Arrival!!!1

I'm here! I made it! Wow! My thoughts:

1) Sad to leave the fam. (Friends, whatever)(Totally kidding)

2) Everything was stressful and hectic.

3) But I did it!

As soon as I got off the train in Bø I was greeted by three lovely ladies from TUC (Telemark Univeristy College) and they took me to my dorm to drop off my shtuff (the above are some boring pictures of my dorm room. That's all I've got right now. Nice bedspread, eh?!) Then they said, "everyone's eating pizza at the pizza place, wanna go meet some more international students?!" Of course I was like "yeah!!" even though at that point I'd been up for like 36 hours running on 1-2 hours of sleep on the plane. Oh well. The pizza was free, and good, and I met students from the US, Bali, Spain, France, and Italy to name a few. The Norwegian guides are really nice and helpful and speak great English, which made it easy for me to slack on learning Norwegian. I decided to try harder when I wasn't running on pure adrenaline.

I met my roomate, Ida, after the pizza. She's so sweet!! She must've said "sorry, I'm not so good at English!" about 20 times, and then I would say, "Du kan prøve det på norsk!" but she would keep truckin' right along in English. We are at about the same skill level in our second languages, which I think will be a great thing for both of us. Last night, for example, she learned how to say "frying pan" from me, and I learned, "stekkepanne" from her! Wow!

The dorms I am in are like little cottages, and they are a 15-minute hike up a long snaky hill from the school (feels loooong with grocery bags!) In each cottage there are 4 "doubletts." In each doublett there are two people. These two people have seperate bedrooms with desk, table, closet, etc., but share a kitchen and bathroom. So really it's like a two-bedroom apartment, kind of. I haven't met anyone else in my cottage yet, just Ida.

We visited the school briefly; it's only one building, but big. In my Scandinavian Studies program group are six Americans. We are in some of the same classes but some different (classes start later this week). They are from places like St. Olaf, Luther, University of Wisconsin Madison, Linfield College in Oregon, etc. Really nice people, and two others staying for a year!

In about 20 minutes I am leaving to go to a place called Kroa, which is the student-run hangout place here in Bø. I guess it's like the Cave at PLU, but less lame. You can get beer there, for one thing...hahaha. And also people actually go there, because really cool bands come to play, and there's always something good going on. So I've heard. There's a "disco" tonight...a dance...and a bunch of us are going with our Norwegian student guides. I think it will be fun!

Bø is really pretty, by the way...it's surrounded by big rolling pine-y hills. Reminds me a lot of Mt. Vernon, WA in that way. The town is small but so cute...all the houses are sort of nestled cutely in the hills. Lots of bright reds, blues, yellows. I love it so far!! We'll see how this orientation week goes...