Nyttårfest på Frilligsentralen

During this first week back in Norway I found my way back into my daily routine quite soon. On Monday I supported Astrid in the office, on Tuesday I was helping in the canteen as usual (which has a new chef - Anne Karin - she is Barbara’s mentor and quite nice, nevertheless it was sad to say goodbye to Hege, even if she still works in the school), but the German class afterwards did not take place, so I could just take the rest of the day off.  On Wednesday I started with the knitting group, which is growing bigger and bigger every time, and went to Open skule afterwards. There we prepared ‘kjøttkaker med poteter’ – meat balls with potatoes – and didn’t peel the potatoes at all because of a lack of time. I was a bit surprised because I thought it is not that healthy to eat the peel and I am used to removing it, but apparently for Norwegians it is quite normal. Time is better used somewhere else, probably in the mountains… ;)

On Thursday I continued with the Norwegian class – unfortunately – which was worse than ever. We went through the first chapters we already worked on and got the same work sheets as in September… I really got disappointed. I thought they were about to change something in 2017 and so was Astrid, who is meanwhile as desperate as we are. First problem is that our current class won’t change, no matter how often we or Astrid talk to the staff. Second is that that there is no other Norwegian class available – accordingly no change is possible. Third is that our contract requires a Norwegian class, meaning that we can’t just skip it. So there we are – in a vicious circle. Right now we are all very helpless what to do…

But I don’t want to bother you any longer with this topic (which doesn’t mean that I am not open for any ideas you might have). In any case the Norwegian class hasn’t been the only thing I was busy with on Thursday. I went to the office straight after class to pack in around 30 presents for the New Year party on Friday (Can somebody tell me how to pack in cups nicely? After 20 packages and five different variations it still looked horrible…), then rushed to the school and helped Oleksandr and Artur preparing pizza for ‘Scenkveld’. It is the new all-day school concept for Thursdays, an evening full of fun and good mood in gymmen (the old gym which has been modified).  The boys started this project last year in December and I decided to join it instead of the International Café because it is not that interesting without visitors, and if there are some we only talk in Norwegian, which is not the point here. So we ate pizza in gymmen and turned it into a karaoke night, which was really nice. Even me, who is usually not singing in front of any other people (better for their health), joined the group on stage. It took some time, but I couldn’t stand listening to Oleksandr and Ingar – ruining Scorpions – any longer and came to help. Probably I made it even worse… but who cares?

On Friday, after the Norwegian class, the New Year celebration in the office finally took place, which meant a lot of preparation for all of us. Moving chairs and tables, decorating them, finding enough cutlery and putting presents everywhere, not forgetting the food and of course the candles (very important). In between we tried to hold the usual Friday meeting, which was more or less impossible while running around in the office. Whatever…  In the end everything was set and we could enjoy a nice evening with most of the people working in or for Eid Frivilligsentral – just volunteers from all around. And luckily nobody cared about the ugly packed presents… ;)

But my week hasn’t been finished yet because I went dinner driving on Saturday. It was a bit more difficult this time because FINALLY we have snow – actually a lot – and it is still snowing. Unfortunately I am not the most experienced driver in snow and the bulldozers didn’t even manage to remove the snow on the main road – you can imagine what the remote places looked like. So I was a little bit scared before, but then it was fine – it just took as one and a half hours more than usual :D But the main thing is everything went well :)

So please take good care of yourselves in case it is snowing or slippery wherever you are. For now I enjoy the first real snow together with the others and maybe at some point we will have the opportunity to go skiing, that would be great :)

Ha det bra!

Alisa