Hva nå?????

Hei alle!
Another week gone, seriously I want to know where it goes. Anybody have a clue? It has now been five weeks since I left my home state of Minnesota. Its nuts that it has been that long, because it sure does not feel like it at all. Although I lot of stuff happened this last week, especially this weekend, lots of stuff happened in a short amount of time but it was a blast.

Starting with last wednesday, not much else happened after I posted, although that night I went to a friends birthday celebration. Played some games, had fun and called it a night.

Thursday again was pretty boring, although for lunch I went with some friends to the school restaurant. (I just got the nachos because I had already eaten most of my lunch, plus I didn't want to send much). It was a cool place, the food was good and not totally expensive, it was actually cheaper than it would have been to go to McDonalds. The people that make the food are all students learning to become chefs, but it is quite good (and affordable!). Got home from school and ust chilled out (thats getting to be the usual thing). After dinner (fish cakes, they were really good) I went on a roller ski with Oseberg Skilag again, did some intervals and sprinting drills with the guys. I am still out of shape but it is getting considerably better each week.

Oh what a fun day Friday was. We had Norwegian for our fag dag, so I had Norwegian for the entire day. It started out okay, we watched a movie (in Norwegian, thankfully though they put on english subtitles). I am still confused about all that happened though, it was a hard movie to follow. After that we went to our classroom and worked on the tasks for the day (writing assignments to do with the movie), so that is when the real fun started. So I sat there and attempted to translate the assignments while the rest of the students worked on their papers. After about 30 minutes I finally figured out what the first part of it was... (no computer, so I had to sit and flip through a Norwegian-English dictionary). For lunch though I was excused because the rest of the exchange students plus their families were having lunch with the Head-master at the school restaurant. It was good food, and I talked to someone and got my math switched to the hardest the school offers!! YES!!! Now I won't be sitting and falling asleep in math! Then after lunch went back to attempting Norwegian (I failed), I caved and went to the library to use a computer there to translate and attempted to right. However my brain was turned to mush and any writing just sounded like senseless rambling. After going home and eating dinner and such (its basically the same every day now), I went to a friends house for "guy night," had fun, watched some tv chilled out and ate some pizza.

Saturday is when the real fun begins! We woke up kind of early and left for Oslo for the day. My host sister from Bergen was came down to Oslo Friday night and was meeting us at the Opera house Saturday morning with a friend of hers. The main reason for the trip was that my host parents were going to a book fair that was being help over the weekend and while we were there my host sister, her friend, and my host brothers girlfriend, were going to show me around the city. So we got there, went down to the Opera house and met up with everyone and went to this talk about a couple of books and an interview with 3 of the past state ministers of Norway. Everyone thought it was supposed to be like 30 minutes or so but it ended up being an hour and a half. (I fell asleep a couple of times because it was pretty difficult Norwegian and after a while my brain couldn't take it). After that we te lunch and split up into our groups. First thing we did was go up onto the roof of the Opera house, it was really cool. We proceeded on a tour of most of the other attractions in the city, it is such cool place. We went all over, I will try to post photos because there is too much to try and explain. After walking through the city for a few hours we headed back to my host brothers apartment (via subway!! my first time on a subway). We had a traditional Norwegian dinner called "Fårikål (some kind of lamb)," I can tell you that it smells pretty odd when it is cooking but it is actually very good. Dessert was really good too, a traditional dessert (I think??) and it was really funny because directly translated it means "covered cow girls" or something along those lines. We headed back home later that night (I fell asleep after about 15 minutes of driving).

Sunday was a really nice day, we went to Andebu (where my host mother grew up). A really cool place, and went to a lake called "trollsvann" which means trolls water in english by the way. We hiked to a spot to eat lunch (not on trollsvann because there were so many people), but after lunch we went down to the lake and me and my little host brother took a bit of a swim. The water was pretty cold but wasn't as bad as I thought from such a small lake. After dinner and everything my host sister, host dad and I went to see a movie called Varg Veum (is that spelled right?), it was a pretty sweet movie, although it was a little hard to follow because of the Norwegian but I actually was able to follow most of it, except for a few complicated parts with more words and less action.

Back to school again, although it was actually kind of sweet because my schedule moved around a little since I made the switch in math. So now I have a free period in between Norwegian and physics on Mondays!!! It was actually really nice to just have a period to relax in between classes. Stopped by the post office and picked up a package from home (its really hard to bike with a backpack on and a box in your lap by the way), complete with some candy, maple syrup, and a few things I forgot to bring. After opening the box my host brother, host sister and I played a game (sorry I can't remember the name right now), but lots of fun. Had dinner, farmor came over for cake and kaffe. Later still my host sister left, it was a lot of fun to get and meet her and I can't wait to head out to Bergen in just under 2 weeks!!! (I know your reading so....see you in a couple weeks :D )

Oh look another day of school, although I am starting to get into the swing of things, but I never liked getting up so early (even back home). Thats why I oved my college classes so much last year, and not having to be at the school till like 10. Anyway, started off the day with Norwegian (for the exchange students), and went to my other classes, including gym (we got to throw javelin and discus, along with a little running), biology, and my sports class (orientering, it was a lot of fun, and quite a bit of just tromping through the woods). Came home, dinner was a very Norwegian meal (I'm told), wasn't bad, a little different taste though, went to cheer my host brother on in the run with the ski team and then biked into town and ran some errands. I went to bed earlier than usual (it was so nice just getting that little bit of extra sleep).

