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