Half a year of living like a Norwegian, skiing and the return of the sun

The sun is coming back!

Walking to school last week looked like this:

It's getting lighter by about six minutes a day, so soon we'll be able to wake up in the light too. Can't wait! Then maybe I won't need three different alarms to get out of bed, even if that system still isn't very effective.

Yesterday I was supposed to give a presentation to my English class about Canada, right away in the first class, which starts at 8:05. I love waking up to an alarm and getting to go back to sleep, so I set one alarm for 4, one for 6:30 and one for 6:45. Yeah, I know the 4 o clock one is a bit strange. I vaguely remember turning one alarm off, but definitely not three. When I woke up it was light out, which is never a good sign on a school day! Apparently Jon had knocked on my door at 7:30 as well, but I was knocked out until 8. Not the best plan when you're supposed to give a presentation at 8:05. I was completely oblivious to three of the four attempts to wake me up.

Anyways, I did the presentation at the end of class, and I think it went alright. It was supposed to be on bilingualism in Canada, but it ended up being a bit broader. I think I learned more than my class from it, just from researching Canadian history and facts that I never knew about. Apparently instant mashed potatoes and zippers are Canadian inventions. It's also further across Canada than it is from the East coast of Canada to Norway.

On the topic of school, I'll give an introduction to the Norwegian school system:

Norwegian School system:


-School is divided into three levels, like at home. Barneskole, Ungdomsskole and Videregående. They start the year they turn six, so generally a year later than us.

-After Ungdomsskole, or middle school, they can specialize into different lines. A normal academic line is an option, but there's also health care lines, music, media, art and sports lines which combine these topics with academic subjects. There's also trades/work lines with apprenticeships and theory built in. This means that Norwegians have to choose a direction after middle school, although many seem to stay in the academic line to keep options open.

-I've noticed the classes to be less interactive than classes at home; lots of note taking and independant work. It depends a lot on the teacher though. I still find it strange that almost every class has a "smart board", but I've never seen them used. They just seem to be taking space away from the chalkboard teachers normally use.

-I'm in a line that combines general courses with design and art courses, which I really like. Today we finished illustrating some Norwegian texts, where we were given the writing and could interpret the pictures however. We then put the pictures and text together on the computer. I've learned a lot about photoshop since I've come here, which is a nice bonus. I can't get the entire project to upload, but here's the main character, Frøken Bisk Glefs, in action:

I guess those seem a little odd....but it makes a little more sense with text. Here's my favorite character, the poor little mouse:

After high school here, it seems pretty common to take a year off to travel and work. There's conscription into the military for men here, which some do after high school. Women can go in as well, but aren't required. I don't know exactly how it works but a certain percent of men have to serve. As a result you see the odd person in the mall or on the train dressed like this, and looking a bit out of place:

Since it's about a week and a half since I last updated, I don't remember what happened last week. I do know that I reached the six month mark in Norway, however. Every time a month goes by I write "wow, I can't believe I've been here THAT long", but the novelty of counting months is wearing off. Especially since weeks are flying by, and I no longer have an unending stretch of time ahead of me here. The next nineteen or so weeks are going to disappear like my rotary allowance does each month - in an instant.

I'm happy with my written and comprehension skills in Norwegian at this point, but sometimes it feels like I'll never really speak it. Today I was looking for paper for the photocopier at school, and asked a teacher I'd never talked to before where to find it. Apparently I can't pronounce the difference between "kaffemaskin" and "kopimaskin", because he asked me why on earth I wanted sheets of paper for the coffee machine. He asked me what my native language was, and I misunderstood and said "art class". Or maybe I said that I come from the "country of art class." Regardless, it was an awkward exchange. Once he figured out I was from Canada I was treated to a long explanation in english of the relatives he has in Manitoba, by which time someone else had found paper for the machine.

I always took being able to pronounce words in English for granted, but I find it the hardest part of Norwegian. If all conversations were written, life would be much easier. There's so many subtle differences that are important, yet  so hard to say if you're not a native speaker. Thank god I'm not learning chinese or thai or something.  I definitely appreciate english more now, being able to say what I want in several different ways without thinking about it. It's really neat to look back on your own language from the perspective of another. Regardless of all the awkward exchanges and pronounciation difficulties, I think it's so much fun to use another language. I picked up a magazine while waiting for the train today, and flipped through several pages before I even noticed it was in Norwegian. Moments like that make it all worth it!

