Wellllll…once again, haven’t blogged for awhile. There’s just so much to do that it feels like a waste to sit on the computer! First of all, last weekend was a really good one! We started it off by going on a boat ride around an island with one of the teachers from Malmanger School (the elementary where Kristina, Jenni, and Ashley work). The boat ride took about an hour and a half and we got to see some really cool scenery! (also, Matt, we saw the Tysnes island where your relatives are from!) After your boat ride, we went and watched more soccer at the field near our cabin. My 10th grade male students were playing a game against the older female team…and they insisted they would win and I HAD to come watch. So we froze our butts off and watched the game and my students were actually right..they won 3-0.
Friday night was verryy interesting…and I can’t quite tell the story like Jenni, so I’m going to copy the description from her blog J
Friday night we had plans to go to Snikeriet again...Angie, Kristina, and I had gotten ready to go out..
Angie and I were standing in the doorway of our cabin waiting for Kristina when a van drove by. At first we didn't think anything of it until a man came out of the dark and started speaking to me in Norwegian. I thought he was asking me if I had any coffee but wasn't sure so I asked him if he spoke English. He asked in English if we had any coffee his friends and he could borrow. Then he asked us what was going on in Rosendal for the night. I loaned him our coffee tin and the three of us started walking to Snikkeriet. Kristina was in a mild state of panic over the fact that we just gave our coffee to a random Norwegian guy who snuck up on us at 11pm in the middle of the night (Don't panic mom). I told her we were just being good neighbors and I was sure he would return it hahaha. When we got to Snikeriet we had a man approach us asking if A) we were the Americans and B) if his "friend" could come sit with us. We told him sure but were pretty unsure as to where this was going... stay tuned
It turns out the man wanted to come sit at our table but not really make any conversation. We were not sure what he came over for after he asked us these three questions: 1) What do you do after school in Rosendal, 2) Do you want to come to my cabin in the mountains next weekend, 3) ________. Are you confused about number 3? Yeah so were we...it was mostly awkward stares and silence. So then I used the chapstick code: "hey girls do you have any chapstick?" which we designated as our "lets get out of this situation" comment. We walked to the tourist hotel to see if anything was going on but it was closed. Then we started walking back the other direction to see if the fjordhotel was busy. On the way a semi-homeless looking man crossed the bridge and started mumbling to us in Norwegian to which we sped up our pace and shouted "Nai, Nai!!!" which means NO! We got all the way to fjordhotel and walked in awkwardly realizing it was closed...neat.
So we gave up and walked back to Snikeriet praying that the creepy old man was going to let us enjoy the music in peace. On the way our coffee neighbors were shouting "Hey" at us from a dark alley. We got creeped out again and started jogging to Snikeriet instead of walking. At this point we were about spent on the evening. We decided to sit outside (in light rain and cold) and realized that our neighbors wanted to sit with us. We gave them the benefit of the doubt and let them sit by us and started chatting. Again, don't panic Mom they turned out to be quite normal and I have a mean right hook. Mid-conversation the creepy old man was staring at us from the sliding door. He came up behind me and creepily whispered “I thought you left”. I basically told him we wanted him to leave us alone…politely. He got the hint. That pretty much sums up the creepiness of the evening.
Angie and I were standing in the doorway of our cabin waiting for Kristina when a van drove by. At first we didn't think anything of it until a man came out of the dark and started speaking to me in Norwegian. I thought he was asking me if I had any coffee but wasn't sure so I asked him if he spoke English. He asked in English if we had any coffee his friends and he could borrow. Then he asked us what was going on in Rosendal for the night. I loaned him our coffee tin and the three of us started walking to Snikkeriet. Kristina was in a mild state of panic over the fact that we just gave our coffee to a random Norwegian guy who snuck up on us at 11pm in the middle of the night (Don't panic mom). I told her we were just being good neighbors and I was sure he would return it hahaha. When we got to Snikeriet we had a man approach us asking if A) we were the Americans and B) if his "friend" could come sit with us. We told him sure but were pretty unsure as to where this was going... stay tuned
It turns out the man wanted to come sit at our table but not really make any conversation. We were not sure what he came over for after he asked us these three questions: 1) What do you do after school in Rosendal, 2) Do you want to come to my cabin in the mountains next weekend, 3) ________. Are you confused about number 3? Yeah so were we...it was mostly awkward stares and silence. So then I used the chapstick code: "hey girls do you have any chapstick?" which we designated as our "lets get out of this situation" comment. We walked to the tourist hotel to see if anything was going on but it was closed. Then we started walking back the other direction to see if the fjordhotel was busy. On the way a semi-homeless looking man crossed the bridge and started mumbling to us in Norwegian to which we sped up our pace and shouted "Nai, Nai!!!" which means NO! We got all the way to fjordhotel and walked in awkwardly realizing it was closed...neat.
So we gave up and walked back to Snikeriet praying that the creepy old man was going to let us enjoy the music in peace. On the way our coffee neighbors were shouting "Hey" at us from a dark alley. We got creeped out again and started jogging to Snikeriet instead of walking. At this point we were about spent on the evening. We decided to sit outside (in light rain and cold) and realized that our neighbors wanted to sit with us. We gave them the benefit of the doubt and let them sit by us and started chatting. Again, don't panic Mom they turned out to be quite normal and I have a mean right hook. Mid-conversation the creepy old man was staring at us from the sliding door. He came up behind me and creepily whispered “I thought you left”. I basically told him we wanted him to leave us alone…politely. He got the hint. That pretty much sums up the creepiness of the evening.
See..couldn’t have told it better myself!! I think maybe we’re too paranoid or something but we were pretty creeped out at a couple points of the night!
Also, it turns out our neighbors were actually not creepy at all and were very funny. We met up with them at the tourist hotel Saturday and had some interesting conversations with them. We taught them how to play apples to apples (needless to say they weren’t very good..) and we got to hear stories about their families and lives in Norway. They repeatedly apologized for scaring us Friday night, also. Apparently it’s normal in Norway to walk up to people’s houses at 11 p.m.?? We told them if they did that in the U.S…they might have the cops called on them. They told us that wouldn’t work so well here since the cops are like 45 min away….haha.
On Sunday, us girls hiked up a small mountain in Rosendal called Skalafjell. We think it is around 500 or 600 meters, but we’re not really sure. We also got to sign a book at the top to show we had made it! This mountain is nothing compared to the height of a different one that we are hoping to hike up before we leave…that one should be interesting!
Well, it’s Tuesday night, and that could only mean one thing….volleyball! My bruises from last week are finally gone, so we’ll see how I do tonight.
Also…if I fooled you on April Fool’s day when I said I was moving to Norway, I hope you saw where I sad it was a joke. I wish I was moving to Norway…but actually I’m coming back to Iowa and hopefully finding a job there. (starting to apply this week!) I’m afraid people didn’t see the part that it was a joke and I’m going to have random people start asking me when I’m moving to Norway…whoops.
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