17th of May

Gratulerer med dagen, Norge!

Yesterday was the 17th of May, which is the most important national holiday here and is also known as the Constitution Day. People celebrate the signing of the constitution in 1814 with a whole day of parades and parties. We were very excited about it because people had been talking about for quite a while and I am not used to national celebrating at all (except for when it comes to football, of course).
Everybody wears his or her best clothes and those who have bunads, the traditional Norwegian costumes, wear these. Every state in Norway, every region and sometimes even cities have their own costume, which differs from the others through color and some minor details. It is very beautiful to watch all the different bunads, which are very expensive and can be worn at weddings, confirmations and, of course, every year on the 17th of May. Those, who do not have a bunad (which are mostly foreigners, but also quite a number of Norwegians) at least try to dress up.
Our day started early (for a holiday), because the first of the three parades, the barnetoget (children's parade) started at 10 and it goes directly through our street. So people were standing under our windows since 9. But waking up was good, because we could watch the whole parade from our living room while we were ironing our clothes and grabbing Norwegian flags.

After the children's parade we went to the 17th of May brunch at Folken, which was open for everybody and most of the volunteers were there, too. We had way too much food and afterwards went out to see russetoget, the parade for all those who are in their last year of school and wear typical red or blue uniforms. This parade is much fun to watch because they really had a party.

At noon we went to konserthuset to attend the international festival there. A stage was built up outside on which different performances from many different countries were shown. And it wasn't even bad to be outside the whole time, because we were quite lucky with the weather. People, who were wearing bunads said it was not too warm (they are woolen, so you start to sweat easily) and I didn't freeze in my dress. We spent almost three hours at the festival watching the shows and seeing all the international food and costumes before we went back to the city center at four, where we would find a place to watch the biggest parade of the day: Folketoget. In this parade people from organisations, groups and institutions like sport clubs, bands, music schools, the university "march" through the city.

It lasts for almost two hours and we were lucky to find a spot on a bridge, so we could see everything from above. The special aspect of the 17th of May and all these parades is that it is completely without military. The whole day is for the people so there are only "civil" organisations or children marching in the parades. The Norwegians are very proud of this. And still: The whole day has a very patriotic touch.
After the parades we had dinner at Elena's place together with other friends and celebrated a bit. We were very tired from being outside the whole day, but it was really beautiful and something we will probably not forget for a long time!

#EVSBELIKE

#summerinnorway

Early summer

So this is may:
Starting with horrible weather, cold storms and rain and then suddenly: Summer. All the flowers in blooms, the trees green and the temperatures hot. Okay, hot for Norway. 24 degrees was max., and Cristina still calls it spring, but it is beautiful!

We even went swimming in the fjord and got completely sunburned (and sick), but hey: Worth it!
Other than that we are very busy at the moment with different events such as a kindergarten event, where 103 children participated and did several activities outside in order to inform about how healthy it is for your to exercise regularly. It was much fun, but also very hot, of course.

On Wednesday we had the day of "health at work" at Vålandstårnet, from where you have a beautiful view over the city and the fjord. A dancing group from Metro participated and we prepared a quizz, which we put up outside in the forest. All our coworkers participated and seemed to have a great deal of fun at least.

A week before there was the Fritidsklubbensdag. This is a day at which all the youth clubs present themselves in the city center. There is a stage for the bands to play, face painting for children, free food and other activities which promote the youth clubs. We helped the whole day, prepared the stage, the sound, the info desks, Cristina and me did the face painting and Pavel drove stuff back and forth from Metro to the square in the city center. We had hardly any time to eat, but everybody said that we were a big help and we enjoyed it quite a lot because so many families came to watch the show.

Now it is time for us to prepare ourselves for the biggest day in Norway! 17th of May, the National Day in Norway: Everybody wears the best clothes and the Norwegians wear their National Costume called "bunad"and watch the parades in the city. On that day the constitution is celebrated, that we live in a free and democratic country. So there are no military parades, just children and different organisations. 

We are very excited!

Snakkes!

Øyarock

Last weekend there was another huge event at Hundvåg fritidsklubb. This is Cristina's club and it is on one of the islands. Means it belongs to Stavanger, but you have to cross two bridges across the fjord and two other islands before you arrive there. At least you don't have to take the ferry. Hundvåg is a district just like Tasta or Sunde, but the event was for the while town: Øyarock.

This is one of the biggest festivals for youngsters run by Ungdom og Fritid. Eight bands (including two from Tasta) played at the festival and all four of us worked as volunteers. Pavel helped with light and sound, Vincent visited the concert together with the youngsters from his youth club and Cristina, Elena and me were responsible for the kitchen.

