Utvekslingsår i Norge: Host Family, Tosterud

I recently took a trip to Bergen with Hjørdis and Egil. There we went around the city sight seeing. We were really lucky because we had perfect weather, and in Bergen there is no predicting the weather. We had two days of solid sun. We took a hike up to Floibanen, which is a lookout point where tourists can get a chance to view the city of Bergen and the fjord it is surrounded by. It was beautiful to see. We also went to the city’s fish market where I tried a lot of fish tasters, and I’m not sure what most of things that I ate were, but it was fun. Bergen is Norway’s second largest city, following Oslo. There are around 270,000 people that live there on the west coast, and all throughout Norway, there are many different dialects. On the west coast they don’t roll their R’s but instead they pronounce it in the back of their throat with a harsher sound. It is often that people from the East, and the Oslo area have trouble understanding what the people from the west are saying.

At the top of Floibanen

After Bergen we drove to Førde, which is where Egil and Hjørdis’ son lives. It is a little more North of Bergen, but it is still a part of western Norway. There in Førde I at Raspeboller for the first time, which is a typical West coast food. It is kind of like a compact sweet potato, normally eaten with honey. It had an unusual test, not a favorite food for me.

On our drive back home we took a different route where I experienced driving through Norway’s longest tunnel, 24.5 km.

A week ago I switched to my second host family, the Tosterud Family. They are a really fun and sporty family. There are four kids living at home now, and the oldest, Amanda, is studying in Bergen. There is definitely never a dull moment in this household. Håvard, is the youngest and he is 8 years old. Then there is Johanne, 13, Sine, 15, Mathilde, 18, and Amanda 21. Mathilde and I go to the same school and she was an exchange student last year in the US, in South Dakota. We are getting to be really close friends. The parents are Kristin and Kjartan. Kjartan is the omsorgsjef for the local hospital, meaning that he runs the care center. They are a really outgoing family. They live in Lena, in the same city where I go to school. Now I can walk to school (which takes 15 minutes) whereas before I had to take a bus from Kolbu to school, which took about 45 minutes.

I am still doing Tennis up in Gjøvik and I recently joined a track club out in Raufoss. It is really convenient because the bus station is a five-minute walk from the house so I can take it whenever I need to go to practice or to go see a movie with friends, which is perfect for me.

Here in Norway things are getting really festive now that it is December. In every city there are Christmas lights and they are beginning to show up on people’s homes too. Unfortunately, the snow still hasn’t come, and the weather lately has been fairly warm for Norway about1-5 degrees Celsius. I am hoping the snow comes really soon though! It is really weird because in the mornings I go to school and it is pitch black outside and the sun doesn’t rise until about 9:30 and then when I leave school it is already dark again. The daylight hours are slowly dwindling away.