Last weekend I was in Geilo at my host families cabin again, and it was a gorgeous weekend full of chocolate, tacos, fuzzy socks, sun and skiing. I classicked both days, three hours on Saturday and about two hours on Sunday. I can really feel in my arms that I don't ski much anymore, but I still know how, and it was amazing! Some pictures:

 Jon and Inger

 Part of Geilo

 This needs no caption

 Thermometre with expressions for all the temperatures. 

 Someone is a little confused between helicopters and airplanes

Sunnnnnn <3

The nordic world ski championships are in Oslo in a couple weeks, and the presence of it is everywhere. From life size cutouts of cross country skiers in the shopping centre, to posters on the train, to sausage and brunost advertisments. That's one thing I would love to take home with me; the country's attitude towards cross country skiing, as well as hiking and being outdoors. It no longer surprises me to see a huge picture of Marit Bjørgen on a truck, or walk by a TV store and see xc skiing playing on the TV's inside.

The week after next is winter break, it's going to be a great week. We're going to Geilo on the Monday, then all the rotary students are meeting in Oslo for three days. So we'll get to be in Oslo for 3 days during the world championships. I'm not entirely sure what we're doing there, and which, if any, events we're going to, but seeing the exchange students after 5 months will be fun regardless!

Tommorow our art class is going into Bergen to visit an illustrator and an art school. Tommorow I'll have been going to Norwegian school for half a year, and while it's strange to go to high school when you're actually done with it, it's fun to have the totally different experience.

I'll leave you with another sunrise photo, and a view over Geilo. 

If anyone has any questions or suggestions of topics for me to write about, just say it in the comments below!

God natt 

=)

Horse races, chocolate and a tour of the school

It's a dark picture, but last week I went with Tine from my english class to a sort of horse race, where people ride in little chariot type carts around the track. I actually had no idea this kind of racing existed since ancient Greece. There were a couple races with bigger horses (I'm sure more specific terms exist than "big horse", but I'm pretty clueless about horses) like this:

And then there were pony races as well (top picture) which were much slower and cuter. They all started on different parts of the track based on how strong they were; the little one up top started out first, and ended last. Despite it being wet and cold, it was really neat to see!

Now for Language Lesson time:  =)

(Picture taken from Andrea's facebook, who is in Denmark. The link is to her blog, which is great!)

I've had it mentioned to me several times that the English language has a huge range of words compared to Norwegian, and I tried looking that up on the internet. The english language apparently just reached the one million word mark, and I couldn't find anything concrete about Norwegian. The idea makes sense to me though; Norwegian tends to compound words together to make bigger words, making it easy to guess what they mean. 

For example:

-tannlege (tann = tooth) (lege = doctor), whereas we have our own seperate word, dentist.

-sykehus (syk = sick) (hus = house), so hospital

English has these kind of words as well, but I notice it a lot in Norwegian. It makes it much easier to figure out words when you can break them apart like that.

I've mentioned norwegian compound words before, how they seem to continually pile words together without ever using the space bar. "A midsummer night's dream" becomes "en midtsommernattsdrøm." Wikipedia has an interesting list of these words where adding in a space can completely change the meaning:

• Terrasse dør ("Terrace dies") instead of Terrassedør ("Terrace door")
• 
  
• Tunfisk biter ("Tuna bites", verb) instead of Tunfiskbiter ("Tuna bits", noun)
• 
  
• Smult ringer ("Lard is calling", verb) instead of Smultringer ("Doughnuts")
• 
  
• Tyveri sikret ("Theft guaranteed") instead of Tyverisikret ("Theft proof")
• 
  
• Stekt kylling lever ("Fried chicken lives", verb) instead of Stekt kyllinglever ("Fried chicken liver", noun)
• 
  
• Smør brød ("Butter bread", verb) instead of Smørbrød ("Sandwich")
• 
  
• Altfor Norge ("Too much Norway") instead of Alt for Norge ("All for Norway", the royal motto of Norway)

There's also a lot of norwegian words that look strange written, but are pronounced in a familiar way. For example, "sjåfør" is just a norwegian spelling of "chauffeur". Many words ending in "tion" gain a "J", and become norwegian as well. Motivasjon, inspirasjon, applikasjon etc. 

I think my norwegian is now close to the point my french was before I came here, although I'm stronger and weaker in different areas because of how I've used the languages. My french grammar was likely better, but I was less confident speaking it. I think it's amazing that six years of french immersion classes in school can give a similar result to six months of living in a country! With french I could write essays before ever talking with a native speaker outside of class, whereas here it's been the opposite. I never thought I was interested in languages with french either; it was just another class to me. Now I realize how fascinating it is to compare languages, and I've become more interested in French as well.

