Take a Breath.

Things are starting to settle down and my life here is falling into a nice routine and slowly, very slowly, "Æ forstår ikke" (I don't understand) is beginning to turn into "Ja! Æ forstår!" (Yes! I understand!).


Last Sunday, Johan and I had some serious sibling bonding time in the form of Bacon-waffles.  We crumbled the bacon right into the batter and then cooked the waffles. They were delicious!

Meow

Monday after dinner Mamma, Pappa and I went for a walk in the woods. We found a bunch of mushrooms (that Mamma went back and picked Tuesday). Bonnie and Clyde accompanied us, and so did Pusur, the cat! That's right, the cat went on a walk with us. It was so adorable! I've never known a cat to do that before..


Later that evening my AFS contact family (or as Pappa says, my back up family) came to meet me. They are very nice and I liked them a lot. If I have any issues or need to talk to someone other than my family, they are the ones for me to go to... but I really don't think there will be any issues for me this year! I will go to dinner at their house some time this month (just to get to know them better) and my "back-up Pappa" will attend all the AFS meetings with me and my family.


Tuesday night one of the neighboring families came to visit. The adults stayed upstairs and Johan, the two girls and I went downstaris and played a martial arts fighting video game. It was a lot of fun! Johan and I were on a team and our strategy was to hit as many buttons as possible, as fast as possible. I played best with the kangaroo rather than any of the people you could choose. 


During the summer, some sheep farmers allow their sheep to graze on hills in the woods, then when fall rolls around they need to go find and round up all the sheep to bring them home. They find the them by listening for the bells that hang around their necks. 
Some have started coming home on their own, so the hills surrounding our house are filled with the muffled clink-clunk of sheeps bells. While we were walking, I noticed some of the sheep don't have bells and I wondered why. It turns out that they are the lambs! The lambs grow so much during the summer that if you put a bell on them at the beginning, by the end it will choke them. They always stay near their mother, so losing them in the woods isn't an issue.  


Wednesday I was going to go looking for sheep in the woods, but the timing didn't quite work out, then it started to rain. I was a little disappointed, but Johan and I used the time wisely by playing video games and having more sibling bonding time. It was lovely. 

Even if my language skills aren't quite clicking yet, my social ones seem to be. I felt very shy and awkward at first, which is not normal at all for me. Usually I'm very outgoing and willing to talk to people, but in the begining it was super intimidating... 
I have become friends with a few of the girls in my class and they are very nice. They make me feel very included, even if a conversation has nothing to do with me, they will take the time to translate or tell me what they are talking about (and I'm not sure if they know just how much that means to me). 
Everyone is so kind; often I get invited to play cards with people and they are very patient with me, even when I don't fully understand the rules. At AFS orientation they told us that Norwegians are very shy and would hesitate at talking to us but the people at Ole Vig have (thankfully) proved them incorrect.


I'm starting to feel very at home here.

Other major accomplishments so far this week:

Reke

Yup... I ate shrimp!