BÅNGÅ!

HEIA!!!!

So! Again, I believe that even though I was cold and damp through out my weekend it still beats yours! HAHA!

So, after I posted on Thursday I caught a ferry to Finnsnes! It left at about 7:15 and got there at about 9:45... long, but lots of fun. Morgana (jente fra italia) and I sat across from each other and played tic-tac-toe, and hangman using words we found around the boat. then we dicovered the instructions for if the boat is sinking...

We especially liked the instruction "Avoid panic, remain calm" and my ability to read the whole thing without laughing and in the same tone that you hear on planes when they are explaining what to do if we are crashing or we need to wear our oxygen masks... and hour and a half of entertainment!

When we finally got to camp we leaarned that we were not camping, but sleeping in a hunting lodge, that also has a shooting range out back. it was quite humorous all weekend when something that somebody said was puntuated with a gunshot... :D

On friday I got to sleep a whole hour and 20 min longer than I would have if I was at home... unfortunatly I hadn't slept all that well since my sleeping pad was about the thickness of one of the ones that we had on outwardbound, and I only had 1... so I felt like I was sleeping on the wooden floor... oh well.

Breakfast was the normal brødskive og brunost, syltetøy men vi også hadde nugati!!!! yummy yummy in my tummy! Sorry for the random sentace på Norsk, but i felt it was needed. I also decided to try putting the (Note to self: bringbær = raspberry devyn... remember english?) raspberry jam on my brunost and buttered bread... much to my surprise it was delicious! :D

Oh, also note, that my name sounds very close to a swear på Norsk... it sounds like my name means "Devil"... all the leder did double takes when I introduced myself... it made me laugh :D

So after breakfast we played a couple games, monster and pip-pip, and pung... which was renamed bångå at some point that day... and then after that we were seperated into groups to talk about our expectaitons and goals... again. Okay, so maybe that wasn't fun, but at least we got 2 sessions of it done in one! that meant that we got to speak a little norwegian and play games like the human knot (I taught it, everybody loved it). Luch was left over soup from the night before, but the woman in charge told me and a few others of the secret for the next day!

Saturday was one of my leder friends' birthday! she turned 19, and Brit-Eve (woman incharge of the food) told me she was going to make a BIG cake and if she had time, waffles for dessert! YAY!!!

so, back to friday, we played lots of games after lunch, then had a girls talk, which was as always sworn to secrecy... but i think I can let out that at the end we had to either blow out a candle if there was something we didn't like in Norway, or light one if we did like something in Norway. The best one got a long, loud and very enthusiastic round of applause. One of the girls said that she didn't like that all the boys in Norway wear their pants off their butts, so everybody can see their boxers... everybody cheered as she blew out that candle! So, I am kinda hoping that it gets around to all the norwegain guys that none of the girls think that it looks good to have poorly fitting pants and overly colorful underwear... :)

Then there were more games. By the end of the day I was noted to be extremly good at the foot game, (when you move one foot and touch the next person's, then they have to move the foot you touched to the next... you are holding hands in what tarts out as a circle,but often becomes a knot the fewer people you get... and yes, you find yourself in the most akward positions... ugh) so nobody but 2 of the italian boys would stand next to me... lol.

I didn't get to bed until about 1 in the morning... then we were woken up at 7... :P we had breakfast (more of the same... bread, cheese, jam, butter, and nugati) and then were called out for a photo shoot! I am officialy fameos (sp) again, as I am in 2 news papers. one is Nordlys, and the other is Troms something or other... :) I was not interviewed this time, they just wanted me for my body... (Oh, and they did some wierd photo shop to my face, it make the visible half look all bloody, but I hadn't picked at all before that point!)

