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!