So its been a while since i've updated this...sorry i'm not very good at that.
Anyway we have about 5 and a half weeks left here which is surprising how fast it has gone by now. At times it crawled by but now we have less than 40 days! We are fully into our field study and that is going well I'm enjoying both of work at the Nansen center and the county council, very informative however i'm not exactly sure what i'll be writing about yet...
My other major paper is my case study which I am actually really enjoying researching and hoping this will be able to help me for my capstone next fall and that paper is due in two weeks so hopefully it will go well. As I said not much is going on over here. It snowed two days before Halloween, and while I'm used to having wet Halloweens I have never had a white one. Halloween is definitely something that is very different over here, not many people decorate or go trick or treating however they do like to dress up and their are a lot of parties especially since it was on a weekend this year.
The only other interesting thing going on is viewing the election from over here. Everyone is ecstatic that Obama won. While he is our President-elect now and will have my respect I still hold many reservations about him which makes me in a one person minority over here. Thats fine with me but its still hard sometimes. I guess we'll see how things go but I have found it facinating how truly invested people from all over the world are in the U.S election. It has made me appreciate my ability to vote in that election.
I guess thats really all I have for now I'll try to update a little more between now and when I leave but like i said I don't really have much to report on right now...
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Venice
Picture links: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76321&l=5c434&id=699291207
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76324&l=a2df6&id=699291207
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76327&l=adfb0&id=699291207
Venice was amazing, and I could write several blogs on our trip. I've been thinking about what I would want to say about it. For one it was a beautiful city, even though I'm not one for a lot of water, it was beautiful walking along the canals or standing on the Rialto bridge looking over the Grand Canal with the buildings lined up on either side, right next to the water. We kept thinking that it really does look like all the pictures we had seen. We couldn't believe it was really that pretty. There were no cars but watching the boats negotiate though the canals was a different form of rush hour. They have every function of another city but in the form of a boat; garbage, mail, personal boats, buses, taxi's, delivery, we even saw a boat that had frozen fruit or something to that effect that you could buy from it.
One of the things I didn't so much enjoy was the amount of people. Moving around was tough enough but having to have to navigate with our luggage was another story entirely. The only time we didn't encounter enough people to feel as if we would get run over was in the morning before 9 or 10 when the shops opened. At that point it was mostly locals on their way to work. And walking through rush hour n Venice can be just as hectic and terrifying as driving a car in any other city. It was the sheer amount of people though that really clued me into why the locals don't exactly the like tourists even if they are why the economy is thriving. With the amount of tourists to Venetians is about 400 to 1. The two place where that could be seen the most was the market place by the Rialto bridge and St. Mark's square.
St. Mark's square was really cool. The church was beautiful full of mosaics and various other decorations that would take forever to describe and unfortunately no pictures are allowed inside. Since we didn't wait in the line outside that would have taken hours because we were with a tour group we got the abbreviated version and only walked around the ground floor. We did however walk past where St. Mark's (or Mark, of the gospel of Mark, for those of us who aren't catholic) remains apparently rest. Adjacent to the church was the Doge's palace, basically the government building. One one side there was the prison, connecting the two was a bridge, famously known as the bridge of sighs because prisoners crossed it just before they were taken to be executed. On the other side is two pillars that are known as the entrance to the city. They also happened to be the exit since it is between the two that prisoners were executed, looking at the clock so they knew exactly when they died. Nice thought huh? As far as other major sights that we saw besides the Rialto bridge which was cool but it was just a bridge with shops on it, even if it is the oldest one in Venice. Anyway we went to the Academia museum, which is the most famous in Venice and toured around looking at the paintings. most of the depicted a biblical scene or a story from Catholicism which is what my mom enjoyed looking at most since neither of us are really the artistic type, but they were beautiful paintings.
As for my favorite part of the trip it would have to be the shopping. Everything there was just so cool. My favorite thing that I saw and luckily it was everywhere! were the masks that are traditional in Venice for the Carnival that takes place in February. They were all so amazing i had a hard time keeping my eyes off of them. During our tour we found out that the masks were used during the early venetian period as a way for politicians to keep the anonymity while doing deals that may have questionable morals. After finding this out I realized why I liked them so much :). Prostitutes however were not allowed to wear them, their identities had to be known, as well as commoners. Only those with status or a title could wear them. The glass that came from Murano island was also incredibly cool.
I decided this blog would be less of a day to day occurrence and more about what I liked and disliked. As I have said in my other blogs if you want to know anything else about it just ask. If I think of anything else I'll make a new blog about it.Thanks for reading!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76324&l=a2df6&id=699291207
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76327&l=adfb0&id=699291207
Venice was amazing, and I could write several blogs on our trip. I've been thinking about what I would want to say about it. For one it was a beautiful city, even though I'm not one for a lot of water, it was beautiful walking along the canals or standing on the Rialto bridge looking over the Grand Canal with the buildings lined up on either side, right next to the water. We kept thinking that it really does look like all the pictures we had seen. We couldn't believe it was really that pretty. There were no cars but watching the boats negotiate though the canals was a different form of rush hour. They have every function of another city but in the form of a boat; garbage, mail, personal boats, buses, taxi's, delivery, we even saw a boat that had frozen fruit or something to that effect that you could buy from it.
One of the things I didn't so much enjoy was the amount of people. Moving around was tough enough but having to have to navigate with our luggage was another story entirely. The only time we didn't encounter enough people to feel as if we would get run over was in the morning before 9 or 10 when the shops opened. At that point it was mostly locals on their way to work. And walking through rush hour n Venice can be just as hectic and terrifying as driving a car in any other city. It was the sheer amount of people though that really clued me into why the locals don't exactly the like tourists even if they are why the economy is thriving. With the amount of tourists to Venetians is about 400 to 1. The two place where that could be seen the most was the market place by the Rialto bridge and St. Mark's square.
St. Mark's square was really cool. The church was beautiful full of mosaics and various other decorations that would take forever to describe and unfortunately no pictures are allowed inside. Since we didn't wait in the line outside that would have taken hours because we were with a tour group we got the abbreviated version and only walked around the ground floor. We did however walk past where St. Mark's (or Mark, of the gospel of Mark, for those of us who aren't catholic) remains apparently rest. Adjacent to the church was the Doge's palace, basically the government building. One one side there was the prison, connecting the two was a bridge, famously known as the bridge of sighs because prisoners crossed it just before they were taken to be executed. On the other side is two pillars that are known as the entrance to the city. They also happened to be the exit since it is between the two that prisoners were executed, looking at the clock so they knew exactly when they died. Nice thought huh? As far as other major sights that we saw besides the Rialto bridge which was cool but it was just a bridge with shops on it, even if it is the oldest one in Venice. Anyway we went to the Academia museum, which is the most famous in Venice and toured around looking at the paintings. most of the depicted a biblical scene or a story from Catholicism which is what my mom enjoyed looking at most since neither of us are really the artistic type, but they were beautiful paintings.
As for my favorite part of the trip it would have to be the shopping. Everything there was just so cool. My favorite thing that I saw and luckily it was everywhere! were the masks that are traditional in Venice for the Carnival that takes place in February. They were all so amazing i had a hard time keeping my eyes off of them. During our tour we found out that the masks were used during the early venetian period as a way for politicians to keep the anonymity while doing deals that may have questionable morals. After finding this out I realized why I liked them so much :). Prostitutes however were not allowed to wear them, their identities had to be known, as well as commoners. Only those with status or a title could wear them. The glass that came from Murano island was also incredibly cool.
I decided this blog would be less of a day to day occurrence and more about what I liked and disliked. As I have said in my other blogs if you want to know anything else about it just ask. If I think of anything else I'll make a new blog about it.Thanks for reading!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Venice- getting to our hotel
So for our mid semester break my mom came over and took me and Makara to Venice for a few days. My mom got here on Friday and I picked her up from the airport and got to show her around Hamar a little bit, again such as my apartment, school and places I normally go to. On Saturday afternoon we went down to the Oslo airport because we had a 6:30 am flight on Sunday. We ended up eating dinner at the airport since it had the most selection of food that was too expensive, as compared with our hotel. Our hotel was literally across the street from the entrance to the airport which made it easy to go back and forth between except for the continuous downpour, biting winds and low 40 degree weather we werre encountering.
