Class fun

On Wednesday afternoons I have a really long lesson of art. Today we had a little party. I bought bananas, one girl baked brownies and another bought chocolate icecream. It was good and a nice break. A good way to spend the afternoon.

Gallery

This afternoon my class went for a little excursion. Last Autumn some of the kids from Kirkeparken and surrounding schools entered 4 photographs, one of themselves, their home, an interest and some food. Today these were displayed at a gallery. It was in a really nice area, right near the water and surrounded by a bit of parkland.

Visiting Sweden

Yesterday after lunch I went with Errol and Anne Kari (3rd host parents) to Sweden. They have a summer vacation house on the West Coast and they had to check it over before they go to Australia.

It was a really nice trip. We took a coastal route there. There are all these really nice towns that used to be old fishing villages. They are nearly deserted in Winter but people flock to them in Summer. They were really cute. We also passed all these different kinds of churches. They were quite nice.

We had lunch at this place right on the water in Smogen. It was a nice little cafe with a lovely view. I had an open prawn sandwich. It tasted pretty good, although the prawns were a little too salty. We stopped at a cute little bakery on the way to the house. It was in the middle of nothing but sold these really nice cinnamon buns.

The house is in a really nice spot just near the water. It was a good trip. I have now found out that Sweden has a lot of wind power. There were heaps of wind turbines. When we got further south the area had a lot of rocky areas. It looked nice because there was red granite throughout the rock. We also passed heaps of frozen areas.

After having prawns for lunch, I had prawns for tea too!:)

Hamburgsund, along one side of the water was all newer holiday houses and along
 the other was all the old fishing houses

Hamburgsund

Hamburgsund 

This is a small percentage of the marina in Hunnebostrand
(It was massive!)

I thought the centrepiece on the table at lunch was cute:)

The view from the cafe at Smogen

Smogen

View from the house near Lysekil 

 And don't let the blue sky and sun deceive you, there was a really cold wind!

Pumped For Eurotour!

One Happy Person!:D

Officially going on Eurotour! The forms are in and everythings paid! From the 29th April for 2 weeks I will be travelling around Europe with the other exchange students. I go to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Germany and Denmark!

My Week

Well I've had a pretty good week. The highlight of Monday was creating the start of a dance to thrift shop. It was so much fun! I am in a group with 4 other girls. On Monday night we had Minas Birthday party with some other family members. It was a nice night.

The rest of the week I had my various classes, which all went relatively well. Thursday afternoon I had maths test and I actually think I did alright in it. Today was a pretty good day. I had design and we went on an excursion to a museum not far from school. We were looking at old designs for cooking equipment, locks, ice skates, raincoats etc. It was a little like the heritage village back home. Then I had English and handed in my essay (fingers crossed I get a good mark!) and we did stuff on grammar. Then I had maths and we did some really easy work on graphs.

Last I had my really long lesson of art (It goes for 3 1/2 hours!) We were designing and sketching patterns. Its quite a long lesson, but its really relaxed and my class is great:)

One of my patterns:)

Exploring Råde

Pictures from our walk in the forest:

Sweden

So this afternoon we went to SWEDEN! It was really weird that we drove like 20 minutes and were in another country. You didn't have to bother about passports or anything. It was pretty cool.

We went to this really big shopping centre. I bought some clothes (I desperately needed more shirts!) and some books for school. It was a nice afternoon and I can now say that I've been to Sweden!

Lue

Jorunn (my first host Mum) knitted me a lue (beanie). It looks so cool with the traditional Norwegian pattern:) 

My migrains have finally gone, thank goodness!:) 

Sick Again:/

I'm at home sick again:/ Got a really bad headache and sore throat. Made my nights sleep terrible.
Hope to get better quick!

Trash

When I was in year 7 we read 'Trash' by Andy Mulligan in English. The other day in Lillehammer I happened to come across it in Norwegian!

Winter Break

I've just got back from Skeikampen, near Lillehammer. We had a week long holiday for winter break. It was a great week. We went with some of the cousins.

