Ha det bra, Oslo!

Today is my last day here in Oslo. The exchange went by so fast and it is time to go home. I am ready to leave, to see my friends and family, to celebrate Christmas and New Years eve, to start my internship but also to process the wonderful happenings within the last 5 months. I am not realizing yet that I won't meet all those friends and aquaintances on a regular basis anymore. Now it lies in our hands to keep the contact, to find some time to visit each other and remain the good friends we've become in this time so far away from what we consider home. I hope that even in our busy lives back home we will be able to spare some free time to make it happen.

In the beginning of this blog I wrote that I am critical towards calling exchanges the "Best time of life", because it increases the personal expectations and also decreases the value of our lives at home. At the end of my life I wanna be able to say that I literally "had the best time of my life", without decreasing it to a few happenings as my exchange. There is so much more to come and already many wonderful things happened. But what I can now say is that it has been a wonderful and amazing time. I loved every second and would encourage everyone to go out there and explore the world on your own. It's about seeing other places, meeting people with different backgrounds, letting strangers into your life and make them friends, having full responsibility for the new life, exploring academic differences and detecting your own strength also in times of being homesick or missing some beloved ones.

Since this is my last day I think now it is time to thank the people I met here. You know who you are, but to all of you a big thank you. You made my time here very pleasant and inspired me with your great personalities. I hope you have a great start into your upcoming adventures, whatever they will be. Continue putting smiles on other people's faces, as you did with mine :)

Another thanks is needed for my loves at home. Knowing that I have a good environment to come back to makes leaving a lot easier. I am really looking forward to see you!

In the end I would like to give you an impression of my favorite moments during my exchange (thanks for the photos to everyone). The O'Boo group is majorily represented in this, because you guys made my stay so special. Will miss you lots. I hope our reunion is not too far away, Marius and I will welcome you in Mannheim for sure :)

Lofoten with the girls

First Hiking Trip - favorite photo

Midnight snack with the roomies and Emre

German Christmas Dinner - Kartoffelsalat & Würstchen

Oslo Night out - white Germans vs. Brown Dutchies

Preikestolen - what a view

ESN trip - beer tower

Oslo Night out - Blurry but gold

ABC Party Oslo - ANYTHING but clothes

Stavanger - good day at the beach 

Kopenhagen Boatparty - Duckfaces of great girls

Hiking up a glaier - unique experience

Kopehagen crew before Asian invasion

Roundtrip Norway - Building 8

Buddy Week - thanks for being awesome leaders

Preikstolen - we made it!!!

Fireworks with Eveee

Girls girls girls

 Waterfalls in Norway - better than Flam train

Cabin Trip - morning after and still looking good? nope!

First party in Oslo - from strangers to good friends

The O'Boos Christmas Party - 06.12.2013

So, ha det bra, Oslo. I will come back my love...

Cozy winter-time

So here we go, the last month of the exchange is here. Regarding the great regularity of my blog, this is probably one of the last entries. Still I won't get too sentimental in this post, this can wait for the last one. (Well actually now that I think of it, maybe one day I'll continue this blog with a second exchange, a world travel tour or a how-to-be a good wife/mother/cook/... guideline, you never know ;-)  But I guess for the cooking guideline Instagram is all you need nowadays, isn't it?)

The time since my last exam, yes it is only 5 days, actually feels like ages. I think it's the strong contrast from all-day-library to a real fun and no exams life that makes it look like I did so much the last week.
Although talking about exams may sound boring to some of you, I think it is part of my student life here and at least my parents may be interested ;). So mom and dad, this is to you: I failed all my exams and have to give back my Erasmus loan! The parties before the exam were apparently not a good idea...
No actually it went okay but the more interesting part is that those exams here are quiet different. Exams are taken really serious in case of cheating etc. but the exams themselves seem more relaxed.

