Okay so sticking with what I said I would do here is a short update about todays happenings, which happens to be the ski clubs very own ski race. This race was something that I have never done before, it was a sprint relay! There were two people per team and each person would do a total of four 800 meter loops, so yes there was a lot of switching. Besides being really short it was a ton of fun.
Moving on I am really looking forward to next week because 1) I am going to Konsberg skisenter (a downhill ski area about an hour away) with my sports class for fagdag next week! I am so excited especially because the only thing I need to pay for is ski rental! (money has been a wee bit tight lately). After that I am taking the train down south for our mid-year meeting with AFS, and knowing everyone from region 2 it will be a blast!
Now for the Norwegian! (those reading that speak Norwegian feel free to correct my grammar, I need it if I am ever going to get better)
Ok så å henge med det sa jeg, her er en kort oppdatering om hva skjedde i dag, hvilket var det Oseberg skirennet. Dette renn var noe at har jeg ikke gjørt før, det var en sprint stafett! Der var to mennesker per lag og hver personer hadde å gjøre fire runder med åtte hundre meter hver rund, så ja der var masse endring men det var gøy uansett, kort men gøy.
Neste uke har jeg mye å se frem til 1) jeg skal til Konsberg skisenter med breddeidrett klasse min for fagdag! Jeg er veldig spent fordi jeg må bare betale for ski utleie! (pengene har vært litt stram i det siste). 2) Neste skal jeg til sør norge (Vegårshei) for midtårsoppholde med AFS, og vite de andre med AFS region 2 det skal være veldig gøy!
Takk og hilsen
Jon
29 January, 2011
26 January, 2011
NOT AGAIN!!!
I can't believe I did it again, but in my defense December went by in a flash. It was pretty much like *zoom* and that was it. Anyway it has been a blast the last two months, Christmas was awesome and New Years was a blast.
Starting off just after my last post I went to Sandefjord for a short ski day/trip thing. It was fun, nothing really exciting though. The next morning I finally got the chance to make pancakes for my host family (thanks for the syrup mom!) It sure seemed like everyone liked them, so yeah.
The next big piece of news was a weekend trip to a ski are called Liatoppen (near Geilo). It was a lot of fun and nice to be on snow for the whole weekend, although because of lack of snow at Liatoppen we had to drive to Geilo for most of the skiing, but it was fun anyway. We stayed in a hotel and went skiing, swimming and drove up to the top of Liatoppen for dinner each night. It was a great weekend, and I did get to know some of the other guys on the team that are my age. We also played a lot of ping pong (apparently it is a tradition on the ski trips to play ping pong).
Later on in December a lot of different Christmas get together things started to happen, including a juleverksted at one of my friends house. It was a lot of fun we started off with gløgg (a warm drink that is usually served over the Christmas time), ate some risgrøt (rice porridge stuff, not sure how to describe it), made some cards and finished up with making pepperkake (pretty much gingerbread cookies).
Next part was farmors(Steinars mother) birthday, basically a time when most of the family from around the area came over to our house and celebrated. It was really cool, there were quite a few people that came over, we ate a bunch of food, and I also got to try some different Norwegian desserts which was cool. Great people, good times.
Around this time was also the final couple weeks of school. The second to last week was very hard, I had three tests a paper and a project that were all due within a couple of days. Not a very fun week, it was filled with lots of studying, stressful days and at least one totally failed test. Oh well.
The nest week (half week, we only had classes till Tuesday) was actually really nice, several of my classes were canceled and because of all the tests and stuff the week before all of my classes were really relaxed, it was nice to have that after such a rough week before.
Wednesday the last week of school was actually pretty cool, there was this whole "closing" concert and stuff. It was basically a school talent show for the last day, and just for fun me and a couple of friends wore full suits, we definitely got weird looks but it was definitely worth it. I also went to lunch with my local contact (I don't know if I mentioned this before or not but she has actually spent time in Ely!) had a great time. Everyone here is just AWESOME!!!
Next we are on to Christmas eve, here in Norway the do most of their celebrating on Christmas eve and not on Christmas day. Starting off we didn't really do much, we woke up at breakfast and such and starting around 12-1 we watched a movie called "Tre nutter til ASkepott" which is a movie that pretty much everyone watches on Christmas Eve. The really funny part is that it is a Czech/German movie with Norwegian dubbing, the best thing is that there is only one guy doing the voices, and he just uses different tones while he is talking.
The next big thing on Christmas Eve was going to church, before we went to the church we stopped at the graveyard and lit candles at Steinars dad's grave and also his grandparents grave. There were so many other people doing the same thing, when we walked out you could see all of the candles lit and lighting up the area, it is really something hard to describe.
