Norway!

Well . . . . It's been 4 months since I last posted? Whoops. Oh well, let's review then:

December: Snow, Snow, Rain, Christmas, Rain, New Years!

January: Rain, NeujahrsBad!, Snow, Snow

February: Snow, Weimar, snowsnowsnowsnow

March: Snow, SUN!, snowsnowsnowsnowsnow, NORWAY!

So that was the last 4 months in detail :)

Now, maybe you've already guessed from the title of this Blog post that it will be about my amazingsuperawesomespectacular trip to Norway. For those of you who haven't figured it out, this Blog post is about my amazingsuperawesomespectacular trip to Norway.

So, I decided I wanted to go to Norway while I was in Germany because, wait for it, I'm part Norwegian! I know that might be surprising since I'm very dark-skinned, but trust me, my roots are from Norway ;)

So we got in contact with a distant cousin of mine through FB and asked if maybe he could help me out. Sten ended up being a gigantic help, and I am definitely very thankful for him for making my experience in Norway not only possible, but interesting and unforgettable :)

I left for Norway on March 24, flew first to Colpenhagen, Denmark, then to Haugesund, Norway; the closest big city to where most of my distant Norwegian family lives. Sten picked me up and took me out to a Buffet (or a Smorgesbord, as I like to call it) in which it was mostly food I could also find in Germany: Bread with toppings like pork, salami, smoked salmon, and other things. And dessert was 10 different kind of puddings, all very delicious. Then we drove up to where I would be staying, which was really really cool, because it was the house my great great grandmother grew up in! The people who now live there and allowed me to stay in their house during my trip, are very distant cousins of me and my Dad. There are 3 girls around my age that live there, Hilde, Anne Marte, and Malin. They were super nice and made me feel very welcome. Oh, and their English is perfect! Their parents, Rheadun and Asbjorn, were also very nice and would often try to speak English with me, even through their's wasn't as perfects as their daughter's ;)

We talked a lot about family history, naturally, and it is all very very confusing! I can't even begin to explain it, but it was very interesting to hear how I was realated to almost everyone living in the neighborhood. We also looked at many old pictures of grandparents and great grandparents and great great great grandparents. It's amazing how much they've mangaged to hold on to, through all the years.

The first day we went around Sten's town Etne. It has a lot of interesting history in the churches and land around it. There was even a man born in Etne who became King, whom they have memorialized. Although most of the land in Etne and surrounding areas are pastures, there aren't many people nowadays owning sheep, goats, or cows. The decrease has even been influencing the wilderness around the area. I should also mention, that for the whole of my stay it was very sunny, and about 40 degrees. There wasn't any snow, but there were many places still frozen. One of the things that I found really interesting, but was actually a normality in Norway, were the frozen water falls. Everywhere you looked, there was always frozen waterfalls or icicles along the stone walls or stacked rocks.

Afterwards we went driving around the Fjord, which was very beautiful, even now when most of the grass and trees are brown and dry. I would really really love to come back in Summer when everything is green and alive, but the Fjords were still a spectacular sight. When we got home we ate a traditional meal of Norwegian Meatballs served with potatoes, cranberry sauce and mashed peas. DELICIOUS. After that we played Ligretto, a card game I got to know in Germany, and also a game of BS, which took a long time, but Malin finally won :)

The next day we went skiing, my first time! It was cross country skiing, so I wasn't too worried, but I might have been if I had realized how difficult it is to walk UP a hill in skis!! It's impossible! And takes an extremely long time, for a beginner at least. I was just starting to get the hang of it, when we started going up a really really steep hill, in which I ended up taking off my skiis and walking. We stopped shortly after to rest and eat the traditional Norwegian skiing snacks : Kvikk Lunsj (a candy bar that tastes like KitKat), oranges, and hot chocolate. Then we finally made it to the downward part. I made it down one hill, was about to crash into a tree so I purposely fell in order to stop myself. It was a very useful trick. But I ended up walking the next two hills anyways. When it finally flattened out, I started skiing like a ROCK STAR! It was really cool and fun, even if I paid for it in bruises. For some reason I would only fall on my right side :/ But by the end, I could even brake with my skis instead of just laying down :) Skiing geschafft ;)

For dinner that night, we ate their traditional Christmas dinner: sheep meat, sausages, carrots, and another mashed vegetable I'd never seen before. It was also very good, and very salty. Norwegian food is typically very salty, which is good with me :) Afterwards we wanted to watch a troll movie because Norway is famous for their trolls, but unfortunately, not only could we not find the DVD but it didn't have English or German subtitles :( So we watched the Hangover instead ;)

