Drøbak, Oslo and Norefjell

The beginning of last week was a familiar scene for me because two years ago the same type of thing happened:

• Wake up early in the morning.
• Hug the people you love goodbye.
• Stress through airport security, like always.
• Board the plane.
• Spend just about an hour on the plane.
• Land in Oslo. 
• Get off the plane.
• Go to the baggage claim and wait for what seems like hours to get my bag.

Two years ago there was quite a bit of stress and nerves involved because I hadn't ever actually met the people I would be staying with. When my bag came I patiently waited for it to reach me on the conveyor belt and then after a deep breath, I timidly walked through the exit and looked for the boy wearing a top hat and I was greeted by kind smiles.

Gosh, that trip feels like FOREVER ago...

Last week was a bit different. I grabbed my bag as quick as possible and trying to suppress my excitement (and my urge to run) I walked through the exit and straight into a hug.
"Oh my goodness, I missed you guys!!!"

Just like two years ago, Thomas and Richard Andreas picked me up at the airport.
How do I know these lovely people you may be asking?
Thomas' wife and Andreas' mother is a wonderful woman named Annette (she appeared in an early post when she surprised me with a visit in Hegra last fall!). My mom (the one in the USA) knows Annette from their time together with a group called Up With People (http://upwithpeople.org/).
A couple of summers ago their whole family came to the USA and visited my family while they were there, but as chance would have it, at that time I was off on An Adventure of Epic Proportion with my grandmother and her sister in the western USA. One car, three ladies, six states and countless miles all in a month (or so)...
But that is a different story...
Once we had exchanged greetings, we loaded my stuff into the car then drove to their home in Drøbak. I used Marius' room (he is Andreas' older brother who now lives in Denmark) just like last time. I was so glad to see everyone again.
Annette suggested that we should drive into Drøbak to get a bus card for the week for me. Andreas said we should go on an adventure, to which his mother replied that everything was an adventure with him. So the three of us drove into town and took a walk around a park that I visited two summers ago. It looks a bit different in the winter. We walked down to a new dock and watched some kids ice skate on a rink for a while, then we walked up to a little cafe and had a piece of cake. It was getting pretty late so we figured it was time to get home. We went to a store to buy my bus pass and found a cooler full of Ben & Jerry's ice cream! We got Phish Food, Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Strawberry Cheesecake. After dinner, Andreas and I played a couple of intense games of battleship, then played Labyrinth on Thomas' iPad... Until Thomas got out the real thing.

Sometimes you just have to go with the original.
Technology isn't always better ;)

Monday morning I woke up at 7-ish to get ready for my first day of work! I got a wake up call (just to be sure I didn't sleep through my alarm). The plan was for me to be over at the other house to eat breakfast with Annette at 7:30 but I didn't make it over until after 7:40. We left at 8 to catch the bus. We drove to the bus stop and missed the early bus, but there was one that was only about 7 minutes later. I tried to swipe the bus pass, but I had to try a few times for it to work. I was excited to see how this part of the country looked compared to Nord-Trøndelag and I figured it would be fun to look out the window during the ride to the city...
I slept on the bus.
When we reached Oslo, we got off the bus and went on a subway.

Yayyyy public transportation!

We got off at the station near the store (Ordning&Reda). Outside the station there was a man with a guitar singing about Jesus. Annette said he is there almost every day; rain, shine, snow or wind, he is on the corner singing about the lord. We are both impressed by his dedication.
Ordning og Reda is a very pretty store that sells photo albums, planners, journals and other things along those lines. It is very organized and orderly and everything is sectioned into different colors.
My first day was very busy. In the morning we cleaned up the store and prepared to open at 10. I learned to use the cash register and I helped customers. I used as much Norwegian as I could, but mostly all I had to say was the amount they had to pay, ask "Vil du ha en pose?" (do you want a bag?) say "Takk! Ha det bra!" (Thank you! Goodbye!) and smile. I also organized some boxes in the back of the store. For lunch I ran across the street to a store and got Annette and I rundstykker (rolls) and pålegg (the stuff that goes on top of bread like meat and cheese).
I learned how to make sure the shelves are arranged correctly and I spent quite a bit of time (all week actually) making sure the shelves and displays were picture perfect.

Being very particular...

Ahh I should have been more careful. I see things in this picture
that need to be fixed!!

This is my favorite shelf in the store :)
Purple is the best!!

