Christmas :)

Today is a great day. There's a severe "snow storm" coming up, which means we get a day off school! (A so called snow day). The ridiculous part is that the snow storm only brings like 30 cm of snow, which we get like once a week in Norway, but since they have school buses here, and the right to sue for anything, the bus drivers won't drive with snow. Even more comical is the fact that it's almost one pm, and no snow yet. So, we could've gone to school and probably gotten out fine before the snow even came!

Anyways, this morning I woke up, turned on the tv, saw that school was canceled and went back to bed. I've spent my day well; cleaned my room (man, that was necessary), prepared the garden furniture for the storm and watched tv!

Lately I've been working out a lot for track; I lifted weights four times this week, and I've been home after five every day. It's a little exhausting, but the team looks both good and is cool, so its fine. We even have the hardest practice of the year on christmas day, on the steepest hill of the town! (And just to complain some more; we even have school on the 23rd!)

I sent some stuff to Norway for christmas yesterday too, but I'm afraid it might not even arrive till New Year, unfortunately.. I hope you all have a great christmas anyways!

When it comes to my favorite town in the world, New York, I'm not allowed to go there on my own anymore, since some other students used the argument "but Laurens (aka: some other kids) went on his/their own" when they were told no. And then their parents complained to YFU northeast, and yfu northeast freaked out and my host mom figured it wasn't too clever to let me go anymore :(

Other interesting news is that Trym moved down to Connecticut, Kathy Ulm (director of YFU Northeast) accused me for being a troublemaker, my grades are still decent and yeah, that's all haha.

Oh, and our christmas tree is fake, and it's got more than a thousand lights and probably more than a hundred balls, and it's awesome! I helped decorate it myself. Also, we put lights on the sculptures of the musicians next to the tv, and then we put blinking bulbs in them so now they're being quite distracting whenever we watch tv :)

So, I whish you all a very merry christmas, and a happy new year!
thanks to everyone who sent cards! Even if you haven't heard anything yet, you're not forgotten :)

Thanksgiving, crazy christmas lights, black friday and New York (?!)

Soo, firstly and most importantly i had five days off school last week. It was awesome, I deserved it and I took a breath and relaxed for once.

Last week we had school only on Monday and Tuesday, and I had no homework (for the first time in TWO weeks i got some today). Other than that, I got my grades last week. They were ridiculous, and rather interesting.

Indoor Track has started, so now I'll no longer be home early from school.. I dont know yet what event I'm doing, but I might ask for something between 600 meters and a mile. Running today was pain after weeeks of laziness.

The main event however was thanksgiving! A lot of family came to our house, we had a load of good food and a good time! (Also, school gave us five days off for it). My favorite food was the stuffing you have in the turkey (that we didnt put inside of it, but made separately because there's some health issues with putting it in the turkey). The turkey was really good too. And we had mashed potatoes, various vegetable dishes and pies. I contributed by peeling roughly 30 potatoes that morning. Since the dinner was over and stuff cleaned up by 6, I hung out with some friends in the evening too.

The day after thanksgiving is the day the Christmas shopping starts. The day might be called Black Friday for several reasons, one Nick told me was that the store's balances finally go from red to black. Another one might be all the stress and hassle. My theory is that people call the day black because every year someone dies fighting for the "early bird" specials. They are basically unreasonably big discounts on cool stuff to attract people to the stores, which is effective since people line up from 12 at night the day before.

I did not go shopping on black Friday since I only had twenty some dollars (INCLUDING my bank account) and thought I'd save them for my New York trip.

On Friday evening I went to Hartford with Nick and his parents and watched some pretty neat christmas lights across town. On our way home we drove past "the house on windmill hill". It blew the lights in Hartford away, and since I dont feel like I could describe it that well, here's a youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVwtaZsrCDA

On Saturday I helped put up our christmas lights, and went to a bonfire with Nick.

Sunday was the day of my third NY trip! It was raining all day, but I did some good shopping, bought some records and ended up with the neat amount of 12 cents in my wallet. The goal for december is a budget surplus, which I'm pretty confident will work out, seeing I can't go LOWER than 0 in my bank account/wallet. Other than that, if possible, I'll buy myself a snowboard sometime soon.

