REPORTING LIVE FROM...

This is Eli, reporting live from the Science Farm! Yes I am on my laptop at work, no need to go "SHAME ON YOU ELI" just yet. I'm working a wedding shift, I just sit here at the office in case something happens, but usually the wedding manages fine on its own, which means I'm on my own, sitting here in the office eating candy, watching movies and checking facebook. And to do so, I get payed overtime :) Life is good! No wait, scratch that. Life is not so good, my neighbour is in New Orleans, Louisiana, and I am SO jealous. I read on her blog about places she's going that I've been to, how much fun she's having, even the heat doesn't sound so bad, and it all just makes me want to come back! Good thing I'm getting payed overtime, so I'll be able to afford it.

Well, I can't come visit Louisiana just yet, my next trip goes to the south of France during fall break in October. We're staying in Nice, and Nice is truly a nice city, so I'm really looking forward to that.

Hiking

Today I watched kids run into walls. Let me explain: At the museum there is a "senses tunnel", it's pitch dark and the point is to use other senses than your vision, and there is a safety camera hooked up to the tv in the reception, so today I watched kids (and grown ups too, even funnier) run into walls.


Over to a different topic. I went hiking to our lodge this weekend. Here are some pictures.This is my mom and dad. I told them to smile american style.
We got to our lodge saturday, and sunday we went for a hike in the mountains. We went on a hike to a mountain top half a mile above sea level. Our lodge is about 1/4 of a mile above sea level, so it was a pretty steep hike. It took us about 90 minutes to reach the top, and when we got there we realized we had only walked like 2 miles... But then again it was really really steep

Hiking rule no 1: If your backpack weighs less than half your body weight, it ain't real hiking.

On the top, you can see our lodge faaar down there, just a little red dot.

Hiking rule number 2: When hiking, always wear clother that are ugly, ill fitting, and out of fashion. This picture is a great example: me wearing my dads paint stained fleece and a t-shirt I got for free in 7th grade that still is way too big, and my mom is wearing matching fleece sweatpants and shirt... But the reason we took this picture was to show off how outdoorsy we are, we cooked our dinner (sausage, potatoes and onions, real fancy, hiking rule no 3: When on a hiking trip, do not prepare fancy meals) outside over the fire, and we also ate it outside. How outdoorsy is that!

Over 2000 people have viewed my blog profile! Yayyy!! That was sort of my goal, so now I need a new one! I was thinking maybe my new goal should be to get someone to comment on my blog posts, but that just seems like a little too much to ask for...

It seems like whenever I open my mouth, my sentences always start with "at the museum bla bla bla" or "back in america bla bla".

I will try to update soon with pictures from our lodge and when we went hiking this weekend :)

oh hi there

Hey look, its American Eli. I miss her! She was always so happy, and she didn't have much to worry about. Norwegian Eli works a full time job right now, and she is worried about money and her future.

Today I wanted to tell you about something that I've been thinking about thats very different in Norway and USA. In Norway, almost everything is closed on Sundays. All the grocery stores are closed, all the malls and other shopping places are too. It's just restaurants, movie theatres, and museums that are open. It can be kind of aggravating sometimes, like when you wake up sunday morning and realize you're out of bread, but mostly I find it's a good thing. It makes it easier to keep the day of rest sacred. And most people don't cut their grass just because it's sunday and it would be considered disrespectful towards your neighbours.

I got my first pay check this week! It was a great feeling, knowing that I worked hard (weeeell maybe not "hard"...) for my m. And it felt good to be able to transfer some money into my savings account, so now I just need to figure out what I want to do with my life so I'll have something to save up for.

Hi,
I usually blog on thursdays. It has become part of my new routine. The routine is usually: ride bike to work, work, ride bike home, go for walk with Mona and her dog Oscar, eat, sleep and then repeat the whole thing the next day. And when I ride my bike to work I see sceneries like this

Yeah, it's pretty, but it's getting old.

So there is nothing else I think may interest you today, I've been wanting to show y'all pictures of my lodge, my mom and dad are going this weekend but I cant go because I have to work :( I will however try to remember to take pictures of my house because I promised someone (Shelbi) to post that so you guys can see.

And now let me tell you something atleast a little interesting or funny, or well atleast I find it interesting and funny. In Denmark, when someone die they say that they have "stillet sine træsko" which translates to that they have put away their wooden clogs... SO bye for now, and try not to put away your wooden clogs so we can meet again!

happy anniversary!

It's been a month since I came home from the US of A. It doesn't seem that long ago, but at the same time, my life in America just seems so distant. So, what have I been up to lately? Well, my life this past week can easily be summed up in one word: work. Right now, it's where I spend most of my time, and ALL my energy. But its fun. Most of it is. There are parts that aren't as fun, such as when I ride my bike to work and choke on bugs, or they get caught in my eye and I can't blink them out. Oh, and the other day when we cleaned the chicken cage, we found a dead chicken at the bottom of the cage, it stomped to death by the other ones and then buried in hay. Yeah, so for a minute there I wasn't too fond of the chicken, but all was forgiven and forgotten later that day when I watched an egg hatch. It was really cool, and when the little bitty chicken finally got out, he was so exhausted he could barely keep his head up!

