To Tønsberg!

In my class at school, 3mdm (third class, music line), the majority of us are from outside of the city of Larvik.  Almost every person lives in "Larvik" but some don't even live inside the borders.  Line and Mari live in Tønsberg, which is about 40 minutes away from Larvik.  I have been there numerous times with Rotary and whatnot, but never to actually visit them... until yesterday/today!

I've been planning on visiting Tønsberg to see Line and Mari for a long time, so I can't believe it only recently worked out!  For those of you who understood what Mari wrote on my blog a week or two ago, she said that she wanted me to visit her and Line over Påskeferien, so we immediately planned it.

Else Britt drove me to Tønsberg to the Berulfsen home and we sat outside in the beautiful sun for a while.  We have had the greatest weather in Larivk for the past two or three weeks.  Lately we have had temperatuers in the low 20s Celsius (high 60s, low 70s Fahrenheit) which has been a fantastic transition from winter!  When we got inside, we ate dinner with their family who is extremely nice.  Then afterward, Because of the good weather, we went on a walk to their old school and around the neighborhood and bought ice cream and chocolate.  Then we took a short hike up into the woods where we looked for trolls and saw a beautiful view over a bit of Tønsberg.

We then watched Oppdrag Nemo på norsk (Finding Nemo in Norwegian).  We used subtitles in Norwegian as well, which did not match what they were saying at all, but Line and Mari figured that it was because they made the subtitles directly from the spoken English of the movie.  Soon Håvard called (Håvard is another person in the class who does not live in Larvik - he lives in Horten, which is 20 minutes farther away than Tønsberg) and he and his three brothers came over (they are quadruplets).  We sat around and talked and watched Pirates of the Caribbean until pretty late. 

The next morning we ate breakfast and watched a little TV and took the bus into town!  Mari, Line and I were matching; we had our russegenser (russ sweatshirts) on, Converses and "Ray Bean" sunglasses.  When we got to town, we walked through all of the shoe stores in a mall and then walked into the main part of town.  We stopped and got Happy Meals and ice cream from McDonalds.  While we were waiting in line to order, it seemed like everyone was staring at me while I was talking, so I said in English, "Why is everyone staring at me?" And everyone turned back around, so I was right!  The girls said they noticed it too... It was so weird!  I never get looks like that at school when I'm waiting in line in the katina for food! 

From there we walked up to a market square and I starting getting "flashbacks" from my weekend in Tønsberg with Rotary in September.  We started looking at more Ray Bean modelled sunglasses and after we walked away, we all said we wanted a pair, so we turned back.  I asked him how much they cost in Norwegian and he replied, "femti", which means fifty kroner, but I didn't hear him so I asked the girls and they didn't know either, so the man replied in English, which I thought was histerical because the twins are not native English speakers.  So we stood there picking out sunglasses and the man looks at me and asks, "Snakker du norsk?" "Do you speak Norwegian?" And I said, "Ja..." So he went on to say that his daughter is our age and is an exchange student in USA so we could take all three pairs of sunglasses together for 100 kroner.  We ended up spending about six dollars on a pair of pretty good sunglasses, thanks to me being an exchange student ;)  hahaha!

We spent the rest of the day up on Slottsfjellet (the castle mountain) taking pictures and soaking up the sun.  We walked back down into the town and got some godteri (candy) and walked to the train station where we met up wth Nina from Australia.  We walked around and talked for a while, then I was back on the train home to Larvik. 

Everytime I move in Norway, there is a day or two in which I am not home afterwards.  It's always that returning home that "seals the deal" with my host family.  If it feels nice to "come home" to "my bed", I know I feel at home.  It also depends on how the family reacts to my return.  All three have been koselig, so I have nothing to worry about.  :D

On Wednesday (only two days away!) I leave for Eurotour!!!  We're going to Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Venice, Lyon, Paris and London by bus until May 10th.  Tomorrow is the first day of Russetid for us at THVS, so I'm really looking forward to that.  We're having a kro that's called "Vrengekro" where we have to wear our Russebuske inside out to school and then we're "baptized" by the russeprest and we go to Calle for the night.  I'm very excited!!