The records I bought were awesome:
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Kings Of Leon- Only By The Night
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic

(No pictures this time, my camera is suffering from severe angst of leaving its drawer in my desk.. )

Other than that christmas presents should be on their way pretty soon.
Happy Birthday til Tine og Vilde! <3

Og tusen takk for julekalenderen mamma! Var noe rart med å stå opp første desember uten en, har nok aldri skjedd før :) Men så kom den i posten på ettermiddagen :D

I'll always love you though New York.

I havent been too busy lately, but I've still managed to severely neglect my blog.
The, without doubt, most eventful thing I've done is going to New York, twice.

The first time I went with Nick and Chris, we took the train in there. Chris "scored some digits" from a fifty five year old woman (he got her phone number), and I spoke to someone else's grandmother for an hour.

When we arrived in NY, the plan was to go to the Musem Of Modern Arts (MOMA), but when we got there we discovered that it was closed. So we looked in their designer store instead and it was pretty cool. Afterwards we took the subway down to Union Square, and walked through several districts down towards wall street, looking through tons of stores as we went. They contained everything from really, really metrosexual clothes to vintage 400 $ sweaters. Then we crossed the Brooklyn Brigde.















Manhattan skyline!














Chris and I eating in Grand Central Station



















Nick and I on the Brooklyn Bridge

We also walked through Chinatown where a chinaman kept passing us mumbling: "fake id, fake id, DRIVERS LICENCE!". It was a great day!

The second time I went Trym from Norway (currently Vermont) came down to Rocky Hill for a visit, and since Rocky Hill is a boring place when you dont have a car, i decided to take him to NY since I now was an expert on the city (ha ha ha...).

We took the bus really early from close to where I live, and I slept there for three hours. We came out of the bus on Times Square and since we were both semi-starving, we ate a burger. Then we looked through all the very expensive brand-stores, and made the mistake to enter the Virgin Megastore. I think I could have spent my entire day there, and wasted all the little money I have left on their CD's and LP's. Fortunately I managed to control myself and ended up buying only "The Decline of British Sea Power", by British Sea Power.

From there we followed Broadway all the way down to the end of Manhattan (we must have been really close to Ground Zero at some point, but we didnt feel like looking for it). We went through a couple more interesting stores. One of them was REALLY cheap and they sold like leftovers from other stores and all the people in there were big, black, sweaty women looking for clothes for their children and sweating heavily. I bought myself socks and sweatpants for fat people.

We went into many, many stores, especially in the soho/noho district. I must admit that NY is a better place for shopping than the local malls are.

On our way back to the bus we went to times square at night (the lights are pretty cool):

































Me @ Times Square




















Trym @ Times Square

On the second trip i bought the I <3 NY t-shirt, and they're really cheap. Only 3 dollars each. So anyone back home who wants one, put up an order in the comments haha. I'm probably going back (with YFU) the first weekend in December.

This last week i havent been doing too much. Just hung about, done some hw and postponed starting my next running season. Yesterday I went to New Haven with Angela, Chris, Lauren and Nick. We went to Urban and they had a good sale so i bought clothes for 50 $ that were 350 $ before. Yay!

Some other important things:
The Norwegian Crown has lost 1/3 of its value compared to the dollar, which STINKS. I thought the financial crisis wouldnt affect me. Now everything is exactly as expensive as in Norway.
I bought myself tickets to Ryan Adams & The Cardinals one week before my birthday. Second row in what looks like an amazing venue! OHYEAH :D

Elections! And Halloween, Spirit Week, Homecoming, Hiking and more!

Today is election day! And I'm so excited :)
Everyone is really wound up (and most people I speak to are very pro-Obama, except my family).
The results are just ticking in, and I'm way too interested in all the statistics! (At this very moment Obama is WAY ahead when it comes to votes, but McCain happens to be in the lead in more states).

Anyway, the past few weeks the crosscountry season ended with an okay last race in which I didn't really do very well, nor really bad. It was just a bit meh.
I've been home early from school and had the time to finish my homework before dinner so I could do useful things in the evening like watching tv or drive around with mom looking for clothes I could buy and then bring back to the store (clever, huh?).

The driving around wasn't really THAT pointless, to be honest! I did buy clothes for homecoming dance, and for halloween. But I'll have to bring the first shirt I bought back because it was way too small.

