...when your having fun. One week since my last post, which is probably how it will work for the rest of the year because on Wednesday I am done with classes at 11:10!!
Anyway a lot happened since I last posted, starting with that Wednesday night. A friend invited me to go sailing. So my first thought was "oh cool I get to go on a little sailboat on the ocean!" However it was no "small" sailboat (at least by my standards), and it wasn`t just a little stroll around the bay, it was a race. Although I was told that because there were so many new people (new being me and one other person), that it was just going to be for training. It was a ot of fun, even though I just stood there for almost the whole time and watched (I was clueless as to what they were saying). Towards the end once the wind finally started to pick up I got upgraded to winch monkey, WOOHOO. Regrdless though it was a lot of fun, plus afterwords I tried Norwegian Waffles for the first time, and may I say they are delicious.
The next day after my classes I decided to do a rollerski test with Oseberg Skilag (Osberg ski team). It hurt so much, basically it was a 4.5 kilometer double pole time trial, and even though I had tried to get strength training in while I was down with my leg it is completely different when you are actually up and going. Enough complaining, it was fun and I have a TON of room to improve.
The next part I really like, it was fagdag again (subject day), and this time....I HAD THE DAY OFF! I had talked about going for a bike into town and exploring but it was chilly and I was exhausted from the week, so I just chilled out at the house and waited for our 3:30 departure for the family cottage in SWEDEN! Long story short; we drove to Sandfjord and hopped on a huge ferry heading for Sweden, got to Sweden about 2 hours later and drove another hour and a half to the cottage. Then ate some food and went to bed.
Followed the next day by yard work (mowing, raking, some other stuff). After we had lunch and headed to a city called Göteborg, and we went to an amusement park there called Liseberg. It was a lot of fun, me and my host-brother went on pretty much every thrill ride, roller coaster, and an assortment of others, except for the ones where you had to wait 45+ minutes to get on. Then we left went back to the cottage and called it a night. It is kind of interesting how different Sweden is from Norway even though they are so close together.
Sunday we just got to hang out for most of the morning, although we did take a little tour around the island (Tjörn) it was really cool we went to one of the beaches, checked out a couple of stores and finished by going to this old farm turned museum/cafe, which sits right next to the largest "mountain" on the island. It was really funny though because aparently the women who owned the place like a hundred years ago was a little nuts. When the were doing some work on the place before turning it into the cafe the found a skeleton of a man in the celler of one of the building, and apparently she had kept the man (who I think my host-mom said was a priest) locked in the celler so no one could find him. Talk about psyco. Then we went to the cottage sat in the sun, packed and drove home. The drive included another smaller ferry ride that took about 30 min, and back home.
Nothing else fun happened until yesterday (i går), morning was boring, had all of my Tuesday classes, although in gym we did something called the cooper test. In the test you run for 12 minutes and see how far you can get in that time, here I was thinking, okayy if I can get 5 I`ll be doing good (because of my knee), I actually finished with 50 meters short of 7 laps, I was totally surprised I got that far. We also had our class pictures (klassebilde) taken, it was cool, but my front teeth look like they are missing. In my sports class we played some pretty intense volleyball and it was a blast. Later I went to a movie with a couple friends to the new kino (cinema) in town. It was a relly nice place and apparently is like the best in Scandinavia and one of the best in Europe, at least thats what they told me. We watched a movie called "Flåklypa Grand Prix" I am sure it was a really neat movie, but it was hard to tell because I understood almost nothing. Then we just sat and talked for a little while and I headed home.
So there is pretty much everything interesting/exciting that happened in the last week. Maybe I will even get a little philosophical next time.... probably not. Hope you enjoyed reading.
Hilsen
Jon
08 September, 2010
01 September, 2010
First days continued
Okay my last post ended with ondsdag so we move on to torsdag
Torsdag
From what I remember nothing really interesting happened, I went to school had my sports class right away at 8, folowed by history, biology and the second of many norsk lessons.
