the BEST day everrr

Today is seriously the BEST day ever!!! I received the greatest news today! 1) I will be traveling home for Christmas and 2) my visa to stay in Norway has been finalized! I am having trouble comprehending the situation... I'm just SOOO ecstatic, it's hard to put into words :D I guess my mother was planning on buying me a round-trip ticket as my Christmas gift, but was planning on waiting to surprise me with it... I thought I was planning to come home after Christmas this year, but over the weekend I was having second thoughts. I have many years to enjoy and experience a traditional Norwegian Christmas, but I really would like to be with my friends and family this year. It's going to be SUCH a breath of fresh air, because I've had a lot of obstacles to overcome during these last 4 months!!! I haven't set the dates yet, but plan to come home for at least 2 weeks, regardless! My Norwegian class now goes until Dec. 21st, but I'm thinking that I will head to NH the weekend before my class is over, which won't be a problem, because I asked today! I may or, may not stay in The States for New Years Eve, but we'll see, if I can make plans. I should have the ticket bought by this week! I still can't believe it!!! Today is the best day ever.

But, anyways... my visa, come to find out, was finalized last Friday, so bright and early tomorrow morning I will go to the police station to get my sticker in my passport! It's that easy. But, then I must go to register myself in the Oslo "population count" in which I will receive my very own Norwegian personal number (same as social security in the US). I will have this number for life and will finally be able to start working part-time, open a bank account, etc! I won't be getting it tomorrow though, because it takes a week or 2 to get it, but hoping I can plan on it not taking so long. I'll find out tomorrow the amount of time I've been granted on this particular visa, but my guess is that it is for at least 1 year, but could be for 2! We'll see.

Everything is falling into place :) Since I will now come home for the holidays, everything works out perfect for me, school wise as well. I had another meeting with my school counselor last week and she introduced me to a new class that I have the opportunity to take at the beginning of January. Not only is it a Norwegian class still, but it is also an internship part time as well! I can choose from a handful of areas to do it in, but will definitely decide to do it in a kindergarten or after school program, because I want to work with children, regardless of what I'll be doing in the future, so this will be such a great foundation for me and a great thing for future employers to see that I've accomplished when the time comes! It's for 6 months (January-June) and is pretty intensive. Of course I am still granted time off, just like any other school, but if you sign up for a class like this then you must be dedicated to seeing it out. You must apply for the class though, so I must find out more information about it ASAP, so that I can guarantee a spot in the class! It'll be a very beneficial experience for me, and it's something I look forward to! I may even be able to get some kind of salary when I'm in the kindergarten, actually working, but I'm not 100% sure and must also look into this as well. It will be approx. 30 hours a week, I believe, but that still gives me free time to work part-time at the flower shop too!

Over the weekend, as I mentioned in my previous post, Anders and I hosted a Halloween party at our new apartment! It was a costume party, of course, and we had so much fun!! We invited about a dozen of our friends and had a blast! We went all out--we decorated the living room with fake spider webs (with spiders!), had lit up Jack O' Lanterns on the window sills, Halloween candy and more! All of our friends probably didn't know what to expect, because it's not a traditional holiday, but everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves! It was pretty hilarious to see a bunch of Scandinavians dressed up in costumes. To me, it's normal dressing up every year, even at 22 years old! It's such a great tradition and I'm glad everybody liked it. I'm sure we'll continue the tradition next year as well!!


The crew!


The hippie & the German.


The old roomies :)


The Girlzzz


Superman, the zombie & the hippie.


Massive spider web!


More decorations.

Happy Halloween everybody!!!

Happy Birthday Mom!

First, I wanted to make a shout out to my wonderful mother, on her 50th birthday today! Half way to 100 and you don't look a year older than 28 (as Anders said) ;) It was definitely good timing on the flowers--we're glad you liked them! We hope that you and John have a lovely weekend at the lakehouse! I love you!


Mom & I, last weekend in the US.

