The clock is ten on half eleven

Oh hey blog. Long time no see!

It's 10:20 p.m., early May, and light out!! Well, by light out I just mean that I can see the outline of the mountains agains the sky, that the water is clearly blue and the sky is slightly orange still. Not that the sun is still up or anything. If I took a picture it would probably come out too dark to see much. But still.

When we drove back down from Geilo a week and a half ago, it felt like we'd been gone for a month. While we were gone the trees turned green, the sun came back, and all of a sudden I could go outside barefeet. Not that the weather stopped me from doing that in december...

What to do at midnight when you can't get to sleep? Why not go outside and take barefoot pictures in the snow? Probably freaked out my host family with bare footprints all over the place when they left for work in the morning. Or not, seeing as it was still pitch dark at that time of the morning.

But anyways, I don't remember winter ever switching so quickly to nice weather and summer. Or maybe it's just that I don't notice that kind of thing at home, but here I've trained myself to be observant and notice details to which people reading this probably think "so? the sun goes up and down every day here too, what are you getting at?"

Exchange definitely has taught me to be more observant though. One of norwegian's favorite questions is "what's the biggest difference between Canada and Norway?" which I still can't answer consistently. I'm always on the lookout for something to respond with though, some big revelation like "oh, well I actually just realized that everyone here walks on the ceiling, and everything's upside down!"

I still haven't come across any one, huge difference though, so I usually come up with something lame: "uhh...you guys have more trains?" or obvious: "well we don't speak Norwegian in Canada!" 

Over the past little while though, I could definitely have used graduation traditions! The graduating class is called "Russ", and right now it's russetid, from May 1 to May 17th (Norway's national day). The 3rd grade in high school (those born in 1992 for this year) wear red pants everywhere (usually, they can be other colours depending which line at school they're in)

They try and collect little tokens for the tassel on their hats:

Challenges to earn tokens include:

-Spending an entire class under your desk

-Make a packed lunch for the school principal

-Speak a language other than Norwegian for a schoolday

-Drive around a roundabout 7 times

-Put an "L" (the same as the "L"'s we have for beginning drivers) on the back of a police car

-Eat breakfast in a roundabout

-Tie a teacher to a flagpole and dance around them during break

-Roll a tennis ball with your nose down the street

That's just a really small, random sample of a few, there's over 100 for Russ in Bergen. I skipped over the alcohol and sex ones, which make up a large part of them. (Most Russ are 18/19, and the drinking age in Norway is 18)

They also go around with water guns/buckets of water during school, and soak other students who aren't Russ.

They have mock business cards which they give out to kids, who collect them. Overall graduating from high school in Norway sounds like a lot more fun than at home! There's a lot I missed about Russ here, but HERE is the wikipedia article about it. I'm not Russ, since I got put in the 2nd grade, but it's still neat to see how they celebrate it. Although maybe not so great to have to check before leaving the school, to avoid getting a bucket of water dumped on your head...haha

A couple other observations from the last 9 months:

-They're way more comfortable talking about adult's ages; it's perfectly normal to be asked how old your parents are. 

-Teachers are generally called by their first names

-Even if people complain about it and dream about having a car when they get their licence, I'm still amazed by the public transportation. A girl in my class lives a ways out of the city and 8 km away from the nearest bus stop. So the kommune (like regional district I guess) pays for a taxi from the bus stop to her house to get to and from school. It's so nice to be able to get where you want to go (for the most part) without finding people to drive.

 

I haven't done anything hugely exciting since I last posted, but I'll give a little update. In point form, since that saves my lazy self from actually having to form sentences. Although I find when I scan long chunks of text its the point form parts I tend to stop and read. Anyways:

-I started babysitting a bit a couple weeks ago, which I think is going well. Whenever I'm having trouble babysitting at home from now on, I'll just be thankful that the kids actually speak the same language as me! It's helping me a lot with Norwegian though, and the kids are really sweet. And then if they ask for chocolate I can just pretend I don't understand them! :P

I love all the little things you realize and learn though. Like singing "ring around the rosie" on the trampoline, with the kids trying to sing along, and realizing the song actually makes no sense. And that the Norwegian version is about apples and pears that "all fall down" out of the trees. 

