Another uneventful day at school and work for Kory and Kaleb. As for me, we started learning a bit more about the land in which we live. A few interesting facts I was unaware of previously: 25% of Norway’s land is covered in forest and only 3% of the land is tillable soil available for raising crops. So that leaves 72% of the land as solid rock. That seems about right to me. The coastline, if stretched out, would go around the equator one and a half times. Half of Europe’s Atlantic coastline is in Norway. If the country of Norway was spun south, from its southernmost tip, it would reach the city of Rome in Italy. It’s a long country but not that wide. At its narrowest, the country is only six kilometers (about 4miles). So now you know.
What I found funny is what our teacher told us about each area of Norway having their own reputation among other Norwegians. The area where we live is known for two things – the people here are incredibly narrow minded, and very tight with their money (even more so than the typical Norwegians.) That explains a lot, especially since I married a man from here who has those two exact qualities. Our teacher demonstrated by saying that when Ålesunders swim the breast stroke, they don’t push their arms out away from their body, they have their arms out and then pull in everything they can that's close to them. Funny visual, but I get the sense they are proud of that reputation. One thing I love about Norwegians is their ability to laugh at themselves.
Another interesting thing I found out about Ålesund is that they pipe in water from the Gulf Stream that runs along the coast, and run that water through pipes going into an incinerator that burns the city’s trash. That heated water is then piped under the streets in downtown Ålesund in the wintertime to keep them free from snow and ice. They use that heated water as a heat source in a lot of government buildings, including hospitals and old folks homes. Our condo at Moa is also heated by that warm water running under the floorboards so Aunt Ruth doesn’t pay anything for heat, which I think is strange, but I’m not complaining.
Something else I’m not complaining about is the weather today! It was warm and sunny all day and tonight is just gorgeous with a full moon so bright we can see all the snow capped mountains surrounding our area. We decided it was the perfect night for “crab raking” – a local pastime in this neck of the woods. In the months of the year that end with an “R”, it is open season on crabs. No permit required. All that is needed is a flashlight and a rake. Supposedly, after dark, the crabs come up close to the shore and we were told by more than one person we just need to go down to the shore, shine the light, and rake in the crabs. So, we bundled up (it is pretty chilly after dark now), got our flashlights, rake and bucket and headed down to our beach. The moon was so bright it was like having a street light following us the entire way. The water was as still as it could be and absolutely crystal clear. When we shined the light into it we could see all the way to the bottom – which in some places wasn’t that deep but in others, it was at least ten feet down, maybe more. But, the crabs must have heard we were coming because they weren’t just sitting there waiting for us. We saw two small ones but they got away between the tines on the rake. It was still a wonderful night to be out and about and it added just a bit of excitement to our outing thinking we might come home with fresh crab. Oh well, we’ll try again another night.
I got my latest test results back today. Bad news if I were keeping score, as I only got 46.5 points out of 63. I really tanked on the past tense verbs. There are particular rules about whether the verb ends in “et” or “te” and I got them mixed up so I was 100% wrong on that section. Originally, when I was taking the test and realized I couldn’t remember which was which, I did half of them one way and half the other way, figuring I’d work the odds, but then I changed my mind and it wasn’t a good move. But there was also an ungraded section on the test on just writing text and my teacher said my level of writing is higher than “Norsk Prøve 2” – which is a competency test given in February. We are going to take the Norsk Prøve 1 test next week to see how we are doing, so it was a little encouraging that I’m ahead of the game in writing. As my teacher said, who cares how I do on the exercises, it’s being able to clearly communicate in writing and in speech that makes the difference. She was quite proud of me, and as usual, she cheered me on and said I was doing great… my own personal cheerleader. I’ve always wanted one of those.
What I found funny is what our teacher told us about each area of Norway having their own reputation among other Norwegians. The area where we live is known for two things – the people here are incredibly narrow minded, and very tight with their money (even more so than the typical Norwegians.) That explains a lot, especially since I married a man from here who has those two exact qualities. Our teacher demonstrated by saying that when Ålesunders swim the breast stroke, they don’t push their arms out away from their body, they have their arms out and then pull in everything they can that's close to them. Funny visual, but I get the sense they are proud of that reputation. One thing I love about Norwegians is their ability to laugh at themselves.
Another interesting thing I found out about Ålesund is that they pipe in water from the Gulf Stream that runs along the coast, and run that water through pipes going into an incinerator that burns the city’s trash. That heated water is then piped under the streets in downtown Ålesund in the wintertime to keep them free from snow and ice. They use that heated water as a heat source in a lot of government buildings, including hospitals and old folks homes. Our condo at Moa is also heated by that warm water running under the floorboards so Aunt Ruth doesn’t pay anything for heat, which I think is strange, but I’m not complaining.
Something else I’m not complaining about is the weather today! It was warm and sunny all day and tonight is just gorgeous with a full moon so bright we can see all the snow capped mountains surrounding our area. We decided it was the perfect night for “crab raking” – a local pastime in this neck of the woods. In the months of the year that end with an “R”, it is open season on crabs. No permit required. All that is needed is a flashlight and a rake. Supposedly, after dark, the crabs come up close to the shore and we were told by more than one person we just need to go down to the shore, shine the light, and rake in the crabs. So, we bundled up (it is pretty chilly after dark now), got our flashlights, rake and bucket and headed down to our beach. The moon was so bright it was like having a street light following us the entire way. The water was as still as it could be and absolutely crystal clear. When we shined the light into it we could see all the way to the bottom – which in some places wasn’t that deep but in others, it was at least ten feet down, maybe more. But, the crabs must have heard we were coming because they weren’t just sitting there waiting for us. We saw two small ones but they got away between the tines on the rake. It was still a wonderful night to be out and about and it added just a bit of excitement to our outing thinking we might come home with fresh crab. Oh well, we’ll try again another night.
I got my latest test results back today. Bad news if I were keeping score, as I only got 46.5 points out of 63. I really tanked on the past tense verbs. There are particular rules about whether the verb ends in “et” or “te” and I got them mixed up so I was 100% wrong on that section. Originally, when I was taking the test and realized I couldn’t remember which was which, I did half of them one way and half the other way, figuring I’d work the odds, but then I changed my mind and it wasn’t a good move. But there was also an ungraded section on the test on just writing text and my teacher said my level of writing is higher than “Norsk Prøve 2” – which is a competency test given in February. We are going to take the Norsk Prøve 1 test next week to see how we are doing, so it was a little encouraging that I’m ahead of the game in writing. As my teacher said, who cares how I do on the exercises, it’s being able to clearly communicate in writing and in speech that makes the difference. She was quite proud of me, and as usual, she cheered me on and said I was doing great… my own personal cheerleader. I’ve always wanted one of those.
