Language camp, conference and sweden

I spent the past week in Halden for a week long norwegian language course, and Ski (which apparently is a place) for a district conference. Both are close to Oslo, but I really had no idea where I was. On Friday I flew to the Oslo Rygge airport, then took a bus to the train station, then got on the train which I thought went to Halden. I bought my ticket speaking norwegian (which basically consisted of "hva koster det" and "takk") and then smiled and nodded when the conductor told me something about a bus, which I didn't understand. Turns out I had to take a bus after the train to get to the Halden train station, I still don't know why. Luckily Devin happened to see me get on the train, otherwise I probably would've ended up in sweden or something, which I wouldn't actually have minded.

View out the window on the train from Oslo

Language camp was in a hostel next to a fortress which was once used to fight Sweden. It was a pretty random location, but interesting nonetheless. We met the other 20 exchange students in Norway, from Brazil, Ecuador, Japan, USA and Canada. North America was definitely well represented. It was really nice to speak english without fear of being misunderstood, and after a week with other exchange students I felt like I'd been on a holiday in North America. 

Devin, me and Abby being monsters

Part of the fortress (picture stolen from Kate)

Five days of lessons later, I knew a few more words, had gotten slightly more confident in Norwegian, and had a nice new book to work in throughout the year. I already knew most of the material we covered, but it was still a fun week. We watched two crime movies set in Bergen with english subtitles, one of which was called "The woman in the refrigerator." They made me see the city in a different light, and made me afraid to walk around the hostel alone for fear of looking up and seeing a dead girl hanging there. We ate a lot of mystery meat, bread, various forms of moussy desserts, and nugatti (similar to nutella).

Nugatti in a tube....yummmmmm

On Tuesday afternoon we took the bus to Sweden, which was about 10 km away. Clothes were slightly cheaper, and food was a fair bit cheaper. We went to a big shopping centre near the border; I don't actually know where we were. The first place we went was a giant candy store, and filled bags with assorted chocolates.

Crossing into Sweden...as uneventful as crossing into Alberta from BC

A small section of the candy store

This cost about 5 dollars :)

After the chocolate store, Abby, Noellen and I went to a salon and tested out the sample dyes in spray cans. I found out that pink makes my hair look moldy and gross, silver makes me look old, and gold doesn't show up. We left leaving a trail of sparkles behind us, without buying anything. A few hours of shopping later everyone met up at McDonalds, and I bought the cheapest thing I could; a cheeesburger for 10 kr. Then we managed to miss the bus back, and had to call a taxi which cost double the bus.

On Friday everyone took the train to Ski, where we stayed in a really nice motel for the district conference. It was really nice to have a shower that was seperate from the rest of the bathroom; in the hostel the shower sprayed over the sink, so we tracked dirty water all over the room. If you took the elevator to the second floor, it opened up on a massive shopping centre, which was pretty dangerous!

We met up with the students from Australia, New Zealand and Argentina, and spent Saturday planning presentations for the rotary members at the conference. We divided into groups; Aussie/New Zealand/Japan, North America, and South America. We sang the Canadian and American anthems, showed a slide show of our hometowns, and made up a poem/rap for both Canada and the US. "Everything is bigger in the US of A, we're just like Canada without the Eh"....etc. 

Saturday night was a formal dinner with all the rotarians, with the first meal I'd eaten all week that wasn't stuff your face buffet style. ( I managed to gain about 8 pounds during this week despite going for runs several of the mornings...yikes!)

The meal took about 2.5 hours, which was a lot of polite conversation in broken english with a bit of norwegian thrown in.

Roommates before the dinner: Abby (from Wisconsin) Me, and Sara ( from Colorado) ( picture stolen from Sara)

On Sunday we thought we were going for a hike, but we ended up going to a 900 year old church, some houses in the forest from the 1700's,  catching crayfish and riding on a steam boat.  It was a bit unexpected, but definitely interesting.

I travelled to the airport with Brianna and Caity from Australia, and Tre from the US. All three are living around Ålesund, which is on the west coast north of Bergen. In the airport I learned just how expensive food can be in Norway; I bought the "San Diego" at a random little food booth, and paid about 13 dollars canadian for a chunk of breaded chicken in a tortilla plate of nachos with "guacamole" (which, to be gross, looked just like the substance that came from the intestines of the fetal pig we dissected in biology), and a drink which I had about a quarter of before we had to go through security. I think I'll remember to pack food from now on!!

Overall it was a crazy fun week, but I'm glad to be back "home" in Arna.

Oh, and just thought I'd mention, Friday the 10th was my one month anniversary of arriving in Norway!!! :)