Hope Nelson - Barbezieux, France

Dear members of the community,

                My name is Hope Nelson and I will be spending my junior year abroad in the little town of Barbezieux, France. Barbezieux is a classic french town with rolling hills, little farms, and even has a small castle. It is near Bordeaux and Angouleme.  I'm excited to be in a place where there are so many old french customs that I can bring back and share with you. I am most looking forward to  learning how to cook classic french cuisine and immersing myself in the language. I not only intend to embrace a new culture in France but I also would like to be an ambassador between Steamboat and Barbezieux and share customs between the two.

                I am finding as much information on exchanges so I can better acclimate myself in the new environment when I arrive . I also am reading exchange books that depict other experiences from past students point of view, these also can give me general ideas of how I can expect myself to react  emotionally, and how to maintain an open mind and perspective during my exchange. An example of some of these are; the cycle of being homesick, the change in every day activities that I wouldn't otherwise consider,and how core values between cultures may be the same but how they are interpreted or expressed may be different.

                The Rotary district orientation also really helped prepare me for what types of challenges, and triumphs I would be facing in France. They also reminded me that my exchange is a part of a bigger picture. During the months after being accepted into the exchange program, it was all about me; will I do this, will I do that, and those questions are still there, but now I better understand that the goal of this program is to build international goodwill and understanding. That is the best part of this program, because I 'm not just going overto another country to enjoy myself, I am going over to learn and to share my own knowledge so that we, the youth of the world, can have a more peaceful and understanding planet. We make the future. When life is difficult next year I know I have a bigger purpose than my own personal needs or wants, and that gives me the tools to have a wonderful, rewarding exchange.

                Thank you to Rotary for this exceptional opportunity and thank you ,the members of the community, for letting me represent you and share with the world how wonderful Steamboat is.

Hope Nelson

Anna Poirot - Påskeferie!

This month's entry is about Easter break or Påskeferie where I went to a cabin for nine days with my host family and lived without power (we just had a little solar power and a gas line), and without running water. Outhouses and crazy Norwegian mountainside in consideration--it was a very fun trip. We went hiking every day, ate lots of delicious food, found out chocolate sauce goes good on everything, played board games, and went to church on the night of the last supper. We had some exciting times "in town" in the small town of Veggli with mini golf when we needed to grocery shop, and drove through a place called "Lampeland" which translates to Lamp land. There were a lot of red lamps there. I also drank from the stream on the mountainside because the water there is so pure it is fine to just drink right from there--that was pretty cool! I went running and bathed like a viking in the river, and had pretty much an amazing time! In Norwegian Easter, you get a big egg that holds all your candy and you are supposed to eat it throughout Easter, which is like a week long for Norwegians, so that was pretty different! Not to mention that my host family is quite religious, so I really learned quite a lot that i didn't know before about the Easter holidays. I also got a lot of homework, knitting, and reading done, so that was good! Coming up, we have our Europe trip in a week, and then my family is coming to visit for almost three weeks, then it is summer, and then I am home July 13th, so time is just flying by!! We also have the 17th of May to look forward to, and unfortunately quite a lot of news about Anders Breidvik, the guy who was responsible for the Utøya tradgedy last summer. He is now in the process of going through Norwegian trial, so I am learned quite a lot about the justice system as well. Follow with the news going on in Norway--it is important stuff, seriously! Anyway, I hope everything is great in Steamboat and that the Rotary exchange student there is having as amazing time as I am!!!

Anna Poirot - Oops! Time

Alright so I missed February, and now I know why! Everyone always says that the second half of the exchange goes by SO much faster, and maybe that is because Rotary has planned like 10x
more activities for us for the second half, but I think it also h
as to do with the fact that I officially LOVE it here and don't want to leave!! And therefore time has decided to play its evil trick and make time fly. Here is a list of a few of the things I have
been up to since my last post:

• Ski trips with friends!
• Winter ski camp with the exchange students!
• Winter Break trip to Sweden!
• Hollmenkollen sightseeing!
• Sightseeing with friends!
• Seeing the Sun! (WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!)

