NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As probably alot of you know by now, I will be going home on the 29th of June (WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!?). As a result of that, this will be my next to last blog posting (I figured I would do a wrap-up one right after I got home.) So in the last few weeks, I have.......

School. I think that by now that it doesn't need that much explination. The last few weeks of school were pretty much spent watching movies (including a crazially thrilling Sami film (SARCASM!!!)) and doing other filler activities because our final grades were already given. We did have spoken exams though but thanks to the Norwegian school system (not everyone has to take them. People are randomly choosen to talk for 15 minutes to an examiner about a certain topic. And what is even better than that is you find out if you must take the exam just TWO days before hand.) I was only really at school for one day in the last week so I am not to sure what they did. But I was there for the last day of school. I had to first return my school computer which I had loaned for the entire year (and dearly miss especially those extra Norwegian letters). One of my homeroom teachers was there so she talked to us for a bit before giving us a scavenger hunt. We had to run around the surronding area, trying to find things such as one Nike shoe and how to say "You are my favourite teacher" in 5 different languages. My team unfortunately didn't win. The school board gave each school 25kr (around $4CAD) to each student to buy food for the wrap-up. After we had finished eating, we were free to go (about 1030am). Instead of going home, I got to go up to the principals office because I had to get my transcript. But I did get a gift from the school, so I guess that it was worth it.

On the 9th of June, I took a vacation of sorts. I have an exchange friend (who goes by the name of Hannah) that lives in Stavanger (on the West Coast). I had wanted to go to the west coast since the beginning of my exchange so I jumped at the oppurtunity to go visit someone there. I took a plane (it was the shortest plane ride that I have ever been on: 50 minutes) to the airport outside of Stavanger and a bus into town. (One thing that you should know about Norway is that the language (Norwegian) is divided in two parts (Bokmaal and Nynorsk). On top of that, each region and city have their own dialect. In my region, it is Bokmaal with my city having its own dialect. In Stavanger, it is a little bit different. I had to really concentrate in order to understand what they were saying.)  Stavanger is a harbour town and is one of the big oil cities in Norway (plus a popular cruise-ship destination). The streets are whinding and cobbled stoned. Hannah currently lives on a island outside of Stavanger, so we took a ferry to get there (it has the feel of a bus though). Since it costed 30kr to go one way on the boat, we just hung around the island for the next day which was fine with me because it had some interesting rock pools. Another exchanger, Lauren (a fellow Canadian who lives in Bergen) also decided to come down for the weekend. Stavanger had at the time a touristly little market which was perfect for us to get free samples. We also tried to play Norwegian Scrabble which was hard because some times you end up with way to many Ks. We spent the next day rowing around the inlet and laying in the sun (which is not that common for Stavanger). Supper was smalahove (sheep's head) which is a traditional meal on the west coast. The meat didn't taste to bad, its just the eyeball that throws you off (you have to take of the cornea and then put the rest of it right into your mouth. It has a gummy texture. NOM!NOM!). The girls wanted to go swimming in the fjord so that is just what we did. I could not stand the cold water but jumped in and even swam around for a little while. Hannah and I left the next day.....

Well, the story does not end there. Hannah had decided to come see the east, so she flew back with me. We waited 3 hours at the airport which is completely unnecessary for a local flight). And on top of that, our flight was delayed, so we missed the bus back to my town and had to wait 2 hours for the next one to arrive. While I was away, Lake Mjosa flooded (due to the melting of the snow in the mountains and the amount of rain that we had been having lately), so the areas around the late were full of water, including the parking lot to the shopping centre. Another exchanger, Jourdy came and visited us for a day. We spent the day walking around. It was funny to watch Hannah walk up "the hill" to my house (due to fact that the hill is incrediably steep). She came along for the Rotary Shrimp and Hand-over dinner. We tried to go to school for a day but it didn't go the greatest (people were staring at her as if she was an animal at the zoo). She did though help me pack before she had to leave.

The weekend after school was finished, my town hosted a festival of sorts for school bands (which Everton is involved with). There was different competitions and a concert with all of the bands sleeping in the schools around the town. Everton's band ended up winning first prize. In that same weekend we took a boat trip to the other side of the lake. It started with beautiful weather but it ended up being very cold. Due to the flooding, we had to walk through the water to get to our boat.

We have been doing on thing out and about each day this past week. On Monday, we drove to Brummandal to visit Proysenhuset and the COOP (a Costco style supermarket). (Alf Proysen was a Norwegian writer and songwriter who lived on the other side of the lake. The musuem featured examples of his work and one of them being Mrs Pepperpot.) I bought my 1 kilo of brown cheese to take home with me. Not too much happened on the Tuesday but it was the longest day of the year. (We had around 2-3hours of darkness.) We took a trip on Skibladner on Wednesday. (Skibladner is the world's oldest steam boat that is in use). We took it from Gjovik to Hamar and back again (about 5 hours in total). The weather was cold, so we spent most of the time in the saloon in the bottom of the boat. That night, we went to the movies and saw Paul (a film about 2 nerds and an alien). The next day, there was a showing of glass at Vitensentret. It featured glass from artist from all around Norway. On Friday, the town had an event on the main street with all of the stores being open late and massive discounts (plus a few stands that sold junk). I think that there must have been around 10000 people there. (The strangest thing that I saw was some Native American dancers which seemed so out of place.) Finally today, we took another boat trip.