Sunday morning we got about 3:30 to take our bags over to check them. We came back to our hotel to check out and eat breakfast and then went back to go through security. We made it through and over to our gate where we sat for a while. They started to call for boarding and from where we were sitting we couldn't see a plane but thought it was only our angle. As we walked down the gate we saw people going down stairs and no plane to be seen. Everyone was getting on a bus, we were so confused, especially at 6am. The bus drove us over to our plane where we then had to stand outside in the freezing cold and wet tarmac as we climbed up some steep stairs to finally board the plane. This was only the first flight of the day. On the way to Amsterdam we were able to watch the sunrise over Europe. The most beautiful part was flying over the Alps. They were the most gorgeous mountain range I have even seen in my life. After the plane landed in Amsterdam we had to negotiate our way through a very busy airport to find our next gate since we only had about an hour before the plane was to take off. This time there was a plane to get directly on to and the second flight was as uneventful as the first.
After we landed and got our bags we tried again to figure out where and if we go through customs. Again we don't, so technically we have no proof we were ever in Italy, but we were. My mom figured out where we were supposed to go to catch the water bus to get to Venice. We got down there and boarded the bus that would take about an hour to reach Venice. Me, loving boats so much, had a great time especially when bigger boats went buy and our boat had to slow down to go over the wakes. After a few stops and about an hour we made it to the Rialto bridge stop where we got off. All the bridges in Venice are stairs, we each had at least two bags and my mom had four because she was taking some things home for me. We had no idea which side of the bridge we were on. It was about midday and we were getting hungry and had already been up for some 9 hours. We asked an Italian which way we needed to go and he pointed us in the right direction but we had to go over the Rialto. One of the busiest spots in Venice, next to St. Mark's, it was jard to get over the bridge with all of our bags but we finally did it. We were only a few blocks from our hotel but since we were having trouble reading the signs again we had to ask for help. We finally made it to the hotel and draged our stuff up to the third level, again no elevators. The room was beautiful though and we were very excited that we were actually in ITALY!!!!!
Sunday morning we got about 3:30 to take our bags over to check them. We came back to our hotel to check out and eat breakfast and then went back to go through security. We made it through and over to our gate where we sat for a while. They started to call for boarding and from where we were sitting we couldn't see a plane but thought it was only our angle. As we walked down the gate we saw people going down stairs and no plane to be seen. Everyone was getting on a bus, we were so confused, especially at 6am. The bus drove us over to our plane where we then had to stand outside in the freezing cold and wet tarmac as we climbed up some steep stairs to finally board the plane. This was only the first flight of the day. On the way to Amsterdam we were able to watch the sunrise over Europe. The most beautiful part was flying over the Alps. They were the most gorgeous mountain range I have even seen in my life. After the plane landed in Amsterdam we had to negotiate our way through a very busy airport to find our next gate since we only had about an hour before the plane was to take off. This time there was a plane to get directly on to and the second flight was as uneventful as the first.
After we landed and got our bags we tried again to figure out where and if we go through customs. Again we don't, so technically we have no proof we were ever in Italy, but we were. My mom figured out where we were supposed to go to catch the water bus to get to Venice. We got down there and boarded the bus that would take about an hour to reach Venice. Me, loving boats so much, had a great time especially when bigger boats went buy and our boat had to slow down to go over the wakes. After a few stops and about an hour we made it to the Rialto bridge stop where we got off. All the bridges in Venice are stairs, we each had at least two bags and my mom had four because she was taking some things home for me. We had no idea which side of the bridge we were on. It was about midday and we were getting hungry and had already been up for some 9 hours. We asked an Italian which way we needed to go and he pointed us in the right direction but we had to go over the Rialto. One of the busiest spots in Venice, next to St. Mark's, it was jard to get over the bridge with all of our bags but we finally did it. We were only a few blocks from our hotel but since we were having trouble reading the signs again we had to ask for help. We finally made it to the hotel and draged our stuff up to the third level, again no elevators. The room was beautiful though and we were very excited that we were actually in ITALY!!!!!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Hillary and Jeff's visit
Sorry I haven't updated in a while, not too much was going on and then a whole bunch of things happened at once.
The first thing was that Hillary and Jeff came to visit me here! They got to Norway on Sunday and through Wednesday morning they were on Norway in a nutshell. Wednesday morning I picked them up at the Hamar train station and brought them back to my apartment. Wednesday for the most part we just hung out and I showed them where I live, go to school and a little bit of the town. the weather wasn't great the first or the second day so it was hard to show them how pretty it was when we were walking around on Wednesday. Thursday I had class all day so they had to fend for themselves. Friday we decided to go see some of the things in Hamar I hadn't really seen yet. However since I hadn't been there before and we didn't have a clear idea of where we were going or a good map we pretty much just walked around Hamar and eventually ended up at the train museum which Jeff had wanted to go to. Most of the touristy things close in early September as we had found out and even though we got to walk through the museum it wasn't as it would have been if it were during the summer. The rest of the day we hung out, they made dinner for me and Makara and it was delicious :D, because i had cooked on Wednesday evening, theirs was better though. Saturday we went down to Oslo and looked at some of the main tourist attraction there such as the royal palace, a couple of museums and Vigeland sculpture park, which is one of the most famous places in Norway. We had dinner and I got the 7:30 train back to Hamar so they could catch their flight the next morning.
It was hard to say goodbye since I haven't really been able to talk to them while i'm over here except on facebook, but I really enjoyed their visit and it made it easier on me to have family visit in the middle of the trip. It gave me something to look forward too when adjusting here the first month or so was difficult. It made it easier to say goodbye, even though i was sad to see them go, was that my mom would be coming in less than a week and we were going to go to Venice for my break.
My blog about Venice and my mom visiting will be in a few different segments so you may read them as you wish :)
The first thing was that Hillary and Jeff came to visit me here! They got to Norway on Sunday and through Wednesday morning they were on Norway in a nutshell. Wednesday morning I picked them up at the Hamar train station and brought them back to my apartment. Wednesday for the most part we just hung out and I showed them where I live, go to school and a little bit of the town. the weather wasn't great the first or the second day so it was hard to show them how pretty it was when we were walking around on Wednesday. Thursday I had class all day so they had to fend for themselves. Friday we decided to go see some of the things in Hamar I hadn't really seen yet. However since I hadn't been there before and we didn't have a clear idea of where we were going or a good map we pretty much just walked around Hamar and eventually ended up at the train museum which Jeff had wanted to go to. Most of the touristy things close in early September as we had found out and even though we got to walk through the museum it wasn't as it would have been if it were during the summer. The rest of the day we hung out, they made dinner for me and Makara and it was delicious :D, because i had cooked on Wednesday evening, theirs was better though. Saturday we went down to Oslo and looked at some of the main tourist attraction there such as the royal palace, a couple of museums and Vigeland sculpture park, which is one of the most famous places in Norway. We had dinner and I got the 7:30 train back to Hamar so they could catch their flight the next morning.
It was hard to say goodbye since I haven't really been able to talk to them while i'm over here except on facebook, but I really enjoyed their visit and it made it easier on me to have family visit in the middle of the trip. It gave me something to look forward too when adjusting here the first month or so was difficult. It made it easier to say goodbye, even though i was sad to see them go, was that my mom would be coming in less than a week and we were going to go to Venice for my break.
My blog about Venice and my mom visiting will be in a few different segments so you may read them as you wish :)
Friday, September 19, 2008
End of Module 1
Our first class ended this morning after turning the final paper. The last lecture was thursday and all in all it was a pretty good first class. This past week went by pretty fast except for the fact I've been sick. Monday night, since we didn't have class until the evening on teusday, we celebrated my 20th birthday. We had nine people here the seven Americans (including Makara and myself) and Afrika and Gerson two of our friends that we've made while we've been here. We had margaritas (my favorite drink) and just hung out dancing, playing games and talking.
