And now we begin...

The airplane is a place for forgiveness. You must forgive the fact that the man next to you unbuttoned his pants all the way to be more comfortable or when the old lady in front of you reclines her seat into your face. You must even forgive the flight attendant that rammed their beverage cart into your foot while sleeping. Yes, forgiveness, a beautiful thing that will guarantee a much more pleasant trip. If you don’t forgive such occurrences, you will find yourself staring at the man’s stomach in utter disgust, you will want to recline the seat back into the old woman’s head and you would very much like to punch the flight attendant in the face. But all of this is unnecessary as it would lead to a not so very pleasant flight.
So I slept on the plane. Pretty pathetic but I found myself to be a lot more tired than I thought. Must have been the margarita I had before.


I met these two lovely girls at the Chicago airport. One was a professor from Memphis who for the last semester has been teaching at the University in Copenhagen and will teach for one more year, and the other is a “live in the moment” type of girl living in Trondheim. The professor and I met on the train heading towards our terminal and LITM(live in the moment), at the bar. Yes mom I went to the bar. We were all pretty devastated at the fact that our flight would not be leaving at 10:05pm but at 2:30am. Fortunately the Scandinavian Airlines gave everyone a $10.00 voucher to use at the food court. I ordered a chicken Caesar wrap and a chardonnay. We chatted it up at the bar and that is where the professor and I met LITM. We ordered margaritas and continued to sip on them as the hours dragged on.
When the bar finally closed at 11pm we moved out to sit in the food court where we noticed that the guy at McDonalds kept staring at us. LITM kept blowing kisses and he would wave back, so being the good Americans that we are we asked for free apple pie. It took a bit to fully convince him that it would be the good Samaritan thing to do to give these parting young ladies a last chance at American pie before departing. So as you can only imagine, we scored free apple pie from McDonalds at the international terminal in Chicago! God bless easy men!
when I finally got to Copenhagen, Denmark I said goodbye to the two young ladies and waited to board the plane to Norway. It took an hour and a half to get to Norway from Denmark but it went by pretty fast. After landing and getting my luggage at baggage claim I walked through customs to finally meet my host mom and her dad. They had a sign that said “Bienvenidos Mariana a Noruega, wilkommen!” and a noise maker! We went out to their car where we struggled with my two suitcases and then hit the road towards her house. Her house is beautiful and has the best view I have ever seen. The house is mostly made out of wood and is decorated with IKEA stuff!!! I love this family already!! Only difference is that they don’t say IKEA like we do, they say it “ee-keh-ya”. I don’t care how they pronounce it, Im going to the universal four lettered store as soon as I can!!
Since both of Zoyla’s parents are visiting from Venezuela and don’t leave until Thursday I have to stay in Sebastian’s room. Sebastian is the 2 year old that I will help take care of. Zoyla explained that here in Norway they don’t sleep with blankets like we’re used to in the states, instead they sleep with what looks like a comforter, and is called a “dina”. It was the most comfortable thing ever and kept me nice and toasty warm!
Unfortunately Sebastian is sick and woke up several times during the night crying for his mom. I had to get up and comfort him. First thing he said to me was “mocos”, boogers. How charming. Then around 4 or 5 am he woke up and snuck out of his room. I woke up and went to find him in the living room trying to turn the tv on! He is two and knows how to work the control! His grandparents came out wondering what the noise was and took him into their room, leaving me alone in his room! I slept peacefully the rest of the night without any worry that he would sneak out again.
Since he is sick he did not go to preschool and I stayed watching Thomas the train and Barney with my new best friend. Breakfast was bread and lunch was bread with cheese and ham, and I don’t know what dinner will be, but I assure you it will contain bread! Bread to Norwegians is like tortillas to Mexicans. They have it alllll the time. Snack is also bread and cheese. So I don’t know how we’ll do with the weight loss plan ;)

Until next time!!!