Anyway, "many" weeks ago I went hiking with my friends Nick, Lauren and Angela. It was a great trip, and we got to see some great fall foliage. Also, it was the most elevated peak in the state.. Here's a picture (Me, Lauren, Angela and Nick) :













The week after this (aka 2 weeks ago), we had spirit week in school. This was basically a week where we were supposed to dress up in different outfits every day. Monday was the best: pajama day! On Tuesday we had retro day (which I didnt do), Wednesday was class color day (which I only did a little) and then on Thursday we had school color day (and I painted my face white and dyed my hair blue). Thursday was a short day in school too because we had a ''Pep-Rally'' afterwards. The basics of a peprally are: All the classes go on different bleachers, and then they try to make as much noise as possible. They also had a tug of war and a dodgeball game :) It was a lot of fun! I borrowed a broken pan from a friend, and it was really a contribution to many peoples ringing ears.

On Friday we had a day off school, on which I should've done my homework and gone to a team dinner. Instead I slep, went out with Nick and watched a volleyball game. Afterwards I saw parts of the Football game at our school and WASTED 8 dollars on what was the worst excuse for a dance I've ever seen (aka Homecoming). Most people didn't even go, and those that went left after ten minutes..

On Saturday was the State meet for crosscountry, and I finished like 96th for the small schools. Which is not all that impressive at all, but I'm glad it's over. Afterward I went to another homecoming dance in Windham. It was a lot better!
The picture is not too good of me (I think I might have been talking?), but it's the only one I have where I'm not dancing, and the dancing isn't really that family friendly :). From left to right: Katie, me and my date Anni (wonder where she went after the first 30 minutes?)



















Last week wasnt all that exciting before Friday, but then Halloween hit with its full force like it only does in America! I dressed up as the joker and carved a disgusting pumpkin! Most people (and some teachers) wore costumes for school, which was great. In the evening I went to a haunted house with Nick, Molly, Chris and Sarah. It was in a church and really cool; they decorated the entire thing inside and had zombies walking around, and then we were supposed to run around and avoid them, just like a game of tag. I also went trick or treating for like ten minutes.
(Me with Mom's and my pumpkin, and me with my joker as the nurse costume)


























On Saturday I went apple picking with Nick, ate at his house and saw two movies. Before the last one Angela, Liz, Molly and Taylor came over and we went for a walk too.
On Sunday I went to the church for the first time in a while, I found mom's bluetooth in the car (saved her 100 bucks right there!) and the day was basically not too eventful :)

Yesterday was not too exciting either, but I was supposed to go the club with some people before our ride ditched us!
Today I finally saw Hartford, and realized it's not a very interesting city. I also went to Nick's moms Deli, a rosegarden and we went speed shopping in the mall.

And now I have a lot of homework to do!
Obama is doing okay too; his percentage of total voters is going down, but he has won some more states now. Going to be exciting!

(Ps. Gratulerer Tveita og Pillan!)

Niagara Falls!

Ive done a lot of fun stuff the past weeks, and of course the major highlight was last weekend on the Niagara Falls Trip.

Before that however, I got my progress report from school (which was okay), I went to a YFU post arrival orientation (and made a fool out of myself by asking too much about whether I could date 15 year olds or not after turning 18) and I went to another fair with more people from school (Danielle & Dominique).

So, the really interesting stories are from last weekend.
It all begun on friday morning when Rick dropped Tim an I off at Sears in west Hartford at 9 30 in the morning. There I met Tim Dawson, Daniel, Theo, Greg, Marie, Daniel, Anni and several other kids I knew from the area again. Immediately upon entering the bus we were welcomed by 20 kids from the southern part of Connecticut and New York. After stopping in several other towns there were NO free seats by the time we came to Albany in New York state. I slept for an hour or so, and socialized a little the rest of the trip. Sometime around seven in the evening we arrived in Buffalo, got a local host family (ca. 30 kids per house) and had a huge party!














(Patricia, Greg, Lisseth, Daniel and me)

The next day we went to a native american museum thing and a couple of American battleships and a submarine. There we had a tour and basically got to know people better :)















Afterwards, we went to see the Niagara falls at night:















I also figured out that the best way to sleep on the bus is to sit next to someone you can lean on:















The next day we went to see the falls during the day, and we went on the famous boats and a trail under the falls where the water actually hit us (no pictures of the latter until Mike uploads his pictures on facebook):















(Daniel, Me, Milan, Kosta, Carla, Mike, Hugo (?), Jessi, Svenja and Ida from right to left)















That evening we just hung around in the street where all the host families lived. The guys played some football first, and then some soccer. After a while the girls wanted to play too, so we made new teams: boys against gays and girls. (Yeah, I did initiate the gay thing..) Unfortunately, this wasn't very succesful because most of the guys decided the GG team was the best and most interesting to play on (GROUPHUGS!).

