Goodbye

Thank you to everyone who made this amazing experience possible.

First thank you to my parents back home for agreeing to let me go. Leaving you guys was one of the worst experiences and it made me realize how amazing I have it at home and how you two are the best parents anyone could ever ask for. Thanks for listening to me complain, cry, and laugh and I can't wait to see you soon. 

Thank you to Aspect Foundation, first for answering my countless emails while I was waiting to find out my host family and departure date and then for doing everything possible to make my exchange great. Thank you for finding me a host family in an amazing school where I made some amazing friends. Thanks for organizing a trip for me when you found how much I was missing city life and doing things. My whole exchange wouldn't have been possible or as great as it was without you all working so hard. 

Thank you to my host family. I appreciate how much you did for me and all the rides you gave me to the post office and to my friends house. Thank you for taking me on a grueling hiking trip that I will forever look back upon with fond memories. 

Thank you to my best friends back home, especially my best friend, Alex Krish. Thank you for listening to my complaints about the smallest thing and hearing all the stories about how much fun I'm having. Thank you for making countless plans with me and listening to me get upset when they didn't go exactly as I planned in my head. Thank you, Becca Volk for all your letters. Getting those letters in the mail almost always made me want to cry. And thank you for keeping our Snapchat streak alive (124 days strong). And thank you to Christina and Katie for not killing me when I blew up our group messages with the most random thing and BuzzFeed quizzes. You guys made me have an amazing exchange even though you ever 4,000 miles away. 

Lastly, my biggest thanks goes to the friends I made here in Norway. My exchange would've been miserable without all of you. Thank you for teaching me all the Norwegian swear words and trying to teach me Norwegian in general. I'm going to miss you all so much. Thank you for taking me out and showing me things in the city or spending nights watching movies and gossiping with me. Thank you for allowing me to come on your cabin trip and see a different part of Norway. Thanks for allowing me to join all your groups. And thank you for translating all the important information in class and telling me when and where to show up for important events. I know I'll see you all again eventually and the day that we do it will feel as though no time between us has passed. Thank you for just accepting me and taking me out to places with you when you knew I had nothing to do. You were all the best part of my exchange and you guys are what is making it so difficult for me to leave Norway. I knew that I would look back on all the times I cried and not feel sad, but I never knew that I would look back upon all the times I was happy and cry. 

Two Weeks

Hi, everyone!

I know some of you have talked to my parents or heard about this, but I'll be home for Christmas this year! I'm coming home on December 22nd. When I made this decision I was very sure of my choice but as my departure date approaches I've come to realize how much I'm going to miss everyone and everything here in Norway. I know I have complained a lot (especially to my parents) and struggled a lot, especially in the first two months, but I wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world. My friends here are incredible and I just want to pack them up and bring them to the States with me. Thinking about leaving them makes me want to cry.

The closer I get to my departure date the more things I have been doing. My friends are trying to squeeze in everything before I leave.

This past Wednesday my friends Vilde and Marcus decided to take me out. They also decided to not tell me where we were going. For those of you who know me well you know the fact that I hate, hate, hate surprises. They finally coughed up the answer to my where are we going question and told me we were going to Kristiansand to take pictures. It was a super nice drive through awful Norwegian weather. When we were in the city we took a ton of pictures of each other and together. It's nice to have those pictures for when I get home. After that, we drove back to Grimstad and went out for pizza. It did not taste like American pizza, but it was a nice change from frozen pizza that we just throw in the oven. From there we went to Marcus' house and watched High School Musical and played some games. It was great because Marcus and Vilde always speak English when they are around me. Even if I'm not in the conversation they will still speak it so I have something to listen to.

Skip to Friday because I didn't do anything interesting on Thursday. After school, I went and got coffee with the Brazillian student at my school, Lorena. It was great to complain about exchange student things and just check the fact that no, it's not us, it's the Norwegians that are crazy. I, of course, didn't get coffee, but all the cafes in Norway have amazing hot chocolate so I got that instead. After we did that, Lorena went to celebrate her host sister's birthday and I went to my friend Hege's house.

