Visiting Larvik and Bergen

Lauren, Devin and I have been planning to have our own "mini exchange" during our time here in Norway for at least a month now.  We planned that we would go to Larvik and Bergen to see other parts of Norway.  The Western part of Norway not only has a different climate and vegetation, but also a very different dialect; more surprisingly, it has the same culture. 

Last Monday night, Lauren took a night train to Larvik and arrived early in the morning.  We walked back to Langestrand, where I live, and made ourselves cozy.  We both fell asleep for a few hours, but I woke up in a panic and realized we were wasting the day.  I opened the door outside and, to my surprise, it was 11 degrees Celsius - roughly 52 degrees Fahrenheit.  I haven't been in weather higher than single digit Celsius and in the thirties Fahrenheit for MONTHS.  I opened the door to the patio and left it open to get some air into the house.

I made pancakes while Lauren was asleep and accidentally woke her up by dropping something while carrying everything outside.  She also woke up in a panic but then we "kos'd" ourselves with pancakes, VT maple syrup and milk in the warm sun.  As we sat ouside overlooking the fjord and Larvik while sharing something from our homes, I experienced another moment of love for what I'm doing here in Norway and Norway itself. 

The warm sun prompted us to get in our bikinis and "tan" on the patio.  I'm not sure why two gingers thought we could tan, but hey, it's worth a try!  We laid on towels and read some Cosmo mags in English and Norwegian.  Line came home and eventually made it outside with the extra pancakes and her new bikini. 

After we were done "tanning", we decided to go on a walk through town and to my school, Thor Heyerdahl Videregående Skole.  The size of my school is quite normal to me at this point in my exchange, but watching somebody else's reaction to its size reminds me of how lucky I am.  I took Lauren on the half hour walk to THVS when I knew we'd arrive after school was out.  This way, we could be "tourists."  I saw my bus go by with Sondre on it just before we arrived at school and saw some of my teachers still walking out to their cars - it was the perfect timing.   

From there, we walked over to the Kiwi to find ice cream and candies to kos with, but we decided it would be better to go into town to get softis.  I showed her my "little town" which has a higher population than Rutland - the largest city near where I live in USA - but more spread out than at home.  We walked up to near Maja's and then through the main part of town and back up to Langestrand. 

The next day we walked to and from school taking a bus trip halfway to Sandefjord in between.  Lauren was impressed by how close my friends in the music line are with each other and with me.  We took the bus to Sandefjord again to meet up with Miki, from Australia.  We met up at the bus station and went to McDonalds and wandered around the city.  Might I add that we got quite a few stares while walking around and sitting in MickyD's because, not only were there three gingers walking around, but we were speaking English and being very loud.  We eventually ended up at her host family's house. 

Thursday we went to school so that I could help Martine with our conducting project for the infamous "Tomorrow" from Annie.  We left after I was done, walking back home.  It was so nice to walk everywhere.  We saw Bølgen and the Farris Bad Spa, which are some pretty cool places right near where I live in Larvik.  We spent that night watching the Week 10 performance and skyping with Devin, who we were going to meet up with in Drammen on the train the next day.

Friday came, and another embarrassing exchange student moment happened.  We got to school so that we could pick up Line and Mari to come over to make chocolate chip cookies and just be koselig, but no one was upstairs.  Actually, the lights had automatically turned themselves off and were on motion sensor when we walked down the hallway.  There was NO ONE there!  I called and texted my class and found out that it was a day for Russ!  We met up with them in the gym to find them wearing drunk glasses and getting free stuff!  Good thing we came to school today... Then we all walked over to the fire station to watch a mock crash.  They had a car go 50 km/hr and run into a stationary car without anyone inside.  Then they showed us how to help people in a crash and what would happen if your car caught on fire only from spirits spilled on the inside of the car and how fast it would happen. 

Lauren, Mari, Line and I walked to the school and got the bus to stop in the middle of a roundabout to let us on :D  We took the bus into town and then got out and bought more ice cream.  We wanted the feeling of summer to last.  Then we all walked to Langestrand and listened to music, ate pizza, played UNO and baked chocolate chip cookies.  We all took the same train to Drammen, but Line and Mari got off in Tønsberg. 

In Drammen we waited an hour and then boarded the train to BERGEN where we found Devin seated only diagonally in front of us.  We spent that night watching movies and passing around Devin's sketch book illustrating pictures one line at a time and writing stories that made NO sense.  We finally got sick of being quiet around 3 or 4 AM and went to the dining car to talk.  Around 6.40 AM, we arrived in Arna! 

