I missed Norwegian and all the little things that I do everyday that are Norwegian. I think it was good for me to get away and have a chance to see what I have here and miss it. When I finally heard Norwegian again when I was getting on the plane to go back to Rygge, I was so excited. I automatically understood what people were saying again, and that's a nice feeling.

After I got back from Belgium I had three days of Winter vacation before I went skiing with my host family. It wasn't so "winter" though. All the snow melted while I was gone and I came back to 65 degrees and sunny weather. So I spent those three days wearing shorts with the window open while sleeping and packing a bit because I had to move soon. I only went to see my friends once when we went to the cafe, but that was mainly because half of them were gone or busy during the break. On the first day of March I left to go skiing with my host family for the last four days of break. It was great weather at their cabin and the first day we just hung out outside and I didn't even need to wear a coat. The second day we went on a 16 kilometer ski trip all day, I was scared to fall this time because the snow was rock hard and melting, so there was nothing soft to break my fall. I only fell once, luckily, but it hurt really bad. It was a really nice trip though, and hopefully not my last this year. Though it's hard to tell, it's been a very warm March and the snow might have already mostly melted in the mountains.

I finally got back to school after Winter vacation, but I spent the week finally having to deal with Norwegian school without a computer for distraction for the classes I can't really participate in. I also had to pack to get ready to move, and figure what to do about my computer. That Friday I took a bus to Oslo with Brock for the Holmenkollen weekend with Rotary. It was really nice having everyone together in Oslo, because it's the last time all of us will ever be together again, because we won't really ever get to see the one's not going on Eurotour in May. We all got to Oslo in our own disastrous ways on Friday afternoon. We really just hung out in the hostel Rotary got for us. And Rotary finally learned that we don't do well around other people, so we were the only guests in the place. I roomed with Mackenzie and got a total of 10 hours of sleep in 4 days, nobody ever really slept at all and a lot of people just went from room to room each night. On Saturday we went into Oslo and saw the Akerhus fortress and the World War II history museum. Then we went to the Nobel Peace Prize museum, and then they set us free in Oslo for the afternoon with vague directions on how to get back to the hostel. It was really warm there and a really nice day, so for the most part it was a good day. The poeple I went with went shopping for a bit, and then over to the Opera house for a while, then we basically got kebab and tried to find our way to the hostel. To get back we had to take a 40 minute bus to Sandvika, and then wait 40 minutes, and then take a 5 minute bus to where the hostel is. I had to ask the bus driver to stop at the stop where Emmas gjesthus was, and he laughed because I pronounced it like "Jesus" and then stopped at the stop for us. The only problem is that we had to find the hostel from the stop and we were only told to go up the hill. But Sandvika, where we were staying, is filled with hills. So we ended going up the wrong one and wondering hopelessy around the hills, up and down, and up, and up, and down, and up again, for over an hour. We were late to get back and have to ask 5 different Norwegians for directions. When we got back we were supposed to have gone bowling, so when we met all the others at the bowling alley everyone cheered and freaked out because we weren't dead. Then we bowled and I failed horribly because there were no bumpers, until I figured out how to change the scores and the names on the screen. Then we went back to the hotel and ended up not sleeping until 4 AM again, and somehow that night 5 people ended up sleeping in Mackenzie and I's bed. So I was not well rested for the Ski Jump competition's the next day at Holmenkollen. If you do not know what Holmenkollen is, look it up. I don't know hot to explain it. We all painted our faces the Norwegian flag, and carrying around our own country's flag. Except for me, who somehow ended up with an Australian flag as a cape. The competition was fun, we all went crazy and ended up getting on TV. And we met a lot of cool people from other countries. Then we had free time after dinner, and we played probably the best game of charades ever. Then we split off into a few different groups, some people stayed up the whole night, but I opted for bed at 4 AM...again. On the last daywe packed up in the morning and then had lunch with the mayor of Sandvika, and then got a tour of City Hall. After that we went to the Oslo Viking Ship museum, which was really cool and we had a really good tour guide. And then we went to the Maritime museum and watched this movie about the coast of Norway. It showed about 10 towns on the coast and I got really excited because Arendal was one of them and they showed a really good view of the islands and the downtown. Then they showed all these old pictures of Arendal because it used to be Norway's biggest shipping town. Then the funny part was right after that they showed international ports in connection to Norway, which was actually only Rotterdam and Fort Lauderdale. So I got excited again. After that we toured the ship that sailed across the North Pole and then we had to say goodbye. It was really sad because we had to say goodbye for good to a few people, and this is also the last time we get to be together in Norway. But we're all lookign forward to Eurotour, but also not so much at the same time because then most of us are almost done. And that's hard to deal with.

