Long time, no post.

I know, I know, this is supposed to be like clockwork every Sunday. I'm sorry. Perhaps I was uninspired on Sunday because nothing much happened this week. It was a very normal week. No excursions. But that's okay. Sometimes it's nice to stay home.

Ida was home this week, so that was nice. Have I talked about Ida's long absences? I think not. My excellent roomie, Ida, studies friluftsliv. Outdoor life. Yes. This is a subject one can study in Norway. It's subtitled "A strategy for life." Because Norwegians enjoy nature, camping is considered a valuable life skill to have, pretty much. Awesome. However, this means that she's gone a lot, on trips and such. She's gone on three of these so far...the first was to Lifjell for five or so days, the second to the coast for a whole week, and the third started today and I forgot where it is...I know they will be canoeing, in any case. Last time, they went sailing. She showed me her pictures: Dad, you should see these little boats they got to learn how to sail. I was SO jealous. They were like mini Viking ships! I'll try to find a pic for you. They had red sails, square-rigged, so very excellent.

Anyway, yeah, Ida's gone a lot, so it's nice when she's here, I have someone to speak Norwegian with on a more regular basis. Plus it's just more homey around here when I'm not living alone.

Something interesting happened in Bø this weekend. It was the Cowboy og Indianer Fest. Yes. The Cowboys and Indians Party. Believe it or not, country music is HUGE in Norway. You know that song, Cotton-Eyed Joe? Did you know that the band that recorded that song is called Rednex? Did you further know that this is a Swedish band? Neither did I. Well guess what. They graced little Bø with their presence on Saturday night, and everyone decided to have a Cowboy and Indian fest. This meant cowboy hats, cowboy boots, and feathers and facepaint. Of course, this would not be PC in the US, so the whole thing actually just kind of made me feel weird. Whenever a Norwegian asked me during the course of the week if I would be attending the Cowboy and Indian party (it was talked up all week) I said...well...uh...I don't think so, I guess, I don't know.

I asked one of my American friends who went to the party if he dressed up as a cowboy, and he said, "well, I didn't come to Norway to encourage an American stereotype" or something along those lines, and I thought that was clever. Haha. It was just kind of a weird, funny, strange thing. Kady, Hope, Anjuli, and I voted to go buy chocolate and candy and watch The Best of Will Ferrell instead. We walked down into town at around 9:30 PM and it was already crazy down there. Many drunk-ish Norwegians in cowboy hats.

A little glance at the political incorrectness...haha. I don't know. Weird. Click on it because for some reason the whole thing doesn't show up on the blog. Thanks to Trist for the pic :)

If you read the whole thing, you get an exciting surprise at the end!!!

Well hello again Sunday. Another week has gone by. Now I'm not even sure how many it has been. I hit the one-month-mark on September 16th! This is weird. It doesn't really feel like a month has already gone by.Many things to cover in this edition of The Blog of Kelsey. The first has to do with a conversation I had with mom over Skype. It is titled "Norway Doesn't Know How to Have Good Mops." MaryAnn would certainly not appreciate the mopping system they have adopted in Norway...enough said. ;) I am used to luxurious mops that do the work for me, not this crazy system!! I had to ask my Norwegian roomie if she could please show me how to work the mop. I felt so lame...it's not like I don't have cleaning experience!! I used to mop three times a week!! But now...it's back to square one. So, Exhibit A:

I mean, really?? What is this thing. It looks like something you'd used to wash your windshield at a gas station. This was never meant for floors. And what is that strange clippy thing? What in the world are you supposed to clip there? It offers no hints. Turns out, you're supposed to clip a rag to that little clip, and then use the rag-and-windshield-cleaner action to sort of move all the floor gunk into one corner. Then, using another rag, you are supposed to scoop said gunk up. At least, I think so. It still seems very strange and no matter what way I have tried to use this it's just easier to sweep and then scrub with a rag myself. Ahhhh...I miss my Swiffer and Gonyea Mops.

