Norway

The third week gave me finally a more comfortable feeling. I started get used to my new school, my class, my host family and also it didn't bother me that much anymore, that I have no clue what the people around me are talking. You just have to accept the situation... That doesn't mean you ignore the language, you still have try to listen carefully and try to understand as much as you can.  Sometimes your mind is so exhausted from translating and listening all the time, that your brain feels smashed xD You are knocked out for the rest of the day. However everyone in Norway speaks a very good or at least a proper English, so I can communicate and still make connections with people.

Norlys is the Norwegian word for the northern lights, yes I saw them already and yes they are as beautiful as the postcards and the internet shows. It was a Friday evening about 11 o'clock. I was watching a movie, when suddenly my host mother told me I should come outside. I opened the door and got stunned by blue green light in the sky, which moved like a slow wave in the sea...It was a really magical and wonderful moment. I was very lucky to see the northern lights so early in the year. Mostly the northern lights are comment during late fall and winter. I was already really impressed, although my host mother said that this is nothing compared to the northern lights in the winter. It's really hard to catch the northern lights with a phone camera. I have  to prepare my real camera, so I can take a photo, which shows the real beauty of the northern lights. I'm really looking forward to winter, when I can hopefully get some great shots and I can share them with you.

Every Sunday at 8 o'clock my host family including the farmur (grandmother on the fatherside) and me sit in front of the TV. It is "Alt for Norge" time. It is really popular in Norway. It's a weekly TV-show about "Norwegian-Americans". These are mostly young people from America, who have ancestors or family members from Norway. The ancestors immigrated many many years ago to America and left often a part of their family members in Norway. The descendants, the participants, will travel to Norway and will get to know the Norwegian culture, food and life style closer over the several weeks in TV-show. Also important to know is that each of the "Norwegians-Americans" still have some family members in Norway. The goal for the participants is to win challenges, which allow them to get round for round farther. The winner at the end will meet is family members, who still live in Norway. Especially for me the TV-show is really informative, because the most challenges have to do with the Norwegian language, history, food or culture. They get conflicted with mostly the same stuff as I do in my daily life as exchange student in Norway xD

Yea second week ;) I don't know but every day felt like a whole week, time passes so slowly <3. Every day is for me a little adventure, I meet a lot of new people, learn more about Norway, their culture and the language. I'm so excited and happy, my family seems really nice, the school is really good and I think I have already some friends or a group, I hang out. Of course not best friends, but still friends.

Every morning I make "matpakke", because in Norway you usually bring your lunch with you or buy it in the canteen and then you eat in school. For me eating in school is totally new, however I'm already used to it. In my school we have only a lunch time of half an hour, in Switzerland I was used to one hour and a half xD I like it how it is here in Norway, because you finish school than earlier...and have more spare time. I will write in another Blog about the typical Norwegian food or "matpakke" I tried already some things and I really was surprised what they sometimes eat here up in the north, but as far as I experienced it the most was actually pretty tasty ;p

I met this week the first time my contact person. Everybody who's doing an exchange year has a contact person. The contact person should be a discuss partner, if my host family or I have a problem. For example my host family has a problem with me or my behaviour but I have the feeling everything is fine and good, my host family will first try to discuss the problem with me. If I don't agree with them they can go to the contact person and he will try to talk with me about the problem  as a neutral person. It's the same if I have a problem with my host family and they think everything is fine. The contact person also will do every month something with me. For example eating dinner together and talk about my exchange year to see how it goes.

So on Thursday in the second week me and my host family were invited for coffee and cake by my host family. After 5 minutes I already had the feeling that I've been very lucky with my contact person. He is very friendly open and nice and interested. I think I will get along with him very good. He works as a priest and likes sailing in his spare time. He told me if the is okey if have the opportunity to go sailing with him ;)

Yea I was very lucky, because the first month we had here in Bodø so many beautiful days, we had a lot of sun and warm weather. Everybody told me that it is pretty unusual that they have here so many good days in a row. So when the weather is good in Norway, a Norwegian gets the feeling to go out hiking or doing a little trip. If they spend a free day at home, it's a wasted day xD So in the first month I already went hiking three times. I never liked hiking in Switzerland that much, but here in Norway it's different. The nature, the smell and the feeling is completely different if you go hiking. It's like a little adventure... 

