Get out of the Country!

It seems like no country really wants me around....the other day I was in my friends house, just being a good little girl, minding my own business and watching Enchanted when another lady comes in the house and is very stressed because she had just hit a car. A red car. My car. This lady is very nice and knows the people whose house I am in, but she accidentally just backed into my car. She apologized about 500 times. It's not a big deal and very fixable, but these things just keep happening to me! (please reference the last blog!). So I have come to conclude that neither Norway or the USA wants me. First the pants-less man bids me adieu at the Oslo airport and then when I get back home, people steal my stuff, my car gets hit, and I'm in the middle of my second cold in 6 weeks. OR....maybe it's just Texas, YES, it's TEXAS that doesn't want me! Oh what a happy thought! Mutual dislike is always better than a one-sided dislike. I don't want Texas either! No offense to all my grand friends that live in the Lonestar State....I still like you guys. :) Now that I think about it, though, Utah didn't really want me either....I'm seeing a pattern here. Where to next?????! Who knows! I am known to change my mind on occasion....

Weird things happen....to me.

(this is me in the airport, in the middle of the night)

OK, picture this, a very tired Lindsey waking up in the Oslo airport after a restless night of sleeping on the airport benches waiting for her early flight. Only it's not just a very tired Lindsey, there are several people around sleeping on the benches and one in particular that I would like to note. After falling asleep around 2am I woke up around 4:30, got up and took a look around me at the few more people laying all around that weren't there a few hours before. Among these newcomers was one man laying on the bench across from me, this seemed to be a normal enough sleeping man, but there was something that was awfully wrong with this airport picture of him. He had NO pants on! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this middle-aged man was pants-less, and not only that, but his pants were right next to him on the floor wadded up in a little pile. Now is the part were you can start making assumptions...based on the following information.....next to his wadded up pants there was also a LARGE puddle of liquid on the ground under the benches. I saw no spilled cup anywhere. All I saw was: wadded up pants, pants-less man, and a large puddle.....you do the math. There probably was a plausible explanation for this, but I decided when I saw this across from me, I would QUICKLY relocate myself to a different part of the airport. I almost took a picture....but I, and he, might be pretty embarrassed if the pants-less man woke up in the middle of the snapshot and asked me what I was doing. So, that was my goodbye present from Norway. I'm a lucky gal.

I've been back in the states now for a month and I've been having a grand time with family and friends. I never realized how nice it is to have only English spoken in the airport, and everywhere for that matter! I had a huge smile on my face when I flew into Chicago from Europe. I felt like my language was no longer confounded and I could talk to EVERYONE! And then to have men open doors for me was so nice too. I had found that Norwegian men do NOT open doors for woman normally, so it was nice to get back to the gentlemen of the USA. :) Thanks guys! It's great to be back....although not for long....

A couple days after I got back my brother Ben and I went to my storage unit to get some clothes for me to wear. As I turned the corner to go to my unit I ran over something and it was dragging behind me....well, much to Ben's amusement, it was a mattress. Yes, a queen size mattress. How I happened to NOT see it as I turned the corner is beyond me. Ben saw it and almost warned me, but then I just ran over it and he started laughing. Well, I tried to get in out from under my car, but it got stuck......

To get it unstuck, Ben almost got hurled into the storage unit wall as I put the car into reverse really fast while he held onto the mattress. Fun times with Lindsey. (I don't know why that's underlined, I have problems). The pic is of Ben before we tried to get the mattress out. :)

At this same storage unit a few weeks later, I went to get a suitcase out so I could go to my Mom's in Missouri and there was a different lock on my unit that I hadn't put there. It turned out that someone broke into my unit, stole my empty suitcases (which I needed), CDs, tapes, a box of books, another suitcase full of clothes, my toolbox, and 3 boxes of plates and bowls. Well, it is beyond me why you would steal empty suitcases and plates, but I guess whoever stole them REALLY needed them. They didn't steal everything, but they were probably planning on jacking the rest of it since they put their own lock on my unit. (I had to get it drilled off to get in). This happening was actually kind of coincidental. A week before I was telling everyone how I just want to get rid of all my stuff and not have anything to worry about.....well, I got my wish partly.

Thanksgiving was pretty great. I got to go with my Mom to Maryland, I had 2 turkey dinners, visited a ton of family, shopped for a few hours, and was headed back to Missouri within the 3rd day of being there. It was quite the whirlwind, but it was fantastic.

