Ha en fin dag! (Have a nice day)

I was asked before I began my adventure if I had considered blogging while in Norway.  I immediately said, "Yeah right! I hate writing!"  Well....looks like I'm blogging now.  Enjoy following my trip! :)

I have been in Haugesund, Norway for exactly one week now.  I have experienced more in this last week than I ever imagined possible.  We, Brad and I, left Sioux Falls on January 2 around 6:30.  We flew into Chicago, where we found our connection to Copenhagen.  The flight to Copenhagen was very long.  I have never been on a flight that lasted more than just a few hours, so 8 seemed a bit long.  The strangest part of the flight was when I fell asleep around 2 AM (US time) and woke up about 3 hours later to sunshine and to find out it was already mid morning!  When we landed in Copenhagen, we had to go through security and customs to get to our connecting flight to Oslo.  That flight was a little over an hour, but we had no idea what to expect once we arrived in Oslo.  We had to go get our luggage, get new tickets to continue to Haugesund, recheck our luggage, get through security, and find the gate.  It was my first experience of feeling lost.  After asking 3 different people where to go we finally figured it all out.  I kept thinking to myself that if that was the biggest challenge throughout all of the airports and flights then we were still doing pretty well.  We made our way through security and found the gate without any trouble.  Once we boarded the flight to Haugesund I finally began to feel little butterflies in my stomach.  I felt like a little girl, all giddy and everything.  I couldn't believe that I was actually on my way to Norway!

We arrived in Haugesund on time (about 6:00 PM January 3) and one of the student assistants from the college met us to give us a ride to our apartment.  Immediately we saw that the cars here are much smaller than what we're used to.  The roads are very small too.  In Haugesund, very few of the roads are big enough for two vehicles to drive on without one of them pulling over for the car passing by! There is only 1 or 2 stoplights, every other intersection is a roundabout.  I was also expecting to see more snow here, but it's more rain and ice than anything.

After getting settled in he was kind enough to take us to the grocery store to get a couple things to hold us over for a few days.  The grocery store was such a humbling experience.  As soon as I walked through the doors I realized this would not be a quick and easy experience.  I did not recognize anything in the grocery store.  Nothing had English writing so I was trying to figure out what each item was by looking at the pictures.  I felt so ignorant and stupid.  It took about 30-45 minutes before we finally felt we were ready to leave.  The food consisted of 1 frozen pizza, some crackers, yogurt, milk and juice.  As I was preparing to check out and pay for my food, I noticed the man in front of me bagging his own groceries.  I paid for my food and went to the end of the aisle to bag my groceries also and realized there were not any bags there.  I was quickly told that the bags are at the front of the checkout lane.  I grabbed enough bags and began bagging my groceries but before I could even open the first bag the cashier was already scanning Brad's items.  Needless to say, I began to attempt to rush to get out of the way, but the more I rushed the longer I took.  I couldn't open the bag and put my stuff it in before Brad's food was right on top of mine.  It was a very embarrassing but educating experience!

On Tuesday (1/4) we had our first meeting with the nursing professors at Stord/Haugesund University for orientation.  They told us that normally, international students go through a week of orientation, but because we are only here for 3 weeks we were lucky enough to do it all in 7 hours.  I was so tired from the plane ride that by the end of orientation I felt like I was in a daze.  After completing orientation Brad and I walked around by the college for about an hour just to waste some time and see what downtown was like.  It started raining again so we decided to head back to the apartments.  We thought we knew where we were going, but after about 20 minutes of walking we realized that nothing looked familiar anymore.  We walked a little further, and saw in the distance these very tall apartments that are near the student apartments we are staying at, so we decided to just keep walking in the direction of them.  Finally, after about 35 minutes of walking around Haugesund with soaking wet socks and shoes, and pants soaking up to my calves, we managed to find our way back.  (We have since found our way to the university and back very easily...it is only a 15 minute walk now that we know where we are going!).  As soon as we got back to the apartments, I changed clothes and went straight to bed (at 5:00 PM) and slept until 7:00 AM the next morning when I had to get up and get ready for work at 8:00 AM.

Wed (1/5) was my 22nd birthday.  I never thought I would be lucky enough to spend my birthday in Norway!  It was very different being away from everyone, but I tried to make the best of it.  I met my mentor that I will be following and working with at Vardafjell Home Care Centre.  I had no idea what to expect that first day, but I absolutely LOVED the work we did.  A lot of things are very similar in nursing here in Norway, but there are small but significant differences.  For example, the metric system!  I took a blood sugar and it read something like 4.5 .  I had no idea what this meant when Vegard asked me what I should do if that's the blood sugar.  Turns out, 4.5-7.5 is normal here, whereas in the United States we want it to be somewhere in the 80/90-120 range.  Other than that one time the day went very well.  My mentor, Vegard, helped make my first day great.  I told him and one of the patients that it was my birthday so they sang me happy birthday!  Everybody we visited greeted me with a big smile when they found out I am an international student from America.  I can't count the number of people we have visited that have told me that they have relatives in North Dakota, and some have even been to Sioux Falls!  It was so strange seeing pictures of the Battleship Memorial while sitting in somebody's home in Norway.  The people in Norway are wonderful.  They are so welcoming, helpful, honest, and fun.  So many of the people we visit tell me that now that I'm in Norway I might as well just live here.  I would love to live here, I just need to learn Norwegian first.  After the first day of work when everyone asked if I knew Norwegian and I repeatedly said no with a feeling of guilt, I made a goal for myself.  I am going to learn at least one Norwegian word or phrase everyday so that hopefully by the last day I can have a small conversation with somebody.  I am doing very well so far, thanks to my wonderful Norwegian friends that were international students at Augustana this Fall, and thanks to my nursing mentor.

On Friday (1/7) I worked at the Vardafjell and then had a free night.  My friends came and picked us up and we went to one of their apartments for some homemade pizza.  After a while we came back to Haugesund where we found a little pub by the water that had live music.  After we enjoyed the pub for a little while we went up the street to Haugesund's "best" club.  It was huge for being in such a small city.  We celebrated my birthday since we weren't able to do anything during the week.

Saturday and Sunday were slow days.  Stores close very early on Saturdays and nothing is open on Sundays so Solveig (one of the international students that was at Augie this fall) came and picked Brad and I up and we went to a restaurant downtown called Egon.  The food was amazing.  We enjoyed the meal and went for a drive afterward.  We went to an island that holds a miniature Statue of Liberty.  The copper used to make the statue of liberty came from the spot where the miniature one is located here.  It was quite the experience to see it because of all of the history behind the very patriotic symbol.

This is information overload for one post...for anyone who read all the way to the end I hope it was worth your time.  I will try to do a good job of updating regularly!

Leaving Copenhagen

Arriving in Oslo

Haugesund's airport!

Viking on Haugesund's airport

Front entrance of Stord/Haugesund University

Out to eat with Solveig

Pedestrian walkway/shopping downtown

All of the walkways are covered in ice.

Miniature Statue of Liberty

My room at the apartment

Legg til bildetekst

The sun rarely shines here, so I took the opportunity to catch it at sunset (taken a little before 4:00 PM)

We were walking to the university so I kept getting some good photos.

How can you see sunsets like this and not believe.  The sun shines for only a few hours but this is the beauty that one can find during that short time frame.

Haugesund's Town Hall

It took a few attempts to get used to the keyboards with extra letters and symbols.