Anyway church was good, I was actually able to understand some of what they were saying this time around. It is hard to sing though, because I always find myself trying to figure out what it is saying and end up totally off time with the words.
After church we headed home for dinner and after that it was on to the presents. One thing that is totally different was that before opening presents everyone gets together, sings and dances around the tree. It was really cool, all of the Norwegian traditions are really cool and I totally loved all of it!
Moving on we have første juledag, or Christmas day in the USA. Since we open presents and do all of the normal American Christmas stuff on første juledag it was a bit different for me, but was a lot of fun. For both første juledag and andre juledag we went and visited my host fathers family (første juledag) and my host mothers family (andre juledag). It was a lot of fun we got together ate some really good food and played some games, totally different than I am used to but totally awesome.
Nothing really interesting or fun happened until New Years. I went to a party/dinner at a friends house. We ate dinner (nachos and a really good marshmallow dessert), afterwards we just chilled out until we got to one of the most fun parts of the night. We went outside about 5 minutes before midnight and proceeded to light a bunch of sparklers and watch all of the fireworks going off in almost every direction. After that it was back inside to chill out some more and dance a little bit, it was a lot of fun, and I didn't get home until almost 3 in the morning.
School started again on the 3rd so the break seemed a lot shorter because it started the 23rd of December 23rd and ended on January 3rd, did not seem long at all. Back to school though and for the first week nothing interesting or fun really happened. I did go to another exchange students house on Friday to watch the Goonies though so that was pretty fun (believe it or not he is also from Minnesota!).
I also went over to another friends house that weekend and watched a couple of movies (the Dark Knight and A-team) on a 100 inch HD projector, with surround sound and a giant couch(can you say AWESOME)!! We also got lots of snow over the weekend but the bummer is that it was drizzling and in the mid to upper 30's (F) for like 3-4 days after.
Nothing really exciting after, school was/is good, I have had some fun stuff going on in my sports class and have gradually been speaking more and more Norwegian, and have also been understanding much more.
Last week I actually had the week off of school for an sosial aktivitets uke with AFS, which means that I spent the week working, well kind of. I spent the week at my host fathers school helping out with some of the English classes and doing some presentations on the USA. It was a lot of fun I got to talk a lot with the teachers and it was generally a great time.
Over the last two months I have done 5 races (I think, it might be 4), 10 km classic just after Christmas, which actually went pretty well. A 15km skate race (didn't go so well), sprint race (I WON, although there were only two other people in my race), a 10 km skate race (a lot better than the first skate race). Last but not least this last weekend I did a 40ish km classic race, it actually went pretty well, I finished in a little under 2 and a half hours and could definitely can harder, so things are looking good for the birkebeiner qualifying race in mid February.
That pretty much covers things! I am really going to try and update more often, most likely when something interesting, or just random little updates every couple days or something (keep in mind I am not promising but I will try). Any question about stuff that happened just leave a comment or send me a message. I also want to say thanks for all the cards and presents from everyone, sorry I haven't writing back yet, but I am trying, it has been hard to find the time to write back. Thanks for reading (maybe next time I will write it in both Norwegian and English).
Jon
Starting off just after my last post I went to Sandefjord for a short ski day/trip thing. It was fun, nothing really exciting though. The next morning I finally got the chance to make pancakes for my host family (thanks for the syrup mom!) It sure seemed like everyone liked them, so yeah.
The next big piece of news was a weekend trip to a ski are called Liatoppen (near Geilo). It was a lot of fun and nice to be on snow for the whole weekend, although because of lack of snow at Liatoppen we had to drive to Geilo for most of the skiing, but it was fun anyway. We stayed in a hotel and went skiing, swimming and drove up to the top of Liatoppen for dinner each night. It was a great weekend, and I did get to know some of the other guys on the team that are my age. We also played a lot of ping pong (apparently it is a tradition on the ski trips to play ping pong).
Later on in December a lot of different Christmas get together things started to happen, including a juleverksted at one of my friends house. It was a lot of fun we started off with gløgg (a warm drink that is usually served over the Christmas time), ate some risgrøt (rice porridge stuff, not sure how to describe it), made some cards and finished up with making pepperkake (pretty much gingerbread cookies).
Next part was farmors(Steinars mother) birthday, basically a time when most of the family from around the area came over to our house and celebrated. It was really cool, there were quite a few people that came over, we ate a bunch of food, and I also got to try some different Norwegian desserts which was cool. Great people, good times.
