Woke up after a little too brief of a visit with my good friend sleep. It's so great to always have activities to do, but sometimes you forget that a long visit with sleep is never regretted. Last night was "Cafe´ Chameleon" - a Sunday night special where everyone sits in the main building's stua, or living room, and you can buy coffee and cakes. Last night they sold Norwegian waffles with syltetøy (jam) and some kind of brownie with ice cream. The cafe is called "Chameleon" because one of the walls is decorated with 4 "pop art" chameleon pictures, which I assume are the works of a former student. But the name is pretty fitting to the decor regardless of the paintings, as the room is full of brightly colored furniture and pillows. Open mic started off with Pontus, a boy from the music major, who rapped in Norwegian. It was pretty impressive - rap is more fun to listen to when you don't understand the lyrics and you just focus on the rhythm. I like French rap (the little I've heard). Norwegian rap was new to me, and I liked the song-bird-like variating rhythm. There were a couple singers, piano players, and the norm, but the highlight was Christer and Jørgen singing the "You better shape up..." song from Grease. Jørgen played Sally, and sang a lot of high-pitched, overly-feminine "ooh, ooh, ooh's," while rockin' a black, ringlet, stomach length wig. Stunning. The clash was even better if you can picture the mental image of Jørgen - ginger headed, fair-freckled, and lanky as a stick. I look forward to the next open mic where Ingvild and I will play "by your side" by the everybodyfields.
After Open Mic's short, but sweet line up, I talked with friends, watched my roommate and a handful of other people do gymnastics in the stua, and played a game of pool (where I thoroughly got whipped). I learned another Norwegian game where you try to do various tasks within a specified time limit. Jørgen and Pontus had to drink an entire glass of water upside down, Christian had to deliver a "thank you for the meal" speech for a full 30 seconds, and I had to describe the game of fotball (soccer) without using the words "ball" or "play" in a 30-second time frame. Overall it was an eventful evening, therefore you can probably understand that it made for a slightly groggy morning...
But nonetheless a good morning! Started off with a guitar lesson, where I rocked my pencil capo, and played me some Neil Young "Won't Back Down." But I really do need to go to Larvik and get a capo, the pencil one is pretty rad, but not entirely functional. Get's to buzzin' a bit.
Played basketball after cleaning the dorms. I've played the last couple days now, and I think the rust is starting to wear off. The first day I played (Thurs) was really funny. A whole group of us played 6 on 6 or 7 on 7, and it was definitely Norwegian-handball-smack-the-shit-outta-everyone-and-travel-three-steps-every-possession status. Full contact body checks and the whole cat's caboodle. More like feral cat's feudal... Super fun though. After shooting around, I went to dinner and then to my friluftsliv class where we went on another sea kayaking trip. We learned a better technique to paddle (using rotation and abdominal muscles) as well as side-ways and backwards strokes. At the end we finished by learning how to save a partner in the case that they flip, which includes dumping out all the water from their kayak while in your own kayak. We also practiced kayaking with someone "riding double" and that was quite a bit more tricky than it looked out to be. Calibrating two independent centers of gravity is a challenge, but a fun one. My teacher thought it was funny when I said, "Do we win if we stay on 8 seconds?" Hey, gotta let my inner Wallowa County girl shine!
I walked barefooted to Rimi, and while I walked I thought to myself how nice it was to live in a small town where I can feel totally safe walking at night. You can't help but feel safe when you have the Politihøyskole (Police School) hugging the side of the road on the way downtown. When I reached the store, I bought some trail mix, drinkable yogurt, and a little candy (Norwegian candy is heavenly). After emptying out all the change in my wallet, I fell 2 kroner short, so the super kind girl behind the cash register sponsored my candy enjoyment. After going to the store, I visited Mormor and Morfar and all their neighbors after they had just finished a krabbefest (crab party) with all the 20+ crabs Mormor and Morfar caught in their trap. No crab for me today, but I think there's one waiting patiently for me in the fridge. At least someone's (something's) waiting patiently.
It was really nice to talk with the neighbors and practice my Norwegian conversational skills. I thought I was going to crash and burn Nascar status when one of them asked me, "Why do you want Obama to win the election?" Luckily, they allowed me to answer in English. Phew.
Ironically, my previous thoughts of how safe it was in Stavern received a dispute when I was not allowed by Mormor to walk back to school. Alf, a kind ol' fella with a white beard which he waxes and twists into two complete circles at the bottom, kindly chauffer-ed me with Mormor. What friendly neighbors they have! Guri (another neighbor and a member in the "Risøya Swimming Club") told me I should skip class in the morning to swim with her and Mormor. Tempting... but I think (and hope!) we are going to start oil painting tomorrow.
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