Evelyn's Year in Norway

         A few weeks ago, the school introduced a new valgfag ( elective) called Gå På Tur. The class meets every Wednesday and goes for walks around the area. I haven't officially joined the class, but I've gone with them on two of their three trips. This past Wednesday we took a nice walk up to a lookout point. The weather has been gorgeous recently (for Norwegian standards), and the snow has almost completely melted.           I walked mostly with Alina and Hanne (hann-eh) and we had a great time! The most interesting thing was the way that everything looked just like home. I've often said that this part of Norway resembles Rockport, but walking through those woods, if I wasn't paying attention I might have thought I was walking to the quarry.           The hike there took around 45 minutes, and then we hung out at the top for a little while, taking in the view. The way back was  significantly easier since it was downhill the whole way! I'm really glad that the s

           Trying something new, my English translation is below. I am learning and thought this could be good practice :)           Hver år trenger NLC elever å gjøre ei Språkpraksisuke i nærheten. Det betyr at vi må jobbe på en butikk eller andre sted i ei uke og snakke norsk med kolleger og kunder. I går kjørte Marianne meg til Tangvall fordi jeg skal jobbe på Tangvall Biblioteket neste måned. Jeg hilste på damen som jeg skal jobbe med, og hun viste oss biblioteket. Hun snakket norsk, og jeg forsto mye, men ikke alle. Det var litt pinlig, men jeg gleder meg til å jobbe hos biblioteket. Det skal være god praksis.           Etter vi besøkte biblioteket, kjørte vi gjennom Søgne til den gamle kirken. Klassen min hadde gikk fra skolen, og de ventet der for oss. To snille folk var der, og de viste oss rundt kirken. Kirken var så pen, og hadde mye fine bilder på veggene og taket. Den så litt kjedelig ut på utside, men var utrolig inni. Den var ikke veldig stor, og taket over benkene var la

           Today our class took a trip to Kristiansand to go to the theater. We were seeing a short show for children that featured three actors telling a variety of fairytales. The language wasn't that difficult, so I was able to understand most of it if I paid  attention.           What was really distracting was that one of the actors looked extremely familiar. In class we have a textbook, and the online version of the textbook features video sections where a man teaches us how to pronounce words and phrases. When the actor walked out on stage, I  immediately thought that he looked just like the På Vei guy.           After the show we were discussing our reactions, and Valeria mentioned that he looked familiar to her as well.  Suddenly the whole class was talking about how similar they looked, and how it couldn't possibly be him. Marianne was a little confused, but intrigued, so she talked her way back through the doors and met the guy as he was clearing up.          When th

           Every couple of Thursdays we have International Food, where one of the NLC students prepares food from their country for the school. A few weeks ago it was Tomimaru's week--Japan--so he made sushi! I'm not in the International Food class, but sometimes when they have a lot to do, they ask for volunteers. I love sushi, and it's been a bucket list thing of mine to make it, so of course I offered to help.          I arrived a little late because I'd been at ballspill, but when I got there, there was still lots of work to be done. I sat down and was immediately given a bamboo mat to roll the maki, and instructions on what to fill them with. We had seaweed, avocado, carrots, cucumber, and rice for the vegetarian rolls, and we added salmon for the rest. It was kind of difficult rolling them, but I had a lot of fun, and they turned out really well!           When we had made all of the rolls, we had to cut them up into cute little bites. Valeria and I got to work on

           I'm a really big football fan, so this year has been strange without sitting down each week to cheer on the Pats, Packers, (and Tom  Brady). Despite not watching any of the regular season, I was determined to watch the Super Bowl. It's more than a football game. It's an ~experience~ and I wanted to share it with my friends here. Due to the time difference, the game wasn't set to start until half past midnight. We put an announcement in the Facebook group, but I wasn't expecting many people to show up.           After dinner it was snowing, but Bjorn, Heiden and I decided to bundle up and walk to Kiwi to get some Super Bowl snacks. Most of the usual foods, snacks, and dips we're all used to are impossible to find in Norway, or nearly impossible to get the ingredients to. We wandered around Kiwi for about an hour, thinking and planning. We ended up with chicken wings, hot sauce and bbq sauce, avocados and stuff for guac, fixings for a cheese dip, a coup

           Life at a folk high school is pretty amazing, but that doesn't mean we never need a break. In total, the school has about 90 students, and it can feel a little claustrophobic sometimes. Coming from Rockport--a small school--I've always wanted to get out and go somewhere huge. (See: Purdue University--my plan for next year--with an undergrad enrollment of 35,000).          The past few weeks have been a bit up and down, and I was feeling anxious to get out. I was talking with Bjorn and Sofia one night, and they were feeling the same way, so we decided to skip class last Tuesday to head into the city. We wanted to be back in time for volleyball (aren't we such terrible students?) so we only had about an hour and a half in Kristiansand, but it was perfect. Somehow--as small as our indiscretion was--the feeling of actively changing up the schedule and doing something spontaneous (and a little rebellious) was a good refresher.           We took the bus at 8:45, and sp

         Yesterday, NLC went on a day-trip with our reading friends to Hellevika, a nearby bay. We drove about 15 minutes on the minibus, and then got out for a short hike. After Christmas, most people were assigned new reading buddies, so this was kind of a bonding experience. Kristine and I are really close and we're still making our way through Harry Potter, so with enough begging we were allowed to stay together!           The hike was about half an hour, and it's been snowy this week so we were all geared up. Once again we had spikes on our shoes, and I wore the mittens I knit. Marianne showed us a little cafe that's open on the weekends, and we detoured to a nice viewpoint for some pictures. We always take hot water, cocoa, coffee, hot dogs, ketchup and buns when we hike, so when we got to our destination we made a fire and got cooking! (We had some trouble starting the fire, but Eskil and Adam got to work chopping the wood into kindling, and eventually it was roaring

           While I know Rockport got snow over Halloween, here in Norway we've been waiting patiently for a decent snowfall. Finally on Monday our wishes came true. It snowed for most of the day, and was about three inches in total--not so much, but enough to have some fun outside!           Before dinner, Sofia, Bjorn, Ananda and I walked to Kiwi to get some snacks--bundled up in our jackets, hats, boots, and wool underwear. We got back just in time for dinner, and  walked into the dining hall covered in snow and ready for a hot meal.           After dinner, some of our friends from Friluft announced they were going to have a snowball fight, so we bundled up again and headed outside. We had such a great time throwing snowballs, burying each other, and just rolling around in the snow. We tried to make a snowman, but the snow wasn't quite right, so we just hung out and had fun!          It had stopped snowing by the evening, and the next morning everything looked so pretty. This

           Last Thursday it was Ananda's turn to make food from her country. She is from Bali, Indonesia--one of my favorite places--and we were all very excited for her to make Indonesian food. After some badgering, she decided to make nasi goreng--Indonesian fried rice, and my favorite food ever! I'm not in the International Food class, but I showed up to help anyway.           Usually the class is quite large, but for some reason there were only a handful of us on Thursday which actually worked out really well. We started by peeling and cutting the onions, garlic, lettuce and ginger. I've never cut ginger before, but we not only had to peel it, we had to 'bruise' it, crushing it with the knife until it split open.           We were using an authentic recipe in Indonesian, so Ananda took charge of translating, and letting everyone know what needed to be done. When the cutting up was finished we had to crack and beat 60 eggs before we started cooking. In the large