When I got back from Oslo I barely had time to catch up on sleep because I had one day to pack, and then I switched host families. I have no idea where all this stuff came from, but it's going to be really interesting to see how I'm going to get it all back to Florida in June. So I moved in with my new family last Wednesday, and on Thursday I went to school for an hour and then I went to this RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) thing that my club hosted in Arendal until Sunday. It was some kind of seminar about business and leadership for Norwegian youth ages 17 to 25. I went because the club asked me and I learned a long time ago that you always say yes to Rotary. I was actually really good for me because I spoke only Norwegian all weekend and met a lot of other Norwegians. Even though I really had no interest in starting my own business or business at all really. But it made Rotary happy to see me there and that's important. So I finally got a chance to breath, at least for a few hours on Saturday. I hung out with one of my friends in the evening, and spent Sunday unpacking. This week I've been busy with a lot outside of school and Rotary. It's apparently spring now here though. It's been very warm and sunny. Today I even saw some people wearing shorts. It's been very nice. But now it's time for me to focus on seeing my Norwegian friends again, and getting resettled in school after being away so long, and settled with this new family. But I'm still busy. I have a good friend of mine's birthday party tonight, and tomorrow we're going to Oslo all day. I'm very busy and as soon as I think I have time to do nothing, something new comes up. I realized I actually have very few free weekends left in the 3 months I have left here. So I guess it's time to make the most of it. But I'm looking forward to this spring and summer and everything that it bring until I leave on June 29th.

Pictures should be on my photo blog. I'll try to update this a bit faster next time. And by the way, the most dangerous part of Norway is walking down the hill from school when it's covered in ice and snow. Apparently sliding down on it is a sport here. I decided to never attempt it after I saw a massive pileup one day, resulting with a lot of cold and wet people.

Yes, I'm still alive

So basically I've been insanely busy for the past month and have not had time to write a blog. This week I finally have some freetime, but it's not really free because I have to pack to move nxt week. But on top of that the charger on my computer broke last week, and in the process of fixing it, it basically got broken about 10 times worse than it was in the first place. So what that means is that I do not have extended access to a computer to give me enough time to write a blog. And it takes much longer on a Norwegian computer because all the keys are shifted in favor of the extra letters. But at least I can do this! ÅååååøØøØæææÆæææÆåæøååæøæåææøæ
I'm not really sure when I'll get my computer back (it's trying to be fixed as we speak). I could have it back tonight, or maybe in a month or two. I promise to write a journal as soon as I can, but since I can't write a full one here's a summary of what I've done in the past month and a half: we had 2 weeks of intense winter and masses of snow, I had an American sleepover and had a few free weekends with my Norwegian friends, I spent 8 days in the mountains with the other exchabge students which included all kinds of stuff from a moose hunt to downhill skiing and a makeshift brazilian carnival, I had 2 days at home after that before I went to Belgium to visit my friend there and basically ran around most of Belgium and a bit of the Netherlands for 5 days, then I came back to Arendal for "winter" vacation for a few days and the snow had all melted and it warmed up to 65 degrees, which is basically summer here, and then I went skiing with my host family for a few days and went 10 miles on skis with a bad knee, and now I'm trying to remember how to deal with school without computer access. This weekend I go to Oslo with Rotary to watch the World Championship Ski Jump Competetions with the other exchange studeents and visit some museums, next week I move families, and next weekend I think I agreed to go to another Rotary event.
I'll try to include more details when I have a real computer to use and not a phone! Until then,
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Schedules for Wintercamp and Eurotour

Because you are all so excited for me, and this saves me the trouble of explaining what they are when it's time to go.

You can choose between cross country ski, slalom ski and snow board.

PROGRAM:

11 - 18 Feb.

Saturday          Arrival, information, testing boots, ski, etc.

Sunday            Waxing ski, cross country training. Afternoon training in the ski lift.

Monday           Cross country training, playing in the snow. Afternoon Rotary meeting.

