Språkkurs!!!

Okay so am creating a separate entry for the week of Språkkurs, or Language Camp, because that is just how special the week was. I will try--to the best of my ability--to create a play-by-play on each day at the camp!

Day 1: MacKenzie and I took the bus from Drammen after a sleepover to Kinsarvik. BUT it was not as boring as that one sentence just made it sound. We thought we were going to be the only ones on the bus for six hours, but as we rode on more and more exchange students got on the bus and we got to all meet much sooner than expected! We got stranded where we were supposed to switch buses at Odda Terminal for a few hours. Eventually we called the Rotarians and got one of them to pick us all up, there were 11 of us and no bus was su

pposed to go that day! Finally we arrived at the hotel and met everyone else, ate dinner, and met our teacher for the week. After that, Ellen (exchange student from Florida), MacK

enzie and I walked to a gas station and bought snacks--this was actually kind of surprising because it was open on a Sunday night--NOTHING is open on Sunday in Norway! Ever!

Day 2: We woke up early--7 am or so, went down to breakfast and made our matpakke at the breakfast buffet. Norwegian hotels have much better breakfast than US hotels, in my personal opinion. They have brødskiver and pålegg--I don't really know how to spell t

hat second one but basically brødskiver is a one piece of bread sandwich which you add pålegg to, påleg

g being any ingredient you could use on a brøskive. As you can see, my Norwenglish gets much worse every day! We went to class and started working through our workbook and lea

rning pretty basic phrases in Norwegian--Jeg heter, jeg kommer fra, jeg bor i, etc. We als

o learned a song called En Solskinnsdag--great tune! Listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ2py68JPkQ&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL9F54AA65362C9553

We all took a trip to the store because, well, we are exchange students...aka we eat A LOT ALL THE TIME. Just saying. We had school from about 8:30 am to 6 pm with a few breaks. Th

en we had middag(we ate fishcake...more like I ate fishcake and just a few others. Most kids didn't touch their plates) and had vennskaptid (friendship time) where we all did some sort of friendship circle thing. Then we began to prepare what we planned on performing for the Rotarians on Sunday at the district conference. MacKenzie and I decided to perform a r

ap to Eminem's My Name Is and just change the words-- if you look it up the original is pretty vulgar but our version is really nice don't worry :) Here are the lyrics we wrote:

Hei! Jeg heter (hva?) Jeg heter (hva?) Jeg heter (hva?) MacKenzie! (x2)

Hei! Jeg heter (hva?) Jeg heter (hva?) Jeg heter (hva?) Anne.

Excuse me, can I have the attention of the Rotarians, for one seco

nd? Hei kids, do you like to travel (yeah yeah yeah!) do you wanna go to a different country and do exactly like I did (uhuh!) Live with a host family and get homesick (ja ja!) Pack your life up and get lost in the airport?(ha?)

My brains deadweight, I'm trying to learn this language straight but I can't figure out the difference between æ, ø, å.

And the teacher says 'jenta, snakker du Norsk?' (uh uh) 'Men du forstår meg, så du er flink!'

Well since age 12, I've felt like I'm someone else because I lost my original self in the fantasy of somewhere else.

And now I'm in Norway and Jeg lærer å snakke Norsk, they sent me h

ere and now I'm chillin at Språkkurs!

I eat a fat pound of Lefse, ski off my weight, faster than a Norwegian born with skis on his feet, ikke sant? Jenta snakker du Norsk?

Ja men bare litt! My club sent me here to say hello to y'all!

Hei, hva heter du, hva heter du, hva heter du? (x2) Rotary!

So anyway that is what MacKenzie and I worked on most nights from like 7-9 o'clock. Everyone got a little distracted because the Brasilians were practicing their dance for the performance and then they started teaching us all to dance--it was really fun! Then we all hung out until curfew (okay after curfew), and played games. I swear unless you are an exchange student you would never discover such childish games and enjoy them HALF as much as we do. Hand cla

p games, 'whodunnit' games, and just all sorts of stuff I never gave enough chance because guess what--they are really good bonding slash passtime games!

Day 3: We went through the same morning routine today, class at about 8:30--we learned about Ingeborg and Olav and their story in our book--very cheesy, typical textbook learning

story. We took a walk through the forest two by two--searching for different types of vegetation and stuff. We were supposed to speak only in Norwegian, but I was paired with Ang

ela, who comes from Taiwan and is just learning to speak English, so we didn't speak a whole lot of Norwegian together. Østein, one of the teachers, walked with us for a while, and after that, we walked along and just got to know each other. She is experiencing A LOT of new things this year--hopefully she will go back home knowing two languages, I think that would be p

retty cool! Mandarin Chinese is completely different from English and Norwegian, so she definitely has a huge challenge, but I think she is going to do great :) We walked through the forest and I taught her names for some of the different things like forest, sheep, rock, water, etc. It was really nice :) We got an awesome picture together, too, which she will hopefully post soon. After a while all the kids met up on the walk and we all went together to this HUGE waterfall to take pictures, videos, and just have fun.

