Norwegian Summer

Hallo! I’m checking in from Horten, Norway, where René and I are staying for a couple of days.

I had written out an entire blog entry last week before we left for vacation, but unfortunately it got deleted, and this has been the first opportunity I’ve had where I could really sit down, focus, and write. (Well, not entirely true…more like the first time I’ve been in the blogging mood.)

As mentioned, R and I are on vacation in Norway. We had just come down from four days in the Lofoten archipelago, to the north of Norway. But of course, I’ll let my pictures do most of the talking:

We stayed in a renovated fisherman’s cottage (rorbu) at Valen, on the edge of the town of Reine and near the island Sakrisøya.

Here’s a view of our rorbu from the side: it’s the one to the right.

Being next to the water, we had a great view from our window and patio/deck.

There was a lot of fish (tørrfisk) hanging near our cabin.

But where were the heads?

A little further down the road, well…we found them.

Shark heads too!

We walked to Sakrisøya to the east…

…and Reine to the west.

And no matter where we went, it was beautiful.

After a long stroll, it was nice to come home and relax a bit.

And each night, we were treated to a beautiful sunset out on the deck. (The sun set at around 10 PM here!)

Needless to say, we enjoyed ourselves immensely!

So now we are down in Horten, with my Norwegian family. It’s been a lot of fun showing René my life here. It’s also the first time that I’ve shown anybody from outside the AFS network Horten, and Norway for that matter. In addition, we’ve spent the last two evenings in Pappa’s home brewery sampling his various batches of beer. (My favorite is hveteøl, or wheat beer.) Fun and tasty!

We still have two days here, and while tomorrow’s plans are uncertain, we will definitely be having the usual Pizza Night on Friday, as well as celebrating Mamma’s birthday. And now, I should get some sleep so I have enough energy for tomorrow. G’nite!

Hælga Er Borte

Wow, this weekend passed by so quickly…has it really been three days? I guess it has.

I spent a good part of Saturday with my friend Gayoung in Farmandstredet, the nicest mall in perhaps all of Norway. I don’t think I got a chance to see here the last time I was here, in May, so it has been a while! She’s one of the only people form Horten Videregående that I’m still in touch with, and it was nice to get updated on her life. She tells me that next year, she will most likely be moving to Oslo, although she also really wants to study in Trondheim’s NTNU. We shopped a bit, and then went back to Horten for a kebab. One thing’s for sure: Norway definitely has better kebabs than Switzerland.

After dinner, I came home and tried some of Pappa’s home-brewed beer. Despite being only 4.9%, I have ridiculously low booze tolerance, so I felt its effects pretty good. Mamma suggested I should train. I’m not so against that idea. After all, I plan on going to next year’s Oktoberfest.

Mamma also made some excellent food for the guests we were having over. I missed the entrée and the main course, but I got my share of dessert: baked pear halves with mint chocolate and vanilla ice cream. It’s so good to be back home.

Sunday, I continued my weekend of kos. Marie woke me up asking if I wanted to join her in delivering “breakfast” to Pappa in bed for Norwegian Farsdag. Of course I said yes and we served him coffee and chocolate and the four of us huddled in one big bed for a while. I was pretty sure I fell asleep, because afterwards I went down to my room again and slept until breakfast: scrambled eggs with leek and lox on rundstykker.

Afterwards we took a promenade down to Horten’s harbor. It was close to zero degrees Celsius and we walked for an hour; to be honest, I don’t think I would have ever done that alone. (But I did hike half of Liechtenstein in February alone…so I wouldn’t say never.) The rest of the day went in flashes: I skyped with René, I ate dinner (pork filet with red wine and coffee sauce, mashed potatoes and broccoli), I watched two episodes of Bones, and I watched Søndagsfilmen with Marie. And now it’s 2 AM again as I type this!

I have to sleep a bit, because I plan on leaving for Oslo early. I have to go to BI for a briefing on exams, and then I have to pack for two weeks in Thurgau with my sweetheart! Only good things are ahead!

Kjære Hvitveisstien,

You remind me of all the things I love about Norway! This past half-year has not been the easiest for me, but as I sit here and koser meg under my dyne I feel not the slightest bit of frustration or anxiety. Being here inside this house makes me relaxed; no stressful thoughts can permeate these snugly decorated walls. Now I again come upon those feelings which prompted me to come back to Norway…

My AFS year here in Horten has truly been one of the best years of my life, and certainly one of the most meaningful. Perhaps it is no surprise then that Oslo could not fulfill my expectations. It’s like going to a bull for milk.

I am spending a weekend back at “home” with my wonderful Norwegian family. There is a tradition that every Friday there would be homemade pizza for dinner, so it was a great thing to come home to! They also read my ecstatic Facebook status update a while ago about Julebrus season, so there was also nice big bottle of Julebrus along with the Coke staple. It was a very sweet and simple gesture, and it made me very glad.

We watched the same programs we used to watch: Beat4Beat, Nytt på Nytt, and Senkveld. I find a certain comfort in that predictability. It’s like, even if you have the worst week (or semester), there’s always Fredagkveld med pizza og TV to soothe you over. (Except for Nytt på Nytt. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being frustrated trying to understand that show. It’s just too darn orange!) After dinner Pappa and Mamma went to bed and we watched an old episode of CSI: Miami in Marie’s room.

Sleep calls me now. It’s 2:30 AM I’ve been awake since 9 AM writing the Executive Summary for the Marketing Management, which, by the way, is all done now. And by done, I mean PDF-format done! We’ve worked our asses off on this marketing plan…I think the province of Vicenza should really take a look at it!

1:40 AM…

…And finally done compiling our Marketing Management term paper! We’re in the final stretch now!

Today, uffa meg. Ka kan æ si? I didn’t even change out of my pyjamas. Sometimes I really think I should’ve been a cat, because I work a little and laze a lot.

I’m afraid that my room smells because I haven’t opened the window today. That’s my Concern du jour. But it’s so darn cold out that I just can’t be bothered.

I already know that waking up tomorrow is going to be a challenge. There are few things harder in this world than getting up in Norway in the wintertime, and that’s not an understatement. But I have to get up and go to school tomorrow, because I have to request an English version of my Norwegian-French Business Communications exam and buy my Consumer Behavior textbook; I plan on taking it with me while I’m on my 2-week sabbatical in Thurgau. 这样，勒内上班儿的时候，我可以在家复习复习。

这个周末我去见我的接待家庭。其实，这个学期我们没有见那么多次面，比较失望。我昨天晚上收到接待妈妈的电话：他请了我下去。他们也知道我这次在挪威过的不太好，不知到是不是为了这个原因请了我。我其实不想让他们知道我。。。不喜欢他们的国家，因为他们对我很好。就是因为他们对我这么好我才不想表达我真正的想法。我好像感觉除了他们意外，我更本就不喜欢挪威人。但是，我已经保证我不会在说这样的话了！就是说出来也不会改变情况，还不如争取找找生活和挪威的好事儿哪！

I leave you with my new favorite song. Veronica Maggio has reignited my love of Scandinavian pop. (It takes an Italian, ironically.)