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.

My new room

The new house

My host mom Kristin at the christmas festival

Everyone getting ready for the christmas festival in downtown Lena

18 år

Beware: there are most likely mistakes in this text. After being in Norway and going to Norwegian school for three months my english spelling and speaking abilities are beginning to slip away. I have had several instances where I can only think of a word in Norwegian and not english, which i think is really funny. But anyways...

A legal citizen. I just had my 18^th birthday on October 25^th.  We had a little party with my friends and some Rotarians, which was a lot of fun.  We had a dinner with everyone and afterwards there was lots of cake and coffee. My host mom made a cake called, Verdens Beste, which translates to World’s Best, and I agree 100 % with that title. It is a three-layer cake. The top and bottom layer are a doughy yellow cake mix, topped with almonds and meringues. In between those two layers is a thick layer of a heavy vanilla cream. Oh it is one delicious cake, definitely the world’s best.

Verdens Beste :)

Now into November, our daylight hours are getting less and less. Now at about 4:00 in the afternoon it is pitch-black outside. This makes the nights feel extra long. Snow hasn’t hit us yet, but any day now it should come. The roads have been really icy this past week and the temperature has been nothing but negative numbers. I often come to school looking like the Michelin man. I wear two pairs of pants, on a daily basis, and I cannot leave the house without my puffy jacket and gloves. It is a complete different way of living but sure enough I have gotten use to the cold. I am really looking forward to the snow and I cannot wait to try out cross-country skiing.

Since it is so cold here, one would think that Norwegians would forget about style and just wear whatever they could to stay warm, but that is definitely not the case. They have so much style. This goes not just for women but the men also. The men all wear scarves and peacoats, which is rarely seen in the US. Teenage guys also like to style their hair with lots of gel, giving it that crazy look. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys spend more time doing their hair than the girls. Wool ponchos, scarves, pea coats, and high-top converse are all really popular items of clothing, almost a must have. It is also really common for girls to wear their hair in braids—in many different braided styles. White is a typical Scandinavian color, I can promise that everyone here has at least a few white shirts or outfits, if not several.

Our class recently took a field trip the Lillehamar University, which is about forty-five minutes away.  It was interesting to see how the college was set up. Overall college here is very similar to college in the US. A main difference is that most students usually live at home when they attend college. They do not have a dorm system like the colleges in the US have for freshman. Also in Norway they abide by the idea that all education should be free for everyone. Students here only have to pay for their books and their living space—apartment rent.

The film and music building

Sousan, Oda Mathilde, and me

Culture in Norway:

Here the Norwegian people are very proud of their country and they can often come off as shy and reserved. They do not like making mistakes so it can take them awhile to let new people in.  A lot of my friends are Norwegian but my best friend here is Sousan Houlacoui. Her mother is from Russia and her father from Iran. She has lived here for seven years now.  She can speak Russian, Farsi, Norwegian, and English—all fluently. It has been a constant struggle for her family to gain Norwegian citizenship and they are still in the process.  One year ago they finally got the permission to move into a house, for years the four of them lived in a tiny apartment.  In living here I have learned a lot about not only Norwegian culture but the culture of those from the Middle East. In my school and all the schools throughout Norway, there are numbers of students who have come to Norway in hopes of an easier life and to gain citizenship. They come from places such as Iran, The Congo, Lebanon, Albania, and so on. People immigrate to Norway because it is one of the nicest countries but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is easy to become a citizen here—it is actually rather difficult. One of the boy’s in my class was recently sent back to Albania after living in Norway for two years. It is hard to believe what so many of these families have to go through and they only come to Norway in hopes of a better life. These families spend a few years here, they make friends and close connections, they have jobs, and then suddenly they are forced to leave. My friend Sousan, and her family, have really fought to stay here, but still there are years to come before they will be citizens. In the process of getting citizenship their family has to follow specific rules and if they disobey they will be sent back. They have to stay in Norway until they are citizens—they cannot travel outside of the country. Sousan’s family has been much more lucky then most immigrant families. Her father works as a doctor, and that automatically gives one a high social status. All in all being a foreigner in Norway can be tough. It is a long process to become a citizen and sometimes it takes a year just to get a response from the immigration office.

Oslo:

In Oslo there is a huge difference between the East and the West parts of the city due to the mass amounts of immigrants. The western region is known as the higher class, rich area. It is in the west where there are all of Oslo’s tourist attractions. This includes Frogner Parken, Carl Johan’s Gata, Holmenkollen, Akershus, the Opera, and so on. The East is known more or less as the Ghetto. In the East there is a lot more diverse culture and that is because a lot of foreigners live in this area.  East Oslo has it’s own little twist on the Norwegian language which they call kebabnorsk.  It could also been considered as slang to the younger generation. People at my school often speak this slang as a joke, and it is fun to use.

The Farmers market in downtown Hamar:

Goat cheese tasters. Norwegians love goat cheese, it took me awhile to get use to but now i love it too.

Juliana, me, and Iben

Stumbled upon our new car...