But, in other news. The first cool thing to happen this week was the Beaver Safari on Tuesday night. Beaver Safari...yes, I know. Really. Go ahead...giggle. A lot. We certainly did. We made fun of the fact that we were going on a Beaver Safari with a special zeal. But, as it turned out, it was a really, really excellent experience. Observe:

So here's what happened: we left around 6 pm on Tuesday night. Our guide was Tina, who is Danish but has started her own business here in the Bø area which involves taking both tourists and natives alike on various nature excursions. As it turns out, the Bø River (shown above, of course) is home to one of the largest concentrations of beavers in the world. Some of the most knowledgeable beaver scientists reside here. Beavers are in fact exported from Bø to other areas that lack in beavers...areas all over the world. I bet you didn't realize beavers were such a big deal, did you?! I don't know why I think it's so funny that there's a such thing as a beaver scientist...

Anyway, we started down the river and had a 45-min paddle upstream. It was beautiful...the sun was just beginning to go down, and the hills and the calm river and the nice weather and the rolling farmland all around us were quite picturesque. I thought many times about how cool it would be to live in that house there, have my own little farmhouse and my own little field with wheat and my own little dock with my little boat bobbing in the river, and how I could take it out on sunny afternoons and find a quiet place to fish. I don't particularly care for fishing...but hey...don't ruin the dream.

We arrived at our destination, which had an awesome dock for taking 4 canoes out of the water, and there was a clearing and four little buildings: a house, a shed, a barn, and a stabburet...that's the special-looking Norwegian shed on legs up there in the pics. They were all abandoned but kept in good condition...it sounded like they were owned by the historical farm up the street, which has been around for something like hundreds of years and which Tina described as "having its own ghosts." Tina built a fire and we had hot coffee, apple cider, and apple cake...it was fantastic. Then she gave us a little informative talk on beavers (and, yes, "like everything else, beavers in the USA are bigger" she told us). We saw a beaver skull and felt a beaver pelt (very soft) and then, after some relaxing, it was back to the canoes! We paddled downstream this time, so it went a lot faster. We didn't talk, because it was beaver time and our voices would scare them away. We ended up seeing four or five. You look for their little heads in the water...then you hear them slap their tails down to warn the other beavers that danger is fast approaching in the form of four Americans, two Lithuanians, a Dutchman and a Dane in canoes. DANGER!!!1

It was cool, and beautiful, and amazing to be out canoeing on a fall evening in Norway. Oh my gosh. This post is going to be so long. Brace yourselves lads and lassies.

Next Cool Thing: Apple Orchard! On Friday, in our Telemark I class, we visited an apple orchard. It was about 20 minutes from here, just outside a town called Gvarv. Professor Sauar was our guide and also the owner of the orchard. He teaches law at the school. I am not going to lie. He was a very handsome man. But whatever. Despite being slightly distracted by this I did actually learn a few things. Professor Sauar and his wife basically inherited the orchard and started up their own successful business from scratch. They produce thousands of liters of apple cider each year on their farm, with their own apple press, and they sell this finished product in grocery stores all over in Norway. He told us all about the challenges of pulling this business venture off while we sat in a wooden room that smelled deliciously of apples. I think the press was in the next room over, which would explain it.

Then, after the lesson, we were invited to taste 10 different kinds of ciders. We had a piece of paper to judge which cider we liked the best. It was like wine-tasting, but cider-tasting, minus the alcohol part...it was very delicious. There are no additives at all in this cider, so it's very cloudy and natural and tastes...well, like a real apple. The ten different varieties were made of ten different kinds of apples...obviously. Mmmmm. We had flatbrød in between ciders to cleanse our palates. At the end, we each received a free bottle of cider as a gift...yes!! So nice. I've sort of already finished mine...too good.

It was a lovely day, and after the orchard we walked around a tiny old church that is right next door. It was on our way to the busstop. So here's some pics of the apple orchard day:

Cider-tasting in a delicious wooden room...

