We have been gone for just over a month. One month in Norway. That is it. This is the beginning of the adventure…
I sat down with each of the kids separately and asked them the same questions. I did not clean up their words. I did not help them find better phrasing. What you are reading is exactly what came out when I asked.
Q. Before we left for Norway, what did you think it was going to be like? And what was the biggest thing you got wrong?
Avilene: I thought that it was gonna be quite cold. I thought that they would have much different food and much different weather and I got that wrong because they had so many things that we had back in America.
Gavin: Very rural. Very, very rural. But also urban, and how close everyone is to one another. There is a lot of population separation but everyone is really close.
Jake: I was thinking that it was gonna be very cold or it would have a lot more snow for most of the seasons but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. And how many forests they have in the mountains — there’s a lot more than what I thought. And there are more cities and buildings than I thought there would be.
Q. What is the one thing about Norway that you would go home and tell your friends about first?
Avilene: I will tell them about all the really fun animals and the really pretty nature that was around the lakes and around in the forest.
Gavin: The nature. It was just… it didn’t feel like the cities and everything was the most important thing or the most special thing. It was just being outside and experiencing everything out there.
Jake: How much it is like some places in America. Like the subways or the trams like New York. Or the forests like the forests that are in Seattle. And the rivers that come through Kansas.
Q. We have been doing school differently here. What is the best part about learning this way and what is the hardest part?
Avilene: The best part is probably I got to see how people put stuff into sentences and how they just say stuff differently. Also the different buildings and I get to learn how it really is and it is definitely not what I expected. The hardest part would probably be the fact that not many people speak as much English so I would have to try to say it for them to try to get what they mean and if I don’t then I can’t understand the question.
Gavin: I think the best part was probably just the different perspectives that I got. The different pace of life. The different lifestyle that I saw in the people. The hardest thing was mostly that change from how I live and how difficult it was for me to adjust, especially how quickly we moved and how early we had to get up. I don’t adjust to those things very easily.
Jake: The language that people speak and the visual language and all of the culture is hard to learn.
Q. Tell me about a day that surprised you. Not something we planned — just a regular day that turned into something unexpected.
Avilene: Probably when we went into Oslo. I noticed how different it looked from Arendal and how different the architecture was and also how not many buildings are as old.
Gavin: Puppy, our friends dog. Jake took her out to go to the bathroom and she just ran herself away from us and went down into the valley and we had to run down there. It was maybe a fifteen minute full full sprint to get that dog back. I will admit that was probably the most shockingly exhausting and surprising event that has happened. Jake told me to grab the leash and come back down with it. I did not come back with the leash so we had to end up directing her back by blocking the different ways she could move.
Jake: All of the ferries we took to other places from Norway were bigger than I had expected and much nicer and much comfier than I expected, which was nice.
Q. What do you miss most from home? You are allowed to say something small and silly.
Avilene: Probably my friends. Since we have different time zones I can’t call them when I wake up because they’re tired. So that’s probably what I miss.
Gavin: Probably just the comfortable nature of all that we were doing. It didn’t feel great but it felt really good to know that no matter what would happen my days would always seem very similar. We don’t have that anymore and that’s kind of hard because I do not adjust to those things very easily.
Jake: The new school that I was gonna go to. And all of my friends I’ve met online.
Q. Norway has a law called Allemansretten that says you can walk, run, or ride through any land even if someone owns it. What would you do differently at home if that was a rule there too?
Avilene: Well the pro about that is that I could get home faster because I wouldn’t have to go around people’s houses. I could go through their lawn. And the con about that is that people can mess up your lawn or mess up your property.
Gavin: I wouldn’t have to sprint from the woods to the neighbor’s yard because I was afraid of their dogs. I wouldn’t have to be concerned about the dogs or the cameras because no one has a right to stop me from moving through it. That hasn’t been a very consistent threat to me but when it happened it’s been very annoying and concerning.
Jake: I would go to a ton of different areas in my neighborhood that I haven’t been able to go to because I didn’t wanna invade on anybody’s property.
Q. What is something you have seen kids here in Norway doing that kids back home don’t do?
Avilene: I see many kids walking around by themselves without their parents and you don’t see that a lot back in Kansas.