I got to Hege's really early because I just left the city when Lorena left so I went to the store with Hege and her sister to pick up some candy and dip. After we got back to Hege's, our friends Aina and Siren came over. These are the three girls coming to visit me over Spring Break and I'm so excited to show them Pittsburgh. We watched Love Actually because it's Christmas time and it was very koselig (kinda means cozy, kinda means all things nice). We also had a nice time just talking about everything and things we have to do before I leave. I also had them record some videos to send to my friends back home introducing themselves. It's really strange how similar my Norweigan and American friends are. Siren and Aina left around 11 pm so Hege and I looked up flights and things for them to get to Pittsburgh (if anyone has any advice for cheap, fast travel from Kristiansand to Pittsburgh please let me know!). They are going to be so exhausted after I drag them everywhere around the city, haha.

Saturday I slept in until noon which was so nice. We have been having really bad weather here in Norway. Our power went out in the afternoon which is awful because even though the power only went out around 4:30 it was pitch black outside. My host family and I ended up playing a card game called Phase 10 which they love. The power came back on before 6, but I left to go bowling with some friends. We took the bus up to Arendal which is really different for because I never ride the bus. The walk to the bus is torture. It's a long steep path that has no lighting. Plus it was pouring down rain and the wind in Norway is ridiculous. I was soaked by the time the bus came and we got to Arendal. We bowled two rounds. Here are the scores for the first game; Dula- 76, me- 65, and Vilde- 128. And for the second game; Dula- 102, me- 77, and Vilde- 116. I suck at bowling. I did get two strikes, but I also got a lot of gutter balls. We went to eat at McDonalds afterward which was nice to get fast food.

I have so many fun plans for the next two weeks. I can't believe it. I've started packing up some books and my summer clothes (most of which I've never worn thanks to the Norwegian weather). I'll probably make two or three more blog posts before I leave, but I can't wait to get home and see everyone! Thanks to everyone who has emailed my mom and written about the blog. I'm so glad everyone is enjoying it.

Also, I totally forgot to post it earlier this week but the Thanksgiving blog post is below!!

-Olivia

Here's a pic from Thanksgiving of Mathilde, Siren, me, Hege, and Aina

Marcus, Vilde, and I on the way to Kristiansand

Vilde and I

Marcus and I

Lorena, the Brazillian exchange student

Lorena and I in front of a Christmas tree

Me in front of one of out towns Christmas trees

Dula and I

Dula and Vilde

Thanksgiving

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

I have had one of the longest, most tiring weekends of my exchange. To start off my mom (being the amazing, kind woman that she is) mailed me three boxes of food to make for Thanksgiving. She actually sent me a 5-pound bag of noodles. Thank you, mom!

On Wednesday, after I picked up the boxes, I made the pies! Both apple and pumpkin. Those turned out really well. Thursday night I began making some of the actual food. My older host sister Linn Victoria took me to the biggest grocery store near us to get all the vegetables I needed. Less than 5 minutes of walking in the store I had lost my wallet. I began to freak about because all I did was walk down one aisle. So Linn went to talk to someone in the front of the store and someone had found my wallet and turned it in! And all of my money, credit cards, medicine, and IDs were still in it! Norway truly is an amazing place.

Now enough gushing about the kind samaritans of Norway. My host family decided to have Thanksgiving on Friday night because my parents were dancing on Thursday night. So after skyping with my family back home I got to making all the wonderful food. I made mashed potatoes, which I apparently didn't know how to make so thanks to everyone who helped out. I also made stuffing which turned out amazing. I like baking them in muffins tins because they get so crispy. Friday morning I stayed home to cook more food! I actually ended up forgetting about a lot of food, but we still had a ton of leftovers. Here was the menu for Friday; turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, candied sweet potatoes, stuffing, Brussel sprouts, buttered noodles, gravy, and cranberry jelly. There was 8 of us. My host parents, me, and 5 of my host siblings. We also enjoyed some pie at the end. It was good practice for my friends coming over on Sunday.