My last exam for example was written in a large tennis center that fitted hundreds of students. Have you ever waited in line to get to an exam? No, me neither until monday. There is a first time for everything in life, apparently. Additionally, another interesting aspect is that the exams enhance my understanding of the real meaning of the large Norwegian welfare state. The University hires many friendly (tendentially older) Norwegians to accompany the students to the toilets or outside for a cigarette or coffee. So whenever a student needs to use the restroom, they get their personal guard. You can imagine, how many people this may need. It seemed quietly costly to me, until my friend told me that they are not being paid. Wow, still can't believe that. Thanks Kamilla ;). And this system helps to prevents cheating really efficiently I assume.
On the other hand, exams are more relaxed. In Mannheim, sometimes exams are a competitions where the winner is the person with the fastest handwriting. Facts are written down as fast as possible, and who cares about a good structure of your text? No one. Here you have 3,4 hours for one essay. You can structure your texts, use examples and put your own thoughts into the essay. I really like this way of writing an exam and I think in the end it is qualitatively better than the exams in Mannheim. So I really think we could need some of that at my home university.

Monday evening after the exam I went to the best Sushi in town. A friend introduced the place to me a while back and I was eager to show it to my Sushi-Lover-Friends. It's at the Collosseum Movie Theater for those wondering. My friends Ilka, Steve and Tim joined me and we celebrated the end of the exam period. It was one of the few nights here in Oslo that I went out to eat, since it is simply too expensive. This is one of the few things I miss about home - regular visits in restaurants with good friends. It's just so nice to sit down in a cozy place with a good wine and a pizza and have interesting talks.
On tuesday morning I started my trip to Gothenburg. My friend Nicole from home studies in the north of Sweden right now, and our plan was to meet up in Gothenburg for 2 days to finally make a reunion in Scandinavia possible. The trip turned out sooo nice. It was great to have some quality time with just the two of us. And Gothenburg during the winter time is lovely. Everything is nicely decorated and the Christmas market in the local amusement parc was probably the best I've ever been to. And the big Science museum was also worth a visit. The museum is really interactive, and introduces different areas as the rainforest or spae physics on a really child-friendly level. Perfect level for me due to my non-existing physic knowledge ;) We both enjoyed it a lot :)
Afterwards Nicole stayed for two more nights in Oslo and we spent some time in the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo and at the pier, as well as in the city on day 1. My friend Toby cooked for our group in the evening and we had a good evening. The next day we went up the Holmenkolen and enjoyed the sunset over Oslo and its fjords, then in the afternoon Nicole left.

Beautiful church close to our hostel

View over Gothenburg

On of the highlights of the semester was taking place yesterday evening. My big group of friends organized a Christmas Party and we also celebrated my friend Brent's birthday. Everyone brought food and some of my friends decorated the location super nicely Christmas like. The evening was simply perfect. Good food, a nice speech of a friend, a slideshow of our time here, a happy birthday kid, a great party and I could continue with this list, were part of a perfect evening. I just want to shout out a big thanks to everyone who made this night so wonderful and this group for being my Oslo family.

Great people (Photo by Miriam)

Today I went to the Nutcracker in the Oslo Opera with some friends. It was a beautiful evening, even though many of us were still in the recovery process. The ballet was really nice, great dancers and lovely customes. :)

I hope you are having a lovely winter evening :) Byeeee!

November Days

Hey blog-followers and newcomers!

It's Novemeber, the month of no sun and exams! Welcome to slippery streets, snow and frost, 4 to 6 hour exams and winter depressions :-D. Before I scare you away, I'm just being sarcastic of the situation, but actually still doing good.

I have to admit though, it's hard for me to get used to this darkness. Right now the sun goes down at 3, and even though quiet impressive sunsets are taking place most of these days, it still doesn't make up the fact that I miss some light! Coming home around 4-5pm, I feel like watching a movie and getting cozy, but apparently, this does not work with my study schedule. Glad I didn't choose more northern cities as Trondheim for my exchange! ;)

So far I had two exams here, "International Military Operations" and "Norwegian Life and Society". Both were okay, although the latter one was not capturing a lot of topics we discussed in the lectures. So my life has been more occupied with studying lately, than going out and enyjoing my beautiful Oslo. Sometimes I have to remind me that it's the last weeks and I should also enjoy the fact, that I am living in a beautiful city, am surrounded by wonderful people and still get lucky with some warm and sunny (for a few hours) days here. So coffe breaks with friends, museum visits or dinner appointments are the highlights of my days at the moment. Also, we celebrated our exam on monday with a girls movie night. In addition, of course there is still the weekend. The people knowing me well, know, that dancing through the night is the BEST medicine for me. I love getting lost into the music and the beat, being in my own world and enjoying that people surrounding you are cheerful, open-minded and often crazy. Therefore I have not totally missed out on that this month, I admit :)