Tuesday          One half group: slalom and ski lift training with teacher. The other half group: Cross country.  Afternoon relaxation.

Wednesday     Opposite of the day before.    Afternoon barbeque in the snow.

Thursday         Slalom skiing, the whole group. Afternoon relaxation.

Friday             12 km cross country trip. Afternoon goodbye party.

Saturday          Departure

1. Day Wednesday 2. May Oslo - Berlin
We meet at Oslo Airport Gardermoen at 17.00. Departure with Norwegian Airline at 16.50 
and arrival in Berlin 18.25. A German Bus will bring us to our overnight stay in Berlin. This bus will be with us until we leave London the 15th of May. Dinner at arrival.

2. Day Thursday 3. May Berlin
In the morning an interesting sightseeing tour with our guide from Berlin. Lunch.
After lunch free time. Dinner.

3. Day Friday 4. May Berlin – Dresden - Praha
We leave Berlin to go first to Dresden. Visit the Frauenkirche and the Zwinger.
Lunch in Dresden. From Dresden we continue to the marvellous city of Praha, the capital of the Czech Republic.
Overnight and dinner in Praha.

4. Day Saturday 5. May Praha
In the morning we meet our guide for a city walk tour in Praha. After lunch free time.
Overnight and dinner in Praha.

5. Day Sunday 6. May Praha – Vienna
After breakfast you can again visit the charming city of Praha.We will again have
our lunch in Praha before we leave for Vienna, the capital of Austria.
Dinner at the Czech – Austrian border. Overnight in Vienna.

6. Day Monday 7. May Vienna – Salzburg
After breakfast our guide takes us for a city walk in Vienna to look at the most famous buildings.
We leave Vienna for Salzburg, the birth place of Wolfgang A. Mozart.
Dinner in a musical show “Sound of Music”. Overnight in Salzburg.

7. Day Tuesday 8. May Salzburg – Lido de Jesolo (Venice)
This day we leave Salzburg to cross the Alps and go to Lido de Jesolo which is on the beach close to Venice.
Lunch at the border between Austria and Italy. Dinner and overnight in Lido de Jesolo.

8. Day Wednesday 9. May Venice (Lido de Jesolo)
After breakfast we take the bus to a small harbour (Punta Sabbione) for and go by boat to Venice.
You will arrive close to the famous Marcusplace in Venice where our guide shows you the most
interesting buildings in Venice.
You have time to take a boat trip on the channel of Venice before we leave Venice again by boat.
Overnight in Lido de Jesolo.

9. Day Thursday 10. May Venice – Lyon
After breakfast we have the longest trip of the tour. From Lido de Jesolo going through Italy and again crossing the Alps by tunnel before we reach Chambery in the Rhone Alpes.
We have our lunch in Italy and dinner in Lyon in a nice restaurant. Lyon is known as the capital of the French kitchen.

10. Day Friday 11. May Lyon – Paris
We leave Lyon for the capital of France, Paris. Before we have a nice lunch in a restaurant
close to the highway. Before going into the city we visit the marvellous Castle of Versailles.
Dinner and overnight in Paris.

11. Day Saturday 12. May. Paris
After breakfast we will visit the most famous places in Paris. Together we will go up to the Eiffel Tower, visit the Louvre and have a boat trip on the river Seine. We will have lunch together before you have
some free time. Dinner and overnight in Paris.

12. Day Sunday 13. May. Paris – London
Early breakfast at our hotel before we leave to the French border at the harbour Calais.
From Calais by ferry to Dover in England. Lunch on the ferry. Dinner and overnight in London.

13. Day Monday 14. May. London
In the morning a guided tour through London. Changing the guard, Buckingham Palace
and the most famous sight in London. Lunch at the Tower of London.
Free time in the afternoon. Dinner and overnight in London.

14. Day Tuesday 15. May. London - Oslo
We leave our hotel early to go to London Stansted. Norwegian Airline takes us back to Oslo at 12.20.
Arrival in Oslo at 13.45. Time for each to go back to their home destination.

Tune in next time for a commentary about the most dangerous thing (in my opinion) that Norway has to offer (and how it's a part of my daily life) and most likely a rant about how it only starts snowing when I have no choice but to stand outside! Like right now, there is some sort of blizzard going on outside and I have to walk down the hill in it to go to the library.

