Norwegian money and baking knekkebrød

A couple weeks ago I went for a walk below Tord and Helene's house and ended up on a beach where the snow was completely untouched. So I had to change that! I haven't been there since, but it was pouring rain the next day so I guess my Canadian flag didn't last long. I like to think that some other Canadian came across it before it melted though.

I finally got my cell phone to connect to my computer again, so here's a couple more pictures from that walk:

Ytre Arna is on the left

I'm having trouble remembering what I did the past week; there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, in any case. Since I don't have too much to write (for once) here's a lesson on Norwegian money

-Their currency is the Norwegian kroner; there's about 5.8 in a Canadian dollar and I tend to divide by six. Even if I have no other math skills left from last year, I've gained the skill of quickly estimating almost any number divided by 6. The symbol for kr is  - , like a subtraction sign. At first when I saw prices written as 500- I thought it meant the price was 500 but could be negotiated down; seemed like a good system to me! 

(These pictures aren't to scale)

One krone

50 øre                                                                                                                                           

(there's 100 øre in one krone)    

         

                                                    

Five kroner

10 kroner

                                                                    


And 20 kr

The bills are different sizes based on denomination. The 50 kr bill was missing here, so there it is below:

It's noticeably smaller than the other bills, although you can't tell here

Here's some of it all together. I don't know what the little silver coins at the top and bottom are, but I'm guessing they're smaller than 50 øre and aren't used anymore.

None of those pictures are mine, although I wish they were!

The first things that come to mind that you can buy with each amount of money:

1 kr ($.17) Maybe like half a bun or something? Nothing that I know of really.

5kr ($.85) - Entrance to the washroom at the train station

10kr ($1.70) - Maybe a couple candies from the bulk smågodt set up everywhere: movie theatres, convenience stores and grocery stores.

 

The fudgey vanilla squares in the corners are by far the best!

20 kr ($3.41) More candy (although still not much), or at Noellen's suggestion, a toothbrush. Or two hamburgers at McDonalds. 

30 kr ($5.11) Wow I never really realized 30 kr was that much! There's no 30 kr coin, but I have to mention it because you can buy Nugatti

33 kr gets you a train ticket from Arna to Bergen

50 kr ($8.52) is the line where I realize I'm spending real money and not just tiny little coins. Bad attitude, I know! I still think of 50 kr as cheap though.

Hmm...50 kr can buy, at Devin's suggestion "a coffee, a shirt on sale at H & M, or two chocolate bars." You could maybe get a magazine, although a cheap one. Noellen says 50 kr gets her a school lunch.

100 kr ($17) gets you the cheapest mascara I've seen. Makeup is crazy expensive here. You can also start getting clothes at this price that aren't on some ridiculous sale. I don't find clothes prices to be too different from home. Devin says "what you pay when you split a pizza." All you can eat pizza at Peppe's in September was 99 kr per person.

I was walking through the apotek a while ago, and came across some burt's bee's chapstick:

59 kroner each; that's about ten dollars

In the picture above you can see that they show the price per kilogram; they tend to show comparative pricing for a lot of things. It's helpful when shopping for shampoo and lotion. Food packages also have nutritional information per 100 grams.

Now that we've reached the topic of food, I'll mention that Inger and I made knekkebrød this week. Definitely something I want to try making when I get home, although it looks like soggy porrige until it's finished cooking.

The materials

Mixed up with water

Inger 

Doesn't look too appetizing yet

...a little better

and done!

With brunost and jam, of course...yumm

I went running with Tonje on Thursday and Friday evenings; we were matching in black clothes and yellow reflective vests. I guess this is what I look like to cars at night:

Those snowy pictures at the top give a false illusion of what it's like out now. It's more like this:

Soccer fields, swimming pool or skating rink?