Wow, this is getting to be a long post. Okay, so on my last full day we went shopping in Haugesund. Originally we wanted to look at this awesome looking Souvenir shop, but it was closed! Even though the sign said it was open, the door was locked. It was very disappointing. But we decided to look around in the shopping mall to try to find some small souvenirs maybe. In the book shop we had some success, a few post cards, some Easter cards, a children's Norwegian to English book which I bought for myself, and a potty book for my littlest cousin Taylor. It was adorable, okay? ;) We wandered around a little while, Anne Marte bought new fish for her fish tank, and I took pictures of the cool traditional dresses Norwegian people often wear to speacial events. Afterwards we went to the movies, which I thought was cool because they aren't dubbed like in Germany. It's just the original voices with Norwegian subtitles underneath. Finally we went to Sten's house for ice cream and watched really cool British shows like Would I Lie To You? And this other quiz show about things we think are true but really aren't.

And, on my very last day, I woke up early to say goodbye to Rheadun before she went to work, but then I went back to bed and overslept, so I was a little late packing and getting ready to leave. There was still enough time though to see Malin try on her traditional Norwegian dress. It was really interesting and beautfiul. A lot of it was hand made by her grandmother (who I had coffee with later that day) and there was also many silver accessories with it that took a lot of time to put on properly. I find it amazing that they still wear it to many special occasions such as graduation. We also had time to look at their photo album, which showed Rheadun and Asjborn's wedding pictures, and pictures of the girls when they were younger. But, after that I left with Sten, and I really hope I will one day have the chance to come back to Norway and visit this wonderful family again :)

After having a short coffee with Hilde, Anne Marte, and Malin's grandmother, who's husband was my great grandmother's cousin, Sten took me to an open souvenir shop. I LOVED it! A lot of it was handpainted traditional Norwegian designs, inspired by the Northern lights. Her talent for this is incredible! I am so happy I got to go there before I left. :)

So, yeah. That was my Norway adventure. Maybe if I go again, I'll make it more interesting by going bunjee jumping in the Fjords, but I think this was definitely a great experience and maybe my best so far.  Thank you SO MUCH Mom, Dad, Sten, Hilde, Anne Marte, Malin, Rheadun, Asbjorn, and everybody else that made this trip possible for me!

The weird things about Germany (through an American's eyes)

1. Always always always use a knife when you eat. Always.
2. Sparkling water. Everywhere.
3. Hate peanutbutter, but love peanut puffs (Imagine cheeto puffs . . . . but peanut flavored . . . .)
4. Hardly anyone wears contact lenses.
5. Never without a ruler.
6. Faust.
7. Spreadable meat.
8. Not having one specific class text book for the year, but one for this topic and then a new one for that topic . . . .
9. Fruhstuck bei Steffani
10. Their obsession with criminal mystery shows.
11. Radio stations: one second Pop, the next 80's, the next Rock.
12. Teacher's not here = free hour.
13. But sometimes: Teacher's not here = work on the homework they left for you.
14. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day.
15. The doors. I can't explain. They're different. I hate them.

Conversations with my computer #1

Me: Hey, so you've been working pretty well lately . . . .

Computer: Oh, you noticed? Yeah, I've been eating better lately . . . . thought maybe I'd try the whole grain charger diet . . . .

 

Me: Yeah, wow, that's great! You know, maybe we could try to download something bigger today.

 

Computer: Really? That sounds like a great idea! What did you have in mind? Maybe TWO photos?

 

Me: Well . . . . I was thinking . . . . you know I have all these pictures of my new home . . . . and I'd really like to post them for people to, you know, SEE . . . . but it's kind of a lot . . . .

 

Computer: Oh, I see, we're talking like FIVE photos here! I don't know, Hannah, five is really a lot . . . . but I think I can do it. Yeah, let's try!

 

Me: Well . . . . no . . . . it's more like . . . . six . . . .

 

Computer: BRING IT ON!

 

Me: . . . . plus eighty . . . .

 

Computer:

 

Computer:

 

Computer:

 

Me: Um, okay, maybe later.

My schedule

In Germany they have block schedule here, so I’ll just give you the lay out and a few "details" of each class:

(*) means 2 hours

Monday:

*Deutsch - We’re reading the Geothe play “Faust”. I. Do. Not. Understand.

 

*Physics -  Let’s not even go there, okay?

*Geography – Please, please, please, will you write legibly?!

*Deutsch - This was supposed to be French class, but as I don’t know any French at all, they gave me                                                                                                                                    another German class . . . . a seventh grade German class.

 

Tuesday:

Biology – I’m sorry, were you talking about something important? I kinda fell asleep.

History – They should call this historical government class

*English – my favorite class J

*Philosophy – Ummmmm . . . . yeah, okay.