Then, on Saturday, my friend Dula came over and helped me and Ida bake pies. After that, we worked on a 500 piece Pittsburgh puzzle. We didn't finish. It was really difficult.

Finally, it was Sunday morning. I got up bright and early (11). I meant to get up at 10 but I kept hitting the snooze button. Whoops. I got to work baking the stuffing, then cooking the noodles, and baking the green bean casserole. Plus getting our 5.83 kilogram turkey in the oven. Ida helped me get the house all set up for our guests. We moved our kitchen table out into the living room so all 15 of us could be in one room. Yes, I said that right. 15 people. I'm not going to name everyone but there was some girls from my class, some of Ida's friends, and two other exchange students (a girl in my school from Brazil and the other exchange student from the US with Aspect named Eric). When everyone got there I was still working on the potatoes. I had made the mistake to make them on Thursday and try to reheat them for Friday's dinner. They were still cold when we ate so I just planned on making them before we ate on Sunday. I had one of the guys I invited mash the potatoes and just as he finished that, the turkey came out of the oven.

Everyone got their food and we did the whole thing where we went around the table and said what we are thankful for. Basically everyone said friends, family, and food. A lot of people said they were thankful for me which made me feel really nice, haha. Everyone loved the food! I definitely made too much pasta, though. It's going to be my lunch for the next week. A lot of people went up and got seconds which was great. Even though the cooking went well and no one got food poisoning I don't think I'll be cooking for a while. It was a lot of work. Now I understand why my mom doesn't like to cook.

After we finished eating, we played a game that's basically a more difficult version of charades. My team came in second! While we were doing that, we also ate pie. Funny thing about Norwegians, they think pumpkin pie tastes like gingerbread (pepperkake). I personally don't taste it and neither did Eric. That was the nice thing about having another American around, they could validate that all the crazy things Norwegians said were actually crazy. After the game, basically everyone went home. A few helped clean up while and Ida and I did the dishes.

Well, that's basically it for my Thanksgiving adventures. It ended up being better than I could even imagine.

Until next time,
-Olivia

 Stuffing

Pumpkin pie!

Turkey

Everything else warming in our very small oven

Dinner set for the family

 We had so many leftovers both times

Apple pie

Friends at Thanksgiving

More friends at Thanksgiving

Grimstad Tour :)

If you're wondering how many times I can procrastinate by watching Love Actually before writing this blog post, the answer is 7.

I'm not going to bore you with what I did every single day because I literally do nothing. Last Wednesday our geography class went to Grimstad for a walking tour. This was a rather poor decision by our teacher because it was only about 35 degrees outside. We walked around the city with a guide but, unfortunately, the tour was in Norwegian so I learned nothing. After that, we went to a maritime museum and checked out some old Norwegian sailing stuff. Nothing really too interesting. BUT! My amazing friend Hege (who now reads my blog) offered to give me a tour of the city!

So on Sunday (the coldest day of the week (it didn't even reach 32 degrees)) I met Hege for my personal tour of the city! We went to this art installment thing which is a frame that frames and overlooks the city. From there we walked through the city, Hege was pointing out random stuff and I was taking pictures as we went, and made our way up to the middle school. We had to walk through a super, super creepy tunnel to get there. There was a swimming competition going on there so we checked that out for a little. While we were there our friend Aina joined us! Aina, Hege, and I walked to a church in the city and looked over the town. We decided to take a cute picture of us. This was a mistake because I have a mini-tripod and it sucks. After a few failed attempts at taking pictures, we made our way to Cafe Ibsen.

Henrik Ibsen actually lived in Grimstad when he was working as an apprentice pharmacist. The cafe was AMAZING! We all ordered hot chocolate. They also had white hot chocolate so I'm going to try that next time. We sat there talking for over an hour. Hege, Aina, and our other friend Siren are all planning on coming out to visit me in Pittsburgh in the spring! I'm so excited! But back to Sunday. After we finally got a picture of the three of us, Aina had to leave for dinner with her boyfriend. Hege invited me to go watch her brother perform in a gymnastic performance. It was the 150th anniversary of the gymnasium and their Christmas event. It was very loud but lots of fun. I'm not just saying this because Hege is definitely reading this post, but she is so awesome and fun to hang out with. All my friends here are. They remind me so much of my friends back home which just makes me realize how much I'm going to miss them when I go back home to Pittsburgh.