Let's Talk Food

Hei  hei!  Ok it’s time for some Norwegian culture.  Here the specialty foods are saved for the weekend. Typically during the week I will eat Müsli for breakfast (an oats, raisins, corn flakes type cereal— with yogurt) for lunch I will bring a brød skive to school (an open face sandwich with salami, cheese or something of the sort) and dinner varies from fish to kjøttkaker (directly translated to meat cakes) or pasta, and potatoes are always served as a side. There are other typical dinners such as thin pancakes, eaten with jam, and tomato soup on the side. I have been told that during Christmas each meal is really special, and it is the time of year where everyone eats way too much. During the weekdays Norwegians seldom have dessert. They will maybe have a bowl of chocolate out in the house but nothing more. It isn’t until the weekend that ice cream, waffles, bøller, cake, risgrøt, or some type of dessert is served following dinner. And let me say the Norwegians know how to make their dessert. Risgrøt is rice cooked with milk and cream, often served with fruit flavored syrup or cinnamon and sugar, a definite new favorite dessert for me. Breakfast on the weekends is always a huge assortment of just about everything.  There will be a variety of different types of bread, all very delicious. There will be butter, patte, cheese, jam, honey, cucumbers, tomatoes, and other toppings to go with the bread. In addition to that there will be Müsli and also hardboiled eggs. Breakfast on the weekends is always something to enjoy. Since the breakfast is so big and usually eaten around nine or ten in the morning, the next meal won’t be until three or four and they call that middag, which is dinner. It is an early dinner but Norwegians believe that no one should go to bed on a full stomach so if you do get hungry again later in the night, one might eat a slice of bread just to satisfy the stomach. Since I have been here I would have to say Norwegian bread is by far the best there is.  Before I thought bread was just plain and boring, that all changed once I entered this magical land.  The bread here is always fresh and not presliced. A lot of families make their own bread too, which is so good.  Bread is a huge part of Norwegian culture. It can sometimes be eaten with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They also have knekkebrød, hard bread, which is a typical side with dinner or lunch.

Norwegian Breakfast

Müsli

Risgrøt

Waffles served with jam and sour cream

Knekkebrød with Brunost (a sweet creamy cheese that all Norwegians love)

Bøller, sweet buns sometimes with chocolate (eaten about as often as cookies in the US)

A very typical dinner of fish, potatoes with sauce, and greens

The Norwegians are all really healthy and outdoorsy people. Recently I went backpacking with my sports class. Every student was honestly professional at backpacking. They had the perfect gear, for cooking, the snow, and sleeping. And they all enjoyed being out in the 3 degree Celsius, snowy weather, which was really fun to see. Even those girls who you wouldn’t assume to be interested in backpacking, those who normally come to school more fancily dressed, were true backpackers. Every child grows up surrounded by the backpacking skiing culture and ultimately they all know how to really survive in the great outdoors, which has been really fun for me to experience. We traveled about forty minutes from where I go to school to a place called Totenåsen. It’s a big-forested area with a lot of hiking trails. It was already ice and snow covered, and while we were there it began snowing a little. In winter it is a common place for cross-country skiing. Deep into the forest there are a few cabins, which housed some of Norway’s military during WWII. They are these tiny cabins, about the size of a dorm room, which held anywhere from 10-20 people. They were however successful in keeping away from the Germans because they were never found during the war.

Backpacking in Totenåsen

Recent Events:

Rotary District Conference for Norway districts Hedmark and Oppland

Haddeland Bakery- very delicious

Sanner Hotel, where we stayed for the District Conference

The sister churches beside our hotel

International Week

After the language camp I had an additional week off for fall break. During the break I hung out with friends and began preparing for the cold winter weather by buying warm clothes. I took a little road trip out to Hamar with my friends Melissa and Marte. Hamar is a city of about 30,000 people and it is located on the opposite side of Lake Mjøsa. The weather has been very cold lately. It has been around 25 degrees Fahrenheit on a daily basis so we are preparing ourselves for an early winter.

I also visited the Alf Prøysen museum with my host parents. It is located in Rudshøgda, Norway where Prøysen lived. The museum is located about a kilometer from the house that Prøysen himself grew up in. Alf Prøysen is Norway’s most famous children’s author. He wrote songs and short stories about everyday life in rural Norway.

I saw my first moose the other day while I was with my host dad at his Health club meeting and I managed to snap a picture of it. I stood about 50 meters from it!

This week at school we have been having a lot of presentations on the current conditions in Rwanda and what it is that we can do to help. It is our international week so we have also been celebrating and recognizing all the different ethnicities of the school. A lot of families throughout Middle Eastern Europe have moved to Norway in hopes of a better life for their children. In being the only exchange student here I was asked to present about where I come from. I gave my first Norwegian presentation to the school on the differences between American and Norwegian high schools in addition to talking about exchange programs. It was a little difficult but it was a lot of fun telling the students about school spirit and all the events that are a part of American high school. On next Thursday everyone at the school is taking part in a project called “Operasjon Dagsverk.” All the students and staff are required to go out in the community and raise 400 Norwegian kroner, which is the equivalence of around 80 US dollars. My friends and I are planning to run a booth where we will be making and selling waffles, a very popular food here. The money we raise will all be sent to Rwanda to help get a better education for the kids and teachers.

Here I am giving the school a presentation on american schools and excahnge programs.

Here we are making african food to celebrate international week. We made cous cous salad with chicken, and it was tasty!