Out for a walk in the rain

On Friday we had a Norwegian test. Last time, in November, I just had to write about what I've done in Norway. This time I had to read a few pages of the textbook and write about 800 words answering two questions about the story. It was a similar assignment as I'd get in English class at home, not the easiest thing to do in a language you've only known for five months! It went alright, but I misunderstood a good chunk of the text 

The SFO (after school program) this week I was by myself with eight kids. Harder than last time, but the kids are really great with explaining things to me, and teaching me Norwegian in the process. One little girl who was annoyed with me for not wanting to take down the climbing ropes told me I'm actually good at Norwegian, which was really sweet. I asked them if they knew any English, and one girl blurted out "CATERPILLAR." I think they know more than they let on. I catch myself saying things like "ok guys" and then realize that's not Norwegian, although I think they still understand.

Another week gone by in Norway. I haven't decided on a date to go home yet, but I think my exchange is about halfway over. Don't exactly know what to think about that!

Here's one last picture from a few weeks ago:

Happy January 23rd everyone!

A lesson on brunost and lovely Bergen weather

I'm sitting on the couch having an inner war with myself whether or not to go for a run. The rain is whipping by in horizontal sheets outside, and I think most of our snow is melted again. Last night all the side roads were solid ice with a thin layer of water on top, and I'm a little hesitant to go out and check how they are today. Mostly just because I'm lazy and would rather tell you guys about brunost than go out and get soaked. I'd rather be here: (excuse the angry face):

Than out there :

So, I'm going to start this post off with a lesson on brunost, or brown cheese.

I’d heard a bit about brunost before I came to Norway, but really didn’t understand what it was. Cheese is cheese, right? Soft, hard, whatever; you still eat it on pasta, with crackers, and on your ham sandwiches. You would never eat normal cheese with strawberry jam, or on waffles. But brunost is no ordinary cheese. Actually, it's not really cheese at all; it's made from the whey instead of the curds. (I don't actually know anything about cheese making; the only thing I know about curds and whey has to do with little miss muffet and a spider)

 

At my first breakfast here in Norway I was encouraged to try it, and thought it was just normal (although brown) cheese. So I tried it with tomatoes; first and last time I've done that. It's more common to eat it with sweeter things, like jam. Ever since I tried it with raspberry jam and toast it's become one of the staples in my diet here, for better or for worse. There was definitely one day where I ate this combination for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

So if it isn't cheese, and you don't eat it in a normal cheese-like way ( if such a generalization even exists), what is it? A mixture of milk, cream and whey boiled until the lactose caramelizes, turning it brown. I don't want to do too much internet research on it, because I know I'll come across its nutritional information somewhere, and I really don't want to know that! I would describe it as tasting like caramel and peanut butter, but it doesn't really taste like that at all.

Fløtemysost was most often in the fridge at Tord and Helene's, it's mild and has lots of cream. It's made from cow's milk.

Gudbrandsdalsost is stronger, and made from a mixture of goats' and cow's milk. My best translation of the package is: The brown cheeses from TINE (brand) are some of what makes norwegians norwegians. These særnorske? cheeses have traditions back to Anne Hov's original recipe from 1863. I can't figure out what "særnorske" means; google translate gives me "weird norwegian", "relatively high" and "relatively sharp" depending on how I type it in. None of which really make sense. 

 

The last major category of brunost from TINE is Ekte Geitost ( real goats cheese). It's made from, well, obviously goat's milk, and is the strongest tasting. 

At first I only really liked the milder fløtemysost, but I've grown to love the other two with jam as well. Bread isn't even neccesary!

I think I'm going to go out and give running a try now. I told Devin (exchange student near Oslo) on skype that if I hadn't seen lightning or falling trees by 3:00, I would run. It's 2:56 and doesn't look like either of those is going to happen. Although there was thunder and lightning a few weeks ago while it was snowing; I didn't even know that was possible!

Hopefully I'll come back alive to finish this, preferably intact. If not, well, my last written words were about Brunost, so not a bad way to go. 

Well, I survived. It was pretty anticlimatic actually; the roads were bare now and it was only drizzling. It was my longest run in a while, an hour and twenty minutes or so. 