Check out counter

At 3 o'clock, Andreas showed up at the store and Annette said I could go with him, so we walked down one of the streets in Oslo and went to Ben & Jerry's and got ice cream, then we caught the bus home. After dinner, Andreas and I relaxed on the couch for quite a while then, once it was relatively late, everyone went to bed.

What you can't see in this picture is that the wood stove is right next to
the couch, so it was very cozy :)

Tuesday morning, same deal:
Wake up call, arrive to breakfast slightly late, leave at 8, miss the early bus (no stress) catch the one a few minutes later, sleep on the bus, then take the subway to the shop.
Open the shop at 10, but on Tuesday instead of working with customers, I worked more in the back, wrapping photo papers and organizing the boxes. I opened countless boxes and restocked the storage shelves. Then I crushed the boxes and brought them all out to the recycling dumpsters in the back.
I also went to a local bakery and bought rolls and jam for Annette and I for lunch.

Had to count out the right number of individual pieces
of paper then wrap them.

I wrapped a lot of paper that day...

All the boxes are labeled by me, moved to this area then sorted
into their individual stacks.

After a few hours of wrapping....

Cleaned up back here too.

Maybe this work wasn't quite as glamorous, but it had to be done by someone and I was ready and willing. Annette was impressed with my paper wrapping ability (I was so relieved that I didn't mess it up really bad!) and she was also very happy with the extra space that opened up after I sorted and stacked all the boxes. It was a successful day at work.
When we got home, Thomas had lit a fire in the yard and he and I cooked hot dogs for dinner (Annette went skiing after work). After a little while Andreas came home with his band (minus one) in tow. They all gathered around the fire and cooked their dinner. After everyone was fully satisfied with their meal they decided it was time to practice a little bit. However, since one of their members was missing they couldn't actually play any of their songs, so they just kind of played what they felt like playing. It is a really cool set up, they all plug into one central system and since they are electric instruments (except of course for Andreas, who plays the drums) you can't hear unless you have a set of headphones, which they gave me. It was actually really cool to listen to them play (by the way you should totally like them on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/CombustionNorway)

The band looks something like this.

And since you can't see the amazing drummer in the picture above here is one for the books:

Pretty awesome if you ask me

 Anyways, after a while of practicing, they decided it was time to go make S'mores! Andreas and I were sooo excited, but I think the others were a little skeptical. S'mores are purely an American food (I brought the needed fixings) so his friends had never tried them before. Andreas and I ate more than the three others did together. We were laughing because we both can down them like it is nobody's business, but when his friends ate them they felt sick after the first one. I can understand though.. they are ridiculously sugary. And ridiculously delicious.
Annette came home and cooked her hot dogs while we were making S'mores. After a bit of wrestling in the snow, a couple fierce battles and lots of joking around with each other, the boys decided to go home.
Andreas practiced his drums for a while longer. You can tell by the look on his face while he plays just how much he loves music. It's so great.

Wednesday was the same deal in the morning up until we got to the bus stop in Oslo. Annette asked me if I wanted a chance to see more of the city instead of going underground so instead of the subway, we took the trikk (the tram).

It was quite a lot of fun to see parts of the city that I had only seen during the summer. It looked pretty different too. We got to the shop a little later than normal but still were there with plenty of time to open it by 10. I worked at the cash register again and I took multiple walks around during the day to organize the shelves. It was a good job for me because I am so particular about how things have to be. Especially zippers... If you ever see my backpack you will notice all the pockets have the zippers on the same side (Well duh.. but my bag has double zippers so they could be on either side. But they have to always match. Always.)

Extremely picky....

I also learned how to properly wrap a present for someone (although it was just a trial and I didn't actually get to wrap somebody's present).

The three steps: Plastic, tissue paper, wrapping paper.
I'd say I did an ok job for my first try. 

At 3:30 another exchange student (from Mexico) came to visit me. He lives right in Oslo! We had a nice time talking about how things are going so far with our years. We went down to the waterfront and got a snack. We were meeting Annette at the tiger at 6. The tiger is a famous statue at the main station in Oslo. When it was time to go we went to catch a trikk. We waited for a very very long time and then decided it would be better for us to walk, so we walked quite a ways through the city up to the tiger. As soon as we arrived at the tiger the trikk we had been waiting for arrived there as well. We thought that was pretty funny.

I took this picture last time I was in Oslo.
There was significantly more snow this time.

When Annette came, I said goodbye and we got on a bus to Drøbak. Instead of going straight home we went out to dinner. Annette and I had to wait for Andreas, so we did a little bit of shopping... mostly for groceries, but I did find an amazing pair of shoes that looked something like this:

And I think my reaction was something like this:

Eventually Andreas' bus arrived and we all drove into town and met Thomas at a Thai restaurant.