Now, here in Norway, "mørketida" has begun! Directly translated it means "the dark time". This is the time period when fall slowly morphs into winter and takes away with it the sun. We live in the southern part of the country, so it's not nearly as brutal as the more you venture towards the arctic circle, but you can still notice a drastic difference in the amount of sunlight there is through the duration of a day. Unlike in the summer where it seemed like the sun never set and was bright as could be at midnight, the sun sets around 5:30pm now! The sky also turns completely pitch black now at night, just like I remembered it always being back home in NH. In the morning the sun doesn't rise until after 8:30am now too, but lately it doesn't even seem like it rises at all, because of how cloudy and gloomy it has been! It definitely will be interesting to see how the weather will progress in the months to follow, because I have been told that it's only going to get worse, ha ha. After the start of the new year though, the days will slowly start getting a little longer until around the start of April when the sun will seem to be out all the time. It's definitely a phenomenon that is a little strange to get used to!

This weekend is Halloween weekend! Halloween isn't actually a traditional holiday here in Norway, but over the years Norwegians have adopted it as their own. How they celebrate it though isn't nearly as extreme as Americans do! There isn't any "trick or treating" but people of all ages still dress up. Anders and I are throwing a costume party at our new apartment Saturday night... I'm really looking forward to it! It should be a lot of fun! I'm planning on being a hippie and am pretty sure that I have gathered everything that I need to complete my outfit! I will definitely post pictures after the weekend so that everyone can have a good laugh :)

Also, I met with one of the trainers today at my gym where I've been going to for the past few months. I finally worked up the courage to ask him some tips on good knee exercises and was able to plan a session where he showed me several different ones. My knee still hurts, from time to time, even being 10 months post-op. Many of the exercises that I have from physical therapy before aren't very challenging for me anymore, so I need new ones. I learned some great new ones today that I will continue to use and develop. My muscles in my right leg aren't quite equivilant yet to my left leg, but I've been working hard to even them out. I think I still have some months of recovering left to do though before I'm back to where I was at before... or if I'll ever be able to get back to where I was at before.

That's all for now though... nothing new otherwise. Hope everyone has a great weekend and a little Halloween spirit! <3

home sweet home!

This is probably the longest time I have waited inbetween new posts here... sorry to keep you all waiting! Let's just say that it has been a pretty busy last couple of weeks. The last time that I wrote, fall vacation was ending and I was heading back to school. Now we are in a new semester at school, which will last until Christmas... can you believe how fast the time has gone by?? I can't. We're still plugging away in my Norwegian class, but at a very slow pace. In the beginning I didn't like it so much, but now I'm beginning to realize that it's a good thing, because learning a language shouldn't be rushed... we're about to start Ch.5 this week, which means that we've only covered four chapters in the book in the last 2 months! Information is definitely soaking in better though, than it did in my class at UiO this summer. It amazes me how much I can understand now, even though I know I have a long road ahead of me, before I master the language completely. I got to meet Anders' grandmother and grandfather on his mom's side yesterday, they live in the same part of the city as us (only a walk away) and I could understand a lot of what they were saying... it was great to finally meet them!

So, we've now been living in our new apartment for an entire week now! WE LOVE IT. I really couldn't be happier at this apartment... it's in a great location and it's a good size apartment, for just the two of us. We've done a lot with it within the last week and it's starting to come along! We moved in on Saturday, October 16. It was an exhausted day for sure... only Anders, myself and his father were helping to move in and it was a lot for just the 3 of us to do! Anders' father rented a moving truck for us, so we were able to get all of our stuff in one trip, which was nice. There isn't an elevator in our apartment, because it's only 4 floors, so we had to carry everything up 3 flights of stairs... it was rough and we were all extrememly sore afterwards, but it was all worth it! I stayed up until the late hours of morning to organize everything and once it was done, it looked really nice! Over the last week we have added things to the place, like a TV, microwave, washing machine and other miscellaneous things... now we just need to decorate! The walls are pretty bare and I'd like to get some "Feng shui" up in here, maybe some plants and flowers (now that I will soon be working at Mester Grønn!). Now that we have our own apartment now, I've been wanting to really get into cooking and baking. I don't think that I'm bad at cooking, but I want to learn some new recipes and improve my creativity. It will be fun!