High Latitudes and 3 Hour Long Sunsets

This past week I missed the bus because I walked halfway down the street and realized the reason I was freezing is because I forgot my coat, I met another Floridian living in Arendal while at the cafe with my friends, I taught several of my Norwegian friends famous American gang signs, and I journeyed with my host family North of the Arctic Circle.

The school week passed by without much going on, or at least that I can remember. I hurt my foot so I had to sit out of gym. My sociology class had to go through town taking surveys during class, even though half of the class skipped the surveys and went shopping. I miss the bus three times in a row one day. We worked with printing in Photography class.

But on Friday I went with my host family to Bodø, far up North in the country, and North of the Arctic circle. It's actually as far away from Arendal as Northern Italy, so we flew. It was the first time flying since I came to Norway, and it was really cool to look down and see all the frozen, or freezing, fjords and lakes on the South coast. Though, it was kind of surreal landing at the Oslo airport again, almost 6 months later, this time the ground white with snow.

Of course, it was dark and cold when we got to Bodø, which is pronounced like Buddha if you were wondering.  We just checked in to the Hotel in the middle of the town, I made my Facebook status "chillin above the Arctic Circle" which I thought was funny because it was cold, and we had dinner.

On Saturday we went to this place called Saltstraumen, which I don't know how to explain, so I'll let Wikipedia do it:

Saltstraumen is a sound with a strong tidal current located in Nordland 30 km east of the city of Bodø, Norway. The narrow channel connects the outerSaltfjord with its extension, the large Skjerstadfjord. It is the strongest tidal current in the world. Up to 400 million m³ (tonnes) of seawater forces its way through a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) long and 150-metre (490 ft) wide strait every six hours, with water speeds reaching 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph). Vortices known as whirlpools or maelstroms up to 10 metres (33 ft) in diameter and 5 metres (16 ft) in depth are formed when the current is at its strongest.

That was really cool, and cold. It was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit with 35 mph winds. This is the warmest winter in the Northern Hemisphere in recorded history. I saw North-Norwegians walking around wearing jeans and a hoodie. Then we drove up and down the coast for a few hours, and saw some of the most beautiful mountains ever. I'll put videos on my photo blog.

We got incredibly lucky with the weather. The whole time we were there it was clear and sunny out (well, when the sun was out), which is really rare for that part of the country. The sun came up around 10 and went down around 2 everyday. But it was light out for much longer. Because of the high latitude and the angle of the Sun on the Earth, Norway gets incredible and long sunrises and sunsets. But if I thought they were long in Arendal, it was nothing compared to the 3 hour twilight we had in Northern Norway. The sun was only above the mountains for a little over a half hour during the day, but the light was pretty amazing without it.

On Sunday we went to the Baptism of my host dad's brother's son, which is the reason we went up there in the first place. It was a long day, with a big dinner (at 1 o'clock, when the sunsets of course) and 5 hours of travel back to Arendal. But at one point in the night, my host dad's dad told me to go outside right now and it would feel like I was near the North Pole. And that's the thing about being up there, you feel the high latitude in the air, and you see it in the light. I walked outside and between the low mountains and breeze against the Northern Atlantic Ocean, and the purple sky filled with stars, it felt like I was near the North Pole. I don't think many South Floridians of my age get to experience that. Of course, just being in Southern Norway I'm pretty far North, but you can't really tell the same way.

And on the plane to Oslo I saw the Northern Lights. At first it was just a green strip in the sky, but it got stronger and the aurora's were pretty incredible looking from the plane. And I found out later that the lights were particularly strong that night and could be seen as far south as Trondheim. Unless you're Norwegian that probably carries no significance to you. But it turns out most of my Norwegian friends haven't even seen them, so I guess I'm pretty lucky.

But in the end it was a very nice trip, and a pretty nice week. Things are going to start getting busier and busier soon, so I'm going to enjoy the next week or two where I have nothing to do but hang out in Arendal with my friends. It snowed while we were gone, and now there is a pretty significant amount of snow in town, and it's not even getting dirty in town, so everything is white. And by the looks of the weather, it's not going away anytime soon.

Until next week I guess?