On Friday I helped with the SFO (after school program) again; I think I mentioned it before. The kids, who are around 6-8 I think, have gym time after school for an hour as long as there's enough kids to run it. On Friday there was only five, but instead of sending me home until next week, the leader said I could just take them on my own. I was a little nervous; it's one thing to play with them when there's another leader in charge, and quite another to give orders on my own. With kids I can't just say things in english and know they'll understand; I have to figure out how to phrase things in Norwegian, or mime it. Luckily I got an easy group; four girls and one guy who were thrilled that I was willing to drag them around the floor using a hockey stick. Exhausting, but pretty easy entertainment. Alternating that with jumping randomly off benches onto mats and playing disorganized floor hockey easily took up the hour. When we had a few minutes left and had cleaned up the equipment, I tried to suggest we play tag, but didn't know what it was called in Norwegian. I asked one of the girls what it was called by pretending to tag her, and she said something in Norwegian that I didn't catch. They all seemed excited to play, and one girl told me they needed a ring to play with. One ran off and found a screw, and they sat me down with them in a circle on the floor and started singing. Not exactly the game of tag I'd expected; I was pretty confused. It ended up being a "duck duck goose" type game where one runs around the circle and puts the screw (or ring) in anothers hand, and then they open their eyes and guess who has it. 

I still have no idea what "tag" is called in Norwegian. 

Regardless, I was happy to make it through the hour without any major miscommunications. The next communication challenge came on Saturday, when I took the train to the city to go shopping.

I have a bus pass which Rotary pays for, which you buy every month on the bus or at the station. I bought mine for this month on the bus, and the bus driver gave me a receipt without a "valid until" date on it. I asked him about it, and he said nahh, it's fine, see here, a green light comes up when I scan it, so it's valid! I was a little skeptical of how it would work on the train, but long discussions in Norwegian aren't really my strong point so I let it go.

I forgot about it until I was on the train yesterday, and the conductor was coming around checking tickets. I tried to explain that you could see the date I bought it on the reciept and that the bus driver said that was all I needed. She told me I hadn't activated it yet, and went into a long winded explanation about bus cards being like bank cards, which didn't make much sense. She said if it wasn't valid, I'd have to pay 1000 kr. I said I didn't have any money with me, and definitely not 1000 kr, so she took the card and said to come to the station when the train had stopped. So I went in, annoyed at the bus driver I'd bought it from, trying to figure out how to explain myself in Norwegian, and thinking about all the things I could buy with 170 dollars besides a little slip of paper. They checked the card, found out it was activated and valid, and gave me a new receipt. The end, nothing dramatic. I figure if they had tried to make me pay, I could have switched to english and played the clueless exchange student card, but as it was I'm pretty proud they never noticed I wasn't norwegian. 

So that was the beginning of an eventful Saturday which also involved running on the ice, in the dark, in the pouring rain ten minutes to the shopping centre and ending up soaking wet. I didn't plan very well and assumed I had lots of time to get ready, then realized we were meeting earlier and there was no bus for half an hour. Then our  ride wasn't even there yet because of road closures. Gotta love Norwegian weather! I met Tonje from my class at the shopping centre where we waited to be driven to Eirin's. We got kicked out of the centre into the rain just as our ride arrived. The rest of last night more than made up for the day though; a relaxed fun "jentekveld" (girls night) with the girls in my art class. 

That brings me up to date again. 

Oh, and my host family has a walk in fridge. Reminds me of all the hours I spent working in the freezer at Safeway, although warmer and way less crowded.

I'll finish off with some more brunost to make you hungry   =)

I've also updated the norwegian page up top, so feel free to comment and correct it! Jeg lærer mye når folk korrigerer meg, og jeg vet at det jeg skriver er ikke helt riktig. Så ikke være redd for å skrive en commentaire! 

takk!

=)

Checkout challenges, lots of nerdy language rambles, and a new house

It’s definitely a unique experience to be an English speaking exchange student in a country so proficient in English. It can seem almost impossible to gain a level of Norwegian high enough to override people’s tendencies to switch to English, especially when shopping and talking with strangers. In small exchanges, like waiting in line for the washroom at the shopping centre or the minibank, I can usually keep my cover. I just come across as slow and hard of hearing, as I’m always getting people to repeat themselves. 

