But, before I bother with all that boring stuff, the best part should come first. My birthday trip to Norway! It was awesome. I landed on Tuesday night and, because of workers doing renovations at Sarah & Kristian's, I decided to go into work with Sarah on Wednesday, Thursday & Friday. For those of you who know my sister, she is a teacher as well. You're thinking, oh, not such a big deal, it would just be like going into school and following the same routine. Yeah, definitely not the case. I teach high school. Sarah teaches elementary school. A reception (Kindergarten) class, to be more specific. In the 3 days I spent in the classroom, it made me absolutely certain and sure that I am where I am meant to be--a high school classroom. Sure, I don't get as many hugs from adorable little children who always want to be cuddled or have their hands held as they walk across the playground to recess, but I am thankfully glad I don't have to wipe runny noses in my job. Something I never want to do again. All in all, the kids were really cute and I had lots of fun...but only as a visitor.
On the Thursday of my visit, the 25th, Sarah & Kristian took me out to celebrate my birthday with a wonderful dinner at a restaurant downtown. They gave me a beautiful jewellery box when we got home :). On Saturday, we went to Sidsel & Jon Einar's for a family dinner, where I squared off with the aquavit again. After supper, Sarah, Kristian & I went back to there place for some drinks and Wii with Per and Martin. We headed downtown to Cardinal, the pub that is 24+, so I was finally able to get in without having to walk in between two tall people and hope they don't notice me. Turned out to be a late night, but a fun night :).
On Sunday, Sarah & Kristian took me to my first live football (soccer) match! Despite getting distracted and missing important parts of the game (like the only goal being scored), I had lots of fun. I can start to see why people get a little nuts for football over here.
The rest of my visit involved coffee with Michelle & Jesper, my favourite Norwegian baby, lots of lefse, walks around the lake (including an embarrassing incident with me getting scared by ducks), and visiting with Kristian's family, including taking his parent's St Bernard puppy for a walk along the beach. I wasn't incredibly excited to come back to England, but it helped that my suitcase was weighed down with lots of lefse until I go back. I was given some beautiful gifts for my birthday and I'm starting to think my Norwegian birthday celebration should become a yearly tradition!
So, it's now back to school and back to the routine. I will admit that, tiring though this week may have been, it is 10x better than the start I had last year. Even though I hardly slept at all the night before school started, I'm much happier and much more sane, for a better word. It's been a long week, rehearsals for the musical started again and have now picked up to twice/week, and I'm glad it's the weekend. It definitely helped to finish the week of with a great big glass of wine with Nikki. Next week brings a lesson observation by a school governor, getting back into WWRY full-swing and trying to stay sane through it all.
Here we go week 2!
No comments:
Post a Comment