Other than that I had to realize today that the time here is coming to an end... a really good friend of mine is leaving Oslo tonight, and writing that my eyes get wet already.. Leaving Mannheim wasn't bad, because I knew I would come back, and continue my life there, while leaving Oslo does not imply that. My friends will head out to places all over the world and coming back to Oslo will ofcourse not be the same ever again. So this is gonna be three last weeks of many happy last meetings and sad goodbyes. On the other hand I am looking forwards to come home. Planning New Years eve and Christmas get-togethers at the moment makes me realize that coming home will be a wonderful time as well, and I finally get to see some of my loves!!

Since I don't want to end this blog with such sad thoughts, I am just gonna tell you about a random happening today. My hero of the day was a Norwegian bus driver this evening. Stopping at out student house, he announced "don't forget to buy Christmas presents and have a romantic evening". Well... I already bought some gifts and well for the romance... I think I'm gonna light a candle, make some fishsticks and get cozy with my Scandinavian Welfare Society Summaries. So much romantic atmosphere for me this night... ;-)

Hope you have a cozy winter evening! :)
Talk to you soon!

What I learned so far + German visitors

Realizing that today is one of the last October days and that I commented my last blog entry with the title "first october life update" means that I apparently ignored, ähh, forgot this blog for a couple of weeks I guess. But therefore there's also more to tell :) so here we go with the last october update I suppose.

The weeks were just running here in Oslo with my visitors from Germany, exams coming closer, assignments and many friends I wanted to hang out with before this whole exchange will be over ( I promise not to mention too often that time is running towards december!!).

Working on wednesday made me realize that by now my Norwegian really develops and it feels so good. I was waiting for this point where I am self-confident enough to speak "publicly" more than just thanks (takk), hey (hei hei), ha det bra (goodybye) etc. Of course I knew more, but I had this barrier in my mind to really try out whatever I know. It's still not that much and the barrier is still there, but I understand and try to say words more and more each day. Yes, if you think that this actually doesn't matter anyways, cause who speaks Norwegian anyways you may eventually be right. It's still nice to get along better with some knowledge of the language.The answer to how many people speak it by the way should lie somewhere around 5 Million people, since this is round about the number of people living here minus some people living here and not speaking Norwegian plus some exchange students studying this popular language and emigrants. This little fact actually reminds me, that I haven't told you a lot about Norwegian culture or about interesting things I learned here, but that I kept telling my friends over the weekend.

So what have I learned by now:

- Norwegians eat Reindeermeet (poor reindeers :((( )

- Norwegian currency are Krones - 8 Krones equals 1 Euro, which shocks you like crazy at the
beginning. The first question my visitors from Germany asked was: "We just payed 90 Kroners for our train ticket...is that normal? How much did we pay???" (now you can calculate ;))

- Norwegians get one year of parental leave with full pay (Germany has like 14 weeks or so), if their first child gets sick, they get up to 10 days off work in order to take care of them and 15 for two children and also mothers get one hour per day for breastfeeding off - I should get my 4 kids here I guess!

- you should calcuate manyyy hours for a short car ride, cause the tempolimit is always lower than tempolimits in Germany (if there is a tempolimit) or the roads are up and down the mountain and the road is big enough for 1,5 cars in total on a two-sided road..

- 50% of the Norwegians I met try to talk some German words they used to learn in school, fortunetly, it's often the same level our Norwegian is  ;)

- gender equality as it's best -> guys don't pay drinks for girls, maybe as the most a beer :D

- Norwegians have on average the highest number of one-nightstands, we have that saying in Germany "nüchtern zu schüchtern, besoffen zu offen" which could be translated to "sober too shy, drunk too open" which describes their party behavior haha

- Norwegians just generally dress sporty...why? we can't figure it out. Because black tights make girls look thinner? Because sport clothes could indicate a sixpack somewhere under the outfit? Because one always wants to be prepared if some sporty opportunity opens up? I really don't know. But I assume that the avergae Norwegian girl - doing sports or not - has 3 black tights and 3 nike airs etc. in her wardrobe. It's gonna remain a mystery I guess.

