Nearly Christmas

A few weeks ago I found this rainbow on my way home from school!

So yesterday was my last day of school before the Christmas break. It is nice to be finished and I am really really looking forward to Christmas! In Norway its not like New Zealand with just Eve Mee engaging in the christmas spirt by herself. I haven't heard anyone complain of christmas carols yet! And it is everywhere, in the streets there are lights hanging above the street and very pretty star shaped lights which people have in their windows. And because it is so dark here (only light from 10 - 2.30 at the moment) it makes everything feel very cosy!

Christmas lights back when there was snow

Today I went to the church with my school which was the first time I have been to a church service in Norway. It was very different. They had different people performing and it was much more casual than your average chapel! Also I was surprised because it wasn't compulsory but most people still went which was really nice. I'm not sure you would find so many kiwi teenagers voluntarily going to a christmas church service! Afterwards my class had a really nice christmas lunch and said goodbye for the year.

The school church service... Sorry about the head.

Risgrøt

Risgrøt is my favourite Norwegian food! It is like a rice pudding made with short grain rice and milk. Traditionally it is a christmas food but norwegians eat it all year round for dinner which at first I thought was a little strange. At christmas time they take the skin off an almond and mix it in the risgrøt. Who ever finds the almond gets a marzipan pig (so I'm crossing all my fingers and toes)! I have found a recipe on the internet which resembles what I have made. If you are feeling adventurous or just missing me you can try making it!

Here is the link:

http://www.grouprecipes.com/40830/norwegian-rice-porridge.html

Christmas food is a major exchange highlight.... So much baking. AFS has a duel meaning everyone knows (Another Fat Student). Something strange here though is everyone eats mandarins here because it is a traditional christmas food! In fact most of my teachers brought mandarins to school in our last class for us to eat. I will post plenty of pictures of christmas food after it is over with but I have a few favourites for you in the meantime!

Kransekake my hostmum made

Krumkake my host mum made. They are made in a special iron which gives them a really pretty pattern!

Homemade pepperkake

Most Norwegians will stay home for christmas which makes sense as it is a very cold, dark time of year. This is very different to what I am used to and when I tell people my parents are going to the beach they have trouble imaging it! I was hoping to have a white christmas in Norway, but of course the one year I am here they don't. No snow is forecast for a long time and we have had very warm weather recently which melted the huge dump we had a few weeks ago.

But thats all, merry christmas or as the Norwegians say, god jul!!!!

Photos of late

Today, feeling slightly lazy but feeling I need a new post anyway I have decided to post a link to my photos on Facebook so even if you don`t have facebook or don`t want to be friends with me you can still see them! Here is the link, I`ll try to post something properly in the weekend!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.649402811744703.1073741827.100000249698231&type=1&l=0a3a5d8cef

Winter is here!

I think it would be fair to say that winter has now arrived in Trondheim. We have had several dumps of snow in town but they have been followed by warm spells so there is not much snow around. It is funny in Norway because they are so used to the snow that no one comments or gets excited when they see snow (some even look a little sad) and this is where my foreign nationality becomes very obvious. I guess this is mostly because snow is New Zealand would always mean no school which was the biggest perk of all. Here, it is life as normal except with maybe a few more clothes when you go out. Another thing that busts my disguise is my total inability to walk on ice. It is hard for me to decide if this is because of my terrible coordination or just something that my unadapted gene pool was missing but all Norwegians manage perfectly. There is a way they walk all taking very small steps and standing very upright that works even for people wearing high heals (getting passed by women wearing high heals while I walk to school in my yax tracks is a little humiliating).

Walking home from school... In the snow and dark. Quite different from the bush track!

It has also started getting really dark really early. Today it got dark around 2.30pm and it is still three weeks until the shortest day! This is really hard because it makes you feel exhausted all the time. For norwegians they are used to it and everyone has their own little strategies for coping with it but for me it is really difficult. I never want to go outside or do anything that requires energy because when my body sees the first little glimpse of darkness I am totally exhausted. But I guess I'm starting to find my little ways to cope with it too.

There is something really cool about the darkness though... In New Zealand I know people would say 'oh it's dark and cold and snowing and I can't possibly go outside! I defiantly can't walk and I probably shouldn't drive either'. There is none of that attitude here! If it is dark you can still carry on doing the things you need to do. You can go walk or run after dark and if it is cold, well you just need more clothes! But it has taught me a really good lesson about how to just get on with things!

The finished sweater.... Well I thought it was finished!

This dark weather has its uses though and it happens to be particularly good for knitting! I had almost finished my sweater when I decided to take the torso piece off the needles to see if it fit me. It was so massive I could wrap it around myself twice and I knew that unless I went on some serious anti dieting or took on the true afs title (another fat student) I was never going to fit it.... So last Saturday afternoon I painstakingly undid the whole thing with the help of Kine. It was hard but I want it to be perfect because the wool cost me a small fortune.

After: The balls of wool all ready to be re knitted.

Anyway, this was longer than I intended! I better go work on my knitting now...

Electric cars

In Norway it is very common to have an electric car and some, to be honest look totally ridiculous. Most of them are from the manufacturer 'smart', have three sets and look like an egg carton. They are very quiet to run and it can be quite terrifying if you are walking because you cannot hear them coming behind you. They come in handy however, as you can often drive around traffic barriers in them and get into parking buildings for free. Also, many places in town have parking places reserved for these cars and you can charge your electric car while you shop.

I found both of these green ones on the same day. Not sure if it is cute or ew.

Not even sure what this is... But it made me laugh

However, I spotted this electric car the other day while out walking. It is the only electric sports car on the market in Norway. Because it is electric it is subsidised by the government so it is a reasonably affordable. Because of this it has now become very popular.

