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!

Tuesday August 21st, 2007

10:43pm Frederikstad, Norway Time
2:43pm Saskatoon Time

So we drove from Sand to Frederikstad today. It was so hard leaving Sand. We got up earlyearly, then met them all for breakfast. Apparently Daniel hasn’t gotten up this early for years. We gave them all a hug, I was told again that I needed to come visit at some point, then we drove off. The drive wasn’t all that exciting. We stopped to take a picture of a few fjords, we visited Satre, and we stopped at Stavanger which is mom and Randi’s Folkehø yskole, and mom was so happy. In Bo, I bought a gor-tex jacket. Other than that, us girls slept.
We found our hotel in Frederikstad, then went to visit Haugetun Folkehø yskole. It was so weird being there. Still doesn’t feel like reality. It reminded me a lot of LCBI. The biggest difference is that the dorms are Co-ed. Dad wasn’t overly pleased about that. We got a quick tour of the place, I dropped off my massive suitcase, then we headed back to our hotel.
Tomorrow is going to be crazy. Ill be left in a foreign country, and then the family will be driving 10-12hours to go to Hamburg. Its going to be a long day.

Monday August 20th, 2007

Today was just a crazy day. We started the day super hyper, shoving Kleenex up our noses and all 3 of us jumping on sleeping dad.

We decided to go and see a dam. Sounds exciting? Well, turned out to be crazily fun. On the way, we passed a GORGEOUS waterfall into a little lake. Shelby thought she was SUCH a good photographer, but really, its just because the scenery was so gorgeous.
We drove up winding, skinny roads and saw the dam. It was MASSIVE and made of rocks…and…well…we were right beside/underneath/at the bottom of it. Its hard to explain, I’ll have to put up pictures. But basically, we were right on the bottom of the wall, so if it broke, we’d be dead.



We drove through a tunnel that was actually really scary. It was pitch black, and looked like it could collapse, or else be full of some crazy animals.
Anyways, we survived, and got to the top of the dam. We were able to walk right over it, so on one side, it was water, and the other was the rock pile to the ground.



It was SO cold out, and there was snow patches everywhere, but we were SO hyper. Us girls were running and screaming and singing and dancing. I think we had been in the car too long.

We drove back to the bottom of the dam, and decided to climb up it. If that thing broke…gah. We saw sheep, so we went out to feed them carrots. They started chasing us, and I was actually scared. Haha.
Mom was videoing us, and she accidentally videoed the ground because she was laughing so hard as we were running away. They chased us right to the car, so we were screaming to get in and shut the doors. Then, Siri and I decided we had to be heroes, so we got out and started chasing the sheep right back.

We drove some more, and saw a super nice view, so we got out to get a picture, and us girls decided to pose with our stomachs showing. Classy.

We drove more winding roads and stopped to see the other side of the dam. Mom and dad got out, but us girls stayed in the car because it was raining. On our way back, we saw those same sheep. We tried feeding them, but they just kept running away. We stopped at another area near the top of the dam to eat lunch. It stopped raining, and we saw more sheep, so we went out and tried to feed them carrots. They were scared at first, but then approached us

Shelby ran down the hill yelling “take her, she’s the biggest anyways”. So I stayed and tried to coax one to come, and it got so close, that it was about to eat out of my hand.
I then had a nervous twitch and went “AHHHH”, and for some reason it ran away. I think dad got it on video. There was a snow pile, so we went to get a picture of it…it was like we had never seen snow before.
It was pretty hard and icy, and Shelby tried to attack me on it. With my wrestling skills, I whipped her down, and started slapping her bare back.
HAHAHAHA. She then just sat there and pouted.
She then attacked me again, and the same result happened. This went on for a while, until we were laughing so hard we had no strength left. Shelby took a picture of mom, dad, Siri and I in front of the snow pile. This picture is my favorite because dad was still laughing from Shelby and my little incident. HAHAHA.

We drove back home to change out of our soaking wet clothes. We then went for a drive along the water, and got to see all the gorgeous fjords. There was an island, and on it was a house. It was so pretty!
The road was absolutely gorgeous. Norway is so pretty!
We came home to another amazing meal. We stayed up late again chatting and taking turns on the massaging chair. Its our last night here, but I don’t want to go =(

