Nacho, my Mexican friend.

    France, Italy, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, China, Thailand

In the last week happened very much. On Wednesday 21 September we had our first meeting with the local chapter from AFS. We were 6 exchange students with their hostparents. Every student had to have a short presentation about his home country. And almost in every presentation heard we the sentece "It is easier for me to continue in English then in Norwegian". It is not that difficult to learn Norwegian, if you speak German. The grammar and some words are very similar. But for a Chinese person it have to be very hard.
On the 22th of September began the Ankomstleir 2 (Arrival Camp 2). All people from region 1 had to drive to Mesnali, that's a village near Lillehammer. So I had to drive 5 hours by train, yeah! It's my hobby driving as long as possible with trains ;-) But it was not that boring because after the first 20 minutes came more and more people in the train. The camp was awesome. It is very interesting to hear how the other exchange students experienced the begin of their exchange year. We had all smaller or bigger problems and we tried to solve it together. We got tips like let the door open when you are in your room, because then it is not like you don't want to speak with the other people in the house. I think one of the most difficult "challenges" here is to get friends. My tip was you can be the clown of the class. Sometimes when I'm sitting by some people and they speak very serious about a topic I ask in a silent moment "What did you say?". And it is guaranteed that the people will laugh.

 My group on the active day in the school. Exercice: Make a fire as fast as possible!

    I took the photo from the front door of our house.

Exhausting

I didn't know how strong you can have aching muscles till last Friday. I was with Knut and Eirik (two guys from my class) in the fitnesscenter "Spenst". I got 5 free days for use the fitnesscenter and after that I have to decide if I want to buy a year licence. It was so exhausting, because we pushed one another up. One day later I got aching muscles and it didn't stop yet. -.-
Anyway, the weekend was very nice. On Friday was the party from Anders (friend of me). He got 18. It was funny because we were more or less the same people as on Anne Marits party.
Today I got two very nice mails. One from my grandpartents in Germany and one from my mother in Switzerland. When I read those e-mails and watch some videos on Youtube about Solothurn, then I got a little bit homesick. But I have it so good here that I never had a big crisis till now. I hope it will be left like that.
Apropos homesick: when we spoke in the Arrival Camp 1 once about problems we maybe get in the exchange year and the topic was homesick, a girl said "You have to go to the doctor for to get a medicament!"
Is homesickness an illness? ;-)

On the viewing platform in Høiås, just forest!


Iddefjord and a part of Halden


Up in the fortress


Sunnyhillway

Third weekend

Last Friday I made brownies with Maria (a friend of me) for Karolina (also a friend of me). The reason was, Karolina got 17 years. In the lunch-break we were eating the brownies :-) hmm.. very good!
On Saturday I went on a little bike tour with Thorvald (my hostfather). We were biking to a viewing platform at a place which is called "Høiås". After we enjoyed the great view, we were biking further to "Tistedal" which is a part of Halden. And from there we drove to the famous fortress "Fredriksten". I was twice before there but it is a really nice place to be. After a delicious soup were we biking home.
It is a very short story when I have to tell what I did on Sunday: "Nothing!.. Just relaxing.."
And when now somebody says: "But to relax is not nothing!" then.., THEN.. ok, I relaxed.

Kick-off 2011

Last time, I forgot something to tell you. On Monday I was with my marketing class in the neighbour city "Sarpsborg". We were visiting Kick-off 2011. This is an event on which some people have a presentation about to start a business. The whole event lasted ca. two and a half hour. The most spoken things I didn't understand but then came the last man who wanted to have a presentation. He said (in English with French accent) that he is a French business man. I thought "Yes, I can understand something!" but then he said he operate much with Norwegian people, so he can speak Norwegian. But the presentation was so funny with his French-English-Norwegian that it wasn't boring. At the end when all people clapped, the man said "Stop stop, I'm not French. I'm a normal Norwegian guy." and he began to speak normal Norwegian. He told us that he speak French, British English, Norwegian, Spanish, American English, English with Indian accent..etc. I admire such persons. We all believed that he is a French man.