To shorten what could be a very loooooong and tedious description of each of these activities, I

am going to make it fun and try to put up a very descriptive picture of each.

Ski trip with friends:

Winter camp with the exchange students:

Winter break trip to Sweden:

Hollmenkollen sightseeing:

Did a mention a Steamboatian won the Nordic Combined competition that day?? Couldn't be more proud :)

Sightseeing with friends:

Seeing the sun:

Lysere og lysere hver dag!

Here's a picture from Bergen at Christmastime. I am pretty sure it was the middle of the day, early afternoon--check out that darkness! Plus, check out the Smartwool socks I found in the window! Steamboat is international :)

Every week since December 21st the sky has gotten markedly lighter every day! This is great because although the darkness was durable, it sure is nice to remember what the sun looks like! Christmas in Bergen was fantastic--my host family and all of their extended family is just wonderful. I really love it! We had a wonderful day (Christmas Eve is when they celebrate here) of singing in the Church, afternoon grøt (something like grits and porrige?), and an evening meal of pinnekjøtt which is rib of lamb! It was pretty incredible--now I understand why family and good food are so important at Christmastime in Norway! It is so dark out, I think everyone is always excited for Christmas because it brings a little bit of light in even the darkest of dark days. I didn't even get the worst of the dark, either. Up in North Norway they get next to none, so I actually felt pretty lucky in that respect.

Plus, now we have SNOW! I have gone skiing twice already--once in Kongsberg (it was really pretty epic with the landscape and how truly cross-country it was) and it is so much fun :) Even if I do tend to fall quite a lot--I know I should be a pretty decent skier since I come from Steamboat but in all honesty I have always snowboarded, and had almost no recollection about how to ski! But I still love it though! New Years was pretty fun, too. My host family had a party at their house with tons of delicious desserts, and it was pretty fantastic. We only had about nine days off of school, but it felt like quite a long time because now I've only got about five or six weeks until our winter ski camp with Rotary, seven weeks until our winter break, and we take our Eurotour in April! I've been so busy with friends and family that I don't know how I am going to manage to come back to the U.S. Especially with all of the things I need to experience before I get back! I am so worried the second half of my exchange is going to fly by before I even get a chance to catch my breath!

I feel as if every step I take towards becoming fluent in Norwegian, the more homework and schoolwork I have because I understand it all now, which is good and bad. This is sort of bad because I no longer have the "I don't understand" excuse--not that my teachers ever REALLY let me use that one. This is great!! as well because it is wonderful being able to speak another language and understand what everyone around you is saying when you thought it sounded like gibberish just five months ago. I have also learned how much language says about the culture. In Norwegian, there are so many words that mean "nice," or just have euphonic sounds to them, and it really says a lot about the positivity of the Norwegian culture. Another wonderful thing about the New Year is that I can officially say I can joke in Norwegian. There are definitely still some jokes i just haven't gotten yet, but I'm to the point where I can thoroughly enjoy the language for all that it is. Plus, translations are just hilarious sometimes! Trust me!

Anyway, as I begin my second half of my exchange, I just want to state a few things:

• I really apologize if my English grammar and spelling goes completely down the tubes--except for skyping my family I speak Norwegian to everyone and have for the past three and a half months or so, but it is REALLY beginning to take it's toll on my English!
• I plan to do everything positive and possible to make the second half of my exchange full of experiences, travel, and just to take every opportunity I am giving as a challenge and succeed!
• I promise I still love Steamboat, and I won't walk around moping when I get home, but I think I will have quite a bit of hjemlengsel for Norway!!

I hope everyone in Steamboat had a great New Years, and everything in general is just going well! Wish me luck, I am presenting to my fantastic Rotary club this Monday about me, my life in Steamboat, and OUR Rotary club!

Nisser!

