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.