We arrived at two o'clock and started immediately with cooking. The food for the bands and for selling had to be done until five. So 20 artists, the crew and approximately 150 guests had to fed. We made taco-, two noodle-, and couscous salad, hamburgers and veggie burgers, baked potatoes and bread. Three people, music, high motivation and high efficiency :D It was so much fun, I do not know if they could have given me any better task. Hard work, but great. When the concert started, we took turns in selling food and filming/ taking pictures of the concert. The bands played until 22:00, but afterwards we had to tidy up and put all the equipment (including light/ sound consoles, curtains and the whole stage)  back into trucks outside. So we worked until have past eleven. It was very intense, but the whole festival was such a huge success that we still managed to celebrate a bit afterwards.
The bands were really good, the audience happy and the food sold ;)

Spring vibes

Hey!

Okay, spring has come. Definitely. Not that anything would be green or the flowers in blossoms, but the weather is great. The sun was shining during the whole weekend, the wind was almost gone and somehow this city awakens from a long deep hibernation. At least 15 degrees on Sunday, biking tours and playing volleyball feels like spring. Or as the Norwegians would say: Summer has come: p

It started on Friday when there was a concert at Tasta Bydelshus of one of the bands, who rehearse there every other day: Novac. They play together with another young band from Bekafaret, the club where Pavel works. The concert was very nice and we had many new teenagers at the club, but still it felt more like another rehearsal for the big festival next week. It is called Øyarock and takes place at Hundvåg, Cristina`s workplace. Bands from all over Stavanger are going to play and we will work the whole day there, helping with the stage, in the kitchen (I have the glorious task to make vegetarian meals) and just try to create a nice event. It is usually pretty fun every year even though it is tough work and a long day. We are still looking forward to it.

During the breaks of the concert, the teenagers could go outside because it was still so warm and mild that suddenly a whole new atmosphere came up J After the concert Cristina and me went to the Motorpsycho concert at Folken, but went home afterwards because the next day the big cleaning called “vårdugnad” was waiting for us. All the volunteers working there were invited to help tidying the whole place up, clean it, throw out all the old things and afterwards eat pizza together. It was great!

The event started at 12 and when we arrived (by bike), we first helped working outside because of the beautiful weather. Then we cleaned the office of our group (SMF) and discovered a bunch of new secret rooms at Folken. Like the attic. We had two containers outside and one inside to fill with stuff we do not need anymore and I can tell you it was a lot! Totally worth it. Now Folken is a beautiful shiny place again J For metal standards of course.

After a long hard day of work, we finally ate our pizza in the evening and then headed to a birthday party of a friend.

On Sunday, we stayed almost the whole day outside because it was so warm and sunny. We jumped on the trampoline, drank tea and ate food in the garden, played football, read books or just relaxed in the sunshine. Around six o’clock we went to the Vaulen beaches to play Volleyball together with the Spanish guys. It is a beautiful place near the city center of Stavanger from where you have a view both over the fjord to the mountains on the other side and over the city along the coast. Such a nice way to end the weekend.

 

Easter activities

So, Easter has come and we were super busy doing way too many things. Or not. Depends on how you want to see it.
Vincent went on his second road trip to Sweden and Denmark while Cristina was going to Spain to visit her family and after going to London celebrating her birthday. Pavel and me stayed in Stavanger with a whole week of holidays ahead. But even though most people were on vacation, we still had some activities going on. The first event was the Easter workshop for children on the first Sunday of the Easter break. Whoever came to the weekly Sunday café could join and make some paper eggs with glue and scissors. Both Cristina and Pavel joined with helping the children, so all in all it was a huge success.

But after Cristina had left, we had a rather quiet Monday including cooking with our friend Elena, an hour of excessive work out (it was not...just a bit hard for us) and relaxation. On Tuesday one of our most interesting activities of the year began: The first project of the organization "Open Hands for You", which consists of four or five volunteers, who want to organize events for and with refugees as voluntary integration work. They got in contact with the Frivilligsentral, where Jeanette and I work, quite early and since I was very interested in joining them, we planned the activities together. The Tuesday evening was a movie night for refugees between 18 and 25, all men. We rented Gausel Bydelshus, because it is close to the Stavanger refugee camp, where approximately 700 refugees live. After preparing everything around 55 people came and not only watched the movie, but also played games, ate popcorn and helped cleaning afterwards. They were really nice and you could talk to most of them in English or even Norwegian. They told us about their ways to Norway, the life at the "Asylmottak" and that there are not a lot of activities for them here in Stavanger. So we were very glad to have this shared evening while Aline, the head of Open Hand for You, was already planning the next event for this group.

But first we had another event on Saturday. We went to the Asylmottak, where we had a room for group activities on our own and started a similiar Easter workshop to the one on Sunday for children and their parents. Again they painted the eggs and put them up on the wall while the mothers made waffles for eating them later in the big entrance hall. It was a very big and lively event with way too many children running around and hopefully having fun ;)

Fur us it was great to see that you do not need a lot to do workshops and motivate other people doing activities. Sometimes it just helps to feel as a group and create a nice atmosphere. After this great week full of events we really deserved some days of holiday including hiking, doing nothing and for me also a few days in Germany. Now we have returned home and the last person to come back is Cristina tonight. Then we can say "Hi" to spring in Norway :)

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!