I discovered three very interesting things at dinner:

1. Annette is very good at identifying ingredients in soup.

2. I do not like sushi.

3. Jokes about pandas are funny.

So one day this panda walks into a restaurant and orders his food. The waiter is a bit skeptical (a panda in a restaurant?) but he brings the meal. The panda finishes his food, pulls out a gun and fires it at the ceiling a few times then walks out like nothing happened. 

The waiter is very confused. 

The next night the same thing happens, the panda comes, orders, the waiter brings the food figuring maybe the panda will pay for both meals tonight. However, when the panda was done eating, he pulled out his gun and let out a few more rounds and walked out of the restaurant. 

Finally on the third night when the panda comes back the waiter has to ask: 

"What is going on? Why do you always come here, finish your meal and then shoot the ceiling?" 

The panda says "Hey man, I'm a panda... Look it up." 

So the waiter goes to an encyclopedia and looks up the word panda. It says that a panda is a bearlike mammal that lives in regions in Asia. Under diet it says: 

"A panda eats shoots and leaves"

Ok... I realize that is a horrifically corny joke, but it makes me laugh so I enjoy it.

After dinner we went home and Andreas and I curled up on the couch and watched Despicable Me.

"Some call him Bad. They call him Dad."

It is a very cute movie and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't yet seen it.

Thursday started like all the others, the only difference in the routine was after getting off the bus and before getting on the trikk, Annette and I stopped at this cute little coffee place. She got some type of coffee and I got a hot chocolate. We had a very relaxed ride through the city to the store. Thursday was very busy.

At one point some well known Norwegian news caster came into the store and my co-worker got so excited but I'm still not exactly sure who it was. 

Also there was one very rude customer who came into the store and started asking me all these questions in (very, very fast) Norwegian. I tried to explain (in Norwegian) I wasn't very good at Norwegian yet but I would go get Annette, who could answer her questions. The old lady got so angry with me and started complaining to another customer about having an employee in a NORWEGIAN store who doesn't speak NORWEGIAN and how dumb that was... Yeah, well, I guess she didn't realize that I can understand most of the Norwegian I hear...

Annette explained to her that I was an exchange student and all about the work week and everything. Later she told me not to worry about it because the woman was rude to everyone, it wasn't just me. I came to the conclusion that some people just need to be angry and if I gave that woman her reason to be angry for that day then maybe in some way I made her life a little bit better (there is always a silver lining?)

Most of the time when people would find out that I was an exchange student they were very supportive and open to talking to me and being very patient. I met another American, a former AFSer, and countless other kind Norwegians. This woman was even nice enough to let us take pictures of her checking out:

Another accomplishment of the day is that I got to make part of the window display! Pretty cool job I think:

Thinking.... Thinking...

How does it look?

At 5-ish we met Andreas at the main station in Oslo and he and I went to Ski (the town his school is located in). We had dinner and then we went to a show at his school that was raising money for a trip they will be taking. It was really good. I understood quite a bit of it, but there were still a few moments reminiscent of the Are Kalvø incident (Least Funny Thing Ever.) but nothing quite that depressing this time!

The way these two acted so reminded me of
Sir William and his Partner-in-Crime Samuel.
Absolutely hilarious.

I got to meet a few more of Andreas' friends and I also got to snoop around in his school a little bit. 

Just like every other night we didn't go to bed until really late. The worst part about that was walking from their house to the house I was staying in. It is a very, very short walk, but when it is late and cold, it is not very fun at all. Every night I would lie on the couch and proclaim that I was "never moving again. Never ever."

Friday, Annette had  the day off and instead of making me go into work by myself, I got the day off too. I took advantage and slept in. At around 11:30, Bjørn and his wife came to pick me up for lunch. We went to Kristin and Bendik's house. 

Who are they?

My mom's host family from when she was in Norway!
It was lovely to see them again (I visited them two summers ago and Bjørn also made an appearance in Hegra  earlier this year). 

Bendik, Kristin, me and Bjørn

I really hope that I will see them again this year!

For the rest of the afternoon I just relaxed and waited for Andreas to get home. I learned how to make delicious hot chocolate:

steam the milk

add the chocolate :)

Friday night Andreas was going to a concert with his friends, so he invited me to go too. We went and got kebabs then went to the show. The band was called Shining. They are a metal band with a kick of jazz mixed in. The singer is an amazing saxophone player! I was a little bit skeptical before the concert, but I actually really enjoyed it. I don't think I would ever listen to that type of music off my iPod or anything, but seeing a live show is pretty cool. When a band is obviously having fun with their show, it makes it a fun show to watch. 