After that we basically just hung around; sang some singstar, played some basketball, had a campfire going and talked. The next day we all slept alot on the bus :)

It was a GREAT weekend, thank you to everyone I met for making it special!

And then a less good experience; I had a crosscountry meet yesterday, and I did REALLY bad. Afterwards I broke my ipod by dropping it on the floor, and I forgot my wallet on the bus home. People say bad things never come alone :)

This weekend I'm going hiking with Nick, Chris, Angela and Lauren I believe. I might go to a halloween party too, but thats a bit far away so I'm not sure.

See you later!

Yeah, I'm slow.

So, another long time has passed, and it feels like it hasn't been that long at all.
Days here literally fly by. I'll try to make a quick schedule for what I do during a day:
06 00: Get out of bed, eat, run to the bus.
07 15: school starts after me spending like 20 minutes hanging around doing nothing because the bus is so early.
14 10: school ends, and 20 minutes later crosscountry starts.
17 20: Back home: take a shower and relax for approximately 15 minutes before dinner.
19 00: Usually done with dinner, time to so homework. Usually takes at least 2 hours.
21/22 00: go to bed.

Anyways, I've done MANY interesting things since last time, and I'm not even going to mention all of them.

The best part of the weekend almost two weeks ago was Julia's birthday party in Willimantic. That's pretty far away, so I had to sleep over at my Area Reps house. Her host daughter, Anni, is also the one who introduced me to those friends. Here's a picture that describes the night:















After that, I went to the Big E with several other exchange students. It was awesome too. The big e is a so called fair. It's basically a tivoli combined with farmers products and small shops were people sell stuff they've made. The big e was, as the name implies HUGE! I probably saw like half of it in an entire day.

Last week nothing much happened. We had a crosscountry meet against St Paul. They were not very good so we placed out five best guys in front of their first.

Last weekend Tim and I hung out with Nick from church and his friends Angela, Molly and Lauren. We watched a movie, and after five minutes we switched to a tv show, and five minutes later we turned the thing of and talked instead. On Saturday Tim was sick, so I went out with Nick and Chris (also from church) We went to Middletown and saw a small concert in a coffee shop. Afterwards me met Molly and Angela and walked around in Wethersfield.

On sunday I went to another fair with Manuela, Joanna, Emily, Megan and some cousins of Manuela. The fair was a lot smaller, but I still enjoyed it! We saw lamas, sheep and 1000 pound pumpkins and a very funny tiny animal. It was like a mouse in size, but could kinda fly and climbed very well on people.

Yesterday our team was defeated in the conference for the first time this year, but I don't feel guilty. I did my VERY best. Rahm, the other team, were just too good. I'm still really soar today, but fortunately all the pains and injuries I had before are slowaly disappearing.

Now I'm going to watch the vice presidental debate and do some homework; always on the move :)

(And yeah, I actually appreciate comments.. so LEAVE one =D)

update.

it's been a while now, longer than planned.
I've had loads of homework lately, but today I have less!

Since last time, not much has happened. Things are getting into a daily routine. Getting up at 6 every morning, hurrying to get to school. Then I'm not too good at staying awake in my first classes.. The two first ones, english and us history are pretty boring sometimes. My calculus teacher loves me, and I've been doing pretty well on tests so far. I don't have any problems following my classes so far.

After that, the science classes are more interesting, and I finish off with lunch before photography. Lunch here is brilliant, with really good schoolmeals. I always promise myself not to buy, and so I bring my own lunch. But I always eat it in some class before I get to the cafeteria. Since I'm a senior, I'm allowed to sit outside, which is great! Lately I've been sitting with the ''cool kids'', and they're a lot of fun :)

As for Cross Country, we've had two meets now. Both of which I did okay in, but nothing special. The first one was just like a test, and I finished 32/69 with a time of 19:47. The second one was a lot more important, and against two other schools. Unfortunately, I failed at my task of coming in before their 5th guy. But we still won! My coach realized that the mileage we've had the last few weeks is a little much for an untrained guy like me, so he promised me to let me recover from my numerous injuries this week (painful knee, hip and shinsplints (beinhinnebetennelse)).

Other than that, I've experienced how strict teachers here are today. First I was told by a teacher to put my iPod EARBUDS away, if not she'd take them. After that, I was in the chemistry lab, and was told to pull my pants up because the teacher saw a glimpse of my underwear (clever as I was, I didn't say that it was the closest she'd ever get to a fit male individual again without paying).

