Soon home is me...

Dear world of confusing and amazing things,
It seems that my time in Norway is drawing to a close. In three weeks, I'll be (hopefully) sleeping in a warm bed in Australia. I'll have transferred all of my worldly possessions across continents once more and I'll struggle with the intense and opposite sensations of this past year.
I have four new families here, I have new girl friends, guy friends, a new boyfriend (sitting safely at home in sunny Australia, thank goodness...), Mothers, Fathers, sisters, brothers and so many other people who've been special to me. It's crazy to be so far away from home but feel so at home ... especially when there's snow and mountains outside my window.
This year has given me the chance to see some of the most beautiful things I'll probably EVER see and experience some things that I'll never experience again.
The other night I watched "Nanny McPhee" with my host family ... and at the beginning of the movie, Nanny PcPhee said something like, "When you need me, but do not want me, then I must stay. ...But when you want me, but no longer need me, then I must go."
Although I can't go as far as to give Nanny McPhee the new name "Norway" .... Here's how I see it and how I can sum up my year concisely: I needed this year, but it's been difficult ... So now as it draws to an end and I've learnt so much about myself and the people around me (whether they be Australian or Norwegian) - I don't need to be here anymore. I want to be here, but I really am ready for the next stage of my life.
I love you, Norway and I'll return some day soon.
Love,
Caity
xx

p.s. There are extra blog posts about Norway that I want to write .. but I think they'll be completed once I'm in Australia and procrastinating the search for a job.

p.p.s. I just wanted to give you a pretty picture taken from the aquarium near town.

Moving To My Last Family This Very Day!

Yep! I'm moving to my last family today! I'm sad to leave my current family and it's strange since moving to my last family sort of feels like my whole year is winding up now... But it's still exciting!

I seem to have accumulated a lot of stuff.... It's all packed and in a pile upstairs outside my room and I've taken photos.

Also! I'm in this sort of concert band type thing and we're performing all these Elton John songs in a concert this weekend. We have a rehearsal tonight and then performances tomorrow and Sunday. I'm singing with three other girls from school instead of playing the flute, so it should be good fun!

Yep... This is just quick. Will write betterer laterer!

Love from Caity

p.s. I'm going to write about school and my class soon! We have Autumn holidays all of next week, so .. yep.

That's just how Norwegian my life is....

This is just a quick post to say that .... I saw a viking boat when I was waiting for the ferry today. It pulled up right next to me and the vikings on the boat kidnapped a whole class of school children (I think they were on an excursion). Sadly..... I didn't have my camera with me. This lack of camera problem seems to be happening quite a bit lately. ...I'll do better.

Since I'm talking about vikings..... Bri (Australian girl who lives not too far away) and I went on a viking trip a few weeks ago (well over a month ago actually...). We were on the same boat that I saw all the children being taken on today. Would you like to see photos? ...I'm sure you would!

 

So... These first two photos weren't exactly on the viking ship....

  

......but it was another boat RIGHT next to it......

  

This is Bri on a viking ship!

  

See Bri in her viking glory!

 

And then there's Caity the feral one.....

  

But Bri joined in on the feralhood ... so all is well in the world

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As we were coming back from the boat trip, we came across an interesting sign....................................................................

I love those things in Norway that are just SO culturally different.... If I read this sign to you, you'd probably hear what I said as "Suck da fart!" (this is one of my immature moments ... I'm sorry). But it really just means "Go slowly". "Fart" is Norwegian for "speed" ... so I love any conversation involving velocity in Norway. As the wise Petter Solberg once said...... ''I came with a great fart and dishappered as a prikk in the sky''

Anywho... I depart now. It's lunchtime at school and I need a tissue... *sniffs*

Love love love og elsker elsker elsker

Caity fra Norge

xoxoxo

p.s. Do you like the apple picture on the right? ...I made it a while ago :-)

"I'll do that tomorrow" ..... LIES!!!

So... I said in my last post that I'd write about Euro Tour "tomorrow" ... but that was about 2 months ago! I'm a bad person... But anywho... Here we go!!! ... EURO TOUR!!!

I think I should write a little intro about why Euro Tour started the way it did... Ahem...

Do you by any chance remember the dramatic and awesome volcano eruptions in Iceland? Well... That happened very soon before all us Norsk exchangees left for our Euro Tour. This resulted in us being unable to all fly to Oslo and then fly to Berlin to begin our trip. Instead, we all travelled to Oslo by various means including train, bus and car. Most of us had to travel overnight .. but Aussie Daniel got to travel for a full 24 hours to get to Oslo from the top of Norway (POOR THING!).

We kept ourselves amused for the several hours we had to wait in Oslo (I got to Oslo at 6am and we didn't meet until noon if memory serves...). ......It's fun to force-feed Americans vegemite :-D

It's fun to make Australians happy by giving them vegemite when they haven't had it for months and months :-D

It's fun to creep out Americans while they're just trying to drink their orange juice :-D

It's fun to take unattractive photos of yourself while sitting on a toy train that is out of order :-D

THIS IS DANIEL!!! HE HAD TO TAKE AN EPIC TRAIN TRIP TO OSLO!!! ....POOR THING!!!

