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.