Last but not least today. It was my first day in the harder math (no more falling asleep!!), this math will be so much better, I will actually be learning some new stuff! I'm excited if you couldn't tell. I have also come to like having a break in between classes instead of ust going from one to the next, it gives my brain some time to recover. (plus I didn't have any classes till 9:30 :D ). Thats about all I have to say for now.

Sorry if I bore you with some of the details, I just can't seem to write in any other way, but I hope you enjoyed reading. Until next time!
Jon

One more week

Again it doesn`t seem like much has happened since I posted last week, but I can tell you that it sure doesn`t feel like a week since I posted.

Last week today I went to this kind of youth group with a couple friends who are leaders, and we played a form of Norwegian baseball (at least thats what they told me it was). Had a lot of fun playing, not many people were there though because it is so early into the school year that they haven`t heavily started to recruit people yet. Regardless it was fun.

Nothing really happened Thursday, went for a nice hour and a half rollerski with my host dad and some others. Friday was nuts, I had my sports class allday for fag dag. In the morning we played floor hockey, the first økt (two time periods) was more on technique and the next økt was all playing (people get really serious) but it was loads of fun. After a nutty trip to the local meny we had an økt of theory followed by a 6 kilometer run and called it a day. Needless to say I was tired, I got home took a nap hung out with the family for the rest of the night and went to sleep.

9-11, it seems hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years since it happened. I was 9 years old and I don`t remember much about that day but what I do remember I wish I could forget. Normally I wouldn`t make a post like this but for many days there has been stuff on the news about the mosque being built near the memorial, and it got me thinking, so yeah. Moving on, my host dad, host brother and I went into town (after a nice late start to the day, 10 O`clock WOOHOO) and wondered around, went to a couple of sport stores, wondered around the shopping center (pretty much a mall, minus a huge food court, and not so big) and just wondered. It was nice not having any plans and just wondering around. I did get to try real Norwegian softis, BEST soft ice cream EVER! (just the amazing chocolate and ice would be enough of an incentive to move :) For dinner we went to one of my host dads best friends house for dinner with some other friends of theirs as well. It was a lot of fun, got to meet two more people that had come to the US as exchange students in the past, and my host dads friend and his family have also hosted two exchange students. So I had some really sweet conversations (as I attempted some in Norwegian, not all of it was that great).

Next we have Sunday, we went to church for the first time, it was definitely different than I am used to, but it wasn`t all bad I don`t think, I got to see what it was like after all. Then my host parents, my host fathers mother and I went to the Tønsberg Fortress (Tønsberg Slottsfjellet), it was really cool. It`s on one of the highest points in the area and you can see for miles, it is so cool. You can still see the ruins of the walls, buildings, the church and everything. The tower was rebuilt in the late 1800`s and so we went up to the top and looked around (guess what I got even more pictures). One of these days I really need to sort through them and post them on here and facebook. We had a small snack after walking through the folk museum down the hill. It was a really interesting place, and I will definitely be going back to look around more.

Back to school again. I am getting so bored in math and physics, math is a piece of cake, and physics isn`t much better. Once I get the problems translated it takes me so little time to finish the problems, and for the rest of the class I just sit there being bored. That was my vent time for Monday, ready for Tuesdays slot? It wasn`t to bad, I started out with the Norwegian class for the exchange student, thankfully it is getting harder and I am actually starting to learn quite a bit more, next we move on to gym, we played soccer for a while then we did some 100 meter sprints so it was actually quite a bit of fun. After lunch came the tough part, Biology. I am starting to understand more but when we have a lab or activity I am pretty darn useless, I give my opinion on things and the two other people I work with do all the writing, and I attempt to read the assignment and do some translating, but it is very slow going. Thankfully next I had my sports class, so I just got to run! We did what they call Orienteering, this time we did the easy version, you get a map with a spot somewhere on it where you either have to grab or drop a little strip of plastic, when you do either of those you go back to the start and grab a different map. Me and my partner started out walking, but the first one we had was reall close so we were the first ones back. After that we started running, everything was fairly close so we didn`t have to go overally far, but next time we will have to go much further and the tasks will be more difficult. Anyway it was a lot of fun but ended up being almost an hour of running I think. Overall it was an okay day.

Look at that, I am already to today. Not really anything fun has happened so far, had another boring morning of math and physics (although I do love getting done so early). Hopefully I will get to do something tonight that will change things around.

Håp du liker lesing! I will try to get some bilde (photos) up soon, but this weekend is looking to be pretty busy so we`ll see.
Ha det!
Jon

Time sure flys...

...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

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

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

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

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.