Fredag
This was probably the hardest day out of the week because it was fagdag (subject day). They base what you have on this day off of your schedule, and being the first week it started with first period, which I had math. So from 8-3, with breaks every hour and a half or so, I had math. By the end of the day I thought my head would explode from all of the new words. To be honest the math really is not anything new for me but having to try and figure out what everything problem asked was really difficult to say the least.
Lørdag
YAY for sleeping in! I got to sleep until after 9! I was so exhausted (and still am) from having to try so hard to understand even basic things. Today was the fun day of the week, we got to 1) check out Oslo (which included Vigelandsparken, the 2011 World Championship Venue for downhill, ski jumping and cross country, we also went to the ski museum, and the kings castle , I also took a city train for the first time) 2) I got to meet my host brother and his girlfriend who live in Oslo 3) we went to a wedding party that evening(a lot of people I did not know but it was all good, I actually met someone that was from Montana, and two people who had spent some time in or near Minnesota!)
Sundag
Another day to sleep in, especially since it was after midnight when we got home. Slept in a for quite a while, after frokost me and my host parents went to Verdens Ende (worlds end), it was a really cool place and only like a 15 minute drive from the house. It is a really popular place for Sundag afternoons I was told. Got home did a lot of translating for Biologi and called it a night.
So there you have it, my first week with my host family. Since it would be quite pointless and rather boring to continue doing a day by day recap I will just say things of importance from here on. Anyway, Takk for lesing.
Ha det!
Jon
Torsdag
From what I remember nothing really interesting happened, I went to school had my sports class right away at 8, folowed by history, biology and the second of many norsk lessons.
Fredag
This was probably the hardest day out of the week because it was fagdag (subject day). They base what you have on this day off of your schedule, and being the first week it started with first period, which I had math. So from 8-3, with breaks every hour and a half or so, I had math. By the end of the day I thought my head would explode from all of the new words. To be honest the math really is not anything new for me but having to try and figure out what everything problem asked was really difficult to say the least.
Lørdag
YAY for sleeping in! I got to sleep until after 9! I was so exhausted (and still am) from having to try so hard to understand even basic things. Today was the fun day of the week, we got to 1) check out Oslo (which included Vigelandsparken
Sundag
Another day to sleep in, especially since it was after midnight when we got home. Slept in a for quite a while, after frokost me and my host parents went to Verdens Ende (worlds end), it was a really cool place and only like a 15 minute drive from the house. It is a really popular place for Sundag afternoons I was told. Got home did a lot of translating for Biologi and called it a night.
So there you have it, my first week with my host family. Since it would be quite pointless and rather boring to continue doing a day by day recap I will just say things of importance from here on. Anyway, Takk for lesing.
Ha det!
Jon
27 August, 2010
Last post cont.
So I left off on fredag. Actually I lied, most of what I said was fredag was actually torsdag, darn days getting all mixed up on me.
Fredag
Okay so we are on the plane all through the night torsdag and wake up to frokost and to only 1 time left till we land in Copenhagen. We land, such and such. We get off and first thing, the airort was massive. It was nothing like the airports in New York, it was like a huge mall.You could find anything you needed in there. That was at 0700 or so, then we had customs (it really wasn`t all that bad), followed by a little exploring and taking off for the last time before we land in Norge. The flight was really cool (made even cooler by the fact that I got a vindu seat), anyway for about halv time there was nothing but ocean (which by the way was the first time I had ever seen an ocean :). However about 30 minute into the flight you could start to see land, or islands I am not sure which but it was really cool. Once we got further inland it got really cloudy so we couldn`t the much but when we started to descend it was amazing because you could still see the clouds (we were in them) but you could also see the land\buildings\houses and everything. First off all of the other airports I had landed in up until now were right in the middle of their respective cities, but the Oslo airport was in the middle of the forest it looked like. I have to shorten this up so basically we got to the hotel about 12ish I think and proceeded to play games for the rest of the night.
Lørdag
Okay not much happened here but its a dag so it deserves its credit too. Basically we had a bunch of classes and lessons all day teaching us stuff about norge and what to do\not do, plus food and more games.
