Tur til Atlanterhavsveien og volleyballturnering :)

This past weekend my host family took me to Atlanterhavsveien. Its this really interesting road that goes over the Atlantic Ocean.

It took about an hour to drive there, but it was well worth it! The bridge is really cool.


If you look at it the right way, it looks like a car driving on the bridge will just drive into nothing, and basically fall off the bridge. For example:

We also walked around a little bit and we saw a memorial for all the people who have lost their lives at sea. Here's how the memorial looked:

And a translation for all my friends who speak english haha:

Afterwards we drove to a place where the Germans built underground tunnels and rooms to shoot at Norwegian ships during the war. It was one of the most interesting places I have EVER been! I loved it there. I really wanted to go inside the tunnels but it was closed, so I just went down as far as I could to see them. There were also some canons there which were really interesting to see. Here are some pictures:

one of the tunnels you can enter during the tour



this picture actually reminds me of haunted houses back home haha


another tunnel to climb down, I really wanted to try it!


one of the canons:


and some more random pictures from there:

I really enjoyed myself there, I hope we can go back sometime and actually walk through the tunnels, that would be quite exciting!

Afterwards we went out to eat at a fish restaurant. The one we wanted to go to turned out to be closed, so we went to the one close to it. Here is a picture of what I had to eat:



The two white balls are a mixture of fish and potatoe. There is also potatoes, bacon, carrots, rudabaga, and some kind of meat. It was quite delicious and my family told me it was typically norwegian. While we were waiting for the food to arrive my sisters had a lot of fun taking pictures haha. Here are a few:

My mom and me: I love this picture, I think it is really good.


Hanna:


Ingvild:

And last, but not least, my dad: Haha this picture is great :P


Hope he doesnt mind me putting this on my blog! :)

And here is Solo, a popular drink in Norway:


After dinner we drove back to Molde and went to the video store to rent a movie, and of course, because it was Saturday night, to buy candy. Here in Norway, when people buy candy, they can choose from a bunch of different choices and put it in a bag. It looks like this:



It seems like almost everybody here does this! We dont really have this back home, but we definitely should haha, its really good! So I finally did this for the first time, I am feeling more and more Norwegian everyday ha. We also rented the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop. We went home and watched the movie, which was quite funny. It was a nice relaxing night with the family =) I went to bed after we watched the movie because the next day would be a big one for me!

Sunday morning I woke up quite early, 8am! Definitely not something I want to make a habit of on a Sunday haha. Anyways we had our first volleyball tournament that day. We had to meet at Idrettenshus at 9:30am, our first game being at 10:30.

Every girl had to bring in something different to sell during the tournament. I had to bring in boller, which my dad carried in when we first got there. Then I met with my team and we got our uniforms finally! It was an exciting moment. I am number 8, which is my favorite number, so I am glad. Then we started warming up and preparing for our first game.

Throughout the day we played 3 games and were finished by 16:00. We ended up losing every game, but we played really good! I think the team has improved a lot since we began training. I also had a lot of fun, I really love volleyball. We definitely have the ability to win when we play, so hopefully we will next time. I think we lost because sometimes there is just no energy on the court. When we yell and have energy, everyone plays better, and it was very noticeable. We will win next time! I also found out that we dont play normal games, we only compete in tournaments. This kind of made me sad, but it makes sense, because the closest team is 45 minutes away. Volleyball isn't a huge thing in Norway, definitely not as big as in America.

Volleyball back home was very different. We practiced 5 times a week, right after school, for 3 hours every day. Once games started we only practiced 3 times a week because games were every Tuesday and Thursday. Also back home volleyball is very competitive. It always seems like winning is the only thing that matters. Thats why I love playing here, we play to of course win, but more importantly to have fun. I think that is the real reason people should play, for enjoyment.

Here are some pictures from the tournament:

The team:


A few of our supporters: Thank you for coming!


Passing:


Vanessa and I: yes I know we both look stupid here haha


When we scored a point:


And blocking:


Overall it was a really good tournament, because of the fact that we played good. I am looking forward to the next one!

I also want to say thank you to my parents for coming to watch me play and taking me on our little trip. I really appreciate it and love you guys so much!!

Thats all for now, I will definitely write again next week because it is Halloween! We are going to carve pumpkins and attempt to make homemade pumpkin pie. I can't wait :D