Not even in Oslo right now

So I'm terrible with updates. I'm gonna post the highlights of the past week in three posts m: Cultural Evening, BEST WEEKEND EVER, and Bergen as of now. I'll start backwards. Yay for disregarding chronology!

It is the long weekend right now at ISS, and that can only mean one thing: TRAVEL!!! One of the excursion options was Bergen, a city I went to last time I was in Norway and loved deeply. Naturally I signed up for this excursion and off to Hanseatic League/ artists haven I went.

We left Wednesday after class and got very well acquainted with our double-decker bus. I have Ian, one of my good friends, on the trip with me as well, which will account for all the pictures of him that are on Facebook. We don't have any other friends on the trip, so we've very much banded together.

Wednesday night we went to Læerdal, home of the Borgund Stave Church. It is the best preserved Stave Church in Norway and has changed little since it was erected in the 12th century. That's the most lecture-y I've sounded on this blog. But it was awesome. I find Stave churches fascinating mostly in that they combine the pagan religion with Christianity; all the roofs have crosses, but also dragons for back up in case Jesus lets them down.



They were also coated with tar every few years to keep the wood from rotting. That's why they're all black. Also, they were freakishly good at building roofs, so much so that the Borgund's roof has never leaked, but the church they built in the 19th century to replace it leaks every spring. Fail.

We then stayed the night in Lærdal, home to the loudest seagulls ever. They kept me up half the night, even though I was exhausted from Harry Potter the night before. Yeah. I went. But that's not important compared to fjords.

Yesterday we took a scenic route through the Nærøyfjord on a ferry that went from Flåm to Gudvangen. It was breathtaking. I was at Geiranger three years ago, and while Geiranger had more waterfalls, Nærøry had some pretty incredible cliffs and some lovely waterfalls. I took so many pictures I made a separate album for it on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1970838472095.2103323.1276980227

I'm not going to even TRY showing my favorite picture from that.

After that we had lunch from a cliff in Stalheim from which Dahl painted this iconic vista.



We didn't get a rainbow or anything, but I did take this somewhat redeeming photo.



Dahl did it better.

After another three hours and a 30 kroner Solo that I got at Stalheim (ouch), we finally arrived in Bergen. After unsuccessfully sleeping on the bus, Ian and I both elected to walking around because we were sick of sitting and bouncing around. So we walked a bit before dinner. The thing is that Bergen is a large but compressed city, unlike Oslo, which is spaced with parks and stuff. So we literally walked around the entire city center in two excursions before and after dinner. Still. I enjoyed walking around and seeing places I'd seen before.

Another noteworthy aspect of Bergen is how much tourism there is. Restaurants not only have menus in English but in Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese, Italian, you name it. Waitresses are pentalingual. It's crazy and weird. Unfortunately, the flip side of that is that just about everywhere are throngs of clueless looking people. Which is probably what we look like. But whatever.

Today we took a walking tour of Bergen with our group of 70 slow moving people. I feel for Bergen drivers a lot.

After that Ian and I met up with Lauren, who is also in Bergen for the weekend but not on our excursion. ISS didn't get the money that she had sent, so that was a huge mixup, and as ultimate spite and economy, she opted to go there for the long weekend. So yay! We did more walking, this time around the western part of the city, where Ian and I hadn't gone last night. There was a converted sardine factory that was now a mall of sorts. And was home to the coolest modern art ever.



The ends are music box things, and you crank it and a tune plays. It was really cool, and we spent a bunch of time trying to figure out the tunes.

From there we went to the Bergen Art Museum, a place I had been meaning to go to since arriving. I love art museums, though standing for a couple hours is not always the most pleasant experience, especially when you're going through an endless corridor of thoughtless modern minimalism. But whatever. I saw my Munch and Balke, and that's that.

To cap it all off, Ian and I went up on Fløybanen to enjoy the view and see the entire city, especially because the weather has been so nice. Bergen looks a lot bigger from above than when you're walking in it. I don't get it, but that's that.After taking about fifty some pictures, we came back down the ground, and that brings me here.

Yay blog post. Yay updating, slowly. Yay for two maxed out Facebook albums in one day!

IT'S ANOTHER POST

.... But not really. Sorry.

This is just to say that I've made a Youtube channel to accompany the blog. The username is fiskpluschips, because apparently some fool already has taken fiskandchips. I mean, who does that?

