Njaal i USA

Hjemme igjen

2009-07-05T16:47:00.000-07:00

Det var kansje paa tide aa fotelle alle sammen at jeg faktisk har kommet hjem igjen, for omtrent 1 maanede siden. Et begivenhets rikt aar er over, og jeg vender tilbake til det vanlige livet i Norge.

Sommer!

2009-05-22T19:25:00.000-07:00

I dag var min siste skole dag paa Pike - Delta - York High School. Det eneste som gjenstaar er graduation sermonien som er sondag den 24. Ellers ser jeg frem til en nermere 3 maaneder lang sommerferie. Forovrig er det meget fint vaer her borte med sol paa en skyfri himmel og temperaturer rundt 30 grader (celcius, bjarte). Passer rimelig bra med svommebaseng i hagen;)
Har i overkant av en uke gjen av oppholdet mitt her i Delta, Ohio.

Invitational tournament @ Ayersville HS

2009-04-26T06:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday April 25th we were invited to play in a four team tournament at Ayersville HS. Which ofcourse ended with a Delta victory after beating a horrible team, which I don't even remember what was called, 13 - 0. And beating Ayersville 5 - 4 in the final.
It was a fairly warm day with temperatures reaching 30, in addition to lots, and lots of wind. I've got myselves a nice tan-line now.
Anyways, we won a tournament, and it feels good. Go Panthers!

Lappen, wohoo!!

2009-04-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

Etter 18 aar og uendelig mange timer er jeg endelig mobil. Ikke skal jeg gaa noen steder, eller ringe naar noen maa komme aa hente meg. Njaal cruser offisielt rundt i Deltas gater i en halvrusten Honda Civic.

(Det er ikke usansynlig at kiloene begynner aa komme grunnet mangel paa trim)

Slik ser bilen ut. Er ikke den samme, men samme type. Fant bilde paa google siden jeg ikke gadd aa ta bilde av min egen bil, haha.
http://www.desimotor.com/data/11671745791745/2001_honda_civic_blue_EX.jpg

A little basketball update

2009-03-04T18:13:00.000-08:00

As I spend most my time on basketball over here, I thought to my selves it's about time to write a little bit about how it it going. The regular season are over and we finished the season at 11 wins - 9 losses (Junior Varsity) and 8 wins - 12 losses (Varsity). However we managed to get a spot it the playoffs which started this tuesday. Our opponent were Lake High School, which we had beaten 42 - 40 earlier in the season. We ended up winning 69 - 39 in a blowout victory, which were sent live on tv as well. On the coming friday we are taking on Ottawa Hills, which has a 18 - 2 regular season record, for a spot in the sectional final.

This picture is from the Panther Hall, which is our home court. Its statium capability is somewhere around 750-800 people. We are playing in white. This picture is from our last home game against Tinora, another 18 - 2 regular season team. We lost the game 60 - 61. If you look closely, you can see some pictures hanging on the back wall, mine is the fourth starting from the down left.

I am curently working on geting a hold of some game fotage from one of the games.

It's cold, record cold

2009-01-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

Friday January 16th was officially the coldest day in the ohio area in 16 years. With the air temperature stuck at -23 degrees farenheit (-32 grader celcius). That was NOT the windshield. There was no school due to abvious reasons. 60% of the schools students would likely freeze to death. It was so cold that you could take a glass of warm water, throw it up in the air, and it was ice when it hit the ground. Now thats cold. Too cold.

MLB the Show

2009-01-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

For de av dere som lurer paa hva jeg bruker den lille fritiden jeg har innimellom, saa kan jeg betrygge dere om at jeg ikke har glemt kunsten med tv spill og gaming konsoller. Jeg har nemmelig de siste 3 maanedene spilt MLB the Show 08 gaske saa hardt. Er forØvelig i sesongen 2011, som er min fjerde sesong. Det virker kansje ikke saa imponerende, men i en sesong er det 162 kamper. Skal ikke si at jeg har spilt alle kampene selv, men det har blitt en del av de.

Ellers vil jeg si at det er et helt fantastisk spill som kan minne veldig om en blanding mellom Fifa og fotball manager, bare baseball style. Helt overlegent!

Half way

2009-01-15T17:25:00.000-08:00

I am now half way in my american life, and are therefore going to write about what I have seen and experienced so far when if comes to whats alike and whats very different from USA and Norway.

- There are fastfood chains everywhere, and they are not only there for the view, but people eat there. A lot!

- The beds only have a thin cotton sheet, nothing thick. If you are cold, you grab one more.

- There is no such thing that makes your clothes silky smooth when you wash them.

- Americans never eat healthy breakfast. Common choises are wafles with way too much sirup and a pile of pouder sugar on top, pop-tards (candy like thingy, very unhealthy), beagles, eggs & bacon, and if you are eating a sandwitch, you use white bread only.

