Wear Two Pairs of Socks

I am grateful for heated flooring. It is getting cold outside - five below zero at the moment - still snowing and the fjord looks like it's beginning to freeze over. If it snows through tonight then it will definately clinch a sledging session tomorrow evening. It shouldn't be too hard to persuade people to come out for that. Of course the place looks beautiful, especially when it snows hard and makes everything go into slow motion. Days are much longer now too, as all the white makes the dim hours that much brighter. I've even got used to dressing for the weather; going to school in wellington boots and two jumpers doesn't feel so weird anymore.

The only negative about all the snow is the way it limits transportation; not in the same way that a light dusting of snowflakes grinds England to a halt, but I mean that I can't ride my bike. I had to walk to church this evening but multiple layers of clothing kept everything in good comfort and it's a small price to pay really. The Londoner in me was suspicious of any groups of youngsters hanging around, wary that they might be wrong 'uns intent on pelting me with snowballs, but I had nothing to fear.

I am anxious about one thing though: my increased sock use means that if I don't put a wash in tomorrow I could be out of clean ones. I mean that in a very real sense.

A Fistful of Ham

Question: What is a good name for a band? Or, to be more specific, what is a good name for the youth worship group here in Arna? When we played at last Sunday's scout service, John Øyvind wanted to introduce us with a name. At this point we realised he couldn't, as we didn't have one. So I'm calling on you to help christen the band. To help you with your suggestions, let me tell you something about the members of the group:

Fifteen-year-old guitarist Øyvind stands a towering 6'2" tall and couldn't be a nicer, more sociable chap. He can always be relied upon for a light-hearted chat or a bit of banter and as we laid many tables last Saturday we had a good old chuckle that the Norwegian for "dish" sounds quite a lot like the English word "fart". Øyvind loves the Chili Peppers and could launch into Californication at any given moment. Sharing vocal duties are Marthe and Anita. Marthe, sporting dreads, sends text messages in increasingly complex and colloquial Norwegian, throwing in a bit of Swedish too, for who knows what reason. She has recently begun developing her own take on the worship leader hand communication signals expertly employed by Jennie Orange and has the rip taken out of her at school for speaking English with a British accent. Good on her. Anita is possibly the person you'd be most likely to find at the church if you were to drop by at any random time. She puts in a lot of hours and, as far as I can remember, is the only singer I've known who has also perfectly mastered the use of PA equipment. It should also be noted that she is an excellent dancer.

The rhythm section is comprised of a drumming sibling tag team (Miriam and John Håvard) and a ham-fisted Englishman on the bass. John Håvard is a proper Barnabas - I think that every time I speak to or text him he encourages me about how "flink" I am at "norsk". He is a big fan of the Beatles, Elvis and other pop music of the sixties, and regularly invites me round for Indiana Jones or some other quality film. His older sister Miriam is both dreadlocked and allergic to milk. She claims to hate speaking English even though she is rather good at it, and has no small amount of talent when it comes to art. She is also emerging as something of a multi-instrumentalist, filling in on guitar for the absent Øyvind at Casa Feliz this week. Now this is where I come in, slightly old and out of place, fumbling desperately for a bass line that isn't chronically cheesy. I wish I could hit those amazing, discordant notes that sound so impressive but, sadly, I lack the necessary skill. On occasion I am required to play guitar and, to my great joy, drums.

So to the question of names. I've never been in a band that lacked an outstanding name - The Little Ferrets, Agent Bosco Sumo Monkey and Aaron's Beard clearly testify to that. Therefore it is quite important that this one doesn't let me down. Care to comment?

If You Play with Fire, You'll Wet the Bed

I'm not sure how true this is but it is a genuine example of Norwegian scare tactics; a phrase used by the old to make the young behave - that's what Anne Britt told me when Simen was messing around with a candle at dinnertime today. Norwegians have some curious expressions. For example, if you want to make sure your friend knows that what you're saying is reliable, you may say (in Norwegian), "And you can take that as good fish."

There are some good fish up for grabs now, as I tell you that I was inducted into the scouts today. The ceremony was painless, even enjoyable; it involved a handshake and the collection of a neck scarf-thing and the leather hoop that secures it - I think they're called a toggle and woggle. I wore my new uniform with pride, especially as it enables me to not frighten old ladies if I carry a knife, apparently. That was explained to me this afternoon but I'm not sure I fully understand. And to those of you who think that it's funny to become a scout (that is, all those from Hackney), I would say that while I too once held your unenlightened view, it is important to remember that Indiana Jones was a scout. And that is the end of that.

A good amount of rain today washed away practically all of the snow and ice, so it's less hazardous to walk or cycle. The feeling of Christmas has also weakened slightly too, which is right and proper in my opinion - mid-November is slightly premature for a festive atmosphere. As if to confirm the emotional postponing of Yule, today I ate reindeer, in a very nice casserole with mushrooms (Anne Britt is an excellent cook). The meat tastes rather like beef, I suppose.