Speaking of France, and so therefore speaking of cheese (a lame attempt at transitioning between ideas)...

I haven't seen cheddar cheese here at all. Tonje and I were discussing this as we were running, and she was really surprised that we would have orange cheese. Some other foods I've (almost) forgotten about (not that you can't get them here, just that I never come across them):

-Peanut butter 

-Pumpkin

-Breakfast cereal (corn flakes, Special K, Froot loops etc)

-Hamburgers eaten on buns (we eat hamburgers, and buns, but I've never eaten the two together at home)

-Pancakes/waffles/french toast for breakfast

-Pie

-Milk at dinner (it's more often water)

-Grilled cheese sandwiches (I remember them every once and a while and have to make one)

Now I'll switch back, and introduce some norwegian chocolate and candy. They definitely have their fair share for such a small country!

 Like smarties, but better says Emma :)

Basically Kit Kat; they have really patriotic commercials for these with people sking and hiking in the mountains

Seigemenn; little gummy people

Troika; layers of jelly, chocolate and marzipan. I find it an odd kombination

Smash: to copy Devin's description:

Sweet black licorice; I never liked black licorice before i came here

Sur Sild (Sour herring)

and 

Salt herring (they have a lot more black licorice and salty candies here)

I could go on and on and make this post ridiculously long, those are just the first that came to mind. My Little Norway has an interesting post comparing Norwegian chocolate bars.

I have a free period in the middle of Mondays since I switched out of Math, and today I decided to wander around and take a few pictures of the school. There wasn't much to take pictures of, and I didn't go in any classrooms, but here's a little snapshot:

Second floor hallway

Little cafeteria (they don't actually sell food here, besides a coffee machine)

Dungeon stairs

Recycling/garbage/compost bins (they don't have these in classrooms though, so a lot of this stuff still ends up in the garbage here.)

Vending machine which sells orange juice, chocolate milk, iced coffee, and yogurt/granola.

If you look closely at the paper on the machine, you can tell that the paper here has four holes. Exciting, I know. Students also call teachers here by their first names.

On Saturday I went shopping in Bergen and went a bit past the sentrum, to some areas I'd never been before. It was neat to just explore around!

Bryggen from across the water

And that's another week gone by in Norway

Lost in Translation

It's raining. Big surprise. I notice it more at this house since my room has a skylight, and even when it's just drizzling it sounds like it's raining hard. Looks like we're in for a bit more rain:

I didn't start a blog post just to tell you it's raining though. That's not exactly big news here. I just wanted to talk a bit about translations and english in Norway.

Since everyone here is so good at english, I haven't seen any hilarious examples like this:

or this:

or this:

More of those here.  :)

Even without menus advertising "rude and unreasonable chicken", there's still smaller translation quirks that can be funny.

Most tv here is in english with norwegian subtitles, but they often translate the title to norwegian in the guide. This just makes it confusing to browse through and know what's actually on, since I tend to assume it's a norwegian show if the title is in norwegian.

I came across My little Norway last year when I was looking for sites to learn norwegian, it's a great site about an Australian woman and her family living in Norway. It has a list of some funny movie title translations into Norwegian and back; here's a few funny ones:

-The Pacifier
-Norwegian: Operasjon barnevakt
-Back to english: Operation Babysitter

-Opportunity Knocks
-Norwegian: Hjelp, jeg er blitt sjef!
-Back to english: Help, I've Become a Manager!

-Airplane
-Norwegian: Hjelp, vi flyr!
-Back to english: Help, we're flying!

-The World's Fastest Indian
-Norwegian: En høyst uvanlig mann
-Back to english: A Highly Unusual Man

-Meet the Parents
-Norwegian: Slekten er verst
-Back to english: Family is the Worst

It isn't just movie titles that can get strange translations; the Harry Potter characters are another example. I don't know what these name changes accomplished:

Albus Dumbledore - Albus Humlesnurr

Dudley Dursley - Dudleif Dumling 

Vernon Dursley - Wiktor Dumling

Hagrid - Gygrid

Gilderoy Lockhart - Gyldeprinz Gulmedal

Neville Longbottom - Nilus Langballe

Professor McGonagall - Professor McSnurp

Tom Marvolo Riddle - Tom Dredolo Venster

Slytherin - Smygard

Severus Snape - Severus Slur

Dolores Jane Umbridge - Venke Dolorosa Uffert

You know who - Han de vet (he they know)

The translator must have been bored with their job or something, they definitely had fun with those! "He they know" doesn't sound quite as ominous as "you know who." The names didn't really become any more Norwegian though, no Olav or Ingeborg or Torbjørn to be seen.