After the concert Friday night we went to bed almost as soon as we got home because we intended to get up early and leave for Norefjell. 

Saturday morning I was over at the house by maybe 9:30 (ehh.. that might be a bit of a stretch). My bags were packed and I was ready to go. Andreas was still in bed. We all ate breakfast then packed up the car and we were off around maybe 11-ish. I fell asleep in the car, but I had my arm resting on the back of the seat and when we went over a bump it fell down and it scared me awake. I thrashed about for a second or two then realized what had just happened. Annette and Andreas thought it was funny and I laughed pretty hard myself. 

We stopped at store and got enough food for probably three weeks up on the mountain, so I suggested we stay for that long. 

As soon as we got to the cabin, Andreas hit the slopes (for about an hour before they closed). The mountain is Norefjell. It is lovely! (http://www.norefjell.com/)

It was used for the alpine events in the 1952 Winter Olympic games.

That evening we relaxed. When it was pretty late out (and obviously very dark, I mean.. It is Norway after all) I suggested we go play in the snow. Andreas thought that was a wonderful idea so we got all geared up and jumped around in the snow for a while. It was snowing and very windy. We decided to go on an adventure up into some woods. On our way back to the house we found a lost man in the road and he asked Andreas for directions so we pointed him the right way and he thanked us and wandered off into the night. 

Before we went inside we found some massive snowbanks and a huge set of tunnels some kids had built. Little kids obviously because I squeezed through one of the tunnels and nearly got stuck. Then we did what any rational young adults would do when confronted with giant snowbanks:

Slide down them on our tummies like penguins!

When we came in we were soaked through and looked like ragdolls

Ragdoll... Look it up...

Ok, maybe not ragdolls.. but we were a little messy:

Ha ha, raccoon much?

My makeup was all over the place so I did the only plausible thing with it and made us into warriors:

On Sunday we planned to get up at around 8 or 8:30 so we could get a full day on the slopes. No such luck. We were up closer to 10. We rented a board for me and we were off.

I was terrified.

I hadn't been on the slopes in nearly two years! And we all know what I did to myself quite a number of years ago while boarding, right?

*Warning: Extremely young Avery directly below*

Oh lord.. bad picture, but it gets the point across.
P.S. look at my bangs!
P.P.S. do you like how my mom decorated my cast? Pretty awesomeeee

So I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but after a while I got my confidence back and was able to sufficiently snowboard all day (with a bit of complaining about how tiring it was)

Anderas has a camera he can attach to his ski helmet (he is amazing at skiing by the way!) so there was a little bit of footage from the slopes that day. I expected to look something like this:

It is Hannah Teter! (Look her up if you don't know her)

Maybe not quite as good as that, but I really didn't expect to see something that looked like this in the videos standing on the board:

The arms in this picture are very accurate
Straight and out to the side at a strange angle

and like this:

Not actually me for the record.

I mean, good lord, even this lemur has more snowboarding swag than me:

He's actually a pretty cool little dude...

Maybe the best part though is that I only really fell once all day and it just so happened to be caught on tape...

Right onto my back.

Regardless of how silly I look snowboarding,  I quite enjoyed it and I made it down the mountain (more than a couple of times) and stayed in one piece, so I would call it a successful day. When lifts closed we went back to the cabin and I flopped on the floor. 

I. Was. Exhausted.

*FLOP*

Thomas gave me some chocolate (Kvikk Lunsj!)  

It revived me rather quickly...

We ate dinner together and then packed up and drove from Norefjell to the airport near Oslo. I said goodbye to the two boys and they drove home. Annette was staying in a hotel at the airport for the night because she was leaving early the next morning for Denmark for a meeting. We checked in my bag, had a muffin together and then said goodbye. I went through security and found my gate. On the plane ride home I was looking out the window and all of a sudden I saw beautiful green lights shimmering seemingly very close to the plane. It was northern lights! I watched them the whole ride. I tried to take a picture, but I only had my iPod so it didn't work. I pointed them out to the woman sitting next to me:
Me: *Tapped her shoulder* Nordlys! (northern lights!)

Her: Huh? Oh... Ja. (Huh? oh... Yeah.)

Me: Ååå d e så veldig fint! (Ohh it's so pretty!)

Her: *grunt* Ha. Ja. (Ha. Yeah.)

Well. I think they were really nice. 