I'm headed back to Norway on New Year's Eve. The date stinks, but the price was right, so I had to make the sacrifice. Sacrifices are coming more often now....I bought some hiking boots the other day for $140....that was a bite. Good thing there's no tuition in Norway....If there were I'd probably have to go collect money with a big boot like the firemen do in the middle of the streets.

It's official. I can be Norwegian for 9 more months.

Today was a good day for me. I finally got my visa, I finally got my "D-number" which allows me to open a Norwegian bank account, AND I got to get pulled around on a go-cart by dogs. What a day!!!!! I am allowed to stay in this grand country officially for 9 more months, according to the little visa sticker now affixed in my passport (funny side-note, there is a picture of me that goes with the visa and it looks like I'm about to hurl....hopefully that's not some kind of sign or something). Also, I have a foreign bank account now....does that mean I can do sneaky things with money??? Or does that only work with "swiss" bank accounts? All of my money is Norwegian at the moment, so it doesn't matter either way I guess. :)

So the best part is that I got to get pulled around by dogs today. My friend will be doing dog-sledding in the winter and before it snows, the dogs get trained on this dune-buggy/go-cart contraption with wheels. The ride was so fun! Today the "retarded" dogs got trained....which means the dogs that don't go on the normal runs or the ones that are too small, young, oddly shaped, weak, or sick. All it meant was that we went a little slower up the mountain. This happens to be one of the only pictures I got because, of course, on my 3rd picture my camera's batteries died. I will hopefully go on some more rides, maybe even with the bigger dogs....and I'll get more. This is what was in front of me on the ride, I was sitting on the cart connected to all those ropes and my friend Eskil was standing behind me. As you can see....there's no snow yet....

I got to go to Oslo last weekend for stake conference (for the non-mormons, it's a regional meeting in the church)....I figured out that Oslo is where all the mormons are hiding in Norway. I never knew there were so many. The stake covers all of Norway, but I think the vast majority of the people live in Oslo. The meeting was in Norwegian, which is normal....but that means I don't understand anything and this time I had no translator. Basically I just had to imagine what they were talking about for 2 hours. :) Luckily some of the leaders that came to speak are from England, and didn't speak Norwegian, so when it was their turn to talk, it was so nice to hear a church meeting in English again.

I'm coming home in a little over a week, and I gotta say....I don't really want to yet. I've been enjoying myself here and there's too much to do with school! I will be taking a final exam over the phone and turning in a paper while I'm at home. Not so sure how everything's going to work, but oh well! I would change my plane dates again...but I don't really want to pay another $300 to change it AGAIN. On the other hand, it'll be sooo incredibly nice to have my car again and be free to go anywhere at any time. :) I've missed my little Red car. I will be coming back again in January for semester #2, that's when I get to do all the fun stuff in my classes....like track animals......oooooh.

Here's a pic of a great rainbow that was here the other morning. It made a complete arc across the sky...although you can't see it....it was so pretty. (the 2-story red building is where I live).

I don't have many funny things to say this time, but have changed the name of pirate chew a tiny bit. When people spit the wad on the ground, it looks like poo, so I now use pirate poo and pirate chew interchangeably. I'm so clever. :)

Oh, almost forgot something.....I got to drive a couple weeks ago. I found that it's hard to know what to do when driving when you don't know what the signs mean. None of them have words on them.....good thing there weren't many cars around, I might have caused accidents....how are you just supposed to KNOW what to do??? Maybe I shouldn't drive next time. :)

That's it for now....I'll probably see most of you soon! Ta ta.

I don't want your water, I have a blue bottle.

I have been thinking a lot lately of just how much people are blessed and don't realize it. This post might be a little more on the serious side. I look around me every day at the beautiful land of Norway and am in wonder of it's people and blessings. The people here have life sooooo good. They realize that a little, but really have no idea of just how good they have it. If I didn't love my own country so much (and it didn't cost an arm and a leg to travel here), I'd want to live here. I tend to wonder every day also about why the heck I am even here in the first place! Like I said before I came here..."Who goes to Norway????! " Certainly no one I know! (actually since then I have found several people that have been here or have family here)...but no one ever talks about this country or really even knows anything about it.....or knows where it is in some cases. :) As I have said in other posts, I am really in the middle of nowhere, just surrounded by low mountains and a river running beside the school. So, how on earth did I end up here?? Out of all places, the middle of Norway in a college with only about 120 students that no one has heard of, there is only one explanation of how I got here. It is somewhere God wants me to be. There are things I'm here for, there are people to meet, there are things to share, there are experiences to be had. It is an amazing thing to know that something divine is happening in your life. Just that one inkling of knowledge can make you a completely different person. I would say that since I got here, I have been overwhelmed with cheer. Yes, cheer. I have never been so cheerful all the time in my entire life and it is great! There are huge challenges here and so many things to get used to and adjust to, but it really doesn't matter one tiny bit. I haven't talked to one of my family members in over 2 months except through email, and that's a bit hard...but knowing I am in the right place at the right time makes up for every challenge I can think of. I love the people here and have found every day that I am the example to many people of what I believe in. I am the different one here, I am the "American," but I am also the American Mormon that doesn't drink alcohol, tea, coffee, use tobacco, watch bad movies, and goes to church every weekend. Let me tell ya, I've had some funny looks come my way! If I weren't so stubborn and strong in my church, I don't know what it would be like here. It's different on all accounts. How weird and interesting life can be. It changes in a heartbeat and I'm grateful for everything that comes my way.

