Jordan Rush 2006

Jordan Rush - outbound exchange student 2006

You will find lots of pictures of Jordan in Norway HERE

From Jordan - 5 december 2006

Hey everyone. Wow i cant even remember what i wrote in my last update or even when i sent it so i muct have been a while ago.
On the weekend of the 17th to the 19th of november i was in Skien with the other exchange students from my district because we were invited by inner wheel which was really nice of them. We all stayed with host families 2 or 3 together. We meet on friday night and had some pizza and all of us were talking for hours because we had so much to catch up on. Then we were back to our host families.
On saturday we saw how they made bread in the old days with this huge oven that you warm up with a fire inside and then rake out all the left bits and put in the bread. We also saw a house that was built as a replica of an iron age house. Many of the people in Skien have graveyards in their backyards which is quite fascinating. They arent allowed to move them or build over them but all of them have been robbed years and years ago.
I did my rotary good bye presentation last thursday night. I was so nervous and stumbled a bit but everyone said i was great so that was nice of them. The girl who had been in new zealand from last august to this august spoke as well and it was interesting to hear her views about new zealand.
This weekend just been i have been in Moss a town 2 and a half hours from where i live. I went with my host parents and on the way there and back we took a side trip to sweden to do some shopping. Because norway is so expensive many norwegians take the ferry over and bring back meat, alcohol and cigarettes because its so much cheaper. Its a lot of fun because they have there huge lolly shops with every kind you can think of and its really cheap so you just go round and help yourself.
School finishes in 2 and a half weeks and at the moment we have exams which are 5 hours long! Its definately different to new zealands system.
So now im hanging out for snow and a norwegian christmas. From Jordan

From Jordan - 14 October 2006

Hey everyone at the Ahuriri Rotary club

Well my time in Norway has been a busy one the last 6 weeks.
The weekend of the 15th of september i was in Geilo a town up in the mountains for a rotary weekend, the one and only time that all the students from january and the new ones get to be together. It was a great weekend and we put on a show for the rotarians that were there and even managed to raise some money for kids whose parents had died of AIDS in africa.
The weekend after that my mum and sister flew in to visit for me for 2 weeks and we all went over to sweden on the ferry which was my first time in sweden. After the day in sweden we drove back to arendal and had just over a week there meeting with my host families and me showing them round the town. It was my mums birthday the day after she arrived so i invited all my host parents and councillor to come and have roasted lamb with us as i hadnt had a roast since i left new zealand and lamb is definately new zealand.
After our time in arendal we flew to bergen for 3 days, a town on the west coast of norway surrounded by 7 mountains and 7 fjords. It is a beautiful city but also a rainy one, it rains approxiamtely 265 days of the year there.
After we took a train from bergen over to the east coast to the capital oslo for 3 days. On the way over the mountains one of the places we stopped at was snowing so it was a big thrill for my sister to get out of the train and feel it snowing because although we have been to the snow before in new zealand we have never been there while it has been snowing. So we spent 3 days in oslo soaking in the sites before they flew out on monday morning.
My mum andsister flew to amsterdam to meet up with a tour bus and i flew to stockholm to visit and exchange friends from napier. So then i had 3 days in stockholm which was great. I flew back to norway yesterday and took the bus home and next week its back to school and back to the routine after all the exciting things i have done.
I start a norwegian course next week which i am really excited about as i really want to improve on the basics that i have and it has been hard with the language course i was originally set up with.

Its hard to believe that my exchange only has about 3 months ot go. I thought the first 6 months were going resonably fast but these last 6 are going unbelieveably fast and i know that before i know it i will be on the plane again ready to fly home so im trying to fit in as much as i want to do here that i havent already donw in these last few months.