That was the end of my long and cold day of walking around the city. It wasn't as much informational as it was fun. The rest of the week has been Thanksgiving prep and freaking out about Thanksgiving prep. On the actual day of Thanksgiving, I'm cooking dinner for my family. Then, on Sunday, I'm having like 15 friends over and cooking for them! I know I've said this before but please, please everyone wish me luck.

Once again my camera refuses to cooperate with my laptop. Please forgive me for the quality lost while transferring images from my camera to my phone and then emailing them to my laptop.

White houses in Grimstad

More white houses

Tiny street in the center of the city

View of the city and church

Another view of the church

View from one of the docks

One of the few blue sky days we've had

Sculpture of a man. I forget who he is or what he's famous for, though.

My attempt at jumping. 

Hege and I

Hege's jump. Much better than mine. She actually looks like she has legs.

Hege acting like she's going swimming in this freezing water

One of our failed attempts at a group picture

A group picture that actually worked!

Aina and Hege at Cafe Ibsen

Hege and I at Cafe Ibsen with our hot chocolates

Aina, Hege, and I at Cafe Ibsen :)

Reasons to Study Abroad

Wow, I'm going to start off by saying that I'm sorry for writing two posts in under 24-hours. I'm trying to make up for the fact that I haven't written in awhile. Alright now onto the actual post!

I think studying abroad has been one of the most rewarding and challenging experiences of my life. I want to give some reasons why American students should study abroad and some more for specifically why you should study abroad in Norway! Hope you enjoy!

Reasons American high school students should study abroad:

1. You meet so many incredible people and make so many great friends!
• Seriously how cool is it that you can have people wishing you happy birthday in different languages and people liking your Instagram pictures from halfway across the world? Plus if you ever go back to your exchange country you'll always have a place to stay! Some of the people I've met here in Norway have been the kindest, most accepting, funny, wonderful people on the planet. 
2. You learn so so so so much!
• From learning a different language to another countries culture, the random facts you collect are endless. Like did you know that Norwegians wear their wedding rings on the right hand? I thought everyone here was single for almost a month. While I don't really learn anything while I'm at school I still learn a lot outside of the classroom. Even if I'm just talking to people in between classes or playing games with my host family. 
3. It looks incredible on your college applications!
• Kinda petty I know but I've already been accepted to 3 colleges (University of Pittsburgh, Chatham University, and Washington & Jefferson) and I honestly believe that the reason I got into Pitt main, got a scholarship from Chatham, and a personal note at the bottom of my W&J letter was because of my exchange. It shows colleges "what integrity [they] see in you [and] what a tremendous experience you create" that was a direct quote from my W&J letter. Colleges are always worrying about how their students will handle life at college and exchange students prove that, while in high school, they could live in a foreign country where they know no one. I was a pretty good student in high school and I believe that my exchange really pushed my application over the edge. 
4. The views!!!
• It doesn't matter where you study abroad, but no matter where you go you will definitely see one view that will take your breath away. There are so many amazing places to see even if you live in a small town in Switzerland you are bound to travel to other places and who knows maybe a nearby mountain will be your new favorite hiking spot with an amazing view at the top.
5. Everyone loves hearing about it!
• Okay, so this one only lasts for about a week after you return. BUT it is an amazing conversation piece when meeting new people. Just don't sound too cocky about spending a life changing year abroad while everyone was just sitting on their couch at home. 

Reasons why you should study abroad in Norway!