- Every family have atleast 3 cars; one truck (which is very rarely used), one cheap car, and one family car. In addition my family have a golf car. Yeah, baby!

- Gas cost 1,75$ a gallon which equal to about 3 kr pr liter, and they conplain all the way.

- Sports and school go hand in hand. You play for your school, not a team.

- The school gets delayed if there are a little snow on the road, or it is too cold. So far we have had 8 delays and 1 canselation.

- The school system are quite poor. You learn very little stuff of significant meaning, and it is almost a free ride to good grades.

- In during the classperiod we take notes off the overhead, or we lisen to the teacher speak about anything. Often not school related at all.

- Even though americans are crazy about cars nobody changes into winter-tires, and as a result, there are cars in every ditch on a snowy day.

- America have Hooters! Gief!

- It is EXTREMELY inpoortant for a teenager to have clothes exclusively from Hollister or
American Eagle. Personally, I don't like eighter of them.

- It cost more money to make you'r own dinner that to eat out. A dubble cheeseburger at McDonald's cost 1$ (5,5 kr).

- About 80% of the people here first thought they spoke english as the main language in whole of europe, including in Norway.

- 15ish% didn't know Norway existed.

- If you are 1 second late for a class - you get a detention.

I'll write some more stuff later on, this was just the first things that came to my mind.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

I would like to wish everybody a happy new year! I hope you have a wonderfull year to come.

It's freeezing

2008-12-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

I remember people telling me a little while back that we are going to have a rough winter. And last week the winter started for real, with temperatures as low as -20*C (-30*C on the windshield), tonns of snow, and school canselations. And since almost every american drive with summer-tires all year around, there has been A LOT of accidents.
Yesterday we went to the Detroit Pistons - Chicago Bulls game, which is usually a 1,5 hours drive, but we spent almost 3 hours each way because of icy roads and very snowy weather. But even though the drive to get there was a pain, the game itselves was awesome! The game ended with a Pistons victory 104 - 98, which most of my family was very excited about. After the game we went to Hooters, which for several reasons are my favorite american resturant. They have superb food and even better serving ;) My personal favorite is the Western BBQ Burger. Its a moster hamburger with loads of great stuff on it. Is a must try if you ever go to Hooters.

Lang dag i kirken, ja i kirken

2008-12-07T19:38:00.000-08:00

I dag ble jeg vekker i 9 tiden av at vi skulle i kirken. Greit nok det, men det som forst saa ut til aa vere en liten uskyldig gudstjeneste utviklet seg til aa vare i nermere 2,5 timer. Noe som er lenge aa hore paa noen lese fra bibelen. Det er vel litt feil aa si at man bare leser opp fra bibelen her, for med gjevne mellomrom ble bibellesingen avbrutt av allsang der hver gang ordene 'praise the lord' ble sunget gikk halvve forsamlingen ned paa kne, rakte armene opp mot taket og sang av hele sitt hjerte. Den storste forskjelden paa kirker her og i Norge er vel hvor engasjerte folk er her. De sitter ikke stille for seg selv, men lar kroppen ta over og slipper seg helt los. HELT los.
Mot slutten naar presten leste opp en bonn ble det hele avbrutt av at en person maatte nyse, og folk rundt i hele rommet skrek ut: "God bless you, God bless you!" Hele sitvasjonen var tildels komisk, sett fra min vinkel. Senere paa kvelden, rettere bestemt klokken 6.00 pm var det tid for kirken igjen, denne gangen var det rekonstruksjon av jesus fodsel i betlehem. Det var et skuespill der alle i kirken var innvolvert. Litt vanskelig aa forklare, men det hele hadde med historien vi alle kjenner, gutten som ble fodt i en krybbe. Et par timer senere var det hele over, og vi tuslet hjem igjen.
For de av dere som kjenner meg godt, kan dere sikkert forstaa at 4,5 timer i en kirke paa en dag er relativt mye for selv meg.

Gratulerer med dagen, mamma!

2008-11-11T18:55:00.001-08:00

Gratulerer saa mye med 50 aars dagen!! Haaper du har en fantastisk feiring i Praha med pappa, kos deg masse. Savner deg utrolig mye! Har provd aa ringe deg flere ganger i lopet av dagen, men som du vet tror jeg ikke mobilen min vil ringe til utland. Jeg kom ikke hjem fra skolen for klokken 8 i kveld, for jeg hadde forst trening, saa var vi igjen aa saa jentelaget spille turnering.

Ha en fortsatt fin feiring, saa snakkes vi snart igjen!

Let's play some Bball!

2008-11-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

Today, on november 10th, basketball season started officaly. Our practice last from 2.30 to 5.30 every day, besides the days we play games, which is about 3 games a week. Our first skrimish is the coming saturday and I am really looking forward to it. I made the Varsity team, but I'll be playing for JV as well.
This year they are going to put up pictures of every player on the varsity team and hang them arund the gym, so that's pretty cool. Oh, and if you wanted to know, I am working my &#$ off here and sweating like a pig! Its tough!

