The Harlem Voices

Hey guys! Just a short sign of life today, because nothing special happened this week. Except for our little revolution in the Norwegian class maybe – we just could not stand it anymore. So Barbara, Oleksandr and me asked to study in a separate room on our own and actually it was the most productive lesson ever, but the staff was not so pleased about it. We should join the class and so on and so forth… We could understand their point and proposed to find a compromise, but they did not feel too comfortable talking about this with us. Just the way many Norwegians behave – a problem appears and they rather take to their heels than discuss it. And even if they manage to discuss it, most of the time they won’t find a proper solution and accordingly nothing will change. Sometimes it is really frustrating, honestly. Changes are definitely none of the Norwegian strengths. But they say it about themselves too – they just cannot change it. Those are just little characteristics you have to cope with in this place. We will see what happens next. For my part, I do not want to just mark time. Therefor we can hopefully find a solution in the near future.

But I do not want to bore you with stories about my Norwegian lessons any longer. Instead I could tell you something about the Christmas explosion, which took and still takes place since this week. Exactly on the first December the snow reached the valley for the first time and not only the mountains around us, but unfortunately it was getting warmer the whole day and finally it started raining – and the snow was gone again. But nevertheless everybody is in Christmas mood, people decorate their houses, lights are blinking everywhere, cookies want to be baked, Christmas decoration is made (for example in the knitting group – instead of knitting), everybody is talking about Christmas, drinking mulled wine (of course from the supermarket and not homemade, we are in Norway…) and busy with preparing Christmas presents (while everything else is slowing down even more than usual). It is just all about Christmas right now and in my opinion even worse than in Germany, especially for such a small place. But right now I can still laugh about it. And personally I was surprised by my family to-be with another package full of goodies and an Advent calendar – amazing! Thank you so so so much!!

In the course of this entire Christmas thing I could benefit from a gospel concert in the opera. Actually I have been there to work and host the event, but we had the chance to join it too. And it was so beautiful! ‘The Harlem Voices’ have been on tour through the whole world and now they stopped in our little town here. Awesome! I really enjoyed listening to them and I can only recommend it to you, in case that they perform somewhere around your place. But to come to an end (later than I thought, sorry for that misjudgment) – I hope you all had a pleasant week and could enjoy the present Second Advent :)

Ha det bra!

Alisa