So yeah! After our epic wait, we had to take a bus ride to Sweden ... and once we were in Sweden, we had a sort of overnight cruise to Germany on this rather nice boat.

YEAH! That was the boat! Pretty sweet :-)

I think we all felt a little bit cool being in Germany... I know I did...

This is a picture of me feeling cool in Germany. Willkommen in Deutschland!!!

It got pretty hectic once we were in Deutschland... We hopped on another bus and started our journey to Berlin... We stopped at a few places and we had lunch. Who had schnitzel in Germany?
....If your guess was "Uhh........ Caity?" you'd be rightly right :-).

I really do heart milka. It's pretty damn awesome. I should've bought that milka heart.... Oh well.... I'd rather have this awesome bilde with Braulio. (I wonder how long it was after this until he called me a loner.....)

SCHNITZEL!&%##$%^&*(*&^%$#@#$%^&*(&^%$#$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ....and the beginning of the french fries problem...


Anywho...

On we went to Berlin.

Berlin was cool! We had a great tour guide who took us to the most famousish places and we ate french fries.

I'm going to be sort of vague from now on ... because it was a long time ago and I'm just going to end up posting a whole heap of photos ... all of which are on my facebook.

But here goes.....

We stayed in Berlin for one night and after Berlin, we headed to Dresden where we stayed for a few hours before heading to Prague. Prague was AMAZING! ...And since it was my favourite place, I'm going to post one photo of it to emphasise just how freaking awesome it was!

I don't think I'll ever see a city more beautiful from a big ass hill conveniently placed next to it.

In Prague we ate french fries and went on a tour. It was lovely.

From Prague we headed to Austria (Vienna and Salzburg). In Austria, we ate french fries, saw where Mozart lived and ........ We were tricked into thinking we were going to see "The Sound of Music" ..... But we REALLY saw "The Sound of Salzburg" ...which is COMPLETELY different!!! If you're a future Norwegian Rotary Exchange student and you're reading this ... don't let your dreams be crushed by your Euro Tour itinerary like I was.........

Anywho....

After Austria, we headed to Italy. We stayed outside of Venice and visited Venice for a day. ...It was so beautiful. I loved it. We ate french fries.

From Italy, we headed to France. We stayed in Lyon overnight and then stayed in Paris for two nights. In all these places, we ate french fries. Paris was beautiful and I think it deserves a photo...

EIFFEL TOWER!!! Most of us exchangees went all the way to the top. :-D

After Paris, we bussed it across the English Channel and bussed further until we were in London where we stayed for our final two nights.

London was awesomely cool. We had french fries. We also saw the changing of the guards, Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben ... umm ... OO!! I went to the top of St Paul's Cathedral with Chloe from Americana and I think Aaron from Americana might've paid for us... But it was amazing. ...And high. I don't like heights....

Chloe! St Paul's! Top!

Me! St Paul's! Top! ...Not as pretty as Chloe...... *uber sulk*

So yeah! .... Our last stop as London. After two nights there, we all headed to the Airport and flew back to Oslo .. and other countries .. like some of the exchangees were actually German exchangees or Iceland exchangees .. so they went back to Germany and Iceland.  ... But yes ... there was flying involved. ...Meaning that the problem with Iceland was finished.

So there you have it! ...A pretty bad job, but done nonetheless!

I hope you enjoyed reading about the European experience as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Love!

Caity

xx

p.s. If you click on the photos, you can see them bigger and better.

Three Months Condensed... Can you handle it?

SO! ...I promised I wouldn't forget about my blog ... but I lied. So instead of trying to work through everything in great detail, I'm going to stand by my strong belief that a picture says a thousand words!

Let us begin with ski camp way back in.... Gosh! February!

After language camp, the new Aussies and the awesome Argentinian went straight to Nystolen ski centre about twenty minutes drive out of Nesbyen. We quickly bonded with the oldie exchange students from various Americas, European and Asian countries.

For someone who's never seen real snow or experienced anything in the major negative temperatures, the ski camp was pretty epic for me....

All of us stayed in these awesome cabins. I think it was about max of eight people to a cabin or thereabouts ... and about four cabins all up? We all tried cross-country skiing and downhill skiing (or "slalomski") and even though I was one of the last ones to get the hang of *cough* .... stopping .... *cough* it was amazing.

OO!!! I almost forgot! I made friends with Aaron the American on that camp... And we got lost on one of the cross country expeditionaroonies. It was pretty epic ... And so began the learning of "don't follow Caity ... she really DOESN'T know where she's going". This will come up again once we get to the Euro Tour photos.... Anywho.... Ski Camp was also a learning experience for Aussie Daniel!....

Libby: "Do you want to know how to be a man, Daniel?"

Daniel: ... "....Yes?"

Libby: ... "Go chop some wood."

This fateful conversation resulted in Daniel coming back inside the cabin about three hours later after being unable to close the door to the wood room. This photo was taken a few days AFTER that happened.