Free bottle of cider!!

The fancy stabburet at the farm...

They had a beautiful house!...

Our class :) I'm in the back/center

Okay! So now we proceedeth on to today: Church on Sunday again! It's great to go to church, because so far it's been different and unique every time. Well, ok, the whole two times I've gone. Still. Remember how last time it was up in the mountains in a church built in 1960-something? Well this time, it was in Gvarv, at the church right next door to the apple orchard we visited on Friday, in a church that was built 800 years ago. Very different, but very cool. It was also quite the cross-cultural experience, because the special event of the day was the Romanian singers. The Romanians come to Norway as seasonal workers...they work in the apple orchards from June until September, and they make more money doing this than they would in a year's time in Romania. So Svein said. Svein, by the way, is our school pastor who befriends the international students and drives us to church if we want to go. If I haven't explained that already. He also makes waffles for us every Thursday in the school cafeteria. Free. What a guy.

So the Romanians sang for us, and one Romanian girl sang several solos...she sang in English, and had a great voice. Very cool. There was also a baptism. The Baptismal party was decked out in their bunader...it was very fun, even the tiny children wore them. Crazy. Svein was the pastor for all this. I pondered the differences and similarities between my baptism in an American church by my grandfather, with all my relatives wearing their awesome early 90s formalwear as Grandpa said some fancy baptism words in English...and this kid, being baptized in an 800-year- old stone church, with all his relatives gathered around in their traditional Norwegian costumes, and this pastor saying some fancy baptism words in Norwegian. Well. Both me and the baby today wore long white dresses. I guess that's a good similarity.

Actually I spent much of the service not being able to get over the whole 800-year-old church thing. I was like here I am, the church bells are ringing, and I'm sitting here in this 800YEAROLD CHURCH. Look at me, singing Nynorsk out of this hymnbook, in this 800YEAROLD CHURCH. Wow, here I am in Norway, listening to this beautiful choir sing and ohmygosh this church is like SO OLD. It's pretty amazing to think about how many different services this church has seen.

Blah blah blah, sorry to ramble, here are some pics:

Svein doing the baptism, you can see the woman's bunad...

the pews were funny, numbered boxes...

I really liked this tree on the wall...see also rosemaling...

the alter...

church from outside...

Well gang, that takes care of this week. Ready for the reward?! It's really exciting. Fantastic, actually. Here it is. I have a new goal, and it must be fulfilled before I leave Norway. Ready?? Oh my gosh, you are going to be so excited, you are practically going to pee yourself.............guess what?!.........I want to learn to play the accordion. I WILL LEARN THE ACCORDIAN.

Wasn't that totally worth it?! Accordion. That is all.

Fjellkyrke. Porsgrunn. Dyrskun. Oh my!

Anjuli and I in Porsgrunn

Hei alle sammen!

Først og fremst I want to say THANK YOU to all my loyal blog readers. I love reading your comments and I'm so happy that I have an audience. Having a blog would be just a tad bit boring if I didn't have people to read it! So a nice big shout-out to all you cool readers.

I guess I have many random topics to touch on today.

First: Last Sunday, a week ago today, I went to church! It was wonderful. There is a pretty little church here in Bø, which looks a lot like good ol' Cambridge Lutheran back home, actually. Just subtract that big addition. Typical Scandinavian-Lutheran architecture I guess. Anyway. We didn't go to that church. It was a special Sunday...the service was up in the "Mountain Church." We got a ride from a very nice woman up a long winding mountain road to the very top of Lifjell, where we ran into Lifjell Fjellkyrke (Lifjell Mountain Church). It was a gorgeous wooden building built in 1968-ish. The service was very tradtional, almost exactly in order with the services I grew up with at home. Announcements. First Reading. Singing. Second reading. Gospel. Sermon. Communion (with intinction). Even though the whole thing was in Norwegian it was quite easy to follow along, because I knew all the rules! We even did the Apostle's Creed and Lord's Prayer...and they both seemed to have the same rhythm as they do in English. I said it along in English, which confused my brain but which was kind of fun. After the service our good friend the pastor gave us buckets and bid us go pick berries on the mountain. Which we did. But I must learn to always be dressed for hiking. Lots of times you end up going on a hike when you least expect it. These Norwegians sure do love their nature. Church, for example. You wouldn't expect to go casually climb a mountain after the service to gather some blueberries. But. That is just what happened.

