No bus, no shoe

I live too close to the school, so I do not use the school bus.


We woke up early and had enough time to get to the school. But when we got there, we realized that we forgot to take with us my shoes. I had my rollerblades on, and no shoes to change to! I had to borrow my mother’s shoes and she went beck home and got my shoes. We agreed that she should put them in my locker… I hoped she remembered the numbers… I was glad to find them there after the second lesson, but my mother told me that it was not so easy:

First, she had some problems cycling in her socks. For the second, the guards at the school would not just let her go in, so she had to apply to the office to get a permission. And the third, she had to find my locker and remember the combination!

I wanted to show you a picture of the lockers, but it seems like we have to ask for a promotion to take a picture. This image of the lockers is from: http://www.myschoolfolders.com/school-folders/?p=49

After the school, we went to a park on rollerblades. There were many sculptures and cool birds: we saw some birds that had red spots on their shoulders – they looked like they had uniforms with rank stripes or stars on their “uniforms”.

The school and the squirrel

The first time I came at the school office, I saw a picture of Obama and a letter on the wall. I asked what that was, and they told me that the kids from the school wrote letters to Barack Obama when he became president. And he wrote back signed with his own hand.

Today, I started at school. I was a bit nervous about the school because I knew just one person there – my friend Anthony. I hoped we would be at the same team, but when I came to the school this morning, they told me that I was not going to be in the same team as Anthony.

This place was very huge with many different classrooms. We were going in different classrooms for every lesson/hour. And every lesson, I was together with some other kids. I was worried that I will not find the right classrooms and get embarrassed, but I asked some teachers and got help to find where to go. Tomorrow will be easier because we always have the same schedule every day.

In the lunch time we could choose what to eat. Today we could choose between a hamburger and pasta with cheese sauce, between apple and peas, and to drink regular milk and chocolate milk. To pay, I used my food-card. And the rest is like in movies :)

On our way home we saw so many squirrels. We bought a dozen of almond nuts and tried to feed them. The most of them run away, but there was one little brave fellow that was not afraid!!!

The picture of super squirrel is from: http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=97702

The Loundry

The loundry was going around and around with an annoying sound,

hoping to stop at the special time it was running us mad.

It went around and around it wouldn't stop!

Going faster and faster, what should we do, should we go, or would it blow?

After a while it stopt and the ground was shaking, was it safe to look?

We went over to look, it was safe, but could have been worse what if it went reverse?

The clothes were clean, but was it safe next time, what if it went worse?

We were happy, went now out and it was wet,

Plopp, plopp and plopp it said outside we walked home and had to listen at that annoying sound.


Thomas Fredriksen

On Rollerblades

April the 22-nd we left from our apartment 9:45 a.m. with rollerblades to Urbana Middle School. When we arrived at 10:30 a.m, I got tested in English writing and reading, math and science. The test took about two hours, but felt like one. The school is going to use my scores to find out how my schedule
is going to look like. I will have the same schedule every day!

I think I did well on the test, the teacher who tested me told me that I will go to 7-th grade. I am starting on the next Monday. I will not have to bring any food with me to school, because they have canteen where we can buy food with card that works just like bus-cards in Norway. Here you can see the menu for this month: http://www.usd116.org//files/foodmenus/1004umslunch.pdf

Here the students can choose some subjects, for example a language they would like to learn, like Spanish or French. They have gym every day and use the same gym uniforms. All students have their own lockers, just like in movies.

It might be hard to find new friends here, but I have got one friend who I met close to where I live. He goes in 7-th grade and we might go in the same class!

After the test, my mother and I took on us our rollerblades and went to the library and to a shop called Meijer. It took about 2 hours. It was so warm outside that we had to use sun cream. It is so flat here and it is easy to role on wheels.

When home, we relaxed and I watched one episode of South Park that I bought 2 days ago. After the dinner, my mother wanted to read outside while I practiced with my new skateboard. And in the evening we watched the movie called “Up” from Disney Production, that we borrowed from my new friend. It was a great movie and pretty funny.

From Baltimore To Urbana

We left Baltimore April 19. to travel to our final destination which was Urbana in Illinois. We left our hotel at 7:30 a.m. and took the taxi to the Penn station (main train station in Baltimore). The train was leaving 8:10 a.m., so we asked the taxi driver if he could get us there on time, and he did. It took one hour to get back to Washington DC by train. (Look at the picture from Washington DC train station.)

Some people helped us with our baggage with getting it up the stairs. We thought: “Americans are so kind!”, but they were actually from Sweden!

At the train station in Washington DC, we had to take a taxi again to Washington Airport, and then take the flight to Chicago. From Chicago to Urbana it took 3 hours with buss to come to our apartment. I watched the Simpsons movie on my phone, so the last hour was nothing.

When we got there, we needed to find the key to our apartment. It was another place, but we didn't know exactly where. A guy (ho was also on the buss) helped us to find where the keys was, because he was living near by it. Thanks to him we found the keys.


When we were in our apartment (this picture shows “our” building), it was nice, but one bad thing: NO TV!

After a night without TV, the morning came. We had to get up early, so we could find a food market and talk to the headmaster in Urbana Middle School.

At the school there were 800 students, also around 260 students in each class! In the principal’s office, they told me that they needed to test me the next day, to find out which class I will go to. The Principal gave us some forms to fill out about me. By then the time was around 11 o’clock and we had still not eaten our breakfast because we could not find any food market on our way to the school. We were starving!

