Crunch Time

Oslo is a peaceful city. People stroll here. They take their time. I, on the other hand, have been running around like a maniac. Its crunch time people, and the last 2 weeks have been a whirlwind. The first part of my activities was arranging the food for the International Cultural Evening, which took place last night. Pretty much this evening is the peak of the global cooperation the International Summer School is supposed to promote. As a member of the Student Council, I was elected co-chair of the Cooking Committee. This has been quite the effort, including weeks of planning. This past week I have been meeting up with 3 or 4 people each day trying to nail down some details and make sure everything gets done. The big day yesterday went really well, and I'm proud of our outcome. Everyone, the ISS staff, the Blindern staff, and the students, seemed pleased. The event itself was incredibly cool- we saw performers from over 20 countries performing their national songs and dances.

School is an additional stress. I would not recommend to anyone taking 8 credits in difficult classes when you are in a different country during the summer. At the same time, I really have learned so much from my classes and it will help me (hopefully) to graduate early. I have a final exam on Wednesday and a final paper due on Thursday... yikes! Proof of the incredible amount of work my Gender Equality class and Scandinavian Government and Politics class have been is below: my 6 course compendiums and 5 books. Oh,not to mention various packets and booklets. I can't really complain though because for each of my classes we also took about one excursion to a relevant site. My favorite for the gender class was visiting the most highly rated Crisis Centers in all of Norway. The government class had a number of interesting excursions, including visiting Parliament, the Supreme Court, and the City Hall.


Last on my list is preparation for going to Peru. All sorts of plans for housing and classes at the university there are happening. A little overwhelming, but a lot exciting!

Velkommen to Kobenhavn!

So, back from Copenhagen with all body parts and important documents accounted for. Haha, actually Copenhagen (or Kobenhavn as it says on all my maps) is the safest capital city in the world, according to our tour guide Mike. The guided tours in Copenhagen were really good quality, even if our canal tour guide sounded like he might fall asleep he was so familiar with the material. The first day we were in the city we wandered about for almost 4 hours with all our bags until our hotel check-in could begin. This gave me a new respect for backpackers and a higher awareness of my need to pack down in the future. After we finally deposited our bags, we resumed our wandering and went to Nyhavn, or New Harbor. We jumped on a canal tour and spent a really pleasant hour on the water. By the end of the day, however, I had the emotional state of a sleep-deprived two year old and needed some rest, stat.

The second day began with a bike tour of Copenhagen, courtesy of Bike Copenhagen with Mike (fun fact: Copenhagen has the most bikes per capita of any city). It was honestly my favorite part of the trip. The sights were beautiful, and our group hit up every major landmark that I'd wanted to see while in town. When we showed up, Soo and I were the only ones present and we thought we were going to get a private tour of the city... until 5 couples showed up, including one nauseating pair of newlyweds. It was actually a really good group and we had a great time. We made about 10 stops, and Mike would tell us all about the sites and their history. Never before in my life have I heard so much about Kierkegaard and H.C. Andersen. We did make it to Christiania, which was amusing because of everyone's matter-of-factness about it. Mike told us before we got there not to take pictures of the entrance because they don't like any photos getting out of the line-up of drug booths. The cafe in Christiania has a sign by the door saying, "Safest Cafe in the world- 4,000 armed police inspections since 2004".

Also, side note about the food and drinks. Holy expensive! All the restaurants had crazy high prices, so I ended up eating kind of cheaper street food or special lunch deals. The only Danish food I had was the breakfast buffet at our hotel. The first day I had a Chinese meal for lunch and a falafel sandwich for dinner. The next day was pizza for lunch and samosa for dinner. All the food was good but the average cost per meal was about $10 in the U.S. Absolutely insane! We ran across some luck when we went out though and came across a group of men at the bar all too happy to buy us drinks. I'd love to go back to Copenhagen at some point and maybe get a tour to the castle from Hamlet or rent a bike and explore on my own, but I will wait until I'm not a college student and church mouse poor. Overall, it was a fun weekend, but I'm glad to be back and have my bed and normal sized shower-home sweet Oslo.

The Great Clock Crisis

Nearly three weeks into the program and one of the most complicated, time-consuming, exhaustive parts of my trip has been my epic search for... an alarm clock. Something that doesn't seem incredibly important during normal daily life, but when you have class at 8:15 each morning and prefer to wake early to exercise, this basic lack becomes very urgent. The hardest part of it was knowing that I had actually prepared for this and brought a clock from home. However, my clock didn't have the same voltage as the European outlets. Nonetheless, I tried it out. Exhibit A: my burned out clock.
My next line of action was a temporary fix- Olga's alarm on her phone. We made a system that ran pretty well, but I mostly had to adapt to her schedule. After nearly a week, I went to a flea market in Gronland. I stumbled upon an alarm clock for 10 kroner, the equivalent of about a $1.50. Not a bad deal, huh? Well, I should have known from the price. After plugging it in, I found that most of the lines in the display were gone. Miraculously after a few days, all the numbers returned. This wasn't the end of my problems, though. The clock has a functioning alarm- that only goes off if the volume for the radio is on at all times. So basically, in order for the radio to not be playing, the entire machine must be on mute which equals no alarm. Foiled again!
The final solution: Olga's alarm clock.

Well, I'm off to Copenhagen for the long weekend. This is what I'm planning so far...

• city bike tour through some of the main tourist attractions
• going to a little coffee shop recommended by my classmate Lisa
• hopefully hitting up the beach
• seeing the hippies in Christiana
• museums!

Let's see if I fit it all in. Bye now!

Takk for waiting...

So here I am sitting at my desk while it is bright and sunny outside (don't believe what they say about Norwegian summers) after completing a full week at the International Summer School. Thanks for waiting since my last post, I'd been so occupied with planning and just getting things done that I'd forgotten to take anytime here. There are so many things I could and would love to share with anyone who asked, because I have enjoyed the experience so much already. The trip over went smoothly, the only irritants being the children sitting behind me kicking my seat the whole way. In the end, my neighbor turned around and threatened to throw them out the airplane windows (which they couldn't understand as they were speaking Icelandic). The dormitories we are housed in are very cute but very full- I have two roommates, Olga from Russia and Krasamira from Bulgaria. We all get along very well, and there is no shortage of friendly people here. The days are incredibly long, and the nights are never quite dark. Part of me feels exhausted due to the amount of work I have been doing, but the rest is completely energized by the constantly bright sky. When we arrived, I met Olga and our neighbor Sarah. The three of us "explored" Oslo- a pretty way of saying how lost we got. Among other things we found the Oslo penitentiary... definitely the first stop on any list of tourist attractions. We did some sightseeing over the weekend at the Viking Museum, the Opera House, and Vigeland Park. While all of these were breath taking in their own way, I definitely feel a need to re-visit them while I am here. Though I have only been here a week, I feel this pressure to do and see absolutely everything possible. There are just so many options and intriguing places, not only in Oslo but the remainder of Norway and Scandinavia in general. At the same time as sightseeing and enjoying myself with all the people I've met, classes are a huge strain on time. I am in my Scandinavian Government and Politics class and then Gender Equality in the Nordic Countries from 8 until 1 each morning. Government is very interesting because of the teacher (an Aussie with a mohawk) and the content which shows Norway as both a quality place to live but less ideal than is commonly thought by the outside world. Gender Equality is the most challenging class I've taken since I began college. The diverse people in it and the depth of conversation is truly amazing. Each of the countries represented are from very different levels of development with regards to women. Some contrast so greatly from the highly gender equal country of Norway that it is almost unbelievable. Already they are broadening my view to an incredible degree.