Lost in Larvik?

After my mom and grandma left, I was absolutely exhausted, but luckily we had a break from school that week, so I had time to relax and reflect.  I mainly lounged around, did laundry, and somehow managed to accomplish NO schoolwork...somehow.  Friday (October 8th) Anette and I invited Susanne over for dinner.  We made a Chinese Wok, which turned out really yummy, and had ice cream for dessert!  Anette and I are still working on our rice making skills though, but we'll get there ;)

On Saturday, we decided that we wanted to get out of Oslo.  Filip was once again our tour guide, and our floormate Henny joined us on our bus trip.  We rode for about 2 hours, to Tønsberg, which is south of Oslo.  It is a very old city with lots of character.  We walked along the sea and saw LOTS of jellyfish :) ...got some postcards, which took Anette FOREVER to choose, saw old homes, and what is left of a castle there from the year 871.  It was a really beautiful and relaxing city.  I had my first McDonald's so far in Norway, and we ate by the water...only to get realllly uncomfortable when  the seagulls started to swarm!  Anette tried to make healthy choices, but totally crumbled when she saw our yummy burgers and fries, so she ended up going BACK to McDonald's...hilarious!  


When we decided we weren't quite ready to head back to Oslo, that the day was beautiful, and that we were only "30 minutes" from Filip's hometown, we decided to catch another bus to Larvik.  Wellll...we got the bus that went through the countryside, and not on the highway, so it ended up being a 2 hour bus ride.  Quite disappointing, haha, but it was an adventure!!  We made it worth it.  We saw a few sights, breathed in the fresh air, and ended up at a delicious Chinese restaurant.  So good to eat some REAL FOOD because more often than not at home I don't make myself a real meal...  Then we had to find our way back to Oslo.  After asking a few people and finding a bus schedule, we realized that the last bus had left over 2 hours earlier, whoops!  So we bought more expensive train tickets that left pretty late at night and headed to a gas station to entertain ourselves for a bit. 

Then we had to stay awake the whole train ride home so we wouldn't miss our stop, even though we were all exhausted after our long day outside.  Luckily we had Henny's I-Pod and had a dance party, even one of the workers on the train joined in a bit, and she was really nice to us every time she came by.  When we finally got back, after 11 pm, Sebastien was so nice to come pick us all up and bring us back to the school.  


It was a fun day, being spontaneous every now and then is interesting! 
                           

Ekkstra Specialll

So since it's been almost a week since Mom and Grandma left, and I'm trying to remember everything, and it's late at night and I'm absolutely loopy...this is a mini-blog about all the little things I forgot!  Friday (the day after Mom and Gma arrived) we decided to make dinner together at my "dorm".  I figured before all of the sightseeing got us tired out we would make our own dinner.  We made tacos!  And Grandma says "I've never had a taco."  Like, WHAT?!  She said that Grandpa doesn't like tacos so they've never eaten them.  Crazy talk!  And she enjoyed them too :) 

After cleaning up and doing the dishes, I invited Aleks over to meet them.  I had been telling the boys that my Mom and Gma love to joke and will give them crap right back if anyone gets smart with them.  I think they thought I was joking...until we had the most fun night EVER!  Aleks was a little scared to meet them, but warmed up right away, and eventually Espen joined us in my room.  It was one of the most fun times I've had in Oslo so far.   They all got along so well, and there was a roar of laughter coming from my room until past midnight!  That's when we realized we HAD to get them back to the hotel.  Luckily we caught the last subway, but that left Aleks and I to walk all the way back across the city...at 2 in the morning on a Friday, completely sober.  We had quite the adventure and ended up getting to bed at around 3:30 am.  Now at least we can say that we did it!

Also, I talked about the restaurant right by their hotel.  We ate there four times.  We had pasta, pizza, kabobs, appetizers...and EVERYTHING was delicious, and CHEAP!  The same guy was working there every night and he was so nice to us!  The last night we went, Mom brought the camera and we took a picture with him.  How nerdy are we?  The kid who took it was laughing at us...but the worker just put his arms out and was all ready for the picture!  He said he wanted to move back the the US (he had visited New York) but needed to tie up some work things before he did.  He was a really nice guy and I will definitely be bringing them more business!

I think that MIGHT sum up their visit.  It was absolutely amazing to have my family visit me in Norway.  This trip is one thing that none of us will ever forget.  I am SO lucky to have had visitors here.  The airport was hard, Mom said it was harder to leave Norway then when I left Minnesota :(  But I'm only growing and this is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I'm trying to take it all in!  Mom...."I'm a big girl now." and I'll be home in 2 months! 

Open "Late".