I'm looking forward to the next module that starts on monday and I'm especially excited for wednesday since my sister and Jeff are coming to visit!! Then it is only one more week until our mid semester break which means that we've been here for almost 2 months already and have only two months left. It has already gone by so quickly I can't believe it.
If anyone has any specific quesitons about what i've been doing, learning or anything else feel free to ask, i'm trying not to make my blogs too long and boring.
I'm looking forward to the next module that starts on monday and I'm especially excited for wednesday since my sister and Jeff are coming to visit!! Then it is only one more week until our mid semester break which means that we've been here for almost 2 months already and have only two months left. It has already gone by so quickly I can't believe it.
If anyone has any specific quesitons about what i've been doing, learning or anything else feel free to ask, i'm trying not to make my blogs too long and boring.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Excursion
So last Monday which also happened to be my birthday our class, Society and Culture, set out on a excursion to see other cities in Norway and get a better feel for how the welfare state works. Our first stop was a 3 and a half hour train ride north of Hamar in a little mining city called Roros. (picture link, http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71511&l=dcac7&id=699291207 copy and paste it)
Roros was found in 1644 after a man who was hunting reindeer. The man shot a reindeer and it tripped over something shiny. This prompted the man to begin building a town beginning with the Furnace. There are two main streets in town running parallel with each other, mining street and church street. Mining street had the furnace as well as many of the high powered officials of the company with the director at the front of the street so that he could see everyone who was coming or going from the town. The other street, Church street was named for the church that was built on it. It is the 3rd largest church in Norway holding over 1,000 people. On an average Sunday there is usually no more than 20 or 30 in attendance however on Christmas eve the church is full to capacity. It is most evident in the church of the class system. First off men and women were to be separated on the two sides of church. The place that a person sat also noted there standing in the town and it could easily be seen if someone received a promotion during the past week because they would then be sitting closer to the front of the church. Our guide also told us that because of the mining process and the sulfur nothing was able to grow in Roros until 1953. Much of the town is also historically preserved, even the waste called slag, that is produced during the mining process. No one in the town is allowed to change the basic structure inside or outside their home. Another rule that has also protected the town immensely from becoming a ghost town is a law that requires home owners to live in their residence the majority of the year, meaning it cannot become a seasonal town. After our tour of the town we were free to do what we wanted until we met for dinner. Makara Genevieve and I decided to set out in search of the largest desert in Scandinavia that was about 2km from the town. We set out not entirely sure the direction we were supposed to go however we did see if from across the road. We weren't able to find the trail to get to the actual sand but it was still pretty cool to be able to see it. We were also told that it couldn't technically be a desert since it received about twice as much rain as the average desert but the sand is similar to what you would find and it was left over from the last ice age.
We left Roros and took another train up to Trondheim (pictures, http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71521&l=034aa&id=699291207). On the train ride up to Trondheim we had a very interesting time. Genevieve (from Ithaca college but part of our PLU program) and I were making cootie catchers or fortune tellers and having the Tanzanians take turns with them. We also introduced them to MASH were you predict what kind of life that a person is going to have. We all had a great train ride up sharing what we did in elementary school with the others in our class. We arrived in Trondheim and headed to our hostel. I've never stayed in a hostel before and it wasn't what I expected. It was as if I was back in the dorms at school, 4 people to a room and a bathroom down the hall. They had a breakfast spread in the morning and a room with a TV (we never really watched it though). I went to bed as soon as we had gotten all the room settled since we had to get up at 7 the next morning.
On Tuesday we walked into town to meet with a local politician who discussed with us how the labour party was operating in Trondheim. The current mayor has also apparently done a very good job of keeping the promises that were made during campaigning. During her first term it was free and available kindergarten and during her second term she has been working on enough quality care for the elderly. After meeting with the politician we had lunch and then walked over to Nidros Cathedral the largest church in Norway. We got a tour but we weren't able to take pictures inside. The history of the church is extensive (you could look it up on Google if you want to know more about it), the inside was beautiful. It is almost impossible to describe but it has been one of my most favorite places I have visited in Norway so far. After the tour of the Church we visited the Archbishops Palace that is now a museum, including the royal regalia. We saw the clothes that the king wears when he is crowed, the royal jewels and the crown for the King, Queen and Crowned Prince. Nidros Cathedral is where the coronations take place. After our scheduled visits we had the afternoon and evening off. Makara, Genevieve and I again set out and walked around Trondheim. Shopping in Norway however gives you a heart attack, there is no pleasure shopping here since everything is twice as expensive. With not much else to do that night we headed back the hostel sat in the main lobby and talked. The next day in Trondheim we did a walking tour of the town. We first walked to the Fort in Trondheim that looks over the whole city. The fort was taken over during WWII by the Germans part of it was even used as a prison for those who were loyal to Norway. One place in the fort that we saw was a place that those loyalists to Norway we brought and executed. It could be heard all over Trondheim and the citizens knew what had happened. After we walked through the fort we walked to the University of Trondheim. As we walked through the University you could see the buildings become more modern from the first building in the front built in the 19th century to the building in the back that was built in the last 10 years. We headed into the town and then took a taxi to the music museum. This museum had some of the most obscure and very old instruments. The museum was not one of my favorite parts of the trip, mostly because my knee was hurting from the walking but there was still some pretty cool things.
After the museum we went down to the boat launch to catch our ferry to take us to Kristiansund. We arrived in Kristiansund around 8:30 and made our way to the other place we were staying. It was like a motel only they weren't rooms, it was cabins were 4-6 of us would be in an area it had beds, a kitchen and a bathroom. It was nothing like I've ever seen before but it was pretty nice. The first day we toured some of the different companies that work within the oil industry that is based off shore of Norway. The next day we took a hike around town with Inger's second cousin as our tour guide. We walked to the church in town, one of the most modern structures I've seen. The building was designed to let the light play inside the building. It was completely different from Nidros Cathedral or the church in Roros but they all had the same feel when I stepped inside, the churches in Norway have all been completely beautiful, all were Lutheran as well, since that is the state church. We walked through a park that the city helped to restore and then up to another park that was nicknamed lovers lane. Some of the most beautiful scenery that I have ever seen besides the the sunset over the water on the rocks the night before. We hiked up a little further and reached the highest point in Kristiansund where there was a tower that was built to help ships see the islands of Kristiansund. After we took pictures over looking all of the town (http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71544&l=911ea&id=69929120), we hiked through the woods to a chapel on the other side of town and walked through one of the most unusual and beautiful cemeteries I've ever seen. The cemetery was divided between the rich and the poor, which was one thing we noticed through out the entire trip, how very class ridden the whole society was when everything was built. We walked through the cemetery and to another part of the sea side. Most of the beaches in Kristiansund were large rocks that were actually very fun to climb over. We walked back through the hiking trails and made our way back into town where we walked around some more before we headed to dinner. It was our last dinner as a group. The whole trip went pretty well, the more time that you spend with people from other countries the easier it is to see the differences in culture. It was definitely an experience of this trip that I'll remember however a week is definitely a long time to be with a group of people who see things very differently and trying to work around that.
The only not fun part of the trip was the bus ride back. I still hate bridges although i did have to walk across half a dozen bridges during our trip (terrifying but i did it!), however since Kristiansund is made up of four islands to get to the mainland several bridges were involved, we were also traveling at night on a bus that made several stops, needless to say the motion sickness patch I hoped would work didn't. After some time the 8 hour bus ride did improve until we finally reached our apartments at 5:30am Saturday morning.
Sorry this was so long, if you have any more questions, I was trying to shorten this up some, email me or leave a comment. Hope everyone is enjoying my blog!! See everyone in 3 months!
