Skog og Fjord (forest and...fjord)

A few days ago these French people I know (one who lives with me and two female friends who are French) plus the Greek guy I also live with went for a walk through the woods on the NW end of campus. We were going towards the lake nearby, which is polluted by agricultural runoff; but it didn't turn out to be as interesting as the journey there. For example, it looks like this in the forest:


I think it's used by the Forestry Dept. for Silviculture studies and Forest Ecology. It's one of the healthiest forests I've ever seen. The forest floor is so spongy I can easily go barefoot. I was in awe. It was almost silent except for a very low hum of cars from the highway. I think that this forest will be a refuge of sorts for me this year and next year--a place to come and relax and remember what I'm studying for. Who.

I had a good time with the Frenchies and the Greek too. I said to one of them on the way out "I love you French people!" and he laughed. They are so nice. At least these are. There's so many accents around me I'm going to sound funny soon.

On Saturday, the next day I went with Harald, Ninni, Unni, her daughter and her daughter's friend, and of course the dog, all piled into Harald's boat on the Oslo Fjord. It seemed to struggle with so many passengers, but we managed to go quite a ways. We saw the city of Oslo's new opera house:


You can walk onto the roof! We also saw a lot of beautiful islands on the way, like this one:



And here we are on the struggling yet reliable boat:


Unni and I, and now Harald and Ninni:



At one point we reached a small cove next to an island, where Unni told me there were dolphins once who swam with the people there. Unni's daughter, Lill Nora, asked around if anyone would swim with her. I was not really feeling good about swimming because it was already kind of cold when it was cloudy, which it was intermittently throughout the day. But, I thought hey, this is Norway! Do as the Norskies do. As they say. So, to prove myself as a half-ish Norwegian decendant I jumped in the fjord and even snorkeled for 30 minutes:


Picture taken with Lill Nora's underwater camera. This is also from her camera--see if you can spot the crab:


Speaking of crabs, later on Lill Nora and her friend found a dead crab on the beach, and like the sweet girls they are, they made quite the elegant burial site for the little guy:



Unni said it was like watching them revert back to childhood--they are both twelve but have been straddling that line between adult and child lately. This day was about childhood for them:

They were so serious about it. It was wonderful. They named the crab Ludvig the 5th for some reason.

This wonderful day was finished with a delicious dinner and a walk with Unni at sunset with the dog, Selena. The sunset was nice and there was a full moon but I didn't get the moon, just the sunset:


Tomorrow is my first class. With great weekends like these I think I'll deal with studying just fine!

Rainy Day in Oslo

So much has happened that I want to share! I'll start with the afternoon/evening I spent with Unni, who has done so much for me so far I feel overwhelmed. The day we met at my dorm she took me to the nearby town of Drøbak, where there are cobblestone streets, old buildings and it's right along the Oslo fjord. We had typical Norwegian food for dinner, which was off their lunch menu but they were nice enough (or desperate enough for business) to serve it to us. Mine was splatter of sorts of different bread toppings like salmon, egg, ham, etc.:



Then we went to enjoy the fjord by laying in the sun on the grass and then jumping in the water, something I thought I'd never do in a fjord. I got used to it, but it was COLD!



I got my cell phone with Unni too, at a shopping mall in the town of Ski (pronounced like "she") so I got an iPhone, which I don't really need, but they didn't seem to have a cheaper plan....and all right, I like it. I've already texted my friend Finn Ove in Norwegian.

Yesterday was the day the whole group of new International students went to Oslo. And it was raining. All day. Luckily we were going to 2 museums and then were on our own, and once that happened the rain let up somewhat, and completely stopped by 5 pm.

In the morning we went to the Nobel Peace Museum, learning about Fridjof Nansen, who won it in 1922. He was a great explorer before that, going further North than anyone else at the time. And then he dedicated himself to feeding starving people in Russia. That's over-simplifying what he did but it's what I got out of our 45 minute tour. He's a Norwegian hero, and it shows by the silly cartoons they made of him simplifying his deeds for small children. My favorite was the one showing him flexing in the mirror and being in love with himself. Couldn't find that one online but you can see other cartoons here.