I could say more about this busy weekend - Columbia Day raised 80 000 kroner through the longest raffle of my life; Graham Geddis, long gone back to England but still greatly loved in Arna, won a child's mountain bike; I drove a Norwegain car (or possibly minivan) for the first time. But, friends, let me leave you with one final expression - you may use it at your own discretion and convenience. Suppose two of you are in a deadlocked argument about some decision. We all know that one of you will have to give in and just let the other person have their way. You may not like it, but you'll have to put up with it; or, as we say over here, "You have to eat your camel."

Good Times

Perhaps it's time for a brief update: my texts to John Håvard are significantly improved. They take far less time to write and are certainly less surreal in use of Norwegian. I feel this is a good sign that the lessons are working. At school on Monday we were taught that the word for "extreme weather" is "ekstremvar" and that the phrase "det regner mye i dag" means "it rains much today". That is one observational conversation piece that I could have done with over the last couple of weeks - it would have got a lot of usage, that's for sure. This November has been raining like the clouds are going for a place in the Guiness Book. They're on their way too, as the record rainfall for the month has almost been broken on the sixteenth. The heaviest rain started on Sunday evening, during Anita's baptism. The storm just didn't give up for twenty four hours. It was getting ridiculous; going to school dressed like I'm headed for an arctic quest.

Tuesday morning was better though, just clear and cold. I missed my train and went into the shop inside the station for a minute. When I came out it had all gone dark. Confused for a second, I looked over towards the edge of the sheltered platform... Gutted. Another storm and a ten minute walk from the station wondering how my slightly sketchily waterproof bag is coping with the downpour. But hold on a second, I'm not sure that's rain, it's SNOW - Alright! The good old white stuff continued to fall for most of the rest of the day and was still at it by the time I went to sleep.

If I had the technology to place a photo on here, I'd love to. Then you could see how pretty the whole place has become - even more so than usual. Naturally, Sigur Ros have been on heavy rotation in the CD player; the combination of sound and scenery is hard to beat. It's also good to see pensioners not giving in to a bit of ice on the pavement; coming out with their ski poles to take on the weather. Best of all, though, was that there was enough snow for a sledge session tonight. Some of the sledges are hilarious contraptions including steering, brakes and front suspension. The brakes remained unused. We did a pretty exciting hill run a few times and then hit the road, which was mostly ice, for some high speed pursuits in which John Håvard was closer to getting run over than I'd like him to be. It was great fun, as you can imagine. The evening also provided me with the first opportunity to make use of all my New Life gifts at once. Not only were the hat and gloves where they always are (on my head and hands, respectively), but I also sported both pairs of ski socks at the same time. Thanks, Ichthus New Life - I didn't get cold.

Eple Means Apple

"Hei. Hyggelig å se deg. Jeg snakker litt Norsk men ikke så mye." Just three of literally several Norwegian sentences I am now proficient in. Despite Thursday's disappointing lesson (I had cold, wet feet as the teacher announced an outbreak of lice at the school), the course is going pretty well. My teacher seems like she knows what she's doing and the classs is full of different nationalities - Brazilians, an Italian, a Sri Lankan, one from Congo - which is a refreshing change from generally monocultural Norway. I find it slightly offensive that even now I am "22 år gammel" I've still got homework to do but my skills are definitely increasing. I estimate I must be at least halfway fluent.

When the day comes that I speak Norwegian all the time I'll certainly miss the slightly bizarre Norwegian use of English. Example:

"Dan, what are you doing?"

"I'm plugging in this lamp."

"No, what are you doing tomorrow?"

"Oh, right. Er, I'm going apple-picking."

I was not joking. Yesterday I went with Kjellmartin's dad, Svein, to collect all the organic apples that will see him and his wife through to next May, plus one hundred litres of apple juice that the Juice Man made in front of us. It took about fifteen crates of apples; first they put them in one machine that crushed them into chunks and then into a tank that squeezed the juice out of them through a membrane. Svein is pretty serious about eating right - he's a man that favours sour milk and grinds his own cornflakes.

As fun as all the apple-related activities were, the primary reason for the ten hour day and one hundred mile round trip was to travel through the world's longest road tunnel, Lærdalstunnelen. It burrows 24.5km (just over fifteen miles) through a mountain two and a half hours away from Arna but, despite its length, Lærdalis unique among tunnels, thanks to the positive effort it makes in catering for claustrophobics. Driving through it, smaller tunnels appear to lead off to the left and the right but are actually dead ends, designed to keep the driver's mind active and the panic attacks at bay. Most impressive, though, are the three large rooms that open out at 6km intervals, lit by blue lights that make you feel a bit like you're back out in the open for a few seconds. Here are the facts, tunnel fans. I'd better do my homework now.

