It's been something like 12 days (11 and change) since my last post og (and) I apologize for that... I have definitely had time to post but not the will.
I've been in my room since the evening of the 17th and it's OK (ooh-koh) and I have been attending class since Mondag. I have 12 hours of sit down class per week and 1 hour of conversation on Fridays - not happening this week because we don't have enough words yet.
Hei. Jeg heter Seth, og jeg kommer fra Boston.
Hva heter du? Hvor kommer du far?
One very nice thing about norsk - no conjugation. Tenses yes. Conjugation no.
Jeg HETER Seth.
Hva HETER du?
Han HETER Kyung-Te. Hun HETER Antonia. Det HETER...
Vi HETER... Dere HETER... De HETER...
Get it?
I don't have to learn a bunch of different verb forms for different peoples/pronouns/pronomen.
MY ROOMMATES
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- Julia (don't pronounce the "J") kommer fra Tyskland (I haven't yet sussed out how that means Germany) og (don't pronounce the "g") will be freeze-drying food og learning norsk. She drinks only carbonated water and brought her own carbonater men (but) needs a new gas cartridge.
- Salah kommer fra Bangladesh. He's about 30 and will be studying... I forget. We don't talk about school. Bangladeshi often eat with their hands. He tries not to eat with his hands in front of others but I saw him and it looked like great fun and we are going to try together.
- Jean-Julian kommer fra Frankrike. He's studying architecture. Will be going to Kina (China) for a month with class and has been in the flat only about two hours in the last week.
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On Sunday I went blueberry picking with a Wolfram (Tyskland/Germany M), Jude (Nord-England/Northern England M), Im (Sør Korea/South Korea F), and Stella (Hellas/Greece F). Im and Stella are former kjellerfolk (cellar people). Tuesday night I went fishing with Mathis and Marc (Tyskland M) and together we caught 10 herring in a few hours - or more than few - didn't feel sporting to use lures og no bait at all.
Wolfram and Jude bor sammen. They live together in the flat just below mine. While I was fishing they followed through on the plan to make Jam from our blueberries.
Last night I grilled four herring with garlic stuffed in their bellies.
My small end table is covered in ripening green plums from a tree not far from here.
For a while I was eating the rose hips that grow everywhere while I walked from place to place - there's not much too them but if you carefully eat just the outside layer they are pretty tasty.
No dumpstering yet - life has been exhausting.
Bleh. This whole blog was supposed to be in list form so I didn't have to type so much... but... food is expensive but food can be quite cheap. Yesterday I biked down (I live near the top of a ridiculous hill system) to a new supermarket (new for me) to take advantage of a one-day 40% off deal on frukt og grønt (fruits and vegetables).
I know that my first picture should be some sort of glorious mountain-to-fjord hiking trip panorama - but it isn't. Here is my receipt from yesterday.
Let me indulge in some math. Here's how we convert units. And figure out just how cheap some things are.
Let's pick two items. The clementines and the carrots (gulrot).
The 40% was taken off at the end so I will do the same.
I don't think I have ever bought clementines by the pound but $1.19 seems pretty damn good for - even the $2.00 that it would have cost before the -40% seems pretty sweet. Same with carrots. I forgot to think about the Kg/lbs relationship until yesterday. Am I right? Even without the 40% off that's pretty sweet compared to American produce prices.
Quickly some of the other vegetables. At full and discounted prices...
Hodekal (cabbage) $1.26-0.75/lb
Tomater (pretty nice ones) $3.17-1.90/lb
Bananer $1.42-0.85/lb
Ferkspotet (fresh taters) $1.18-0.71/lb
And the Kroner has actually gone down in the last few weeks (I enter the country and the currency drops... coincidence?) so these are actually slightly inflated. I actually just made myself curious about NOK/USD activity around my arrival...
Next time I go to the market I will bring my calculator and maybe I can actually afford the brussel sprouts I've been wanting. I can eat them with hvitøk while watching Headbanger's Ball on the TV I pulled from the trash.
There was a lot of other stuff I wanted to say but thus has taken a long time now.
Ask me questions if you like. I think I am going to drop some Duckets, nei, Kroner on some new gearing for my bike today and a few tools so I can try to do the work myself. Also I need to figure out a phone sooner rather than later. Until then you can AIM or SKYPE me if I am near my computer. And if you ask for my address you can mail me something.
I'm off to argue about having to pay ridiculous fees just to give money back to the organization that is already holding all of my money. It would go something like this - pay SiT (studenter i trondheim) 100NOK for them to write me a check from my money that is sitting in their SiT general account - then pay a fee at the bank to cash the check at a bank and pay another 65NOK at the bank or post office to pay the bill for the security deposit for my SiT owned/managed room. They want a relatively small amount money from me to make sure I won't trash their room but they already have control of ALL of my money. Not likely.
I guess you deserve a nice picture now. Or two. Or some nice ones and some not so nice ones and some others.
Here's my beard and facial expression while hiking.
Same hiking trip. WE ARE LEGION!
Hmm...
Det er my moustache in front of a statue of the last king.
I need a better shot of it - my moustache and not the king statue.
Cuz it looks funnier than this.
Og de er some nature something-or-others.
Ha det bra! "Have it well." = GOODBYE
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