My most impressive experience posing as a Norwegian came about two months ago, while I was out running. I ran by an old lady struggling to haul a backpack and several shopping bags up a set of stairs, and she asked if I could help. I took her backpack, and we walked together for about seven minutes to her house. She spewed Norwegian at me the entire time, full speed, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I had no idea what she was saying, especially since she was of the older generation who likely wouldn’t speak much English.  I understood bits and pieces; the conversation seemed to switch from an account of all her medicines, to seasickness, to her grandchildren. I just followed her cues; laughed when she laughed, and gave sympathetic mhmm’s here and there, and prayed she wouldn’t stop talking. In that kind of situation you dig yourself into a hole with every minute that goes by to the point where you can’t admit you don’t understand without looking like an idiot. Thankfully we reached her house, she said thanks, I said you’re welcome, and I ran off.

When it comes to talking to salespeople in stores or the teller at the bank, however, this style of bluffing doesn’t work; nor would it be very effective. You can’t just sit down across the desk from the bank teller and let them talk; obviously you have to say why you’re there. While I’m at the point where I can generally get my point across in Norwegian; all it takes is my pronounciation for them to switch to English. 

The tipping point where it’s easier for both parties to converse in a foreign rather than native language is off balance when you’re an English speaker. It doesn’t matter if you know how to say what you want and could do it with only a couple mistakes; there’s no second chance once they realize you’re foreign. I can see their confusion when I say the wrong gender for a word, or pronounce something wrong; they can’t quite place me. I keep thinking about when I worked at Safeway, how if a customer came in with an accent it was irrelevant as long as I knew what they were saying. Not that my French is all that good, but I would never consider switching to French automatically if a customer was struggling with English.

It makes every trip into a store a linguistic adventure, which certainly keeps life interesting! An awkward touch-and-go territory is treaded into whenever a discussion with a salesperson goes further than the routine:

150 kr

Okei

Pose? (bag)

Nei, takk

Kvittering? (receipt)

Nei, takk

Hadet

Hadet

You could probably figure out that sequence without any translations, it’s pretty obvious.

Now that I can read most Norwegian, and understand a good amount, I tend to wonder what it used to look and sound like to me. I often look at paragraphs and wonder how much the average English speaker would pick out, just because of similar words.

“Plussgrader og regn gjør at isen på Haukelandsvatnet i Arna ikke lenger regnes som farbar, opplyser Bergen kommune tirsdag. Haukelandsvatnet er det eneste vannet i Arna kommunen sjekker isen på.”

Take this section from the local newspaper; so many words resemble English. I had to look up "farbar" (passable). Plussgrader: plus degrees. Regn: rain. Isen: Ice. Ikke lenger: no longer, etc. I'm not going to translate the whole thing; I've already gone way past my norwegian quota on this page for today. It's pretty clear what they're saying just from those few words, however. It  takes time to learn the vocabulary to understand the entire thing, and spoken norwegian is another story, but english speakers definitely have a head start here!

....I don't know where I'm actually going with this. One more nerd moment before I move on to other things. Remember the training exercise called "fartlek"? Where you alternate sprinting and easy running; the one whose name we all used to laugh at?

(The majority of people probably have no idea what I'm talking about....I'm setting new records for rambling in this post!)

Anyways, it literally translates to fart (speed) plus lek (play). I think it might be swedish, but close enough. I got way too excited when I noticed that. Not so much the translation, which is simple, but the fact that I could suddenly understand a word that used to be so foreign. These kind of epiphany's are rarely interesting to other people, so I apologize. Just thought I'd share anyways =)

Time for some observations, 5 months in:

-If you go to the bank, bus station, police, etc, and want to talk to someone who works there, you go to a little machine which spits out a number, then you wait until your number flashes up. It’s much more organized than just standing in line; but it would be confusing if you didn’t know about the machine. Since their place in line is irrelevant, people tend to just mill around the desks rather than forming any kind of pattern.

-Several times in school when the teacher is away, another teacher or the rector has come, told us what to work on, then left us alone for the rest of the class without checking up again. A bit of a jump in trust from school back home.