Church was great, actually. It was a very homey feeling to be there, with all these nice people (who were so impressed when we could speak a bit of Norwegian...good for the self esteem) and with all these little kids running around...just like church at home. And then, after the berry picking, there was a delicious beef soup thing with flatbrød and 50 different varieties of cake. Not bad.

So that was last week. Then, on...Tuesday, perhaps? Anjuli and I were invited to ride along with our Norwegian friend Bibbi to Porsgrunn, which was about an hour away. She and a coworker had a meeting there in the evening, and so they dropped us off at the mall while they proceeded to their meeting. So Anjuli and I got to explore Porsgrunn a bit. They had an H&M there!! Exciting. However, it was about 6:30 by the time we got there, and it began to get dark while we were exploring the town. We wished we'd come in better lighting. But it was very pretty in any case...it's on the water, which was cool to see. Unfortunately we did not make it to the china factory. Oh well. Next time.

Driving to and from Porsgrunn was also a highlight...Bibbi's friend was from Southern Norway, and thus he spoke in an interesting dialect, which was fun to listen to. Bibbi's very good at checking in with me when we're all speaking Norwegian..."Forstår du alt, Kelsey?" "Nei," is usually my answer, unsurprisingly. But it's fun to practice. I do a lot of listening. Not a ton of talking. I contribute the odd sentence here and there. It's very difficult to gage my progress in this whole learning-a-new-language thing. I used to think it would be so cool to know another language...now I'm like, oh. All you do is learn a different word for everything. Put them all together with a different accent and there ya go. You're all thinking, well, duh. But, I don't know, it's just not as complicated as I thought. I have dreams in odd mixes of English and Norwegian. Sort of like my life here, I guess.

But moving on. Videre! Yesterday we went to Dyrskun, which is a big "folkefest" in Seljord, which is about half an hour from here. Basically it was like a Norwegian culture fair. It was fun...I bought some very Norwegian-looking hand-knitted mittens and a hat of the same variety. We also ate rommegrøt (romegraut...I can't get over this Telemark dialect thing) and some waffles and coffee. It was very fantastic. Afterward we drove up Lifjell just to see the view. It was freezing up there, but I got some great pictures. The sun was just going down.

In other news, this week has been the get-out-and-explore/start-exercising-you-lazy-bum week. I went on a couple runs and walks this week just to see what kind of potential there is for running and walking. Lots! Beautiful farm roads through hayfields...interesting neighborhood roads with all sorts of twists and turns and houses hanging off precarious ledges...and secret hidden walking/biking paths everywhere. It's amazing all the beautiful things I see in one little normal Norwegian neighborhood. Maybe it's just because it's different that I think it's so great. I don't know. In any case, it's just a ton of fun to explore all the back roads here. Next time I'll bring my camera along so you can see.

Also...I bought a plane ticket to Copenhagen today! I'll be there for 5 days, from October 8-13, and I am SO excited to hang out with Emma. Apparently one of those days is "Kulturnatt" in the city...I'm not sure what that is, but it sounds exciting. Also Anjuli, Bibbi, and I have officially planned a road trip to Trondheim for the third weekend in October. Bibbi is driving (she has a best friend she wants to visit there) and it's going to be so fantastic. Road trip through Norway...it's about 9 hours to Trondheim. I CAN'T WAIT to see more countryside and just everything. Insert several thousand exclamation points here.

Well I think that's it for now. Here's some pictures for your visual pleasure.

These were at the top of Lifjell.

Attn. John: troll sighting!