As for an update on school and such. I'm still learning the Norwegian language bit by bit and am proud to say that I can say a few sentences. I have learned how to say "Go Away, you stupid!" and "I don't want your water, I have a blue bottle." I also know how to say "beer is gross, I hate beer" and phrases like "thanks for the food," "you're welcome," and some body parts. I also know the word for cheesecake...that always comes in handy. My teachers ask me often what some words are in English and when I smile when they say words wrong they say we're going to have an English lesson taught by me after class. I made the mistake of mentioning that they had no idea how much I laugh in my head when we're in class and my teacher (who is also the dean of the school) said that he notices that I laugh in class when he teaches. Oops. Good thing they have good senses of humor.

Oh, I have an update on "Drunk Tuesday." I have been informed that other people that I don't even know are now calling it Drunk Tuesday. I feel so proud for giving it it's rightful name. I also know how to say it in Norwegian and also to say "I hate Drunk Tuesday." What useful phrases I'm learning. :)

No more updates I can think of. I'll be coming home soon for the holidays and I'm pretty excited, but also sad to leave. It's bittersweet. I can't wait to come home and eat my heart out during the holidays. :)

Lindseyisms

If you know me at all....you will also know that I have an alternate name for just about everything and everyone. So, this being the case, I wanted to share some of the current nicknames I've given things here. I already mentioned "pirate chew" as the name for snus....the nasty stuff that makes the boys look like pirates. Another one that I can thank my friend Mackenzie for is "the small store," the small store is the only store in Evenstad, which is actually named Arnesen's Landhandleri....as shown from the picture. The original "small store" resides on Alcon's campus. :) Another phenomenon that has earned a new Lindseyism is the party here every Tuesday where everyone basically gets smashed and don't come to class the next day. I have deemed this "Drunk Tuesday." Drunk Tuesdays are odd to me.....if I did drink and I cared two bits about it, I would never decide on Tuesdays as the day to get smashed. Even my class....with all 10 students is less crowded on Wednesday morning because of the rousing previous night. I am not a fan on Drunk Tuesdays, but they're very popular here. I need to come up with an alternate plan and call it "No-BoozeDay Tuesday." I bet it would go over well.....

These three names: pirate chew, the small store, and Drunk Tuesdays, are all currently used by me and have been adopted by those around me as well. I have a weird way of influencing people. I have also told one of my brothers about Drunk Tuesday and we have decided that I need to have an ode to it...so here goes....

Ode to Drunk Tuesday

Drunk Tuesday, Drunk Tuesday
Wherever did you come from?
Drunk Tuesday, Drunk Tuesday
When everyone falls on their bum

The most lively night of the week
When all get together to booze (yes, I made that a verb)
Bobbing heads and slurred speak
Are only followed by snooze

Why on Tuesday you fall
One will never find out
But the day doesn't matter at all
It's all about the beer, no doubt

Drunk Tuesday, Drunk Tuesday
Only in Norway do you thrive
Drunk Tuesday, Drunk Tuesday
When Wednesdays are not so alive

The End

So, those are the Lindseyisms in full force right now...I have no doubt there are more coming.

VIVA NO-BOOZEDAY TUESDAY!

The 27th Trip Around the Sun

I'll have to start by saying that I had one of the best birthdays I've had in a long time! My dear Mommo sent me a huge box with all sorts of junk food in it and that's exactly how I started my day. Here a pic of the load.....