Ellen

Jul, Nytår, og Ski Tur

I guess I'm long overdue for an update on this. I promise to start updating weekly again. In fact, I'm going to tell you the day you can expect the next post. January 24th. There you go, write it down on your calendars because I will have another posted on that day. And I'm building a queue on the photo blog I have, so there should be at least 3-5 photos a day from now on.
So the we last left off a few days before Christmas, when my "break" had just begun. After school ended, I think I took one day of rest, and then I started spending some time with friends. I went to Kristiansand one day to visit another exchange student and see this light show. We ended up hanging out at McDonald's for a while because 1) we are just so American and 2) I was almost out of money and even though it's more expensive than in Norway, it's still the cheapest food around.
Norwegian Christmas traditions are different than American ones. For one, they celebrate mainly on Christmas Eve. And another, Christmas is about four days long.
The Christmas celebrations start four to five weeks before Christmas with Advent. Even though Norwegians are not religious people, they tend to do things that are very religious, but without any hint of religion behind the reason for doing it. The four Sunday's before Christmas we lit a purple candle. I was told it's really just an excuse to eat candy.
Also we have the Julecalendars and all the Jule products. All Norwegian children have a Julecalendar, which is a calendar that parents hang up on the first day of December, with 24 present hanging from it. Everyday until Christmas Eve you open the one for the day up in the morning. Along with those Christmas themed products and food start filling the store in October and November. Special cheeses, meats, candy, ect. that you only eat before and around Christmas. The most popular of which is Julebrus, or Christmas soda. I honestly do not understand why they only drink this around Christmas, it is definitely one of the best things Norway has to offer drink-wise.
Now for my Christmas, all the craziness officially began on the 22nd of December. (This is not including the few Christmas brunches and dinners we had the weekends leading up to Christmas..) My host dad's parents came to live here for the holidays and we start the little traditions. On the 23rd or "lille julaften" we put up the Christmas tree and decorate it. The 24th is when we did most of the celebrating. We had a big Christmas breakfast, and then a havegrot or rice-porridge lunch at my host mom's moms house, and then a big Christmas Eve dinner. We all dress up and watch TV Christmas specials all day until dinner. Then after dinner we open the presents one-by-one, and then have desert. I got a bunch of ski stuff and warm clothes that I really need for the rest of the winter, and a really nice Norway necklace with a stone where Arendal is on it. I gave my host family a homemade "How to Make Thanksgiving Cookbook" because they liked Thanksgiving so much.
On the 25th or "the first day of Christmas" we had another big breakfast, and then another big dinner with my host families extended family side 1. I called it Thanksgiving 2, because almost everything we ate, we had at Thanksgiving. By the way, I have officially brought pecan pie to Norway. On the 26th or "the second day of Christmas" we drove up to Asker, which is about 3 and half hours away and just South of Oslo, for another dinner with my host families extended family side 2. There I got the interesting opportunity to see if I could understand the 3-year-olds version of Norwegian. Nope, I can't. But that's okay, I don't think Norwegians can either. But anyways, we drove back that night because my host mom had to go to work the next day.
From that point on we had one day of rest, and then I hung out with my friends during the day and went to dinner parties with my host family every night until New Years. Then my host sister left for a sailing trail in Italy, and I had two days to rest before school started.
I want to note that I was actually excited to go back to school and be with all my friends again and have my daily life in Arendal back. And this is a huge contrast to how I felt when I had to come back to Arendal after going away in the beginning of the year from places like Language Camp. Back then it was coming back to struggling to talk to people and make friends and understand. And this time it felt almost the opposite of that.
This past weekend, I went with my host family to their cabin in the mountains to go skiing (cross country). We went up on Thursday night and stayed until Sunday. My host family said I really impressed with how well I did my first time on skis. The second day we went 4.1 kilometers on the skis, and by the end of the day I could go down the hills without tracks on them and not fall at all. They said that I'll probably be pretty good by the end of the year judging by how much I improved in one day.
The best part about being at the cabin was all the snow, one day when we were walking back to the car and I was off the skis, I walked off the track of hard snow to try to get onto the road and ended up stepping in the loose snow. One second I was walking and the next I was buried up to my hip in snow.
On the last day at the cabin we went sledding down the mountain. As in, we took sleds up the mountain on a ski lift and then rode them down a winding path down the mountain. I did not figure out how steer the sled until the 3rd time down. I think I fell into the 4-feet deep snow drifts on the end of the track about 10 times in 40 minutes. The worst one is when I literally tumbled halfway down the mountain with my sled and ended up "swimming" in four and a half feet of snow next to the ski lift, about 20 feet away from a track. But the last round down, I figured out how to steer and was actually pretty good...until I swerved the sled to try not to hit someone on the bottom and ended up being flung into the hard snow. That fall is probably the reason why half my thigh is now yellow from old bruises from my first sledding experience.
