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.
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!!
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