Back to my Norwegian experience. Last weekend I had two of my best friends here in Oslo. Sophia - we know each other since we're like a few months old - and Charlotte - studying at the same University back home. Friday morning I picked up the girls from the airport (Lufthavn) and we were sooo lucky with the weather. The week before, Norway treated us with snow.... so I though Sophia and Charlotte will hate me for not picking Spain or Greece for my exchange semester, but the weather cleared up in time for them to come and the sun was greeting them :)

On friday we did some shopping and the girls got some glimpse of the Norwegian Hipster clothes that will probably be sold in Germany in 2-3 years. Also, we went to the Opera House, a must-do in Oslo. Having a view over both the city, the newly constructed "bar code" - some fancy buildings at the port - and the Oslo fjord, the Opera House is a great way to start the sightseeing days :). I feel like it shows the different sides of Oslo. The modernity, the richness, the nature, ...
On friday evening we were invited to one of our International dinners. Our German boys were cooking potato salad and sausages and we had a cheerful evening. Later on, Sophia, Charlotte and me went to a birthday party from a friend and ended the night going out with my friends from the dinner. We had a crazy night that ended with Marius screaming my name through the bus because we fell asleep in the bus. Sightseeing and shopping made us tireeeed! Thanks again for destroying my ears buddy! :P

Us and the Barcode

photo sums up the night

Saturday started (after sleeping in) by taking the t-bane up to the ski jumping piste. On our way up, we met a Norwegian, who told us he studied in Mannheim for one semester a while ago --- the world is so small!! At the beginning we had a lot of fog and couldn't see much, but later on we were able to see over the city and the fjords. Afterwards, we continued our tour to the Vigerlandspark, one of the best spots here. We bought cake before and sat down on a park bench for quiet some while, eating and enjoying the beautiful autumn colors of the trees and bushes. I love this place because it is always full of people, kids running around, tourists imitating the statues, but on the other hand as soon as you get off the main track, the parc is pretty quiet and you will find a calm spot to sit down at. I am glad I took my girls there, cause they really enjoyed it.

 Sophia and me being typical tourists and climbing up the statues

For dinner I invited my friend Hannah and we had salmon and pasta. Afterwards, we ended up with quiet some people in our kitchen and went out later on to the city. After a bar and a failed try to get into a bar +23 we ended on a Halloween party, that was a little too drunk and weird for us.

Sunday Charlotte and I were able to convince Sophia to go to a museum, since it was puring all day. We were on our way to the architecture museum, when we passed the Nasjonalmuseet and went in there instead because it seemed to have some interesting exhibitions.

One was about an architect called Louis Kahn, who worked mainly in the US, for example for the Yale University. He made some really impressive buildings, and also cool  ideas, such as a building that is made of a DNA structure (which was never built though).

the museum's advertisement for the exhibition

The second exhbition was about an artist called Kjartan Slettemark. I assume he was some crazy-minded dude. His artwork that was exhibited was mainly protest work against the Vietnam War and president Nixon. He had rooms full of Nixon pictures that he reconstructed in certain ways as changing his eyes, etc. Also he had collages demonstrating his opinion about the Vietnam war and the American intervention by using bloody American flags etc.
The museum even had a "Nixon photobooth" were visitors could take a Nixon-picture with themselves in it. I guess, Slettemark would have loved this :-D Hundreds of people every day making fun of the Nixon picture as he did! It was really really interesting, especially how intense his feelings towards Nixon must have been, producing tons of art pieces about him.

Sophia and me in the Nixon photobooth

Now both girls are gone and the next days are full of studying, so that the halloween celebration can take place on the weekend :) Thanks to my girls for being here! :)

I talk to you sooner or later, anyways, have a beautiful day!!

Anniversary, Quiz Night, Kopenhagen & Partypartyparty

... so much for my great plan: "next week I'll start studying"

I thought that at some point I will be exhausted from being gone every evening from wednesday-sunday for trips, parties and other activites. But oh well, the last weeks offered tooooo many opportunities to enjoy my Oslo life, that obviously I couldn't resist to continue with it. Also I was eager to spend more time in Oslo and less on travelling, which was possible cause the last weeks was only one small trip in comparison to the others. And tomorrow I will make a library day (I am only writing this down here so that I really go. Pressure on me now, so I have to!!!), so then I can make up for everything, haha :-P

Seriously, one has to love Norway. They are simply the sweetest. They celebrate everything. In Germany one would probably have lots of dicussions about wasting money, when the University offers free cake to all their students because of it's 202nd anniversary, but Norwegians love to share some love, drinks and food on occasions that don't even have to be special.