-That situation in history/philosophy class today led to me and Emma looking up random places on google street view. I showed her Nelson, and she commented that the cars looked different. I never really consciously noticed it, but I guess it’s true, there’s much less range of vehicles here. I rarely see pickup trucks, or hippie vans, or old beaters. There are less vans too. The majority of people seem to have expensive looking medium sized cars ( I say expensive looking because I know next to nothing about cars). The range of colour is less as well; the majority are dark.

-It seems to be more common not to have a dryer, and to let clothes air dry.

-You can get your driver's licence when you're 18, and there's no passenger restrictions like with the "N" in BC. It seems to be a lot more expensive, as you're required to take a certain amount of courses before the test.

That's all I can think of right now.

I switched host family's yesterday, and everything is going well. I'll finish this post with some pictures of my new house. 

My life, in a suitcase, three backpacks, a laptop bag and two extra shopping bags. And you can't even see the ski bag. I've acquired a fair bit of stuff since I came here!

 Off the deck of Jon and Inger's house

 Cosy new bedroom

 Out my bedroom window

 Kitchen

Living room

Congratulations on making it to the end of this one! (Or just skimming for pictures and not finding very many). 

5 months in Norway tommorow! Crazy how fast time is going

natta =)

Just another blog post

Random note before I get going:  I decided I want to start writing more in Norwegian, and that this would be a good place to do it. Since this blog is mainly intended for people back home to hear what I'm up to though, I'm not going to clutter up this part with Norwegian. So, I added a page up top ^^ where I'll try and write a bit in Norwegian and put a few pictures up as well, but this is still the main blog. I don't actually know what I'm going to write there; I just thought it'd be neat to have a Norwegian section on here. If any Norwegians feel like correcting what I write, go for it! It'd be very much appreciated.


I also added a map of Norway, which should be beside the Norwegian page. I clearly have way too much fun playing around on here when I should be doing more important things, like writing essays and packing.


This post is a mixture of parts I wrote over the past weekend, so it's going to be a lot of confusing jumping around. I don't have many pictures, because my cell phone is in a bad mood and doesn't feel like connecting to my laptop. Oh well. Here goes...


January 7th


So I’m sitting in my second host family’s cabin right now, in the ski town of Geilo, about a four hour drive and three hours by train from Bergen. They have an AMAZING cabin (a house really) close to both downhill and cross country areas.

Looking out the front door

 I guess I better do some explaining when I say “second” host family; this definitely doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with my first!! A part of the rotary program is that you live with more than one host family; the majority have three. I’m only going to have two, which I’m very happy with. I haven’t actually switched yet, but I met my second family on Wednesday and they invited me to their cabin this weekend. I’ll probably move sometime in the next week; they live really close to Tord and Helene, so the switch should be easy. I can always just walk back to visit or play the piano! Everything was great at Tord and Helene’s and I’m so grateful I got to spend the first half of my exchange there. I would have been completely happy to live there the whole year, but it’s also going to be neat to try something new and have a change. I’m really lucky to have two great families here willing to let me live with them. Every exchange student wonders what their host families will be like, and it’s scary to get off a plane to live with people you’ve met only through email. I can definitely say I didn’t have to worry about anything!  My second host parents are Jon and Inger, and they have three sons, only one of which still lives at home. Right now it’s just me and the two parents at the cabin

Jon waxing skis

On Wednesday I switched out of math and into English, and I’m really glad I did. I didn’t really try in math, since it was mostly self directed assignments on topics I’d learned before. It’s nice to have a class where I’m able to explain words instead of it being the other way around. After only one class I also realize I don’t know English as well as I think I do. There’s a lot of words I tend to skim over and understand in context, when I’m reading, but can’t explain when they’re singled out. “Assets” and “commodities” were two words I thought I knew, but could only define very vaguely. I’m excited for the class though; as much as I want to learn Norwegian, it’s nice to be able to express myself better and completely understand one class. It’s called “International English” and everyone’s level of English is high enough that it doesn’t seem to be a grammar class. We spent the last class researching world events in groups, then presenting them to the class.