There were a few places that WERE open after 4pm, and after missing Akershus Castle the first day of Oslo Pass sight-seeing, we made sure to see it on Sunday.  Akershus is an old fortress right on the water, and it is also and old castle.  Some events are still held in the HUGE rooms there, and it is open to the public to walk through.  There were dining rooms, living rooms, the dungeon, the chapel, and others.  Everything was really beautiful, most rooms had huge tapestries hanging on the walls, lots of old chairs, and beautiful artwork.  I think I've figured out that Norwegians like to carve wood (?), because every little inch (even in the ceiling) is carved.   Also a little eerie is that the sarcophaguses of the older members of the royal family are in the castle and you can look at them. 

After the castle we went back out into the pouring rain and walked the small jaunt to City Hall.  I haven't been inside yet, and I am glad we went...it was beautiful!  You walk in and BAM there is a huge open room and 2 enormous frescoes on either end.  The floor, ceiling, staircase, walls...all breathtaking.  The artwork in this place is like nothing I have ever seen.  Each room we entered was a whole new experience.  All I could think about was our little Litchfield City Hall, which is basically a prefabricated shed :(  City Hall is where they present the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as hold court hearings and other "fun" stuff.  There are even huge sculpture/carvings on the outside walls as you walk into the building.  

I think Sunday was the night we had kebab for dinner.  Mom and I took Gma's credit card to get food and bring it back to the hotel to eat.  We took the tram one stop and walked about a block to the place.  I had English word vomit and COULD NOT order the damn food, even though I've been there before...super embarrassing!  When I realized we didn't bring our transit passes, I said we should walk home.  To our surprise, we were literally like one block from the hotel...WOW, blonde moment!  We laughed pretty hard!  

Monday we had a "Boy's Date" with Espen and Filip (Aleks had to work, boo!) and went to the LazyBoyz Harley Dealership and the Opera House.  It was a long bus ride to the Harley shop, and we passed the Hell's Angels clubhouse on the way.  We had a fun time looking at bikes there, Espen wants a chopper, but first he's gotta learn to ride when they come visit me in the states!  Mom got pins for some FOA members and after looking at some more used bikes in the back, we headed back to the city center.  The bus was kinda of full, so Espen and I went wayyy to the back (expecting Filip to follow), but Filip ended up with Mom and Gma...so cute!


We checked out the Opera House and walked all the way to the top.  Mom and Grandma really liked it.  We were chatting away on the top for about 20-30 minutes when all of the sudden Espen goes "Where's Grandma?"...FUNNIEST thing ever!  She had walked all the way down, and inside, to get water to take her medication and Espen was the first one to notice, haha!  

We followed her in and the boys said goodbye to go work out.  We had a small snack, picked up some souvenirs, and headed home.  The next day Mom was whining to go out of town and see Holmenkollen.  Lucky for us...it was under construction!!  I swear, construction never leaves me alone, even in Norway, it's insane!  So we didn't get to walk up to the ski jump, we could only look at it from outside a fence.  But Mom still got to see it!  

We polished off Tuesday by doing some shopping downtown in OsloCity, a big mall.  Grandma came away with some clothes, and I almost splurged on  some bad ass boots, but I couldn't do it!  Luckily since Mom had brought me so much FOOD, they had room in their suitcases for all the gifts that Grandma had bought while being here :)  

3 Generations Take on Oslo

For the weekend we purchased the 2 day Oslo Pass for each of us.  It gets you free transportation on anything and admission to most museums!  We started our day at the Ibsen Museum, Henrik Ibsen is a famous Norwegian playwright and director, one you may know is Peer Gynt.  We got to tour his old apartment and a small museum full of memorabilia.  We spent a lot of time there and actually enjoyed it a lot.  The bathrooms there blew my mind.  Hands down coolest bathroom I've EVER been in!  I'm weird...I know ;)

Then we headed to the other side of town to see the Folk Museum.  This was more of an outdoor museum, looking at old buildings, with some small exhibits.  During the summer time they have people dressed up and do plays, craftsmanship, etc, I would compare it to something like the Forest City Stockade, but bigger and with more history.  It was a lot of walking for Grandma, but the buildings were so old, it was really neat.  We were able to try some freshly made lefse from a fire...it was AMAZING!  With just melted butter, no sugar needed...yummm!  There were some live animals in the barn, it reminded me of home...  It was a really neat place, and we all enjoyed being outside and seeing what old Norway would have looked like. 

We then found out that basically everything closes at 4pm...on the weekends, like WTF?  We did get a chance to visit the Nobel Peace Prize center though, which Mom really liked.  Lots of stuff about Obama, obviously since he is the current winner, pretty strange feeling.  I think we may have eaten at TGIFriday's that night...  Pretty crazy how even a chain restaurant can be SO expensive in Norway. 

Already at this point the late nights and early mornings were making me tired!  School is so inconsistent here it's literally impossible for my body to get on any sort of schedule.  Mom and Grandma were going okay with their time change, though some nights they said they were waking up at 4am.  Joyyy.