It was SO beautiful there--just like everywhere in Norway, bu

t the waterfalls here are really incredible because they just come right out of nowhere on the fjords and spill into the rivers and sea and everything. It is just really cool to see. That night we had a little more class, ate dinner, and raced peas by blowing on them with straws..I am sad to report that my team lost. We didn't really rehearse that night, but we all hung out and played more games, talked, and just had a great time. We decided all to walk around what there was of the town for a bit and found out that there was a small area of cabins where a bunch of kids were staying for a school trip, but it was crazy because all we saw were tons of kids running around without parents. We thought we had found Never Never Land or something! Of course, some of them spoke some English and started cursing at us...that is one of the downers of being exchange students ESPECIALLY from the USA--nobody really likes you at first. It's okay thou

gh, it always gets better :)

Day 4: We went to school, breakfast, same time and everything. We continued working in the workbook and singing En Solskinnsdag over and over--we all seemed to love it! It was just a fun, happy song to sing! After lunch we got the option to hike further up on the trail we had gone to the day before, stay in class and sort of just hang out and work on a little Norwegian, or to go to the pool. I chose to go to the pool with like 13 other kids. It was NOT a warm day out and the water wasn't really warm either, but it was SO much fun. Like I said before, exchange students just find things to do. Where most kids would have complained about the water, talked in small groups, or done nothing in the pool, we all had chicken fights, played Marco Polo, and a dozen other races and games. We were all really sad to have to leave the pool after an hour tha

t truly flew by. Being an exchange student among many others and being willing to parti

cipate is honestly the best thing in the world, in my personal opinion. After that we went back and showered, had a little more school and dinner, and played more games together. We all sort of got into the habits by now of just going to each others' hotel rooms until someone told us we had to leave and then going to the next one...we're such bad kids! Just kidding and we never really stayed up THAT late...mostly. Everyone made plans to get up early (6:45 aka COLD) Friday and go jump in the fjord together. Calvin--one of the Canadians--, MacKenzie, and I stayed up late and just sort of hung out and talked--really chill evening and I really enjoyed it a lot! Also, Calvin looks really good in MacKenzie's french robe, as everyone found out that day! I have pictures to prove it! Although I'm sure he would appreciate it if I didn't put them

here :)

Day 5: Same morning routine as far as I remember, except we all decided it should be pajama day at school, but the funniest part about waking up with MacKenzie is she ALWAYS wakes up in some sort of panic, whether it is rational or not. Usually she would get up first and then shower, then start bugging me to get up in some really random weird way, but a few times when we woke up, she would basically say 'ANNE WE ARE SO LATE WE HAVE TO GO WE HAVE TO GO WE HAVE TO GO' and that is what happened when we took a nap during lunch on day 6. We overslept until about 2 minutes before class and she woke up in SUCH a panic. I just kept saying 'but it's HOTEL school it is okay if we are a little late.' It was quite comical, actually. Anyway, back to day 5. When we went to breakfast and then to class in our pajamas, our teacher was PISSSSSSSED. She told us that it was impolite to go around a hotel in pajamas although none of ours were inappropriate. She made us all go and change because 'Norwegians don't go around in their pajamas.' That is all good and fine except for the fact that Norwegians sleep in their underwear for the most part so I can see how THAT might be offensive. Oh well. She wasn't mad after we changed anyway. We all took a walk to a place where we were going to have a barbecue and just sort of hung out and talked, Angela, the girl from Taiwan, got her first hug from a guy--one of the exchange students. It was a really exciting moment for everyone! Seriously it was. Someone threw something at the ceiling of the shed we were eating in and a bunch of mysterious dry poo fell from the ceiling and landed all over me--not kidding. I felt super duper after that! But then we kept walking after our lunch and ended up at a gokart course! Lucky us, Rotary had arranged to let us drive Go Karts on a course!! We got to race each other and almost everyone went twice. It felt just like Mario Kart--even when you spun out on corners it looked and felt exactly like slipping on a banana peel!

Some of the kids had never driven in their life so it was SERIOUSLY exciting for them.

All of us who had driven were just craving a little driving so that went really well too! It was seriously a blast. After that, we all walked back to the hotel and I got into a really interesting conversation with the girl from Wisconsin named Savannah about Amish people--apparently there are a lot of them over there in Wisconsin! Who knew. By the way--Savannah doesn't even really LIKE cheese very much so there you have it, she kicks Wisconsin stereotypes' butts. So that night we all performed what we had of our rap, skit, or whatever we were doing for the show and worked more on what we needed to practice for it. Calvin became MacKenzie and my personal DJ--we felt like true G MCs. Definitely. We also had a little more school before dinner but I don't think we did very much, just worked from the book again. Then we stayed up and hung out, and I learned how to do some of the Brasilians' cultural dances, and then went

to bed--I was pretty tired and had to get up early to swim in the fjord!

