Schedule for today: local norwegian family day trip

Today, we started our first monday hike with the norwegian friluftsliv students. As the night has been quite cold, the streets had been quite slippery, so we’ve had to be quite careful while hiking. Additionally, it started raining just after we had left around 9 am in the morning. The trip was intended to show us how a usual norwegian family (sun)day is like. Starting with the right equipment we made our way to the area of Jegersberg, just behind the campus, until we reached a little plattform called “Holmenkollen” with a view over one of the lakes down to the city of Kristiansand. As the sun only partly found its way through the clouds and the ongoing rain, we’ve had quite a mysterious view of the scenery in the beginning.

After the sun had finally found its way through the clouds and the rain stopped, the campfire was set by dry wood everyone was supposed to bring and we played some games to get to know each other more closely, especially the norwegian students. We played two different games. The first one intended to introduce yourself to the others about different personal topics and experiences. One of the norwegian students mentioned a specific topic, and those who applied to that, were encouraged to talk a bit about their experience with it. So within a few words or sentences, we’ve heard some interesting personal stories about pets, instruments, sports or travel experiences. As we got colder, we started to play another game. We set up in a big circle around the campfire and one after another, first telling his or her name, had to make a move everyone is supposed to imitate. By that, we all got a bit warmer and had quite a lot of fun, as lots of the students had invented quite creative moves and gestures. The purpose of this hike, to get to know a part of the norwegian culture of family life and to get to know the norwegians had been pretty interesting and successful. As far as I can say, lots of the international students, probably even all of them, got at least in touch with one norwegian student. As in its nature of games, a playfully way to get to know each other is usually a great success.

So, as it’s been the first day of our trips together, I am looking forward to more adventurous, interesting and fun hikes and trips with the norwegian students.