January 8^th

Today I learned I have no sense of direction whatsoever. I thought there was some part of my brain that could at least distinguish between circles and lines, but apparently not. I managed to ski a 10 km loop around a lake, coming nearly back to where I started, while being convinced I had gone in a straight line. I had been told it was a loop, but I figured I had missed the turn off, so I kept going until I came to a church and went a bit past. By this point I was confused, because I had been told it was a 10km loop and as far as I could tell I had gone more than 5 km, and should have been going back the other way. I knew I was out of shape, but not so out of shape that it could take me an hour to classic 5 km! So I kept wandering around, and had one woman ask me for directions, to which I responded I had no idea where I was myself. I decided just to go back the way I came, so I kept on plodding back towards where I’d come from; until I eventually saw the church again! I stopped in my tracks (literally); I don’t think I’ve ever been so disoriented. Maybe this picture will illustrate it better:

That actually makes even less sense than my description; but I guess it shows just how confused I was? 

January 9^th

We’re sitting in a tunnel, waiting for a car that comes and leads groups of about 20 cars through a section of road with bad weather. We’re at the high point before you go down towards Bergen, and there’s not much to do, so I’m writing this. Obviously there’s no wireless inside a random tunnel, but that didn’t stop me from trying to open facebook out of habit. I think we’re the unlucky car which will be at the front of the next chain, so we have a while to wait. It’s kinda strange in here; the walls are rough rock, and it’s dark except for the headlights and a chain of yellow lights on the ceiling. We just started moving again, and it looks like we snuck into the end of this chain, and we’re just coming out of the tunnel right now. A train of cars with hazard lights flashing, driving slowly through a blizzard. It’s strange to type in the dark when I can’t see what keys I’m hitting.

In the tunnel.....

Chain of cars....although I guess this really just looks like some squiggly lights....

Today I went downhill skiing for the first time in two years. I still remembered how, and we stuck to a short groomed run that wasn't very challenging. Jon and I didn’t go for long; maybe six runs, before coming in. I switched to my skate skis, and did a loop around the water before we ate lunch and left. Today reaffirmed that I’m one of those strange people who prefers cross country skiing to downhill. I honestly find downhill more challenging, being strapped into heavy equipment and trying to turn while your legs fill up with acid. It is fun, and I definitely enjoyed it today, I just like cross country better. I realize it doesn’t make sense, to find it easier to propel yourself uphill than sit down and ride up, men sånn er det. Switching from downhill to cross country equipment is so liberating, and this time I knew where I was the whole ski. It was pretty obvious the trail turned 180 degrees and came back on the other side of the lake; I’m not sure how I missed that yesterday. Norwegians seem to have some kind of unspoken dress code when cross country skiing; the large majority were wearing black pants with blue or red jackets; I felt out of place in a black shirt and tights with a pink headband. It was so nice to skate again!

It took about six hours to drive home, because of the hour long wait in the tunnel, and the slow driving. Now it's Monday evening, and that sums up my weekend. I'm switching host families tommorow, and should really be packing rather than writing, but this is more fun.
Here's one last picture to finish it off; just another random picture of squiggly lights  inside a tunnel. I'm clearly not very good at holding my camera still, and I definitely had a picture shortage for this post if I'm resorting to ones like this!

The end!

...for now 

=)

Godt Nyttår!!

Well I’ve been a slack blogger, haven’t written anything since last year! Ok, that joke is getting really old.

The past week, romjul, has blurred in my mind into a mix of sleeping, visiting and running. I don't remember exactly what I did each day, and I won't bore you with a play-by-play either. I trained several times with Ida, including some sprints with Tord on Monday, and painful stair running intervals on Wednesday. Both our legs were shaking when we tried to do planks/bridges after that! On Tuesday Tord and I went for a quick ski on a groomed track about a fifteen minute drive from here; it was gorgeous! Cold and sunny; there's a loop that's about 4 km long, which is lit at nights. I think I had a huge smile on my face the whole time; the first real ski of the year is always amazing. I managed to fall twice; slipping on some ice and sliding smack into a family; and tripping over my own skis and faceplanting into some powder. Clearly my downhill skills haven't improved any since last year.

On Thursday afternoon I got a package from home (thanks guyss!!), which took over a month to get here since Mom and Dad sent it on some random ship that came through the Northwest passage, or something like that. It was filled with an assortment of things wrapped in newspaper and old wrapping paper I recognized from our collection at home. 