Roros was found in 1644 after a man who was hunting reindeer. The man shot a reindeer and it tripped over something shiny. This prompted the man to begin building a town beginning with the Furnace. There are two main streets in town running parallel with each other, mining street and church street. Mining street had the furnace as well as many of the high powered officials of the company with the director at the front of the street so that he could see everyone who was coming or going from the town. The other street, Church street was named for the church that was built on it. It is the 3rd largest church in Norway holding over 1,000 people. On an average Sunday there is usually no more than 20 or 30 in attendance however on Christmas eve the church is full to capacity. It is most evident in the church of the class system. First off men and women were to be separated on the two sides of church. The place that a person sat also noted there standing in the town and it could easily be seen if someone received a promotion during the past week because they would then be sitting closer to the front of the church. Our guide also told us that because of the mining process and the sulfur nothing was able to grow in Roros until 1953. Much of the town is also historically preserved, even the waste called slag, that is produced during the mining process. No one in the town is allowed to change the basic structure inside or outside their home. Another rule that has also protected the town immensely from becoming a ghost town is a law that requires home owners to live in their residence the majority of the year, meaning it cannot become a seasonal town. After our tour of the town we were free to do what we wanted until we met for dinner. Makara Genevieve and I decided to set out in search of the largest desert in Scandinavia that was about 2km from the town. We set out not entirely sure the direction we were supposed to go however we did see if from across the road. We weren't able to find the trail to get to the actual sand but it was still pretty cool to be able to see it. We were also told that it couldn't technically be a desert since it received about twice as much rain as the average desert but the sand is similar to what you would find and it was left over from the last ice age.
We left Roros and took another train up to Trondheim (pictures, http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71521&l=034aa&id=699291207). On the train ride up to Trondheim we had a very interesting time. Genevieve (from Ithaca college but part of our PLU program) and I were making cootie catchers or fortune tellers and having the Tanzanians take turns with them. We also introduced them to MASH were you predict what kind of life that a person is going to have. We all had a great train ride up sharing what we did in elementary school with the others in our class. We arrived in Trondheim and headed to our hostel. I've never stayed in a hostel before and it wasn't what I expected. It was as if I was back in the dorms at school, 4 people to a room and a bathroom down the hall. They had a breakfast spread in the morning and a room with a TV (we never really watched it though). I went to bed as soon as we had gotten all the room settled since we had to get up at 7 the next morning.
On Tuesday we walked into town to meet with a local politician who discussed with us how the labour party was operating in Trondheim. The current mayor has also apparently done a very good job of keeping the promises that were made during campaigning. During her first term it was free and available kindergarten and during her second term she has been working on enough quality care for the elderly. After meeting with the politician we had lunch and then walked over to Nidros Cathedral the largest church in Norway. We got a tour but we weren't able to take pictures inside. The history of the church is extensive (you could look it up on Google if you want to know more about it), the inside was beautiful. It is almost impossible to describe but it has been one of my most favorite places I have visited in Norway so far. After the tour of the Church we visited the Archbishops Palace that is now a museum, including the royal regalia. We saw the clothes that the king wears when he is crowed, the royal jewels and the crown for the King, Queen and Crowned Prince. Nidros Cathedral is where the coronations take place. After our scheduled visits we had the afternoon and evening off. Makara, Genevieve and I again set out and walked around Trondheim. Shopping in Norway however gives you a heart attack, there is no pleasure shopping here since everything is twice as expensive. With not much else to do that night we headed back the hostel sat in the main lobby and talked. The next day in Trondheim we did a walking tour of the town. We first walked to the Fort in Trondheim that looks over the whole city. The fort was taken over during WWII by the Germans part of it was even used as a prison for those who were loyal to Norway. One place in the fort that we saw was a place that those loyalists to Norway we brought and executed. It could be heard all over Trondheim and the citizens knew what had happened. After we walked through the fort we walked to the University of Trondheim. As we walked through the University you could see the buildings become more modern from the first building in the front built in the 19th century to the building in the back that was built in the last 10 years. We headed into the town and then took a taxi to the music museum. This museum had some of the most obscure and very old instruments. The museum was not one of my favorite parts of the trip, mostly because my knee was hurting from the walking but there was still some pretty cool things.
After the museum we went down to the boat launch to catch our ferry to take us to Kristiansund. We arrived in Kristiansund around 8:30 and made our way to the other place we were staying. It was like a motel only they weren't rooms, it was cabins were 4-6 of us would be in an area it had beds, a kitchen and a bathroom. It was nothing like I've ever seen before but it was pretty nice. The first day we toured some of the different companies that work within the oil industry that is based off shore of Norway. The next day we took a hike around town with Inger's second cousin as our tour guide. We walked to the church in town, one of the most modern structures I've seen. The building was designed to let the light play inside the building. It was completely different from Nidros Cathedral or the church in Roros but they all had the same feel when I stepped inside, the churches in Norway have all been completely beautiful, all were Lutheran as well, since that is the state church. We walked through a park that the city helped to restore and then up to another park that was nicknamed lovers lane. Some of the most beautiful scenery that I have ever seen besides the the sunset over the water on the rocks the night before. We hiked up a little further and reached the highest point in Kristiansund where there was a tower that was built to help ships see the islands of Kristiansund. After we took pictures over looking all of the town (http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71544&l=911ea&id=69929120), we hiked through the woods to a chapel on the other side of town and walked through one of the most unusual and beautiful cemeteries I've ever seen. The cemetery was divided between the rich and the poor, which was one thing we noticed through out the entire trip, how very class ridden the whole society was when everything was built. We walked through the cemetery and to another part of the sea side. Most of the beaches in Kristiansund were large rocks that were actually very fun to climb over. We walked back through the hiking trails and made our way back into town where we walked around some more before we headed to dinner. It was our last dinner as a group. The whole trip went pretty well, the more time that you spend with people from other countries the easier it is to see the differences in culture. It was definitely an experience of this trip that I'll remember however a week is definitely a long time to be with a group of people who see things very differently and trying to work around that.
The only not fun part of the trip was the bus ride back. I still hate bridges although i did have to walk across half a dozen bridges during our trip (terrifying but i did it!), however since Kristiansund is made up of four islands to get to the mainland several bridges were involved, we were also traveling at night on a bus that made several stops, needless to say the motion sickness patch I hoped would work didn't. After some time the 8 hour bus ride did improve until we finally reached our apartments at 5:30am Saturday morning.
Sorry this was so long, if you have any more questions, I was trying to shorten this up some, email me or leave a comment. Hope everyone is enjoying my blog!! See everyone in 3 months!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Another week. (picture links!)
So this past week has been very uneventful. Its hard to believe I've already been here three weeks! It still feels like I just got here. Classes are going well and tomorrow we are heading off to Trondheim and Kristiansund so that we can see and experience the welfare state first hand. We'll be gone one week and I'm sure that when i return my blog will be very long!
This entry doesn't have really any stories to tell but just to let everyone know thing are going well over here. I'm not putting up pictures on my blog but here are two links to the photos I have so far, http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68948&l=612b0&id=699291207 and
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68952&l=689ce&id=699291207
Enjoy!
This entry doesn't have really any stories to tell but just to let everyone know thing are going well over here. I'm not putting up pictures on my blog but here are two links to the photos I have so far, http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68948&l=612b0&id=699291207 and
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68952&l=689ce&id=699291207
Enjoy!
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The end of August
Well I have now spent 2 full weeks here in Hamar and I'm feeling pretty situated and settled in. I'm excited to see what the next 3.5 months bring but so far it has really been amazing.