Here are some pictures of the new place:

Beginning of a sunset in Oppsal!

Walking onto our balcony...

Master bedroom.

Living room area... oh, look! Anders & Gustav ;)

Dining area (eventually will get a table!).

Bathroom.

Kitchen.

2nd bedroom.

Entry way, walking into the apartment.

Street view from the balcony.

I still don't have my visa yet, but I am still patiently waiting... and waiting some more! My boss and I had discussed that she had thought that I could work for "free" at the shop until my visa was finalized and then she would reimburse me... but, she's not allowed to do that. But, I'm guarenteed the job she said, so I'm praying it won't take much longer until I can start working part time. That will be nice. It will only be for 15-20 hours, but it'll be enough for the moment, since I'm still attending class 20 hours a week too. I'll take what I can get!

I've been thinking a lot about my future lately here, including my decisions about school and working... I was able to talk with our "rådgiver" at school (which pretty much a guidance counselor) and she opened my eyes to a new perspective on things. Although I have been patient here, I have also been trying to speed things up and making future plans, when they might not necessarily be the most realistic choices for me. For example, I was thinking to apply for grad school at UiO for next fall, but I'm reconsidering, because the program is entirely in English and would that benefit me if I am planning on staying in Norway?? If I want to work with kids and adolescents, I have no choice but to become fluent in Norwegian, so my main priority, for as long as it takes, is for me to learn Norwegian... I don't need to jump the gun and go back to school right away. I have 2 more tests to pass in Norwegian, until I'm considered "fluent" and this will take at least another year or more for me to do, IF I work hard. If I am able to accomplish these tasks, then I could go for a Masters in Norwegian! This will open so many doors to me, because there are several more programs that are taught in Norwegian that I'm more interested in... I believe it will just benefit me more in the future. So, for the time being I need to focus of learning this language and working part-time, whenever I can. Who knows, maybe I will get lucky within the next year and get offered a full-time job somewhere! If this happens then I can apply for my work permit and just work, and maybe not need to go back to school... so I guess we'll see!

First things are first though, as soon as possible I was told, I need to get my education from the US "certified" here in Norway. It is a pretty simple process, but can take many months... I just need to send to this organization called NOKUT my school papers and they will decide what my education is equivalent to here in Norway. Whenever I have a conversation with people about my degree in Outdoor Leadership, many are beyond confused, which makes me a little nervous... I'm not sure what NOKUT will decide what my degree will be called here in Norway, but I really don't care as long as it still counts for a Bachelors. I didn't go to school for 4 years and have to pay back thousands of dollars for the next 2 decades for nothing! There's hope though, I just have to remain positive. I think I want to start to volunteer somewhere too, to take up some free time that I have... not sure where, but I'm looking into it now. It would be nice to start networking with people and to keep practicing my Norwegian... I also could do some meaningful work, which is something I've always wanted to do too. It's not always about the money... so, pretty much my plans now are just to keep attending Norwegian classes, study hard, work part-time whenever I can, help out with the bills on the apartment, try to save a little money and just enjoy my life here in Norway! It's a beautiful country to live in and I have a lot to be grateful for... I have the rest of my life to work full-time and to be busy, so I'm going to try to relax a little bit and take things as they come! :)

things are starting to look up :)

A couple new updates: Anders and I are moving into our apartment earlier afterall!!! We were supposed to move in a week from Monday, the 17th, but are now getting the keys next Friday instead! This is great, because instead of starting to move things in on a Monday night, we'll have the entire weekend to move everything in and get situated :) It is a big relief. We started going through the house and began to pack some things... we are SO excited. Second good news is that I got offered a job from Gustav's mother!!! It's the real deal. I have to wait until my visa is done processing though. Unfortunately they can't speed up the process (I got in contact with them). I'm hoping that this won't be an issue with Gustav's mother, because apparently she wanted me to start "right away." I'm pretty sure it won't be a problem though... but what a huge relief that will be lifted off my shoulders if everything goes well! Things are finally falling into place... just a little bit more time. I think working in a flower shop will be fun!

