Although the day started out chilly and rainy.. it's after 4pm and the sun is shining brightly :) It doesn't tend to do that quite often anymore, or at all rather, here in Norway. This summer consisted mostly of rain, and it has only followed into the beginning of fall. It's pretty unfortunate and never before have I invested so much into rain gear, ha ha.
I am now 2.5 weeks into my new Norwegian class and things are going well! The tempo is still pretty slow, but my vocabulary is still small, so it probably will lend to be a good thing in the long run. I have already written down over 600 new words in the last couple weeks and have slowly been reading them over and trying to remember some of them! My writing is improving a ton, but my speaking is still at the same level. I don't feel very comfortable having an open coversation with someone in Norwegian, because of my small vocabulary right now. It will definitely be difficult, but I really will have to start speaking more Norwegian with Anders, his family and my friends, even if it's really bad at first. We'll see how that goes..
Anders and I have been to several apartment showings within the last couple weeks and we still have had no luck. The market right now is hot, so we have had to deal with a lot of disapppointments in not getting apartments that we really liked. This is apart of the game though and we are learning a lot through the entire process. Our hearts were really set in living in Oslo, but we have realized that this probably isn't too realistic at the moment for us, unfortunately. Oslo is a VERY expensive city to live in, and you pay a lot for the location, the closer you move towards the center of the city. The closer you move into the center, the smaller the apartments tend to be though (at least the ones that we can afford), so we don't quite like that. We are now looking into the outskirts of Oslo at apartments that are only about a 15 minute travel time away from the center of the city. I don't know why we never looked in such areas before, because the areas are cozy and green, the apartments are bigger and they start at the same price (or cheaper) than all the apartments we have looked at already! A pretty good deal. We will look at a handful this upcoming weekend and hope to find some luck with those! It would be nice to call ourselves owners of a apartment within the next couple weeks.
Anders started at his new job at Visma last week (http://www.visma.com/--check out the site!) and he absolutely LOVES it! He is turning into a little business man and he is loving every minute of it. He left for a kick-off trip to Iceland this morning and will return on Saturday. While he's there he gets to go to the Blue Lagoon and on a jeep-safari through some of Iceland's volcanos and geysers. Lucky duck ;)
OHH, I can't believe that I forgot to mention right away, but I have FINALLY applied for my new visa, just a couple days ago!! I am so relieved that I have started the process.. I have a meeting at the Police Department with the Immigration Office on Monday morning to pass in all the required documents. I will also have to ask about part-time work and when I can leave the country, because I want to come home in January for a couple/few weeks! I will update more on this next week.
Other than mentioned above.. nothing else really exciting has been going on here for me, just school and trying to keep busy! In a month or so I am going to start the application process so that I can take my Masters next fall. I have decided that I want to study Special Needs Education at the University of Oslo. Working at Antrim Girls' Shelter last year made me realize how much I want to work with kids with behavioral, emotional and other problems. The Masters program is also entirely in English, but I hope to be fluent in Norwegian at that point!
More to come later, XOXO.
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