Hey look, it's you guys. My american friends, or some of you at least. I took some of the senior pictures I got and glued them to a paper and stuck them in a frame. And yeah, thats the color of my walls.

Another thing I wanted to tell you guys about was weird Norwegian sayings we have. There is one that goes "It's better to have a dead bird in your hand than ten (alive ones) sitting on your roof". So that was the Norwegian saying of the day, now to the random Norwegian fact of the day: Every day around 6-ish, they have news for deaf people. It's only for a couple of minutes, with some news anchor talking with her hands about the latest news, and there's no sound. Someone should start that in America too!

Hi! I'm back from Denmark. Denmark was cool, as usual, and it seems like my grandpa is doing good. In Denmark we ate lots of popsicles, our popsicles are on sticks and not in plastic mini bags or whatever you want to call it. I'll upload a picture later and then you'll see what I mean. We also rode bikes everywhere, and thats when I noticed something funny, the streets had the weirdest names! There was this one street named dog cry lane, another one was friend mountain street, and the best one was the one named "the knee". Maybe it was because we were on this godforesaken little island. Yeah, it was literally godforesaken, they used to have a church but ther decided to turn it into a spa... Denmaek was great, I left Norway as a child and came back as and adult. Yeah I turned 18. 18 is a big deal in Norway, its like your 16th and your 21st combined because you are allowed to get your drivers liscense and buy alcohol :)

And today was midsummer nighs eve. We celebrated it as we do every year, at my dads friends farm. We bbqed (you cant really call it bbq because we dont use bbq sauce, we just grill stuff) and we had a big bonfire, kinda like the one y'all have in Lutcher, only bigger and uglier.

the science farm

Hallo! This is the museum where I work, its name translates into something like "the Science farm." Part of it is an old farm from late 1800s that they still keep that way so people can see how they did all the farming stuff way back when, and part of it is a science and technical museum. The museum part has a lot of hands on stuff, with different experiments. I think its really cool, I like that kind of stuff. Like for example there is this thing where you can pull to measure how much one horsepower is, and how many horsepowers you got in you, and on the farm we got horses and a very friendly ox who likes bread and to lick peoples clothes. So the last week I worked 40 hours, which is alot! And in addition to that, I've been around every evening, visiting people, catching up with friends... So I got plenty of stuff going on, which is good, that way I dont have too much time to sit around and think about y'all back in Louisiana, which would probably just make me sad.

Friday I'm going to Denmark. I'm going visit my grandpa. I told some of y'all about this situation, so yeah, hopefully its not too weird. But I love Denmark, so I'm sure its gonna be a nice vacation. So now I told y'all what I'm up to here in Norway, so now its your turn to get in touch with me and update me on whats going on with you :) Feel free to contact me on facebook at any time!

I've had some troubles adapting back to the Norwegian lifestyle. One thing that I had the most trouble getting used to was flushing the toilet. In America, the "flush handle" is on the side, on Norwegian toilets its on the top, and its either a thing you pull or a little button you press. But I'm starting to get the hang of that too!

hallo!

Hi, I'm back in my fatherland, the mother ship, whatever you want to call it. I know I promised to start blogging in english for you, my dear american friends. And I will, just not quite yet. I'm kind of busy at the moment working, sleeping, hugging my sister, visiting my grandparents, going for walks with Mona and her dog, and stuff like that. Yeah I started work yesterday, and it was great. I started the day off making sandwiches, and ended it chasing sheep that had escaped the little museum farm. Yeah, I work at a museum, it's cool. I will tell y'all more about the museum, and show pictures of my house and family like I promised, later. Now I need to go get some sleep, because I'm giving a tour of the museum farm to a bunch of first graders first thing in the morning :) Oh and one more thing, I watched a tv show about a swedish cook trying to make jambalaya, she put tomatoes and cod in it and served it with greek youghurt... Thats swedes for you! Stupid swedes...

florida og farvel

Nå er jeg hjemme i Norge, men jeg kom på at jeg hadde ikke sagt hadet, og så hadde jeg heller ikke fortalt om avskjedsfesten min og turen til Florida. I Florida gikk vi tur på stranden, Shelbi og Darren på bildet over. Vi var veldig mye på stranden, hele lørdagen. Så jeg ble solbrendt. Veldig solbrendt, men bare på ryggen. Det kjentes godt da jeg måtte dra rundt på 15 kg håndbagasje på flyplasser på mandag og tirsdag. Men ja, vi bada, fløy med en drage (ikke en Drake, haha), og bada litt mer.

På lørdagskvelden var vi og åt på restauranten Guy Harveys, og etterpå kjøpte vi frozen yoghurt.

Going away-partyet som Brianna arrangerte for meg :) De hadde lagt en stor plakat som alle signerte, som ikke passte inn i kofferten desverrre, og en album med bilder fra hele året mitt i USA, og der signerte alle som var på festen og skrev en liten kommentar, veldig koselig :)

Brianna sin mor hadde kjøpt kake til meg :) Vanligvis er sånne amerikanske kaker veldig fine, men smaker ikke så godt, men denne var faktisk ikke så verst.