1. Norwegians
• The Norwegians are a particular type of people. They are shy when you first meet them for sure. When they open up they really open up. I have heard countless stories that I really, really wished I hadn't heard. They also become super inclusive. Every time there's an event someone always invites me which is really nice because I've gotten to go to so many parties and hang out with so many people. 
2. The Norwegian language
• As long as you learn some of it beforehand! At least how to pronounce the Ø Å Æ sounds as well as the Norwegian R sound. I'm going to make a separate post about the language and how hard it is for me (I know boo-hoo, Olivia. My life is so hard, etc). Simple phrases are easy to pick up though and basic words and fruit are easy. A lot of words are also really similar in English, too. I REALLY RECCOMEND LEARNING AS MUCH OF THE LANGUAGE AS YOU CAN BEFORE YOU GO! Even if it's not required it can never hurt. 
3. The history
• Norway is so old. Grimstad is older than the United States. Isn't it crazy? Simple things like that stun me. There is even an Ibsen museum in Grimstad because Henrik Ibsen actually worked as an apprentice to a pharmacist. There is so much history in Norway and Norwegians are so, so proud of their history you can't go anywhere without learning something.
4. The views!!!
• I know I mentioned this above how there are amazing views everywhere but Norway has the best views. In the morning on my walk to the bus stop, I can see across the harbor in Fevik to the iconic white houses that this part of Norway is known for. On the bus ride home, I drive past two fjords, a beach, and two harbors all in under 20 minutes. Today it was foggy, rainy, and we only had eight and a half hours of sun, but all I was thinking was how lucky I am to be here.
5. It's different
• With Aspect, right now, there are two American's in Norway. There's one other exchange student in my school from Brazil. What I'm trying to say is that no one goes to Norway. And they should. Most American students don't even think of Norway. Some people come here because of their Norwegian heritage, but my family is mostly Eastern European, Irish, and German so no Norwegian but Norway is a great place for everyone. Norway is the 17th safest country in the world, pretty high considering that America is 94. Norway is also considered the highest developed country in the world based on the HDI scale. It is so amazing here I highly recommend spending your exchange in Norway, you will not regret it.

It was around this time last year that I was finalizing all my documents to study abroad. I really recommend study abroad (especially with Aspect). I hope that you all decide to study abroad and have a great time while you're there!

Halloween

Sorry, I haven't written in awhile! I haven't been particularly swamped here either, I am just a huge procrastinator, haha. Before I begin with my post, for those of you that haven't already, on the right side of my page there is a box that says "Follow Me For Updates!", if you put your email in there then you will automatically get updates every time I make a blog post! You can also write comments at the bottom of the posts, I would love to hear what you think or any post ideas you have for me.

Last weekend was Halloween here in Norway. I was surprised at how many parties and how many people dressed up. In the past, I have always viewed it as an American holiday and even then I never do anything back home for it.

The night before Halloween I invited some of the girls in my class over to carve pumpkins! Two of them have never carved pumpkins before because it only got popular in Norway within the past view years. I think southern Norway underestimated how many people were going to carve pumpkins because by 4:00 pm there no pumpkins within a one-hour radius of where I live. My host parents and some siblings went to Kristiansand to pick up someone at the bus station there and they couldn't find a single pumpkin. Two of the girls in my class managed to find the last pumpkins in our city and I had one we bought earlier in the week. The other two girls actually used honey melons. We had a lot of fun and the melons turned out really cool as well! I realized how lucky I am to be in a class with these girls because, while they were shy at first (and so was I), they have really accepted me into their group and I'm going to miss them terribly when I go home.

On Saturday, I went to a Halloween party that a guy in my class was having. The invite he sent me was in Norwegian so I attempted to translate the directions but it was on a private road so it didn't show up on Google Maps, it took Ida and me about 40 minutes to get there. I was there for about half an hour until one of my friends showed up and invited me to another one of our friends house where they were just watching some TV relaxing. Oh! I went as Rosie the Riveter. Mostly because I had all the items in my closet. A lot of people went as scary things with white or red contacts and scars on their faces.