-My flight home is confirmed; leaving Norway on July 8th

-The Canadian election was nonexistent here (which makes sense really, when was the last time we heard about the Norwegian election?) And random fact, Norway has a proportional representation system rather than our "first past the post" and the country functions perfectly well. Just sayin. 

I tried to vote; sent my papers at least 3 weeks before the election, but I still haven't gotten a vote package back, not that it's any use to me now. It was an interesting election to follow in any case.

-I've started legitimately noticing Norwegian creeping into my english, although I usually catch it before it actually comes out. It's mostly sentence structure that would be understandable if I said it, but would just sound...odd. Like "thinking over" instead of "about." or trying to say "the clock is half three."

from here

I don't really say norwenglish (at least not while speaking english, Norwegian's a different story!) out loud that often, but it's definitely a bit of a struggle to pick which language to come out! Honestly, though, I'm glad that speaking another language for nine months has had a little bit of an effect!

-This time next week I'll be in Stockholm!!!

-I only have school 2 days this week, thanks to "whole day tests" that follow a pattern I can't figure out, even with a copy of the schedule. In art class we're doing "land art" which means you can make a spiral out of seaweed and shells in the sand and get graded for it. So basically an excuse to hang out in the sun at the beach, not bad!

...took me all of one minute

I have done more over the past couple weeks than just that, but don't remember what else, besides lots of time sleeping in the sun and wandering around the city.

So that's a bit of an update

Gorgeous country

Easter Break i Norge

Easter in Norway can basically be summed up by two pictures:

Skiing and chocolate, with a bit of sunburn and, well, not a whole lot else. Not a bad life!

I'm starting to come out of the chocolate coma of the past week, enough to write this post and realize that I'm going to have to go back to semi normal eating habits....tommorow. 

We get a little over a week off school for easter here, and we drove up to Geilo last Monday. This is going to sound like a repetitive first grader's journal - "and then I ate chocolate, and then I skiied, and then I slept, and then I woke up and ate toast...." but I'll keep the summary as short as possible.

Tuesday I went downhill skiing, and Wednesday we xc skiied up to Prestholt, about 7 km up to a cabin where they sell waffles, hot chocolate etc. I still haven't gotten used to this idea of skiing in what seems like the middle of nowhere (besides all the people trekking along with their kids/dogs/backpacks), and then suddenly coming to a cafe in a cabin which takes credit cards and has a barbeque sitting outside it.

There isn't much snow left here in Geilo, but as my host mom said today "Norwegians will search for the last fleck of snow left anywhere", which definitely sounds true for the ridiculous amount of cars parked along the highway wherever ski trails join with it, and the long lineups to buy waffles at the cabins. That also sounds like a lot of people I know back home,  but you get like 500x as much traffic on the bits of snow left here than you ever do at the Nelson trails, especially in late April.

Thursday we drove about 20 minutes to Ustaoset, where we started the days ski sloshing through a little river and then crossing a lake.

...and eventually coming into the hills and reaching a cabin that apparently has "Norway's best waffles." They don't even sell them with toppings they're so confident that they're good. And they are!

And no ski is complete without a kvikk lunsj!

I find it interesting that the vast majority of people out cross country skiing in Easter aren't exactly going fast (myself included). I saw very few people skating or even really striding at a fastish pace. Everyone looks more like they're out for a hike, and just happened to find themselves with skiis and poles attached to them. Definitely a relaxed, enjoy the sun type of atmosphere.

On Friday we joined lots of other people in crowding the Oslo-Bergen train for the short ride from Geilo to Finse, where we got off and skiied 38 km back to Ustaoset.

Host mom and I near the beginning

It was pretty much just an amazing, sunny and gorgeous ski, not much else to say about it.

Saturday we slept in then visited a neighbors cabin for the afternoon, where we were organized by families for an easter quiz. We managed to win, with 8.5 or something questions right out of 20. They were pretty random questions, from "where were the olympics in 1980 (lake placid) to how far is it from the equator to the north pole, to the average number of sheets on a roll of toilet paper. My only contribution was "how many calories are in a kvikk lunsj bar" (260). Not like knowing that has stopped me from eating way too many of them!

Today (Sunday) we went for a short ski; the majority of the time which I spent napping in the sun beside the trail:

I think I burned a total of like 6 calories the entire ski, det var deilig :) A nice way to finish off my last ski here in Norway. Until I come back someday, that is!

