Going home...

Hello… Right now, I’m on the plane back home to Norway. I’ve had such a good time in the States. I have to say San Francisco was the best place, but it was so much other places I also liked. Another thing I also enjoyed was visiting Ellis Island, so much history! The roadtrips I also enjoyed a lot, I don’t know why, but I like relaxing that way.

I think I’ve been following my schedule good. I wrote everything I had plans on writing on my blog and I’ve been to all the places I had plans on visiting. Also, I think I’ve been good making sure my posts is looking good, I’m really into making things look nice.

Well, four hours left on the plane. Guess I should get some rest and maybe take a little nap. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again and seeing my family. I hope you have liked following this blog about my trip to the States and what I’ve been doing. I really need to get some rest now… Goodbye!!!

Nora

Helen Keller

Hello, I’m back again! I’m going home in a really short time… But I can blog about at least about one more thing. And I have chosen a historical person… Helen Keller! I’m really looking forward to write this post.

Helen Keller was born 27^th June 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. She dies 87 years old the 1^st June 1968. Helen is most known for her work for blind and deafblind, both in the US and the rest of the world.

When Helen was 18 months old, she got sick. When the sickness were over, Helen was both blind and deaf. Because of the time this happened - when she started learning how to talk - she didn’t really learn it too well… The parents didn’t know what to do, at this time in Alabama, people didn’t know much about deafblind people. Helen lived very isolated in five years, nobody could communicate with her.

When Helen was 6 years old, the parents took her to Alexander Graham Bell. He was a known deafteacher – and he had invented the phone. He said they should give her a tutor, and they did. 3^rd Mars 1887 Anne Sullivan was appointed Helens tutor. Anne learned Helen hand alphabets and she also learned Helen Louis Braille’s “Braille system”. She also learned to talk. She didn’t just learn to talk English, but also other languages and she learned the piano as well. In 1904 she completed college.

Helen was asked to travel around and lecture about her life. The audience were improved by her elegance, confidence and appearance. She travelled to new cities every day. In 1960 she wrote the book Light in My Darkness. Helen Keller was 14^th September 1964 given Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

WOW, what a person? I think Anne should have been given some prices as well, but I can’t do anything with that. Helen have to be a fantastic person. If I could go back in time, I would visit Helen and Anne… But I can’t do that tough… I wish. Hope you liked reading about Helen and Anne as well. I need to start packing my suitcase soon, so I need to round up this post… See you later!

Nora

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting

Hey, I’m back to blog even more! I thought to write about something historical, and my choice is really sad… I’ve decided to write about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. It’s not the happiest thing to write about, but I wanted to learn more about it!

The shooting took place December 14^th, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot 20 children and 6 adult staff members. The security at the school was high, after 09.30 am every day the doors were closed and locked. Lanza shot and killed his own mother when she still was in bed some time before 9.30 am, something I can’t understand at all… Lanza arrived at the Sandy Hook Elementary school shortly after 9.35 am. He shot his way through a glass panel next to the locked front entrance doors of the school. He went through the whole school, room by room. Shot if he saw anyone, but in some rooms, they had hidden so he didn’t see them and continued, those people survived.

When responders arrived at the scene, Adam committed suicide by soothing himself in the head. Everything happened from about 9.15 am when he shot his mum, until 09.42 am when the police had the situation under control. This mass shooting is the second deadliest mass shooting by a single person in U.S. history, and it took place in a school!?

I’ve read the whole story about what this guy did. It’s so bad. I can’t understand how anyone can do anything like this? If you want to read more about what happened, I have linked it in the bottom.

The Sandy Hook shooting promoted renewed debate about gun control in the land. I think it is way too easy to get a weapon in the states. I can’t understand why Americans that easy can get a weapon… It’s like they’re scared of everything…

I still can’t believe how a person can do anything like this… But I hope you liked reading about it and think it is just as “exciting” as me… See you later, bye!

Nora

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting

Slavery in the USA

Hey, yesterday I went to a farm were slaves have lived earlier. It was kinda weird, but i learned a lot and it was really exiting. I went to an old cotton farm were it earlier had been working around 20 slaves... Those slaves lived under very bad conditions. I think it is so mean, but I don’t know what it was like to live in this time. Want to learn something about slavery? Read this!

Some of the cases for the slavery was that they needed people to work on the farms and plantations in the US. Reasons why they used African slaves was partly because they were less sick than for example Indians. The first slaves who came to America, came with a Dutch ship in 1619 to Jamestown in Virginia and it was 20 of them. They were going to work on a tobacco farm. In the beginning, slaves could after 7 years of hard work get their own land and be free. In the 17th and 18th centuries, black slaves worked mainly on the tobacco, rice and indigo plantations of the southern coast.

When it comes to the life on the plantations, the owners treated the slaves differently. Some treated them nice and other treated them bad… Some of them was raped, and others were whipped. If a slave tried to escape, some owners even cut of their limbs. The slaves lived under very bad conditions and it was not much space in the houses they lived in.

Slaves were treated like animals and were sold on actions. Families were ripped apart as they were sold to different plantations. And the man would never see his wife again. However, on the plantations they could fall in love with another man and then after they had been together for a while, possibly the man could be sold to another plantation. A slave had the value of a 3/5 white person.

It was many ways making people slaves; the most common were kidnapping and plundering, but also prisoners of war was sold as slaves. It also happened that people was “given away” or used as a medium of exchange.

It is assumed that 10 to 12 million slaves were exported from Africa to many parts of the world during the period 1451 to 1870. I think that is way too many, but as said earlier, I didn’t live at that time and don’t know what it was like… I’m happy this isn’t what the world is like today. I hope it will never get like this again. Now I want to get of my computer and out in the city again, I’m still in NYC, but leaving in a couple of days, so I want to see as much of the city as possible. Have a GOOD DAY!