Sunday was spent relaxing because the past two nights I had been up really late. Monday we were back at school. Same old, same old, I just sit there and do absolutely nothing. On Tuesday, I only had math class because my English teacher was sick. I also went to the police station and officially applied for my visa! Wednesday we had Norwegian all day but my teacher didn't have anything planned for me because all the other kids were taking a test all day. I just went home. It was a bit upsetting because I was at school for less than an hour and I would have much rather been sleeping. Thursday was normal and Linn Victoria and I went to the grocery store at night. This was the largest grocery store I've seen here in Norway, but it still had about as many products as Giant Eagle. The store also sold random, miscellaneous things like skis. That brings us to today. My Norwegian teacher again told me that since they were doing New Norwegian I could just go out in the hall in work. Since I don't have a language I don't have anything to do until 12, oh well it's some nice down time.

Well, that's been my week! I am officially supposed to come home January 16th. I can't believe that's only 70 days away! I'm still working on planning out my Thanksgiving for my friends so I will let you all know how that goes. Keep your fingers crossed for me, okay? The most I've ever done for Thanksgiving is cut celery, but I'm pretty fantastic at that.

Grimstad

Grimstad. Isn't it pretty?

Carving pumpkins and melons

Me and my friends (Hege, Matilde, Siren, and Aina)

Finished products

The hill I have to walk up everyday from the bus stop.

The "huge" store. It looks pretty big but everything is really spaced out and there isn't a lot of products offered.

Oslo!

Monday the 12th marked my two month anniversary of being in Norway! Sometimes I look back at how insanely terrified I was the first few weeks and think how far I've come. I cannot wait to see my friends and family back home, but I'm already dreading leaving my new friends here. They truly adopted me into their friend group and have helped me out so much.

This past weekend I had the awesome experience of going to Oslo to where Aspect Norway is located. Aspect was so great, they knew how much I was missing museums and being in a big city so they invited me up to spend the weekend there!

Before I start telling you about what an amazing time I had here are some fast facts about Oslo...

• It's the capital of Norway
• Population: over 618,000
• Area: 454 square kilometers, 242 of them are forests
• The Nobel Peace Prize is presented here every year
• The Oslofjord has over 40 islands
• Oslo, according to the UN, is the best place to live in the world. It is the highest on the HDI and has the lowest unemployment rate. 
• Oslo is the only city in Norway with a bigger population than Pittsburgh

I didn't have school on Thursday or Friday last week which was very nice so I got to leave Friday morning for Oslo. The bus ride there is 4 hours long, but it wasn't too bad because all the leaves here are starting to change colors so the scenery was great!

When I arrived at the bus station I got to go to Aspect's office which is right next to the palace and have some pastries, which were really good. Then the girl I was staying with, Ragnhild, picked me up. She works for Aspect and went to France with them two years ago. She is a ball of energy and so nice. Ragnhild and her family were a great host and she showed me so much of the city! After she picked me up and we walked around the palace for a bit. The security there is very minimal. Ther isn't a big fence around it and I only saw two security guards there. Much different from the White House and Buckingham Palace. Then, we went to a coffee shop and talked for a while about our experiences as exchange students. From there we went back to her house in an area of the city called Frogner (her house is gorgeous). In Norway, it is very common on Friday to have pizza or tacos. For the first time ever I had homemade pizza! The pizza here is very thin but still very good. After dinner, we watched a movie called A Thousand Times Goodnight which was very good but so emotional.  I called it a night and went to bed after that.

The next day I woke up and had breakfast with Ragnhild and then we went on a two-hour long walk through Bygdøy which is a countryside peninsula a short walk from the city. We got to take some lovely pictures and see the King and Queen's summer house. When I got home Rut from Aspect picked me up to spend the day with her, her daughter, and her dad. They planned an amazing day for me! Aspect got me an "Oslo Pass" which worked as a museum ticket for all the museums and as a bus pass for 14 hours. Oslo isn't a very big place and it doesn't take long to get from one side of the city to the other so we used the pass a lot.

First, we went to the Viking Ship Museum. As you all know the Vikings were sea explorers from Scandanavia and the Viking Age was from the late 8th century to the early 11th century. The Viking Ship Museum has amazing artifacts from the Viking age. The museum has two very large Viking ships on display. One is the Gokstad Ship which was built in about 850, buried in about 900, and excavated in 1880 when some children were digging up a mound of dirt and found the old ship. The other ship is the Oseberg Ship. The Oseberg Ship was buried in 834 and was rediscovered in 1903. It took 21 years to restore the ship. Both of these ships were buried in the ground with prominent members of society. Today we have coffins, the Egyptians had the pyramids, and the Vikings had 70-foot ships to house the dead.

