Mostly food

Hello Friends and Family!!!
or halloo from Norway!

Just a quick update of whatever comes to mind at the moment about my experiences so far in Norway.

1. I really love it here. I tried to come with no expectations so I wasn't sure what it would be like.. If I'd absolutely hate it/Love it/be somewhere in the middle. But I've been so blessed to have amazing people around me and such a great atmosphere. It's beginning to feel like a second home.

Here's some of the new food I've tried

*side note- In my experience in Norway there are 4 meals a day. Breakfast at 7am, Lunch around 11am something.. I don't remember, Dinner at 4:30pm or 16:30, and then supper at 8:30pm (I think...It could be around 8). It's so awesome and I mostly feel like I'm living in middle earth in the Shire.

Bread is eaten at every meal except for dinner.. but sometimes I eat bread at supper anyways.

Breakfast looks like : bread with brown cheese or prim or nugatti or yellow cheese and a slice of salami or crunchy bread with cream cheese.

Lunch: depending on the day. If it's sunday,monday,wednesday,thursday,saturday it's packed lunch which is basically breakfast packed into parchment paper and folded like a birthday present with your name sharpied onto it.
Other days it's warm lunch.

Dinner: warm food.. soups and meat and salad stuff

Supper: basically breakfast

P.S. sandwiches are always one piece of bread with the spreading or cheese on top mostly. It's not common to put two slices of bread together. Which I think is brilliant because two slices of bread is a bit much because the bread is so thick so now anytime I see the "normal" two slices sandwich I kind of get grossed out.

Brown Cheese- You slice it with this cheese slicer and put it on buttered bread or a long cracker thingy and also you can put jelly on it. My favorite is raspberry jelly.

This --->

is prim which is whipped brown cheese. It's heavenly and I would probably eat it everyday but apparently it's not that healthy...

This thing down below this typing is called Pølse and lumpe. I had it once at a campout trip thing and I think I can survive without ever trying it again. The hotdog was fine but the potato flat bread is not my cup of tea. Also I ate it with brown mustard and dried onion chip things. So meh, it's not my favorite thing.

This ---->

is pancake with jelly and sour cream. I've never had it with pancakes but I've eaten waffles. Which basically look and taste like American waffles just smaller and thinner. It's amazing. I love to eat brown cheese with my waffles and jelly. The brown cheese melts and you fold it and it's glorious. 

These ---> 

are fish cakes.... or fish pudding..... I ate it once... so yes. It's an acquired taste.

Also, we have a coffee/tea break in the morning with cookies/biscuits.

I mostly drink tea without anything in it and then have a cookie or two. They have normal cookies like chocolate chip or wafer cookies but I've also tried 

these are good to dip in tea because the hot water makes the chocolate melt and it's great unless it falls into your tea cup and you have a disintegrated pile of dust for your last sip. 

Norwegians are very proud of their chocolate and I have to agree that it's probably the best I've had. My favorite is either the milk chocolate or the ones with toffee in it the "daim".

These are the cookies/biscuits that substitute for graham crackers in smores. 

love you all tons!!!! I'll write more later. 

love love love,

Matisse

God is so faithful

My heart is so full from all of the teaching and goodness of God. Right now I'm processing and chewing on a lot of things so here are a few songs that have been really a great description of how I feel or what I'm praying right now. Love you all!!!

Day II

Hello :) I'm writing this from my room in Norway so it's actually the third day but just the beginning so I'll write about it tomorrow or sometime.
        Day 2 went well. I got an aisle seat just like I really wanted for the overnight plane ride. It wasn't too bad but I only got around 2.5 hours of sleep. I'm exhausted but it's not too bad. Apparently Jet lag takes 1 day for every hour lost to make up so I'm looking at around a week for the 7 hours but hopefully it'll be less. God is so good as always. All of my luggage came through and I have everything unpacked. Rundown of my day yesterday

• got on the plane in Canada
• got an aisle seat and got to sit by 2 mid twenty year old who were both going to Germany? to teach school
• tried to sleep 
• couldn't sleep so used the touch screen tv to watch a movie
• slept through part of the movie
• got off the plane in iceland
• went through customs 
• found a lovely trolly to put my carry on bags in
• looked everywhere for my gate
• googled it to find my ticket
• looked up and found it was right in front of me
• road a bus to get to the airplane
• thought it was going to be super awesome to walk up the stairs to get to the plane 
• realized it wasn't because a.) It was pouring rain b.) the plane engines were on/the wind was blowing super hard
• really secretly loved the rain because it was so fun
• sat in the wrong seat
• really nice man helped me put my bag in the top place so I didn't have to put it under my feet
• sat in the right seat (which was a window one that I wanted) by swedish students coming back from a travel abroad trip in Iceland 
• read a really nice letter and awkwardly cried beside the swedish students who probably felt super awkward haha
• looked out the window a lot 
• got off the plane
• wandered around the airport trying to find the train station
• found out all trains were cancelled:(
• got a charter bus ticket 
• pretended that since the hogwarts express was down that I was just taking the Knight bus
• got to the stop
• got to the school 

everything went well

thank you so much for prayers and please keep them coming 

pray for rest and peace

love you all!!!

Hello everyone:) I'm currently sitting in an airport in Canada. The past few days have been so surreal. I really don't know how to explain it very well but its felt like this limbo between two worlds. I no longer live in Abilene or with my family but I haven't gotten to Norway and settled in yet. Needless to say it's been very wearying. I'm so excited to start this adventure but I miss my family and friends. God has been so overwhelmingly good through out this entire process. From yesterday when somehow an hour after we were supposed to leave the house and my passport getting lost behind the chair  cushion and us finding it finally to my bags being over weight limit and all 3 flights just gave me a warning. I definitely learned my lesson and never ever want to travel with this much stuff or maybe just next time switch out my carryon duffel bag with something that has wheels. He's helped me through this whole day and I'm sure will carry me through tomorrow and the next day and next. Traveling with my papa is the only way to go. He is so good.
Rundown of my day

• got through security and everything in Dallas for the first time alone
• waited for the plane for about an hour and a half and mostly cried/watched birds/listened to music
• sat next to a nice french Canadian guy that helped when I panicked because I didn't know which box to check for the customs paper
• got off the plane and followed everyone on the plane through customs then found out I was on the opposite end of the airport from my next flight
• found an amazing life saving bag trolly and didn't have to pull all my suitcases God is good!!
• waited for about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to get the trolly up the escalator until a nice Canadian man pointed out the 3 elevators behind me
• finally got to terminal 3 and walked the entire length of it 3 times trying to find the boarding pass check in 
• finally found it 
• waited in line for 2 hours with a Danish guy that had just gotten done with his Canadian backpacking adventure 
• started shaking because I was so nervous my bags would be too heavy
• started praying a lot 
• premium flying guy called me to his line and let me go through God is good!!!
• found icelandair and bought an apple and Gatorade for supper 

I can't wait to see how tomorrow goes hopefully I'll get an aisle seat but I'm just glad I'm getting on the plane.
Love you guys tons
cheers from Canada xx