a mod podge of events

Since college scholarships has been thrown into my ever so busy schedule (of doing nothing), I haven't really had the desire to write a blog. But alas, I have had the urge to write a blog. Mainly to entertain my friend Lauren.


These past month has been filled with lots of snow, skiing, and cold feet, you know, typical Norwegian stuff. To conquer cold feet i have been given 2 pairs of wool socks, both knitted by two "host grandmas" that I have had. The problem with these wool socks is that they are INCREDIBLY itchy. I always wear normal sock under them so I don't go crazy because of the itch. But, enough of socks, on to the good stuff.

On a Friday night in the beginning of February, I invided all of my friends over for and "Amerikansk Keveld" I put my cooking skills to the test and cooked an American dinner for them of hamburgers, french fries, apple pie, and chocolate chip cookies. Everything went well except for the hamburgers. I managed to fill the entire house with smoke when I was cooking them. It smelled awful. As appealing as it is, I don't think "McDonald's fry cook" will be a future job for me. After we ate, we all sat down to watch some movies, and ate American candy. It was a "cozy" evening!

The rest of February was school. Most of my teachers have discovered that I understand quite a bit of Norwegian, and are expecting me to do more. The ones that like to act as if I don't exist still think that I am completly cluless when it comes to Norwegian. Such as right now, in my Norwegian class. The teacher doesn't even hand me the papers. I don't even think I'm on the attendance list.

For my winter holiday, My host family and I went to a ski resort 3ish hours west of Oslo. It was a week full of skiing, eating, more skiing, chocolate, falling, and... a little bit more skiing. Never have I ever skiied so much in my life. After this winter I now realize why everyone (and yes I mean everyone) asked me if I have skiied before. Every day we went skiing. 2 days of cross country skiing (my favoite) and 3 days of downhill. I already told my mom that I wanted cross country skis for Christmas next year. During the week I'm pretty sure I ate a month's supply of chocolate. For some reason chocolate goes together with skiing like popcorn and movies, it's a must have. All the chocolate was perfectly fine with me, except on cross country trips. When it's cold, chocolate ends up tasting more like chocolate flavored candles... not a big fan. It was a very nice week, and the area we were at was beautiful!

The Ski VM (Ski World Cup) took place in Oslo this year. The city was packed with tourists. Oslo was also decked out for the event. On Karl Johan (the main street in Oslo that runs from the main train station to the King's palace) there were large snow sculpturs of some of Edvard Munch's paintings, and in the middle of the street, there was a huge screen which was broadcasting the ski event. It was funny to see everyone stopped in the middle of the city just staring at the screen. On the first Saturday of the event, I went see the ski jump and a cross country race with my host family. It was really foggy that day, so all we saw of the jump was the landing, and all we saw of the race was when they passed right in front of where we were standing. The atmosphere at the event was really cool. So many people were there cheering for their countries, most of them were Norwegian. I went with my tiny U.S flag. However, I felt kind of dumb cheering for the U.S around so many Norwegians, especially because America isn't really all that good at skiing. But, I still cheered, and I got really excited when I saw other U.S flags.


The first weekend of March, all of the exchange students met up in Oslo. The weekend was filled with many museums, another trip to the Ski VM, and loads of fun! At the Ski VM, Miki (a friend from Australia) and I spotted a camera man in the crowd, so we followed him around for a bit, caught his eye with her Australian flag, and got ourselves on national T.V. I'll explain the rest of the weekend in photos.


(Abby, an exchanger from Wisconsin, came down to stay with me the day before the exchange meeting, we walked around Oslo and then found some awesome finds in a thrift store. Stuffed ferrets, and a hat with paws on it.)

The first whole day began with a visit to the city hall of the town we were staying in. We ate breakfast with the mayor, and then he talked to us about a ton of different subjects all jam-packed into one speech. It was... informational to say the least.

(me, Lauren, Noellen, and Jessica at breakfast)

(Emily, Hannah, me, Abby's head, Victoria, and Nina)

(Listening to the mayor)

(Twins in our matching lion shirts)

Our first museum visit was the Viking Museum, home to the 3 best preserved viking ships in the world. We also went to two other museums that day, but they weren't that interesting, and neither we the photos.

(me, Miki, and Nina)

(I'm a house burning, wife stealing, viking)

The next day was the day we went to the Ski VM. One of the Rotarians with us, lead us around the whole day with a flag and a cowbell. On numerous occations people were nearly knocked out by the cowbell.

My favorite, and the most interesting museum was the Nobel Peace Center.

Heres some photos from the Ski VM

(Just a typical Norwegian... no big deal)

Thats all I have. I will try not to take so long to post the next one.