Søndag
This was the realy fun, the day we met our vertsfamilie! Although it was kind of a bummer to have to say bye to most everyone for good, or 1 år miniumum. So we started the day with packing and frokost, (while some of the people were already heading out on buses to get to their train\plane to get to their vertsfamile. Once everyone else left we went for a walk in the woods before lunch because our vertsfamilie were arriving. We got back ate lunch and then relaxed in the hotel for a while playing games, taking pictures, etc. etc. Until (drum roll please)..........They made us line up in a circle and wait until our names were called to meet our host family, all the while they were standing only 50 yards in front of us. It was cool though, except that my name was almost at the bottom of the list. After meeting my verstfamilie (they are wesome by the way!) We proceeded to grab my baggage, hop in the car and head to Tønsberg! The scenery on the way down was amazing, I got some cool pictures (Jeg have like 700 I need to put on facebook.) It was really sweet because we went through the center of Tønsberg so I could see what it is like! It is a really cool place, and so we got home and ate dinner, I unpacked and I think it was this night but they took me to check out the school and to see a couple of the local beaches, jeg got to touch sea water for the first time ( yeah I know it soudns pathetic).
Gosh this is getting big and I am still a week behind, I better put few more days in the post or I am not going to remember anything else.
Mandag
Okay so this was technically my first day at school, but basically we just signed up for classes, met our Norske teachers and some other teachers and got to see most of the school.I am taking biologi, matematics, fysikk, a sport class, gym, world history, and norske (jeg can`t remember if there was anything else right now.) Once vi finished with that my verstmor og verstbror went for a little swim at the beach! it was awesome! The salty taste was a bit much though.
Tirsdag
My first day of classes, and ets just say that it is really hard to pay attention when you have no idea what they are saying, although with gym and the sports class it was kind of nice to just be able to run and such. Later that night my verstfar took me and Håkon for a trip in the familie boat to see Tønsberg and area from the sea! It was so cool and I took tons of pictures!
Ondsdag
ONE WEEK since I left Minnesota! Not much exciting happened here, I met some more of my class mates that I will have classes with for the rest of the year, although I did get done at ti over 11. Then me and my vertsmor went into town to get some school supplies and to apply for my Norge residency permit. Although we did have a lot of trouble getting my credit card to work, but its ggood now! I think that bout covers those days, if I think of anything else I will just edit it in, so you won`t even notice......booooo *in scary voice*.
I will try to get this torsdag and fredag posted in the next couple day. Also sorry if these posts have spelling mistakes and what not, and if they are a little long winded, but this way I also have somewhat of a journal to look back on. Also if any of you actually talk to me on skype or anything remind me to tell you how my name is supposed to sound.
Takk for lesing!
Ha det!
Jon
Fredag
Okay so we are on the plane all through the night torsdag and wake up to frokost and to only 1 time left till we land in Copenhagen. We land, such and such. We get off and first thing, the airort was massive. It was nothing like the airports in New York, it was like a huge mall.You could find anything you needed in there. That was at 0700 or so, then we had customs (it really wasn`t all that bad), followed by a little exploring and taking off for the last time before we land in Norge. The flight was really cool (made even cooler by the fact that I got a vindu seat), anyway for about halv time there was nothing but ocean (which by the way was the first time I had ever seen an ocean :). However about 30 minute into the flight you could start to see land, or islands I am not sure which but it was really cool. Once we got further inland it got really cloudy so we couldn`t the much but when we started to descend it was amazing because you could still see the clouds (we were in them) but you could also see the land\buildings\houses and everything. First off all of the other airports I had landed in up until now were right in the middle of their respective cities, but the Oslo airport was in the middle of the forest it looked like. I have to shorten this up so basically we got to the hotel about 12ish I think and proceeded to play games for the rest of the night.
Lørdag
Okay not much happened here but its a dag so it deserves its credit too. Basically we had a bunch of classes and lessons all day teaching us stuff about norge and what to do\not do, plus food and more games.