Learning

The more time a person spends in Norway, the more they will have the realisation of just how hard the average local is. Norwegians are constantly hunting, cross-country skiing, chopping wood and batting not one eyelid at the prospect of running up a mountain. When Martin, the twelve-year-old of the Dalseth family, was skiing two years ago, he found his path was blocked by a hapless young girl. He had two possible options and he chose the honourable, hard route - into a tree. Miriam, who drums for the youth worship group, has to wear glasses ever since the blunt scout knife she pulled out of a piece of bark found it's way into her right eye. She did not cry (well, not for a good hour). Every February, the scouts go on a trip - they find snow drifts, dig into them and spend the night in the holes. When the trees on the side of a mountain in Arna caught fire, all the men of the town walked up to beat it out. Martin's dad Rune, who is an auditor in the city, built most of his own house. And you should see the place.

Even his wife Anne Britt is tough. Dave and Anna Howey found this out when they came to stay at the Dalseth residence for a few days. Anne Britt asked them if they wanted to come out for a walk with her and her friend Solbjørg and they ended up spending two and a half hours ascending and descending the 500m high peak of a local mountain in driving rain. At the top, Anne Britt remembered she had to take Martin for a haircut and promptly ran back down the mountain. When I saw them next, she told me she had taken them on the "Housewife's extreme lunchtime walk". While the extremity of the trek certainly wasn't wasted on the Howeys, it was the fact that a neighbour does the same walk five times a week in the dark that impressed them the most.

It was, of course, great to see Dave and Anna and we spent yesterday walking around Bergen. We took the Fløibanen (a funicular - imagine a tram pulled by wires) up Mount Fløyen, which overlooks Bergen. At the top, as we discussed how incredible it was for a city to spread out and thrive over such a harsh area, I commented that "the harbour is probably the key." I had no idea I was uttering one of the finest puns that Fløyen will ever hear. We walked back down, being constantly passed by Norwegians running up and down the mountainside like it was the easiest thing they'd ever done. Norwegians have an affinity for mountains, which is convenient really. From Monday to Friday this week I had been up a different mountain for the annual prayer and fasting conference that my church runs in Hermon, a ski resort one kilometre above sea level.

John Håtveit, the son of Hermon's owner, makes ski films for a living. He produces amazing DVDs featuring, among other world class skiers, his brother Andreas. Visit skifilm.net to see clips of madcap ski stunts and the trailer for "Strike", his latest DVD. He kindly gave me a copy of it and it's really quite an exciting film.

At this point an important update should be made - no longer is the longest tunnel I've ever been through a pathetic 2.77km. On the way to Hermon, we smashed the old record, replacing it with the awesome new acheivement of 11.4km, that is, seven miles through a mountain. Fantastic.

There were plenty of visitors from England at Hermon - Roger and Faith, Chris and Jen, Graham and Angela Geddis, and Kjellmartin, who I roomed with. It was so good to see them and to even celebrate Chris' birthday in the most unlikely way an Orange could - by eating nothing. The series of talks about the Holy Place were absolute treasures too; almost enough to make up for the fact that I'll miss the climax of Revelation at Bible School this year.

Hermon was also the occasion of my first attempts at song lyric projection in a foreign language. I felt I performed reasonably well, although the frantic search for the songs I needed did affect me. I even had a series of dreams, each in a different foreign language that I didn't understand and was desperately trying to figure out. But it was good to do, not least because it helped me progress a bit in Norwegian.

It was probably inevitable that I would begin picking up Norwegian through doing acetates, and thanks to five days of song projection, my pronunciation of the language is greatly improved. I even know a Graham Kendrick chorus in the native tongue. Sadly though, acetates are not enough. I imagine that, along with grammar, my vocabulary would develop poorly. It's all very well knowing the Norwegian for "atonement" but not if you can't work out which is the men's toilet. So tomorrow I am starting my Norwegian language course at Nygård skole in Bergen. It looks like it's going to be intense - half eight until noon, five days a week, for four weeks. Seventy hours of lessons will hopefully get me to somewhere approaching fluency but please pray that I'll take to the lessons well; I'm finding communication to be awkward at times.

Whenever I send texts to the youth that don't speak so much English I try to throw together some Norwegian using the books I've got. Of course, it often comes out like an idiot toddler might sound, but my meaning is usually communicated. Once though, I was made a mockery of by careless use of predictive texting. Sending a message to John Håvard, I meant to write, "Snakker jeg så dårlig norsk?" This is a question from my reliable Norwegian phrase book, translating as, "Do I speak that bad in Norwegian?" But one inadequate press of the 5 key left the predictive text to come up with, "Smaker jeg så dålig norsk?" Tragically, this small change twists the sentence into, "Do I taste that bad in Norwegian?" Not only a surreal question, but one that I certainly didn't have the desire to ask. John Håvard has coped with the ordeal tremendously though, so no harm done.