I’ve been trying to figure out what I should write in my halfway post for a while. With nearly six months abroad under my belt I could be deemed qualified enough to give advice to future outbounds- say what and what not to pack, what to expect etc. However I often feel like I’m still figuring everything out myself so I’m going to steer away from that subject (if you are a curious outbound check out some of the other exchange blogs for lists like that). I also considered writing a list of all the really cool and really Norwegian things I’ve done (there’s a lot – brunost anyone?) however I feel like that would just be an amalgamated version of my other blog posts (feel free to check them out if you haven’t already). So what am I going to write about?Well I’m not entirely sure. My blog posts tend to spiral from one thing to another- who knows where this could end. However, I will start by talking about the everyday.
My exchange year will be made up of 350 days in Norway, that’s a bit more than eleven and a half months. I reckon if you added all the Rotary camps and weekends and trips to other parts of Norway with my host families it would probably be around a month if not a little more. This means that there are around 10 and a half months where I’m living normally. The reason I state this is because what I probably tell people the most about are the camps and cool trips I’ve been able to be on. But they are just a small part of what the exchange year really is. Going on exchange isn’t a holiday like some may think. You spend the majority of it living like a normal person. You go to school and after school clubs and do homework and study for tests. We advertise the more glamorous parts but realistically it is the ‘normal’ day-to-day life that teaches you the most about your country and who you are. The ‘everyday’ is the majority of a year-long exchange and at some point in time it starts to feel normal.
When I first got to Norway I wanted nothing more than for everything to feel ‘normal’. The harsh reality is that nothing will, every difference stood out to me. It was everything from the fact we’d get 30 minute early marks from school to the way people would sleep in until 11am on the weekend (the latest I’ve managed is 9:50). Even if you ignore the obvious cultural differences like food, fashion and language there are still a lot of little things that remind you that everything in this new country is different. I don’t remember exactly when everything started to feel normal again and when I say this I mean when I finally got used to everything. Because Norway didn’t change, the differences were still there but they’d become something I was used to. Becoming familiar and comfortable with everything is a process but when it finishes life is a lot easier. As I’m writing this I’m sitting at the kitchen table listening to music. My host dad is sitting on the couch a couple of meters away watching a World Cup match (he’s seen them all except for one) and my host mum is on the balcony reading. This morning I went for a walk to a nearby shopping center and bought a pair of pants. When I got home I set about going through everything that I have and reorganising my room. We had dinner at 3pm (it was Swedish pea soup in case you were wondering) and then played three rounds of a card game called Canasta. The reason I’ve given you this description of what may seem to be a relatively mundane day is because this is what I would’ve said if you’d ask me what I’d done so far today. The fact that I read Norwegian signs successfully and spoke to people in Norwegian is no longer a special occurrence. I wouldn’t feel the need to include the fact that it is Summer in July or that I’m living in an apartment. They aren’t worth mentioning because they no longer stand out as different to me.
As I mentioned slightly before, it is during the standard day-to-day life that you are able to learn more about yourself and notice the changes. Think of it like a science experiment – when everything else is a constant you can observe how something is actually changing. When I first left I wasn’t quite convinced that I would change as a person. I was who I was and as far as I saw it there wasn’t much wrong with that. However, over time I have proved my initial theory wrong. I have changed and am still changing in many ways that probably won’t be completely evident until I come back to Australia. There are some things that I have noticed though, little things. A couple of weeks before the Summer holiday started I was on the train to school as per usual. I’d been on it for around 2 stops before it was announced that there were problems with the signals and, as a result, would not be going any further. We all had to pile onto the replacement buses which then drove to all the train stations that people needed to get to. I ended up being 30 minutes late to school (I’m usually 20 minutes early) and it wasn’t all that long ago where that would’ve freaked me out completely. The prospect of being late was one I hated and admittedly I still don’t love it. However, at some point in time whilst I’ve been over here, I have learnt to accept that some things just can’t be controlled. Panicking over a cancelled train isn’t going to make the next train any quicker and no one is going to be bite your head off for being affected by it (if they do well you just have to deal with it). I don’t know how you’d label this change. I guess you could say it takes a bit more to mess with me than before but also that I have a better perspective on what is actually worth stressing about.
One of the other major changes I’ve noticed is that the prospect of the unknown and uncertain isn’t so scary anymore. I used to like to have everything planned to the tee. On the very rare occasion where I went to an unfamiliar place on my own I would have screenshots of my required route on my phone and sometimes even printed out. I’d know where to go and where I had to be to get the right bus back. It wasn’t odd for me to sit on the bus tracking where we were to make sure I got off at exactly the right stop. Now, however, I’m perfectly happy to just wonder around new places on my own. I trust myself enough to know that I won’t ever get truly lost (and even if I do Norwegians are very helpful) and the unknown is now an adventure and not something to be scared of or worried about.
A slightly more trivial change is my reaction to spiders. I don’t like spiders and surprisingly whilst I’ve been in Norway I’ve ended up with a fair few spiders on me. Before I came I would’ve freaked but here I am an Australian who has seen bigger, these tiny spiders don’t worry me at all. When it happened the first time this was an act, I was trying to play it cool. But now it has become the truth. Admittedly the spiders I have been around in Norway are considerably smaller than some of the ones I’ve seen in Australia. Again, I’m sure that just how much I’ve changed will be even more evident when I return to my original life but already I can tell I’m not the same person who left Australia back in January.
The aforementioned spider-related change is also reflective of the change in perspective this experience has given me so far. Perspective is a funny thing because it applies to everything. Your perspective influences whether you interpret a temperature as hot or cold and whether you interpret something as good or bad. As I’m writing this the temperature is 17 degrees and it is, in my opinion, cold. This judgement is based off of the fact that it has been between 25 and 30 degrees for the last couple of weeks. In comparison this is cold. However I am also fully aware that whilst it is cold it isn’t COLD. Before I came one of my major concerns was all that I’d be missing- year 10 Formal, Graduation, SOPA, Sweet 16s and in general, a year of my life. These things seemed like a big deal, they seemed insanely important but now I know that they aren’t that important. Sure, they are pretty big deals but missing them is fine. When you’re off on a year-long adventure of self-discovery you’re always going to miss things but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have embarked anyway. Like many year 10s I am also in the process of choosing my subjects for the HSC, a choice that only 6 months ago seemed massive. Now I understand that, whilst school is important, there is more to life than marks. I used to stress about keeping up with my Australian class and the risks of falling behind but it doesn’t stress me anymore. I know that in 6 months time, when I come home, I’ll be ready to put my head down and work but until then I’m happy just enjoying my year.
So this is it. I’ve made it to the halfway mark. Being in Australia feels like a lifetime ago but time has also passed incredibly quickly. There is one thing I can be sure of though- I have lived through each and every day no matter how slowly or quickly it has gone. There is nothing half-hearted about a year-long exchange. You experience every day, you get the good and the bad- there is no picking and choosing. I don’t regret coming on exchange, not for a minute. This experience means that nothing will ever be the same again, everything has changed.
Until next time,
Alicia