......I figured if I couldn't understand what they were saying....I would at least try to learn as much as I could about this new place I would be spending my next year. I traveled to every book store and library in a four county area. I bought everything I could that had to do with Norway. I learned .....two important things. 1) I was probably not going to need to bring summer cloths....and 2) I was going to have to learn to eat fish.....more about that later.
By May I should also have received my Host Family Documents. These are filled out by the hosting family which let's you know about them, their home, and the town they live in. I had received nothing....this too was a sign that I may be in for an interesting year....
My travel documents did arrive and they told me I would be leaving Chardon and travel to New York, New York and join hundreds of other AFS Students at CW Post University for an few days of orientation and then we would be flying across the great pond to our destination capital city of Oslo.
It is now June, I am packed, and arriving at CW Post along with hundreds of students from around the US. We will be shipped all over the world. At that time there were about 60 different countries participating the program. Everyone I met was as excited/nervous as I was....there were a few
challenges even at this early stage of my adventure.....it was about 100 degrees outside, the dorms were ok, but the food was awful. Even with these distractions, everyone was excited to be on their way and were all walking around talking about the host families, showing color photos of their towns and who they were going to be staying with....oh yeah....the week I was leaving I did receive a phone call from the AFS Organizers saying "Don't worry. We have a family for you......but, you will not receive any more information until you arrive in New York." Well I am now in New York and I am dying to find out who I am spending my next year with....and where it will be? I was soon called to one of the offices there at the college and handed some black and white facsimile copies of my host family documents.....Hooray!! I at last have a family and a place to live.....I would be living in the coastal town of Namsos with the family Skilhagen. Else, Knut, and nine year old Yvonne.