The Holmenkollbakken Ski Jump came next. The jump is located on one of Oslo's hills and overlooks the city. It has been rebuilt many times, higher and higher each time. I can't imagine going down the jump and soaring off. There's a simulator that you can try and see what it's like to jump off and that just reassured my feelings of never wanting to be a ski jumper!

From there we headed back into the city and went towards the harbor. The weather in Oslo while I was there was fantastic! Well, fantastic for Norway. The temperature still barely reached 50 degrees, but it was sunny the whole time! After walking around for a while, we headed over to the Nobel Peace Museum. I was really excited to see this because these people are some of the most incredible people of their generations and it's amazing that this award recognizes them for that. I also know all about Alfred Nobel thanks to Patrick's World Hall of Fame project from the 7th grade. While I was there, there was an exhibit on Malala and Kailash. If you are unfamiliar with them I really recommend looking them up because both have done amazing things in their fight for children's education rights. There was also a huge room that had information about every Nobel Peace Prize winner. If you ever happen to be in Oslo you have to check it out.

After all that it was finally time for dinner. We dropped of Rut's daughter and went to the Nighthawk Diner. The diner is based off a 1950's American diner and serves diner food. I chose the most American thing on the menu and got a burger and fries. Rut also ordered us all milkshakes. The milkshakes were a close second to mine at Bruster's but still really good. The burger was very good, a lot of the burger's in Norway are very thin, so thin they don't even ask how you want it cooked. I, of course, being from Pittsburgh, put my fries and Heinz ketchup on my burger. Once I finished scarfing down my burger Rut, her dad, and I talked for a while which was very nice. After they dropped me off at home Ragnhild invited me out to a party but I elected to stay home because I was exhausted. I watched Satan's Little Helper and Kick-Ass with her sister instead before I went to bed.

On Sunday, I spent the day with Ragnhild. We used the Oslo Pass from the day before and went down to the Astrup Fearnley Museum. It's a modern art museum, and not being fans of modern art, Ragnhild and I didn't like it too much, so we headed off to another art museum! The National Gallery in Oslo is much more my taste. I got to see The Scream (skrik in Norwegian)! Edvard Munch is a Norwegian artist, he is probably one of the few famous Norwegians that non-Norwegians know. Him, Henrik Ibsen (who lived in Grimstad when he was younger, btw), and Nico and Vinz (if you follow pop music) are about the only really, really famous Norske men.

After our museum trips, we met a friend of Ragnhild's for lunch before looking in some cheesy touristy shops. From there we made our way back down to the harbor. I swear I did so much walking this past weekend, haha. While we were down there we walked up on top of the Opera House. Both the inside and outside of the house were beautiful. I was craving something warm to drink so we went to Olaf Ryes Plass which is the cool/ hipster/ Lawrenceville area of Oslo and had hot chocolate. I'm sorry to say Mom, but the hot chocolate here is a lot better than the stuff we make at home. Then it was nearly time to catch my bus home so we stopped at home, picked up my stuff, and headed off to the bus station!

That was the conclusion of my very long Oslo post. Thanks for reading it all and I promise to never make a post this long again! Also a special thanks to everyone who made this weekend happen! I had a really great time and enjoyed every second of it!

P.S. I'm really sorry I didn't take more pictures (plus I transferred them from my camera to my phone to my computer so they aren't the best quality)!

Nobel Peace Center

The Scream

Ragnhild and I in front of the Opera House

An old couple on our walk by the King's summer home

The Egyptian ambassador's house which was like a block from where I was staying

On top of the Opera House

Looking at the "barcode" they are the "skyscrapers" of Norway

A super artistic picture of Ragnhild and I in the Opera House

The view from where we grabbed hot chocolate from

The Malala exhibit