Norwegians use a lot of english in everyday conversation, without seeming to notice it. If I tune out the norwegian and just listen for english, it's surprising how many words and expressions they use. Without understanding any norwegian it would be babble with completely out of context english statements thrown in. I don't actually remember noticing this too much when I understood less norwegian though; it's still nowhere near enough to understand the conversation.

I think I had more to write, but got distracted and forgot I was writing this. So that's all for now.

In art class we have to illustrate a small text, so here's my rough first drawing of Frøken Bisk Glefs:

Happy Groundhog day

Reflections and part two of The Fridge

Looks like blog updating has become a Sunday evening thing, something to do when I feel like being slightly productive, but not enough to actually work on an essay or do my "homework".

I'm trying to decide on a date to go home, and hoping to fly back with Abby and Devin, who I flew here with. Thinking about this gives my exchange an endpoint rather than seeming to stretch on til "whenever in the summer", and makes the idea of going home more concrete. Before Christmas it felt like my year had just begun,   but now, a day away from February, summer feels just around the corner. Devin and I were reminiscing about the flight here on skype the other day; it feels so long ago. I was most excited about the idea of hearing Norwegian on the announcements; that was honestly what I looked forward to the most at the beginning of the flight. Flying into Oslo and trying to wrap my head around the idea that this was Europe, not Canada, and that I would be spending 10 months here. Getting way too excited about absolutely everything, from Norwegian looking people to the airplane wing, to the fire hose signs and the cute little trucks. I'm going to repeat what I wrote in my journal at first:

"August 13th

First impressions of Oslo Airport

-The bathrooms are cute! They're like little ships cabins

-Trucks are smaller and cuter too

-Way quieter than American airports - no one talks! And if they do, it's quiet

-Everyone dresses nicer

-People who work here push scooters!

-Some of the guys have really awesome sweatsuits!

-Everyone looks - European"

Reading what I wrote there still makes me laugh.

In the information packet we got before we left, they say that after the holidays is when you really adjust to the new country. Until now I thought that was crazy; five months to get used to it? I thought life here felt normal two weeks in! I'm starting to realize how right they are though; how "normal" in September is different than "normal" in January. It's hard to describe what I mean, but all the magnified and unexpected ups and downs have leveled off drastically in the past month and a half. Everything was great before as well, but friends, school and everyday life here now feel much more stable, without anything actually changing.

I'm going to quote a section of Devin's blog, which I thought was great:

"I have also started to appreciate the smaller things in life. Things are totally different here. I don't have that cushion of comfort that I do at home, that gives me a sense of security and tends to make everything a little bit better. So it's kind of a hit or miss each day if it's going to be a good one or not. But even on the worst days, some little thing tends to happen that makes everything 10 times better. There was one instance where I was extremely homesick and was seconds away from going back to my house and just sleeping the day away, but then just a simple conversation with a friend, about nothing significantly meaningful, made my entire day better. (if you are Norwegian and are reading this and thinking "hey, I wonder if that's me"... it probably is :) ) It makes me think a lot about how much I could make everyone's day a little bit better if I just smiled at them, or started up a simple conversation with them."


It's this "hit or miss" that has changed so much as life becomes more stable here, those little moments are less likely to make or break a day now. 


On the topic of homesickness, I can say I've been very lucky. I have so much to miss at home, but I was definitely ready for a change, and that made things so much easier. In the first month or two, seeing pictures from home was strange and I would've loved to dive into the photos in the coffee table book I brought about Nelson. Now when I look at the same book, it's like "oh, that's a pretty town," but my life there seems on pause, and fuzzy. 


When people ask if I've been homesick, I usually answer with "ehhh...no, not really," which sounds like lying, but is actually true. Sure, there's things I've missed, but there's been so much new and exciting, and I've always known that I'd be back home before I knew it. I've had a few dreams where I'm back home and wishing I could have just one more day back in Norway. These kind of dreams make me really appreciate having another five months here, and even more determined to enjoy it as much as possible. I know I'm going to really miss Norway when I'm back home, but knowing I'd soon be back in Canada has made it hard to miss it too much.


