WOW, it has been a busy past three weeks! Since I last updated I have started my religion class, turned 22, gone to my first professional hockey game, gone to Stockholm, and learned a bit more Norwegian (like how to conjugate nouns and adjectives but not verbs. It's weird. I'm not really a fan).
The day before my birthday our group was invited to the home of two pastors (a married couple) who teach a portion of the religion course I am taking. Anne, the wife, is the campus chaplain at the college we go to, and Oddgeir, the husband, is the pastor at a local church. They made dinner for us, and we sat and discussed a bit of the religious and cultural history of Norway--they tried to teach us the Norwegian birthday song, but it went a little to fast for me to follow along. We also got to meet their children, who were adorable and very polite. Their parents allowed them to participate in everything we did, including the more "academic" things, which I thought was very cool, and it allowed us to get another perspective on some of the things we discussed. The youngest son also showed us some of the magic tricks he had just learned--he made a penny disappear! In addition to the things we learned from the family about our religion class, it was also really fun to see how a Norwegian family lives. This family probably isn't a "typical" Norwegian family, as they have lived in the UK and Switzerland being international pastors, but we still got a peek into their lives. They were obviously very intentional about family time together, knowing each other and having fun together. We talked to their two daughters about any restaurant suggestions they had for us for my birthday, and they said that their family didn't really go to restaurants, they tended to pick up to go food and bring it back if they weren't cooking at home. They had also just gotten a TV earlier in the week, and the parents commented on how much they missed the time they had spent together in the evenings and were still trying to preserve that feeling even if they did have a TV.
A few days later, we also went to Oddgeir's church to talk a little about the symbolism in the church and some things about how it was designed. It was fascinating to hear about everything that the designers worked to put in the church--it seemed like everything was intentional and served some sort of importance. My favorites were the path that was down the church, which as supposed to represent a faith journey. Outside of the entrance, in what we would call the narthex (but they call the Norwegian word for "weapon room" since in the olden days people would have to leave their weapons there before going into church), is a wooden structure in the shape of alpha. From that there is a straight line that leads right down the middle of the sanctuary to the front of the church, where there is a window behind the altar. The window is shaped like omega, and right below it is a small picture of Jesus' ascension to heaven, which is actually the last painting in a series they have around the outside of the sanctuary that is really similar to the Stations of the Cross in Catholic churches. To me it just seemed to have a lot more meaning and interesting thought behind it than the typical huge cross or painting of a Bible scene that are in a lot of churches. The colors of the walls in the sanctuary also had a meaning--it transitioned from blue on one side to green on the other, while the lectern was red. It took a lot of hinting, but Oddgeir helped us realize that these colors stand for something--green for hope, blue for faith, and red for love. Faith, Hope and Love. YAY! I could go on, but then you would be sitting here reading for an hour or so (seriously), so those were just the highlights for me.
Moving on, I had a wonderful birthday here in Norway! It was fun to celebrate my birthday in the country where I was born. I didn't magically learn Norwegian overnight though, like I was kind of hoping I would. Darn. This birthday was probably one of the best I have had in awhile--the past few at Concordia have been during the week we have mid-terms, so I've been staying up late while not celebrating. When I turned 21 I had a paper to write and a 3-6 am desk shift the next morning, and when I turned 20, I had a math presentation to put together overnight because I had procrastinated. It was nice to have my birthday on a Friday, with no responsibilities and with so many wonderful people who worked hard to make it an enjoyable day! My birthday started with our two classes of the day, which was reduced to one when our Norwegian professor forgot about our class so we left early. While we were waiting, we played hangman with Norwegian words, which was kind of hard because we had to remember how to say the letters using the Norwegian alphabet. Then began the time that was the hardest and the funnest for me, the part where everyone else made me decide EVERYTHING. Where we were going to go eat, when we were going to go eat, what bus we were going to take, what we should do after that. For those of you who try to make me make decisions, I bet you can guess that this was hard for me. It was. It including a lot of me saying "I really don't care" under my breath, being very annoyed, and just wishing everyone would help me by at least telling me if there was somewhere they DIDN'T want to go. Eventually we (whoops, I mean I) decided to go to a Chinese restaurant in town. McDonald's was another of the options, but I decided against it. While I was deciding, I walked over to the other flat, and as soon as I opened the door, I heard "Bente! AAH! Go away!" So I left, wondering what was going on in there...more on that later. The Chinese restaurant was very nice, when we walked in it wasn't very busy and it was very quiet. I was worried that the 10 of us would be too loud, but the big tables were in a separate room in the back, so it worked out all right. After we found our seats, we got to try to interpret the Norwegian menu. That was kind of interesting, and I ended up just getting something that I could tell what it was by the name in Norwegian, the Oriental Miks Pot. It was just a small pot (it was actually served in a pot) with meat, vegetables, and soy sauce. It was very similar to what you would get at a Mongolian grill, minus the noodles. Then when we got home, I was very kindly invited over to the other flat, and was surprised with a Happy Birthday sign on the wall, balloons, and cupcakes! It was a wonderful surprise, and definitely worth getting yelled at earlier.
The week after my birthday we found out that Lillehammer's professional hockey team was having a game in town, so we decided to go. I was a bit nervous that I wouldn't like it, as I've only watched hockey on TV before and didn't enjoy it. A part of me was wondering why I was paying 90 kr to go watch a sport I didn't really like, but in the end it was worth it. The website for the team said that tickets would probably sell out quickly, so we sent two of the guys ahead to reserve tickets for us and the other international students that were coming with us. Turns out, the ended up getting us great seats, right behind one of the goals. I enjoyed hockey a lot more in person, partially because I could actually see the puck most of the time, and also because the atmosphere of the crowd kind of forced you to be excited too. There were a lot of people with sticks to bang together, and little boys screaming as loud as they could! The two teams were fairly well-matched, and they were tied 1-1 at the end of the game, so we got to watch overtime as well, and Lillehammer scored again just a few minutes in. It was really exciting, and it made me realize how quickly I've come to call Lillehammer home and cheer for them to win--it was a great experience to reinforce what I had already started to recognize. Lillehammer, Norway, is a pretty cool (if slightly small and boring) place!
The next week, 8 of us from the group journeyed to Oslo and then Stockholm, Sweden together. I will post more about that, either in a few hours or tomorrow, we'll see. I'm going to wrap this post up with a few sentences I've written in my Norwegian class. This was my assignment for yesterday: write the longest sentence with as many adjectives as you can. Google Translate it if you want, it's a pretty advanced stuff (not). Enjoy!
Jeg vil kjøpe mange store, lange, brune pølser; et grønn kålhode; runde, røde tomater; og ei grønn pære i KIWI.
