Visit by an American

Today we had a visitor in class. A woman from Maryland in the United States. She had recently moved here to Norway, and today she came here to talk about the American constitution. First off I must say that it was delightful to hear fluent English without a Norwegian accent. Her name was Lee Ann Potter and she works as the director of education and volunteer programs at the U.S National Archives in Washington, DC. 

She told us a lot about the U.S, and how it differs from Norway. She also had some amusing facts about how her experience in Norway had been so far. It is interesting to hear how Norway is perceived from a foreigners point of view, or in this case an American. She had trouble learning the language, as some of the words (she mentioned the combination of Ø and R as especially difficult) were really difficult to pronounce.

After her introduction and after the talk about cultural, political and social differences between Norway and America, she proceeded with her originalt intent - to talk about the American constitution and how the government works in the U.S. She also spent some time trying to get us reflecting about why we really need a government, and what responsibility the government actually have.

I think it was really interesting to listen to Lee Ann and I think I learned a lot.