The Midterm Seminar

As promised here comes an entry about the seminar we had in Oslo:
After Balestrand it was the second seminar we attended together with 40 other volunteers who have their EVS projects in Norway. While the main topic in Balestrand was to get to know each other, the Norwegian culture and create a feeling of being welcome, Oslo was all about reflecting about the time that has passed here, about the projects, work and our free time.
It started last Wednesday and we four went to the airport at seven, very tired after definitely not enough sleep. But when we arrived our flight was mentioned nowhere and when we asked for help the lady at the information desk told us that our flight was cancelled a few weeks ago and they re-booked it on the flight at eight, which we just had missed. Nobody had told us about that so we had to wait until the next flight at eleven and were late when we finally arrived at the youth hostel in Oslo.
But everybody was very welcoming and we were so happy to see the other volunteers again after such a long time. The German girls I spent New Years with were there, too.
The Wednseday program was all about introduction of some new volunteers who did not attend the seminar in Balestrand and socializing. There were some group tasks about taking pictures in the surrounding area, some first minor reflections about our projects and a human bingo in order to get to know each other better. In the evening we played games and talked about all the things we experienced here. On Thursday the group was separated into two smaller ones. The first group (in which I was) went on a sightseeing trip through Oslo and the other one stayed at the hostel in order to reflect about the EVS in depth. We were in the sightseeing group.
So the next morning started with a trip to the parliament in the city centre. And it was great! Not only to see the parliament, which is called "Stortinget", but also to be in a bigger city again. With trains and a tram and big houses. We did not really miss it in Stavanger, but we really appreciated this atmosphere even though Oslo is not really a huge capital.

After a guided tour through the parliament we visited the Nobel peace prize center, which has a very interesting exhibition about the current winner, the history of the prize and also one recent exhibition about how soldiers are trained to kill people. It was both inspiring and frightening. at one o clock we had a big lunch at Peppe's Pizza and continued to our third destination: The Folkemuseet. At that outdoor museum they show a lot of old buildings from the middle ages and how people used to live in Norway in previous times.

In the evening we had a very fancy dinner at a fish restaurant at the harbor.
Friday we spent with reflection sessions about our projects in Norway, what is good and what not, our daily life and how we can change certain things. It was very enriching to hear so many inspiring and interesting things from the other volunteers. In the end we all had the feeling to have learning a lot and were very sad that we had to say goodbye to each other.

But even though the seminar was over, our time in Oslo was not. We stayed at Haraldsheimen (the hostel) until Saturday, from where we then moved to other volunteers' houses in the city. We visited the student district, the alternative markets and the best of all: The opera. We got student prices for the tickets and got to see "La Traviata", an opera I knew from before and which made us all cry in the end. Such a wonderful experience!

Sunday we had to say goodbye to Pavel, Cristina and Vincent, because they went back to Stavanger while the German girls and me were heading to Narvik on Monday morning. Narvik is a place far in the north close to the Lofoten islands, where four other volunteers live. But they went to Iceland, so we were allowed to live in their house, which is called "The Blue House" (it is blue - obviously) together with their flatmates, who provided us with blankets and pillows and let us sleep on the couches in the living room. Very very nice of them! Most them are former EVS volunteers as well, so we had a great feeling of comfort. The north of Norway is not only a great place to visit when it comes to watching the Northern lights or enjoying the nature, but also a very live place.
We watched the Northerln lights at night at the Fjord and it was fantastic! I've never seen anything like this before. Suddenly the sky starts dancing above you and you are overwhelmed by the beauty of the green lights. I cannot wait to experience this again!
Other than that we went on great hikes in the snowy mountains, walked through the small city of Narvik and spent the evenings knitting and chatting around the fireplace. What a cozy holiday!
But time passes fast when you have fun and on Thursday we flew back to Oslo, where we took our seperated planes to Bergem, Haugesund and Stavanger.
But we will see each other again soon!

Thank you for this amazing time!

Daily adventures

Hi!

It's been a while since we have posted the last entry. January is over and February started just like a normal February would start: Grey sky, cold, rain. We have had a lot of storms lately and all the snow has now turned into water flooding the field in front of our house and the rest of Stavanger, too.
But we are fine with it, because the busy atmosphere of this time caught us all. There are a lot of projects coming soon, in two weeks we're going to host UKM, the talent contest of Stavanger, Vincent is preparing his Parcour workshop and at Tasta we now have Bingo nights.
A few weeks ago Pavel and I joined the choir of Stavanger University, which is quite funny so far. But they all speak Norwegian (of course), so the challenge is on! Most important is certainly the upcoming Midterm seminar in two days!
Wednesday we are going to go to Oslo and stay there until Sunday - meeting all the other volunteers again and hopefully having a wonderful time. We cannot believe that time went by so fast! It is not really the midterm seminar for us since we are staying here for another 7 months, but most of the other projects end in June or July. Therefore we are all looking forward to seeing the other volunteers again - maybe some of them for the last time. After the seminar I'm gonna go to Narvik, a city far in the north of Norway, where the other German volunteers and me will try to experience the real Norwegain winter and maybe maybe maybe see some Northern Lights.
There will be a lot to tell afterwards! Other than that there is not much new here. Folken is back again and we finally know how to spend our weekends again (just kidding - usually there are more than enough parties or camping trips or Sushi Nights or whatever going on here- sometimes you just want to stay home all alone by yourself). But the outside life shrinks on running from somewhere to the bussstop or the other way around, because you really want to spend as few time as possible in the rain.
The nature is still beautiful, but as for now, you'll need a life west to experience it.

Next update after the seminar :)

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!