Wednesday September 12th, 2007

-We all went hiking into Sarpsborg. There was a fortress there that used to be used by soldiers. It was pretty sweet with a cement tunnel thinger and such. In the rock there were rooms with fireplaces and beds and stuff, but they have been closed off which sucks because I wanted to exploooore. The fortress was waaay up on a hill, and we could see Haugetun across the river. It was gorgeous out, so we layed on a huge rock (on top the tunnel).

-I reallyreallyreally wanted to go to the Norge vs. Hellas national fotball game, but it was TODAY, and I was only on the waiting list. I was so sad. THEN like 20minutes before they were leaving, Totum was like, “Sam, you made it!” So I ran and got dressed, then I got my face painted with Norwegian flags. We had to drive to Oslo, but the music was rockin and we were all really pumped. There were 2 minibuses from our school, and we I took pictures of the guys in the other bus screaming out the windows. Haha. We had to stop for gas, so we bought some food. I was so thirsty, so I bought a little bottle of water that ended up being $6 Canadian. Turns out it was BUBBLED water (I hate bubbled water), but I thought it was better than nothing. Then once we got to the stadium, they took it away anyways, ugh, haha. We went to the Ullevaal Stadion in Oslo, and it was AmAzING. The field was gorgeous and gave me instant butterflies. A guy from my school named Mats was really dressed up, so they interviewed him. We were on the screen quite a bit because we were all dressed up. The game was sooo good. I wished Shelby was there with me though. Our seats were so good, we were so close and could see everything clearly. I took lots of pictures and videos. Haha, we all got so into it, screaming and standing up. The game ended 2-2, but Norway had so many more shots on net then Greece did. All in all, it was amazing and I LOVED it. Shelby, im going to take you to a game one day. -We stopped downtown Oslo to eat. We were all just sitting on the street eating all dressed up. I liked it. -We didn’t get home until around midnight. I didn’t finish my homework… sorry Henning!

Saturday September 8th

-Last night I went to have a nap at 6pm, but I slept right until Marthe woke me up this morning for frokost at 7:45.
-There is a bunch of election stuff going on, and since the Norsk class wouldn’t know what was going on, we got to go to the kitchen!
We had so much fun! We made chicken and potatoes and everything. Im going to be such a good wife. Haha. Anyways, we had a blast. We totally goofed around. Even with a language barrier, we managed to have fun and not die of food poisoning. I don’t usually hang out with people from my class because I hang out with Marthe and that group, but…haha I just had so much fun with them.
-I then had a 4hour nap. I blamed it on eating too much.

(Anna-Germany)

(Anna-Germany and Olga-Russia)

(Artem-Russia)


(Me and Artem-Russia)

(Me, Artem-Russia, Olga-Russia and Long-Vietnam)

On Friday I had climbing. We were indoors again this week. Its amazing how much more fun rockclimbing is when you trust the person holding you! Compared to Saskatoon, this place has so much less safety protection, its all up to the person doing the holding. Like, if im not careful, if the person im holding falls, I could be pulled upwards. Siri and Siril do that for fun. They basically spend the whole time there just hanging. ANYWAYS, they opened the grey wall which was wasn’t straight up, it was more uneven and came out of the wall. Totum (the person who brought us) was like, SAMANTHA, GET ON HERE. I made it up no problem. Now I want to try the hardest wall, but no one has succeeded. It jets out like a cliff so you have to go like almost upsidedown and backwards, and I don’t have the arm strength. I’ll try sometime.

Saturday September 1st

-The Norsk class went to Halden for a day trip. Henning (our teacher) took us to a fortress that was used during battle. I was a place where soldiers rested, where soldiers were taken care of when wounded, as well it was a prison and a place where execution took place. It is said that the fortress is haunted by the ghost of the last women ever executed there. Apparently she was executed because she poisoned 6 people. The fortress was located on top of a hill, and overlooked the city. It was such a gorgeous view. As well, it overlooked Sweden. The land that was across the water was Sweden.

-We then stopped and walked over the OLD bridge into Sweden. We could see the new bridge a mile or so away. The old bridge was soo high up, and Henning said that it called “---” (I forget) which means suicide bridge. That was unpleasant.