I woke up an hour early just so I could open this box on my birthday...it had been sitting on my floor calling my name for the past couple days and I was so excited to open it that I just had to get up early. :) I believe it was well worth it, don't you??!! The only thing they have here in Norway that is in this box is one little can of Pringles that costs about fifty bucks!! (maybe not that much in real life...). I was so excited to get some American junk food! I had just gotten myself away from my cookie eating habit that I gained when coming here and I decided that I couldn't buy any more junk...and I was doing really well....no junk food was in my possession....until I got my birthday box. And so the cookie habit has reinstated inself...but at least I didn't do it by myself. :)

The rest of the day was as good as the start....big boxes of junk food can put anyone in a good mood I think. It wasn't anything spectacular because of class and working on my report...but it was a great day nonetheless. My roommate and some friends sang the Norwegian birthday song...which I might say....is WAY WAY better than the typical birthday song. I made them sing to me and I had no idea that there was dancing in it too! It was soooo great. I wish I would've remembered to video it. Here are some pics of some friends that were there. I think all should note that they are all blond. I'm surrounded by blonds.
They made me a cheesecake and a big ole gooey chocolate cake...mmmmm. I think this is the second year in a row that I've gotten two cakes. :) Another friend was going to get me a birthday muffin before class....but the little food place was closed....it's the thought that counts. :) Oh, and perhaps another great thing about my day was that my sister Jessica and her little family had a birthday party for me at their house all the way in Oregon!! How fabulous is that!! She even did a special post for me on her blog! I'm pretty much one of the luckiest girls on the planet. :) So that was my birthday yesterday. I'm a happy kid!

Now for the Norway stuff. I started my Norwegian class two weeks ago today and have had three classes so far. My teacher is a little kookie, but very fun. I'm learning the language bit by bit and having so much fun trying to say things. :) I've been told that I say things with an eastern Norway accent. :) That's really funny to me. This country is smaller than Texas and they have different accents and dialects within a 30 mile range. Who knows what type of dialect I'm learning...pretty much everyone I talk to speaks Norwegian differently...so I think I'll just combine them all and make my own.

My classes are getting a little more tough now because of two big reports due within the next 10 days....but I'll get through. I have to really start buckling down now because I leave in just over a month and I have to take exams early. Yuck.

I have recently begun to tell one friend that he should stop using "pirate chew." It may be quite a futile attempt, but I have to try. I think everyone should be healthier...and less pirate-like. Aside from the pirate chew, this same friend took me to see a bunch of sled dogs today. Dog-sledding is pretty popular here and he lives on this small property with a bunch of dogs that are used for sledding. It was so cool! I forgot my camera of course, but there were around 22 or so dogs and 6 puppies there. I got a little dirty because I got jumped on....but it was TOTALLY worth it. The dogs get trained when there isn't snow by pulling a go-kart type of thing with a guy standing on the back. The guys said I could come sometime....oh man....that sounds like I just won the lottery! I will put it on my next post if I get to go...

Included in my out in the middle of nowhere Norwegian experience is the fact that there isn't anyone to cut my hair....desperation for a haircut is not a good thing. I can now say that I have cut my own hair....and it's not quite even. It's not tooooo bad, but I wouldn't recommend a self haircut if you can help it. :)

Now for my favorite part of the blog post....time for the fun stuff....this is what has made me laugh recently. Most of these have come out of the mouth of my kookie Norwegian teacher that doesn't speak English soooo well. One of her favorite things to say is "if you do a job." This at first brought back memories of the infamous job lists that my mom would give all the kids on our days off of school. BUT, this is NOT what it is. "if you do a job" means if you work hard, you'll do fine. So, if I do a job on this blog thing....it'll eventually get done. Also, to go back to one of the former posts with replacing the v's with w's....here's a funny one that really made my try to keep back the not-so-silent laughs. She was talking about the word "Hva" which means 'what' and has a silent H, so it's pronounce 'va'. Well, she was explaining how the H was silent when she said "the H in front of the Wee is not pronounced." (Wee meaning "V"). I just about died with that one. Another one...As I have said before, they really like their booze here, so some conversations revolve around beer. Apparently when you get really drunk on homemade alcohol, you can't necessarily control your body so well and when "you have to make a pee" your body won't do what your mind tells it to and you may run into the wall on your way to the bathroom. So, "if you have to make a pee," please be careful. I believe that I was chuckling a little out loud with this one. And to top them all off....here's another one verbatim...."we can't take you all at once, because you won't have the opportunity to expose yourself." This is talking about the oral part of the exam.....personally....I think I'd rather stay home if we all have to expose ourselves.....

I have also recently corrupted a Norwegian friend, so now he listens to how some English words are pronounced and laughs with me. Bad influence. Now we both laugh. I know I shouldn't, but some things are sooooo funny....as you can see from the above post.