Mamma was waiting for me in the airport and Pappa was waiting with the car. I was so glad to see them again! I had missed my family so much.

I got home late and got to bed even later. While I was lying in bed I could see the sky out my window was glowing so I went to check. I opened my door and there was a path stretching across the sky. There is a little bit of discrepancy but some people say the vikings believed that  the northern lights were Bifrost, the bridge that connected Asgard and Midgard, two of the nine worlds of Odin (the leader of the Norsk gods and goddesses).

Anyways, this was the best picture I could get, but trust me it was so much better in person! The picture doesn't show the way it glimmered and flickered in the sky. 

I didn't keep my camera very still so there is a blurry star in the middle there.. 

I stayed up much later than I should have watching the lights in the sky.

Over all it was a wonderful week with a wonderful family and I really hope to see them again before my year is up (which, by the way, will be much sooner than I want... Sad truth: I've officially made it half way through my year in Norway!)

What a great week that was!

2012!

So far 2012 has been a great year.
I learn more Norwegian, more about Norway and more about myself every day.

On January 2nd (the last day of my vacation) I spent the night at Thea's flat in Stjørdal with Thea, Ragnhild and Berit.
Now before I write about this, let me just say that I do know how to say "Happy New Year" in Norwegian. It's actually really easy: Godt Nyttår. I have said it about a million times.
Anyways, the four of us stopped at a store to buy some chips and dip because we were planning on watching a movie. Before we went inside I said that I hoped we didn't see anyone I knew because I looked pretty bad at the time. So we go in and do our shopping and when it comes time to check out, we go up to the counter and not one, but two of the checkouts are being run by my classmates.
Also they were the only two open.
Just my luck.
So we got in line and after we finished paying, my classmate wished me a "Godt Nyttår".
Ok Avery. Stay calm. You know how to say this.
What I tried to say:
"Godt Nyttår!"
What I actually said:
"Godturmg..(Oh shoot, keep it together) Neeeeeet? (realize defeat) oor..."
What the heck brain? Why can you function sufficiently when I am with my family and friends, but when I try to talk to someone I only kind of know you freeze and make me sound like an idiot?
Well.. Needless to say my sister and cousins got a kick out of my barely intelligible response.
As soon as we were out of the store they burst out laughing. So did I, but at the same time I was pretty embarrassed.
After that we went to Thea's place and watched a movie. Ragnhild and I had to get up early in the morning so we went to bed around midnight, but apperently Thea and Berit stayed up really late.

On Thrusday, January 5th I got another very special visitor up in Hegra. This time, however, it was not a surprise becaue I helped arrange it. As some of you know, my mother did an exchange year in Norway when she was around my age. Well last Thursday her host-uncle Bjørn, his wife and their friends came to visit me in Hegra! It was wonderful to be able to show them where I'm living and what my family is like. They stayed for dinner, but were on a busy schedule so they couldn't stay much longer.

Friday during school I made two trips to the mall in town (during my free periods) with a few of my friends who were buying snacks for their big weekend trip! What was this big trip? Well, my class went to Åre last weekend. However, I wasn't allowed to go because of some pretty strict AFS rules. Needless to say I was a little bit disappointed (as poor Pappa heard alllllllllllll the way home from school that day). However, I got over it relatively quickly when it finally occurred to me that it was my last weekend with Berit for who knows how long...
So instead of going to Åre for the weekend, I went to Kåret for the weekend. Kåret is the house where Ragnhild lives and Berit was staying for the holidays.
I didn't mean to be there the whole weekend... Friday night I went to visit them, figuring we would watch a movie or something, and I wound up staying the night. Then Saturday we went horseback riding and they invited me to stay for dinner. I didn't actually make it home until Sunday around noon. I had just as much fun with my two crazy cousins all weekend at Kåret as I would have if I had gone to Åre (maybe more?).
Sunday morning at like 5 am, Berit left for France. I was so sad to see her go, but so tired when I said bye all I could manage to get out was an almost-intelligible "Have fun, I'll miss you..."
Or something like that.

Now it is my turn to go on a trip!
In the morning I am leaving to go to Oslo, the capital of Norway! AFS requires that all their students do a week of work, just to see what it is like.
Remember Annette? The lovely surprise visitor I had a while back? Well she owns a store in Oslo and she agreed to let me work with her for a week. I can not wait! It will be so much fun!
I finished my biology homework, I'm all packed and I'm ready to go!

Hmm... I think I am going to miss my family. I've never been away from them for more than three days before...

I miss you Berit!