August 25, 2012

First day of school.

Woke up to - yet again - a truly great Norsk frokost (breakfast). I have been here for a little less than a week now. My days consisted of sleeping in, eating breakfast with Mormor & Morfar, frequent swims in the sea with Mormor, and bikes/runs on the coast trail. But back to the breakfast... God do they know how to eat here. Eggs, brødskive (bread slices), kaviar, prim, Morfar's syltetøy (homemade strawberry jam), cucumber, cheese, liver postei, salami, the list goes on! Oh, and tea. I drink tea with almost every meal and I guess that's pretty weird here. Lamb stew and tea? You betchya.

While talking with Mormor today, I found out that Norwegians do not have the saying, "Knock on wood." I had to explain that one. But if Norwegians aren't superstitious, that's fine and dandy with me. Superstition is stupid.

Anywhooooo - I finished up packing and my kjempe snill (very nice) Morfar helped me take everything up to the school at 10 a.m. I biked up the Helgeroveien road to Stavern Folkehøyskole - Fredtun (which takes all but a whopping 5 minutes!). My new home for the next nine months! Sweat beaded on my forehead - probably a combination of excitement, angst, hot weather, biking in tight jeans, and just finished an Olaf mug full of steaming tea from the Earl Grey himself. When I got to Fredtun, there were cars and new faces hustling and bustling around with Ikea bags, backpacks, suitcases, ski bags, the whole works. I settled myself into my room - pretty big with lots of nooks and crannies for all my loot. Definitely exceeded my expectations! I blame the University of Oregon dorm tour for that one...

I chucked all my stuff on my new bed, which is long but really narrow. After talking with my mother, I guess that's pretty standard in Norway. My bed is in the back of the room, next to a window looking out to the ocean and the road in front of Fredtun. After settling in a bit, I made my way back to the reception room, and met some very nice girls there who asked if I wanted to play 'Ligretto.' I gladly joined, and was delighted at the openness of these girls who I'm sure will become very good friends.

We ate lunch, which here is actually dinner, or "middag." I can't bring myself to call a meal at 1 p.m. dinner, but it's a meal and a fine one, so I ain't complainin'! Accompanied by cakes, coffee, and ice cream! Mormor and Morfar left after the meal, but it is so nice to know they are just 5 minutes away. Quite a drastic change from the 24 hour drive/flight combination to see them when I lived in Wallowa County.

The rest of the day consisted of: a pretty intense, but purely fun game of ultimate frisbee; meeting lots of really fantastic people; watching the past years student teachers perform songs and talk about their experiences; playing a little sand volleyball; playing ice breaker games like "stein, skatt, papir" (rock, paper, scissors) and another game where the losers pretended to be amoebas and the winners were kings. I haven't been this excited in a long time. My roommate is not only killer on the ultimate frisbee field, but is also super nice and fun. Bring it on, Fredtun!