Søndag
This was the realy fun, the day we met our vertsfamilie! Although it was kind of a bummer to have to say bye to most everyone for good, or 1 år miniumum. So we started the day with packing and frokost, (while some of the people were already heading out on buses to get to their train\plane to get to their vertsfamile. Once everyone else left we went for a walk in the woods before lunch because our vertsfamilie were arriving. We got back ate lunch and then relaxed in the hotel for a while playing games, taking pictures, etc. etc. Until (drum roll please)..........They made us line up in a circle and wait until our names were called to meet our host family, all the while they were standing only 50 yards in front of us. It was cool though, except that my name was almost at the bottom of the list. After meeting my verstfamilie (they are wesome by the way!) We proceeded to grab my baggage, hop in the car and head to Tønsberg! The scenery on the way down was amazing, I got some cool pictures (Jeg have like 700 I need to put on facebook.) It was really sweet because we went through the center of Tønsberg so I could see what it is like! It is a really cool place, and so we got home and ate dinner, I unpacked and I think it was this night but they took me to check out the school and to see a couple of the local beaches, jeg got to touch sea water for the first time ( yeah I know it soudns pathetic).
Gosh this is getting big and I am still a week behind, I better put few more days in the post or I am not going to remember anything else.
Mandag
Okay so this was technically my first day at school, but basically we just signed up for classes, met our Norske teachers and some other teachers and got to see most of the school.I am taking biologi, matematics, fysikk, a sport class, gym, world history, and norske (jeg can`t remember if there was anything else right now.) Once vi finished with that my verstmor og verstbror went for a little swim at the beach! it was awesome! The salty taste was a bit much though.
Tirsdag
My first day of classes, and ets just say that it is really hard to pay attention when you have no idea what they are saying, although with gym and the sports class it was kind of nice to just be able to run and such. Later that night my verstfar took me and Håkon for a trip in the familie boat to see Tønsberg and area from the sea! It was so cool and I took tons of pictures!
Ondsdag
ONE WEEK since I left Minnesota! Not much exciting happened here, I met some more of my class mates that I will have classes with for the rest of the year, although I did get done at ti over 11. Then me and my vertsmor went into town to get some school supplies and to apply for my Norge residency permit. Although we did have a lot of trouble getting my credit card to work, but its ggood now! I think that bout covers those days, if I think of anything else I will just edit it in, so you won`t even notice......booooo *in scary voice*.
I will try to get this torsdag and fredag posted in the next couple day. Also sorry if these posts have spelling mistakes and what not, and if they are a little long winded, but this way I also have somewhat of a journal to look back on. Also if any of you actually talk to me on skype or anything remind me to tell you how my name is supposed to sound.
Takk for lesing!
Ha det!
Jon
25 August, 2010
My trip so far
Okay I know it has been a while and I apologize, in my defense it has been really hectic. I think the best way to tell you is to write a day by day recap starting with wednesday morning.
Wednesday (onsdag)
The technical start of my journey began with waking myself up at 3:30 in the morning (morgen) to drive to the minneapolis airport to strt my flight which was a 1 hour flight to chicago with a two hour lay-over followed by an hour (time) long flight to NYC (the big apple). This was my very first (første) experience on a plane, and I was all by myself. It was pretty hard saying bye to my family (but no offense to you guys but I will see you again, plus I was so excited that it wasnæt as hard as it could have been). In the La Quardia airport I met my first AFSers, students going to the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Sweden, Hungary, and a fellow Norwegian student. From there we traveled to the hotel and met the rest of the students along with the leaders that would be teching us as much as they new in 24 hours.
Thursday (torsdag)
Pretty boring all day, we started with a bunch of classes and lessons about the AFS mission, rules and blah, blah, blah. The cool part was the we were able to split into our seperate countries for most of it so I really got to know the other 8 (åtte) norske students. Then we ate and went to bed.