All is well in Norway! Thanks to everyone for making my life so grand! I truly appreciate all that everyone does and I can feel how much I'm loved....even 5000 miles away! :) I love you all!!

Gratulerer Med Dagen!!!!

When you have to make a pee, please do a job and don't pee on the seat. :)

Gratulerer Med Dagen

I have now been in school for exactly one month! And I finally know how to put pictures in here and have the patience to do it, so here they are!

As for actual schoolwork....it's beginning to get much harder than at the beginning. The papers and reading are starting to pile up and I'm not looking forward to them, but at least it feels more like school now. :) Oh, here are some pics of the school and surrounding area.....it's pretty, huh??! The first pic is taken from across the river of the campus, and the second is of the mountains and river that run right next to the school. I'm pretty lucky I have all this around me, all I have to do is walk a few feet and there it is.














I've done a lot of fun stuff lately, so here goes.....first I want to tell about a hike up one of the mountains....I have affectionately named the one closest to the dorms as MY mountain....it's the one I hiked up. Halfway up said mountain, there was a small stream and the guys I was with stopped and I asked if you could drink out of the stream...fully expecting a negative response. Well, I was wrong....both of them bent down and started drinking! Well, you just don't do that in the US, but I keep learning more and more that you can do things here that you don't do at home and you'll be just fine. So, as soon as I saw them taking big swigs of water from this little stream....I wanted to as well....I figured if they were ok thus far, well then it's gotta be ok. I took a chance and drank, too. It tasted like normal water...there were a few floaties of dirt in it, but I didn't taste it. :) That was my first time ever to drink anything that didn't come out of a faucet. I was hoping not to get sick the whole time and I think I'm just fine...nothing wrong with me that I can tell.

On this hike, I also saw big mushrooms that
looked like pancakes on the forest floor...so
of course I had to get a picture of them. I did
NOT eat them, but here's the pic. I also found out where the Smurfs live....These other mushrooms that were growing along the edge of the road look exactly like the Smurf houses....the pictures are currently stuck in my phone, but they'll come out soon. Who would've known that the Smurfs were living in Norway this whole time??!

I also saw a large old animal trap that I had to get in of course. It wasn't a metal trap or anything, just a big hole in the ground. You can't tell much from the picture, but I'm about 5-6 feet down from the forest floor.



Also, here's a view from the top of the mountain once we got a little farther up.










A couple of weeks ago I got to attend the Oslo Institute and it was fabulous! I had to go to the missionary class because it was the only one in English, but it was so good. It was great to get back into the church scene and be with some people my age that are in the church. I'd say that is one of the hardest things about being here in Norway is that the church isn't very big here and I miss that aspect of being at home. I get by, though. This is a pic of the church building I go to in Hamar and also some other pictures of the city of Hamar. (We meet in the top of the gray building). I wasn't sure what that little car thing was, but it made me stop and look for a second...if you look closely, you can see that it's plugged in. :) It's quite a nice city and I really like to walk around in it. The last picture is of the bay at the largest Norwegian lake called Mjosa.







On Saturday nights I stay with church members that live around Hamar and sometimes they don't speak English at all....those are fun times. We all manage just fine, though. I stayed for a whole weekend with the branch President and his family a couple weekends ago and they all speak English. They took me to some other cities and to the mall. :) I have begun to have a very fine appreciation for waffles with fruit and whipped cream since I got here. They don't eat it for breakfast so much as they just have it for a treat during the day....either way is fine with me. Oh, and another thing about Hamar or Norway in general...I paid to pee the last weekend. Yes, it costed about a dollar to use the bathroom. I think it's kind of dumb, but if you gotta go, you gotta go, there's no way around it. You just insert a coin into the door handle and you get to use the bathroom. That was when I wanted to shout "Free the Pee!" like in the book/movie Bridge to Terabithia. :)

One thing that my friends started to do is hiding their beer. :) It made me laugh the first time...my roommate was hiding something behind her back when I came into the room, so of course I wanted to know what it was....and it turned out to be a beer. I told her that I knew they drank and they didn't need to hide it. Then another time they saw me come in and they put it under the table. :) They are worried about offending me because they know I don't drink. :) They're so nice to me! I told them not to worry and that I wasn't offended, but they are always careful now. ha ha ha.