We still couldn't close the door.

Brianna and I flew back to Vigra Airport together on Valentine's day (how romantic! ... ???). We were greeted at the airport with free chocolates. It was a pretty awesome score ;-)

I can't remember exactly how long it took us to drive to Oslo from Nystolen. I choose not to remember...

Oh! This is from the flight on the way back .... pretty, no? ;-)

This was a group photo of all us Rotary exchange students taken at a Rotary meeting mid ski camp.

That was a lovely walk down memory lane..... Shall we continue?

YES! We shall!

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On the night before my 18th birthday, we had a small party at the Larsen household with my first host family and some Norwegian friends.

Janne, Roger and Henrik (my first host family) gave me money, a Norwegian calendar (which has come quite handy lately) and an amazing card that Janne made all scrapbook-like.

Much frivolity ensued and we ate tacos and cake while we watched the Winter Olympics.

I love the epicly bad photo of my host brothers (separate families) ;-)

I love this GORGEOUS photo of my host cousins.

I love that my host mother at the time is the most epic baker EVER!!! (yes ... she made that cake and yes ... it's full of awesomeness and cream!)

The area I'm in in Norway have this sort of special thing... They don't have one singular cake ... They like variety and large quantities of cake. It's epic epic EPIC!!!

Yay!!! Winter Olympics!!!

And we ended the night by playing poker in Henrik's room.

The following day... March 1st was my birthday and it started with me going to school for the first day of term and being mightily confused...... My class wasn't there. After much searching, I discovered they were at the Kultuhuset in the city having rehearsals for the musical "Footloose". Norwegian Footloose is quite awesome by the way...

...After school, I had a Rotary meeting where there was MORE cake (*drools slightly*) and much niceness :-) ... They gave me a troll and jewellery for my birthday. The jewellery was Swedish and trolls are DEFINITELY Norwegian, so I had quite a Scandinavian birthday. ...The cake was bløtekake also ... so everything was pretty Scandinavian :-P

OO!!! Afterwards, I was kidnapped for some fun times... I went to a friend's house where they'd made me a chocolate brownie cake, so we ate that and then went bowling.

....I forgot that we played Scrabble for a bit before heading to the bowling alley. Quite fun. I'm still intrigued by international Scrabble tiles........

^^^^^^ Bowling times ^^^^^^

Så deilig!

I can't think of a more amazing birthday. It snowed and there was ample cake ... perfection in my mind ;-)

I also got some things in the post from Australia .... lovely lovely lovely!

And so the days went on until ... HOLMENKOLLEN!

To you lovelies reading (although I suppose you are quite few and .... possibly even Norwegian and already aware of what Holmenkollen is....), I shall explain the wonders of Holmenkollen.......

Holmenkollen is a place in Norway near Oslo and they host a ski jump festival.... I think it might even be the oldest ski jump festival in the world ... maybe ... maybe not...

They recently built a brand new ski jump at Holmenkollen and all of us exchange students were invited to go and watch the jumpers in March .... compliments of Rotary!

We all got to go around Oslo to museums and such together and on the last day, went to the ski jumps before going home.

Here are my Aussie girls ... I think the only one missing is Sarah. Where she at, I has got no idea!

We also met the mayor of Sandvika! ... I will always remember him for the following quote:

"We had a true democracy; everyone could vote! .............except women and poor people."

Oh... How he paves the way into the future of Norway...

I got to chillax with my Rachael while he spoke...

....and was SO tempted to push the big button.

Onwards we moved until.... THE VIKING MUSEUM!!!

Have you ever seen a real viking ship? Well..... to all you historical nuts, you should visit Norway and go to the Viking Museum in Oslo. It's quite amazing and houses the most intact viking ships in the world....

It also has other cool things... Like snake bedheads and scary looking Canadians hiding behind scary looking snake bedheads *nods*

At some point after I got back from Holmenkollen.......... I got a package from my Benny full of Japanese treats :-)

And following that........... Went to Bergen with my host family

My camera went flat though... So I only got 2 photos of the view of Bergen. Oh the humanity of it all!!!

OOO!!! We have now reached one of the saddest moments I have experienced on this exchange.....

The day I tried to go to the school dance and everything just failed....

Here is my scarf trying to dry at the boat waiting room after I missed the last boat on Friday night after getting caught in really heavy wind and rain while walking there...

Here is the wetness outside...

Here is an unimpressed Caity with formerly straightened hair and smudged makeup .... drying off before trying to walk home...

Here is the jacket that tried to protect me from the cold ... it did a lot better than the umbrella that failed with the wind...

Here is the weather outside ..... just before the walk home. It was good though ....... I stopped by the supermarket and bought a small tub of Nugatti (pretty much Nutella) which I devoured that night and over the weekend.

Since I've done the creeper-let's-look-out-the-window at the other places I've stayed, here's the one for the Larsen household :-)

And that's about everything I can think of until.... EURO TOUR!!!

I'll do that tomorrow though .... since this is already quite epic in length.

I hope you all find this well!

Love,

Caity

xx