'Serendipity' primadonna Liliana Falsen Villar sings about being left ...

My Trip to Gullingen Leirskule
I have just returned from my first trip to Gullingen
where 4th Grade got to learn more about the outside
world and got lots of time to communicate with
others. We went on hikes and played games that
included teamwork.
On the first day after a bit of time to unpack our
suitcases, we got introduced to the staff of Gullingen.
We had a little talk about what time was breakfast,
lunch and dinner, what time we went to bed and what
we were going to do. We learnt that 4th Grade was
going on a few hikes including a night hike and doing
many teamwork games. The first night of Gullingen
was hard for some of 4th grade, knowing that they had
left their family but they had to think that there were
3 nights to go and that they were going on an amazing
journey through the mountains, which cheered them
up a bit.
Day 2 of Gullingen was tricky work. Getting up at
7:00, being accused of a late night, getting dressed,
brushing teeth, and finding the bathroom all ready for
breakfast at 8:00. It was even harder for the children
on kitchen duty having to be ready and to walk to the
kitchen at 7:30! After the students on kitchen duty
had finished setting tables, the rest of the grade came
in to eat. On a table at the front of where they ate,
there was a table where they could serve themselves.
You could either have: corn-flakes, bran cereal or a
sandwich. We all packed an extra sandwich to carry
as a snack when we were exploring.
After breakfast, we went down to the basement to
have a talk about what to pack in our rucksacks for
the journey. Some didn’t have 1 or 2 of things to pack,
so the staff got spares from the ping pong room.
They split people into groups depending on the letter
of your last name. For an example: if your last name
began with a ´c´, you would go in group 1 because in
group 1, they had starting letters from A to H. I was
in group 1. That group all went to a river so we could
go fishing for trout! The staff had a big net to throw
in the water. When we pulled the net out, we had
to break the fish´ necks and gut the fish. We cooked
them over a fire and ate them.
When we went back to Gullingen (camp school), we
had dinner. After that we all had a nice play in the
living room. We later got to do some night hiking,
first with no torches but we did carry them and put
them on just in case we might slip. We had an evening
meal just before bed time.
Day 3 of Gullingen was even harder than day 2! We
had to go on a long mountain hike. The staff suggested
that we should carry 2 sandwiches and a cool drink so
we wouldn’t be too hungry. We carried bags which
made it even harder to climb the mountain with a big
heavy load on our backs.
The view from the mountain was beautiful. You could
see lakes, even frozen lakes because the cold weather
had frozen it. The grass in front of you shone like stars
because of the sun. The way back to Gullingen was
really fun! There was a frozen pond to slide and slip
in.
When we got back to Gullingen, we had a bit of a
play, then we had Norwegian Christmas dinner! It
was pinnekjøtt (lamb) and for dessert, we had riskrem
(rice mixed with cream).
We had a bit of a play in the living room and then we
got to go into a hot tub! We had to walk bare foot on
the cold floor when it was -7 degrees C! The hot tub
managed to warm our feet up! After the hot tub, we
all brushed our teeth and went to bed.
On the last day of Gullingen, we were all up and
running. We were excited about seeing our families
again! We rushed into the bedrooms and packed our
stuff ready to head home. We all quickly went down
to the basement to get names of diplomas and to say
goodbye to the staff.
We all went to the bus to go home and as we set off
back, we all agreed that Gullingen was great and we
couldn´t wait to get back in 5th Grade.
Toyosi Ariyo
22 · The Informer 23 November 2011 www.isstavanger.no