They are starting the Norwegian class next week, so I soon will be able to learn and speak a tiny bit of the language. I'm pretty pumped about it. I'm kind of tired of being in my own little world all the time when I can't understand what anyone's talking about. Granted...my little world is a pretty nice place to go I must say....they like me there and are very agreeable. :)

Here are some things recently that have made me laugh...When talking to a friend about the mountain we were going to hike, he said it might be a little "steepy." :) That made me laugh soooo hard! Now I say it all the time. Here are some from listening in class, we were talking about habitats being "fragmentated." I think they like to put '-ated' on the end of words because in my last post I wrote how they said "trafficated." :) One thing I misunderstood in class last week was I thought my professor said "dynamic dysentary." Well, that's not quite what she said....with her accent working on the pronunciation of "dynamic systems theory." Wow, that one made me smile a little....imagine what dynamic dysentary would be like..... :) And one last one that made me smile a little. The prof was talking about a bird called the capercaillie that they're studying a lot and she said "the capercaillie is a big bird living in the forest, we like to kill it and eat it." Well, hunting is a little more popular here than at home...and they eat what they're studying apparently. :) I must say, though, that the word "steepy" is currently at the top of my list of favorites.


Oh my, I almost forgot to mention another thing. I was having dinner with some people the other night and here is a description of what was eaten....ok, imagine a few large bowls of big honkin shrimp still in their full shells and antennae. They shell the shrimp, put a bunch of them on a piece of white buttered bread and then put mayo on top and eat it. I've learned that it's a traditional summertime dinner often eaten in Southern Norway. (I did not try it....I'm not a fan of shrimp, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves) I hadn't ever seen anything like this, so here's the picture before everyone started eating...it was interesting to sit there and watch...OH, but there's one more cultural food thing I thought of. Instead of putting spaghetti sauce on spaghetti, sometimes they just put ketchup. Um, that's kinda gross in my opinion. :)

That's all the fun stuff I can think of for the moment...I'm sure there's more coming. :) The meaning of "Gratulerer Med Dagen" is Happy Birthday. I learned it last week and it's the only actual phrase I can say. I know a couple words, but this is the only phrase. It's a good one. :)

Almost 3 weeks

I thought I'd say a bit more about my classes since I had some requests. I only have two classes, ecology and statistics. The education system is much different than in America. I had one full week of stats, every day from 9-3, and I've been in my ecology class for 2 weeks now going from 9-12. After class....there's nothing to do....I don't really have homework, just a little reading. Most of the time I'm a tad bored. The classes are ok, not really hard, and I my attention span goes in and out a lot. I tend to pay attention more when I hear something funny, like when they replace all the v's in English with w's. Wigorous, wisible, wigilance, awailable, and wicinity are the ones that make me chuckle a little inside. I should really try to not laugh so hard just because they don't say things correctly. :) It's just so funny sometimes I can't help myself. Another word that made me giggle today was "trafficated." I'm assuming he meant that the area had more traffic than it had before. I had to write that one down.

One thing I noticed in my first week of ecology was one tiny means of communication that some Norwegians do. It really threw me off guard when I noticed it first. I was talking to my professor and he kept taking sharp intakes of breath at the same time he was talking and listening to me. It's like when we are surprised and you take a breath in really fast. So the whole time I am trying to ask a question to him, it sounds as if I am surprising him over and over. They take a breath in almost at the same time as they would say "yeah" or nodding in agreement. It really threw me off and it took me twice as long to get my point across because I didn't know that what I was saying was so profound as to surprise him with every word. I would have liked to see my face as I explained what I was trying to say. All I could think of was "what did I do??? What did I say?? why is he so shocked??" and I couldn't decide whether or not to go on. Very confusing! I've found out since then that not everyone does that here, just about a third, and some people don't take in quite as deep a breath as others. So beware if you come here that it's a cultural thing and not something you did or said that creates shock. :)

On my train trips last weekend I got to see three moose as I was riding along. They were all running from the train as we passed. One was a lone female moose, and the other was a female with a baby. So I got to see a baby moose! SO FUN! Velkommen to Norway!

I try a new candybar every time I go to the store so I can know which ones are good. So far, they are all good....so now I have to eat them all. I've recently become addicted to candy and cookies and cannot stop eating them. I might be the size of one of the moose I saw when I get home.

A couple people here want me to eat a real Norwegian breakfast....and it DOES NOT sound like something I'm a fan of. They say that it's not abnormal to eat fish for breakfast.....I say it is. They say that I look petrified when they tell me about what they eat. Well, I think they are right. I'm a cereal girl, sometimes waffles, pancakes, and scrambled eggs are good, but fish?? Luckily they said that I can spit it out if I don't like it. I hold them to their promise.

I talked to my professors and they said I could take my exams a little early and come home on November 5th so I don't have to switch my ticket dates again. There's no class in December and I'll only be missing about a week of class altogether, so I get to come home early! I'm so excited! I get to have Thanksgiving AND Christmas where they should be spent! They don't have Thanksgiving here and I would hate to miss out on the best meal of the year!