-Julia who was a student of Henning’s at Haugetun a couple years ago invited us over for lunsj. She is from kazakstan, but fell in love with a Norwegian man, and never left Norway. Apparently that happens often with foreign students, they just don’t leave. She was such a sweetheart, and her husband Bjorn was really nice too. We had panakake which were acutally like crepes. We talked and laughed and had a great time. Then we headed back to the school.

-My friends and I rented a Hytte (cabin) for the night, so we got a maxi-taxi and headed out. We were first in a 5 person hytte, but we changed for a larger one, because there were us 8 girls sleeping in it. There were 3 cabins of people from our school. I had such a blast. We laughed and laughed until the wee hours of the morning and had a dance party.
-We made pizza, and we couldn’t find oven mitts, so we used the rug. Hahaha.
-Taxi’s are so stinking expensive here. I spent more on the taxi then I did for everything else that whole weekend.

Thursday August 30th, 2007

Just got back to Haugetun after a 3day “camping” trip to Sauevika, which is in the fjords. It wasn’t camping camping because we stayed in a huge retreat center.

(Tuesday August 28th)
On the way to Sauevika, we stopped and Mariann bought me an icecream called Båt Is (Boat Ice). It was a cone shaped as a boat, with jodbær syltetøy (strawberry jam), then vanilla icecream, then chocolate chunks. I was in heaven.
Suevika was goooorgeous! All you could see was orange colored rocks, and water. We had to boat across the water to get to where our sleeping cabins were.

I shared a room with 8 other girls at the top a the chateau. The chateau was so gorgeous, and so HUGE.
Once we got settled in, we were divided into teams to do a challenge course thing that included answering questions, ring toss, walking on stilts, racing up a rock cliff, racing little 4wheeled bikes, shooting, etc. There was one challenge that was to balance a ladder, then race up to see how many steps you can climb before it fell. Hello… broken ankles. I sure didn’t try. I couldn’t even lift the ladder. Someone got to like 9or something, and that’s so high! We did some shooting, and I got the highest points in my group! I owe it all to my gopher hunting training!
For the next couple hours we layed out on the beach in the sun. We also canoed, water-skied, and tubed. Then we ate Middag and had WAFFLES. Yummy.
The rest of the night we played cards (I introduced Bug Your Buddy), and we had a chapel service and sang which was so nice. Then after the chapel service, about 8 of us stayed to sing more. We each got a song book (Syng Livet) to keep, and theres some great songs in there

(Wednesday August 29th)
I woke up and found a huge beetle on my pillow! Jorunn was laughing so hard at me, and told me it was probably dead because it was in my mouth and I suffocated it and bla bla bla. How rude was that?

Oi. After Frokost, we were put into teams to build a boat from 4 pieces of cardboard, a marker, and 2 rolls of duct tape. I had to be the captain because I was the smallest, so we named the boat “The Sinking Canadian”.

Once all the teams were finished, the captains and their boats were boated out to a floating dock, and then in front of the whole school, we had to go one-by-one and race to a finish line (we were timed). It was so cold out, and turns out the water was really cold too! The Sinking Canadian didn’t sink (thank goodness), but it wouldn’t only go in circles when I tried to paddle, so we failed. So many of the other boats sunk or broke, or the person inside was too heavy. Oh, so funny. Haha.

We basically spent the rest of the day eating and playing cards because it was pretty cold outside.

For supper, each table had a HUGE bowl of shrimp…entire shrimp with heads and eggs. So Jorunn taught me how to prepare them properly, and it was so gooooood. I love shrimp, but the eggs really grossed me out.
We were put into groups again, and had to prepare a tv show. Our group did weather. Others did sports, cooking, the News, children`s program, etc, and it was super funny! We had another chapel service, and once again, I loved it. Irene spoke, and I really wish I knew what she said, because people were talking about it after.
We stayed up late, then eventually went to bed. I talked to the fotball girls, and they`re really excited to have me play for them, and wanted to know what position I played, etc.
That night I talked/ yelled in my sleep. I am now psychologically damaged because of that beetle on my pillow the morning before, so I was SURE there was a huuuge bug crawling. Actually (I remember quite vividly), it was an ant carrying about 17 beetles. So I yelled at Marte that I needed her camera. I got laughed at in the morning.
Now we’re back at Haugetun. We had time to shower, and unpack, and now I am off for our weekly Sex og Singeliv marathon (Sex and the City). Ha det bra

Monday August 27th, 2007

Monday August 27th, 2007
10:13pm Fredrikstad, Norway Time
2:13pm Saskatoon Time
Today I had the most intense aerobics class EVER. Plus I went jogging yesterday, so im quite sore right now. Gah.
Marthe and I went minigolfing today. It was really fun, and I met a lot of new people. I got made fun of tho…I really suck at minigolf, BUT these Norwegian courses were so much harder than in Canada…seriously.

