Ten Things I've Learned in the First Two Months

It felt like the moment I began high school, time decided to pick up the pace and I've been chasing after it ever since. In the months leading up to coming here, I assumed it would slow down to a crawl in the anticipation and excitement of my awaiting Norwegian life. When the last few weeks arrived and time kept on barreling ahead, I was taken aback. Nothing's changed since then and, if anything, time has only sped up more. While that fact has always been apparent, I found myself thinking more about it this week as it marked two months gone since I arrived. This week did not include a lot of excitement, so I thought it was a good opportunity to do a different type of post. In honor of two months passing, I am going to write ten things I've learned since beginning this year in Norway.

1. I am so lucky to have English as my first language. I've had a few people tell me how lucky I am to be American and while I always find it a little funny when I get that comment, I realized that a part of it is growing up speaking the language which is becoming more and more globalized every day. Many Norwegians feel as though they have to learn English in order to be able to do anything in life internationally and even those that don't believe that learn English in school from a young age anyways. My 6-year-old host brother is having an "English day" at school soon where they can only speak English. HE'S SIX!!! I'm always impressed by Norwegians' English ability but I also now appreciate my English-speaking background much more now than I did before.
2. I actually enjoy doing homework. I've always been a school-oriented person but when I first came here, the lower amounts of homework were, of course, very appealing. However I quickly started feeling lost and actually missed aspects of the stress of my workload back home, partially because it kept me motivated. I've begun taking a little more time to work more with my classwork outside of school even when there's not assigned homework just so I can keep myself from losing all motivation. I'm a huge nerd, I know :)
3. Norwegian is a really cool language. Jeg visste det før men nå synes jeg at norsk er det kuleste språket i verden!! Etter noen dager med engelsk var jeg klar å snakke norsk igjen. Jeg har en gang drømt på norsk og siden det har jeg vært forelsket i språket :) For anyone who doesn't speak Norwegian, it says "I knew that before but now I think Norwegian is the coolest language in the world!! After a few days with English, I was ready to speak Norwegian again. Once, I dreamed in Norwegian and since then I have been in love with the language." I apologize for any Norwegian mistakes!!
4. It is possible to get used to eating so much bread! This is just one thing I've gotten used to but it's also an allegory for everything I thought I wouldn't be able to get used to that has now become second nature.
5. Little kids are the best teachers. I know I've mentioned this before, but I've learned most of my Norwegian from my little host siblings. They not only teach me lots of new words, but having them around really forces me to speak Norwegian which leads me to my next lesson...
6. Exchange is most fun when you immerse yourself in the culture and language. When I spent a summer in France, I basically refused to learn the language. I was embarrassed to make mistakes or to ask someone to repeat what they said. I enjoyed the summer but I realize now I could have had a lot more fun if I tried to speak French more, especially because it would have opened up lots of doors to friendships. I'm sure I could have made friends if I had only spoken English here in Norway, but I promised myself to tell new friends to only speak Norwegian and so far that promise has been extremely beneficial. Not only have I made friends that I probably wouldn't have made otherwise, I also picked up Norwegian a lot faster and it's been completely worth the few awkward moments (they usually end in everyone involved laughing).
7. Getting lost is a lot of fun. I'm a very directionally-challenged person, and getting lost usually stresses me out, but it has become one of my favorite pastimes since moving (temporarily, I'm aware) to a brand new city. I'm never really lost, I still have google maps, and it always leads to discovering cool places I otherwise would never have seen!
8. Norwegian teenagers generally have a lot of freedom and I'm liking it:) It came as a shock how much freedom we have, despite having heard that Norwegian teens are treated like grown-ups compared to how their treated in other cultures. Not that I don't have freedom in the US, but I definitely have more here and it's 100% worth the added responsibility.
9. I miss some really random things. Of course I expected to miss my family and best friends, but did I expect to miss lunch at my grandparents' so much? Ice cream at Lago's? Sitting with friends on the beach? Beach drives (Portsmouth kids will understand)? Downtown Portsmouth? Not at all. 
10. Life is too short to say no. I had to end on a cliché because otherwise is this really an exchange student blog post?? But in all seriousness, I was a pretty hesitant person before I came and found it much easier to just say no and stay in my room. Of course I do love sitting in bed but I've been working really hard (it hasn't been easy) at saying yes more often. Don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'm not doing anything dangerous, just trying new things and having a blast :)

I hope this different style of post was still interesting! Because I didn't really do anything picture-worthy this week, I'm going to include my favorite pictures from the past two months for those of you who come to the picture section first (*cough cough* Frøya *cough cough*).

Word of the Post:

hummer = lobster (and I got to eat some this week!!)

Hikes in Rondane

Friends!!

More Rondane (I really like Norwegian nature)

From my first days in Norway... orientation

Who knew how much this brown cheese would come to mean to me...:) (Jeg elsker deg, brunost)

Hytta views are pretty hard to top

City from above

It's hard to tell in this picture but past the trees is a view of all of Oslo. I love that you can see the whole city from so many places!

More nature and family :)

Telthusbakken, still one of the coolest places in Oslo in my opinion:)