Then we were back in groups to do a rather stressfull game about picking a culture based on pictures... It was really hard, and I would have chosen one except that they had child soldiers, another had police that looked like they were out to kill everybody, another's main religion was Islam (and being female I would not fare well in that society) and was surrounded by the remaines of a volcano, and the last was the last strong-hold of the nazi police... literally... these were all fictisious (sp) cultures, but I really couldn't decide... ARGH!!!'

then after lunch we played games for a while, then when the rain lightened a little we were driven to Finnsnes videregånde skole to go on a hike to a teepee structure! YAY!!! it was fun except for one of the italian boys kept trying to run me over and tried to kick my legs out from under me while we were crossing a swamp! but he soon learned that not only can he not manage it, i am not scared of him, and I am stronger than him... HAH! he thought that just because he was a rugby player.... ;P

When we got back to the lodge there were pretty tea lights set around the tables and when we finally sat down and were quiet we got to eat PIZZA!!!!!! It was soooo good! but unfortunatly I made the mistake of sitting with a group of Italians... and they just couldnt have PINEAPPLE (!!!!) on pizza! that was just wrong! this was not a good pizza because of that! I had mushrooms and buffalo chicken on my pizza... it was so spicy it reminded me of Mum's cooking, except not in it's usual form! YUM!

Then we had waffles and extreme chocolate cake! It was a bunch of fun because we all sang happy birthday in our own languages! It didn't sound very good, but it was a bunch of fun and Christine (the leder) eventually admitted that it had been her best birthday yet!

Sunday we didn't have anything really, we played some games and packed. We did have to go around and write down questions about: verts familie, venner, kontakt med hjemland, skole, og fritid... then we answered them and talked about them. after that there was one more thing, we sat in a circle (oh, so casco bay!)and there was a positive and a negative chair. We were all supposed to sit in one and say something we would like to change about the camp and what was good about it. One of the leder sat in the negative chair and told us that she and all the other leder wished that they had gotten more hugs... this was the leder that we only saw at meal times or when she was running a group or giving orders. Only 2 maybe 3 leder out of 7 leder came out and played games with us and hung out with us instead of sticking together and staying in the leder room. After a few other people left I went to the negative chair and said that I didn't like how all the leder sat at one table together in the middle of the room, so they were seperate from us and we couldn't talk to them or hear their stories. I was then told, quite indignatly, that they were not supposed to tell us about their exchange year's. All of my fellows and Christine agreed that it would have been better if they had come out and visited us more, then we could have known them better and then they would have gotten more hugs.

As it was we decided by silent vote to lure the leder into a group in the middle of the circle and give them a "Winner's hug" that means a big group hug. It usually involves many people getting their toes stepped on, but is alot of fun!

Then people were leaving. We all hung out and tried not to be too sad, thankfully I was on the 2nd bus, so I only needed to watch one group go... :( It was rather hard to come back to school and away from all of the others. Norwegians aren't big on hugging, and everybody at AFS is... we actually talked about how we should change the name... Also we all can identify and sympathise with each other. So, we are all kinda sad about not being at the camp any more... :/

Today I had my full day of school. I missed the test on friday (!!!) so I'm kinda happy about that :) and we have moved on to graphing equasions which I find much easier than logarithms. We read 2 short stories in Norsk, one was called Karen and the other was Karens Jul. They were strange and kinda sad... :(

Then there was gym... i really dislike gym... or running rather.

Then there was biology, because my exchange student norwegain teacher is in spain... :D YAY! LESS BORDOM IN MY DAY!!!! I got my test back and i got a 4!!!! a 4!!! if I was still in CBHS I would be even more excited... now it is 4 out of 6... but it's still a passing grade! anything 2 and over is a passing grade... but I am feeling pretty good about it!

I was going to go over to a friend's house today after school, but she is sick so i came home instead... and on the way to the school i farted... (thanks Karro... but actually I didn't this time) actually I stepped in dog poop on the way to the college and didn't notice it until I got in the car and noticed a mud like smear on my shoes. after closer inspection (aka, trying to brush the dirt off) I realised that it smelled and it was poop... ASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ("ew" på norsk)...

So now I am waiting for the washer to finish, so I can throw my shoes in the dryer with the rest of my clean clothes. urgh... waiting... waiting... waiting...

Oh! Other big news! I asked Odd and Marit if it would be okay if I called them Mamma og Pappa... So, I have officially fufiled (sp) one of my goals... :D

Only 2 classes tomorrow! then maybe Mamma and I can go to the yarn shop, because she is going to knit me a fair isle sweater... :) I'm excited!

Okay, that's it!

Vi Snakkes!