So we eat 4 meals a day. Frokost (8am), lunsj (11:30am), middag (3:30pm), then kveldsmat (7:30pm). And on Saturdays we have grø t which is porridge. 3 out of the 4 meals are bread. Therefore, the odds are against me when it comes to not gaining weight. We also live in co-ed dorms which is EXTREMELY weird to me, an LCBI alumni. Whenever I hear a male voice outside my room I freeze, look around, and wonder who is about to get expelled. Haha. Its weird, because like everyone smokes. Well, not the fotball boys, but everyone else almost. Even the fotball girls and the singers. Im so glad Marthe doesn’t smoke, because I wouldn’t enjoy that smell in our room all the time.
Speaking of Marthe, shes a GREAT roommate. Shes so funny, and shes got such a personality. Super attitude. Haha. Makes me laugh all the time, but shes also a really great friend, and we clicked from the beginning. By far I have the best roommate here. Yay!
I ate a new type of candy today. They are so weird! Its basically cardboard with powder in the middle. Not very satisfying.

(Siri and Ingvild)

Another odd thing about this country is that everyone tucks their socks into their pants! Jeans, sweats, everything! I think its hideous, but I’ll probably be doing it by the end of the year…I hope not.

Sunday August 26th, 2007

10:41pm Fredrikstad, Norway Time
2:41pm Saskatoon Time

Well, I have survived 4 days alone in this country. The family left on August 22nd (Shelby’s birthday…what a great was to celebrate it), and the goodbye SUCKED. It didn’t help that half the school was in the parking lot watching. When I went and sat with some people at a table, they said that I made them cry too. Ugh. So the first night I had a horrible sleep, but after that I was fine. It doesn’t help when people speak only Norwegian, so I just go in a daze and daydream. Bla. Anyways, im doing really well now. Ive made so many friends, I just have a little trouble remembering/pronouncing their names. Haha. I’ve only had 2 actual Norskklassens, BUT I can already do pronouns like “THEY ate salad” or “HE writes in his book” I feel so smart. Marthe (my great roommate) makes sure people don’t speak ONLY English to me, or else I’ve never learn the language. Sometimes at meals, I can pick up (a liiiiittle bit) of what people are saying during meals, and I am like, “DID YOU JUST USE THE WORD FORK? YOU DID DIDN’T YOU?!?” Haha I’m not THAT bad. But…close.
Marthe, Marit and I decided to go canoeing on Friday. Haugetun Folkehøyskole is located ALMOST right on the river. We only had to carry/drag the canoe about 600m-ish down a hill, across a highway and through a field. We were SO tired. I never realized canoes could be so heavy! Anyways, it was so fun! There was nowhere to put it in the water, so we had to be creative. I got poison ivy on my legs.
Yesterday (Saturday) we went to Old Fredrikstad. We drove RIGHT by the hotel my family stayed in the last night, and it was pretty emotional knowing that my family drove on these exact roads. Gah. The Old City was gorgeous though, and the weather was too. We went to a little market where people were selling a variety of goods. We also went to a little café and had icecream. Marthe made me order myself, and it was rather embarrassing. Haha. There was an old old bookstore that Marthe LOVED. We spent a lot of time in there. I found only a few English books, and I bought Go Ask Alice for 10kroner ($2). (Sissel, Ine and Hanne)

(Jorunn!)

(Marthe my roomie and Erik)
(Me and Ingvild)
(Marit and Jorunn)

(I took this picture for Shelby. haha.)

When we got back to the school, we put on our bathing suits, and biked down to the beach. I rode on the back of Jorunn’s bike. Then we spent the afternoon reading our new books. Then that evening I went for a jog. Im really, really out of shape.

Wednesday August 22nd, 2007

Today really sucked...



...Happy 17th Birthday Shelby!