Sunday August 19th, 2007

12:04pm Sand, Norway Time
4:04pm Saskatoon Time
We got up and went for breakfast around 10. Daniel was still sleeping. It was a breakfast we weren’t used to. Meat, cheese, fish, and eggs. We then went to church in Sand. It was all in Norwegian, so I didn’t get much out of it, but it was an experience. It was too bad though, because the church was nearly empty. People just don’t go to church anymore. There was a Baptism, so there were lots of people and little blonde kids in their gorgeous bunads. We drove around Sand and got to know the town a bit. Its Sunday so everything was closed. There is a big chess set in town, and it reminded me of Harry Potter, because it was full sized, and people were able to be the pieces.
We came back and moved from the cabin by Bjorne’s and the pool, down the hill to a cottage right beside Daniel and Borghild’s house. Bjorne took us to the salmon station where there was a waterfall/rapid area of the river, and the salmon jump up it. There was glass looking under the water, and we could see the salmon under the rapids, trying to jump up. We saw one that was 12kg. It was a MONSTER, and apparently that was normal. This river is known for BIG salmon. Barf. The largest salmon ever caught was in 1910, and it was 35kg, 75POUNDS!! That’s like the size of Siri.
Daniel and Borghild invited us for a snack once we got back. We met their neighbour, he was a cute man who came over to meet the Canadian relatives. Å sne and Helge (Bjorne’s daughter and her fiancé) came from Oslo to visit. She’s very sweet, and translated everything. While we were clearing the table he told us he wasn’t a big help in the kitchen. They were telling us how his hearing aid broke, and he fixed it with tape until his appointment which was 2 months away. When it was taped up, it made a loud buzzing noise that he couldn’t hear, but Borghild could. Daniel told us that he was happy when he got his new hearing aid because it didn’t make a noise, so he and Borghild were friends again. We looked at pictures, and saw some from when Leah, Anna, Nils, etc visited in the past. We even saw one where mom, Randi, and Ami were here 30 years ago. We saw a picture of Daniel giving Borghild flowers, and were were like “oooh, Daniel getting romantic!” and he smacked his forehead, shook his head and was like, “oooohhh”. Daniel proudly showed us his carvings, and they were amazing! We then walked up for supper. It was the funniest thing trying to walk with Daniel. We took probably 17times as long to walk up the hill as we would normally. He just chatted and chatted and chatted and chatted to mom and would stop every 4 steps to point at something with his cane and give an entire explanation. Then we would FINALLY start walking again, and he’d stop to draw a picture in the dirt with his cane to explain something. Then when we were halfway up the hill Daniel stops and tells mom (in Norwegian) that here was a good place to rest. HAHAHAHAHAHA. He’s so darn cute. Stole (Bjorne`s brother) joined us for supper. Supper was AMAZING. Salmon, potatoes, mushrooms, cooked veggies, and lefse. I`ve never eaten salmon that was so perfect. YUMMY. Stole told me I was welcome to stay with them for Christmas, so that’s definitely an option. We stuffed ourselves full, then chatted until almost midnight. Then Å sne, Helge, Daniel, Borghild, and us travelled down the hill in the pitch black back to the farm. T`was a good day.

Ps: Daniel also told us he didn’t really talk all that much. Ahem.

Saturday August 18th

11:26pm Sand, Norway
3:26pm Saskatoon Time

Today was a looong day. Im super tired, so im going to do today in point form.
-We had a great sleep at the hotel in Kristianson. Mom wasn’t feeling too well
-Went to a church in Christianson. Made of wood, and sooooo nice. LOVED the smell.
-Shelby and I sat on bench by a fountain while the rest shopped...and got a nice feeling of how stinking expensive Norway is.
-Headed to Sand where our relatives are.
-We soon realized that NorwaY is absolutely GORGEOUS. Gorgeous mountains and lots of lakes.
-A tunnel we were suppost to go through was closed, so we had to take a detour along narrow mountain roads. While we were waiting, dad made friends with the men behind us. Oh dad, the social butterfly.
-So many of the roofs of the houses were grass - some even had like trees and massive bushes growing. Shelby thought they were HIDEOUS.
-Dad gave us top10 reasons why it wouldn’t be a good idea to have a cow on your roof. We laughed for like 20minutes.
-Stopped at the WC and dad made friends with some german 20year olds
-Stopped in Rose…(I forget the name of the town. We saw a really old church, and in the midsummers of the 1500’s-1800‘s, the crucifix would sweat, and it would heal people. There used to be piles and piles of crutches left by those who were healed.
-Drove along teeny roads along a cliff looking down onto a river full of rapids, hoping we wouldn’t meet any cars coming the opposite way.
-Got to Sand and found Mo Laksegard. They live on a beautiful farm right on the river, with the mountains behind. I LOVED it.
-Bjorne (who is mom’s second cousin, and owns the farm) welcomed us. We met his parents Daniel and Borghild. Daniel is Besta’s cousin, and he is the funniest man I’ve ever met. First of all he thought mom was Besta, and couldn’t understand how her 3 girls were so young. HAHA. Then he would just talk and talk and talk nonstop, even though none of us had a clue what he was saying. Just like Besta he nods his head and goes-yayayaya. Borghild was telling us how when Seth was there, he followed Daniel around like a puppy.
-Bjorne put us in a super nice cabin, right by the pool for the first night.
-After we ate Borghild's delicious soup, we headed to bed. It was the first time we had wireless, so i stayed up pretty late talking to Shaun on msn :S