Gavin: They’re much louder in public spaces. They think they’re on top of everything and to be honest by the way everyone else acts about it they really are. At the end of their school day all I could hear was them out by the water and it was really loud and no one else really did anything about it. But to be honest they just act so much more freely in the way they speak and the way they act. They’re not constrained by fear, which is something that we always have when we’re in public places.
Jake: There aren’t as many people traveling or coming back from somewhere as I’ve seen in Kansas or any other place. People here are either playing outside most of the time or just being with their family.
Q. If you could bring one thing from Norway back to our life at home — not a souvenir, a real thing, a way of doing something — what would it be?
Avilene: Let’s say you’re a kid walking around trying to get somewhere fast. There are usually electric scooters or bikes that you can rent and hop on and get there a lot faster and they don’t have those in Kansas.
Gavin: The tap water. I am so done with American tap water. It feels grimy. It makes me think there’s something in it. But while we were here at worst it tasted like honey water and at best it tasted like nothing. Just bring back the tap water.
Jake: I like how they don’t have much to do with the war. I’d like to bring that back — where there isn’t as much conflict or hating anybody. I would like to bring back the kindness. All the people here are very kind to each other and I haven’t seen any fighting.
Q. What is the difference between traveling somewhere and actually living there?
Avilene: Usually when you’re just traveling you go to so much in one day trying to rush it and not really getting the full experience. And when you live here you can do it whenever you want. You can come back any day. Let’s say you did something in a museum and you wanted to do something else and you didn’t get to — you can always go back.
Gavin: When you’re just visiting the only decisions you have to make are where you’re staying, what you’re wearing, where you’re eating, and where you’re going. When you live somewhere you have to make all the decisions throughout the day. You have to be a lot more conscious about what you’re doing and aware that you could upset somebody. Also we get to see both the good sides and the bad sides of where we are. An example of that is yeah all the people are super nice but then we walked down the streets and all we can smell is cigarettes.
Jake: When you live somewhere you should be able to do something without worrying about time or doing too much or missing out on something. Whereas if you don’t live there you would have to do as many things as you could in the limited time that you have.
Q. What is something that felt weird or wrong at first that you now think is actually a good idea?
Avilene: There are many ways to recycle in Norway. Europe alone is very passionate about recycling and pollution so I thought it was just crazy that there are like five different trash cans when we only have two. But now that I’m thinking of it it’s actually really good because they put it into different dump sites.
Gavin: Beans on toast. I never tried beans on toast before I got here and originally I was gonna be like that’s way too much savory for a savory thing. But now that I have tried it it’s really really nice. I just know that we never have as much access to baked beans back home.
Jake: Tap water. From the sinks, just drinking tap water in general. But this comes straight from glaciers and they’re melting and making freshwater out of that instead of drinking straight from filtered lake water. So instead of wasting it they’re using it.
Q. What do you still want to do or see before we leave Norway?
Avilene: I really wanted to go into one of the older buildings to see how Norway was a long time ago and what it looked like and how people lived here.
Gavin: I would have really liked to see Narvik. It’s a port city in the north and it was kind of the deciding point of Norway’s World War II occupation. It would have been really nice to see that.
Jake: I would like to ski down an actual mountain. Not an indoor ski place. A real mountain.
Q. If another family asked you whether they should move their kids to Norway for a year, what would you tell them?
Avilene: I would say yes definitely. Norway is a kid-safe place where I see many kids with their friends just going around and walking by themselves. And if they were to move there for a year it is very easy to make friends. If you go to any sort of kid place or a playground usually there will be a kid that says do you wanna be my friend.
Gavin: For me the idea that we were going to be here for a month, which we were, was a lot more comforting than if it had been a year. Because when you start off with the perception that you’re going to be there for that much time you think differently about it. From my perspective as a kid it would be very difficult for me to live here longer than I already have because it’s a very different way.
Jake: I would say that a year is probably not enough time to really experience all the things that Norway has to offer or to stay comfortable for a while. So I would say it wouldn’t be a great idea because of that limited amount of time that you would have.
One month in Norway. The first country of many. I cannot wait to ask them these exact same questions again in six months and see how different the answers are. Or how much the same.
Your Questions Answered
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