"Høst ferien" will be over for me the day after tomorrow. The weather was fantastic ALL week and I definitely took advantage of it. One day I went on a long walking trip and took some scenic pictures. It's so beautiful here... I'm kind of looking forward to going back to school though, because now I have some motivation to keep up with my Norwegian!! Not being able to get my visa for another month or so, will buy me some time to practice my Norwegian more...











(All pictures taken & edited by ME!)

Patience is a virtue... literally.

I'm on "høst ferien" this week, which means that I'm on vacation! Schools all over Norway get a week off in the fall from school, and since I'm attending Norwegian courses that means me too. I don't know if I was dreading having an entire week off, because I seem to already have enough free time on my hands when I am attending classes, so I wasn't quite sure that I was looking forward to having even MORE free time. BUT, I've had a change of heart. I've actually been quite productive this week so far, plus it's been nice to sleep in every day too, not going to lie! ;) The fall weather has been proving to still be beautiful and I have enjoyed some long walks around Rykkinn by myself and with friends. Today I am going into Oslo to walk around and have lunch with a friend! It'll be nice to get out of the house. On Sunday Anders, myself and some friends may be going paintballing, but I'm not 100% sure on that yet... I also don't know how I feel about it, ha ha.

I've also started putting together a binder of Norwegian grammar: including new words and verbs that I've learned from my classes. It's pretty bulky, but I plan to get some pretty good use out of it, once I actually start studying it... the next exam that I will take (depending on whether I'm ready or not) is in February, so even though it's over 4 months away, I need all the time I can get! I had a meeting with my teacher last week at school and she said that she is very impressed with my reading and writing skills; she says they are beyond a level that I'm supposed to be at from only taking Norwegian courses for barely 4 months. My speaking, and oral presentation, on the other hand isn't quite up to the same level... but that really just comes in time and comfortability. She said that I understand and have soaked up A LOT of Norwegian and she's just waiting for the day that all of it will just "spill over the edge" and I just start talking in Norwegian, not caring whether every other word that comes out of my mouth is correct or not. I look forward to that day too, but my problem is that I need to start speaking MORE Norwegian... everybody keeps telling me this and I know they're right. I just have to start DOING IT. I really don't know what's stopping me. I've got nothing to lose, but so much to gain!

I've also been starting to pack some things in the house and getting ready for the big move!! I can't believe in just a week and a half now Anders and I will be getting the keys to our new apartment! I am beyond excited... we still have a lot more things to get for the apartment, but we have been very appreciative of all the things that have already been given to us. We have most big things such as: a bed, couches and other large furniture, but we will need to get a kitchen table and a washing machine ASAP. We also need some essential kitchen things like pots and pans, but other than that we will accumulate more stuff over time when we have more money. I cannot wait to start decorating and making the place as our own :) We're having a house warming party at the end of October with some of our friends at our new place for Halloween! Of course Halloween is not a Norwegian holiday, but our friends are excited about the idea so it's going to be a lot of fun!! I can't wait.


Some pottery we picked up at a 2nd-hand store yesterday for very cheap!

Other news... haven't heard back yet from the outdoor job that I applied for, BUT Gustav's mother (my roommate from last year at NEC with Anders) runs her own flower boutique in Oslo, and when I was over for dinner over last weekend she mentioned to me that she was thinking that I could be a nice addition to her business!! She's on a holiday this week, but when she returns she said that she'll be in touch... so we'll see how that goes! I think it would be fun, and it's a job, so I hope she agrees. I will have to wait until I get the decision back on my visa though, regardless, which is unpredictable. They said it could take up to 2 months, but sometimes it may take longer... you just never know. I just hope that I can get it by the end of the month. I have my fingers crossed; I've done enough waiting, but I'm willing to still be patient.