And so it begins...

So this is officially my first ever blog posting, and it's coming all the way to you from Flekke, Norway, my new "home away from home". I can safely say that I never thought I'd be saying those words. But I can also safely say that I'm happy I am, because this is quite an amazing place. I had an insane week of orientation, and I feel like I've grown up more in a week than I have in my whole life. I've canoed, mountain biked, hiked plenty of miles on Norwegian mountains, jumped into the fjord, and met some of the most interesting people, all in the span of 7 days. Now I'm finally settling into a bit of a routine, I just had my first class (History) about a half hour ago and now I have free blocks until 11:15, which is nice. I've gotten all my pictures up and organized my little corner of the room and I must admit, it's starting to feel pretty cozy here. I have four other roommates, which may sound horrible, but it's actually really great. It's like always having a slumber party! My roommates are Sara from Denmark, Filipa from Portugal, Tiina from Finland, and Inara from Uzbekistan. Sounds like an odd bunch, but we actually all get along great. Some things, like friendship and love, truly do have no bearing on cultural or national things. They are universal. Something that is not universal, however, are accents. I'm already speaking a little bit differently because of all the different types of English I hear everyday. Mostly, everyone speaks British English, which really is different. But besides just that, I have to be conscious of my speech here because I am one of about 7 native English speakers. I think one of the things I tend to miss is being able to speak English as quickly as I want to. Okay well, I'm going to wrap this up and try and post a couple pictures on here, but for anyone who's curious, my class schedule looks like this:

20th century World History- Higher level
Philosophy- Higher level
English and Literature- Higher level
Norwegian Language- Standard level
Math Studies- Standard level
Environmental Systems- Standard level

Okay, lots of Viking hugs from the land of salmon and rainy days!