This weekend we're probably going to a big fair (tivoli) with some other exchange students, I think that'll be fun. I've also cut my hair shorter than I've ever had it before, and it's SO nice! I love not having all that hair in my face..

Pizza in Willimantic, Gospel and First days of school!

Last friday Tim and I went over to Anni in Willimantic, and a pizza-party-thing at another exchange students place. They had invited loads of people, and amongst them where a couple of seniors at Windham highschool. They were really nice and we basically spent the night chatting and grilling marshmellows.

On Sunday, Anni came with us to a Gospel church in Middletown. It was an interesting experience, and a very different church than the other one I went to. They had dancers, ''clowns'' and the type of pastor you see on tv; singing his own things while there is a choir of 40 women behind him.

In the evening we went to the boat and met Skip and Lydia, old friends of Rick. They have a sailboat and have spent the past couple of years sailing up and down the American coast. Joe from Ricks band, his wife, Anni, and her hostmother Annette were there too. We went down the Connecticut river and swam in the Atlantic. Also, Skip and Lydia want me to join them on the boat for a 5-day passage from New York and south to Charleston. It sounds very interesting, but I'll have to talk to the counselor at school first!

On Tuesday school started. It was probably the most interesting day so far, and I had some troubles with finding classrooms. But people were really nice, especially those who understood I was an exchange student. I was unable to open my locker though, and asked random people for help! I was really lost at lunch, however. It's just like in the movies. You just stand there with a tray, and you have NO clue about where you're supposed to sit. Fortunately, Evan from the Crosscountry team saved me!

The next day, everything was a lot easier, but I realized that my English class was too hard, and that the teacher was a little bit too generous when it came to homework.. So, I switched into aneasier class and ended up in a class that is way worse! The teacher is the most monotonous and repetetive thing I've ever experienced.. It's definetely not a good sign to fall asleep in your first class..

Anyway, my math teacher is possibly one of the best teachers I've ever had! He's really good at explaining and a load of fun too! My teacher in physics is also really nice, and he's a co-trainer on the crosscountry team, so I know him from before. My US History teacher is also really nice, and he spent half of his class today interviewing Tim and I about what Europeans think about the US, and what the differences between our countries are. My chemistry and photography teachers are nice people too, and I'm looking forward to get started properly in those classes.

It's funny how many people know who I am now, and how few of them I recognize myself! It's also interesting how shocked a couple of people from my first day lunch table where when I didn't wait for them to show up and sat with some other people instead. I am very glad that I joined the crosscountry team though, because both the students there and the teachers have been helping me out a lot! The team spirit is great, and it's good exercice.

But now I'll have to wrap it up; homework is waiting! Last night I had four hours... Good old Norway with it's fourtyfive minutes :)

Sport, Schedule & John Mayer

It's been another week, and it's time for another update. But since time flies so fast I'm no longer able to write things in chronologically.. The ''big'' things I've done the past week is attending a John Mayer concert with Nicole & her friends, tried out a few sports, ruined my body trying to keep up with Tim's training schedule and set up my schedule for school. I've also been shopping a few times and we went to Six Flags (a big attraction park-thing).

The John Mayer concert was great, and a lot more of a rock-artist than I thought he was after listening to Continuum (his last album). There were also loads and loads of stoned and drunk people around..

When it comes to sports, Tim and I went to the first soccer practice. The conditioning part was nice and though, and we didn't lag too much behind either. But then they brought out the balls.. And I hadn't been playing with a ball for like, two years. So it didn't work out very well. And then we didn't have shinguards either, so we were told to run around the field for two hours. And then we quit.

Yesterday, we tried the Crosscountry team, and the coach is really nice! Also, the team seems great, and one of the girls had a poolparty which Tim and I attended. We ran like 5 miles and I didn't do too bad! Today there's a five km run for time, which I'm not looking too much forward to.

On Tuesday Tim and I went to Six Flags with an Estonian exchange student and her host-sister and loads of her host-sisters friends. The park is huge, and we didn't even do half the rides! But Batman and Mind Eraser were great. I missed out on The Superman because I'm too tall.. Which almost made me physically abuse the guards there, because I was really ON the limit, and the heels of my shoes were like 3 cm..