Last wednesday it was one of those days. The main student organization turned 200. Since everyone was really excited about this birthday (ironic, yes) there was obvioulsy the neeeed to celebrate it :-P
Therefore they engaged four music acts for a great concert, fireworks late in the evening, free drinks for the first 1500 visitors, and cheap beer all night long (until it was gone ...). We had a fun filled evening with some Norwegian hip hop bands, and a perfect ending with fireworks. Thanks Oslo for making it so easy to love you!

Friday nightwas Quiz night at the Social Science Pub U1. Another Norwegian thing that amazes me. You know, it's friday night, you would think about going out to a club, or having a datenight with your girlfriend/boyfriend, ... but of course you could also pack some selfmade sandwiches, go to University and do some quizzes in order to keep your brain cells active :-D. Okay, although I am making fun of it right now, I actually liked this way of spending the evening and one has to add that the quiz if ofcourse made in a nice and funny way with videos and music etc.. We had a nice group and grabbed some beers (except of the people having a hangover that had to stay with Pepsi..sure not meee ;)) and thanks to our Norwegian translator Kamilla we were also able to participate at the quiz :) Bad news: We didn't win. Good news: We didn't loose.

On saturday another trip was on the plan. My friends and I booked a trip to Kopenhagen for about 25 Euros. It was a special offer that took us to Kopenhagen by cruise over night, than we had a six hour stay in the city and then overnight back home. So I know you keep thinking that I travel soo much, but well, I had to take this special offer!!
Also, it was my first time on the cruiseship and I loved it. I've never considered doing a cruise vacation before, cause the prices are normally extraordinary high and I love exploring a city in more than 1 or 2 days. But I have to say, I loved crusing around haha. It's really like a little town. They had a spa and pool area, three clubs and several bars, restaurants, a duty free shop etc.. After a visit in the duty free shop and just a few drinks.. we rocked the karaoke nights with hits like Mamma Mia and Say my name. SO!!! much fun. Thanks for this amazing night to my friends, I love that wherever we go we have such a great time. Even when no one dances in clubs, no one sings at the Karaoke bar -- they manage to start the party. Glad, to be part of this wonderful group of people, really :)

 

Kopenhagen was simply amazing. We were lucky with the weather, sunshine during the whole time!! We started our tour ( a route recommended by Mark!! Many thanks!!) at the old port Nyhavn. So many nice restaurants and cafés were located at the port and I would have loved to stay a little longer and have dinner outside at one of the nice looking restaurants!! We passed the opera house and the theater and after a break with the probably best Bagels in town and passing two churches, we arrived at castle Amalienborg just in time for the royal guard change. Afterwards, we headed out to a parc with a little castle inside. Again, would have loved to sit down, but oh well, 6 hours in Kopenhagen were still enough to get a first impression :-).

 

At the end of our stay we headed off to Christiana. Everyone seemed to be eager to go to Christiana, or the "free town". It's a place in Kopenhagen that is occupied by a commune, who sets their own rules (rather) separate from the rest of the city. I imagined it to be really creative and colorful, to be inspirational. Of course I also expected a lot of drugs, but I didn't know it was mainly about drugs. Going into the "free city" didn't make me feel free at all (maybe I was lacking the drugs...). I felt like people are less smiling, less chatting as in the city and the smell of drugs was everywhere. Yes, there were some house paintings and interesting sculptures out of trash, but it's not like they were extraordinary and you couldn't find that elsewhere. 

This week was also filled of many great evenings. After a short night out on friday that made us realize that Norwegian securities are a little strict when it comes to paper passports, friday night worked much better. First we attended the gig of my friend Emre at U1, unfortunetly it was not too busy, but we had some beers and enjoyed listening to his music anyways. Afterwards I continued with some friends in a bar (name? I really don't know) in Grynerlokka. It has the longest bar in the Northern hemisphere as my friend Steve explained me, and yes, took some time to pass the bar. It was such a nice place and upstairs people where dancing to some really funky music. Enjoyed this evening a lot and looking forward to repeat it :).