And that is all for my first time on skis. There are pictures on my photo blog.
Last weekend was also my 5-month mark in Norway, and we had a new exchange student come to Arendal. I think these two things combined have reminded me on how far I've come in these past few months. Everything is so completely different now than when I first came that it is hard to imagine that it has only been five months, while at the same time is hard to imagine that I've already been away from Florida and living in a another country on my own for 5 whole months. Time is confusing when you do something like this, everything seems to be too long and too short all at the same time.
The first few months that I lived here in Arendal were really difficult. I don't know if I ever admitted that on here, or even to myself until long after it was over. I had a lot of trouble making friends simply because Norwegians are closed-off people by nature, and I was super uncomfortable just going up to people and talking because of the language barrier, and the fact I barely understood or spoke Norwegian made just jumping into a conversation with my class impossible. And even when people would come up and talk to me, I think it was usually out of pity for me being the new foreign girl who doesn't know anyone, rather than because they were actually very interested in hanging out with me. I hated that, and I hated that I always was so quiet and could never really act like myself, but there was little I could do about it. Of course I tried, and pushed myself really hard to make friends, even though it made me uncomfortable. And unlike most exchange students, I didn't have another exchange student anywhere near to me to run to for support or friendship when I was down. In a lot of ways, I was all on my own for a while, and one of the hardest parts of the year. But over time Norwegians warm-up to you and everything just got better. Now I feel like I have a really good amount of friends, that are friends of me because they like me and not because they pity me or think I'm lonely and they're doing me a favor. I feel like I'm myself all the time, with my host family, with my friends, and even when I meet new people. I'm comfortable speaking Norwegian to my friends, even though I don't think I'm very good, and speak more Norwegian than English at school now (and everyone says I'm doing good!). I feel like I can always find something to do, or someone to hang out with, and I feel like most people really do like me or think I'm interesting here. Of course sometimes I get quiet or uncomfortable, but that's not a part of my daily life anymore. Probably even less so now than I was in Florida, which was stupid. I don't think I'll get as shy as easy as I used to when I'm back in Florida, because I've had to deal with that shyness in a new place, with a new language, a new culture, and surrounded by new people.
It's funny how when you take away everything you've grown up with and throw yourself into a new place you find that you discover new things about yourself. Being in Norway I have learned a lot of things about myself. One of them being that I can't sleep with socks on. I never knew this before because I never wore socks in Florida, but bare feet are weird in Norway. Another is that I don't actually hate Florida. It's all I ever knew, how could I hate it? I just hated some of the choices I had made there, and their consequences.
I've also learned that I probably always had some minor form of social anxiety, but never had to really deal with it until I came here. I've never been too comfortable around people in general, and I was not that person who goes up to people to try and make friends. I wait for people to come up to me. I would get nervous with new people and never knew how to deal with it. But you can't sit around and wait for people to come up to you on exchange, especially in a country like Norway. You'll never make friends, and without friends the year is almost guaranteed to suck, at least in my opinion. But I think I have been getting better with this since a few months before I left Florida, because that's when I started to realize how many friends I had there and how happy I was with them. Then at Pratt I made friends almost instantly, but that was easy because that was art school, and everyone had so much in common. But Norway was a whole other challenge, and learning how to feel comfortable here is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, and also one of the best things I have ever done for myself.
So I'll see you next time.
Check my photo blog if you want pictures!

Something that will make my parents happy.

I've made a photo blog, where I'll put all my pictures that don't make it on Flickr or that I'm too lazy to put on here. I'll probably update it a few times a day, with either pictures or videos, or just little things. I'll keep this blog to make the big updates once a week or two like I was in the beginning of the year, Flickr will still get my favorite photos I take, and I'm working on making video blogs.

So there you go, to the people I am told check this everyday and rarely get it updated. This one is connected to another blog I have so it's easy to put things on it. And you can ask me questions or leave me messages (which will be checked daily because it's connected to something else) by clicking on the ASK link next to all the other links or by going here.

http://vikingsandfjords.tumblr.com/

I'll do some kind of update about the holidays after I finish up the video blog I'm trying to make.