Norwegian/Swedish Wedding

Last weekend, Morten and I went to Trondheim for a wedding. It was the wedding of the nice couple who we're currently staying with. The bride is Norwegian, and the groom is Swedish. Trondheim is the third biggest city in Norway (after Oslo and Bergen), located on north of Oslo. It takes around 8 hours from Oslo to Trondheim by car or train. Trondheim is also Morten's hometown and where his mother lives. We got married almost 2 years ago in Trondheim.
The wedding of our friends was actually in a city called Hell. Yes, Hell. The city became famous because of the name. Hell is only less than 30 minutes from Trondheim. So, we decided to stay in Trondheim so we could spend a little bit time with Morten's mom.
We took sovevogn, a night train with a room for sleeping on Friday night. It was a nice experience for me as I have never taken that kind of train before.
The wedding was actually for 3 days, 3 days party. The Friday evening party was a Swedish summer party. Lots of food, singing, and dancing, and of course fun, a party to celebrate summer, I was told. Too bad I had to miss it as I did not want to miss my Norwegian language class. Then the actual wedding at a church on Saturday afternoon which then followed by a reception, a formal party. And Sunday morning at 11, a casual-get-together to have brunch with leftover food from the previous evening party.
Some guests wore bunad, the Norwegian traditional outfits, including Morten. I learned that Norwegian wear their traditional outfits quite often for celebration events, which made me want to get an Indonesian traditional outfit for myself when I visit Indonesia next time. I have never thought of doing it before.
The wedding service at the church was of course in Norwegian, which I did not understand most of it. But I enjoyed looking at the bride and the groom happy faces. They looked so beautiful and handsome. Their 2 children also looked cute.
After the service was over, Morten talked to a lady that was sitting in front of us. She appeared to be Morten's former colleague. I was introduced to her and her boyfriend whose name sounded like 'Tumeric' to my ears. I was very certain that I had misheard it. Hmmm....confused. Later in the party, I got to talk to him more, and I found out that his name was actually 'Tom Erik', which pronounced exactly like tumeric. So, I had to tell him about it and explained to him how the spice looked like. Hehe...
He's a nice guy, by the way, a sport teacher at a school.
At the party, there were some speeches -- from the groom to the bride, from the father of the groom, from the brother of the bride (the bride has no father since she was little), the best man, and the maid of honor. I believed they were all great and touchy speeches. I saw many people wiping their tear. I didn't do that since I did not understand. I tried to laugh when people were laughing, though, hehe...
We also watched a short movie, from the bachelor party of the groom. It's a PG13, eventhough no striptease party. Hehe...
There was another fun Swedish wedding party tradition. When the bride leaves the room, all ladies are allowed to kiss the groom. Likewise, when the groom does so, all men are allowed to kiss the bride. So, when the bride left the room for the first time, some Swedish guests ran around the room, and encouraged the ladies to approach the groom. I saw that the Norwegian guests were confused. So, I explained the tradition to the Norwegian ladies who were sitting besides me. I learned about the tradition in my wedding from the groom who was our guest at that time. After we kissed the groom, we were talking among us that we were supposed to put lots of lipstick before kissing the groom. Hehe...
I met many nice people there. I tried to speak Norwegian with them. It was fun as I understood most of what my new acquitance said. One of the guests, she's a sister-in-law of the bride was Chinese. So, it was nice to speak some Mandarin, too. By 1AM, I told people..."That's enough, from now on, I'm going to speak English." I was overloaded. I didn't realize that it took so much of my energy to converse in Norwegian. I didn't want to talk in Norwegian the day after, either. It wasn't all true, though. I did speak some Norwegian again. And what funny was I did that to the Chinese girl. Hehe... Morten was teasing me about it.
I was very happy to be invited to the wedding. You're a very special person to either the bride or the groom if you're invited to a wedding. Unlike the weddings in Indonesia or some weddings that I have been to in the States, the weddings here are very personal to the bride and the groom. I am very happy that I already have good friends here in Norway.