I was looking through the books I used to learn Norwegian, and I still can't believe that those foreign sounds and words have become so commonplace to me now.

Ohh Language camp....this "conversation" I filled in says "I love brown cheese." "You're welcome"

Back when this was a complicated sentence

I still haven't gotten adjectives figured out

Where I wrote down new words at the beginning

Packaging on products here can be a really confusing mix of Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish. Not only do you have to read the Norwegian, you have to figure out which part is actually Norwegian. Here's some examples:

On this bottle of facewash they've mixed Norwegian, Swedish and Danish into one. Pronouns seem to be danish, verbs are shown in Danish and Swedish, and there actually isn't much Norwegian. For example, "vand/vatten" for water, not "vann", which is Norwegian, although I think "vatten" is also Nynorsk. "uger/veckor" for weeks, not "uker". You have to learn to ignore little letter differences when you read this kind of thing, and jump to conclusions yourself. I find it harder to read this mixture than just straight Danish, Swedish or Norwegian. Finnish is entirely different; I recognize almost none of it, besides maybe "minuuttia". All their words seem really stretched out with tons of vowels. 

Sorry you can't read the text I added here very well. It says that some things they don't bother translating (like "Soft tacos"). You can recognize swedish by the dots on top of the A's, and they use more C's. 

Now for some mirror pictures....

They have mirrors on some corners on roads

I tried to trim my own hair, pretty dangerous considering how impulsive I can be with this kind of thing. It turned out alright, considering I was using mirror photos with my cell phone to check the back. Not exactly precise. I only took off about a centimeter of the deadest hair, so I don't think I did too much damage.

In art class we're designing bus stops and making models of them: ours is going to have glass walls, tile, and swings. Maybe not so practical, but definitely fun!

Printing off our "Materials"

"roofing"

Now that I've exhausted my stash of pictures collected over the past week while trying unsuccesfully to tie them together, it's time for another fridge translation. (Part one of this exciting series can be found here)

1) Sour cream

2)Vanilla Yogurt 

3) Some kind of cheese

4) Vanilla sauce, usually eaten on chocolate pudding

5) A jar of herring

6) Jordbær syltetøy - strawberry jam

7) Brunost number 1 : Geitost

8) Hvitost (white cheese) I don't know if it has a more specific name than this. They keep it simple I guess

9) Liver paste number one

10) Liver paste nuimber 2

11) Liver paste number 3 - Yeah, that's three different kinds of liver paste!

12) Brunost number two - the creamy mild kind

13) Butter

14) Margarine I think

15)Brunost number three - another kind of geitost

16 - Various processed meats

1) barbeque sauce I think

2) Soy Oil

3) Thousand Islands dressing

4)Olive oil

5)Gløgg mix: a spiced holiday drink with wine and nuts. I haven't actually tried it

6)Some other kind of ketchupy barbeque sauce thing 

7)Hamburger dressing; I don't know what's in this exactly, but its use is pretty obvious

8)Olive oil

9)Caramel sauce

10)Light milk - it's a random percent like 0.7 here I think

11) Whole milk (3.9 percent)

12) Applesin (orange) juice

The bottle in the left bottom corner I forgot to number : it says svinekraft, so, uh...pig juice? Some kind of broth I guess. 

This past week I started swimming at the pool which is about a two minute walk from my house. I figured I might as well take advantage of it, and I should start doing something other than just running. They only have an hour and a half of public swimming a week, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, so I went both days. It was a bit crowded, especially on Thursday. There didn't seem to be any swimming pattern which made it confusing; people would reach the end and turn back in the same path they came. This made it a bit of a game of dodging people, especially since I was one of the faster swimmers and had to find ways to pass people. It kept it from getting boring in any case, and I think I'll keep up the swimming. 

Last night I was at a surprise birthday party, which was really fun. It's always entertaining meeting new people, especially when I say my name, which doesn't sound Norwegian, repeat it again, and then explain that I'm from Canada. 

I've noticed I've started saying some things in English with Norwegian phrasing. For example, I caught myself saying "it's the same for me" instead of "it doesn't matter", since the first is a direct translation of how you say it in Norwegian. I also "think over" things instead of thinking "about" them, another direct translation. 

So that's another week gone in Norway, time is flying by. It's starting to get a bit lighter which is really nice. It's still dark when I go to school (assuming I'm on time....) but it's light by first break now. 

Here's a picture from back in August

Hadet :)