When we went out, down the road, there was a gas station were we could buy some food and drink. But we needed much more food and were so lucky to meet new friends that helped us to get to a large food market by car! We had pizza for dinner and had nice time together.

Tomorrow I am going to the school to be tested! Wish me luck!

The new board

It was warm outside, so we went to a place called Little Italy, to get some very cold, tasty, Italian ice cream. I didn't want to be there so long, because being there is like to be back in Europe and I wanted to be in America as much as possible. But something was really wierd in Little Italy – if the time was the same as in Italy, the ice cream store should have been closed because it was late at that time in Europe. But it was open, so we bought two ice creams with home-made biscuit around, with 2 ice cream balls. Because it was melting, we had to eat fast. It really cooled us down, I even got “ice-brain” and that was really annoying! Some of you may have had it once, or several times?

I have been searching for skateboard shops since we came to Washington DC. The searching didn't work, but when I didn't search, we found a skateboard shop! Skateboards hang over the whole wall and it was difficult to choose between them. It was also cheap there, and I could choose whichever board I wanted, and I could buy it straight away!


I could also choose wheels, trucks, helmet I wanted. I chose an Enjoi board with stylish pictures under with golden wheels and trucks. I was so lucky and very happy. This was un unbelievable to me, but it was true.

The picture of Little Italy is from: http://www.annasantana.com/commissions/index.html

Dolphins

On the 16-th of April, me and my mom were going to a food store named Lexington Market. I thought we would find a shopping mall there with at least one skateboard shop :), but that place was scary… very scary. I saw two police officers that looked like it was their first day at work. I saw one or more drugged junkies walking around. When we were inside the market, I felt unwelcome, like they didn't expect some white people coming in their door. My mom didn't think about it, so we just walked around in there and looked for something to eat, but it was crowded on every food desk, so we went out. The street outside the market was scary and we never went to it again. Not only because of the crowd, but there was also screaming, garbage and bad smells. I am sorry that we do not have a picture of that street - it was too risky.


The same day, we went to the National Aquarium. There we saw different types of fish, other sea creatures, and even sea horses! The dolphin show was amazing! I knew that dolphins are intelligent, but we didn't expect that they were sooo... smart! They did triple flips in the air when they jumped up from the water (jumped actually 1 ½ meter), stood strait up and moved backwards, and did “saltoes”.

They also liked to splash water on the people in the tribunes, and they did it a lot! And then they also laught! Glad they didn't splash at us, for we had our cameras up. The show was very impressive and the most of the crowd liked it. After the show we were going to see a 4D-movie about the Earth. The man outside the entrance gave us some 4D glasses that looked just like 3D glasses. The movie was incredible, and the glasses made everything on the screen come straight to your face. When a man in the movie spit out, a lot of water from his mouth got in our faces, and when they showed mice on the screen, guess what...? Air blow at our feet under the chair, so we all thought there were real mice running by!
That was fun - I will never forget it.

Baltimore

The 2 days in Washington DC flew away. My mother had to attend an important conference in Baltimore, so we took a train to get there. It took one hour. We had many suitcases and they were heavy to lift out of the train when we arrived. At the station, we took a cab to the Holiday Inn hotel.
Baltimore city is the same size as Oslo (about 650 000 citizens) and is one of the Maryland’s (which is one of the states in USA) most important harbours. Baltimore was once an industrial town where many people were working on production of steel, shipping, auto manufacturing and transportation. But for some reason, Baltimore seems to be most popular for its sea crabs – some people even carry crabs on their heads :)
People are very nice in this city. If you don't know where to go, someone might come and help you. In the shops they always ask: «How are you today?»
When we are going out to eat, we go normally to a «food court» (It is some kind of mall with a lot off different restaurants).

Two Days in Washington DC

We spent 2 days in Washington DC traveling around by underground train. It was safe on the train, not like in movies when bad guys/girls were robbing innocent people. The train was very fast, so we where around The White House in a couple of minutes from our station.

The daily tickets for the train were very important to us. Without them we had to pay for a taxi every time we went to The White House and other buildings at the National Mall. (The National Mall is the area in front of the United States Capitol – see the second picture here. Some of you, as I did, may be thought that this is The White House… but you were wrong! … and so was I… )

The Washington Monument (that tall white monument that looks like a stick) was useful for our orientation in the area because it so was tall that we could see it from everywhere.

We visited the National History Museum. If you don’t know what I am talking about, I can tell you that this is museum they made the movie ''Night at the Museum''- May be this rings a bell?

We also visited Air and Space Museum where we saw the original top of the rocket that has been around the moon (Apollo 11).
We could also see how the Earth and other planets in our solar system look like on round 3D screen.

Leaving Europe

We left Norway an early Sunday morning on April 11-th.
We first landed in Amsterdam and had 5 hours to wait for the next plane to America. Instead of waiting at the air port, we decided to take a short trip to the city.

Amsterdam was nice, but freezing! There was garbage on the streets, because the day before was Saturday, and on that day people normally party. After a few hours we left from the city and went to the airport. The flight to America took 7 ½ hours, but each of us had his own DVD-player where one could choose between many different movies.

And now we are finally in Washington DC where the spring is flowering up! It was 25 degrees today!

Close to The White House, there are green parks. Squirrels were going nuts in the parks :) They were almost tame and were jumping around all over.

There were many important buildings in The National Mall. We visited the Lincoln Memorial.