After a walk at Sognsvann with my lovely roomate Naomi on Saturday, we were heading for one great night in the city. We had predrinks at our place with our friends and since many of us had visitors the last weeks or went to places in Sweden and Denmark were Alcohol is comparably cheap (can't believe i call Sweden cheap...), there were alcoholic drinks on the table other than beer, haha. In addition, my roomate Gogo also pulled out some strong Macedonian Liquer, that let's say guranteed a night to remember. Around 12 we arrived at Nivou, a club in Oslo's city center. The music was really good and the evening turned out to be really really nice. Another place I would love to come back to...why is it already October??

As you see, I am doing fine :-). I am grateful for the chances life offered me lately. As some of you know, the original plan was not to come to Oslo. I am thankful it turned out that I got here. Partly because of Norway, sure, but also because of my friends here. I'd rather have the ugliest city for my exchange but great people I can laugh with, than a beautiful city without them. Fortunetly, I got both, and even more. I can say that life is treating me well and I do my best to enjoy every minute. Again, Oslo and also the wonderful golden autumn here, makes it hard not to.

Ending with those cheesy but true words, I wish you a good night (or wherever you are, maybe also morning/...) :-))

Norway Trip 1 - Stavanger, Lysefjord and Sandnes

For those few (or none) who were seriously waiting for the next blog entry, I am sorry that it took me quiet a while. The past days have been busy as always and now I decided it is time to put my readings away and use the time my clothes take in the washing machine for a long blog entry. Correction: That was yesterday, obviously the break was not long enough..

By now, I am 42 days here. On the one hand it's like: Wow?! Only 42, but then it's also like already 42 days? I just thought about calculating the days that remain is my beautiful Oslo, but I decided not to. Too frustrating, and probably my international friends over here would also hate me for doing that cause then we all know that time is running too fast. I personally know already, that leaving in december will be so hard. On monday, one friend of mine, Alicia, uploaded a photo on facebook of my friends and I with the capture "family". It kept me thinking. Yes, they truely are family. Cause family for me is, when you feel welcomed and appreciated. When people are caring about you, realizing when you're not feeling well. When they know you're personality and who you really are. I'd say when you're all by yourself in a country that is far away from home, then this rather "extreme" situation makes 42 days enough  to recognize your new friends as your family. Whenever I started University back home in Mannheim, the first month was also exciting and great, but I would not have called my friends family back then. That does not mean that they are not by now, but it's probably the distance to your home country that makes you feel bonded already after a short while.

One of the best information in the last two weeks I should share is that I moved out of my apartment in my student village into a different one. Everything started with my friend Naomi telling me, that their roomate, who did an internship in Oslo, moved out of their flat. When I asked if they knew, who would move into afterwards, she replied that she had no clue. Funny as I am, I was joking that I would like to move in, since my flat in building 21 was so dirty and cold. Naomi kinda ignored the fact that I was joking and told me, that she would actually love the idea of having me as a flatmate. After talking to her second flatmate Marion, another friend of mine, they were both really sweet and encouraged me to go to our Student Housing and ask, if this would be even possible....to shorten up, the next day I moved into this beauuuuuuutiful flat!! It's clean, it's warm, it's pretty....but most importantly: I have the sweetest roomates ever!!! On the first day they were waiting for my with fruits and chocolate fondue and I knew immedeately, this was the right decision :-) Now I am getting settled here and I love having those sweet girls and Gogo as my roomate, cause all of them are really warm-hearted. And also it's a pleasure to live with 3 girls and chatting all the time. Not sure if my exams will like that though, haha :)

The second good thing happening the last days was our beautiful trip to Stavanger on the weekend. We planned this trip only a week before, but everything turned out really nice. We splitted our group of 16 people into different teams, to facilitate the organization. The accomodation team found those small white wooden cabins with grass roofs in Sandnes, a small village close to Stavanger. Those cabins were the sweetest. The car group had booked three cars and drove us safely to Sandnes and back. The food team was taking care of the food for 16 people. Since it included myself I can tell you, now I am ready to have my four kids, cause cooking for 16 people was quiet a challenge, but we made it (somehow at least), so four seems really easy now haha! And I don't want to forget the cleaning team, doing a great job as well. So far we didn't hear anything from the accomodation adminsitration that complained about messing up the rooms, so I guess it was well cleaned..wohoo!

