Language camp

When you go off to camp for a while many people think of a kids summer camp with swimming and playing. This camp can be like that for the kids who attend in the summer, but focusing on a foreign language. In this case Norwegian.

Some of you who have hung around here on occasion might remember that I have gone to camp a few previous times. It has gotten to be a habit. The teachers and students have gotten to be friends in many cases.

This year I was assigned to the farthest cabin, Tromsø, which is on the other side of the Arctic Circle as you can see by the post. Reminding us of the location this year was the lake was still frozen. It is a week later now and it is probably about ice free by now. As of yesterday some of our local lakes still have 16 to 20 inches of ice on them, but it is pulling away from shore and should be thawed for next weekend's fishing opener. We hope.

This year I got to meet a guy named Jerry who has a radio show on a couple of Northern Minnesota stations. He specializes in Bluegrass, but is quite attuned to other genres as well. One of our teachers, Arna, also has a radio program on Two Harbors radio called Nordic Roots. She is also a singer and musician as are a number of other campers and teachers. Needless to say some of our learning comes in the way of songs as well as stories and poetry.  Here are some pics of the entertainment from the Saturday night banquet.

This year our classes stayed in one place and the teachers moved around which was a great way to give different perspectives and methods for learning. When grammar discussions got dry we would turn to stories and in one case, tongue twisters. They are difficult enough in English, but a good training device when learning another language. The end result is that I am hoping to be proficient by the time I die. Or at least to the point where my cousins don't automatically switch to English when they see me coming.

My roommate Jeff and I walked to Sweden and Finland in less than an hour round trip. The Concordia Language Villages teach fifteen languages at all levels so there are many villages around the lake of which Skogfjorden, the Norwegian village, is the oldest. 

One of our other cabin mates apologized to Jeff for the glare off his bald head. Not to be outdone I removed my hat. Jeff exclaimed, "If you two put your heads heads together and focus you could start a fire!" This is Jeff. He has lots of hair.

 I kept hoping the ice would go away, but it didn't. Where water flowed into the lake over a beaver dam and under a footbridge it was beginning to recede. It was nice to observe the process and watch spring slowly gaining on the past winter.

Time to head home and back to work. I bid another fond farewell to Skogfjorden and hope to go again next year.