New pyjamas....just in time, my old ones were full of holes :)

My stocking from Opa and Oma's house, filled with little gifts, including a chocolate orange!

Book from Shawn

Helene came in when I was opening this one, she was like "Oh, a candle." I started laughing when I realized what it was; pumpkin and evaporated milk to make pumpkin pie!!

The funniest gift was definitely Shawn's second, very generous one. Here is some "spending money" from him:

Yep, fake Norwegian money printed out; including some cut out coins :) The envelope was decorated with sound advice and motivational quotes; he seems to either have become suddenly good in Norwegian, or else gone a little google translate crazy; I'm leaning towards the latter. 

Wise words from Shawn:

(after google translating some of them back to find out what he actually meant...not that it really became any clearer :P )

-Remember to eat cheesecake

-Listen to the ear

-Don't accept potatoes from aliens.....ok? hahah

-Support water bottle producers..I'm guessing you meant reusable ones?

-Don't eat too much cheese.....hmmm, too late!

-"breathe"

-Never drink sasquatch milk, it can contain traces of bananas

Well, thanks..haha

I wish I'd thought to skype home while I opened these, cause I was laughing really hard by the time I finished reading that. 

New years was really fun. There were family and friends over for dinner; we had pinnekjøtt again, same as on Christmas eve. I think turkey is the traditional thing to eat on New years here; we had it for dinner on the first. Dessert was a marzipan fish with chocolate in the middle (typical Norway, even fish for dessert! ) and a really neat stacked cake called something like kransekaker? It looked amazing, and tasted really good too.

Marzipan and chocolate fish

Cake :)

 I skyped with Kim, Marlies, Tegan, Carli and Alli after dinner, who were all over at Kim's place. So nice to "see" them! They were treated to "frere jaques" ( in norwegian) on the piano by Liv. Then I went to a new years party with some friends. Midnight was crazy here; everyone went out in the street and started hugging eachother and wishing eachother a happy new year, and there were fireworks going off everywhere!

I just finished watching part of the tour de ski on TV;  I get way too excited when I see Canadians in the races, especially when we do well and the announcers actually mention us.

It’s interesting to see the world from another country’s perspective, and especially how Canada and the US are represented here. Just like at home, there’s a lot of American news in the papers and on TV; it’s a pretty similar amount to what I’m used to. Canada pops up here and there, mostly in reference to the Vancouver Olympics. When I use the word “mostly” there, that implies that there’s a lot of Canadian news here. Which there isn’t at all. I’ve seen a full page spread on the Alberta oil sands in the paper; I think that's the most I've seen. Not the best way for us to be represented. Otherwise, people here seem to see Canada as a country with nice scenery, with lots of bears to be hunted and fish to be caught. When asked what they think of Canada, the response is usually something like “umm….hockey, and skiing, yeah, winter sports I guess.” I just did a quick facebook survey; the first things that came to mind regarding Canada were:
-Ice
-Snow (x3)
-Justin Bieber
-Polar bears
-Me....hahaha
-Inuit in igloos
-Bear hunting
-Cold
-George St Pierre (had to google that one, he's some kind of martial arts artist)
-Hockey (x2)
-Our flag
-Jay from top model
-Curling
-Neil Young

 That was pretty entertaining :) I guess before I came to Norway, I knew it was one of the Scandinavian fingers, and that it was cold and had lots of good skiiers, but not much else!

I also notice that I really have no idea what’s going on in the world anymore. I try and “read” the paper most days, but I can’t just skim the stories and get the idea behind them. It takes much more effort to read an article than in English, so I usually only read it if the picture or title really catches my eye. Same goes for news on TV; if I really focus I can make out the idea of a story, but when it’s just playing in the background I don’t pick anything up.

Well, I think that sums things up. Back to school tommorow. I don't have too many pictures from the past week, but here's some pretty fireworks (not taken by me...I'm nowhere near that skilled, nor did the fireworks look like that on New Years)

Godt Nyttår alle sammen! Happy New Years everyone!