Oh, this is another thing that's new to me here. They have this stuff called "snoose." It's ground up tobacco mixed with salt and something else and they get a little ball of it and put it between their gums and top lip, right above their front teeth and suck on it. It creates a little bulge under the top lip and when they smile you can see it on top of the front teeth hanging down a little. They don't spit or anything like chewing tobacco, they just suck on it I guess. Anyways, it grosses me out a little. It looks like their teeth are black when they have it in their mouths. Today I gave it a new name instead of snoose. It has been appropriately renamed by me as "pirate chew."

We have to pick our topics for the masters thesis soon and so I might get to do a project on the Lynx. So cool! I also have options of doing a project with moose, deer, rodents, birds, or wolves. Any would be fun in my opinion, but he Lynx would be the best.

I haven't really been many places yet, just the city I go to church in and the other little town where I get groceries, so I don't have much to say on traveling or exploring. I have a nice view of mountains from my window and I go on bike rides often, so that's been my only traveling. I'm planning on going to Oslo soon, maybe I'll have more to say then.

That's about it for now!

Week One Down.

I'm heading into week two right now of my Norwegian experience with a good attitude. So far my classes are pretty low-key and I'm not sure if they know the meaning of the word "intense." The classes don't seem like they will be too hard, but I guess I'll find out quickly.

On Saturday I took my first of many pilgrimages to the town of Hamar so I can go to church on Sunday. I've figured out that if I ride a bike to the train stop, it only takes about 8-9 minutes, and then an hour and fifteen minute train ride to the town. It takes a lot to go to church now! There's no train going on Sunday morning, so every week I have to sleep at someone's house. I am incredibly fortunate that the people of the church have taken me in and let me come to their houses. I've been realizing over the past week just how spoiled Americans are when it comes to church. I will never take that for granted again...

Anyways....on my train ride there was a man standing by me and he asked me if I spoke French, and it just so happens that I do....however remedial it is! So this man and I had a whole conversation in French and it was so great! I was able to communicate in the language I'd studied for years. I never thought I'd actually get to use that skill! I understood as I was trying to get the french to come back how it must be for people speaking to me in English here. Sometimes it's scary to just start speaking in a different language that you're a little unsure about.

I went to the store for the second time today and was a little more successful than the first time. I still have no clue what anyone's saying or what anything says...but I'm really good at blocking everything out and playing inside my own little world. I find it's pretty amusing sometimes to imagine what people are actually saying when you really don't know....I get quite a chuckle out of some thoughts. Also, sometimes when people are speaking english, they don't necessarily sound like the English I'm used to hearing. Another funny one I "heard"......I thought my professor said we needed an "electrode" on excel....well, I certainly didn't know why the heck you'd ever need an electrode for statistics. Then it dawned on me that he said "a lecture"....I need to pay attention better.

There are wild blueberries and raspberries growing all over and I can just pick and eat them...pretty tasty...and free.

Another thing I've discovered since being here is Norwegians are just as proud of being Norwegian as Americans are for being American....they love their country.

I'm going to get some pictures in this soon, I promise.

I'm proud to be an American in Norway and to come from the land of the free and the home of the brave! It's fun to be the odd one. :) Yesterday some guy I met said "oh, you're the American?" Made me proud. :)

And just to confirm some myths that float around about the people of Norway....they are beautiful...everyone is practically. It's uncanny how so many people can be good-looking, it's kinda like being at BYU again.....only WAY different. I never knew there were so many blonds in the world.

The First Few Days

I had a few hours between my train rides where I found out where the church that I will be going to was. It just so happens to be about a block from the train station in a little town called Hamar. I couldn't find it at first, but I finally recognized the name plate with the familiar block lettering of the church. Luckily I found that because I certainly couldn't read what it actually said. Most people speak English in Norway, so it's nice to know that all you have to do is ask for help, and they are very happy to help in any way they can.

I found the church building, or floor of the building as the case may be, and I happened to be in time for the last 10-15 minutes of Sacrament Meeting. I had absolutely no clue what they were saying, but it was so nice to be there among the Norwegian saints. It turned out that there were several Americans within this little branch of about 20 people. It wasn't hard to find them! There was even someone translating for them, which makes me so happy! At the end of the meeting, I met several people and was graciously forced to go home with an older couple for dinner. This is when my Norwegian experiences started....

