Evelyn's Year in Norway

           Every once in a while the NLC class does a lesenatt (reading night), where we all take turns reading something together, and then celebrate with pizza. Ananda and I always look forward to reading nights because we get to eat Chicken Taco Pizza--it's the best!  Last week, we read a short Norwegian version of A Christmas Carol--En Julefortelling.           We read En Julefortelling to prepare, because on Thursday evening we went to see it at the theater in Kristiansand. I spent the day busily preparing for my trip north on Friday, and the last thing that I needed to do Thursday was send a Christmas package home. Sofia and I talked to Marianne and left for Kiwi right after dinner with Elise, expecting to be back in time for the 4:30 bus.           However, it took way longer than I thought to mail the package, with a never-ending stream of paperw...

           On the last Wednesday before we left for juleferie (xmas break) the NLC class went for a trip with Friluft. Friluft is my favorite class--if I was Norwegian I'd 100% be in the class--so I was very excited. We got dropped off at the bottom of a big hill, and when we reached the top there was a beautiful view of the water.          From there, we walked down to the place that we had gone canoeing with Friluft  before--where Alina and I stayed the night outside. I was in the front of the pack with most of the outdoor class and their teacher. December in Norway is chilly, and it was about lunch time, so we decided to make a fire. We'd all had to carry logs with us from the school, and it was nice getting that weight out of my bag. I helped Morten (their teacher) with the wood to get the fire going, and he even let me light it. (I'm a self-declared honorary Friluftsliv member).      ...

           At the beginning of the year, a group of Norwegians volunteered to be lesevenner (reading friends) for the NLC class. We were each assigned a lesevenn,  and our goal was to each meet up 15 times before Christmas break to read.           My reading buddy is a girl from the Global Class named Kristine (kris-teen-eh) and she is wonderful! Our first meeting in one of the first weeks of school was very awkward--I'd barely read a word of Norwegian before, and we didn't know each other. Now, we are great friends, and look forward to hanging out and reading Harry Potter together!          Reading is one of my favorite ways of leaning Norwegian. I read some, and Kristine checks my pronunciations, and then she reads some so that I can hear the flow and read along to understand better. I've always been an avid reader, and tend to read well, so starting i...

           On our last Tuesday before vacation the school organized a gorgeous and complete Norwegian Christmas dinner. The evening started with a parody performance of a popular Christmas movie "Tre Nøtter til Askepott" a type of Cinderella story. The teachers performed--our principle Reidar was Askepott, and Marianne played the prince--and it was absolutely hilarious. Their costumes were great, and they were all voiced by Morten, the Friluft teacher, on a microphone.  The characters would move their lips and Morten would speak. Apparently it is a Czech film, and that's the way that it's dubbed in Norwegian.           After the show, we went  into the nicely decorated dining hall for dinner. There were two buffets of food. The first one had the traditional pinnekjøtt--a sort of salted meat--and ribbe--ribs with a crispy top. Everybody was arguing about which was bette...

         This year, we're having an extended Christmas break instead of having both fall and winter vacations in order to minimize travel in these crazy times. That means that we are leaving on the 11th of December, and coming back the 4th of January. The school has decided to celebrate as much Christmas as it can before we go, so a few weeks ago, in mid November, we declared it December 1st.  The stipps have been raffling off presents at morning assembly, we each were assigned a Secret Santa, and we've been watching an insane amount of Christmas movies. We even have a gorgeous tree in the peisestue!           This past weekend, the Student Council organized a bunch of Christmas activities for the students. Friday night we had an ugly sweater contest, and a little holiday show. Elise and I played a few Xmas songs together, her on the piano and me with the clarinet. We played Silent Night and The First N...

           I think I said I'd post in "a day or two" but I seem to have lost track of time. It's been a hectic week as we are getting closer to our holiday break, and all of my free time has been spent doing activities and working on Christmas gifts. I've also been collecting as many pictures as I could from Thanksgiving. There were specific ones that I wanted that I only found yesterday, so now I can finally post!   This is one of my favorite pictures of the night so I'm putting it first so it can be the cover image. We'll come back to it later. On Wednesday we made the pies! Here is the apple pie filling. Ananda and Eskil figured out the slicer and cubed 5 loaves of bread for stuffing. Applesauce! Elise cutting up veggies for the stuffing. We used coffee mugs to measure in cups.  Instead of pecan, we ended up with a maple walnut pie. Delish! The Germans--Sofia and Alina--fitting and filling the pie crusts. Pumpkin, ...

         Thanksgiving was a truly wonderful day! Everybody chipped in, and we had a hugely successful dinner--nearly on time!           The day started with the NLC class giving a presentation on their home countries/states/towns. I talked about Massachusetts history--Pilgrims, Revolution, Salem--some big events like the Super Bowl, and eventually got more personal until I was talking about Rockport and Gloucester, and some of our favorite traditions--Santa coming by boat, the Greasy Pole, etc. I wore my Patriots jersey, and talked about how it was Thanksgiving. I told the school what the holiday is about, and what we traditionally eat. The presentations were only supposed to be 10 minutes long, but in the rehearsals, all of us had 20-30 minutes, so we had to go super speedy though most of it. It was still fun, and a lot of people commented after about how nice it was.     ...

           Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday--there's something so special about spending time with family, cooking, and then sitting down together to enjoy a meal you've all worked hard on. So it was very difficult this year knowing that I would not be home for Thanksgiving. I had planned to go to Aurebekk for a Thanksgiving dinner with my Norwegian family, but due to the Covid situation, that was not possible.           My amazing teacher, Marianne, knowing how much this meant to me, decided that we would host our very own Thanksgiving for NLC. We were supposed to be in Oslo this week with the art class, but instead we are all going to have a Thanksgiving feast. I was put in charge, and had to come up with a list of all of the foods and ingredients so that the school could order them.           We have classes in the morning and don't have all of Thursday to cook, so We...