Vinterferie

When I last left you, I had just gotten home from wintercamp. I am sure you all are wondering how GemGem is doing. Well, up until last night, he was doing just fine. The doctors originally told him he wouldnt be able to walk for three months. He went to a check up about a week later and was doing quite well, so the doctors told him that it would only be one month with crutches. He went back AGAIN for another check up and they added on two weeks. Then, yesterday he went in for his last check up. They took another X-Ray and decided.... that he had to go in for an emergency surgery this morning at 7:30. Hopefully everything goes well. It was so last minute that it was a little scary for his family when he called home.

So, we had week 8 off of school. It was great, because I went to wintercamp for a week (week 6), came back for a week of school (week 7) then had a week off of school again for wintervacation (week 8) then I have school again.....we are now on week 9. So, these past few ones have been a bit exsausting, yet amaizing. I was able to go out by myself for the entire afternoon and ski. Being by myself in the cold crisp wind, an just going and going with only thoughts on my mind, was pretty great. I got to the top of the mountain and was able to look out over the fjord. I stoped for a bit to eat a delicious sweet role that Laila had made. Being able to just look out and see....well....everything, was too overwhelming. I am and always have been in love with nature. By far, my favorite. I ended up going down the other side of the mountain and down towards the next town where I will be living in around three weeks. I went through the forest and the trees until I got to a lake I recognize walking around with Trude and Synnøve. I was able to get half way around it, but the side of the mountain on the one side was too steep. It was getting a little late to head around the other end, so I turned and headed for home. A couple hours later, after I had taken off my skiis and started walking home, Laila called to see how far away I was.... :) I completely lost track of time. I loved it though, so it was completely worth it. I got home around 6ish.

On Tuesday, Laila and I started to make a cookbook. We picked out different fabrics she had stored up, cut theme to the correct shapes and what not. I plan to write all of the amaizing Norwegian dishes in it, so if anyone has any good ones to share....PLEASE DO. I am supper excited to get some great ones...such as Får-i-kål. One of my favorites, Thanks you Trude. :) So, while I was cutting up the fabriks and such, Tonje and Therese came in the house for lunch. We had an amaizing tomatoe soup. As Tonje and Therse went up to Lailas office to play Sims, I got ready to go to the farm. Another day, pretty normal there...nothing toooo extremely different. Hans Petter wasnt there, so I did all of his work as well, while he was out in the forest cutting wood.

On Wednesday, Emily and Racheal came over. Laila and I picked them up in Asker. First we stoped at Kiwi på Rortunet to buy some ingredients for baking pateries. Then we went home to start the baking. They both got to meet Narve when he came home from work for his lunch, Therese when she came in to help us a little, and Helene too when she came home to pick up Therese to take her back to her place in Drammen. So, that was kinda cool, that in a total of like 15 minutes, they got to meet the whole family. :) We baked mannnnnnnnnny cupcakes, a pan of brownies, and then a huge heart shaped cake/brownies pan thingy. Laila made us supper, where we all talked about our "differnt" lives. Such as at home, getting spanked when we were little wasnt a big deal....apperiently that isnt so nice. :) Comming from a small town in Texas, Emily and I had a lot in commen. Anything from our religious belifs, political views, to school and friend experiences. Comming from a huge town on the East coast in Pennselania, Rachaels views and lifestyle was a bit different. We had a bit of fun comparing. After supper, the three of us went out to Thereses house, since she was going to sleep at Helenes that night. We watched a couple of movies, talked, and then went to bed pretty late....or should I say pretty early in the morninig. ;)

On Thursday morning I woke up and took a shower. When I got done, perfect timing, Emily came in the house. The two of us started to pack up the brownies and cupcakes together on three different sheets, and wraped them in clear wrappy stuff to make em look pretty. :) Because....the plan was to go down to Rortunet at 11ish and set our all of our baked goods with a ton of stuff that Laila donated, and have a lotery. Once Racheal got up, about two hours later, she helped to make a sign explaining what we were raising money for and who were were. After everything was all packed up and in the car, Laila drove us to Rortunet and dropped us off. Emily and I started "working the croud" right away while Racheal stayed near the money and tickets. Between the two of us we were able to bring people over, buy a ticket for 5 kroners (about 1 doller). When they buy a ticket, there is a number on it. If that number matches the number of a cake on the table, they win the cake....if not, they just lost 5 kroners. We had a ton of fun with all of the people and took quite a few pictures. As soon as Emily puts them up on facebook or something, I will transfer them over to here. I am very pleased with the profit we made. Before even selling out on everything we had the others were nagging to leave. I felt terrible, becuase I wanted to stay and make money for our EuroTour. There waas two of them, one of me.....and they offered to pay for my trip to Oslo and back home....so I went with them. :) We had a great time though. Many of the other exchange students where there to say good buy to Kate (Idaho). She is getting sent home. We had a short little going away party at the Hard Rock Cafe and tried to make it as American as possible for her to get her excited for going home.