Before I went home with the couple, the Holths, I was told that they would be having "fish pudding." Now I don't know about the rest of you, but that doesn't have the ring of something that's particularly good to the taste buds. She, Sister Holth, said that it's ground fish mixed with milk, spices, and something else that I don't care to remember. With some luck I got out of eating it.....but who knows what is next.......but don't get me wrong, the Holths are great, I love them and they are good representatives of the caring people of Norway.

The Holths dropped me off at the train station after dinner where I then completed my last leg of the journey to Evenstad. While riding the train we stopped several times in different towns along the way and I took in the beauty of Norway. The whole train ride is along a giant long lake that really looks like a river. The train finally got to the Evenstad stop after a while and there wasn't even a station or hut or anything. It was just a stop....you get off and there's no concrete slab or anything, just gravel. (ok, so there really is a little hut as you can see to your right in the picture). Evenstad truly is in the middle of nowhere, just like they say on the website. There were two other students/interns there to meet me and they took me to my little box/my dorm room on campus. By this time of my journey, all I wanted to do was sleep. The kids kicking my seat during my 8 hour flight didn't give me much time to sleep and the other trips were so much shorter that I really didn't sleep but a few hours total.

The next day I went shopping at the little grocery store for the first time, which is about a 15-20 minute drive away from the campus. I had no idea what was in the boxes and packages because it's all written in Norwegian. I did see some Special K, which I snagged quickly, and if I need some chocolate, they've got some Twix (which just so happens to be my favorite candy bar). The people I went with had to help me shop....that's embarassing....can't even buy food without help. You should've seen me trying to get a bottle of water at the airport, I had to ask the lady if it was just regular water without anything in it because for all I know they could put spinach and fish pudding in there and I'd never know the difference. Plus, the bottles are fancier than they are in the US and they kind of look like liquor bottles....maybe that's why they cost so much too.......I had heard before I came here that a McDonalds meal could run me around $30 and now I know they weren't kidding..... (the picture is in Koppang, where the little grocery store is)

After the shopping I got a tour of campus....which took about 15-20 minutes looking at ALL the buildings...3 buildings precisely....and one's a student bar connected to some dorms. The newest building on campus is the one I go to for class and every time you enter, you have to take off your shoes. Yes, take off your shoes. You are not allowed to enter the building with shoes on. So every day I go to class, I go in just my socks. They like to keep the newer building clean.


pic on top is the campus sign welcoming you and the red building is the clean building where you have to take off your shoes.

I haven't worn anything but wintery clothes since I got here. I stepped out of the airport in Oslo and I had to put on my heavier jacket. It was great! So nice to get out of the 100 degree weather! It's been in the 50s and 60s since I got here and I love it.

Some things that I make me laugh:
1. One name here is "Knut," actually pronounces "K-noot" and every time I think of it, it makes me chuckle. Sometimes you feel like a Knut, sometimes you don't.....
2. Taking off my shoes to go to class
3. There are happy dogs everywhere, they are allowed in the housing.
4. Sometimes Norwegians don't wear deodorant....sometimes it's not so funny....luckily the younger ones do...
5. The word for an orange is "appelsin," what a surprise if you expect apple juice and get some orange juice instead...
6. When I try to pronounce peoples' names and they look at me funny because I ask them to repeat it, and then I slaughter it over and over again.
7. When the word I have to type is actually "skoglemen" and I write "skogLEMON" because that's how it sounds. I got quite a laugh out of that, as did the people around me.
8. When you go to a barbeque and you don't know if you should eat anything. I had a hamburger, but it did not taste like your standard hamburger...it didn't really look like it either....who knows what I ate....but they did CALL it a hamburger.

I'm sure there are more stories to come, but I'm all out of juice for the moment.

Travel to Norway....

I'll start by saying that if you are going to buy a plane ticket to Norway, make the return date within 90 days of leaving....otherwise, the airline won't check you in to your flight. I learned this first-hand. I was at the airport ready to send myself off for 4 months and because I didn't have my visa yet and I wasn't returning for over 90 days, they wouldn't check me in! You can visit for up to 90 days, that's it, there's no way around it without a visa. So as I was talking to the airline people trying to switch my ticket to the 90 day window, I missed my flight. That was the start to my journey. After almost 3 hours on the phone I finally got my ticket switched (with a nice large fee) to the next day and returning within that magic 90 day window. I was off. Three airports, 3 planes, and 2 train rides later, I finally arrived in Evenstad, Norway. From leaving my house at 4:30 am in Crowley, TX to finally arriving in my dorm room in Norway at 8 pm the next day (norway time), I believe I was traveling for about 32 hours altogether.