Annika's Year at Agder

After arriving home from the island, I think everyone crashed for a few days. Or maybe that was just me. I kinda withdrew from all activities and spent a lot of time sleeping. But after a few recovery days, I’m back in the game. An exciting trip to Kristiansand on Saturday provided me with a new pair of pants and more Norwegian ice cream😬. That’s Elias from Norway.  As you can see, we had a drizzly, overcast Norwegian day.  On Sunday, we had apple cake at dinner which was so amazing and I’ve been thinking about it all day every day since. Here’s a picture.  Here you can also see my amazing new pants. I'm in love with an article of clothing.  Got to talk to my best friend Bella Button, I miss her quite a bit.  Monday brought rain, wind, and more Norwegian practice. We also had a student council meeting where we discussed ordering lots of tea (Tea is a big thing here). Oh, I wanted to mention something my friend Sophie said last night. She said that Folkhøgskole ...

I probably should've done this post like 3 days ago, but I've been so exhausted. So here we are. It's Monday night. And I can't remember what the heck we did on that island. Things are getting more difficult. I had expected it to get easier, and while some things are getting easier, many things are getting harder. By this I mean I spend every day cramming new words, phrases, and pronunciations into my head. Most people have found their groups, and many students have settled in with the people they met right away. I’ve done the same, but it makes it harder to meet new people. We are pretty much settled unto a crazy routine of Norwegian, language training, socializing, 4 meals a day, random trips, and wearing a LOT of wool. I was going to write another post about our trip to the island, but the days following it were so tiring that I started to forget everything that happened. This is exactly the reason I am doing this whole blog thing! It is actually astounding how quick...

4 days on an island with the art class. 2 Mariannes (M&M). No running water. No phones. The same 30 people. It's safe to say we all went a little crazy. We may or may not have created a new country. Long live Tuvakistan!!! All right, buckle up. This is gonna be a hefty post, I have a lot to say. Picture this, Monday morning, Annika crawls out of bed at the buttcrack of dawn. 7:00am. She pries open her eyes and stumbles to help load the bus. There are a few things you should know about this trip. First of all, there is no running water on the island. There used to be running water, but last year, the students used up all of the water in the tank. So instead, we brought 20 5L containers of water purely for drinking, and we had to boil water from a pump for EVERYTHING else. It was quite a hassle. In addition, we had to hand our phones over at the beginning, and they were left at the school. After loading the bus, we ate breakfast with the rest of the school and we were off! A 35-m...

  Nice chunky slug I found last night. Lake night walk. The front two guys and Ola and Lukas. And the back three are Sophie, Tuva, and Aurora. We leave for a 4 night trip to an island with a lighthouse on Monday. Here’s the packing list. Super exciting.   My first colorful meal in a few days haha.  This photo needs no caption. We got some pizza from Pizzabakeren, very good I might add. Here we’ve got (From left to right) Ola, Nora, Marlene, Lukas, Helena, and Karsten.    After a long week, Helena, Marlene, Nora and I are camping out in the NLC room watching the entire Hunger Games series. It’s kinda drizzly and gray out today, perfect for a movie marathon. Many students and teachers are getting sick with a cold, and so today’s Saturday seminar was cancelled.  Hope everyone is having a good day! I miss my people from home. Currently giving my parents a virtual hug. Also, thanks for reading! I had pretty low expectations for this whole writing a blog thing, b...

Whoops this one is also meant to be at the bottom. But this is Tuva trying to eat her ice cream haha. This is kettlebells class, I didn’t mean for the picture to be at the top. Whoops. Hey! I’m sorry for the break in posting, but it has been sort of crazy over here. We started our 3rd week of school on Monday, and with the 3rd week came the start of extra classes. There is a pretty long list of extra subjects that includes, volleyball, coffee bar, knitting, international food, music, art, and about 15 more. I got into volleyball (Wednesday mornings), Knitting (Tuesday afternoons), Kettlebells and Cross training (Mondays), language training which is mandatory for those learning Norwegian (Tuesday evenings), and choir, which is only in the spring. It is exciting to start learning other things and mingling with people we haven’t had the chance to interact with yet. Something else that started this week was our NLC class being in charge of morning assembly. After breakfast, all 100 student...