Back in Time

October 8th..
    This was the day that we would have open house at Voss Folkehøgskule.  Moms, dads, brothers and sisters, grandparents, and friends were all invited to attend.  I actually remember one morning a few days before the open house when I was at the morning assembly, just before all the students were about to be dismissed one of the teachers asked "does everyone here have a cellphone with them?) and of course everyone holds up their phones.  "Good, I want you all to message your friends and family that there will be a open house on the Saturday the 8th."  Now you must take into consideration that there are over 100 students here in Voss so if everyone did bring all these friends and family that we were told to then the school would be pretty full..  However like always there are always people that cant make it and other scenarios so in the end there was about 200 people here all in all.

     We started the with having the different lines "majors" gather in there rooms at 18:00 (6:00pm) with their family and friends.  There was coffee and small things to eat while the teacher would talk a little about what the year is made up with along with what we have already accomplished so far.  Then there we flipped on the projector and saw some pictures and video of out time in Voss so far.  Being in Frisport, there was a lot of kayaking video, mostly river, and then lots of pictures from the ocean kayaking trip.  We looked through just about all the pictures we had actually but that was good because the parents and friends really got a chance to not only look at the picture but listen to what we had to say about them.  Some of the pictures sparked conversations that lasted quiet a while.
    Next on the schedule was dinner or supper... I'm not sure actually because normally dinner in Norway is at 13:00 (1:00pm).. so maybe this was supper.  Anyway, next on the schedule was dinner/supper which was at 20:30 (8:30pm).  The previous meeting in the classroom had ended at around 19:00 (7:00pm) which gave everyone a good hour to do whatever.  I decided to bring my Bestefar on a short drive to our normal river kayaking place..


View Normal Kayaking Place in a larger map
By the way, my Bestefar was who I brought to open house.  So, I decided to bring him here, only a short 15 minute drive away because many of the pictures and video where taken here.  This is where we do most of our river kayaking.  It was a great day for a drive too, the weather couldn't have been better that day.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was nice and warm.
    It was nearing dinner/supper time so I had to go up to my room and put on a little more formal clothes.  I mean it was nothing special just a little more dressed up then normal.  And then we were on our way.  Dinner/supper was at the school in the place we normally eat, but instead of just walking straight on up we were stopped at the bottom of the stairs by a line.  It wasn't long before it started to move, but it did give everyone a chance to take a quick look around and see everyone dressed up.  I have to point out that the girls were very well dressed, many of them in their national costumes and looking good.  But, like I said the line started to move and then we were soon sitting down waiting to eat.  My friend Morten had saved us seats so we sat with him and his family.
    Now for this next part please remember that this is Folk School so it may seem a little strange but trust me, its great.  On of the teachers got everyone's attention, gave a speech in Norwegian and then passed the floor to another teacher sang a song about what we were about to eat.  Or, at least that's what I translated it to myself as.  Its hard enough translating normal Norwegian let alone song.  So he sang us a song, which he forgot the last verse which I have to admit was a bit funny.  He then gave us a lesson on how to prepare the food that we were going to be eating.  Now, this is where it gets a little, strange.

"First we take a few pieces of flat-bread, crack them into little pieces, then... crumble them really fast between our hands.  You then pour out the almost dust like flat-bread into the bottom of your bowl.  Next, take a good scope of the soup (there is a special Norwegian name for the soup but I cant recall it now..) and then another, but with the second scope make sure that you don't get to much liquid because you want to have a little "hill" of the meat of the soup sitting above the liquid.  Now we take some cheese (and this is a kind of Norwegian cheese that apparently almost no one likes because it has a very strong taste) and put it on top of the hill we made.  Finally we take some syrup (not maple syrup, it kind of looks like honey..) and drizzle that over the top and your done."

    Yea... so that's what we had to eat.  But to tell you the truth it was actually pretty good and almost everyone had seconds or thirds.  And of course it is a tradition in Voss to have this so that was fun to try.  We spent a good two hours eating, every once and a while being interrupted by the teachers to sing a song or give a speech.