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!
Saturday, August 30, 2008
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