SO back to the trip, which is probably more relevant to you. Stavanger is close to the Lysefjord, a nice fjord offering quiet a few highlights of Norway. Those are particularly the Preikestolen and the Kjerag. The first is a rock that offers a view over a large part of the fjord and the second a stone that looks like it fell in between two mountains.The first photo is before we climbed up that mountain, the second is taken from the preikestolen (thanks to Miriam) and the last is me at the Preikestolen (thanks Claudia). The landscape was simply amazing, I still can't belive how impressing and untouched everything was. I could have stopped every five minutes on the way up, cause everything we passed looked crazy. It's hard to describe for people who haven't seen such a beauty of nature yet, but it's crazy. Up at the Preikestolen we had this amazing view and I felt sooo incredibly small in between this massive and big fjord and mountain area. It was really wonderful that nothing touristic was on top of the mountain, no shop with Preikestolen pendants or photobox or overexpensive Preikestolen Mountain restaurant. Just nature and us (and a few other tourists, of course).

On our second day we divided our group. While the others went to the Kjerag (I can just retell that they were really amazed) I made a boat tour as well as a tour around Stavanger and its harbor, afterwards we also had a coffee break. I really enjoyed the three hours on the fjords, getting the ..let's say water perspective of the fjord and just sitting down while enjoing the view. At the end of our day we ended up at a sandy beach close to Sandnes. It was so nice to sit down and look at the sea and not being busy. The last weeks were always full, alaways surrounded by tons of people (which is of course great). Therefore it was so relaxing to just grab some cake and sit down at the water and enjoy the last sun shines.
All in all it was a great trip with my Norwegian family, games, hiking, nature and the beach.

 

Other than that there was an ABC (Anything but clothes) party last week, which was fun and showed the amazing creativity people put forward when planning outfits that don't include actual clothes (okay, here and there you did see a sweater, shorts etc.). This picture shows my friends Nils (Germany), Eva (Netherlands), Brent (USA), Emre (Australia) and I before we were headed to the party.

I also had my first working shift at the U1 café (Social Science café), which was fun. But I definetly have to try out my broken pieces of Norwegian next time, the first time was too overwhelming that I dared to try talking in Norwegian. Making 10 different sorts of coffee was enough for the first day! :-D

Other than that unviersity is capturing me quiet a bit, on monday I have to turn in my first proposal for my final paper in the class "Scandinavian Welfare Society". Therefore, since another trip to the Glacier close to Laerdal starts tomorrow (yes, Manon turns into a nature explorer!!!), I'll go back to workkkkk.

Have a great day, an even better week, and talk to you soon (if the ice on the glacier hike doesn't break)

Home sweet home

Hey folks!!

Another week is over, and again, too much happened to write everything down. But this week was slightly different, because university life started and therefore some seriousness was taking over my life!
Now that I go regularly to the Universitetet i Oslo (that's how you say it in Norwegian) I am continuing to realize: this here is for real!! This is not two weeks summer vacation --- my life is taking place here! When I know that my girls are going to our home University while I am sitting here (or to other universities all over the world ;-)), I really miss them. It is strange not to be able to enjoy this upcoming fall semester with them in Mannheim! I love all our little traditions - Café Sammo, Sunday Brunch, Tiffany ( a club, not regular shopping trips at Tifffany's - no worries dad), Schneckenhof, Christmas Market, ... - and sure miss them and my friends! I guess that is good though, cause we all have something to look forward to when we get back home and it is a great gift to have that, I suppose. And then Café Sammo will be occupied even longer - cause there are stories of the past 5 months to share :-)

Back to Norway though. I was really excited for my classes to begin, cause all of them sounded really interesting and different from what my home university offers. When on monday, the 26th of August my "Norwegian Life and Society" class started, I was concentrated, motivated and ready to study....but this mental status remained fifteen minutes I'd say. The content of the course starts with Norwegian History back before Christ...whoop...so.....schnarchhhhhh. I know I should be interested in the history of the country I am living in, but I look much more forward to the classes about the political system, the welfare state etc.. After class we came to the conclusion, that the course instructor is somehow awkward. He really tried to make some jokes, but I guess it just didn't work out so well. Let's see how the second lecture will be - I haven't give up on this class yet!