SHEEPS HEAD!!!

part of Hannah's island

Hannah, Lauren and I

Stavanger

me at Proysenhuset

a walkway flooded with water

1100pm

Skibladner

3 days left.........

MAY!!!!

From my arrival back in Norway to now has been almost a complete blur.

The weekend of the 14th of May was a long weekend for us. Norway's National Day is on the 17th (which was a Tuesday, so the schools were nice enough to give us Monday off as well. The 17th of May is way more serious than Canada Day (which is normally spent just relaxing around the house and maybe going somewhere for dinner). We were up at what felt like the crack of dawn (in reality it was around 630am). Everton's school band was playing at a raising of the flag ceremony at his school. A lot of the people were adorned in their bunads (the traditional Norwegian garment which I absolutely adore). Some of the band mates were Russ students (Russ is the third year of what is their equivalent to our high school. The students have parties throughout the whole year. 3 weeks before the 17th of May things really kick off. They also have red overalls that they where for the whole period.) so they were looking pretty rough. The band then marched to different old-folks homes in the area playing the national anthem and other Norwegian hits. All the school and city bands gathered at my school for breakfast before the main event started. All the school children in the city gathered in the soccer stadium.In Norway, the parade that goes through the town is a children's parade. They paraded all the way down to the park in the centre of town where everyone sang songs. (Later on in the day was the Russ parade, where they go through the town with their vans and buses passing out fake business cards to the little kids (its somewhat funny because some of them have things written in English on them that are not appropriate for the kidies). A lot of the children's schools put on parties for the national day, so we went to my host brothers' school in the afternoon. I would say a good way to some up the day is ice cream and hot dogs (which we ate a lot of that day).

Another whole day test took place (I know that this is exciting), for Naturfag (Science) this time. The morning was spent in 2 workshops to go over what we need to know. The first one was informative (Chemical Reactions) since I missed some of the weeks that we were working with that and the other one was pointless. It was about Bærekraftig Utvikling (Sustainable Development, thanks to Google Translate). We were given the afternoon to write the test. The multiple choice portion was easy but I had a few problems with the long answer questions.

I tried roller skis for the first time a few weekends ago. (For those of you who do not know what roller skis are, they are 2 rods of metal with 2 roller-blade style wheels attached at both ends. You then use cross-country ski boots attached to the bindings and poles to help push you along.***Safety equipment is recommended***)Everything was going great until I tried to turn a corner. I turned it as if I was using roller blades (which have great ankle support) and ended up falling on my side. It wasn't that bad until I actually looked at the damage. The top layer of skin was gone but the real damage wasn't noticeable until 2 days later when a nice bruise developed. People were staring for at least 2 weeks.

I had the strangest gym class 2 Wednesdays ago. We showed up to class and the teacher told us that it was our choice training and we were allowed to train off campus. (I will definitely miss the freedom of school here next year.)

The next day, we had a "field trip". It was a whole day of gym. My class and another class were lead by our two teachers on a hike. We started the day of at our school and walking up to the top of the ski hill. From there we walked back down and had a "nice" 30 minute hike up to Øverby (a cross country ski track). We divided into groups and did orienteering up there for 2 hours (which was basically just walking around in circles). We continued our hike up to a electrical tower which is the highest point in town. Once up there we played some strategy games (and at that point it began to rain). We walked down the hill and back up to Tranberg Gård and finally ended up back at the Videregående Skole. I was ridiculously tired after that day.

Therese and the children went to Germany for a weekend for a first communion so just me and Wolfgang had the house to oursleves. The first night we had a dinner party for the Rotary club and the next night we had people over for dinner.

This past weekend we had a huge gathering at our house for a combo of baptism and first communion (Noa and Hanna had their baptism and Everton had his communion). A portion of the family from Germany arrived in Gjøvik on the Friday (Wolfgang's sister, Therese's parents and her brother with his family). There was a lot of German being spoken during that weekend. It was so warm that day that we had a water-gun fight. We had so many people staying with us that we had to eat our meals in the party tent that was set up outside the house. All of the kids were taken on a boat tour (while I stayed back and helped Noa and his cousin fish).  A portion of the next day was spent in preparation for the party on the Sunday. I baked a poundcake (for the first time in my life which turned out beautifully). My host mom also took the godparents and the kids to the church in Lillehammer to have one last run through. All of the kidies went down to Fastland (an outdoor swimming pool that is more like a pond than a pool). It was ridiculously cold but it was nice to lay in the warm sun (since we had been having so nice weather with the exception of today). The next day we were fed, dressed and driven to the church very early. The church was jam-packed because there was another boy being baptized and the kidies had so many guests. Both the baptism and communion went smoothly. All the guests came back to our house. The food was from Tapeo (the new tapas restaurant in town). Noa, Everton and Hannah all received many gifts. All of children ran around, played fooseball and on their electronics while the adults sat around. The night came to an end with everyone leaving satisfied.

School is almost finished with just spoken exams left( the way these work is you talk about a topic to and examiner. The system is totally random so only certain people have to take them). We are done next Friday.

childrens parade

Sorry for the lack of photos but i havent taken too many in the last few weeks.