Norway: The First Days

I made it!! We have been in Rosendal for about 4 days now - even though it feels like it has been weeks already. Our travels were pretty harmless. Besides being forever long, we all made it to the motherland. We flew from SLC to Detroit, Detroit to Amsterdam with a two hour layover, then Amsterdam to Bergen, Norway. We had to wait 4 hours at the teeny tiny airport, so I exchanged all of my US dollars to Kroner. Everything is much more expensive here, so that will take some adjustment. Once it was time to catch the bus, we packed our crap up and lugged our luagged to the bus. We took a 10 minute bus ride to the "fastboat" or "ferry" dock. We took a two hour trip on the fast boat to the city of Rosendal. It was cold, windy, and rainy. It definitely felt like I was in Portland or Seattle. Everything is green and luscious. I absolutely love it.
We were all super exhausted after a 30 hour journey, but when we made our way to our cabins we were told we were to go to our supervisor's home for dinner. It was delicious and so kind of them. By the time we had full tummies and the sun had set, we all could barely keep our eyes open.
Finally, we slept!!
We woke up and got ready for a tour of Rosendal the next morning. We went on long walks through the hills up to the Baroneit ("barony"). That is the castle built in the 1500's where the Baron and Baroness of Norway used to live. I wouldn't mind making that my summer home one day...
There are magnificent gardens and trees surrounding it! It was a magical place.
We then made our way to Steinparken ("stone park"). It is a perfectly green park in the middle of the forest with polished stones all around. A creek runs right through the middle of it. It would be the perfect place for a springtime picnic.
We then headed back towards the cabins to do a little grocery shopping. That was definitely a new experience.
I am loving being here and this beautiful town of Rosendal.
I get to take a ferry across the fjord to my school everyday. It makes for a long travel day, but it is so funny to think that this is just their "freeway" system. They drive from their homes to the ferry, park their car right on the boat, then end up in a completely different town. I love it.
My students are darling and BEAUTIFUL. They are so well behaved and polite. and VERY active. It is so different than American schools and I cannot wait to bring home a lot of these methods and utilize them in my future classroom!
Here is a video of the first couple days of travel and exploration. I made it with my iPhone, so it is not by any means a high definition or amazing quality video!

I dont know if that is going to work or not... SO if it doesn't, click HERE!!!

Here are some photos that I have taken myself or taken from some of the other student teachers I am here with!

I will hopefully post some more updates on my students and the funny moments that are going to happen!