Around this time was also the final couple weeks of school. The second to last week was very hard, I had three tests a paper and a project that were all due within a couple of days. Not a very fun week, it was filled with lots of studying, stressful days and at least one totally failed test. Oh well.
The nest week (half week, we only had classes till Tuesday) was actually really nice, several of my classes were canceled and because of all the tests and stuff the week before all of my classes were really relaxed, it was nice to have that after such a rough week before.
Wednesday the last week of school was actually pretty cool, there was this whole "closing" concert and stuff. It was basically a school talent show for the last day, and just for fun me and a couple of friends wore full suits, we definitely got weird looks but it was definitely worth it. I also went to lunch with my local contact (I don't know if I mentioned this before or not but she has actually spent time in Ely!) had a great time. Everyone here is just AWESOME!!!
Next we are on to Christmas eve, here in Norway the do most of their celebrating on Christmas eve and not on Christmas day. Starting off we didn't really do much, we woke up at breakfast and such and starting around 12-1 we watched a movie called "Tre nutter til ASkepott" which is a movie that pretty much everyone watches on Christmas Eve. The really funny part is that it is a Czech/German movie with Norwegian dubbing, the best thing is that there is only one guy doing the voices, and he just uses different tones while he is talking.
The next big thing on Christmas Eve was going to church, before we went to the church we stopped at the graveyard and lit candles at Steinars dad's grave and also his grandparents grave. There were so many other people doing the same thing, when we walked out you could see all of the candles lit and lighting up the area, it is really something hard to describe.
Anyway church was good, I was actually able to understand some of what they were saying this time around. It is hard to sing though, because I always find myself trying to figure out what it is saying and end up totally off time with the words.
After church we headed home for dinner and after that it was on to the presents. One thing that is totally different was that before opening presents everyone gets together, sings and dances around the tree. It was really cool, all of the Norwegian traditions are really cool and I totally loved all of it!
Moving on we have første juledag, or Christmas day in the USA. Since we open presents and do all of the normal American Christmas stuff on første juledag it was a bit different for me, but was a lot of fun. For both første juledag and andre juledag we went and visited my host fathers family (første juledag) and my host mothers family (andre juledag). It was a lot of fun we got together ate some really good food and played some games, totally different than I am used to but totally awesome.
Nothing really interesting or fun happened until New Years. I went to a party/dinner at a friends house. We ate dinner (nachos and a really good marshmallow dessert), afterwards we just chilled out until we got to one of the most fun parts of the night. We went outside about 5 minutes before midnight and proceeded to light a bunch of sparklers and watch all of the fireworks going off in almost every direction. After that it was back inside to chill out some more and dance a little bit, it was a lot of fun, and I didn't get home until almost 3 in the morning.
School started again on the 3rd so the break seemed a lot shorter because it started the 23rd of December 23rd and ended on January 3rd, did not seem long at all. Back to school though and for the first week nothing interesting or fun really happened. I did go to another exchange students house on Friday to watch the Goonies though so that was pretty fun (believe it or not he is also from Minnesota!).
I also went over to another friends house that weekend and watched a couple of movies (the Dark Knight and A-team) on a 100 inch HD projector, with surround sound and a giant couch(can you say AWESOME)!! We also got lots of snow over the weekend but the bummer is that it was drizzling and in the mid to upper 30's (F) for like 3-4 days after.
Nothing really exciting after, school was/is good, I have had some fun stuff going on in my sports class and have gradually been speaking more and more Norwegian, and have also been understanding much more.
Last week I actually had the week off of school for an sosial aktivitets uke with AFS, which means that I spent the week working, well kind of. I spent the week at my host fathers school helping out with some of the English classes and doing some presentations on the USA. It was a lot of fun I got to talk a lot with the teachers and it was generally a great time.
Over the last two months I have done 5 races (I think, it might be 4), 10 km classic just after Christmas, which actually went pretty well. A 15km skate race (didn't go so well), sprint race (I WON, although there were only two other people in my race), a 10 km skate race (a lot better than the first skate race). Last but not least this last weekend I did a 40ish km classic race, it actually went pretty well, I finished in a little under 2 and a half hours and could definitely can harder, so things are looking good for the birkebeiner qualifying race in mid February.
That pretty much covers things! I am really going to try and update more often, most likely when something interesting, or just random little updates every couple days or something (keep in mind I am not promising but I will try). Any question about stuff that happened just leave a comment or send me a message. I also want to say thanks for all the cards and presents from everyone, sorry I haven't writing back yet, but I am trying, it has been hard to find the time to write back. Thanks for reading (maybe next time I will write it in both Norwegian and English).
Jon
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