Woke up and took a shower, but had no towel so I used my pajamas to dry myself. I thought I looked dashing walking through the hallway with my wet hair wrapped in a tee-shirt.
After breakfast, everyone walked to the Stavern Free Church and listened/took part in the sermon and song singing. Lots of modern sounding songs with electric guitars and upbeat tempos. It was a little difficult for me to understand the language and dialects, but still nice to partake in a community gathering. Mormor and Morfar came and we stayed for coffee hour with the rest of the church regulars. We drove back to Fredtun and I was happy to see that three towels accompanied me in the back seat.
After church, I played a lot of sand volleyball with the other students. After middag, we played more volleyball. Then, the student teachers told everyone to get together for some organized games. Guess what we played? Volleyball. My group also played ultimate frisbee, which started out really fun, but we had to stop when it started raining buckets. It was almost more fun with rain! Aren't we Norwegian for Pete's sake?! So we went in and drew on different colored-circles to identify to all the students if we are single (indicated by a green circle), single but not interested in changing (yellow), and "occupied," or currently in a relationship (red).
When we were finished, I went for a quick jog to Rakke, following the Kystien and came back to find Walker and Frida about to depart on a bike ride. Walker is another "exchange student" originally from the U.S., but has studied at an International School in Stavanger for three years. Frida is from Northern Norway, wears really awesome oversized glasses, and is just about the nicest girl you'll ever meet. I joined them and played "tour guide" as we biked through Stavern. But I was a pretty horrific tour guide, taking them on my spontaneous "alternate routes" where we would need to walk our bike over steep, rocky, slippery trails. For those of you who have experienced my fantastic navigation skills, you can attest that this occurrence must have been an anomaly [; But it was fun despite the bike dismounts! We met Mormor when we biked through the square and she biked with us for a little bit. Frida, Walker and I decided to swim out to a dock in our biking clothes which was awesome. God do I love spontaneity. But you guys already know that.
When we got back from out bike ride, guess what we did? You betchya, played more volleyball! After kveldsmat (supper), we played more volleyball and then until it was time for cake and coffee. Norwegians are surprisingly good at volleyball. It's so fun to be so active all the time. After talking a bit with Frida and Walker, I went to Mormor and Morfar's house to call Mamma. Always nice to hear her beautiful voice! Biked back with tea and honey in my bag. Yay!
Tomorrow, I need to speak more Norwegian. It's a bit of a crutch to have another English speaker here at school. And now that everyone knows that we are "exchange students," they start to automatically speak English (they are always excited at a chance to practice!) But Ingvild, my roommate, only speaks Norwegian to me which is absolutely fantastic. I hope it won't be long before it will be second nature to speak Norwegian. The wheels are turning!
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