From Jordan :)

From Jordan - 6 June 2006

Hello everyone

Sorry its been a while things have been a bit hectic with the start of school again.
I think when i wrote last i was about to go off for a 2 week camp called Handicamp at a place called Hurdal, 1 hour from Oslo. I had a fantastic time.
The camp is run by Rotary inner wheel i think and is for physically disabled people from all over the world.
Each person comes with a helper and both the participant and helper get to participate in all sorts of fun activities.
We had go karting, sailing, tubing behind a boat, water skiing, fishing, horse riding and so much more. The great thing was that everyone got to have a go no matter what disability they had. It was awesome to watch people that couldnt walk have a go water skiing or riding a horse.
To get one guy onto the 4 wheeler motor bike they had to use straps to strap him to the driver, then both of them to the bike so they couldnt fall off. He was very aprehensive about giving it a go but once they came back he didnt want to get off. It was a major challenge for the leaders to get this guy on and off the 4 wheekler bike as he was a very big guy and they had to lift him. Plus the man riding the motorbike the co co-ordinater of the camp was also disabled having lost both his legs below his knees in a ar accident when he was 20.
It was awesome to see the looks on peoples faces when they got to do things that they would never have had the opporunity to do before. I think it is a fantastic program that hopefully will continue for many more years and i hope to go back in 2 years time as it is run every second year.

Other than that i came back to Arendal for a week and then was off again to Bergen which is on the west coast of norway with my host mum for a long weekend. Bergen is a city that rains on average 265 days of the year but thankfully for us the city put on fantastic weather for us and we had an awesome time.
Then a week later i started school again. I enjoyed the holidays but its good to get back into a routine and do something constructive each day :).
It is still a struggle for me with the language, i have gotten a lot better over the holidays but i still find it very difficult to understand in a classroom situation where teachers talk fast and in a group situation as th topic changes and its hard to keep up.

Well i thin kthats about all thats been happening but i have a district conference for district 2290 this weekend so i ma very much looking forward to that. Hope everyone is good Jordan

From Jordan - 6 June 2006

Hei Sue

This is whats been happening with me lately

I was going to write what i have been up to when i got back to Arendal but i figured i would write it now because it is my host mums birthday the day after i get back so it might be a bit hectic.

I cant remember what i wrote in my last email but im pretty sure i said i changed families.
My new host mum is really nice, her name is Sysil and i have a host sister Astrid who lives at home during the holidays but lives in Oslo for uni. So school finished on the 7th of june for me which was really early but the next day i started at a adult language school for foreigners a couple of days a week until the 20th of june. So i have been really busy with that and saying goodbye to all the exchange students with AFS who left a couple of days ago. It was really sad to see them go and im going to feel really lost going back to Arendal without them.
So on the 22nd i flew to Tromsų, way up north to visit a Rotary girl from Australia. 2 other Rotary guys came too. It was a fluke that we were all up there at the same time. So we had a couple of days in Tromsų and looked around and saw the sites.
Then for the night we were all taken to a cottage an hour away from Tromsų and right behind the house on the hill were some German bunkers from the war and since it was the lightest day of the year at 3 in the morning we went and explored the bunkers. It was so awesome but a little scary too.
The next day we drove back to Tromsų and then one of the boys flew back to where he lives in Norway and us 3 (me, Courtney and James, also from Australia) as well as Courtneys 14 year old host sister took a boat to Harstad, a 3 hour trip, to stay at a camp up there for a week. They have this camp every year at the same time the town has a huge culture festival so there were lots of shows and stuff that we could go see for free because we were in the camp.
Us 3 Rotary students chose to do the circus course while Courtneys sister did trash which was making clothes out of recycled materials. In our circus class we learnt how to eat fire, twirl fire pois as well as normal pois and do lots of different acrobatic things. I have pictures that i will put on i just havent found the time :).
On the last day of the camp we had a big show where all the groups performed there acts which was awesome. Also Courtneys host sister came home from America so she was reunited with her family which was so cool to see. Its nice to see someone coming back after everyone leaving. So then the next day which was sunday we all drove back to Tromsų, 6 of us in a 7 seater car with all our luggage!!!!
It was a really tight squeeze! So this week me and Courtney have been to the Polar museum here and today we are going to Polaria another museum and tonight to a free concert in town. It has been awesome staying in Tromsų and the midnightsun is awesome except that it has veen raining here a lot. So i leave Tromsų on friday back to Arendal and back to some nicer weather until i leave for Handicamp 2 weeks later. So i will send another email after i get back from that and let you know all about it. Oh and by the way enjoy your cold winter while i enjoy my nice warm Norwegian summer, well in Arendal anyway not so much here :) From Jordan