So just checking in from Norway! It is now Christmas time or 'Jul' which is a really big time in Norway. Every night at 6 pm everyone gets together and watches 'Blåfjell' or Blue Mountain, which is a children's TV series which involves 'Nisser' or Gnomes who live in the Blue Mountains and come out every day and mess with the locals and hang out with each other--it is pretty awesome.

We met in Oslo with all the other exchange students the other weekend and had a blast, we went to the statue park (Vigelandsparken) which was awesome, ate some rockin' sushi, went to the Opera House, the Rådhus which is sort of like the town hall, and just had a great time around the city! This trip wasn't organized through Rotary, we all just decided to meet, but it is amazing how that first Rotary Language Camp really bonded us all together :)

On another note, Thanksgiving was, as you all know, about two weeks ago, and MacKenzie (other exchange student from Washington State) and I made Thanksgiving Dinner with my host family, and served it to 25 Rotarians and host family members! It was seriously a massive meal--never made Thanksgiving Dinner before in my life but I am officially a pro--the things one learns on exchange!

Anyway, happy holidays and I hope all is well with Steamboat Rotary!! I will hopefully have some photos and stuff about Røyken Rotary for a bit of Norwegian Rotary Experience for you guys! Hade!

Accomplishments, Accomplishments, Accomplishments!

You know you have been in a foreign country for quite some time when:

• you use the word 'quite' in a sentence.
• you title a blog 'Accomplishments,' and then check the spelling over Google because you can't remember how to spell it in your native tongue.
• you approach English-speakers in a mall and when you ask where they're from in English, they reply to you that they come from AMERICA because they think you're one of the locals.
• you secretly make fun of City Names in your head like 'Skogly' because it sounds like skoooogly gooooogly.
• the world feels really big and really small at the same time.

So that was my little introduction to my next blog about my exchange in Norway. Typical exchange student-isms are so obvious sometimes--I literally see it daily between my other exchange student friends. So things are going really well over here in Norway. Of course, all days aren't easy, but I have yet to experience a day where I would really not want to do what I was doing, and being here. I really love it here for so many reasons--it isn't just my phase where I love everything about the country disregarding its faults--I just really appreciate it for what it is. Norwegians are a lot more cultural than I ever thought--some cultural differences are pretty vast. They have a lot of preconcieved notions I had no idea about in the U.S. such as they thought everyone in the U.S. just ran around suing each other for slipping on each others' floors. I thought that one was pretty hilarious--except for when it is true.

I had a WONDERFUL time at Language Camp--took amazing pictures, learned some Norwegian, and met all the other exchange students. We jumped in the fjord, climbed a HUGE mountain, and basically had the time of our lives. After that, I was in Bjerkvik with my host sister. We stayed with my host brother and his girlfriend--basically just had a week of relaxation--let me tell you, over here in Europe they really know how to relax! We got to see where Joakim worked in the military (that is my host brother), and he works with weapons and all sorts of cool things like tanks that we got to see! Then it was back to school for me--homework, tests, etc. I visited Oslo one day with a few other exchange students and decided I LOVE that city--it is SO beautiful and there is so much to do there! For someone who has never lived in the city, Olso is quite the culture shock. Also, we definitely walked by the shoestore where Snoop dogg was, just buying his shoes with tons of Norwegians surrounding the store to sneak a peak!

This week we had 'Operation Docksworth' (or however you spell that), which is also called O.D. dagen, and it is an day all Norwegian schools participate in at some point where everyone raises money for an organization. This year, we raised money for children who wanted to go to school--especially girls-- in Rwanda. We had many presentations all week, and also a rap group that came to the school that is called Gatas Parlament.