Day 6: I got up at 6:30 to be ready to swim in the fjord at 6:45. Only four of us showed up to go--Juliana from Brazil, and Taylor and Kiersten from Canada. It was impossibly dark out so we couldn't see where it was deep in the water and where it was shallow. We spent a good half hour just looking for a place to jump in. Finally we just decided to take a literal leap of faith and just go! Juliana decided that she didn't want to go because it was too cold, but the Canadians and I jumped in and yes, it was freezing, but well worth it to say we had done it. I got back and took a nice hot shower...it really was very nice. This was the day that MacKenzie and

I overslept during our break time and woke up in a panic, to find ourselves suddenly outside with the other kids playing games like some Norwegian outdoor version of Twister, a game where we tied balloons to our feet and tried to pop other peoples, and one where we tossed coins towards a line and just saw who got closest. After that, we went back to class and had more arbeidsbok time. We also got a tour of a factory that makes silverware and stuff--just for random fun I guess. It really was pretty interesting to see though, and we all got free lobster forks. That night, we performed again what we were doing for the Rotarians and the Australian, Argentinian, and other Brasilian exchange students got there so that they would be there for the district conference! It was really fun to meet people that had been there for around 8 months. Some of them understood but didn't speak Norwegian, some of them were AWESOME at speaking Norwegian, and some of them spoke ONLY Norwegian--not any English. Tor was also there, a rebound exchange student who had just spent a year in New Hampshire. So we basically spent the evening playing around and meeting the other exchange students. We also all decided to jump into the fjord AGAIN all together since most people were too tired to get up in the morning to do it.

A few of us stayed up late and just hung out and talked until we had to go to bed, just to get to know the kids that had just arrived at the conference. Finally we were exhausted and fell right asleep.

Day 7: Day seven was one of the best days of the entire week. We got up, knowing we didn't have school but had some sort of outdoor activity--that was all they told us. We packed lunch and just all met in the lobby in our 'outdoor clothing.' Most of us had no idea how to dress although what I brought turned out to work just fine. We were driven by bus at 10 o'clock to a spot near some mountains, and played 'Mafia,' a really fun game, along the way. When we arrived, we were presented with a series of belts and helmets we had to put on, along with a contract that, as said by the guide, 'basically states that you are hundreds of meters up, and if you fall, your life would be over.' Of course, we all signed. We all went to an area where we were supposed to just 'train' how to use the climbing equipment, going up slippery rocks and such. What we ended up doing was climbing these super steep tracks next to this HUGE man-made pipeline that was still in use today. Some people were a little hesitant and almost took the trail up instead, but decided it didn't look that bad. Once we thought we were almost done, the guide told us we were going to be climbing on these staple-like things sticking out of the rock in order to go the rest of the way up. The thing was that they were just hanging there--we started going and realized we were essentially just dangling vertically from the rock, hundreds of feet above ground.

DON'T WORRY it was totally safe, we had harnesses and areas to clip in on and everything, but it was SCARY and SO MUCH FUN. We were on there for a good 4 or 5 hours or so and let me tell you, we were all SUPER proud to say we had scaled a MOUNTAIN, and then completed the hike up for like 20 minutes after that, gone through an old mine, and just had a blast. Then we had a barbecue at the top of the rock, and hiked down. I chatted with Kiersten on the way down who is French-Canadian, so we spoke in French for a while :) It was really nice considering my French has NOT been its best since trying to learn Norwegian. When we got back to the hotel we practiced one more time for the Rotarians, and then played about a million games of Mafia. Once it was getting close to curfew, we all resorted to the 'hanging out in each others' rooms' thing, and kept that going until we were all too tired to stand considering our extreme outing the same day. Up in one of the rooms with a balcony, we discovered some drunk kids out in the street shouting curse words at some of the Rotarians probably just because they were drunk. One of them definitely thought they were an airplane, too. It was pretty entertaining if I might say so myself.

Day 8: So we all rose, extraordinarily tired from the night before, and got ready for the conference with the Rotarians. We had a really great program involving the Brasilians dancing, the South Americans dancing, MacKenzie and my Rotarian rap, Angela singing in Mandarin, the French girls singing, a play of little red riding hood, the Vegimite song by the Australians, and a bunch of kids singing Alt for Norge. We also all sang En Solskinnsdag. After that, we all said a REALLY sad goodbye to each other and took the bus home. It was a long ride, MacKenzie and I talked with the other exchange students, and watched Gilmore Girls a little. We mainly just talked about how great the week was and how much we felt more like exchange students.

As you can see, I had a week of SERIOUS fun and probably learned like, not very much Norwegian, but I learned a few things, and I had SUCH a great experience. It was seriously so much fun and the best week I have had here in Norway so far--can't wait til the next time all of us exchange students meet again!