When we arrived at Lauren's host family's house, we set up beds and fell asleep for a few hours, then we were off into town!  We drove with her host parents to Fløibanen, a cable car that goes up a mountain above Bergen to take pictures.  We ended up walking down the mountain to save five bucks (only in Norway) which was totally worth it.  We were dressed in "normal" clothes and had our bags with us, while everyone else had hiking/running clothes on. 

We walked into town and saw the famous houses and went into some sort of a market where we only bought pancake things with sour cream and jam.  We walked around a lot, mostly aimlessly, but also to find canned pumpkin.  We have had such good luck making pumpkin pie for our host families, etc, that we wanted to find some pumpkin to make some for Lauren's first host family.  We ended up searching through a few sketchy world food stores finding everything else known to man than pumpkin.  We decided from there out that we would make lemon meringue pie - cause that's not difficult, right? 

We spent that night in the kitchen making lemon meringue pie while skyping with Miki in Sandefjord.  Then we went downstairs and went on chatroulette trying to get people to talk to us - we resorted to singing Barney songs and La Perla over, and over, and over, and over, as people clicked next when they saw us.  We decided to dress up in the most Norwegian-flag-oriented clothes we had with us (including russklær) and sing La Perla and Alt for Norge, again, over and over. 

The next morning we woke up very late and mostly slept all day...

But then!  We thought, for whatever reason, that swimming in the fjord late at night was the perfect idea!  (Hey, may as well get one russeknut, russ knot - bathing outside before April 1st!)  We left after it was pitch black outside without flashlights into the woods... good thing I'm afraid of the dark o.O  We ended up at the beach and as we got down to our "bathing suits" while shivering, we realized it was low tide so we'd we wading in on rocks.  Yes, this was poor planning, but we had fun!

We spent Monday in the city drinking coffee and eating ice cream and mostly wandering aimlessly again.  We went into a church and got hit by rain (Bergen gets an unbelieve amount of rain each year.. I've heard it can be about 250-300 days of rain per year).  But hey, we got some free "porridge" in town, so what's to complain about?  We also got some great pictures of devin running through a flock of pigeons in town...

Then we bought some påskeggs, Easter eggs that are chocolate with cream filling.  We came home and asked if we could have waffles with coffee after dinner, so we ran to the market down the street and bought eggs and milk.  We wanted to trick Lauren's host parents into thinking we bought the påskeggs to make the waffles with, so we came upstairs with only the milk and chocolate eggs (they are almost the same size as regular eggs).  Devin and I kept saying, "Vi trodde at de er den beste å lage wafflene... We thought they were the best to make waffles...  Vent, de har sjokolade?  Nei!... Wait, they have chocolate?  no..." I don't think her host parents were impressed with our weird sense of humor...  We ate SO many waffles after. 

We spent the night up watching movies and eating pancakes because Devin and I were leaving the next day (yesterday).  We got on a train at around 10.30 and left for Oslo and Larvik.  Devin and I spent yesterday sleeping, watching movies and talking on the train.  I walked home from the train station a little before 7 o'clock yesterday evening, and it was STILL LIGHT OUTSIDE! 

Some random quotes to remember our week by, thanks to Lauren, Devin and me:
"Jew salad?"
"There's so many people speaking French here..."
"You mean you can't make waffles with påske eggs?"
"Melk? Oh, I thought you were saying 'Mark...'"
"Folken fra Larvik snakker ikke fint"
"This tastes like... onions!"
"Hei, kan du ta et bilde av oss?" "Ehh... Oui?  Qu'at dit elle?" "Oh wait, they're French... uhh... kamera...vær så god!"
"Ingen kims, ingen kos!"
" Vi hørte en sang... over and over again!"
"I won't take any pictures so we don't see the ghosts."
"It's just a serial killer sharpening his knife..."
"What?  We're gonna eat the town?  Vi skal spise byen?"
"I was Russ 60 years ago..."
"Duvay monster tired!"

<3 It's not just the friendships that you make with other exchangers or at school, but that you know they'll be a part of your life forever.  Line B. said to me earlier this week that she wants to host an exchange student when she's older because of Lauren and me.  That was my mission and I feel now like I have fulfilled it here in Norway.  I'm gonna miss this place...

påskeggs

This week is heldagsprøver at school - whole day exams - so I don't have to be there because I'm not taking any.  Oh, the life of an exchange student... Click HERE to read Lauren's blog about our time together!