 

Wednesday:

*P.E -  runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun JUMP! runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun

*Math – Doesn’t matter which country you’re in: math will always be taught in alien language.

*Biology – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Thursday

Deutsch -  okay, I can do this. I can – crap, what did she just say???

History – what? When did that happen? Oh, wait, I misunderstood. Nevermind.

English – thank God

Math -  nooooooooooooooo

Biology – not gonna fall asleep not gonna fall asleep not…..gonna……fall……a……..

Deutsch – not again!

*Physics – I don’t understand. Do you understand? No? okay, let’s goof off J

 

 

Friday:

Deutsch – whatever. It's Friday!

English – omygod, I’m forgetting English. This is so embarrassing. Everybody is going to think I’m stupid because I can’t speak my own language. Omygod I’m going to be a mute! I’m languageless!

Math – Burst into flames Burst into flames Burst into flames

*History – Huh, everybody’s reading . . . maybe I should try . . . nah.

*Art – So . . . . when are we going to draw? Because I’d really like to improve my doodling skills for History class.

School and food and spiders

So, this blog post might be a bit long and rambley because I’m about to cram three weeks of culture shock into it. You might be thinking, hey, you’ve been here for six weeks, why would you suddenly be experiencing culture shock now? Well, you see, those first three weeks, although I had a lovely time with my temporary German host family, were mostly spent with AMERICANS. And it may have been a German language camp, but we sure as heck weren’t speaking German. So, yeah. Culture shock.

I have now taken up residence in Vietlubbe, a SMALL town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It’s really really pretty here; there are these giant windmills about a mile away from my house and I see them every time we go anywhere. And the good weather helps too, although, as of yesterday it has turned not so wonderful.

It was pretty awkward when I first got here; I didn’t understand anything and I could only say a few simple sentences. We kinda just ended up staring at each other and then laughing at how awkward it was. Eventually we just started speaking Denglish (Deutsch-English). The second day we went to the Baltic sea, which was very pretty and nice, even though it started to rain . . . . really hard. But it was still cool to see.

And then . . . . school. It’s really not too bad, mostly because I don’t do anything. Usually I just translate the written stuff they give me because there’s no way I could keep up with what they’re saying – even if I were listening :P The worst part is not being able to understand the people around me because I feel left out and stuff, but I don’t want them to speak English because then I wouldn’t be learning German, but if I don’t understand anything then I can’t say anything and then…..yeah. But there are a lot of really nice people in my school, and I feel like I’ve made a lot of good friends already J

In about five weeks from today, I’m going to have to actually start participating and earning grades in class, which I’m totally dreading, but for now I’m really just coasting through school trying to soak up as much German as I can.

Okay, so, food: Usually in the morning I have a roll with homemade raspberry jelly. Then I make myself I sandwich for in between classes. It’s something that everybody does here that I really like. Everybody just brings a bag load of sandwiches or snacks so they can eat them between classes. It’s awesome. Then I eat a warm lunch in the cafeteria. While not the best food it is TEN times better than cafeteria food in America. The first day I was there someone asked me what they have to eat for lunch in my American school. We have 3 options at Coronado school. Salad, something else, or pizza. The something else changes every day but it’s usually not very good. The salad and pizza however, are there every day, so of course, when (NOT EVERY DAY) I eat from the cafeteria I go for the pizza because the salad is soggy and gross. So when this girl asked me what we have to eat in my American school, I told her pizza. Every day.

Now everybody thinks I eat pizza every day.

So much for erasing stereotypes.

Dinner is really good because my host mom makes it, and even if it’s really simple like potatoes and some meat, it’s always really goodJ Also, the bread here has reached and surpassed all the great expectations I had for it. It’s that good.

I’m going to come home really fat J J J J J

Another thing that I find really funny, is that no one believes me when I say I’m from Las Vegas. They’re like “No! Really?? People actually live there? I thought it was just casinos . . .” It’s really funny, but also kinda sad . . .

Anyways, this week was really exciting because we got two more exchange students!!! One is from France, she’s in most of my classes and she speaks really good German and English so it’s easy to speak Denglish around her J The other exchange student is from Turkey, which I think is really cool because I want to go there some day. She doesn’t speak any German at all! I’m amazed really – even I had a Rosetta Stone and my three week crash course. But, as it seems everyone does in Europe, she speaks English. I feel really lame because everyone here is at least trilingual, and here I am, the American, barely knows any German and only had two years of Spanish, which she’s already completely forgotten. It’s funny, but it’s like the German language is fogging up my brain or something because I seriously don’t remember any Spanish at all and my English is starting to sound like the other German student’s English. It is quite aggravating.

