Before they left their small towns back in Norway for the more than 4,400-mile journey to Kent, Alise Johannessen Hjellbrekke, 16, and Ragnhild Kringlen, 15, got some advice about what to expect in America.
“They told us there would be a lot going on,” Hjellbrekke said.
The girls also were told what not to expect.
“They told us it’s not like ‘Baywatch,'” said Kringlen.
Hjellbrekke and Kringlen are visiting Kent as part of the Kent Sister Cities Program and each is staying with a Kent family for two weeks before taking a Kent teen back home to visit the Sunnfjord region of Norway, located on the western coast of the country, about midway up.
“It’s the one with all the mountains and fjords,” Kringlen said with a smile (a fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides created by glacial movement), though she does try to put down some of the other misconceptions of her home country. “But it’s not like there’s polar bears walking in the streets.”
For her time in Kent, Kringlen is staying with Kentwood sophomore Grace Allen, 15, and her family. Allen will head to Kringlen’s home next month. The two girls have bonded over, of all things, ’90s thrash metal band Pantera.
Hjellbrekke is staying with Lisa Pham, 17, and her family. Pham also is a student at Kentwood.
“It’s like having another sister,” Pham said of Hjellbrekke’s visit. “From what she says about her family, we’re really alike.”
As part of their time in America the families are taking their Norwegian guests around the region, including the tourist sites in Seattle, including the Space Needle and Pike Place Market. Oh, and of course, shopping at many of the local malls including Kent Station and Southcenter, the scale of which impressed both the Norwegian girls.
“It’s easy to get lost!” Kringlen said.
Compared to their small, more rural communities back home, the Puget Sound Region is a wealth of excitement.
“There’s so much to do here you don’t have time to think about it too much,” Kringlen said.
The girls also spoke about the amount of open space in Washington, as well as an increased population here in the states.
For the Americans, they are getting a chance to learn a little bit about how girls their age in Scandinavia grow up.
“I’ve learned that their school is way different,” said Allen.
For example, in Norway, the girls began learning English at about age 7 (which both families admit makes it much easier for them to communicate with their guests, who speak very clear English) and will soon move on to a second phase of high school that has a more vocational or career focus than American schools.
Pham agreed, adding that their lifestyle is also different, such as Hjellbrekke’s biking to school or her father’s driving the family tractor to work down a narrow country lane.
Both American girls who will head to Norway next month are experienced travelers, with each having visited about 10 different countries. Both are looking forward to their trips abroad and are not worried about being half a world – and nine time zones – away from their parents.
“I really like traveling so I’m used to it,” Pham said.
The program is part of the Kent Sister Cities program and the Norwegian committee pays for half of the air fare for each girl. The families pick up the rest and pay for food and lodging for their European guests.
“It’s to give these kids a sense of the differences as well s the similarities,” said Florence Amundsen, who is co-chair of the Norwegian committee.
According to Diana Antrim, a fellow member of the Norwegian committee, this is the fourth year for the exchange, which is typically a summer program and designed to give teens a sense of what life is like in the countries they visit.
“It’s a cultural exchange,” she said. “It’s not a school or academic exchange.”
As they prepare to head back to Norway with their new friends, Allen and Pham said they were excited to represent their city and country to a new population. Pham, especially, said she was looking forward to showing the Norwegians that not all Americans look like they might think and that Kent – and America – are very diverse places.
Hjellbrekke and Kringlen head back to Norway on Aug. 1.
For more information about the Kent Sister Cities Program visit http://www.ci.kent.wa.us/sistercities/index.aspx?id=1310
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