small montage of random things

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Life is one huge time table!

Five weeks left in Norway, four weekends….I’m finished with all my school work. Basically school is pointless from now until the twenty second when we are finished, we don’t get grades and many days are free anyways. Though I’m not complaining because being at school makes seeing many of my friends everyday an easy task. I’ve done so much over the last nine months and kept busy nearly the entire time learning new things and meeting new people..Now with only five weeks left everything feels extremely chaotic and I find my self constantly having to prioritize what is nessecary and what I can live without. The last month in itself was jam packed full of new experiences. On the seventeenth of May, Norway celebrated it’s independence from Sweden (1814). If you know anything about Norwegians or Norway’s culture you know the 17th of May is a really important day. There are hundreds of parades all around the country and flags fly everywhere, almost everyone has the day off. My host family lived on their boat the entire weekend in the city before the seventeenth and on the morning of we watched a huge parade with thousands of people and ate a special grøtt with the family afterwards…It was really a wonderful experience, to be amongst so many patriotic people of such a well loved country. I also had my birthday (my friends threw me a kidnapping/suprise camping party) and my host family and everyone gave me so many amazingly generous presents……the entire shizbang was overwhelming and I am so lucky to have found so many great people in my life here in Norway. There has also been exams going on at school, which are pretty much finished now, some people have more next week. And a friend and I hiked a seven-mountain trip around Bergen last week of 35 km. So as you can see many things going on….and with so little time I tend to prioritize living in the moment rather than thinking about how soon I leave or writing here or packing. Obviously that is a reality that I have to face shortly but for the time being I have a lot of stuff to do in the next few weeks and life is sure to be in fifth gear the entire time. Truthfully I’m just in love with life…but that doesn’t help get any of the cards, cookies or gifts finished that I want to give to my friends and family here. I hope you know I haven’t forgotten you back home but one month doesn’t seem like very long after nine that have zoomed by so fast…Much love and cheers!! snakkes vi snart!! (we’ll be seeing eachother soon)

Norsk Konfirmasjon

On Saturday my host-cousin Vegard had his confirmation. This is a really big tradition for norwegians, it symbolizes coming into adulthood and happens in the year when you’re fourteen. It’s not only a ‘church thing’, you make the choice to have your confirmation with the church or to have a humanistic confirmation instead. My cousin happened to have a humanistic type, and really it’s not different at all except in the ceremony. For my host family to invite me and to save a place for me at the ceremony was very special. I am so glad they wanted to share this norwegian tradition with me. On Saturday we wore ‘bunads’ traditional norwegian dress clothes. When you have your confirmation you recieve a bunad if you choose to have one, not everyone does, the boys especially are not so into wearing them anymore ( Vegard for example was the only boy in his group to wear a bunad; my host-aunt Ronveig made the bunad for him) Bunad are very special because they are generally handmade and use good quality fabrics (wool often) and they are a norwegian tradition.

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a lovely easter

I just had a very wonderful easter vacation from school…in fact I still have Monday off tomorrow. We spent the week up at our cabin, there was gorgeous weather the entire time, with temperatures up in the seventies. We went skiing everyday in the mountains (with ski-skins, which were an absolute new-found miracle to me). One day my host-dad and I joined my host-uncle, cousin and a group up to the highest point in Kvamskogen where my host family has their cabin. Kvitingen, 1300m up from 400m, we made the round trip (ca. twenty kilometers) in four hours. Absolutely fantastic day, I skied with my shirt off and my pants rolled up as high as they would go. Coming down the mountain was somewhat terrifying with my skinny classics and I had standing puddles in my ski boots from the wet snow but it was worth the climb up. Happy Easter!! Much love and cheers.

Oh the love of my life that is ‘å går på tur’ i.e. go hiking!

Today, I went hiking with my friend Lauren, she is from Canada, Alaska’s lovely northern neighbor. We are both going to hike the ‘Syvfjelturen’ or ‘seven-mountain-hike’ which is a day hike over Bergen’s seven biggest mountains (fjellene). The last weekend in May, more than 2.5 thousand people show up to spend at least eight hours of their day hiking from check point to check point, receiving marks along the way. The fourth fjell in the line-up as well as the highest is named, Ulriken, and that is the fjell that my friend and I hiked today. It was thirteen degrees Celsius out today, I believe that’s around fifty-five Faregnhieght, so we were more than happy to throw our shirts in the pack and call it a sports-bra day at-least until we got to the top where it was a bit windier and noticeably more people..

I apologize about my spelling and grammar but my writing skills have been slightly neglected recently because I tend to use all of my focus to improve on Norwegian linguistics.
Cheers,
(Klem)
Mo

Also today, the first colorings of spring could be seen, pushing their way up from between the disenchanted stems of summer-past, spring flowers (of the name I do not know) lightened my way to the bus stop.

Premonition of and not necessarily lookin’ forward to the luggage of when I head homewards..

traveling home from the second cabin tour with AFS..this time was just for fun. I left early to get back to my host-family for a birthday celebration for my two oldest host-siblings. It turned out there was no buses that day so I had to wait for a couple hours for some others in the group to pick me up. Ended up ferrying back and forth across the fjord, it was a slightly overcast day but perfect warm spring weather.

 

Making chocolate chip cookies and the Beatles

I seem to have to constantly unchanging traits in my life…I love to make cookies and their will always be more of the Beatles in my i-tunes library than any other artist.

Having said that, I had a lovely weekend. On Saturday I went over to my friend Alva’s house. There I was imedietley set upon a little tiny trackter and taught how to drive.

Alva lives by bus 20 minutes away from me on the island, she only moved to Askøy a couple years back when her mom and step-dad bought a big house and the land around and converted it into a little garden farm and place for a gorgeous chicken coop and chickens.  The house used to be owned by a family who worked greenhouses. You can see two or three huge abandoned and destroyed greenhouses about a hundred and fifty meters into the woods off to the right side of the house (which itself is old, unique and artsily decorated). The entire place holds a slightly mysterious yet cozy sense of history and Alva’s mom and step-dad have turned it into a home that draws warmth and and inspires creativity.

Alva and I hauled wood with the tiny trackter for a few hours putting along in first gear. Of course, too late, it was found out third gear made the machine move much more efficiently. Learning to drive the tiny trackter felt like one of the funnest and accomplishing things I’ve done in a while.

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Margot, my dearest and by far craziest friend, from France, waiting for scrumptious choco-chip cookies to come out of the oven [nestle chips brought to you by my Aunt Marianne!!

That night we hung out at another friends place where we made and ate brownies. It was also earth hour Saturday night from 8:30 to 9 [hope you remembered to turn the lights out]. Alva stayed over at my house and on Sunday we went back to her house and took down a small wall and some floor (in preperation to eventualy make a bathroom) in an old white house (that hasn’t been lived in since the sixties) right behind Alva’s. They will eventually turn it into a little appartment for guests and family. Was an excellent weekend.

Tomorrow I am having ten of my girlfriends over and we’re going to have the first official  ‘Amerikansk jente kveld’  i.e. American, girl’s night. I’ve decided to go full out stereotypical-girls-pajama-party and seems the night is coming together to be quite fun. We’re going to do, facemasks, pedicures, manicures, cosmo reading, bad chick flicks and sweets. But dinner will be pesto pasta with tomatoes, avocados, and feta. Hopefully my host-mom doesn’t regret letting us try this out ,)

Oh, Sunday we also turned the clocks ahead an hour so Alaska time is back to be ten hours behind. Hope all are well and possibly anjoying some good spring skiing!

Klem,

Mo