One of the trip was a hiking trip to one of the biggest mountain here in the area. It's called Per Karlstad, it took us 3hours to get up and 2 hours back down, which isn't that long, but it was really steep. It was totally worth it for the view we had from the top. 



Another trip we did was just a walk in the evening to the biggest mountain of Bodø. It took us just one hour. From the top you habe a really wonderful view over Bodo itself. 

The third trip was to Heggmotind. This took us 4 hours up and 3 hours down. The weather wasn't that sunny but I was okay to go hiking. It was very windy one the last little piece to the top, so I and my host mother had a little cold the next day.

If you go hiking in Norway you will see the real Norway. The fjords, big steep mountains and a lot of unttached nature. It's really amazing and wonderful to hiking in Norway especially in the north. I was surprised by myself how I stated loving hiking xD

Yea, how does the Norwegian school system work? Between the Swiss school system and the Norwegian is quiet a difference. There is a lot to explain. I don't know where I exactly should start...

I will just write about the basics in this Blog, maybe later in another Blog I will explain a bit more how modern and ahead the school in Norway is compared to my school in Switzerland.

Every Norwegian goes 10 years to primary school called in Norwegian "grunnskole". As soon as they finish they continue with the secondary school, which takes 3 more years. 

I am in a big school called "Bodin skole" the students here have to choose if they want to do 3 years with main focus on sport mixed with other subjects or do just the normal class with more different subjects.

The sport classes have 10 lessons of sport each week, 5 of them with a sport like football, handball volleyball. In the other 5 lessons each student focuses his own specific sport, some of them do athletics, gymnastics or many do snowboarding or freestyle skiing. The rest of the week they have also normal subjects as math, Norwegian, History, Spanish or French. The really positive side for the sport classes as far as I heard, are the many trips and excursions you will do with your sport class. They are often going out caving, climbing, kayaking, hiking. These trips often take several days and they will sleep in tents or in the winter even in igloos.

The normal classes instead can choose all of the subjects themselves. They have a huge variety of subjects in my school. For example Spanish, German, French, International English, science, art, history, tourism and traveling, photography, maths, physics, chemistry...and many many more. However they have just 2 lessons of sport each week.

I was soooooo lucky, because as an exchange-student, I got a mixture of the sport classes and the normal classes. They heard that I like doing sports especially in the winter snowboarding. So I have now in each week 5 lessons instead of 2 lessons. Each week I have 25 lesson of school.

(4 French, 5 International English, 5 Traveling and Tourism, 4 Norwegian, 2 History and 5 lessons of Sport instead of 2)

In my 5 lessons of sport class, I will join on Monday and Wednesday a sport class (18+) with and will train with them. I'm in a sport class which focus snowboarding and freestyle skiing. So in summer and fall we will train new tricks in the pool. Yea the school has a pool, quiet a big pool xD In the winter I will go every Wednesday from 4 to 9 in a ski resort, 45 min. to drive from here, to train there :) Yea here in Norway sport is taken very seriously in school. I'm very excited and hyped for the winter, my teacher told me my personal goal is doing a backflip in the winter (*^o^*) I have no idea how I should manage that xD

OMG I always came too late to my subjects, because I never found the rooms...Didn't understand a single word in school and had to organise quiet a lot xD Everything was new and exciting. I'm in the same class with another French guy, who is doing an exchange year. We helped each other out, because we had mostly the same problems.

Everybody told me that the Norwegians are a bit shy, however if you get to know them more, they are friendly, nice and interested in you as an exchange student. I was very surprised, when it didn't feel like that for me. I already got asked by some people of my class on the first day if I want to spend the lunch time together with them. They were really interested and asked me a lot of stuff, it is quite funny to see the difference between Norway and Switzerland.

