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Stranger in a Strange Land Newsletter August 12th, 2002

Stranger in a Strange Land Newsletter August 12th, 2002

(WARNING: I had all the time I wanted to write this one so it's really long and, honestly, overall, really not worth reading. I'd delete it right now if I were you. OK, fine...)

Hi Everyone,

I would have met the sheep yesterday but it was raining. Jo seems to go check on them every weekend up in the mountains where they stay all summer. It's about a seven hour hike there and back so previous weekends I felt like I had done enough travelling! But now I really want to see the sheep and be in the mountains so I hope to go next weekend.

So the last few weekends I and Robby, the other working guest, haven't done much but we have done some things. Like last weekend Karina, the wife of Jo (which is pronounced 'You,' which results in a lot of dumb jokes by me and Robby), was going into Sogndal, a nearby 'city,' to visit her sister and asked if Robby and I wanted to go to see the city. So, we came along and saw some of Sogndal for a few hours. It has an interesting feel to it. At first it looks just like Leikanger, our little town with several hundred people and it's a lot smaller than my little Arlington, MA but it feels more important. There's a really small theatre (only has about 10 showings per week of two or three movies) but inside of that building is a tourist office and they have all kinds of brochures including a little brochure with the schedule of the movies for the summer in color and with descriptions. So, it's small but more important than a lot of bigger places I know. Anyway, they have restaurants, including a Chinese one, so when I get totally tired of Norwegian food I can be transported back home by eating food from China.

Also, they have quite a pizza place which Karina took all of us out to eat at: Dolly Dimple's. She thought it was from the USA because it's named after a circus girl from the US who was named, 'The prettiest fat girl in the world.' I thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and some damn good pizza. Me and Robby split a large pizza, his half was 'Road show' and had a bunch of meat on it and mine was called something else and also had a bunch of meat on it (aren't you so glad your spending your time reading about what I had on my pizza while in Sogndal, Norway? you have to admit it beats the news on TV, but if really want that then I can send you an e-mail about a bunch people I know who died...). Anyway, it was really good and Karina and her sis had a 'Nachos Pizza' or something, but, anyway, it had nachos all over it which is weird but tasted really good.

But I'm starting to like the food a lot including some strong stinky cheese (cheese that's at least 1000 years old b/c the Vikings ate it...the type of cheese not that actual hunk of cheese of course), and spread able liver in a can (which really grossed me out at first, and maybe it still should: does anyone know if spread able liver in a can is good for you?). Also, I'm getting more and more comfortable about being myself and pigging out. Not that I didn't earlier, I just felt guilty about it. Like just now I went to have lunch, which was oatmeal and fixings (which I've never had for lunch but I'm fine with having the wrong foods for meals: this morning I had chips and salsa for breakfast), and after everyone had a couple servings there was still a good bit left. They then insisted that me or Robby finish it off. Robby didn't want it and though I had already had a few servings I was still hungry and it seemed that it needed to be done. Sooo, I ate a couple more servings... and it was good. That's the best: being obligated to eat. Nothing better. Well, there are better things but for the point of dramatic effect let's pretend there isn't...

Oh and now we have more of a rhythm going with work: a few hours of work in the morning, lunch around noon for an hour, and then one to three more hours of work. Usually not much in the afternoon though. Last week we spent LOTS of time cutting down apple trees and dragging them up to a big pile of other random pieces of wood. We cut down over 150 trees, they were all fairly small, but still you can brag that you know someone that dragged up to six trees at a time up a steep fjord in Norway... it's true. And we picked lots of plums, cleaned a barn, and shoveled hay. Overall I like the work. I get really exhausted at times but it's kinda nice to be doing real work like this. Also,
I'm actually surprised I'm not getting more exhausted and that's lasted for the whole week. At times I'll just be all energized for one day or week but then crash at the end, but now I've felt fairly good the whole week.

Alright, well I have far too much more to say and I don't want to fill up your mailbox anymore. (oh and I'm using the family computer right now, offline, that's why I have plenty of time) I hope all is well and everyone's enjoying the hot August month. We've had the whole week in the 90s at least, it's crazy, but there's a really cool place we've been swimming but I'll stop now!

love!
Eli