Es geht!

Helllllllllo everyone!

It's about 9:19 am on Tuesday, and I'm eating some breakfast while listening to my all time favorite band, The Books. School today begins at 10:30, and I think I'll ride my bike to school today, which takes about 20 minutes, although there's snow outside today. It had been warm, but it apparently got cold again :(.

I'll give you a quick update of what's goin on...

My German had improved OUTRAGEOUS amounts since I've gotten here. It's difficult to gain a perspective sometimes, because sometimes (like when I'm watching the Simpsons with my host brother, hehe) I understand almost nothing. While other times, like in class, I can understand most everything. And I can have a normal conversation in German now...

And I wanna say how weird it first was for me to realize how much English really is the World Language.
-In any sort of international place, like the airport I was at in Amsterdam or the tourist areas I was at in Spain, the workers automatically speak English to you.
-Phrases on shirts here are all in English.
-I was in a shoe store, I told the worker I didn't understand his German, so he started speaking English. I said, "Hey, how did you know I spoke English?" He said, "I didn't, but I know that basically everyone speaks English."
-At the Rotary meetings, even though the foriegn exchange students come from ALL OVER THE WORD, English is the default language. If our German isn't good enough, the leaders speak English. All these foriegn exchange students know their Native language AND English fluently. They all learn it in school.

I hope English doesn't make all other languages obsolete!...

Oh, we just watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in my English class. It's also a popular movie over here. Before that, we read a book called The Tortilla Curtain, about the struggles of Mexican Immigrants. It's a pretty in depth English class, and some of the students speak more efficient English than I do, really. Everyone in my English class, I would consider fluent speakers. Wierd, huh? But this is an AP English class, not everyone in my grade speaks fluent English.

In other news, now I have to do a 10 minute presentation about Elizabethan London for my English Class. Ich habe keine Lust. (I don't feel like it.)


Oh, and in Febuary, I'm going to Cologne (big German city) for "Karnival". I have to find a costume!

Okay, I hope that's enough for now. Keep in touch.

jennyg

Norway!

There's Norway; the view of from the house we stayed at...

Happy New Year! Or… Frohes Neues Jahr!
I just got back from ten lovely days in Norway with Markus (host dad), Pauline (host sister) and Jakob (host brother). Please take a look at my photos and their captions in addition to this blog entry – my words don’t really do it justice.
We left at 11:45 pm on Christmas Eve, right after my host family celebrated Christmas together, and drove 17 hours in a tiny car through Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and finally Norway… We had to take two ferries to cross first the Baltic and then the North Sea. NICE.

We stayed with Markus’ girlfriend, Anita, (my host parents are separated) who lives in a village called Rendalen, in the middle of Norway nowhere – really, most parts of Norway are in the middle of nowhere. There’s only 4 million people in ALL of Norway, I think. But that makes the beautiful nature all the more noticeable; there seemed to be endless amounts of: mountainy hills (smaller than mountains, bigger than hills – do we have a word for that?), forests, rivers, lakes…. and perfect silence. Norway is quiet anyway, but with the constant snowfall (there was probably 3 feet of snow the whole time), the utter silence was outrageous… I’d ski over to a river near Anita’s house and the quiet rushing of water gradually got louder and louder because it was the only sound.

But the week was really relaxing and interesting. We went skiing, “skifahren”, almost everyday, through the forests and hills, not down huge slopes or anything. We went sledding, “schlittenfahren”, down a lotta steep hills around. I told them that in my town, we only have one hill, which is actually just the leftover dirt from digging out the public pool. We also went skating on a makeshift skating rink. Some farmer layed it out over some of his property during the winter, and there’s a big old light with a big old switch there, and anyone can go out there at any point of the day/night and use it for free. Pauline and Jakob and I went out there from 12pm – 1am a few nights.

We spent a lot of time with Anita’s sister and brother inlaw, Berit and Vidar – they’re really young and relaxed and hilarious. I joined them in an awesomely odd Norwegian Christmas tradition, “Jule Bokk” where you dress up in weird clothing and put on a mask, you go inside neighbors’ houses, sit on their couch, and the neighbors ask you questions about yourself until they figure out who’s behind the mask. The two times I did this, we went out from like 12am – 1am; I asked Berit, how can we do this so late? She said, “Hey, if their lights are on, we know they’re awake. Do you sleep with your lights on?” And it really wasn’t a big deal to the neighbor’s either, in fact the two houses I went to, they were still up and kicking, hosting a few friends, and they graciously invited us inside… So, when they had guessed Berit and Vidar, they began questioning me. In Norwegian. But luckily, Berit and Vidar had prepared me with a one key phrase to respond with, “Jeg dritte”: I’m shitting. WHAT. haha, don't worry,

We spent new years tall up on a mountainy hill, watching big fireworks which from maybe 8 different spots. Afterward, we went sledding down the hill, and spent the rest of the evening at Berit and Vidar’s, socializing with Norweigians – and they all could carry conversations in English. I asked how they could all speak so well, and they said because they learned it in school, and also all the movies on TV are American movies, in English, but with Norwegians subtitles – so they hear English everyday. We also wanted to go swimming in a nearly frozen lake for 10 seconds or so for new years, but the lake had frozen over. Instead, we took part in a “Schnee Bad” – playing in the snow in our swim suits.

Ah! We also all rode in a one horse open sleigh, jingle bells included. Anita’s friend build two wooden sleighs, attatched each to a horse, and gave us a ride at night through the open fields and woods, with two candles next to us to lead the way (you could not see a THING on the road). They also provided the warmest blanket I’ve ever used, made out of 8 sheep skin, and Jakob actually got to use the guys’ coat, a HUGE thick thing also made out of sheep skin. They use animal skin a lot in Norway, like deer fur for these awesome boots that everyone there has.

Yeah, I also brushed up on my Norwegian a little bit... Haha, I actually did learn Ba Ba Black Sheep in Norwegian! And learned a few phrases ...

Ahh, okay. Enough for now. Thanks for reading..... One of my new year's resolutions is to write in here at least once a week, so keep reading!

much love,
-jennyg

P.S. a few photos:



Here I am on a frozen lake, in front of pretty pretty Norwegian mountains



we finally caught a shot of a moose!


pauline and i in a one horse open sleigh!



Pauline, Markus, Vidar, Anita, me, and Berit dressed up for JuleBokk!



Dinner at Vidar and Berits! We ate shrimp that we peeled ourselves, with mayonaisse and white bread...


Okay, nearly everyone in Norway uses this sleigh, called a "Spark" during the winter time to get from place to place. I have a picture up on flickr that shows 5 or 6 of them, all belonging to customers inside who used them to get there, standing outside the grocery store.



Norwegian Hallway from jennyg on Vimeo.

And here is a short video where you can hear some Norwegian from some people I got to know well over this break. This takes place my first day in Norway, in the foyer of Berit and Vidar's house (Anita's sister and husband), as Markus is trying on his new Norwegian hat and things... I thought this was such a strange experience at first, Norwegian being such a unfamiliar language, and me not knowing what to say... turns out they all speak English really well. Vidar is the gnome-looking one in the blue hat. He's awesome.



Ba Ba Lille Lam from jennyg on Vimeo.
I learned this Norwegian Children's Song, it's basically Ba Ba Black Sheep in Norwegian. This is Vidar singing to my camera so I could practice it later. :)