My second class was called "Scandinavian Welfare Society" and took place monday evening. I enjoyed it a lot. The course highlights not only the Scandinavian Welfare System in general, but also differences among all the Scandinavian countries. This makes it in my opinion much more exciting! After that I had my first class of the Norwegian language course. It's been quiet a while for me since I started to learn a new language (okay..wow..that's was in 7th grade actually). I totally forgot those funny conversations you start off with. But it soo nice to be finally starting to speak just a little little tiny bit of the language of the country you live in. :-) On friday evening I even tried out my Norwegian in a pub (yes, always works better with alcohol, like every language) when I said "Jeg snakker ikke norsk" - I don't speak Norwegian) and the guy understood me!! WHOOOHOO! SO PROUD!

On wednesday I went to some information meeting about two student organizations - Model United Nations and SVFF (the student organization of the social science faculty). Especially the role of the social science student organization here in Norway is really intersting. The students run a café/pub by themselves, organize several parties, have dj lessons, a quiz orga team, etc.. I went with some friends from my buddy group, and Joanna, Kristen and I finally signed up to work in the café voluntarily and joined the party planning team, while Emre is probably going to be the next DJ legend ;-). This wednesday we are having our first Barista course, and on saturday is the welcome party. I am looking forward to it, cause it will be nice to meet both International and Norwegians, while I can also try out my Norwegian during my work shifts in the café! Oh, and there's going to be our Halloween party by the end of october - so cool!

Thursday we had our second international dinner. After Brent's Mac&Cheese last week, it was Simona's turn to cook something typically Czech. I should mention that her food was not out of the package (this goes to Brent :-P). I came late because of my Norwegian language course, but still got some delicious dumblings Simona saved up for me :-). Loved it. We booked a trip to Kopenhagen that night  for the end of september. We'll be going by cruise to Kopenhagen and stay about 8 hours there, while we spent the rest of the time on the cruise, which offers a party (which we probably won't attend anyways :P). The club we went to afterwards was not able to compete with the greatness of the dumblings, and when the DJ played YMCA, we were sure that the bottle of champagne next to his dj desk is probably empty and he himselve drunk!

Wow..I wrote so much, but the weekend is not even included yet. After our our new Zumba tradition friday morning, I went with some girlfriends to the Munch Museum to attend a free guided tour in English. Some of the paintings presented were really nice. Especially those showing Norwegian landscapes, ora painting that was showing the circle of life of a women.

In the evening some girls and I went to a pub in Grynerlokka called Kaikola. I told you already that they have three beer for 120 NOK, so this is like really cheap here in Norway (5 Euro per beer, still...). We all had two, met some Norwegian people, checked out alternative clubs for the next weekend and then went to take over the dance floor. It was a fun night out!! We didn't stay too long though, cause saturday morning started the big cabin trip.

Spending weekends on cabin trips is really typical and popular in Norway. People from the city hike out into the woods, grap some beers and have a good time in the nowhere of the Norwegian forests. My friends and I attended a cabin trip that was planned by the University. So 49 students, two people working at the university and I started our legendary trip saturday morning. After a one hour hike and an hour public transportation, we came to our beautiful accomodation.

Nearby was a beautiful lake that some of the brave ones in our group swam in (both during day..and night).

After lunch, playing cards, walking up to the lake and dinner, the quiz started. At first we had to answer questions about Norway, and guess song titles etc.. Our group (Sogn Allstars) performed not too bad, and at least we were not last :-D The winning teams in each round got free shots, so by the end of the game everyone was quiet cheerful. The last game therefore turned out to be crazy!! We had to dance and catch the attention of the jury in order to win shots. Our group and another team joined together, and we won all rounds by making a "Polonaise" , a human pyramid etc.. So I guess by the end both of our teams were at least the winners of hearts. haha. The night ended with crazy dances, night swimming and 20 people in one Sauna. I had soo much fun and loved this whole weekend a lot! :) Can't wait for more journeys with these awesome people.

Now I am still tired as hell and go back to my readings, because monday is no fun day!

Best greetings to all of you and a good start for the week!!