Home in Hegra: My Year in Norway: Påskeferie

Easter Break
March 31st to April 9th.

We started Easter break by celebrating one of my cousin, Isabella's birthday.
Isabella was an exchange student in the USA a few years ago. She and I have a very nice relationship because, especially at the beginning of the year, it was really great to have someone to talk to who understood everything from my perspective as well.
Her birthday was March 31st so a bunch of the family headed to Trondheim to celebrate. We had a nice family party then after a lot of the cousins stayed for the night. We had a really good time together, as we always do. We were going to go out to a club but since it was Easter break most of the clubs were closed... The only few that were open were 20 and up and I'm only 19 so we stayed home... We still had a ton of fun!

The beer was named after my USA cat! Chang!

The birthday girl! Someone ripped the tights
off one of her legs...

Pretty late in the night it started to snow... So me, being me, decided to go out and play in the snow. My sister Thea and my cousin Endre came outside as well. We built a snowman and I went on the swings. It was so much fun!

When we woke up the next morning....
Well I guess I should say "When we eventually woke up the next morning..."

Isabella and I had stayed up the latest (or earliest I guess). We were pretty tired. We gathered all our things and drove back to Hegra together.

Also, it was April Fool's Day! When we woke up there was a TON of snow! We all hoped it was just an April Fool's Joke but it actually stuck around for quite a while.
For the next couple of days we just hung out and spent time together. On Tuesday my cousins and I took a trip to Storlien, Sweden to buy soda and some candy.
On Wednesday Pappa and I took my little nephew (he is 3) to Trondheim to see a Lego festival at a kids museum. I think we were all really excited but when we got there the room with the Legos was pretty crowded and a little bit scary, so instead we wound up just going through the museum. It was really cool though! There were exhibits about water, electricity, air, sound and motion. We had a very nice day going around the museum and we finished with ice cream! What could get better than that?
On Friday I went on a hyttetur, which means a trip to a cabin. If you want to know what a Norwegian is doing over Easter break it is a very reasonable guess to say they are on a hyttetur and skiing with their family. It is hard-wired into Norwegian DNA to go skiing over Easter. Nearly the whole country shuts down for the week so everyone can go to their cabins.
My AFS contact family (the family I have basically as a back-up if things hadn't worked out with my host family) invited me and my family to their cabin. Johan didn't come but Mamma, Pappa and I went. We skied up to the cabin and found out that there was a very special event happening that day. Every year there is a competition that they hold. They set out little posts with questions and teams have to ski around and answer them. The questions were about all different things... I wasn't able to be very helpful, but one post was about August, my "contact brother". It asked what sports he played (I knew one of the two was soccer) and a few other things. It asked how tall he was and I said 6'1". This was particularly amusing because in Norway, just like the rest of the world, they use the metric system so we were supposed to figure that out in centimeters. However, Inge (my contact-father) was an exchange student with AFS in the USA so we figured it would be OK to write the height in inches and feet.
The best part about this is I was less than half an inch off so we got the point!
Team Aarbu (that was us, for the record) did not come in last place like we thought we would! Instead we tied for 5th or 6th place... It was respectable. Everyone got little participation medals (made from yellow ribbon and wood) and the younger kids got candy. I got candy too.
After the competition we all grilled hot dogs over a fire. Before I came to Norway I really didn't like hot dogs, but now grilled pølse med brød (hot dog) is one of my favorite things.
After we were all full, Mamma invited August and I to go skiing on a little trip. We skied up a huge hill. It was so tiring but such a great feeling when we got to the top!

August is so good at skiing

We skied on a little more and eventually came to another cabin. Mamma and I met the man that lived there. He was preparing for a ski jumping event the next day.

We skied home and everyone that had stayed at home had been drinking a bit so spirits were high. We enjoyed ourselves until the sun started to go down, then everyone slowly trickled out and we went inside to eat dinner. We had a delicious meal then August and I went and watched a movie.
The next day we went on a ski trip that was around 11 kilometers (which is almost 7 miles). They tried to teach me how to skate ski. I wasn't particularly good at it but I kept trying. Eventually I could go quite a while without falling. We skied out to some cabin and signed a guest book. Then August and I skied ahead of the adults (who did a little longer trip) and we went back to the cabin we had been at. We ate some food and watched some people trying to ski jump with cross country skis. Nearly everyone fell. August and I got really cold so only a few minutes after our parents arrived we skied back to their cabin.
The last two days of vacation we just relaxed up in Hegra. On the last day (Monday) Kristian was here and he, Johan, Kristoffer and I went sliding. After we built a snowman. I wanted to start it at the top of the hill and push it down. I pushed it for quite a while but then it started to get really big and Kristian had to help me. After a while Johan had to come and help the two of us as well.
This snow man was massive (and a little out of proportion).
We had to use a step ladder to build it.