What do you get when you cross city living and one of the most Christmas-loving countries? People coming off the bus carrying Christmas trees. No, I'm not kidding!!! I was a bit in awe when I saw the lady step down dragging a wrapped tree behind her, but it was really happening! I'm pretty sure Oslo is the only place in the world where you get to see that...
If that little story doesn't give you an idea of how big of a deal Christmas is here, maybe the several-story Christmas tree in the center of the city will? Or the Christmas decorating contest at school? Or gingerbread-baking parties? Take your pick:) This week, everything Christmas really started ramping up. When I walked into our classroom Monday morning, I was greeted by wrapping-paper-covered walls and door, a gingerbread calendar hanging on the windows, and friends telling me to pick a piece of paper to see who I would be getting a present for for Secret Santa. Over the course of the week the decorations only grew, and now we have cut-out elves with the faces of everyone in the class on them, a cut-out Christmas tree on the wall, paper chains hanging from the ceiling, and Christmas lights around the blackboard. I wish we could go so all-out at my school back home but it's a little hard when you go from classroom to classroom throughout the day.
The rest of this week mostly consisted of school and band practice. LOTS of band practice. We have a couple concerts coming up in addition to playing Christmas music in the halls in the morning. I wasn't lying when I said Christmas was a big deal here!! I really love the band here though, so practicing so much ends up just being time to bond and play fun music. Otherwise, I had a social studies test and on Thursday an Australian school band and choir came to our school to perform. They were from Adelaide but on a little tour throughout Northern Europe. I got to present them with another student who had actually been on exchange at that school! They were incredibly talented and it was such a good concert that I'm so glad I got to see!
Friday night, our class had a gingerbread-baking party at one of my friends' house. We made gingerbread, played Mario Kart and Just Dance, and hung out. It was a lot of fun and nice to get to know the rest of the class better! We also got to eat a TON of gingerbread, so really it couldn't have been bad :) Yesterday I took the chance to relax after a few crazy weeks with busy weekends in between. It felt so good to not have anything I had to do, especially in all the Christmas bustle.
Today, Anne and Bjørn went skiing and it was Bjørn's first time! He seemed to have a really good time so maybe there will be some family skiing this winter! While they were out on the slopes, Espen, Elin and I put together our gingerbread house! The house is in the shape of this actual house, which in some ways made the construction a little harder than a normal cabin-shaped one. Luckily, we were able to pull out some engineering tricks and keep it standing! Norwegians apparently tend to use a caramel-like mixture to keep the house together instead of icing, but we just melted some pre-made caramels. It was a little hard to get the caramel to spread, so I'd recommend using the proper method, haha. Afterwards, I went on a walk to get out a little and enjoy the beautiful weather. I always love being able to look out over the fjord so I headed out with no real endpoint but just generally in the up direction to get to a place where I could see the water. When I came back it was house-decorating time, so I helped add some icicles, stars, and a roof border. Gotta love gingerbread houses! Tonight I am going to try lutefisk (a lye-soaked fish) for the first time, but that will come in next week's post. Something to look forward to:)
It came to mind earlier today that another month has passed, and that I'm now four months into this year. It's crazy how fast time goes and sometimes I wish it would slow down a little. With so much already planned for the next few months, I feel like I need more time just to enjoy being here and to be with friends and family without feeling like I'm missing out or wasting time! Something about Christmas seems to make time feel even faster, which is fun before Christmas but then it comes and goes and I seem to have jumped right over the holiday itself! Here's hoping that doesn't happen this year...
Word of the Post:
pepperkake = gingerbread
Some very Christmasy pictures!
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| The tallest Christmas tree I've ever seen! |
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| Classroom deco pt. 1 |
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| Pt. 2 |
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| Pt. 3 |
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| Pt. 4 (each day, we draw a name and that person gets the day's gingerbread heart) |
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| Gingerbread-making time! |
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| Elves of 1B hard at work:)) |
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| Just Dance! |
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| This was only a fraction of Friday's gingerbread collection |
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| Pre-construction |
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| TOO PRETTY OSLO |
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| Post-decoration! |
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| And some more! The door up on the terrace goes to my gingerbread-room:) |
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