The first day we got there in the late afternoon and unpacked. The second day the fun began! In the morning we were just sledding down a small hill. In the afternoon we went for a short cross country ski just near our cabin. It was a bit difficult, because at the start there were no tracks. We had to get through big piles of snow. Everytime I went to stick my poles in they would sink!

The next day we went into Lillehammer. We went to a ski resort there and had a great view out over the mountains. It was spectacular. Then we went to Peppas Pizza for lunch. Its a chain thats in Norway. After lunch we headed to the olympic stadium. We saw the Olympic torch and the ski jumps. Lillehammer is such a cute town.

The next day we drove to where some good ski tracks were. We packed our lunch before we left. When we stopped for lunch we built a fire. As we were about to cook the polsar (hot dog sausages) we discovered that we had left it at the cabin! We ended up having kvikk lunsj (chocolate thats like kit kats) in the polsar buns.

The next day was so much fun! Downhill skiing. It was heaps of fun. The second last day we went cross country skiing again. Mina (host sister), Morten (Host Dad), Jorunn (Host Mum) and I went for an 11.6km ski. It was quite fun.

Olympic Torch

Ski Jumps at Olympic Stadium

Then it was home today. It was a great week:) Back to school tomorrow and Rotary presentation tomorrow night.

Winter Camp

Language camp ended and Winter Camp started. We went from the hotel in Nesbyen to cabins in the mountains. This week was awesome! Here we met up with all the other exchange kids. The group was made up of Canadians, Australians, Americans, Canadians, Argentinians, and Italian, Brazillians, French girls and a guy from Ecuador.

The first day we did 2 short cross country skis. It was really funny because as it was the first time I'd been skiing I didn't even know how to put the skis on! I started out terrible, then slowly got the hang of it. The next 2 days my group did cross country skiing.

The next day my group went to the slopes to downhill ski. It is so much fun! I mastered the small hills!:) The next day the whole group went to the slopes where I tried one of the big hills. It was awesome. If fell over a few times, but it was so much fun and such a rush!:D

On the last full day I went on a 12km cross country ski! I was so happy that i managed it, but exhausted when I got back.

Aussies

Victory photo after finishing the 12kms!

It was a really great week, heaps of fun and it was great to meet all the other exchangers:)

Language Camp!

Language Camp with the newbies! What a fun week that was. I met up with Clara (from Beunos Aires, Argentina), Holly (from Bendigo), James (from Sydney), Remy (from Newcastle) and Helen (form Sydney) at Nesbyen.

The first day we went to an open air museum. There were all these old houses and a storage hut that was 700+ years old. In some of the huts there were rose paintings on the walls and the roof. They looked really cool.

The next few days was learning Norwegian. I can now understand a little bit of Norwegian, not much though.  One afternoon we went to a Rotarians house to play in the snow. We were sliding down a hill on a tractor tube. It was so much fun. On the last night we went to a youth club. We played ping pong, danced and had a pretty relaxed night.

The week was quite relaxed and fun:)

Rose Paintings

The group: Helen (Sydney), Me, Remy (Newcastle), Clara (Buenos Aires, Argentina), James (Sydney) and Holly (Bendigo) 

The beauty of Nesbyen!

Off to Nesbyn

I'm now packed and ready to go to Nesbyn tomorrow for 2 weeks!:) I'll be learning Norwegian and how to snow ski with all the other exchange students. Sounds awesome:) Then I'm going on holidays with my host family for a week in the mountains!

Went to Fredrikstad with Maria this afternoon:)

Kirkeparken

School has been good. My classes have been changed. I'm now just in a normal class for everything. I do English, Maths, Science, Norwegian, Art, Design and Architecture, Spanish and Gym. My class mates are really nice and most don't mind speaking English.

The school is so big! I think I can find the way to all my classrooms now though. School in Norway is a bit different to that in Australia. Differences include:
- Calling teachers by their first name
-No uniforms
-No Bells
-You can have phones out during class
-The classrooms a bit more relaxed
-School start and end times vary on your classes
-You don't need leave passes or anything, you can just walk in and out of school as you please

Its seems to be a nice school and quite new. But now I'm going to start packing for Language and Winter Camp. I leave on Sunday to Nesbyn for 2 weeks:)