A little update:

Today I played with the JV team and we won all of our 6 first games, so thats a good start of the season. Even though it was just scrimmage, its good to get started.

Homecoming

2008-10-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

Once every year every High School in the country have their homecoming. For those of you who don't know what this is, (which might be a lot of you ;)) its basicly a celebration at the end of the football season. Friday evening, the football team play their homecoming-game, which has great prestige. On our game there were about 2500 people in the stands, which is equal to more than 80% of Deltas population. Before the game, each player gets introduced with its parents.

The homecoming dance is held the evening after the game. This is a little formal, so you are expected to dress up. Before the dance, the homecoming king/queen (which has been voted by the students weeks in advance) is driven around the town and to the dance in a very fancy convertible, before beeing escorted to the dance.

That was the forman part. Personally I had a great time, and here is what I did on this saturday in the middle of October:

2,5 hours before the dance, me and my family + Nathan (designated photographer) went to a beautiful place out in the woods called Oak Valley for some lovley family pictures. (One of the reasons were constant spamming in request of a family picture from my REAL mom) Later on, a lot of my friends showed up as well for some group pictures as well. I got a lot of great pics, and here are some of them:

starting from the back: Richard, Bowen, Brooklyn, Kimberlee
front: Blake, me and Brailee

Blake and I

This is my date for the evening, Haley.

from the back: me, Blake, Derek

In front, starting left: Julie, Kayla and Elizabeth

After pictures, a group of us 'kids' went to a fancy resturant for a meal. It was a very nice place, the food was very good, but it was not up to my standards when it comes to food. Not that my standards are high or anything special, I just request one thing. Enough food. After paying 15 dollars on what I thought were a beef steak, I got a couple of tiny pices of cutted meat. The "beef steak" were no bigger than half my hand in full size. Still starving, we drove on to the dance. I don't have any pics from the actuall dance, because I turned in my camera, as I didn't boughter dancing with it in my pocket. It was as you can imagine - a DJ plaing some songs, keeping the party goin', 50*C and almost no air, so we had to go outside every 15 min not to die from a heathstroke. After 5 hours in the party-sauna, we were tired to death, so next stop home. You might think now was the time to sleep, but your wrong! With the beat still beating in my head I had no choise but to play some lovely guitar hero. And some turned in to a lot. Tired as I was I did not have the power to lay down the guitar, so I ended up playing most of the night before my body just shut down. A perfect ending to a beautiful day.

Welcome to Cedar point - Roller Coaster capital of the world

2008-10-06T15:21:00.001-07:00

10.04.08 is a day to remember for all eternity. This shiny saturday in early October we went to Cedar point, home of the greaters Roller Coaster rides in the world. Here you can find 18 different rides, and a bounch of other stuff to get your bloodpresure rising. I don't know what else to write - IT WAS AWESOME!!!

This is the millenium force. With its first drop of 305 feet (100 meters), and speeds up to 95 mph (160 km/t) this is one of the talles and fastets rides in the world.

Here is a link to this ride: http://www.cedarpoint.com/_includes/flash/media_player_popup.cfm?videoID=11240&videoWidth=320

The Dragster - One of the biggest badboys of man-made thrill there is. Stretching 420 feet (140 meter) above the ground, accelerating from 0-126 mph (200 km/t) in less then 3 seconds, this is without doubt the most thrill roller coaster I've sat down on.

Mean Streak is on of the tallest and fastest wooden coasters in the universe. It has a top speed of 105 km/t, and a 60 meter long vertical drop. Along with the Millenium force, this was my favorite ride.

Here is a link to this ride: http://www.cedarpoint.com/_includes/flash/media_player_popup.cfm?videoID=13411&videoWidth=320

Out of the 18 rides there, I got to ride 10 of them, which is very good, considering the average waiting time were supposed to be about 1 hour+ per ride and I were there for a total of 9 hours. In addition to the 10 roller coasters I did a bounch of other fun stuff too. Here are some pictures from Cedar Point.

Though this rotating sledgehammer was a "smooth-ride" - it was awesome!

The Power Tower - Launches you 300 feet (100 meter) up in the air and then you have 4 seconds of free fall, neat ;)

After 1 hour in line, you get bored and tired. Guess if our facial expression changed after the ride..

A Great day at Cedar Point - Recommanded to everyone with a thrill seeking heart!

Pictures

2008-09-29T19:07:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple of pictures i took today:

Taken at grandma's party; (from the back, Blake, Grandma, me, Brailee. Front; Bowen, Brooklyn)

It was raining like crazy today, so Bowen and Brooklyn decided to go for a mud bath.

Party at Grandma's!!

