Settling In...

Settling In…

I am about two weeks into my stay and I am beginning to get the hang of things.

I attended my first Østre Toten rotary meeting last Monday. I gave a little spiel on what Northern California is all about and I talked about my hobbies and interests, all in Norwegian.  The club is much smaller to the one in Eureka, holding about twenty-five active members.

Here I am with the Rotary club president

On the 22^nd of August I began my first day of Norwegian High School. At the Lena Videregående Skole I am taking: anthropology, Spanish, Norwegian, religion, sports, English, History, and Norwegian government. There are around 600 students that attend the school, their ages ranging from 16-19. It would be equivalent to the 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th years of US high school with an additional 13^th year. The style of learning and teaching at the school relates much more to the style of college than highschool. Each day I have different classes and I begin and end my school day at different times. Somedays I may begin and 8, others 9 or 10. I can end the school day anywhere between 1:30 and 3:00. I am the only exchange student attending the school so I am adapting right into the Norwegian teenager lifestyle. On the first day of school we held a ceremony for one of the students who was lost to the Utøya shootings. Two students who survived lit candles for the girl and all staff and students took a minute of silence in remembrance. The school has taken many precautions on behavior and they have provided students with the opportunity to speak out their feelings on the horrible incident.

The main school entrance

The school library

Kolbu’s beautiful country side

A closeby pond

Toten’s nearby city, Gjøvik

  

Fun Fact #2: In Norway they have these little houses called, Potetbua. Inside they sell eggs, potatoes, wheat, and mainly dairy products.  They can be found downtown or beside peoples farms. They use a self-service method. They are always left unattended so honesty plays a big role in paying for the items. One picks up what they need, and they pay the prices posted. The potetbua shows the great deal of trust that Norway has for its people.

Potetbua in downtown Lena

One outside of Kolbu

First days i Norway

I have made it to the beautiful Norway. I live in Toten which is a small district about an hour and a half north from Oslo. Toten consists of about 17,000 people with many small cities within the area. Many families here live on farms or they maintain  big gardens where they produce a majority of their food. The first few days I stayed with my counselor Tor and his wife Eli. They live in Skreia, about a ten minute drive from my school.  They live in a yellow house  with a nice garden. The two of them were very welcoming and kind to me in my first days. They helped me to file all my paperwork for my visa and set up a bank account  in Lena.  They showed me the closest big city, Gjøvik, a twenty-five minute drive with about 30,000 people. On Sunday the 14^th of August I switched over to staying with my first host family Egil and Hjørdis Berglund. 






                                                 Tor and Eli's house in Skreia

                                              Egil and Hjørdis's farm in Kolbu

And their house

I have learned a lot more about  the shootings and bombing recently in Oslo. It has been three weeks since the shootings happened on the island Utøya. Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s prime minister, has received high praise for the actions he has taken since the tragedy. His popularity has risen a significant amount. He did a wonderful job on mourning the deaths of the incident. All throughout Oslo there are flowers and flags emphasizing the horrible event, and it has brought the Norwegian people much closer together. Now however after some time has set families and witnesses to the event have brought up critical questions on why the police were so slow on making it to the island and why the police took the harbour route instead of the most direct one, currently the police aren’t too well liked by the Norwegian public. It is a very interesting time, for me as an American Exchange student, to observe and be living in the country. 

**Norwegian fun fact

The older generation of Norwegians, those around sixty years of age, find relaxation when they leave the house. For example, they like to bring a canteen of hot tea or coffee to the forest and just sit and relax in the nature, whereas here in America people seem to find relaxation at home and leaving the house can sometimes cause more stress.