As for my school schedule I've chosen:
Honors Chemistry
Physics
Calculus
Academic US History
Academic English
and Photography or Digital Design, depending on how the counselor can make it work better.

Yeah.. so that's basically my last week! I'm looking very much forward to school on Tuesday, so I can make some more friends and meet people. Later tonight there's an YFU pizza-thing going on somewhere north of here. I think Tim and I have to sleep over someplace there.. And miss out on a crosscuontry training! (and that's usually VERY bad)

Maine, Lobsters, Tim & Tim

It's been a long time since I wrote now, and I've probably forgotten some of the things I've done, but I'll try to come up with the most important and memorable things :)

We didn't go to the waterpark even though we went through a massive hassle to get some waivers signed. Instead we went to a family-friend of Nicole and their pool. I also watched a LOAD of olympics, went with mom to her toastmasters club, met a few other exchange students and waited patiently for my ATM to arrive.

On Friday morning mom and I picked up Tim (Timothy Dawson, and Australian exchange student) from where he lives, and drove to Maine and a place called Ogonquit. Rick followed on Saturday because he had so much work to do after a storm (he works with security systems that get problems when hit by lightening).

Anyway, Tim and I went to the beach while mom relaxed with a book. We also bought ourselves some Maine t-shirts. We set of the fire-alarm cooking burgers and watched Nastia Liukin win the allround gymnastics gold.

The following day Tim and I went to York (a small tourist town next to Ogonquit), and we went through the arcade, but instead of playing on the machines, we just exchanged bills for quarters trying to collect all the 50 state-quarters. We also went to a couple of stores and asked politely if we could look through their change, and I found myself an awesome shirt of the Joker (which mom said was ONLY appropriate for in the house, inside-out..). In the evening we ate lobster (which was really good!).

On Sunday we went to the beach again, this time to try to use a so called "body-board" in the waves, but because of the significant decrease in wavesize since the days before, we failed. On Monday the waves were bigger so the board worked great!

On Sunday we also visited Kennebunkport further north and saw George Bush's summerplace! In the evening Tim and I had a walk around Ogonquit at night, spotting several nice girls and some gay couples.

After getting home again on Monday evening (and picking up Missy from Mike, and leaving Lucy :(..), Tuesday was pretty much back to normal. Watching tv parts of the day, msn-ing with people back home and eating. I did do one thing out of the ordinary though; I decided to have a look around Rocky Hill by bike! So I pumped up the tires and left the only safe place I knew.

Shockingly enough, I managed to loose my way! After several round-trips and seeing the same streets over again, I finally found something familiar.. Dunkin' Donuts! But as I was really looking for the gym on the other side of Rocky Hill, I had to start over again. But I did find it, and I found out it was too expensive compared to how much I'd want to use it. The good thing is that now I know my way around the place better than I'd ever get to know it by car! Also, my wallet arrived :D

On Wednesday the carpet cleaner came, mom picked up my LA-resident-sister, Erin, from the airport and I went to Nicole to play Wii and to "Ritas" to eat icecream :) Then mom and Erin picked me up and we went to grandmother to eat more icecream and play a nice game called Sequence. In the evening we picked up Tim (Timi, with an American touch to his name), and we sat up half the night talking about school subjects and random things.

Today we've been to the school for an orientation and to make our schedules. We missed out on the orientation because we had to get cleared by the nurse first, and we didn't get to put up our schedules because the school had a new computer-system which they had to learn first. But we spoke to the counselor and he went far in promising we could both be seniors! (Btw, my name is from now on Lawrence B, all other varieties are WAY to hard to pronounce or understand for Americans)

After that we went to the supermarket, and Tim had to get himself all kinds of protein, vitamin and other bodybuilder-like foods! I had noticed his decent biceps before, but I was surprised to find out he actually exercises very seriously! Later we went to grandmother to play more games and meet all the other grandchildren (most for Tim, because I'd already seen them all). Now I'm trying to heal after joining one of Tim's hardcore exercises, and even without much weight-training I'm totally wasted :)

That's more than enough for now. Peace!

Grey, Reese, Lucy, Missy and The Bird

Missy, is an old dog, and she's kindof small.

Lucy, The Big Dog. Is very attention seeking :)



The Bird, some sort of parrott. It's really noisy from time to time, and could probably need some more attention.

Grey, the big cat. He's so bossy that he drove Gizmo (another cat) away. He's really fluffy and cute though. And he doesn't have a tail. Grey can threaten Missy and make her fleed.


