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.