Electric sports car.

Skiing and the elk

 

The weekend before last I went skiing for my first time in Norway! It was amazing, very beautiful and sunny day which made it very plesant. It was very different to skiing in New Zealand. First the trees... Who put those there?! But it made it more exciting because you couldn`t tell where you might end up. But I also came to realise why we have so many forigners skiing at the Snow Farm. In Norway it is croweded and my speed didn`t really get past a shuffle most of the time, not bad for a Sunday ski but I can imagine it would be annoying for others. I guess you don`t appriciate what you have until it is gone! But now all the snow is melted and everyone says they are expecting a mild winter so I might have to wait a bit.

Last weekend I helped my host parents cut up an elk which they had bought, unbutchered. Acting like the tough New Zealander I am, I got stuck in and helped cut up the beast. It took three of us over three hours to get everything bagged, minced and in the freezer but we made it. The white kitchen required quite a bit of cleaning but it is now back to normal and I no longer have elk blood under my fingernails either which is a bonus!

I have a good idea for my next blog post so you shouldn`t have to wait too long for the next one. Sorry I haven`t been posting as much as I should but when there is snow to be skied and elk to be cut it has to wait!

 

And an update on the knitting: I am nearly ready to start the top pattern. As of last night I had 8cm to go so I will keep you posted after I start the design!!!!

 

Knitting!!!

I have been pretty bad at this blogging thing recently and I am sorry if you have been faithfully checking back to find no updates! But I'm not just lazy there is a reason I have not been blogging (well, mostly), it is because I have started traditional Norwegian knitting! I think it is possibly the most under rated craft in the world. For those who don't know the famous designs a quick google search of 'norwegian knitting' will clear up your curiosity.

Since I arrived here I have made two hats and I have started on a jumper which I am very proud of! My host family's grandmother has been helping me and she even included me when she made socks for all the grandkids! It is very nice to have the help because I know if I tried to do this back in New Zealand I might have got a little confused.

My first hat with Norwegian design

Socks that Kine knitted for me

                                 

My sweater I'm knitting

Weekend at the Cabin

Last weekend I spent the weekend at my family's cabin which was very fun. In Norway many families have their own cabin in the mountains. In the summer they go hiking and in the winter they go skiing. So going to a cabin is a true Norwegian experience. Cabins often don't have electricity or running water but it is becoming more common to have these luxuries. Driving to the door is also common now however I embraced the short uphill dash in the rain!

The rain soon stopped however and we were left with a nice day. In the afternoon we went hiking around the area. In Norway there are plenty of wild berries and in the particular area of the cabin, blueberries were abundant. We walked until we got to some old musterers houses which were in true Norwegian style complete with foliage on the roof. We had chocolate and blueberries and walked back to the cabin.

In the cabin there was a tv and I was really surprised to find that there was also internet! So after sitting by the fire, watching a show similar to the x factor. It was mostly candle lit but there were dim solar lights also. Basically nothing like a New Zealand tramping experience! I slept in a double bed with a duvet and sheets and I was warm the whole night, something which is somewhat infrequent in New Zealand.

In the morning we decided to walk to a look out point near the top of the hill. It was quite a long walk and it probably took us about 3 hours to get there due to the blueberry eating! On the way down from the hill I got to see reindeer which was particularly exciting when you are from New Zealand. I am still convinced it was Rudolph and his buddies because one of them had a red ribbon around his neck!

Bicycle lift

In Norway probably about a third of people bike to school or work. It is not uncommon to see someone biking in a suit or a dress and having appropriate clothing does not seem to phase them. So one of the cultural differences I have decided to embrace is the use of the a bike. My bike belongs to my host grandmother but she is kind enough to let me borrow it! It even comes with a 90's helmet which I get weird looks for wearing as no one here wears helmets either!

This video is of me attempting the bicycle lift home from school. The local government wanted to encourage people to bike rather than take their cars so they built a bicycle lift so people would not have to bike up the hill. It is very had to explain but you can see how it works in the video. The word lift made me think it would be very easy but I soon found out it is actually very difficult. This is a video of one of my not so successful attempts but you will be glad to know that I have now mastered it. I use it twice a day most days to get home from school at lunch and home time.

Velkommen til Norge

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my blog! In case you don't already know this blog is about my afs exchange to Norway. I will be living in Trondheim which is in central Norway near the coast. I am living with a Norwegian family who are very good to me and I go to a local school called Thora Storm.

I arrived in Norway 3 days ago and landed at Oslo airport. I then went to a camp 45 mins out of Oslo where everyone from all over the world going to Norway was taught about language and other things to help prepare us. It was beside a lake and it was very beautiful (like all of Norway!). There is another girl from New Zealand also in Norway. She lived about 120km away from Trondheim.

Today was my first day of school. It is very different to New Zealand which I expected but it wasn't similar to anything I had expected either. There are probably 100 or more people in my year. I am in year 12 here but they call it vgs 2 (second year of upper secondary school) and it is much more like a university than a high school. The also have many more subjects than New Zealand which is very good for me as there are lots of things I enjoy on offer! I am taking Norwegian (for non norwegian speakers. Like esol in NZ I think), physiology, sociology, geography, statistics, social studies and German. Statistics and German will be interesting but it is compulsory to take a maths subject and they call it a 'global language' subject.

At lunchtime today I went walking around the town. I found all the important things like Zara and the MAC counter in no time. The streets here are very narrow and cobble stone which makes it difficult for walking as there it is uneven. I would hate to be wearing high heals on this and I don't know how people do it! There are lots of trees even in the very middle of town. Dunedin is naked compared to this. But because it is the middle of summer and I have come from winter I cannot get over how green everything is, even slightly blinding in places!