Friday (fredag)
Things really started to get nuts here. We got up and had a last few minute things that AFS had to teach us and such and hopped onto the buses that would take us to the airport so that we could leave for our host countries!! Everyone (correct me if I am wrong) was so excited to get on that plane! Although the fact that it would be an 8+ hour flight did dampen the spirit of some. Anyway we went through security and everything with like 30-40 students or so (Finland, Sweden, and the Latvia students were also ggoing to the same airport). That tooks the most time but once we were through it was really sweet, although we did just sit around for 2 hours waiting to board. The plane was cool (touch screens with movies and games were included)
More will come later, its getting late and I have morning classes I need to be ready for.
Takk
Jon
Wednesday (onsdag)
The technical start of my journey began with waking myself up at 3:30 in the morning (morgen) to drive to the minneapolis airport to strt my flight which was a 1 hour flight to chicago with a two hour lay-over followed by an hour (time) long flight to NYC (the big apple). This was my very first (første) experience on a plane, and I was all by myself. It was pretty hard saying bye to my family (but no offense to you guys but I will see you again, plus I was so excited that it wasnæt as hard as it could have been). In the La Quardia airport I met my first AFSers, students going to the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Sweden, Hungary, and a fellow Norwegian student. From there we traveled to the hotel and met the rest of the students along with the leaders that would be teching us as much as they new in 24 hours.
Thursday (torsdag)
Pretty boring all day, we started with a bunch of classes and lessons about the AFS mission, rules and blah, blah, blah. The cool part was the we were able to split into our seperate countries for most of it so I really got to know the other 8 (åtte) norske students. Then we ate and went to bed.
Friday (fredag)
Things really started to get nuts here. We got up and had a last few minute things that AFS had to teach us and such and hopped onto the buses that would take us to the airport so that we could leave for our host countries!! Everyone (correct me if I am wrong) was so excited to get on that plane! Although the fact that it would be an 8+ hour flight did dampen the spirit of some. Anyway we went through security and everything with like 30-40 students or so (Finland, Sweden, and the Latvia students were also ggoing to the same airport). That tooks the most time but once we were through it was really sweet, although we did just sit around for 2 hours waiting to board. The plane was cool (touch screens with movies and games were included)
More will come later, its getting late and I have morning classes I need to be ready for.
Takk
Jon
05 August, 2010
July (for real this time)
Wow this summer went by really fast, it is hard to believe that it is already August. Working throughout the month started out really hard because of my knee, in fact the first couple weeks I got to sit on a stool for the majority of all my shifts :) Although working almost 40 hours a week for the month was pretty rough. I finished up working there this last Sunday, and boy does it feel good to be able to relax a little.
My knee has been doing quite a bit better, my extension and flexibility has been getting a lot better and the swelling is going down a lot. Although I do have to go in for an MRI next week just to make sure there is no damage to cartilage or anything like that.
The Blueberry Festival was a couple of weeks ago, and as usual town (well the 5 block radius from the park & downtown) was a literal bee hive. That bee hive was full of rival bees however, meaning town was packed and trying to get anywhere past the park was a pain. Although I do have to admit the Gyros, Fried Bread, Kettle Corn and etc. were just as good as always. The park had several booths that were actually quite interesting, some with really cool items and others with some very odd things.
Summer training for skiing ended this morning although I haven't been able to do any of the workouts it has been fun to go and at least see people over the last couple of weeks, because for a while I felt like I was losing my mind from not being able to see other people, since I've been boxed up in the house for so long.
Over the last weeks I have been working on my Norske and it is coming along. Packing is basically the same story, it has been coming along slowly but it has been coming along. It has actually been kind of a weird feeling trying to pick what I will need and hoping I won't forget anything important.
People keep asking me if I am getting nervous but to be honest I really am not all that nervous. I am just so very excited about it, and for some other unknown reason I don't really feel nervous. Knowing there will be hard makes it actually more exciting for me, mainly because those tough times will only make the whole trip more memorable.
In this time two weeks from now I will be on a plane heading for NORWAY!!!!! I can't believe it is coming up so quickly, normally my summers seem to go by really slow but this summer has just rocketed by. Although it could be from all of the chill time I have had, since I have never really had time to just relax during the summer.
My knee has been doing quite a bit better, my extension and flexibility has been getting a lot better and the swelling is going down a lot. Although I do have to go in for an MRI next week just to make sure there is no damage to cartilage or anything like that.