Wednesday we had our second Norwegian class and I remembered why I'm so bad at languages, I can never remember what I've already done!! Hopefully I'll do alright and I'll pass the test at the end of September but even right after class I can't remember how to pronounce certain words and then I hate practicing them wrong. its a vicious cycle, we'll see how our next class goes though. For our Thursday class we went to Edisvoll. Edisvoll is the city that all of their major political developments occurred in when Norway was vying for their Independence in 1814. We walked around the house that became the central meeting place for all of the elected officials from around Norway. We stood in the garden room that was transformed into a meeting room when several people discussed their desire to ignore the treaty of Kiel (this treaty gave Norway from Denmark to Sweden after the Neopolean wars, it was recognized by every other govenment in the world) and make Norway and independent entitiy. Each county of Norway (except for the 3 northern most counties) sent an official to the house in Edisvoll to help form a new state. The youngest member was 17 at the time the constitution was written. Obviously the world was not going to accept whatever came of the meetings since the treaty of Kiel was recognized as fair and therefore Norway belonged to Sweden. However all of their efforts at Edisvoll were not completely useless Sweden decided to recognize Norway as internally sovergein. Sweden would deal with international affairs and the Swedish King would be head of state however the constitution that was drafted and signed by the members at Edisvoll would remain in effect making it the second oldest enforced constitution in the world. The first being the US constitution. The interesting part about their pursuit of independence was not fully finalized (meaning Norway handled their own international affairs) until the union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905 and Norway was fully independent.
Since we only have class 4 days a week yesterday and today have been devoted to unwinding and homework. Our first paper is due in less than a week now and I have a book that I have to have read and discussed in groups by next thrusday, "Work, Oil and Welfare: the Norwegian Welfare State", its interesting but a textbook and assigned reading none the less. We have one more week before we head our on our excursion to view first hand how many of the aspects of the welfare state works, such as social security and unemployment benefits. Our excursion northward will definitly give better focus to how the welfare state works.
One other note, if you are reading this on a regular basis could you leave me a note? I like to know who is interested in what I'm experincing over here. Thanks!
Wednesday we had our second Norwegian class and I remembered why I'm so bad at languages, I can never remember what I've already done!! Hopefully I'll do alright and I'll pass the test at the end of September but even right after class I can't remember how to pronounce certain words and then I hate practicing them wrong. its a vicious cycle, we'll see how our next class goes though. For our Thursday class we went to Edisvoll. Edisvoll is the city that all of their major political developments occurred in when Norway was vying for their Independence in 1814. We walked around the house that became the central meeting place for all of the elected officials from around Norway. We stood in the garden room that was transformed into a meeting room when several people discussed their desire to ignore the treaty of Kiel (this treaty gave Norway from Denmark to Sweden after the Neopolean wars, it was recognized by every other govenment in the world) and make Norway and independent entitiy. Each county of Norway (except for the 3 northern most counties) sent an official to the house in Edisvoll to help form a new state. The youngest member was 17 at the time the constitution was written. Obviously the world was not going to accept whatever came of the meetings since the treaty of Kiel was recognized as fair and therefore Norway belonged to Sweden. However all of their efforts at Edisvoll were not completely useless Sweden decided to recognize Norway as internally sovergein. Sweden would deal with international affairs and the Swedish King would be head of state however the constitution that was drafted and signed by the members at Edisvoll would remain in effect making it the second oldest enforced constitution in the world. The first being the US constitution. The interesting part about their pursuit of independence was not fully finalized (meaning Norway handled their own international affairs) until the union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905 and Norway was fully independent.
Since we only have class 4 days a week yesterday and today have been devoted to unwinding and homework. Our first paper is due in less than a week now and I have a book that I have to have read and discussed in groups by next thrusday, "Work, Oil and Welfare: the Norwegian Welfare State", its interesting but a textbook and assigned reading none the less. We have one more week before we head our on our excursion to view first hand how many of the aspects of the welfare state works, such as social security and unemployment benefits. Our excursion northward will definitly give better focus to how the welfare state works.
One other note, if you are reading this on a regular basis could you leave me a note? I like to know who is interested in what I'm experincing over here. Thanks!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
And we're off!
Yesterday was our first day of official classes. They are similar to those that I have been in before and yet at the same time so very different! We spent most of class doing housekeeping items such as figuring out frunter (our version of skai/blackboard etc.) and going over our class schedule. The second part of the class was our lecture, Inger our prof, discussed the Norwegian welfare state. The amount that they pay in taxes and the benefits that are returned to them. For instance a fully employed adult pays between 30-35% of their income (compared with in the US 15-20%) and Norwegians have 1 full year of paid maternity/paternity leave, with an option after that to stay and get a certain stipend each month, a cap on how much they can pay for doctors/dentists and free health care up to a certain age (12?) for kids and dental until 18 plus a pension after retirement until its no longer needed. Oh yea, did I mention their public transportation? Its amazing!! Granted the population of the entire county is only slightly bigger than that of metro Seattle (the city and surrounding areas). I'm finding it fascinating how they are able to sustain a fully fledged welfare state. Now this situation obviously wouldn't be able to work for every country in the world but some aspects are still intriguing to possibly be applied else where (including the US).
Later that day after our class we had dinner at Ingers house, we took the bus over (its seriously like a charter bus, its so nice!) since it is just outside of Hamar. She made more traditional Norwegian food including smoker salmon, which I tried, roasted or smoked sheep, which I did not and scrambled eggs with butter. She had different kinds of salads and plums from her garden. It was an interesting evening not only because of the food (which I don't really eat, even though I did try it) but after dinner when we were hanging out, we saw a bowl of marshmallows and roasting sticks, me and the rest of the Americans got very excited and immediately started to roast the marshmallows. Some of the other students looked at us completely baffled. They told us that Inger had told them earlier when they asked what the white things in the bowl were hat the Americans would show everyone later, that it was almost a sort of game. They then asked us what they were and we told them they were marshmallows, after the confused state we told them it was like sugar only more puffy and in the US we roast them over a fire and they become soft and sticky but really good, we also told them about s'mores however Inger didn't have any grahm crackers. Anyway we all took turns roasting marshmallows and either giving them away or eating them ourselves. We also showed them how to roast them, many of them told us it was too sweet for them but it was still good, they would not take another one however.
This morning Makara and I went to Oslo to visit a friend of ours who was going to be there before she left to go back to school on Sunday. We went to the most beautiful park and walked around (I'll try to get pictures up soon!!) we ate lunch and just saw a little bit of Oslo before we had to catch the train back up to go to class at 5. It was so much fun but exhausting. Oslo is very much like any other big city.
It has been very weird, I'm in a foreign county where I don't understand any of the language and most of the time am thoroughly confused but every time I look around everything is the same. That's hard to explain and I'm not sure why but even with everything being different, Norway reminds me of home, everything I see I feel like I've either seen before or I could have seen before. Well except for the Medieval castle on the other side of Hamar :).
Later that day after our class we had dinner at Ingers house, we took the bus over (its seriously like a charter bus, its so nice!) since it is just outside of Hamar. She made more traditional Norwegian food including smoker salmon, which I tried, roasted or smoked sheep, which I did not and scrambled eggs with butter. She had different kinds of salads and plums from her garden. It was an interesting evening not only because of the food (which I don't really eat, even though I did try it) but after dinner when we were hanging out, we saw a bowl of marshmallows and roasting sticks, me and the rest of the Americans got very excited and immediately started to roast the marshmallows. Some of the other students looked at us completely baffled. They told us that Inger had told them earlier when they asked what the white things in the bowl were hat the Americans would show everyone later, that it was almost a sort of game. They then asked us what they were and we told them they were marshmallows, after the confused state we told them it was like sugar only more puffy and in the US we roast them over a fire and they become soft and sticky but really good, we also told them about s'mores however Inger didn't have any grahm crackers. Anyway we all took turns roasting marshmallows and either giving them away or eating them ourselves. We also showed them how to roast them, many of them told us it was too sweet for them but it was still good, they would not take another one however.
This morning Makara and I went to Oslo to visit a friend of ours who was going to be there before she left to go back to school on Sunday. We went to the most beautiful park and walked around (I'll try to get pictures up soon!!) we ate lunch and just saw a little bit of Oslo before we had to catch the train back up to go to class at 5. It was so much fun but exhausting. Oslo is very much like any other big city.
