So as you have seen in the previous blog, Norway is beautiful. Seeing my friends again was so great and it was as if time had not passed and we were still giggly teenagers. I had forgotten how wicked expensive Norway is. Jason ate at Burger King for $12! That is just outrageous. And when we ate at TGI Friday's it cost us about $180. So most of the time, we just went to supermarket's and bought our own food which was a lot less expensive.
I had missed some of the Norwegian food- as in Leverpostei which is liver pate' and it is amazingly good. I also missed the fresh baked breads at the supermarkets and the tap water. The tap water in Norway tastes like bottled water and is so good and always nice and cold. The milk chocolate is also amazing and I think I overdid it and bought too much chocolate! I also missed goat cheese (it's brown) so I brought some back with me. You can eat it alone, on bread or on bread with Jam and the cheese on top. It sounds questionable but trust me, don't knock it until you try it. At customs in the States, this patrol dog sniffed my suitcases, barked and jumped up on them. I became a little nervous and thought.."oh no! they are going to take my Norwegian food away from me"!! But of course dogs love meat and that is what that dog was smelling and barking at. He wanted some!! haha.

We also went to see the New Years concert performed by the Oslo Philharmonic orchestra. It was so nice to see and hear them play again. My dad played there about 11 years ago and I miss that so much. It was strange not seeing my dad in the orchestra but it was so great to go to the concert. The only bad thing about the concert was this woman vocal soloist who was just awful! Jason definetly agreed that we could have done without her. Other than that, we both loved the concert. I was able to pick out people in the orchestra I recognized, but I didn't go track them down afterwards party because they woudn't recognize me and party because I was shy..imagine that! ME SHY??!?!?!?
While we were in Norway, we found out through Jason's grandmother that the Brakke family heritage stems from the area of Norway called Rogaland. The original last name was Torbjornsen but when they immigrated into the states they had to change the name to Brakke which was a farm they worked on I believe. There is a little town called Sauda, north of Stavanger where many of their relatives lived before some of them moved to the States. I wish we would have known this earlier but we didn't even think about it. We want to come back to Norway during the summer time and check Sauda out.

We went to church both Sunday's while in Norway. We went to my old church and only recognized a few people because the congregation had been split into two church buildings. The next Sunday we visited the other church building and I knew just about everyone there. It was crazy to see everyone again but so nice. Jason didn't particulary enjoy church because it was all in Norwegian and his Norwegian is not that fluent. But he was a good sport and humored me even though I know he wished he were somewhere else.
We did do a lot of jumping around visiting different people and it got a little old lugging our bags around all over Norway but we did fine and it was worth it. I thank everyone who opened up their home to us and let us stay with them and visit. I have always felt loved and welcomed in Norway and I hope it will always be that way.

I didn't really have much trouble recalling my Norwegian which has been stored in my brain for so long. But I know I made some grammatical errors and there were some words I could not recall. I left Norway at age 13 1/2 and so that was the grammar I left with. But I was told by most everyone in Norway my accent was perfect and I was so happy to be told that. Some workers in stores and restaurants spoke Norwegian so fast that I had to tell them to slow down...they just gave me a strange look as in "does she or does she not understand Norwegian"???
So, I bet some of you are wondering if I would ever move back? The only reason I would move would be because of my friends. I love Norway and there will always be a special place in my heart for it but I've been in the States now for 12 years and it has become my home. But I can't wait to go back and visit and see more of Norway. I can't believe that in all the time I lived in Norway, I never saw north and west Norway!! So we will be back and I hope to bring my parents and sister with me.