Another aggravating/terrifying thing is the SPIDER issue. Really, this issue could be extended to all insects of various kinds, but the spiders are definitely the most common here. And I mean COMMON. Like EVERYWHERE. And Germans are okay with that. They really don’t care. But me?? Well, as my host mother puts it: I have angst. ANGST!!!! I’ve had at least three spider-filled nightmares, and whenever I enter a room I look up to count how many spiders there are. And trust me – they are always there!!!!! They’re not tiny either. Nuh-uh. These are not Vegas spiders. These are big daddy-long-legs-looking-but-not-actually-daddy-long-legs spiders. And then there’s this other type of spider here that’s pretty common, but I haven’t seen any in the house, THANK GOD, because it’s fat and ugly and it looks like it wants to kill me!!!!!!!!

 Yeah. Angst.

Crazy Camp Days

So, where do I begin? Clearly I didn't have the best beginning, but after the first day . . . . okay, after the first week, I've got to say that things really looked up! I'm even a little bit sad on Fridays! Inconceivable. If you've seen the pictures I've posted on facebook then you've probably already deduced that we are a CRAZY group of teenagers who basically goof off all day while trying to grasp the complexities of the German language and culture.
It's a lot of fun :)
Here is an outline of a usual language camp day:
I catch the 7:28 train to Bucholz, from there the train to Hamburg, and from there a subway to the youth hostel where our classes are held. Sometimes I stop for coffee or a delicious german pastry at one of the many bakeries along the way. Yummy. School starts at 9:30 with current events and german history lessons. Then we seperate into groups (advanced and beginners. I am in beginners) for our german lessons. And even though we work hard and have no choice but to learn super fast, we are always joking around and having extended conversations about this and that which is really fun and interesting. At 12:30 we eat lunch and we always sing this cute kindergarten song before we go. I hope I will get a chance to videotape it before the week is over because it is my FAVORITE song! After lunch we play Ninja for about a half hour, or just sit around. Then it's back to class until 3:30 when we get out!

So yeah, that's language camp for yah. I am REALLY going to miss it! It's been so great and fun and amazing and hilarious, and I don't want to leave all my friends. But I've recently found that I have other friends waiting for me at my new school! They seem really nice and they told me what I should buy for school which is, you know, kinda important . . . . and I think I'm ready to just dive into German. Well, okay, I'm not READY at all, but I'm anxious to start and yeah, maybe humiliate myself a few dozen times, but at least I'll be trying! It's hard to practice German when surrounded by English speakers all day, even if it's at a language camp :/

So, some other stuff I've been doing is swimming and biking and badminton! I like badminton a lot. They also have really great swimming pools here! 3 outside and 3 inside with slides and diving boards and everything! I was extremely impressed. I've been to a few music festivals, which are fun. The fireworks here are AMAZING! It was better than Las Vegas and Niagra Falls put together!

I only have two more days here, and then Saturday I am going to meet my future host family! I'm excited. And Monday I start GERMAN SCHOOL.
I'm terrified.

Time waits for no man, woman or child. And neither do trains.

My first day:
 I can't sleep. I miss my train. I find pay phone and call my host mother to tell her I missed train. I try to call my friend that is expecting me on train I missed. I run out of coins. I ask taxi driver for change. He says no. I walk in rain to town to find Anja's work to use her phone to call my friend. I cannot find her work. I find open  convenience store. I get change. I walk in rain to pay phone. I call friend's mom. I wait for train. Train comes early. I do not think it is my train because it comes early. But I ask and they say yes, it is my train. Train leaves with me on it. Isobel meets me in Busholz, my friend's sister. She puts me on another train to Harburg. I meet friends and escort in Harburg. We ride to Hamburg. We get off. We walk up. We walk down. We get on sub way. We get off sub way. We get on another sub way. We get off sub way. We walk up. We get on bus. We get off bus.
We are at school.

After school:
My friends and I go to ice cream shop. I have no money. I get no ice cream. We go to main train station. I go to ATM and take money. I feel better. We go to mall. We find good prices. We do not buy. Friend and I  leave soon. We go to main train station. We cannot find train to Harburg. We find train to Harburg. We get stuck at stop for half hour. We talk.Train moves again. It comes to Harburg. We get off. We search for train to Busholz. We don't find train. We wait. We wait. We call families. Families don't pick up. We wait. We eat. We wait. We get frustrated. We look for help desk. No help desk. We find another train station across street. We go in. We realize it is the right station. We realize we have been in wrong station one hour. We laugh. We scream. We get on right train.
We get to Busholz. Friend leaves. I get on trian to Soltau. Train does not leave for much time. It moves. I do homework. I worry about worried hostparents. I get to Soltau. Anja waits for me. We hug. I tell her everything. We go home. I collapse into sleep.


It couldn't have been better :)