Sunday we decided to get up EARLIER so that we could hit up more museums before 4pm!  We started out at the Viking ship museum.   There are 3 huge Viking ships that have been excavated along with lots of old objects.  Pretty amazing stuff.  Then we took another bus closer to the water and hit up 3 museums!  The Kon-Tiki mainly focused on the travels of Thor Heyerdahl and everything he accomplished over his life.  He basically was a badass who was out to prove everyone wrong about adventuring.

Next we went to the Fram museum, a huge ship that is the only one to have made it to both the North and South Poles.  This thing was HUGE and you can walk all over it and inside.  There was a little bridge to walk onto the top, and Mom hates heights, HILARIOUS, I trapped her on it when we were walking off, she's a wuss!  Grandma hung out on top while Mom and I went 3 levels down in the ship, they had little exhibits in each of the rooms.  I will admit, history can sometimes be interesting...

After that we went to the Maritime museum, which wasn't really that interesting, lots of paintings of boats, old boat parts, etc.  But we did have a good snack, and had some Apple Cake..soooo good!  Oh...and it rained this whole day.  Whoo.  So then we went and waited for the ferry and took that back to the harbor.  Figured we would try a new method of transportation while we could.  Being on the water just feels so nice!

I've Made it To October..Already?

Rewinddd 2 weeks back, when it was still September, and before my family was here...and THEN I'll get to the fun stuff!  2 weeks ago we had major "house" (our floor in the "dorm") drama.  People are so messy and never clean up after themselves, it is absolutely ridiculous considering I'm like the youngest person living here.  We scheduled a meeting to write up some rules, and then someone ratted to the housing office and cancelled the meeting. Soo...I made other plans, and went to have pizza and go bowling with some people from school.  Good choice, we had such a fun time.  It was 10 of us, and by the end of the night, of course, it ended up being Aleks, Espen, Filip, and me...like always!  It was a really fun time, I love bowling, even though I usually suck..but I did beat Espen once! 

Also that week, Kristina, Anette, and myself managed to put together our group presentation for my "Individuals and Families" class.  We presented the reading material to the class, and were the last group to go.  This means that all I have left to do in that class is a role play where I am the social worker...no papers, no exams...BAM!..just done with K14.  Like I said, the classes are really different at this school, and my teachers are more like observers.  Interesting way to learn, but awesome for my senior year!

After another long day of role plays (8:45-2:00) and sharing a brain with Aleks (we always have the same things to say in class) I came home and prepared to head to the hotel because my MOM AND GRANDMA were in NORWAY!!  When I got to the hotel, I didn't know if they would give me their room number, so I awkwardly asked, and they made a call up to their room saying they had a visitor and that I was on my way up.  When I got out of the elevator on the 12th floor, I could here my mom in hallway, and I said "It's me!" and she came running down the hallway crying.  Pretty amazing feeling to have a hug mean SO MUCH!  We walked back to the room and Grandma was waiting with more hugs and kisses.  We were all together...in Norway...what a crazy feeling!

We caught up gossiping about home all night.  Then on Friday, we wasted no time and fought off their jet-lag by heading out to do some sight-seeing right away.  The weather was sunny (unlike every other day they were here)!  Mom has never really ridden public transportation (neither had I before I came here) so that was all quite an adventure.  We went to Aker Brygge, Vigeland's Park and the Royal Palace.  It was great to be outside!  There was a food festival going on at the harbor, so we got some free samples and saw lots of good food!  Grandma of course had a good time at the park (the one will all of the naked sculptures) and they were just generally amused at the city.

That night we had dinner at a restaurant right by the hotel, it was actually REALLY GOOD food and it was pretty cheap for Oslo.  Over the week I got really good at figuring out transportation and got friendly with the online travel schedules, yay for me...after 6 weeks!

Oslo Culture!

My Weekend = Super Lame.  But only because I was out both Thursday and Friday evenings in the RAIN!  Thursday we had choir again...LOVE IT!  We now have learned 2 gospel songs, and it feels so good to belt music again!!  Thursday night Matthias and I went with Silje and Kristin from class to the "River Walk".  You walk all across the city along the river and they had little shows and exhibitions along the way.  We met up with some other girls I knew from school and it was a pretty good time.  It took us a while to get out of the huge crowds, but after a while it was fun.  The first place was a really neat band.  It sounded somewhat like "Indian" music, and they said it was Sami music from northern Norway.  Very relaxing and interesting. 

There were candles along the whole path (Norwegians loooove candles).  Sometimes they would be in the river, or they would have colored spotlights on little waterfalls in the river.  They had lights in the trees, it was all really beautiful.  There were a few little food stands, some dancing groups, old Norwegian music groups, and one place had some fire people.  They were burning themselves, blowing fire, laying on nails...etc.  Eventually it started raining pretty hard and we started walking faster :)  The last show was a really cool reggae-ish band, I wanted to stay longer, but we were all eager to be DRY!  We made it home after a long, wet, and hot tram ride.