After our tour we walked around a bit near one of the ferry ports. I saw some sparrows and got really close to them, because they are more used to people. I remembered when I was seven in a cafe near Frogner Park (I think?) and a bird ate out of my hand. The birds were not fooled that I had food:


Their loss. Next we went to the Norwegian Folk Museum, where many really old, and some really really old, houses had been painstakingly rebuilt in this one location for posterity. In the first house, made in the 1600s, we were serenaded by Norwegian folk musicians.


Listening to her first song, a cappella, brought me very close to tears. It was a song about calling for her lost cow, which in those days (and now as well?) I think really would bring one to tears. Then they played hardanger (what he's holding) and danced as well.

Here are some of the houses from the outside. I titled this one "Wait, when am I now?"


It almost looks like the woman from the past is stepping into the older, yet modern woman. Note the grass roofs.

For dinner I met Sverre, who heard about from my dad's cousin Nancy, who is probably related to me somehow very distantly. He showed me where the bombing happened after we ate. I didn't want to take pictures at first, and I'm sure everyone reading this has seen some already, but here's what I took:


Roses adorning the fence that keeps people away from the Parliament building, seen in the background.


There were a lot of broken windows boarded up surrounding the area, but this one at a news building was particularly dramatic.


Finally the sea of roses outside Oslo's main church. Sverre told me there were so many at one point it was up to knee height. And people are still bringing them, but less than before. They have composted many of the first batch.

I guess I'll end this long entry with the tiger, or tigeren (as is his title), in front of the main Oslo station:

Behind him is a hotel being remodeled, not where any bombing occurred.

Norway

Well, here I am at last. Daughter of Norway is in Norway. The flight wasn't so long but I couldn't get much sleep. I watched some Icelandic shows on the plane and every announcement was in both English and Icelanic. Norwegian and Icelandic are similar, but I think they are more different than British and American English.

I'll start with some pictures of my dorm. I have my own room that I can lock with a key, and then I share a common area with kitchen, sitting room, toilet, and shower with 5 other people. I found out today that the reason we don't have 3 of our roommates yet is that they will be Norwegians and so they will come next week after the International student orientation events are over. Here is my room:


Close observers will note the sweet orange colored duffel bag from Gino. I was surprised to see one other orange colored bag of almost the same design at the baggage claim. The room is much tidier now after I finally put stuff away this morning. I was going to do it yesterday but I fell asleep almost immediately at 9 PM. Here is the view from my window:



It was a rare sunny day--others here have told me it's been raining a lot, and sure enough it's been raining almost the whole day today.


My building is called Børsen, with the unfortunate meaning "Stock Exchange". I thought I was in an Environmental school. Here is a view from outside:



We are on the second floor. So far it's me, a guy from Greece and a guy from France (Brittany). I of course told him about visiting my cousin in Nantes and spoke a little French at him. He took it in stride. They are both very nice and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better.

As promised, the sun really did set extremely late last night. Here it is after 9PM:

In midsummer it can be setting at 11 PM. I went out and appreciated the sun even though I was really tired. I went to a few places on campus and I walked to the grocery store, about a mile and a half away. The store clerk knew I wasn't Norwegian somehow--I'm still trying to figure out why. He was an Asian guy and probably spoke way better Norwegian than I.

In terms of classes and my major, I haven't heard much talk of ecology yet, but Norway as a whole is much more ecological than the states in some ways. They compost as well as recycle, and just looking at the country form the sky I could see many more forests than I usually see. I talked with a really interesting guy from the US about his travels to Nepal and Bhutan doing sustainable agriculture. Really cool.

Oh this is disgusting--I can barely stay awake! I guess that's all for now til my jetlag wears off!