Anyways, up here I'll be posting videos of performances and stuff, and anything of consequence that I deem pertinent. Unfortunately for you, there might be a discrepancy between our opinions. But that's okay.

So you can go here now. But I wouldn't recommend it just yet. It's all new-looking and bare.

http://www.youtube.com/user/fiskpluschips

Yay for networking!

Being an Entity, Marmite Coffee, and Yummy Yellow Cheese

I still wouldn't call this "regular," but it's because I'M HAVING SO MUCH FUN!!!!!

In regards to life recently, it hasn't really strayed from the "get up, go to school, chill out" formula, but there has been one highlight since my last entry.

SOGNSVANN SOGNSVANN SOGNSVANN SOGNSVANN SOGNSVANN SOGNSVANN SOGNSVANN

Yes, on Sunday we spent from about midmorning to almost dinnertime hiking in Nordmarke (the area north of Oslo) and around Sognsvann, a lovely lake a few T Bane stops away from campus. We hiked up to a cabin and enjoyed our matpakke, and I learned that the gulost at breakfast was not Swiss cheese, a food that I love to despise. Rather, I learned that it is a much milder, tastier, all around nicer cheese, and have been thus enjoying it. This really has little to do with Sognsvann.

As expected, we were so numerous that we literally clogged the hiking trails and earned our "dirty look from the natives" achievement. We also stopped to take pictures. I took many pictures. Most of them are green trees and ponds.

This is us as the glacial-paced fire hazard on the trail.



This is a beautiful shot of a still pond that I took. And of Sognsvann.





I've gotten into the habit of running again and have already made two journeys back to Sognsvann. The circumference is perfect: 3.3 kilometers is a length I can do that will not definitively kill me.

Can YOUR athletic club do this?



Didn't think so.

Saturday was also eventful, though not as nature-y. My friends and I again took the T-Bane out to downtown and got off at a stop that suited our fancy. Among the first items on our agenda was to find a cafe and prove to ourselves that coffee in Norway does not suck, and that the cafeteria must literally take bacon grease, car oil, and marmite and label it "coffee." I'm serious. That bad.

We did find a coffee shop, and though it was expensive (35 Kroner for a soy cappuccino), it was quite worth it.



After that we walked around the not tourist part of Oslo, and the pictures of that adventure are all up on Facebook already.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1932298188612.2101110.1276980227

and

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1946173535487.2101885.1276980227

Also in this expedition we went to IKEA (my first time, believe it or not) so that my friends Lauren and Gus could get more pillows because they are two-pillow sleepers. We went out into the middle of nowhere and had to cross under a highway and up and down hills, only to find that there apparently was an IKEA bus that went to and from Sentralstasjon. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is an example of POOR PLANNING.

While I was there, I had to try the IKEA meatballs. They were delicious. I was hungry and ordered entirely in Norwegian. And by entirely I mean I said "Jeg vil ha femten kjøttboller. Nei takk. Takk. Ha det!"

That's some extreme Norwegian there.

Finally, we went to Grønnland, an ethnic area on the east side of Oslo, where we were told that we could get cheap fruit. And we did. I got apricots and cherries. It was nice to have fruit for a couple of days.

After Saturday we all were exhausted. Look at these two happy campers.




My friends Ian and Evan from St. Olaf on the trikk, or "The trikken" as we fondly miscall it. We all crashed shortly upon returning to the dorm.

Also, if anyone is still wondering what marmite is, it's this spread used in Britain made out of yeast as a byproduct for brewing beer. It also notably does this in water.





I hope this has been an informative post!

Or something.

Don't worry; It's only because I'm lazy

I'm really bad at this blogging business, but I PROMISE I'll get more regular. Or something.

So the last time you heard from me, I was chilling in the bowels of this last week and musing about terrible champagne and outlining my day for you. Frankly, not much has changed, but I did go on a few mild adventures between Tuesday and this morning.

Wednesday I waited in line for an hour to get on one of the weekend excursions. I will be going to Hallingdal the 23-24 July, a place I didn't go last time with my parents. Should be fun; there is a fairy tale museum and gratuitous rolling landscape. I got on the waiting list for the Bergen trip the 13-17 over the long weekend, but I did get off the waiting list as of yesterday, so I will certainly be enjoying myself. I really can't wait to go back to Bergen; I've been craving Grieg since I got here, even more than I was craving kinder eggs, and THAT'S saying something.