Reese is Grey's sister, and she's very shy. Like Grey she has no tail, and loads of hair!


Another one of Reese.


I couldn't find Sarah, but she's another cat. And really skinny.

(Oh yeah, and according to one of the neighbours here, the HUGE poop on the pavement underneath the tree where Fox Hill Drive crosses France belongs to a BEAR! I might take a picture of it. Anyway; there was a bear warning on the news, and a bear was spotted digging up a bee nest/colony thing in someones yard last winter. And I thought I could walk outside safely at night...)

Some Pictures

Mom, Rick and me in Greenport, Long Island, where we went with the boat the first weekend.
















An interesting indoor carousel in Greenport, photo taken at night after seeing Batman















This is the view from my room, and as you can see there is some forest.. But there ARE actually houses there!















This is the living room with the big tv where I've been killing some time lately..
















The kitchen with the table and the door to the balcony.















My room, seen from my bed.


I'll take some more pictures of the animals later :)

Arrival & First Week

It already feels like I've been gone for a loong time, but it's really just a week.
Anyways, I'm now settled here. I picked the room with the tv and an extra bed instead of the one with the double.

So, I got here on wednesday evening at 10:30, which doesn't sound bad. But I didn't sleep much on the plane(s), or at home the night before I left. What I'm trying to say is that is was REALLY tired when I arrived!

Thursday through Saturday we went to Gracenote (the Greens boat) with a Danish friend of them named Klaus. It's located a few miles up the Connecticut river, and we took it down the river and to Greenport on Long Island. It's a nice little town and we watched Batman in the movie theatre, shopped a little (I bought five rubber ducks.. among them a really badass ninja) and ate at Claudios, the oldest family run restaurant in the US. Initially the plan was to visit Block Island as well, but because of a bad weather forecast (thunder) we didn't and went home instead.

On Sunday I went with mom to church, visited her mother, we interviewed a potential host family and we met my area rep, Anette, and her Finnish host daughter, Anni, at the mall. It was a nice day, with many new people and loads of names to forget :)

Yesterday was like my first day home alone, and I spent it struggling with the animals and watching tv. Then, at four o clock, Nicole and her friend from Arizona, Beth picked me up. They showed me Rocky Hill by car, and I was supposed to pick up a prepaid simcard at AT&T, but they had a 20 minute line, so we bought some food at this really interesting supermarket instead. It contained loads of moving animals in a western theme. We played some Wii, I was a witness to proper high-school-girl drama and we met Alicia for an hour and bought some ice cream.

And for today; I'm going to some waterpark thing which seems like great fun. So I'll write more later, but now I have to go!

Rocky Hill & the Greens

Since it's the first day, I'll allow myself to post twice in a day, but don't get used to it!

Anyway, the place I'm going to is called Rocky Hill, and is located a little south of Hartford in the middle of Connecticut, a relatively small state in the northeast of the US. From 2. September, I'm attending Rocky Hill High School, which has about 700/800 students, if I got everything right. I'll try to do some sports and make new friends daily!

As for the Greens, they're going to be my family :)
Nancy and Rick, a couple who take in an (or two) exchange students every year. I've had quite a lot of e-mail contact with them, and they seem great! (which is what everyone else tells me about them as well).

There are dogs, cats, two big green (of course) SUV's and a 40-foot boat, local girls already offering me a guided tour around the place and a Finnish co-exchange-student named Timi!

Basically interesting and fantastic! Can't wait to leave now! Only 30 hours and 30 minutes till the plane takes off!

Getting Ready to Leave

The entire idea of this blog is to keep all of you worried people in Norway and Holland updated on how I'm doing, and my goal is to post something weekly.. Good luck to me!

So, in like 28 hours and 40 minutes I'll leave my home for the last time in a year, and in 30 hours I'll say goodbye to the last people I know now, and in 31 hours and 35 minutes my plane will take off and there will be no turning back.

Am I ready?
Well... not exactly.
I've yet to pack my bags, I've got no idea which clothes to bring, and I've completely forgotten about getting some dollars or traveler checks.. (which will leave me in deep shit if my Visa Electron takes a break). But I have made the biggest decision and sorted out which cd's to bring, and I've prepared my rooms for new inhabitants (who areFilip (little brother) @ my fathers, and Robin (dutch exchange student) @ my mothers)

Other than being careless with packing, I'm mentally well prepared (I think), and looking forward to it(I know)!