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.