They were a little vulgar in comparison to what we are allowed to have at schools in the U.S., but they were fun! For the actual O.D. dag, MacKenzie (the other exchange student) and I baked cookies for 3 hours to sell the next day. It is compulsory to raise at least 400 kroners which is about 80 dollars, but together, Mac and I raised about 1000 kroners--almost 200 dollars! For cookies! People really like 'American cookies' sold by Americans haha. For many people, however, they told us it was their first homemade cookie they had ever had! Can you imagine a world without homemade cookies??? I can because I'm living in it!!!! This is the organization that we raised money for:

I also attended the Rotary district conference where we saw a number of interesting presentations about making Rotary more international online and also just some motivational speakers about how anything is possible--one from a guy who had lost both his legs when he was young! He was pretty amazing. I also attended a Rotary meeting last week where we had a great presentation about a Norwegian who has an organization in Sierra Leone where they give children without parents or who can't go home a home and a bed and a school to go to--sort of sounded like the organization Mary Walker is established with in Africa. I thought that was pretty cool. Especially because that is something that could really interest me in the future--how cool would it be if I could work with an organization like that and use my Norwegian occasionally! Just thought it was a good idea! Anyway, let me know what is going on with Rotary over there--I would love to hear about some of the projects you guys are working on as well! Hilsen!

Grattulerer med daggen!

Happy birthday! From all angles here in Norway :) I turned 18 on September 14th, and my host dad's brother was 50 on September 11th. The birthday t

radition is quite different over here in Norway for some things, but I am learning all about the customs and culture. As for my birthday, it couldn't have been better. I was told 'Grattulerer med daggen' or 'happy birthday' by SO many of my classmates, and I had tons of posts in tons of languages from all my friends online through emails and facebook. It was really nice to see you haven't all forgotten me, and I was expecting that no one here would have known it was my birthday--they did NOT forget! People I never even talk to said happy birthday to me from my class, so overall, it was really nice. My host family took me out to an Indian restaurant because they know i love spicy food--Norway is not a particularily spicy country as we eat mainly meat, potatoes, brocolli and cauliflaur for dinner. They then surprised me with a nifty technological gift that I have yet to discover, and my parents and family friends surprised me by sending me packages filled with gifts and goodies! Overall, it was a great birthday over here in Norge.

As for my host dad's brother, he had a party up in Averøy for

his birthday--about a ten hour drive from Nærsnes! My host dad and I did the trip together and stayed with his other brother while we ate the BEST fish soup, cake, and visited with relatives. I met many new family members and heard a TON of Norwegian for five days. Other than one American I met there, it was all Norwegian all the time, which I am used to, except for the fact that it was a different dialect! This made it exceedingly difficult to understand, but it was a great exercize for me. It really helped me with my Norwegian! Now at school bokmål doesn't seem so hard! (Bokmål is the common dialect spoken here in the Oslo area.) We also went on many hikes and saw the most BEAUTIFUL scenery as Averøy is an island in the country--most definitely. It was some of the best scenery I think I have seen in my whole life. On the drive back we went through the mountains and saw some AMAZING famous fjords. Here's a taste of Norway for ya:

Norwegian is coming, slowly but surely, and with enou

gh conviction I hope to have it pretty down by Christmas so I can understand all of the Norwegian jokes and cartoons they have arou

nd the holidays. I have eaten many interesting things since I came here--my first taste of caviar, pickled herring, moose, sheep, liver paste, and NORWEGIAN CHOCOLATE. Can you tell that that one was my favorite? Norwegian chocolate is SO good. I have to say America REALLY needs to work on their chocolate skills. Just saying. I don't know if they do, but if some of the things I say sound a bit funny, it is probably because I am doing a little bit of Norwenglish translating in my head, which is actually great! That means I'm learning--I hope!

We have our language camp in Kinsarvik next week with the other Rotary exchange students in Norway--I really can't wait for that, it is going to be a blast! We have yet to all meet together--just over the internet! The week after that is fall break and my host sister and I are going up to NuNorge to Norvik to visit Joakim, the oldest host brother and his girlfriend. I definitely understand what all exchange students kept telling me--life of an exchange student is just...busy! With all sorts of things!