Both Kory and I were beat this morning, having stayed up until after midnight to see the Schaubs off to Bergen. A nap was so in order once we got home this afternoon. Kaleb was even dragging all day but I’m sure tomorrow we will all be back to normal. He was off to school by 7:30am and his day was almost without incident (he swears he never picked his nose today but Morton still kicked him anyway). Kory did heavier work than he wanted today - erecting scaffolding and hanging gutters. At least it wasn’t raining and he is thankful he has a job.
It seems I didn’t miss much in class on Friday, as everyone I asked couldn’t tell me what they learned that day. Personally I think they are all just tuned out, as our teacher Inga is still gone and everyone is complaining bitterly about all the substitutes. All these substitutes must have gotten their start teaching Kindergarten, as one of them had us singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” one day – complete with hand motions. Today the teacher had us stand up and do the Norwegian version of The Hokey Pokey as we were learning the words “right” and “left.” Personally, I think it’s all quite fun, but there are several in the class who wouldn’t agree. I guess some people have just lost touch with their inner child. Today we also learned some words for food and some prepositions – on, under, in, behind, stuff like that. I’m realizing the time Kaleb and I spent learning Latin last year is also coming in handy as there are many of the same principles we studied then that are quite helpful to me now.
After speaking so much English this last week, my brain hurt to try and say even one word in Norwegian today, but I have no shame, so I keep on trying. Norwegians are very encouraging when it comes to people trying to speak their language so it makes it easy. If they laughed at me or constantly corrected me or were at all snooty like the French, I’m sure I wouldn’t be so bold, but I’ve got nothing to lose here so I approach the language with reckless abandon. On the bus ride home today there was a foreigner getting on the bus and he said “tax” to the bus driver but she had no idea what he was talking about. Finally he said, “Moa” (an area here) and she said it was the right bus, so he got on. He sat by me and in very broken English asked if I knew where the tax office was. I did know, so I told him I’d point it out to him (it’s next to a store called “Jysk”). We had a little conversation and I found out he is from Paris and he is here for two months to work in a fish factory so he needed to register with the tax office. He didn’t speak a word of Norwegian. I asked how he was able to get a job without speaking Norwegian and he said his boss speaks English, but he will work in a fish factory, so “you don’t need to speak anything there,” he said. I thought that was funny. I wasn’t sure of the exact bus stop he needed so I approached the bus driver and spoke very slowly (carefully picking my words.) I said, “Jeg vet ikke bus stoppen for buttiken Jysk. Han skal gaar til skat office.” I think I said, “I don’t know the bus stop for the store Jysk. He wants to go to the tax office.” The bus driver very quickly responded in perfect English and said, “Ok, I’ll stop there.” I guess the fact that I used the word “office” was the first clue I spoke English – as that’s not a Norwegian word (but I didn’t know the right one) – but the pace in which I talked was also a dead give-away. At least I try.
(Today’s photo is from this past weekend in Trondheim - all of us standing in front of the Nidaros Cathedral.)
It seems I didn’t miss much in class on Friday, as everyone I asked couldn’t tell me what they learned that day. Personally I think they are all just tuned out, as our teacher Inga is still gone and everyone is complaining bitterly about all the substitutes. All these substitutes must have gotten their start teaching Kindergarten, as one of them had us singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” one day – complete with hand motions. Today the teacher had us stand up and do the Norwegian version of The Hokey Pokey as we were learning the words “right” and “left.” Personally, I think it’s all quite fun, but there are several in the class who wouldn’t agree. I guess some people have just lost touch with their inner child. Today we also learned some words for food and some prepositions – on, under, in, behind, stuff like that. I’m realizing the time Kaleb and I spent learning Latin last year is also coming in handy as there are many of the same principles we studied then that are quite helpful to me now.
After speaking so much English this last week, my brain hurt to try and say even one word in Norwegian today, but I have no shame, so I keep on trying. Norwegians are very encouraging when it comes to people trying to speak their language so it makes it easy. If they laughed at me or constantly corrected me or were at all snooty like the French, I’m sure I wouldn’t be so bold, but I’ve got nothing to lose here so I approach the language with reckless abandon. On the bus ride home today there was a foreigner getting on the bus and he said “tax” to the bus driver but she had no idea what he was talking about. Finally he said, “Moa” (an area here) and she said it was the right bus, so he got on. He sat by me and in very broken English asked if I knew where the tax office was. I did know, so I told him I’d point it out to him (it’s next to a store called “Jysk”). We had a little conversation and I found out he is from Paris and he is here for two months to work in a fish factory so he needed to register with the tax office. He didn’t speak a word of Norwegian. I asked how he was able to get a job without speaking Norwegian and he said his boss speaks English, but he will work in a fish factory, so “you don’t need to speak anything there,” he said. I thought that was funny. I wasn’t sure of the exact bus stop he needed so I approached the bus driver and spoke very slowly (carefully picking my words.) I said, “Jeg vet ikke bus stoppen for buttiken Jysk. Han skal gaar til skat office.” I think I said, “I don’t know the bus stop for the store Jysk. He wants to go to the tax office.” The bus driver very quickly responded in perfect English and said, “Ok, I’ll stop there.” I guess the fact that I used the word “office” was the first clue I spoke English – as that’s not a Norwegian word (but I didn’t know the right one) – but the pace in which I talked was also a dead give-away. At least I try.
(Today’s photo is from this past weekend in Trondheim - all of us standing in front of the Nidaros Cathedral.)