Here for easter they give out big cardboard easter eggs full of candy/other gifts:

So that was my easter in Norway; skiing, chocolate, waffles and sun. 

It's strange how being in another country makes you ridiculously patriotic about your own, and WAY too excited at any mention of it. I just glanced at the back of a bag of sørlands chips, which I think are the best chips they have here. 

And bam, Canada! American stuff is everywhere of course; you just have to open a newspaper or walk into a clothes store and see a t shirt or pair of shoes with an american flag design. But the little glimses of Canada are few and far between; a bit of coverage during the world cup, a random set of Canada flag cards brought out at a party (which I had  nothing to do with), or apparently an entire story on the back of chip bags. The story tells about one of the founders who returned from Canada inspired by Mrs Vickie's chips, and decided to make a Norwegian version. No wonder the Sørland chips are so good!

Happy Easter / God Påske!

The Easter chicken who graced the couch at the cabin for the past week haha

In Norway.....

...The ambulances are yellow:

you can always find skolebrød and skillingsboller in the bakery section at grocery stores:

fish comes in every imaginable shape and form:

 heart shaped:

...and pickled for breakfast

Putting fish eggs on top of chicken eggs is normal

The plugs look like this:

Everything is expensive: 

...but a normal starting wage is around $17 an hour, so it balances out, plus they get it back in healthcare, welfare and other services.

It's normal to see troupes of preschoolers and elementary kids trekking through the forest and playing in the mud, wearing yellow vests. The leader is almost always in a one piece blue snowsuit:

Everyone gets a laptop in school, and uses it constantly:

...on some tests you're even allowed to use any notes/files saved on your computer, although they (generally :P) shut down the internet for tests.

There's a lot less multiple choice and short answers on history and language tests, and a lot more essays and writing.

There's a huge range of packaged mixes for sauces, soups and baked goods:

They have the highest coffee consumption per capita in the world (some sources say second after Finland, but still):

The liquor stores are state run and very regulated; they close at 3 pm on Saturdays, and aren't open on, for example, new years eve.

The bread is thick and dense, rather than fluffy and light:

I never really liked sandwiches with plain bread before I came here

Sliced red pepper is a really common topping on bread and knekkebrød:

(Dad, I always thought it was weird that you put red pepper on your sandwiches, til I came here :P )

Semi trucks look, for lack of a better description, less scary:

(on the left, compared to a normal truck on the right)

They rarely put a top slice of bread on sandwiches:

The commercials are pretty random, to say the least: This one was playing non stop a couple weeks ago on the main channels; at the end it says "it can be fun to save power"

Neither of these two commercials really have any talking

At the end they suggest, among other things, showering together to save power...haha only in Norway

Or this older one for caviar:

Radio commercials can be just as random; one just starts singing ostpølser, ostpølser (cheese sausages) over and over again really enthusiastically, another has the sounds of a woman giving birth. In general there's a lot more - strange songs and noises in radio commercials, and like TV ones, they often have very little to do with what they're actually selling. I think the woman giving birth commercial is for a phone or wireless network or something, saying that you even get service in the maternity ward of the hospital or something odd like that haha

Theres way more varieties of black liquorice than at home - you can even get black liquorice gum.

These are my favorite; black liquorice is another thing I've grown to like here:

...you can buy single serving yogurt and granola containers in vending machines:

Packaging is much smaller here (one of the not-so-efficient parts of Norway - it's not like they use less of things, just buy more packages of them)

Normal sized margarine containers at home and in Norway: (hard to tell scale in these pictures, but you could fit like 5 of the norwegian ones in the one on the left)

-Big 4 litre milk jugs are really uncommon, most people buy 1 litre cartons

...The toilet flushers are on top of the toilet, and pulled up instead of pushed down. The stalls are usually completely enclosed with a red or green sign on the handle indicating vacancy. Doesn't usually work to look under the stall doors to see if they're free here! 

There's not much of a bulk section in most grocery stores, its way more common to buy little packages of things than fill up bags in bulk.

...the one bulk section you're guaranteed to find everywhere is candy:

That's all that comes to mind for now

To finish off, today we had no teacher in art again. So, what do we do?

Good night =)