Friday brought an EARLY class...I will never get used to going to class at 8:45.  Nice thing about Concordia: you can choose to NEVER have class before 10:30...which I took full advantage of.  But supposing that I will be going to a 9 to 5 full-time internship when I get back to the states, maybe it's good practice?  Anyyywho, Friday in class Susanne told me about Oslo Culture Night, where there are different events going on all over the city.  Of course I couldn't turn down that invite.  So we met up at 5 pm and headed to try some "world food".  It ended up being at the Youth For Understanding (YFU, high school international exchange program) office and we were pretty much the only ones not involved with YFU that went.  But we had some good food and headed off to another event. 

I don't remember the exact order of things, but we saw some interesting things.  OH!  And all of my shoes here in Norway have holes in them, so my feet were COMPLETELY soaked before we even started doing anything.  That led to cold feet all night :(  Susanne and Elisabeth are amazing map readers and managed to get us to most of the places we wanted to go.  We saw some kids doing circus tricks, sat in the rain and watched a jazz band play (whose lead singer/trumpet player had the least charisma I've ever seen from a front man), did a lot of walking... 

We went to the Black Box Theater expecting one thing, and got a COMPLETELY different thing.  It was a play about this woman's time spent in a Tibetan Monastery.  It was just her...dancing and doing yoga-like moves.  It had some music and video along with it...but let's just say it's good we had open minds because WOW it was one of the weirdest performances I've ever seen in my life!!  We finally got some hot cocoa at a cafe...Susanne had been whining about it all night, haha.  It was reallllly chocolatey and good, and it SHOULD BE for almost 7 dollars!  After that we walked to the Oslo Freemasons Temple.  This was about 11pm...and I'm so glad we went...it was AMAZING.  Absolutely gorgeous.  This place was huge, the artwork and furniture were so old and just neat.  The Freemasons are something that Mike and I have always been interested in.  The secrets, symbolism, and history just blow my mind.  Being in a Greek society, I know the feeling, but the fact that so many important people are/have been members is interesting.  We asked lots of questions, many of course, they couldn't answer. By the time we left, we had sort of a creepy feeling inside ourselves.  Pretty neat experience. 

The rest of the weekend...I just relaxed.  I'm such a homebody anyways, it was fine to just chill in my room.  It was rainy and cold, and after being outside for two whole nights, I just wanted to stay in and be dry and warm.  I also got a package from Mike last week...pictures, Peanut Butter M&M's, oatmeal, Raisinets, awesomeness!!  Today I got letters from my Auntie Patty and my LDS sisters, so amazing :)  Totally made my day!  I am still always missing home a lot!  I talked with Cory a lot yesterday, he is in Afghanistan :( ...he said that "even when I get deployed, you still try to follow me".  Haha, I guess that's what best friends do!  I miss him tons...this is us in SUFU in 2009.

Safe.

Sjoa was what I needed to feel safe here in Norway.  I made some amazing friends and now I feel much more comfortable at school and in Oslo.  We did hear when we got back that Anette's grandmother passed away.  That has been really hard for her, obviously.  Monday we visited Plan Norge, the agency that we will be doing project work with for one of my classes here.  This project is helping me to get closer with the 3rd year students here, because right now I feel much more comfortable with my 2nd grade class. 

We had a slow week until Thursday when we had early breakfast, class, and Anette's parents and sister arrived here.  They already had tickets to visit, so they still came and then Anette went home with them yesterday (Sunday).  I met them for a minute and then went to the first choir rehearsal...Gospel of Becca is the name of the group and it is directed by my friend Helena.  It was AMAZING, it feels SO GOOD to sing again and not have the pressure of the Concordia Gods looking down on you.  I could only handle choir for a year and half at Concordia before I felt like it was taking over my life.  This is much more relaxed...no music, just learning by memory and making it work.  I was in SUCH a great mood afterward...I can't wait to see what we can do.  Also, Aleks and Filip made us a Norwegian meal that night...lamb and cabbage, it was actually really good.  But we made it awesome by teaching everyone words and just laughing for a good time. 

Friday I had dinner with Anette's family at an Italian restaurant, they are SO NICE, I'm really glad I got the chance to meet them and spend some time with them.  Only a week and a half before my mom and grandma get here!  That night we watched movies at Aleks', just like every other night that week.  Amazing how you can make best friends in a matter of days :)  Saturday I went mini-golfing with my boys.  We had a blast, and I really felt at home finally.  We got together later for some drinks at Aleks', watching videos, listening to music, and having a blast.  Kristin joined us..she is SUCH a sweet girl...Love her!!  It was a late night, but sooo worth it.  I've officially found my crew here...I'm safe.