It has been very weird, I'm in a foreign county where I don't understand any of the language and most of the time am thoroughly confused but every time I look around everything is the same. That's hard to explain and I'm not sure why but even with everything being different, Norway reminds me of home, everything I see I feel like I've either seen before or I could have seen before. Well except for the Medieval castle on the other side of Hamar :).
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Classes
Thursday we had our first day of our Norwegian class. Our teacher is very into the whole verbal thing so we pretty much just talked for the 3 hours of class, in Norwegian of course. It was quite interesting considering there are 7 Americans, 2 Hungarians, 1 Czech, and 5 Tanzanians in our class and English is the only language understood by all. I think it would be extremely difficult to learn a language that was not translated directly back into your mother language, but goes through your second possibly even your third language like half of the class has to do.
Anyway I have found Norwegian to be both easy and difficult at the same time. The way sentences are structured are fairly easy for me to learn, most of the words you can make out what it is or at least related to and the pronunciation is not as hard as I imagined except for the r which requires much more throat usage than I am able to do. The hard part is not only trying to remember what all the words mean (which has always been the most difficult part for me, they don't seem to stick) but that there is not as stable a system for conjugating verbs. Granted its simpler than in Spanish given there aren't as many possibilities but its also more difficult in that the conjugation is not consistent, I'm hoping the few more classes ahead will clarify that.
Friday night we had some friends over for dinner which was fun, Makara and I are going to try to do that with other international students so that we are better able to get to know them. The most fascinating part of my trip thus far has been hearing about peoples countries and lives. The other day we were talking with a student who is from Kosovo, and as most of the time when I'm in the conversation it happens to steer its way towards politics, anyway he was giving us a very brief version of his countries history (as you know it has just recently declared its self independent of Serbia) anyway he was telling us about growing up during Milosevic and the instability. At the end of the discussion he expressed his gratitude toward the United States not only in 1999 when Clinton sent in troops but also for recently recognizing it as a legitimate state. I was so pleased to hear something positive about the US from a different perspective. The media has always seemed to me to imply that to most of the world the US can do nothing right, and I have always felt that because of that we are in a no win situation, but here is this man telling me face to face that without the help of the US his country would not be independent and how great full he is to the US for that.
Ok so back to Friday night, it was very enjoyable to have that time with our friends however at the end of the evening I started to become sick :(. I was sick most Saturday, I have a feeling that I was just overly tired and need to rest since by the end of the day with some more sleep and good food I was feeling much better and my little fever was gone.
Today Makara and I also mostly hung out around our apartment but we did for a while go out to the lake and enjoy one of those elusive sunny and warm Norwegian days. We had some reading to get done before our class tomorrow about the Norwegian welfare state which was very interesting and I'm excited to get started tomorrow. I think the classes will be my second favorite part about this whole trip, which is probably good considering thats why I'm here!!
Anyway I have found Norwegian to be both easy and difficult at the same time. The way sentences are structured are fairly easy for me to learn, most of the words you can make out what it is or at least related to and the pronunciation is not as hard as I imagined except for the r which requires much more throat usage than I am able to do. The hard part is not only trying to remember what all the words mean (which has always been the most difficult part for me, they don't seem to stick) but that there is not as stable a system for conjugating verbs. Granted its simpler than in Spanish given there aren't as many possibilities but its also more difficult in that the conjugation is not consistent, I'm hoping the few more classes ahead will clarify that.
Friday night we had some friends over for dinner which was fun, Makara and I are going to try to do that with other international students so that we are better able to get to know them. The most fascinating part of my trip thus far has been hearing about peoples countries and lives. The other day we were talking with a student who is from Kosovo, and as most of the time when I'm in the conversation it happens to steer its way towards politics, anyway he was giving us a very brief version of his countries history (as you know it has just recently declared its self independent of Serbia) anyway he was telling us about growing up during Milosevic and the instability. At the end of the discussion he expressed his gratitude toward the United States not only in 1999 when Clinton sent in troops but also for recently recognizing it as a legitimate state. I was so pleased to hear something positive about the US from a different perspective. The media has always seemed to me to imply that to most of the world the US can do nothing right, and I have always felt that because of that we are in a no win situation, but here is this man telling me face to face that without the help of the US his country would not be independent and how great full he is to the US for that.
Ok so back to Friday night, it was very enjoyable to have that time with our friends however at the end of the evening I started to become sick :(. I was sick most Saturday, I have a feeling that I was just overly tired and need to rest since by the end of the day with some more sleep and good food I was feeling much better and my little fever was gone.
Today Makara and I also mostly hung out around our apartment but we did for a while go out to the lake and enjoy one of those elusive sunny and warm Norwegian days. We had some reading to get done before our class tomorrow about the Norwegian welfare state which was very interesting and I'm excited to get started tomorrow. I think the classes will be my second favorite part about this whole trip, which is probably good considering thats why I'm here!!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Paperwork
I'm just going to say that paperwork sucks! First of all most of the people running our program right now are all new not just one or two here and there but almost everyone handling our paperwork/registration stuff is new. We are definitely learning not only to be patient but to just go with the flow.
So today, we get up and find out our Norwegian language class is moved to tomorrow from 10-1 the problem is the immigration office is only open two days a week from 9:30 to 2:30 which does not leave us a lot of time and we have to report by Friday or we are illegal. We can't get our visas until we report which we thought slowed us up for a whole bunch of other registration stuff at our college but Makara and I did some investigating and were finally able to register at the school and get our id's, the immigration office however was a little more tricky. We went there to clarify what we needed since our files were sent to a different city. Since our paperwork will take a week to get here and we don't have that time we had to buy new photos, 70 kroner, yuck! and make an appointment to go before it even opens so that we can get our visas before friday. It has been one crazy day and now we are getting ready to go to a social gathering that the school has put on so we'll see how that goes.
So today, we get up and find out our Norwegian language class is moved to tomorrow from 10-1 the problem is the immigration office is only open two days a week from 9:30 to 2:30 which does not leave us a lot of time and we have to report by Friday or we are illegal. We can't get our visas until we report which we thought slowed us up for a whole bunch of other registration stuff at our college but Makara and I did some investigating and were finally able to register at the school and get our id's, the immigration office however was a little more tricky. We went there to clarify what we needed since our files were sent to a different city. Since our paperwork will take a week to get here and we don't have that time we had to buy new photos, 70 kroner, yuck! and make an appointment to go before it even opens so that we can get our visas before friday. It has been one crazy day and now we are getting ready to go to a social gathering that the school has put on so we'll see how that goes.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Settling in
So I have more time then i expected so i'll be posting a little more than once a week.
Saturday I mostly just slept after i finally got back to sleep, jet lag totally sucks. Makara and I finished unpacking, did a little more grocery shopping for other food to sustain us and just walked around more, we didn't really see anyone else but just made sure we had stuff to get through the next few days until we understood a little more of what was going on.
Sunday I again slept later than i ever have in my life. We went for a walk with the other international students around Hamar and saw some of their more popular sights. Hamar has three eras, the Viking era, Catholic era and the modern era. The ruins from the viking era a little farther out of town, I hope to get there at some point but that requires more effort. The reason that those are not in the modern part of Hamar is because of the second era. The Catholics wanted to distance themselves from the vikings and moved the central of Hamar away from their reminder. We saw the ruins of the Catholic church as well as the bishops castle, this is where the only Catholic Saint that came from Norway lived. He was named a saint since he was the one that brought Christianity to the country. The third era started in 1849 an almost 450 year gap from when the Catholic era because the government in Oslo felt threatened by the prosperity in Hamar and decided to no longer allow them to trade and therefore erased them from the map until they became a city again in 1849. The walk was amazing not only to see the history that goes back a thousand plus years (i'm going to go through the tour of them at some point) but it gave a great opportunity to meet with the other international students and get to know them. There are 15 countries represented in the international program at Hedmark University College; Napal, Pakistan, Indonesia, Tanzania, Namibia, , USA, Russia, Czech Republic, Kosovo, Palestine, Hungary, the others are escaping me but i'll try to remember. I love talking to the different people are learning more about their home country and what life is like for them. They find the US fascinating and peppered me with questions about English, Politics, attitudes in America, what the weather is like, how hot/cold it is and what its like to live there.
