It feels like it has been at least a month if not more. Though we have done a great number of things this first week, I feel as though I can not yet answer the question "How do you like Hamar/Norway?" Its fun or its pretty do not seem to be real enough answers for something as big as your new home. I hope after four months I will be able to have a real answer to that question rather than a superficial one. I have been told that things are going to quiet down now that Fadder Week is over, this will probably be a good thing, I'm not sure if I could take that much activity every week, and I know my bank account couldn't.
This weekend we went on a walk with our new friend Magnus who is an actual Norwegian. He took us to see the medieval ruins and then to see the famous paddle boat which is the oldest in the world. I have some nice photos of the ruins that I will try to put up tomorrow. Then we cooked ourselves a very nice dinner and watched sense and sensibility on Swedish TV
Today we had our first real class. Inger lectured on the history of Norway which was very interesting because in America we aren't told really anything about Norway in our history classes. I took about 6 pages of written notes, which shows how very little I knew going into this. I hope that class continues to be this interesting.
This evening we had dinner at Inger's house. I have been excited for this since the first day here. Mostly we have been eating cheese sandwiches for lunch and pasta or rice for dinner so a home cooked meal with meat sounded wonderful.
The whole experience was sort of an adventure though. First off we were supposed to take the bus, which was very expensive considering how short the ride was. We could have biked except not everyone had a bike we thought so we decided to walk since we missed the bus waiting for people anyway. I was the only one who had ever been to her house before and when I went it was in a car so my memory of the trip was not very good.
It was an hour walk to her house, which created a nice appetite. When we got there we helped to finish the cooking and preparing while Inger helped her elderly neighbor who had gotten lost on the street while walking. Inger's house is wonderful. It is some what small by American standards but not by Norwegian ones. It embodies Inger so well because it is full of memories, like paintings, photos and old furniture and is full of knowledge, bookcases and bookcases of old books. It is seemingly frazzled and unorganized but when you really look you see that everything has its place. Unfortunately we could not all sit together because we were so many, but it was fun none the less. The food was fantastic and plentiful. I had a wonderful philosophical/theological discussion with Katie Daniel and Taylor (Ted) after we ate on the back porch. Then we had coffee and ice cream with home made raspberry and someotherberry warm preserves to put on top. It was heaven.
We then had some more great conversation and a pleasant hour walk home.
-noreen
3 Observations of Today
1. A month ago an hour walk would have been torture, now it is pleasant
2. By December I will be in better shape than I have probably ever
3. Have I mentioned before that the concept of time is taken very differently in different cultures?
No comments:
Post a Comment