On Firday, I slept in about an hour and then started to pack as quickly as possible because I was taking the 11:00 train to Hamar to meet Emily. It was more than a two hour ride, and I was able to read a book "The Island" that Laila had bought for me. (How cute is that? :) Once I arived we went to Emilys house which is right across the street from her school. She made me noodles for lunch, and then we hung out in her room until later than evening when her parents came home and took Camila, JB, Marie, Emily, and Me out to eat pizza. Camilla, and I just ate delicious cheesy pizza since it was Friday and we are in lent. Both Maria got a salad and Emily and JB munched away on their pepperonie. :) It was very nice of Emilys parents to take us out like that. They let us stay out after they headed home. The five of us walked around Hamar and went to differnt cofie shops. Hamar is probably one of the biggest cities I have been to that seems more like a small town life. At least what I saw of it. :)

On Saturday, Emily and I took Stanly to the post office and mailed him back to Texas. Do you remember Flat Stanley taht we all had in gradeschool?....well, her little couzin mailed Stanley to her and had her take pictures with him in differnt places. Afterwords, we were gonna meet Camilla at the Catholic church for an English mass. When we got there however, the priest recognized Camilla, and whispered to her that mass that day was going to be in Polish. :) We stayed for a bit and listened to the "weirdness" of it all. We left after a while and found Cafe Uno. It is a small Christian cafe run soley on Volunteers with a great atmosphere. There was a weird looking design on the wall, and after sittinig there for around 5 hours, I still didnt know what it was. We (JB, Camilla, Emily, and I) had been sitting there talking with the workers who randomly come over and are sooooooo nice and halarious. The finnally explained what the decoration on the wall was. Stine, a Norwegian worker there, who had a PERFECT English accent. She explaned....that it was JESUS!!!!!!!! It was really cool, and once I saw it, I couldnt stop thinking about it. Around 11ish, we left and Emily and I went to Camillas house to help her pack. She was going to be moving host familes the next day. Afterwords, Emily and I ran home....that was our excersice for the day. :)

On Sunday morning, we woke up early early, and got ready to go Snowboarding in Lillehamar! Emily, Per (her host father), and I went to her counselors house to pick up her snowboard she would be borowing. After a cup of coffie, we headed out, back home, to pick up Emilys mom, Eli, and then to pick up Camila. After our two hour drive to Lillihamar, we met Charles and his soon to be host sister and brother. We all went up and went snowboarding. Let me explain this real quick. We took the Gondulen up the mountain and then got off. Then from there we took another chair lift up, and got off. From there, we took another chair lift up. So....once we finally got to the top we could see down both sides and in every direction. Amaizingly beautiful. It took us a total of 3 hours for all of us to get down. I fell alot while going down the mountain, but only like "hurt" myslef twice. One of those two times was when I was about 2 minutes from the bottom. I went flying forward and hit my chest on the snow first and it knocked out my breath for a bit. Except that when I fell, I didnt just hit the snow....I went flying. So first I hit my chest and lost my breath, then flew sidways catching my snowboard on the snow, and hittting myself in the back with it, which then proceded to fly over my head, landing in front of me while I was on my stomach and then tweisted me over again...but sidways so I landed facing the sky. The first smack on the ground hurt the most. A Woman came over to help me and see if I was alright, which ended up drawing a crowd. I was completely fine, I just didnt want to move for a couple of seconds. I told them that, but they didnt believe me completely, so I got up, snowboarded down to the bottom the remaining 30 seconds or so....and then rested once I got there. I only wanted to just lay on the side of the mountain in the snow and rest it off, but I didnt get to do that. :) It was amsizing fun though. Emily came down next, falling in nearly in the same spot as I did. The two of us, with her parents, went to a resteraunt there on the resort and ordered some food while we wated about 30 minutes for Camilla, Charles, and Katrine to come down.
Oh, I forgot to say that on the side of the mountain there was a spot that I had fallen. Not a bad fall, just a "normal" one. Anyways, when I tried to get up, I noticed that off to the side there was a little tent giving away free hot chocolate and soup. A croud had gatheredd and many people were staring behind me a bit. I turned around and noticed......a HUGE slope. There were kids ranging from 5-18 there, going off this jump. It was, no joke here, maybe the size of one and a half of my house at home in America. It was ginormous. These kids were skiing off it, pulling off some amaizing tricks. This put the jump I went off of at wintercamp to shame. While we were all drinking our hot chocolate, two tigers walked by. hahaha. They were two adults, one from Denmark, and one from England. They were in charge of the resteraunt we ate at for supper. (Thats part of the reason we went there.) Anyway, they looked so cool in their little costumes skiing and snowboarding around, that Emily and I went and asked if we could have a picture with them. On the way home....we sang songs and quotes the whole way. :)
Okay, so Monday. Monday I went to school with Emily. She lives the closest and we were probably the last ones there. ha. We had English class first. Wow, that was quite the experience. ha. Her school is HUGELYGINORMOUSLYGIGANTICLYANORMOUS. I am glad I got to see and experience a different Norwegian school. I thought mine was differnent....wow. Since she lives right next to the school, we went home for lunch and had tocos. :D Anyway...school, school, school....and then we left about 2ish to walk to the train station. We got there 3ish...then tried to buy my train ticket back home. My debt card isnt worrking so much anymore and I dont knw fi the metal strip on it is bad or what....but I got scared because now I ha a problem...ha. I tried to go to the gas station an buy something an take out cash there (maybe it would work)...but discovered that I could just buy the ticket from the gas station...so I did that...and IT WORKED! ha. We still had like 20 minutes left beofre the train left, so we went to a bookstore/coffieshop. We stayed there and made a list of all the things we want to do in Norway before we go home. Finally, 4 o'clock rolled around, adn it was time to say goodby after a wonderfull weekend in Hamar.