Yesterday we had our first day of orientation, we went to a breakfast orientation for the international students (its really weird to say i'm an international student) where they welcomed us and let us know what is going on. After that we had our opening ceremony which was almost entirely in Norwegian so I understood absolutely nothing and another American from Ithaca college in New York, Genevieve , and I played tic tac toe and hangman. After that we met with our groups and traveled to meet with our professor and get information about our classes. They sound completely fascinating we start those next Monday. We have three different modules for my program Society and Culture, there are about 15 that are in all three and then in the other two there will be a few other students taking just that one module. The first class (weeks 2-5) has to do with the Norwegian welfare state and how it is able to function in the way it does, which is the reason we are going on the excursion (sept. 8th, yeah we leave on my birthday through the morning of the 13th) to the northern part of the country (about where the arctic circle passes through the country) and then all they way down to the southern most place, a fjord (basically and island, these fjords are what give Norway the longest coastline in the world) that is an industrial town that has somehow survived through a depression that it is just coming out of. The second module is democracy and development that coincides with our 3rd module of conflict management. It will be during this time that we have our field study/research project. After we learned more about our classes we got a tour of the campus and found out more where things were and then we were able to go and enjoy more time to explore. As Makara and I were just about to go out it started to rain and its a lot like the rain in washington, not very hard but annoying and in the way. Norway has reminded me a lot of home but in so many ways its different too. The weather and scenery are very similar (right now at least) but the atmosphere and people are so much different. I also found out why it is a University college rather than just a University. To be qualified as a university they must have 7 masters programs and 4 doctorate programs, Hedmark is on its way to achieving that goal (Norway only has two full universities)
Today was probably the most boring that I've had here. we got our picture taken for our school ID however it was probably one of the most bizarre picture taking sessions i've experienced, it was hard to see the camera and there were two video screens that were portraying your image so it was hard not to look at them instead of the camera that was tiny right in between the two. After that we went to get our visas however our original paperwork was sent to a different police station so they didn't have what we needed to get our visas so we have to go back. I can get the visa tomorrow if i want to pay 70 kr (Kroner, just divide by 5 for the American dollar value, its a little overestimated but thats better than under!) to get another passport photo and then have to go back to pick up my original paperwork or I could wait a week for the original paperwork to arrive. We were able to get to know some of the other students better as well. I talked mostly with Peter who is from Tanzania, he is a teacher there and is finishing a degree and studying abroad is part of the requirement. Makara and I also cooked our first real meal together, we made chicken, mashed potatoes and rise. Chicken is expensive for 300g (two chicken breasts) its about 60kr (12 dollars) up to 140kr. The potatoes however were only about 1 dollar and Makara had brought some rise, tomorrow we are making spaghetti and salad.
I've decided meeting all the people has been the most rewarding and amazing experince while trying to figure out how to live and get around has been the most difficult I am excited though to see how the rest of the semester goes.
Saturday I mostly just slept after i finally got back to sleep, jet lag totally sucks. Makara and I finished unpacking, did a little more grocery shopping for other food to sustain us and just walked around more, we didn't really see anyone else but just made sure we had stuff to get through the next few days until we understood a little more of what was going on.
Sunday I again slept later than i ever have in my life. We went for a walk with the other international students around Hamar and saw some of their more popular sights. Hamar has three eras, the Viking era, Catholic era and the modern era. The ruins from the viking era a little farther out of town, I hope to get there at some point but that requires more effort. The reason that those are not in the modern part of Hamar is because of the second era. The Catholics wanted to distance themselves from the vikings and moved the central of Hamar away from their reminder. We saw the ruins of the Catholic church as well as the bishops castle, this is where the only Catholic Saint that came from Norway lived. He was named a saint since he was the one that brought Christianity to the country. The third era started in 1849 an almost 450 year gap from when the Catholic era because the government in Oslo felt threatened by the prosperity in Hamar and decided to no longer allow them to trade and therefore erased them from the map until they became a city again in 1849. The walk was amazing not only to see the history that goes back a thousand plus years (i'm going to go through the tour of them at some point) but it gave a great opportunity to meet with the other international students and get to know them. There are 15 countries represented in the international program at Hedmark University College; Napal, Pakistan, Indonesia, Tanzania, Namibia, , USA, Russia, Czech Republic, Kosovo, Palestine, Hungary, the others are escaping me but i'll try to remember. I love talking to the different people are learning more about their home country and what life is like for them. They find the US fascinating and peppered me with questions about English, Politics, attitudes in America, what the weather is like, how hot/cold it is and what its like to live there.
Yesterday we had our first day of orientation, we went to a breakfast orientation for the international students (its really weird to say i'm an international student) where they welcomed us and let us know what is going on. After that we had our opening ceremony which was almost entirely in Norwegian so I understood absolutely nothing and another American from Ithaca college in New York, Genevieve , and I played tic tac toe and hangman. After that we met with our groups and traveled to meet with our professor and get information about our classes. They sound completely fascinating we start those next Monday. We have three different modules for my program Society and Culture, there are about 15 that are in all three and then in the other two there will be a few other students taking just that one module. The first class (weeks 2-5) has to do with the Norwegian welfare state and how it is able to function in the way it does, which is the reason we are going on the excursion (sept. 8th, yeah we leave on my birthday through the morning of the 13th) to the northern part of the country (about where the arctic circle passes through the country) and then all they way down to the southern most place, a fjord (basically and island, these fjords are what give Norway the longest coastline in the world) that is an industrial town that has somehow survived through a depression that it is just coming out of. The second module is democracy and development that coincides with our 3rd module of conflict management. It will be during this time that we have our field study/research project. After we learned more about our classes we got a tour of the campus and found out more where things were and then we were able to go and enjoy more time to explore. As Makara and I were just about to go out it started to rain and its a lot like the rain in washington, not very hard but annoying and in the way. Norway has reminded me a lot of home but in so many ways its different too. The weather and scenery are very similar (right now at least) but the atmosphere and people are so much different. I also found out why it is a University college rather than just a University. To be qualified as a university they must have 7 masters programs and 4 doctorate programs, Hedmark is on its way to achieving that goal (Norway only has two full universities)
Today was probably the most boring that I've had here. we got our picture taken for our school ID however it was probably one of the most bizarre picture taking sessions i've experienced, it was hard to see the camera and there were two video screens that were portraying your image so it was hard not to look at them instead of the camera that was tiny right in between the two. After that we went to get our visas however our original paperwork was sent to a different police station so they didn't have what we needed to get our visas so we have to go back. I can get the visa tomorrow if i want to pay 70 kr (Kroner, just divide by 5 for the American dollar value, its a little overestimated but thats better than under!) to get another passport photo and then have to go back to pick up my original paperwork or I could wait a week for the original paperwork to arrive. We were able to get to know some of the other students better as well. I talked mostly with Peter who is from Tanzania, he is a teacher there and is finishing a degree and studying abroad is part of the requirement. Makara and I also cooked our first real meal together, we made chicken, mashed potatoes and rise. Chicken is expensive for 300g (two chicken breasts) its about 60kr (12 dollars) up to 140kr. The potatoes however were only about 1 dollar and Makara had brought some rise, tomorrow we are making spaghetti and salad.
I've decided meeting all the people has been the most rewarding and amazing experince while trying to figure out how to live and get around has been the most difficult I am excited though to see how the rest of the semester goes.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Arriving in Hamar
Well i'm here finally and exhausted! (this is kind of boring but some lessons were learned)
It all started on thrusday when we found out our plane was delayed 2 hours, it would be taking off at 8:40 instead of 6:45, which in some ways was alright, i got to spend a little more time with Collin and my parents, but we also had to worry about our connection flight in Copenhagen.