Also very special and weird is the fact that almost everybody from the school knews who's an exchange student. It feels like it is tagged on my forehead. I met sooooooooooo many people, because they knew that I was an exchange student, but I had no idea who they were xD

In the first week my host family showed me the area and imported places in the city. I realized over the days that I'm soooooooo lucky. Norway in the north is so beautiful, especially the coast with the sea. Here some pictures...

I tried to take it as relaxed as I could. That didn't mean much. When the plane landed and I grabbed the hand-luggage my heart was already pumping hard. I was soooooooo nervous, but excited at the same time, because I'm finally here. Here in the city where I will spend my next year in another family with a different culture *_*

My plan was to pick up my suitcase at the feeder band, pass the security area and finally meet my host family.

So I put in my in-ear-headphones, realized that there was no feeder band, just the security are.

I didn't think that much about it.

I passed the area and suddenly there was a crowd of people with colorful poster. The other exchange students started laughing and walkingslowly to that crowd.

I was still searching with my eyes the feeder band for my luggage, and I saw right in front of me three people laughing

I looked up to them and saw a poster with big letters on it...

V E L K O M M E N   T I Z I A N

All 4 exchange students with their host family (me = right)

I was surprised and stunned for a few seconds. I didn't know how to greed them, so they just hugged me xD. While we were waiting on my luggage, we talked about the flights and my experience in the
arrival-camp. Together we drove to my new house, were I started to pack out my suitcase in my new room. It's not that big of a room, but I think its ok. The rest of the day my host family showed me the city. The centre of Bodø is very modern and beautiful, but as soon you go to the coastline, there are the typical red Norwegian fisher houses, with the little wooden boats. You can smell the salt of the sea and feel the northern cold wind in your hair. It looks exactly like the typical imagination you have from Norway <3 The family seems very nice, friendly and open. I think we will get good along with each other.

Sunday was for me and the host family a very long day. I went to bed very early, because I had my first school day already the next day. My host mother woke me up at 7am, I took a shower, ate my breakfast together with them and prepared my school bag and pencil case. My host sister and my host brother showed me the way to school. My school way is just about 300m and takes ca. 5 min. All students had to be in the sports hall at 8:10. So I followed my sister like a little child, which has his first school day xD In the sports hall were all teachers and the headmaster, which had a speech first before he named all classes and students. I didn't understand shit, so I had no idea, when I had to leave the sports hall with my new class. Suddenly my sister screamed GO TIZIAN! GO. I followed the other students like a headless chicken. In the next hour everybody introduced himself.  I had to go home after this lesson, because I had an appointment the next day, where I have to choose my subjects and make my timetable. Yea that was it besecally for my first school day.

That were the first Norwegian sentences I was able to say. I realized fast that the language is quiet similar to German. That means I should have a little advantage. But the problem is you have to get first a feeling for the language, because if you have just a bit of a feeling for the language, you can start making sentences. I didn't have a clue about the language. In school I couldn't even discern what a Norwegian name is and what are just other words. For example they told me that is Lotte, a girl from my class. And I asked what is Lotte? xD The good thing in Norway is, that ALL people can speak English, I swear even the grandmothers and grandfathers. So I never had the feeling that I'm completely lost. I made a deal with my host family that I can speak English with them, when I have no clue what they are talking about.  I think if you are in a foreign country and you speak their language it's easier to integrate yourself and get friends. So I will try my best to learn as fast as I can Norwegian.

Ha det!

Bye

The preparationsI had to do were one of the reasons why I couldn't write any Blogs in the last few days. The last week was very stressful. I had a lot of appointments. I went to the hair dresser, to the dentist, to the optician twice and to the newspaper I mentioned. Unfortunately I was a bit lazy the weeks before, so I had to manage all of them in the last 4 days before my BIG ADVENTURE *-* will start. I also had to clean up my whole room becuase my will take an exchange student for a year, while I'm in Norway. I wish him, my friends and my family all the best :) So I had to pack my suitcase the evening before my flight. Guys do you know how hard it is to pack for a whole year and the you're just allowed to pack maximum 20 kg -.- The saddest thing about this week was the fact that I barely didn't had any time for my friends left. I said the most of them goodbye some days before. But the last evening, when I was finished with packing suitcase, I went the last night out with them.