This is where we bought waffles...see the cute old ladies sitting at the waffle irons?!

Johan and Hope petting a horse. Awww.

Dyrskun...supposedly 70000 people go through here during the course of the weekend. So many RVs, etc.

Coffee, Classes, and Potential Trips!

Hello there!! I am now closing in on the end of Week Number Three. There has been a major improvement in my life, and it is:

My new French Press!!! And coffee grinder!!! Our Scandinavian Studies program director, Judy, has really adopted the seven of us in the program. I happened to mention that I was not a fan of buying an expensive coffee maker--but that I was a fan of coffee--and she informed me that she had an extra French Press at home! Then she brought me a coffee grinder too! What a woman. I am so happy to have coffee in my life again.

Okay, now I would like to talk about my classes a bit, just for fun.

I have no classes on Mondays, which is awesome. Tuesdays, however, my first class starts at 8:30 AM. Sick. It is important to note that I made a vow, long ago, that I would never take an 8 AM class while in college. Unfortunately I do not have the ability to choose my class times here, and thus I must wake up early on both Tuesdays and Thursdays...very sad. This early class is Advanced Norwegian, which is proving to be a lot of work: tons of reading, grammar exercises, and oral reports. Since there are only five of us in the class, we all get lots of attention, which is nice, and our teacher, Rannveig, is very strict about pronunciation. Which is great! I think my pronunciation will really improve after this class. It can, however, be kind of frustrating repeating the word "prosent" four million times until I get the perfect O.

After Norwegian I have to run to my literature class. Norsk Litteratur Før 1900 is my only class with Norwegians. I am the only American as of now...the other two have dropped it. Which makes me wonder if I should drop it too...I was struggling with this question quite a bit at the beginning of the week. I think I've already complained about it a little...the language is quite a challenge, but I talked to the teacher, Sigrid, and she tells me that things get a lot easier after the first few weeks, because right now we're reading the REALLY old stuff. Even the Norwegians have some trouble with it. So I've decided to stick with the class...the point of coming to Norway was to take classes in Norwegian, after all. If I concentrate really hard, I can usually understand most of what goes on in class. However, it seems to be a pattern that I zone out completely during the last 15 minutes. I guess there's a limit to how long my brain can hold that concentration.

After that, Tuesdays are over. Wednesday I have just litature at 10:30. Thursdays I have Norwegian, Literature, and then a class called Emmigration/Immigration: Midwestern texts. Another lit course, but in English this time, whew. Judy teaches this one. So far, it's quite interesting. We just finished reading a collection of letters by a Norwegian woman who immigrated to Iowa in the 1860s. Really interesting reading. Next we're starting on Giants in the Earth. This class is a really nice rest for my brain after a full Thursday of Norwegian.

Then, on Fridays, I have a required class called Telemark Identity. This class is cool because we just learn more about the area. Last class time, for example, a guest lecturer came in to tell us about the geology of Telemark (this valley used to be a fjord, filled up with water), and we went on a walk around the town. We saw a Viking burial mound and an old Lutheran church...beautiful. And we picked apples in an orchard. This class is more fun than work, and lots of times we actually don't have it. This provides me with several 4-day weekends throughout the course of the semester. Think of the traveling opportunities!

Trip-planning...here's what I've got so far. My friend Anjuli and I are going to Oslo the first weekend in October to stay for a few days. She has a friend there--an Oslo native--who has volunteered to let us stay, and is also excited to show someone around who has never been to the city before! For which I am exceedingly grateful...it should be awesome. And then, during a fall break in mid-October, I am going to try to get to Copenhagen to see Emma! She might have her fall break during the same week, and we are so excited to get together!!! I am really looking forward to this...a LOT!

I'm also hoping to get up to Gjøvik sometime this fall...this is where Knut and Kari, my family on my mom's side, live. It's about 4 hours north of Bø, and I can easily take a train there.

I will close with the wonderful news that I found cheap hangers. Finally, I hung up my clothes. It was the best day ever.