We took off around 9pm, Seattle time (there is a 9 hour time difference) without much incident. Makara and I were able to change seats so we were next to each other for the 9.5 hour flight. We were at the complete rear of the plane in the middle 4 seats. There was a older woman next to me who was not sitting with her traveling partners so being the nice person I am when i said hello and we made pleasantries about the flight being late and so on, she decided that I was going to be one for the rest of the flight that she would talk to or ask how to work the little tv on the seat back in front of us.
It was a pretty nice flight once the woman next to me settled down, I watched most of definitely maybe and had dinner, then i went to sleep. When i woke up we only had about 2 hours left of the flight so they served us breakfast and we go ready land and catch our next flight.
We hoped to make a 4:10 connecting flight but it was sold out so we waited in the Copenhagen airport (which is pretty much amazing by the way, with some of the strangest bathrooms ever! seriously the stalls are completely enclosed, it was a little claustrophobic lol) for a little over an hour. We had a little difficulty getting on the plane to Oslo, they said that Makara didn't have a ticket, but we got that figured out and we were finally on our way to Oslo. It took a little over an hour but we landed and we were finaly in Norway. I think Oslo is my second favorite airport to fly into, second only to Seattle. It was so pretty!
We collected our bags (Makara's was seriously one of the last to get there it was taking forever!!!) We walked out in to the main lobby area and were throughly confused about what to do, we didn't realize that we went through customs in Copenhagen since it took all of 2 seconds to stamp our passport and ask 1 question to the both of us. Anyway I've learned that Norwegians are some of the nicest and most understanding people anywhere. We bought our train ticket and realized we would be able to make to 7:05 train instead of 8 train, which we though we would, the problem was we didn't see an elevator and the train would be there in 5 minutes. We each had two fairly heaving bags i was about half way down and makara was just about to start when someone pointed out the elevator. I couldn't go back up so she took that and a couple of very nice men helped me carry my giant bag down the rest of the stairs.
We made sure that the train was going to Hamar and since we didn't know how the trains really operated we assumed they were something like subways were you only have a couple of minutes to get in and with our huge bags we were kind of frantic, i think some people were annoyed but for the most part they just helped us get the bags in, we also didn't realize there is a luggage car we could have put our stuff in so we stayed in the little area between cars for the hour train ride with out 4-5 pieces of luggage each.
The train ride was gorgeous, I wasn't fond of the many bridges we went over were as far as i could tell (since i could see the tracks) we were just going through the air! There was so much water that all we saw, that and trees. Next time i take that train ride i'll get about 2 dozen pictures.
We finally get to Hamar and again people were very kind and helped us get our bags off the train. We realized that since we had told the people picking us up we would be there about 9pm last night and its was 8:20 we would have to wait or call them. We tried to figure out the pay phone but n our state of exhaustion and lack of Norwegian language skills we couldn't figure it out. We stood there looking bewildered for awhile until a Norwegian military personal (no exactly sure what they are called) passed us and could tell we needed some help so he stopped asked us what he could do we told him what was going on and he let us use his cell phone.
We were finally picked up and taken to our apartment. We are in a building very close to school, the main shopping street :D and the grocery store. We are on the top floor, that was fun too getting all our bags up three flights of stairs. It is just Makara and I in a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment with a little kitchenette. We unpacked and went to bed around midnight.
Unable to sleep much i got up at 4 dozed until about 6 when i got up and did some more upacking. The rest of today and most of tomorrow is devoted to sleep and settling in. We'll go for a walk tomorrow afternoon so we can get to know the town.
So for the some 15 hours I've been in Norway and a little longer if including Copenhagen i've learned how terrifying it is to not understand 99.8% of what is going on. its totally isolating and if i had been traveling alone under the same conditions i probably would have started to cry. This is definitely going to be a very growing experience for me, and these next 4 months are beginning to seem like the longest stretch of my life.
It all started on thrusday when we found out our plane was delayed 2 hours, it would be taking off at 8:40 instead of 6:45, which in some ways was alright, i got to spend a little more time with Collin and my parents, but we also had to worry about our connection flight in Copenhagen.
We took off around 9pm, Seattle time (there is a 9 hour time difference) without much incident. Makara and I were able to change seats so we were next to each other for the 9.5 hour flight. We were at the complete rear of the plane in the middle 4 seats. There was a older woman next to me who was not sitting with her traveling partners so being the nice person I am when i said hello and we made pleasantries about the flight being late and so on, she decided that I was going to be one for the rest of the flight that she would talk to or ask how to work the little tv on the seat back in front of us.
It was a pretty nice flight once the woman next to me settled down, I watched most of definitely maybe and had dinner, then i went to sleep. When i woke up we only had about 2 hours left of the flight so they served us breakfast and we go ready land and catch our next flight.
We hoped to make a 4:10 connecting flight but it was sold out so we waited in the Copenhagen airport (which is pretty much amazing by the way, with some of the strangest bathrooms ever! seriously the stalls are completely enclosed, it was a little claustrophobic lol) for a little over an hour. We had a little difficulty getting on the plane to Oslo, they said that Makara didn't have a ticket, but we got that figured out and we were finally on our way to Oslo. It took a little over an hour but we landed and we were finaly in Norway. I think Oslo is my second favorite airport to fly into, second only to Seattle. It was so pretty!
We collected our bags (Makara's was seriously one of the last to get there it was taking forever!!!) We walked out in to the main lobby area and were throughly confused about what to do, we didn't realize that we went through customs in Copenhagen since it took all of 2 seconds to stamp our passport and ask 1 question to the both of us. Anyway I've learned that Norwegians are some of the nicest and most understanding people anywhere. We bought our train ticket and realized we would be able to make to 7:05 train instead of 8 train, which we though we would, the problem was we didn't see an elevator and the train would be there in 5 minutes. We each had two fairly heaving bags i was about half way down and makara was just about to start when someone pointed out the elevator. I couldn't go back up so she took that and a couple of very nice men helped me carry my giant bag down the rest of the stairs.
We made sure that the train was going to Hamar and since we didn't know how the trains really operated we assumed they were something like subways were you only have a couple of minutes to get in and with our huge bags we were kind of frantic, i think some people were annoyed but for the most part they just helped us get the bags in, we also didn't realize there is a luggage car we could have put our stuff in so we stayed in the little area between cars for the hour train ride with out 4-5 pieces of luggage each.
The train ride was gorgeous, I wasn't fond of the many bridges we went over were as far as i could tell (since i could see the tracks) we were just going through the air! There was so much water that all we saw, that and trees. Next time i take that train ride i'll get about 2 dozen pictures.
We finally get to Hamar and again people were very kind and helped us get our bags off the train. We realized that since we had told the people picking us up we would be there about 9pm last night and its was 8:20 we would have to wait or call them. We tried to figure out the pay phone but n our state of exhaustion and lack of Norwegian language skills we couldn't figure it out. We stood there looking bewildered for awhile until a Norwegian military personal (no exactly sure what they are called) passed us and could tell we needed some help so he stopped asked us what he could do we told him what was going on and he let us use his cell phone.
We were finally picked up and taken to our apartment. We are in a building very close to school, the main shopping street :D and the grocery store. We are on the top floor, that was fun too getting all our bags up three flights of stairs. It is just Makara and I in a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment with a little kitchenette. We unpacked and went to bed around midnight.
Unable to sleep much i got up at 4 dozed until about 6 when i got up and did some more upacking. The rest of today and most of tomorrow is devoted to sleep and settling in. We'll go for a walk tomorrow afternoon so we can get to know the town.
So for the some 15 hours I've been in Norway and a little longer if including Copenhagen i've learned how terrifying it is to not understand 99.8% of what is going on. its totally isolating and if i had been traveling alone under the same conditions i probably would have started to cry. This is definitely going to be a very growing experience for me, and these next 4 months are beginning to seem like the longest stretch of my life.
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