My Norwegian Class

I started my Norwegian class last Wednesday. The school was called Folketuniversitetet--The People University, somewhat like a community college in the US. There were around 20 students. The first lesson was about introduction, greeting each other. So, I learned that the students came from many different countries--England, Poland, Malaysia, Afghanistan, USA, etc. Then we learned about clock, what time is it, etc. It seemed too easy for me as I have studied the language myself since I was in the US. I talked to the teacher when we had a break. He suggested to go to the administration with him, talk to the headmaster. The following day I was moved to a higher level class, the class that I am still in until now, and the next 4 weeks.
On the first day in the new class, I saw that every student, but me, had a paper for the teacher to sign. I asked the student that was sitting next to me. She explained to me in a very limited English that she was a refugee. Then I learned that everybody there was a refugee, except me. They were from Burma, Pakistan, Somalia, Rwanda, and Kongo. I talked to some Burmese when waiting for a buss to go home. He was a political activist in Burma, lived in Thailand for 5 years before moving to Norway. His wife was also in the class. They had 2 kids that were in kindergarden. Their names were 'King Salomon' (what a name!) and Christopher.
He told me that the Norwegian government would stop the support after 2 years, so he had to strive hard.
Since I did not feel comfortable to talk to my new classmates yet (I was afraid that I would ask 'difficult' questions to them. It's very likely that most of them were still having trauma about their lives back home.), I went to talk with my classmates from the previous class.
Actually, after my first day class was over, I went to have coffee with 2 of my classmates. Krishna who was from Malaysia and Victoria from Brazil. Krishna has been travelling so much because one she liked to travel, and two her husband's job required them to do so. They were living in China for several months before they came to Norway. She went to a Chinese language class there. I was wondering how many numbers of languages she spoke. Victoria did not speak English much. But she understood Spanish which was similar to her native language Portugese. And Krishna spoke some Spanish. I only knew a few Spanish words, amor, grande, casa. So, the conversation we were having was very interesting.
There were 3 new students in the class today. One of them was also called Victoria and she was from Hungary. Her husband has been working here for 2 and a half years. Finally, I had a classmate who was not a refugee and I could converse in English with. All in all the class was fun and interesting so far. My teacher was not perfect but he could make the class fun and interactive. Sometimes it was too interactive and I was a bit annoyed. One day, one of the students complained that since the class ended on 12.30 noon, she had to wait for 45 minutes for the bus to get home. And she suggested to cut the class short. Good thing that it did not happen. I want to be able to speak the language as soon as possible. I feel like the class is going too slow. So, I went to a library and borrowed a 'Norwegian in 3 months' book with tapes. I came home after my Norwegian class everyday and continued with my language study by using the book.
But I think, I have to be patient. Again, P A T I E N T. That's the word I have to always remember.

It's been 2 weeks

It's been over 2 weeks I'm in Norway, a country I've never dreamt of living or even visitting. I don't know why I was fooled to move to here in the first place. Hehe...The answer, according to my dearest husband, is because I love him so much. Well...it's true..that's the reason. I or we had a nice life in the States. A big house with a huge garden and 2 cars. Here...we don't have anything...yet. We thought we had lots of money after selling our house back in the States. We could get a big and nice house here as the houses were cheaper. My husband was a transfered employee, so he got his job back here in Norway. And all our moving expenses were paid by his employers. I could take my time, study the language, do whatever I want, just to have a bit relax life after having been working so much. The reality is EVERYTHING IS SO EXPENSIVE here. We can't get a nice house in where we want to without me having a job. And it's not easy for me to get a job without the ability to speak Norwegian yet. Arggggghhhh..I've been awaken from my dream!!!
I've been here for over 2 weeks only. I think it's too early to tell whether I like living here or not. Things are definitely different than the States. One thing I like here is the people. I got to meet many nice people. We've been staying with a couple that have 2 kids. They're very nice people. They let us stay with them until we get our own place. But we can't just stay here for a long period, we need to get our own place. People at my husband's work are also nice. Many of them are trying to get me a job. The thing is I don't speak Norwegian yet. So, the people who're making decisions are relunctant to hire me.
The lesson for me now is only one word: P A T I E N T. Ting tar tid. That's the Norwegian saying for "Things take time."