Thursday I got the other thing I've been craving since I got here: pølse med lomper. Basically it's a hotdog wrapped in lefse. Best thing ever. For fifteen kroner, I'd say it was a (WARNING: terrible pun ahead) doggone good deal! My friends and I also have created a new game to deal with boredom: take public transport into the city and just get off wherever we feel like. So that's what we also did Thursday. We walked around downtown Oslo and went to bokhandelen (bookstores) and H&M. I like this game. Later Thursday night I attended the Norwegian Life and Society (NLS) lecture on art and music, where we covered everything from runes to modern minimalism, and folk melodies to black metal. Yay Norway for being as artistically varied as the landscape.

Yesterday was particularly exciting. We played this game again and walked up to the palace, through the park in the back, and then up and around Karl Johan's Gate, the main street of the city where the main buildings are all on axis. Everything on this street is exorbitantly priced, but we did enjoy taking pictures and walking around.

And last night was certainly one most interesting. ISS organized a party at the Chateau Neuf, the student center with a student-run disco thing. For kicks and giggles, we all tore ourselves away from our youtube videos and made our way over there. We spent more time commuting than we spent actually there. We went down to the dance floor, where the resonant frequency of the music matched our stomach and we all decided the only joy we felt towards this music was leaving it. So we did. It was nice. That was last night.



Park behind the palace



Nice architecture on Karl Johan's Gate



Cool fountain in front of Sentrastasjon



Imperial Palace!


So yeah. I'll try to be more regular peeps. It's that I'm having way too much fun to blog!

-Cali

"Chanzia" and the Most Expensive Choir Robes Ever

So I have not been too good at keeping this blog up for the past couple days, but hopefully now I will write a little more regularly. Honestly, Monday was not all that exciting aside from it being the first day. My daily schedule appears to be conforming to a mold like thus:

7:15- get up, whine to myself about how tired I am, realize it's my fault for keeping up with friends back home.

7:40- go down to lunch room to eat with my friend Gus who goes to St. Olaf and is also in my first class. Breakfast is usually this puffy rice cereal and some brunost and bringebær syltetøy (raspberry jam) on bread. The day I see cold waffles is the day I do a spastic joy dance.

8:15-10:00- First class, Norwegian literature. So far the class seems really interesting; I can't wait to read Ibsen, because I'm not at all familiar with him. But I trust the hubbub I've heard is not for naught.

10:02- feel intense hunger pang, scamper across the hall (literally, sort of; my classrooms are the in the same corridor) to my next class.

10:15-13:00- Norwegian I, the course I have dubbed "babynorsk." Three hours long, but I definitely enjoy it. My teacher is Margaret O'Leary, the same teacher Peder had last year. In fact, I'm taking both of Peder's classes from last year. You'd think it was planned or something.

13:01- Realize how hungry I am, go back to Blindernstudenthjem (BS from now on, not that I don't like spelling nineteen-letter words out or anything) in time for the post-class lunch rush. Lunch is whatever they have; whatever they have can be anywhere from haddock cakes to vegetarian curry to halal chicken hot dogs.

The past two afternoons have been spent going on shopping excursions, first to get a thirty day pass for all the public transportation (I got a nice discount for being under 20; apparently all teenagers are still considered "barn" in Norway), and then to get food. First expedition I got dried mango and Store Lomper (lefse's cheapskate half-sibling), both of which were gone by this morning, for different reasons. The dried mango was so good I ate it in one sitting. The store lomper apparently had to be refrigerated, and by the time I woke up this morning there were suspicious black spots all over them, and the bag was filled with condensation. Second expedition I got a kinder egg, to whose existence I am enslaved, and this nifty candy bar called "Smash."



Basically it's chocolate with Bugle- like corn things in them. I think it's delicious, and apparently they're super popular in Norway now.

However, the definite highlight of yesterday was going downtown to UiO's Faculty of Law for the Opening Ceremony of the summer school. We left campus at 18:15 with the expectation that we'd get there and be seated and continue with our lives. This did not happen, so that left us to sit around in front and take pictures of anything we felt compelling.
Finally, we were let inside. The ceremony was held in the hall where the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded until 1989. It had been newly restored, complete with some lovely murals by Edvard Munch himself.





The program itself included an amateur choir who sang traditional folk songs in their bunads. I have long parted with my fantasy of owning a bunad; they are about 3000 kroner each and take forever to make. However, since different bunads come from different parts of Norway, one could look at each singer and know from which city they came. I am not well-versed in my bunads, so all I could see were pretty frocks.