2008-09-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

Today our grandma had her 53th birthday, so we went over for a little party, and I have to admit, I did not see that one coming.. If you are wondering what kind of madhouse this is, you are prob not alone. It is tradition to cover the birthday boy/girl in toiletpaiper. Yes, toiletpaiper. Though it was kinda weird, it was fun =)

Fastfood eyy??

2008-09-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

I figured I would make a little post about food, and by food, I mean fastfood. After 2 weeks in USA I have no problems understanding why 50% of the american people are overweight. There are 1000 different fastfood places all along the road, everywhere. When you are driving through a small town, you see some houses, maybe a school, 4 differend churches, 2 McDonalds, 1 Burgerking, 1 Wendys, 1 tacobell, 1 Arbys, 2 subways and 10 other random resturants. That is a lot of food...

When it comes to my own diet ill give you a typical day for me:

- Starting off with breakfast I often eat wafles, pancaces or french toast. (with atleast 1L maple sirup, the others eat it with a sugar as well) I also take a glass of orange juice and a vitamin pill.

- Lunch at school varies, but it is often salat, pizza, cheese toast or tacos, all with fires and a milk.

- When it is dinnertime, pizza, burgers and chicken are aten atleast twice a week. (Americans done eat fish, ever) The picture above is taker from this evenings dinner. Pizza's at 5$ a piece, in other words, the same a frozen pizza at home.

In the fridge I'm guessing there is 10 frozen pizzas, 10 different ice cream flavors, and 100 kg other microweave food I've never heard of before.

As you understand, americans are fat for a reason.

First week

2008-09-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

This first period of time, I have been extremely bussy, with tonns of stuff to do everyday. I will therefore give you a summary including most of the things I have done. I won't go very deep into each topic, simply because it would take forever.
Starting off from wednsday; This was my first day at Delta High and things went very well. I met a lot of new people and got to know the teachers. My scadual goes as following:

1. American Goverment
2. Study Hall
3. Study Hall
4. Physics
Lunch
5. Sports Nutrition
6. English 12
7. Pre-Calcilus

The reason why I am having 2 study hall periods are because I have to study Norwegian, German and norwegian history in addition, so I have plenty of work to do. When I started school here, students had been going here for 4 weeks already, but after 1 week I have caught up with them in almost every subject, so school isn't too hard here. And the tests or quiz as they call it here are very easy. It is eighter true/false, multiple choises or a couple of sentences as an answer questions, which is pretty easy as well.
After school I play baskettball from 3 p.m - 4.30 p.m 4 days a week, and baseball from 5-6.30 4 days a week. After practise I usually go home and eat some dinner. (I'll get back to what I am eating during the day later on) Tuesday and Thursday the volleyball team play games, which I have attended to so far. JV startes at 6 p.m (classes 9-11) and varsity at 7.30 p.m (the best players from classes 9-12). Fridays the varsity football team play and JB play on saturdays (football as in american football, there are no soccer teams for guys in Delta. Besides all of this I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana on sunday to watch Brailee's baskettball tournament, as well as Blake playing JV football. Even though Blakes team lost 28 - 42, Blake had 3 touchdown receptions and a total of 300 yards during the game. The remaining part of sunday we watch football on tv. I've also watched almost every twins game so far, so as you may understand. I am very very bussy all day long!

Still haven't taken the time to take pictures, but as soon as I find the time in all this madness, pictures will come.

If there is something you are wondering about, just leave it in a comment, and I'll include it in the next post.

Arrival

2008-09-18T11:43:00.002-07:00

After 15 hours on the plane going the route Bergen --> Frankfurt --> Detroit, I was looking forward to finally meet my new host family. The very first second I met them, it was instant chemistry. We were talking and having a great time already. I mentioned on an e-mail that I were a Twins fan, so I were give a twins cap :) About halfway to Delta we stopped on a steak house where I ate a chicken-bread soup, fried onions, french fries and a full lenght rib, called 'badass back boar rib'. Richard told me that his math did not add up; "How can that fit in there?"
As we made it back to the house I met about 30 new people. And each time I met a new person, I had to say my name slowly atleast 5 times, sometimes more. I did not make it to bed before 11 pm, 26 hours after I left my home.

I have a lot to tell you, but i've been writing for 1 hour 15 min now, and I need to start on my homework before I'm off to basketball practice (ligger godt an til aa komme med paa high school laget, pappa ;)

The beginning

2008-09-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and family!
Welcome to my little blog site where I will keep you updated on my year in the USA. I have chosen to write the blog on english for various reasons. Among them are because I do have many international friends which I want to keep in touch with. Another is that I am over here to improve my english constantly, and what better way to do that than to write here in english as well. I am aiming for 1-2 contributions a week, but it might go a little slower as time pass on by.
I hope you will enjoy the site, make some comments and pop by every now and then!