More from Jordan Rush - our exchange student in Norway (5 March 2006)

Hi everyone at the Ahuriri Rotary Club,
Today is a typical norwegian winter day and it is about -6 degrees, this morning however was a freezing -15.
This week has been winter vacation for me so a friend of mine Duncan who is on exchange with Rotary from Australia came to visit me for a few days. He lives in a town called Lunner which is about an hour away from Oslo. It was great to catch up with someone and find out how they were with the language. It was awesome as we wee able to teach each other different phrases that we had learnt that the other hadn't.
On wednesday we caught the bus to Gautefall which is a ski center about 2 hours from Arendal with my host brother and his friend. It was a bitterly cold day and it was snowing so that made it hard to see but it was fantastic snow conditions as there was lots of powder on the ground. We had a blast going down the hills.
At ne stage on our last run of the day i fell of the tow thing up the mountain and had to take off my skis and walk through about hip high deep powdered snow to get to the actual skiing track, talk about a mission! It was goo to get on the bus at the end of the day and warm my finers up, that will teach me for not wearing waterproof gloves.
Went to a rotary meeting last week and the talk was on the conference last year in Chicago. They were showing pictures and in one of the photos was unmistakenly a NZeder. His back was to the camera but he was wearing a black shirt with a silver fern, it was so exciting to see another NZeder even if it was just in a picture.
Next weekend I am going to Oslo on a Rotary weekend to a place called Holmenkollen which has the big ski jump so that will be an awesome weekend.
A couple of weekends ago i also tried ice fishing which was a neat experience but a little cold just sitting waiting for the fish to bite, unfortunately we didnt get anything. The language is going ok i feel like i learn a little bit everyday or i understand a little bit more. Its slow work though but eventually i will get there.
Hope you are all enjoying the summer, enjoy the heat while it lasts.

From Jordan

More news from Jordan Rush (Feb 24 2006)

Hi Max

Thank you for your kind email. Yes it does take a while to settle in especially with the time and everything like that but fortunately that passed reasonably fast for me.
Not looking forward to those horrible plane rides back. I think i will spend about 26 hours on a plane to reach napier on my way back and then there is the waiting in between. Really makes me want to stay over here :)

Norway is defiantely a winter country, we had a very heavy snowfall one night and about 40cm fell and i had to wait 35 mins while it was still snowing for the bus! I really like norway but im not sure if i could be bothered digging my car and driveway out every morning in winter just to get to work!
I am really fortunate and my class at school have been really welcoming and i have made some friends as well as with the other exchange students.
The pocket money is fine i suppose but Norway is very expensive and i have just had to buy new clothes as i have put on weight and some dont fit me anymore.
Yes i have my own cellphone and my norwegian is coming along very slowly. I can string together some words to make simple sentences but i feel like i have hit a wall and need to get past it. Im sure it will click one day though.

Ha det bra fra Norway

Jordan

News from Jordan Rush - 19 January 2006
Hi everyone at the Ahuriri Rotary Club,
I have been in Norway since Saturday night and it is very cold but very beautiful. It snowed last night about 30-40 cm of snow and today it looked like a magic land.
It was my first day at school today and every one has been so friendly and welcoming it is overwhelming. My host family are lovely as well and are patiently teaching me Norwegian. My councillor is really lovely as well and has been a great help.
I just wanted to give you an update on how i was and to thank you again for this awesome opportunity. Am counting down the days until i go on ski camp :)

From Jordan Rush

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