Thanksgiving

Turkey, pumpkin pie, cranberry relish, stuffing, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, more pumpkin pie, apple cider, the "kids table," even MORE pumpkin pie. Sound familiar? I thought so.

This was my first family holiday that I missed on this exchange. It was a little weird, but I wasn't feeling all depressed like some of then other exchangers said they were (sorry mom!) I really wanted pumpkin pie so i decided to make it myself. Easier said than done, here! My host parents and I went to the biggest grocery store and asked around for some pumpkins. They didn't have any canned, but they did have some in the produce section. When we got there, they didn't look like they could be baked into a pie. But, we decided to give it a go. Six and 1/2 hours, 5 pans, and 17 google searches later, the pie was finished! Did we eat it immediately? No. The sad part of this story is that since it took so long, it was 12:30am by the end and no one wanted pie. The GOOD news is that I took a bunch of pictures! Take a look :)

First we have the ingredients I started with

'Nuff said.

Yes, my pie was made using viking milk and a hammer

Cooking the pumpkin!

Yummmmm ;)

Finally cooked and peeled

Almost ready to eat...Can you tell? :)

"Look tough, like you just made a pie"

    

Everyday Life

It is November 21st and the sun goes down at about 3:00pm and doesn't rise until 9am! Right now, we're losing about 6 minutes of daylight per day. It's crazy having it be dark all the time!

I was reading back through my first post and I've changed my mind about the weird meal times. It's pretty much the same here, if not a little earlier.

Some Pictures from the Last Few Months

Making paper cups in class so we could drink the soda someone brought in

At Fairytale Cupcakes with Sophie

 

Class Party

Summary

So I know I haven't updated this in a while (since I got here, in fact) but I'm going to try and make an effort to do that a little more often.

Here's a little recap of my stay so far:

First month-

• Started school at Adolf Øiens videregående skole
• Thought Norway was so nice and warm
• Moved in with 1st host family
• Learned how to ride the buses--and had to run to catch them a lot! 

Second month-

• Really started making closer friends
• Considered joining a fotball (soccer) team but then realized that volleyball would be so much nicer, as it is an indoor sport
• Still thought Norway had nice weather...for the first half of the month
• Starting to understand more Norwegian
• Snow in October??????????????????

Third month-

• My friends tried to start speaking only Norwegian to me. I can understand a lot, but only if they speak slowly
• I'm able to put together words to form coherent sentences! Sometimes.
• Everyone who told me that I'll just "pick up the language in a month or two" was WRONG. You don't just "pick up" a language! It takes a lot of work, a lot of questions and a lot of saying things that make no sense whatsoever. And it takes a lot more time than just a month or two.
• I joined a gym so I could run inside (there's a good 3 inches of solid ice covering the ground now, with some snow on top) and so I could take zumba classes! It's sort of hard not being able to understand what the instructor says but I'm getting pretty good at directions and counting now!
• Finally learned the ABCs! Not just in order, but so that I can spell things too. Pretty sure people in Trondheim think I'm crazy because I walked around with my Norwegian friends, quietly singing the alphabet.

Fourth Month-

• Just started!
• WHAT?!? My exchange is nearly 1/3 over! Time flies! :D