Christmas In Norway plus some...

Okay so we had our "culture night" friday and that went pretty good. It was the music line entertaining the others with our own compositions for 2 hours. There were some really good songs and we are in the process of recording them right now.

December as come and for the norwegians that means celebration. By the time the average norwegian turns 72 he/she has spent around 6 years of their life celebrating christmas. They start beginning of december. There are special candle ceremonies and advent calanders being handed out and peppecaker every day. Its insane. And EVERYONE has some way of counting down to christmas. I am recieving advent gifts from my friend mari, everyday i wake up and there is a new gift outside my door. My first one was an old norwegian tradition but i had to have it explained to me cus i thought it was someones idea of a bad kind of joke. But one would think that when they get up and open their door only to find a plastic bag hanging on their doornob and inside the bag was an orange with tons of sticks sticking into it....ok? Well that is an advent calander with 24 sticks in it and u pull out one everyday and it gives the room a smell of orange and christmas....yea.

We had our first community wind band concert today. We played some neat songs and one was a traditional norwegian folk song called "På Vestlanisk Bondestemne" (on the west lands farmstead). A man came in and played the hardanger fiddle along with us, it was quite cool. And during intermission an accordian sextet played. They were pretty neat. Lol, they played Pachabels Kanon in D minor..that was interesting. Its nice, I have become friends with 2 clarinetist, a floutist and a cornet player...all these older ladies but it is nice to talk mature people once a week. Its really cool cuz they speak a lil slower for me and i can go through an entire rehearsal with saying any english. I am getting so much better!

17 days until I am home!! And am there for 2 weeks, until the 4th.