After the ceremony, we went to Oslo City Hall for a banquet (implied: FREE NOT BLINDERN FOOD) held by the deputy mayor of Oslo. City Hall was beautiful, again decorated with murals and the like.





We were served delicious finger food as well as champagne. The champagne, unfortunately, had quite a bite, and the bite tasted suspiciously like cardboard. From then on my friend Lauren, also a Linguistics major at UW Madison, and I dubbed it "Chanzia," a portmanteau of "champagne" and "Franzia."

All in all the night was very enjoyable, though I did have to do homework at the dorm afterwards until the wee hours of the morning.

When Imports Attack/ How can a Bus Tour be Exhausting?!

So these past two days can be summed up thus: essential. Boring stuff. Yesterday and this morning were primarily unpacking/ registering/ going to the ground rules meetings. I did get my internet up and running (obviously), AND I got a second roommate: Katia (not sure of the spelling) from Georgia. So far I get along well with both of my roommates, though we're all taking different classes and so I'll probably not see much of them during the day.

However, a certain highlight did come yesterday with the miniature expedition to the grocery store. Stuff in Norway is generally expensive, and imports are no exception. So though I emerged relatively unscathed from the experience with a Kinder Egg (the hipper, European version of the Wonder Ball), Solo (think Fanta, but actually tasting of orange), and some "Jordbær og Pepper" flavored water (I had assumed the pepper would be a false cognate; that was a false notion), I could not pass up the opportunity to take pictures of the prices of some imports.



Gourmet Uncle Ben's rice for 30 Kroner, or about $6



The exotic Hubba Bubba, for about $2.70.

And then, just because it was so amusing, I took a picture of this Nesquik equivalent.



Today seemed both truncated and exhausting. I didn't get up until 10:15, fifteen minutes before a dorm meeting we had to attend, because the alarm for my computer I got from the app store last night decided to have the most confusing interface ever. Looks like my phone WILL have a use now!

Though aside from losing those two hours, my day has been otherwise quite eventful. I went on a four-hour bus tour of Oslo, where I went through Holmenkollen and saw the ski jump (where I bought a Coke for 30 Kroner... ouch) and the entire city from 600 meters up, over to the Viking Ship museum on the island of Bygdøy, down the mountain to Vigeland Sculpture Park, stopped at the Opera House (which had been constructed since I was there last), and finally through Johan Kristian's Gate/ the heart of the city on the way back to campus. I took way too many pictures, so you can all see them here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1932298188612.2101110.1276980227


Turns out I tend to like taking the same pictures twice. Here are a few shots that I duplicated, even after three years.

Angry Boy

2008



2011



Reaching Kids

2008




2011



Crazed Babies

2008



2011



Obelisk

2008



2011



... Random seagulls enjoying themselves in the fountain

2008


2011



I look forward to keeping you all updated!

-Cali

I'M ALIVE

Now THAT'S a plot twist! But not really. I am safe and sound in the great country of Norway after a "leisurely" (read: LONG) layover in Amsterdam. I got in yesterday right in time for lunch and was basically a loner until dinner.
In terms of travel, my day wasn't particularly interesting or eventful; the whole day from about 8 AM in Amsterdam til about 4 PM in Oslo is deprivation-incurred blur of hopping on and off trains and lugging suitcases. I do remember not liking the train system.

I have my own SECRET WEAPON though, which I have already used extensively, I think. It is my very own cousin Peder, who was on this exact same program as me last year at this time. So he's taken a lot of the guess work out of it for me already, though I still managed to get on the wrong T Bane (their subway system; super easy to use unless you're cracked out and me). I did, however, make my way back and got to the school easy enough. It has its own stop on the subway system, so that's nice.

I am living at the very beautiful, very buttery yellow, Blindern Campus at the University of Oslo. It's a very nice campus with a lot of trees and a lot of sunshine. I'm staying in the West Wing. Yay, west!

Here are some picures.


View from my window


View from my window to the East Wing


View of the West Wing from the Main Office



View of pretty trees from the entrance.

I'll post more pictures later today; yesterday was rainy and gross so I didn't spend that much time outside.

My roommate also came later last night; her name's Simina and she's from Romania. Very cool. She's taken Norwegian before so she's one of the smarter sessions. She seems very nice, so I think we'll get along quite well.

And finally, here's me after being up for about 24 hours straight. I made it to 30 hours straight and then DIED.