Nora

Sources:

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_colonial_United_States

The Immigration

Hey, sorry for not blogging the past two weeks, I’ve been so busy traveling around that I’ve just forgotten it. However, today I’m here, just got back to my hotelroom in NY after spending the day on Ellis Island and seeing the Statue of Liberty. So now I’m really in the mood to write about the Immigration, let’s start!

So, the immigration is divided into four waves: I thought I could talk about the wave that lasted from 1870-1920. This is called the second wave and the immigrants were Germans, British, Irish, Scandinavian, Other Central European, Italian and Eastern European. Roughly 26 million immigrant arrived in the United States, which I think is really much. It represented over 12% of the national population. It started to get too many immigrants, so Ellis Island opened in 1892. Ellis Island was the gateway for millions of immigrants, everyone had to get through Ellis Island for immigrating to the US.  It was a great change, as arrivals from northern and western Europe, Germany, Ireland, Britain and the Scandinavian countries slowed, it didn’t came as many as it earlier had. Seven hundred immigrants passed through Ellis Island the first day, and nearly 450 000 followed over the course of that year. This was not as much as it had been before. Ellis Island was the first.

It’s natural for me to talk about the Norwegians immigrants since I’m from Norway. So many Norwegians immigrated at this time (the second wave) to the Midwest, drawn by the promise of free land. The first immigrants from Norway came with the ship “Restauration” in 1825, the ship sailed from Stavanger to New York with 52 immigrants. In the years 1825-1925, about 800 000 Norwegians emigrated. There were three waves of Norwegians Immigrants: the first wave happened in the second half of the 1860s, the second wave happened early in the 1880s and the third wave took place in the years around 1905.

This was all I wanted to write about today, it’s just soooo much I couldn’t take it all, so I took what I taught was fun. I really wanted to write about all the rules that have been used, like I read on a sign today that at one time, Asians weren’t allowed and rules like that. But I couldn’t find any good sources… I had a really good time today and looking forward to next week when I’m going to have the chance to see a place where it actually have been slaves living. I don’t remember exactly where it is, but I think it could get really fun kinda… See you later, Goodbye!

Nora

Sources:

http://www.preceden.com/timelines/29989-waves-of-immigration-in-america
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States
http://ndla.no/en/node/50210
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/22/1188522/-US-Since-1865-The-Second-Wave-of-Immigration-1870-1900-and-the-Reactions-to-it
http://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsk_utvandring_til_Amerika

San Francisco & Phoenix

Hey, so right now I’m still in San Francisco, but soon I’ll go to Phoenix. I’m superexited for the trip, so I thought I could write about these two! Let’s start with San Francisco.

San Francisco is in the state California and is nicknamed Fog City and Frisco. It’s most famous for the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s so cool! Another reason why it’s famous is because it’s a large gay population in this city, I think that’s really cool too. San Francisco is the 4^th largest city in the state California, the biggest is LA. When it was founded, the city was Spanish and was called “Yerba Buena”, which means “Good Herb”. The reason it was called this, is because mint grew there in abundance. Another reason it’s famous is that it’s many internet companies here. Like Gap Inc., Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Mozilla and Craigslist. It’s cold in the summer, really foggy and steep rolling hills. So, it’s really cold here, but I like it. The population of San Francisco as of 2013 was 837,442.

 

After being here some time, I’ll take a car-ride to Phoenix. Phoenix lies in Arizona, so it’ not the longest car-trip. It’s the capital and the largest city of the state. The city have a desert climate, it’s really dusty and a lot of cactuses. It is hot summers and warm winters as well. The population of Phoenix as of 2010 was 1,445,632. The tourism is the longest running industry of the city. It’s a lot of hotels, 62,000 hotel-rooms and it’s over 16 million visitors every year. It’s nicknamed “Valley of the Sun” and “The Valley”. One of the biggest attractions is golf. It’s so many golf courses, over 200. Another attraction is the Grand Canyon, I really hope I can visit it. I’m not too sure about Golfing, it’s not really my thing.  

   

Well, tomorrow I’m going to Phoenix, so I need to pack my bag and make sure I’m ready to leave tomorrow, my time in San Francisco have been so much fun. Like, I can’t describe how nice it’s here… See you later! Byebye!

Nora

Sources used:

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona

 

United States of America

Omg! I’ve arrived in San Francisco and it’s so beautiful here. I can’t describe how good it feels to finally be here. However, I’m not going to write about San Francisco today, because today I want to write about the USA in general. Soon I think I’ll write about San Francisco, but not today.

So let’s start with the flag, The Stars and Stripes, Red, White and Blue, Old Glory, The Star-Spangled Banner as it’s called. The flag has 50 stars, as of it being 50 states in the US. When it all started, the flag had 13 stars (from June 14, 1777). The version with 50 stars which is today was adopted July 4, 1960. This flag was also planted on the moon…
 

What about the government? In the US, you have the federal government of the republic of fifty states that constitute the United States, this means they have a president. His name is Barack Obama, he is the most powerful person in the world. The federal government of the United States has three branches of government: the legislature, executive, and judiciary. Washington D.C., which is the capital of the US, is where the white house lies. It’s here the President is working.

The currency in USA is United States dollar ($) and have the code USD. Another name is Federal Reserve Note.

The “national” day in USA is the 4^th of July, aka Independence Day. They celebrates with fireworks over the whole country, the biggest fireworks is in New York City.

Some famous buildings in the US are The White House, The Statue of Liberty, The Golden Gate Bridge (I’ve been there!!!), Empire State Building, Washington National Cathedral, U.S. Capitol and Lincoln Memorial.

So, it’s late and I need to get in bed. I’ll see you later…. Goodnight!

Nora

Sources used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_government_of_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar