Godt nytt år!

Back again!

After three of us went home for Christmas and only Vincent stayed in Stavanger (but don't worry - his mother visited him, so he was not alone) the house is now full again. Well, almost.
At least one has returned and now the French guy and the German girl are patiently waiting for the others to come back and revive the house with joy and liveliness. After 17 degrees in Germany (I know - climate change is crazy) and something like Christmas-in-New Zealand-mood, it was almost a shock to return and find Stavanger in deep winter: -2 degrees and frozen puddles everywhere! But very sunny and a clear sky! I am happy wear my skiing jacket anyways.
Actually I did not return to Stavanger immediately. The first stop was Bergen. There I celebrated New Year's together with other volunteers from Voss, Aksdal and Bergen. It was great! Although we had almost no daylight and forgot to buy enough food, we had a fantastic time and watched the big fireworks in town. Very nice way to begin the new year.

 And when we had to say goodbye, we all were a bit sad, looking forward to seeing each other again in February at the midterm seminar in Oslo. I took the bus from Bergen to Stavanger, so I was able to see a fantastic landscape and the sun again. Also because the flight from Germany to Bergen was a catastrophe - a huge storm caused serious troubles, turbulence and the closing of Bergen airport right after our plane landed... Not the best day to travel.
The bus trip back to Stavanger was definitely more relaxed. Vincent and I had a lot to tell each other and of course we went to town in the evening to meet all the other people and catch up with what had happened during the Christmas break. On Monday our daily routine started again and we had our first days of work. And all our Coworkers seem to be in a very positive New Year's mood. Actually, it is way easier to start working that way:)
And the cold is slowly getting more intense: -6  degrees today and hopefully snow at the weekend! Just perfect for welcoming the others back home. All the lakes here are frozen now, the seagulls do not know where to take a bath anymore and we are waiting for polar bears to invade Stavanger.
Well, actually the temperatures are pretty normal for winters in Europe, are they not? And we were told that the temperatures are much lower in internal Norway. Or in the north, where they are currently having the eternal night.

So Vincent and I are glad to live in "the South", where we get at least the glimmering shine of the winter sun sometimes. Vincent even took a bath in the fjord on New Year's day! Together with some other crazy people he jumped into the ice cold water and did not even get sick. I am deeply impressed. It is crazy by the way how early school starts again here. They do not even have a holiday on the sixth of January. So for us the work
begins early, too. But unfortunately a lot of other institutions are still closed. This is the case with Folken and we already miss the Folken crowd. It is great to hang out with them, but at least most students are already back in Stavanger and soon Folken will open its doors again! And the language course is starting again... Good, because it is true: Our bosses and coworkers started talking in Norwegian :O
Much to learn, much to come in 2016! :)

December mood

Almost Christmas! We can hardly believe that three of us are about to leave this weekend! And when we return, one third of our time here will be over… But until then we will enjoy our life here;) Like we are doing now. The weather differs between warm, windy and rainy, but that cannot stop our Christmas mood. In the beginning of December we made an advent wreath on our own, took the Christmas decoration out of the basement and lit the first candle. And we are not the only ones. Especially in the center of our beautiful small city of Stavanger there are lovingly attached decorations. Stavanger does not really have Christmas markets as we might know them from Germany, but we do have a big Christmas tree in front of H&M. And you can here all the kitschy songs in the stores. Yey! 

We even went to the Christmas market in Egersund on Saturday, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful markets in Norway, but to be honest: It was a bit disappointing. Not very big, crowded, ugly and not very nice things to buy. But maybe I am used to the German markets...

December also means a lot of work: Most of us have Christmas parties, concerts or workshops in the youth clubs, which means many extra hours of work for us. At Byhaugkaféen there is a Christmas workshop for primary school children. So Jeanette and I help them preparing some nice paper craft decorations for home. Quite exhausting, but really fun!

We also had the Julebord (Christmas party) of Ungdom og Fritid, our organization, last Wednesday. First a big dinner at Cradinal, a bar in the center, and then watching a play at the theatre: Femti flotte år med Frode Kommedal – in Norwegian of course. In the beginning it was very hard to understand – especially because of the dialect, but after some time we got most of what the actors said. And it was a good play, indeed! When it comes to theatre the culture in Stavanger is impressive. You cannot really say that about the opera, which does more like not exist here. Proud we made it, we returned to Cardinal after and spent there the rest of the night. The other Julebord we attended was the one of Folken. 150 people, music, speeches, Karaoke and a very long night full of joy was one of the highlights here so far!

To summarize you can say that we are having a very nice pre-Christmas time. It will be strange to return to our parents and friends for a while now and even more strange to come back afterwards. We are shocked, that the midterm seminar in Oslo will take place in February! So soon after our return here. But he have time J

Merry Christmas to all of you!

December light at Hålandsvatn, the lake close to our house

 

Discovering the neighborhood

Wow, that was a weekend! Mentioning that it is almost the end of November now and that we are in Norway, it was a happy surprise for us seeing the sun again Saturday morning. For the last two weeks it has been predominately raining and it felt like the darkness would not really unhand the daylight. It had not been very cold until Saturday: Maybe 5 degrees minimum. So the weekend had this eccentric combination of freezing cold and and clear blue sky. The ground was frozen and everything was shining in the sunlight. What to do with this beautiful weather? 

Well, on Saturday there was not really much to enjoy, because two of us were working at Folken for a concert and Cristina had to watch the football match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, of course. But before that it was at least sunny enough for a run around Hådansvatnet. But on Sunday we decided to show Cristina around in our neighborhood. She had neither seen the lake nor the Kvernevik rocks yet, so we chose the Kvernevik coastline for Sunday. We started at noon and just had to walk 15 minutes until we came to the sea. It was beautiful! And our Spanish girl really enjoyed the frozen puddles. Dancing on the ice, singing on the ice, dipping our hands into the surprisingly warm ocean and enjoying a marvelous sunset - such a wonderful small weekend trip for such a wonderful small family. We cannot wait to tell Vincent about that when he comes back, but he will probably have some nice stories to tell, too. 

So now it is Monday, it's raining again, the sky stays grey and we are all missing the sunlight already. But hopefully it will not be a tough week and there is tons of fun ahead next weekend :)

Ha det!

November

Hi !

After a few months in Stavanger Vincent went on his first trip to Bergen and Dale yesterday! Flying, hitchhiking and insecure cold nights (maybe outside?) are about to come!
We already miss him. In autumn we did a lot of projects together with the teenagers in our youth clubs, such as Halloween parties, lantern workshops, the undergrunn concert, where all the bands from the different clubs played together and now gingerbread baking. Seriously: Christmas is coming way too fast! It feels like we arrived yestderday and now they start preparing the lights in the city centre!
The weather is quite "autumn" now, too. Storms that disconnect us from the WiFi (no joke!), hail, thunderstorms and pouring rain are our daily friends and sometimes we feel like our house would just fly away.
But nevertheless it is beautiful here! We now all work at Folken, which is a concert house, run by students. The work is voluntary as well and a kind of a hobby for us. It is great! Free conncerts, free beer after work, but most of all: 150 other young people being like a huge family! When you work two times a month, you can enter all concerts, so we spend almost 3 nights a week at Folken or just meeting other Folken people in the city centre.
And the darkness is not that bad yet. The sun sets around 4pm, which is like half an hour earlier than in Germany or France. But the shortest days are still about to come, of course!
We also finished our first Norwegian course this week and are now without training until Christmas. We received a nice diploma, even though we do not really feel like having learned enough...
But we will probably start again in January! That would be helping at least since our supervisors said that they will start talking Norwegian with us after Christmas...
We will be so lost ;)

Introduction 2: "Kyviksmarka"

Hei alle sammen!

Today it is time to introduce you to Vincent's Workplace: Kyviksmarka and/ or Bakgården.

This is a building close to the City Centre, where two youth clubs are located. The first one is Kyviksmarka where Vincent works three or two evenings a week and which is similiar to Tasta. The youngsters just come there in order to relax and have fun. They can play on some instruments, the Play station, dance, listen to music etc. They also have some special evenings like a Japanese evening, a French one, theatre and massage workshops or (as everywhere) a Halloween Party. His job is to take care of the kids, sell food and help them.
The other youth club is Bakgården. This one is more special. Bakgården consists of a close group of teenagers to have some social problems or feel more insecure. They have a lot of helpers and Georg, the boss to lead the youth club. They do a lot of activites together  such as swimming, trips to the zoo, a bike trip etc. Vincent here helps as a youth leader as well since it is his profession.

Kyviksmarka is also one of the most beautiful and new places in town. A few weeks ago a new parcour park opened next to it.

So many activites!

Introduction to our Workplaces

Hei alle sammen!

As promised, we will now start to write something about our work places and our tasks there in order to show you more about our daily life. I will start with Tasta and Byhaugenkaféen, my two work places.


Tasta Fritidssenter

Tasta Fritidssenter is located in the building of Tasta Bydelshus, which is one of the public centres in the district of Tasta. It is run by the Kommune and people or organisation can rent some rooms for private parties, workshops or other stuff.
In the left part of the building there is Fritidssenter. we have a billiard table, kicker, table tennis, indoor skating park, a really good rehearsing room for bands and a giant screen for watching netlfix our playing play station on the couches. The kids can come every Tuesday, Thursday and every other Friday. My job is to look after them and sell them sweets or toasties in the kitchen. On Thursdays we also have the Taco night and usually we prepare one warm meal a day as well. Furthermore we some special events going on like a Halloween Party for example or a movie night with free popcorn.

The bands rehearsing there are also a huge part of the "Tasta atmosphere". The members are between 16 and 18 years old and play in four different bands. (And almost everyoone is named Espen). Sometimes they give concerts at our club our at Checkpoint Charlie (a bar in the city centre) as well.


Byhaugenkaféen

Byhaugenkaféen is a nice old house, located in the Tasta are as well and with a long history about having been a point of social gathering  for many many years. The Kommune rents the building out to people organzing seminars, workshops and parties, but it also the centre of the voluntary work in Tasta. I have my own office there and I work together with Jeanette, our EVS coordinator. I prepare workshops for children (autumn workshop, christmas workshops etc.), projects like exhibtions our group meeting of the local envirnomntal group. I am also in charge of our official blog.

It is really nice place to work, too and it has got a fantastic view! Sometimes there is the monday cafe taking place - we prepare waffles and coffee for elderly people, so they can enjoy themselves here.

These were the first wrok places - loooking forward to writing about the next ones:)
Ha det!
 

The first month

It’s almost unbelievable that a whole month has already passed now. A month full of activities, new people, sunshine (yes, sunshine) and fun. Now everyday life is starting, we feel like finally being a little bit more settled. But this   feeling will probably increase with every new month we spend here. Two weeks ago we came back from Balestrand, where we went to the On-Arrival-Seminar of all EVS volunteers, who are in projects in Norway. So we met a bunch of cool people from almost all European countries. Next week four volunteers from Germany will even visit us. In Balestrand we did A LOT of activities including a biking trip, a mountain hike, canoeing and a tour through the town and its famous hotel. We also learned about the Norwegian history, the culture and everyday life through drama classes, workshops and presentations. But most of all: We had fun. Too little sleep, singing, playing games, tasting the new organic sidre and two birthday parties (Vincent’s and mine) were just too fantastic. And despite of all these activities it almost felt like holidays. A few brave people even went swimming in the 13 degrees Fjord! Because we can J All in all it was just an amazing experience and we’re all looking forward to Oslo in February, where the midterm seminar will take place.

Now we are back again and finally Cristina is with us! J The family is complete now. And we also get to know all the local people including our Coworkers in the organization (Predominately on parties), so that we are being ready now to throw our very own party in Sunde in the end of October! Furthermore the autumn holidays just started. This means most of the people are on vacation in the mountains now, the schools are closed and many youth clubs are organizing special events. Vincent is going to go on a camping trip tomorrow together with the teenagers from Bakgården, Cristina is going to go ice skating with her team from Hundvåg and on Friday there was a concert at Tasta Bydelshus organized by the bands rehearsing there. Furthermore on Wedndesday there will be something like a fall workshop at Byhaugenkafeen for children. Yes, it’s getting started! We just hope the weather will stay like this ;)

Ha det bra!