The Blueberry Festival was a couple of weeks ago, and as usual town (well the 5 block radius from the park & downtown) was a literal bee hive. That bee hive was full of rival bees however, meaning town was packed and trying to get anywhere past the park was a pain. Although I do have to admit the Gyros, Fried Bread, Kettle Corn and etc. were just as good as always. The park had several booths that were actually quite interesting, some with really cool items and others with some very odd things.
Summer training for skiing ended this morning although I haven't been able to do any of the workouts it has been fun to go and at least see people over the last couple of weeks, because for a while I felt like I was losing my mind from not being able to see other people, since I've been boxed up in the house for so long.
Over the last weeks I have been working on my Norske and it is coming along. Packing is basically the same story, it has been coming along slowly but it has been coming along. It has actually been kind of a weird feeling trying to pick what I will need and hoping I won't forget anything important.
People keep asking me if I am getting nervous but to be honest I really am not all that nervous. I am just so very excited about it, and for some other unknown reason I don't really feel nervous. Knowing there will be hard makes it actually more exciting for me, mainly because those tough times will only make the whole trip more memorable.
In this time two weeks from now I will be on a plane heading for NORWAY!!!!! I can't believe it is coming up so quickly, normally my summers seem to go by really slow but this summer has just rocketed by. Although it could be from all of the chill time I have had, since I have never really had time to just relax during the summer.
04 August, 2010
July
Just kidding! I promise I will make an in-depth post tomorrow. I just wanted to put a little something on here tonight because my plane leaves Minneapolis in 2 weeks from today!
30 June, 2010
June in a nutshell
This summer has been going by extremely fast, it seems like just last week that I had my graduation party and went to my graduation ceremony in the cities, and that was nearly a month ago. June started out looking like it was going to be pretty nuts but even knowing that it was more than I could have imagined.
It started out with my graduation and all associated traveling and such. Summer training for skiing started the following Monday along with starting full time at my summer job. I went through two solid weeks of that, along with a Saturday of traveling for the ACT's (hoping to get a 30 but only got a 29) and then it was off to youth camp for a week, which was this last week.
Camp was a blast I got to meet a bunch of new people while also getting to catch up with many older friends. However about 12:30 in the morning on the last night something totally unexpected happened; I dislocated my patella (knee cap). It was a very long night to say the least, we didn't get back from the hospital till 4:30 in the morning. Now I am stuck awkwardly hobbling around with a full length splint to stabilize my knee until the docs say I can go to a smaller more flexible brace. I should be almost back to normal by the time I leave in about 6 weeks!
It has been really hard to try and work on my Norsk (Norwegian), so right now I just have a few of the basics, although with this new injury I will actually have quite a bit more free time to work on it. I really can't believe that I leave in like 6 weeks, my excitement has been building up like crazy since I finished up with school. Anyway I think that does a pretty good job of covering the happenings for the last month.
Thanks for reading.
It started out with my graduation and all associated traveling and such. Summer training for skiing started the following Monday along with starting full time at my summer job. I went through two solid weeks of that, along with a Saturday of traveling for the ACT's (hoping to get a 30 but only got a 29) and then it was off to youth camp for a week, which was this last week.
Camp was a blast I got to meet a bunch of new people while also getting to catch up with many older friends. However about 12:30 in the morning on the last night something totally unexpected happened; I dislocated my patella (knee cap). It was a very long night to say the least, we didn't get back from the hospital till 4:30 in the morning. Now I am stuck awkwardly hobbling around with a full length splint to stabilize my knee until the docs say I can go to a smaller more flexible brace. I should be almost back to normal by the time I leave in about 6 weeks!
It has been really hard to try and work on my Norsk (Norwegian), so right now I just have a few of the basics, although with this new injury I will actually have quite a bit more free time to work on it. I really can't believe that I leave in like 6 weeks, my excitement has been building up like crazy since I finished up with school. Anyway I think that does a pretty good job of covering the happenings for the last month.
Thanks for reading.
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