Norwegian Saga

When you think you’re being clever but later realize you were the farthest thing from. Allow me to elaborate.

A few weeks ago I applied for my folk number (read about it here), that’s the social insurance number equivalent here in Norway. I neglected to tell you the best part of the story though. You see, in trying to find the folkregistry all I really had was a poorly printed googlemap of the area, without even really knowing where on the map I was supposed to be, I just had the street name, thankfully it wasn’t a long street.

I stepped out of the subway station and into the neighbourhood of Tøyen. I stood for a minute talking to Anne on the phone, I forget about what, then when we got off the phone I stood for another minute trying to get my bearings. I love maps (the older the cooler) and I’m usually quite good with them. Well for some reason I really couldn’t get a handle on how I oriented on the map, like I was lost without having moved further than twenty metres from the subway. Of course I still had the station in my view so I knew I could leave at any time but I needed to get a folk number. So with nothing for it I started walking in the direction I thought was right.

Well because I’m writing about it I obviously set off in the wrong direction, thankfully not the opposite direction but not the correct one. After walking for some five minutes, I saw street names that were on my little printed bit of map but I still couldn’t orient myself. Long story short, I walked a some 1050m according to google maps, when the distance from the sub station to the office was 80m. It wasn’t until I got to the corner of Jens Bjelkes and Eiriks that I knew where I was.

Enjoy the pictorial representation. The “M” is the metro station.

Hey everyone. Just wanted to give you an update on things.

As the semester nears it’s end I’m feeling the nerves creep in. I’ve got quite a bit invested here in Norway. I’ve never taken school as seriously as I am now. In fact I don’t take anything too seriously and so it’s a bit of a change for me. I actually want to be here and study here. So I’m working hard on my reading and writing. And things are coming along well.

I have to submit the 10 page thesis outline on the 21st of November and I’ve got to submit my palaeography assignment on the 3rd of December. My Old Norse written exam is on the 3rd of December as well. The thesis seminar course is the most important one so that has me working the hardest.

Of course it isn’t all work, this evening I’ve been invited to attend a performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. I’ve been going swimming often and in the evenings some of my flatmates and I play video games sometimes. Of course that is when I’m not out with Anne Marit. There’s lots to do here and it seems not enough time to do it. This problem seems all the worse when you consider that there’s about six or seven hours of daylight. By 5pm it’s midnight dark outside. Cloudy days are somewhat good because they seem to diffuse the light a bit and it gives the appearance that there is light in the sky. It’s quite strange.

I promised photos of Oslo but I haven’t yet done that. I’m planning to go walking around town after the 3rd of December. I’m coming to Canada for Christmas on the 18th and that means I’m going to have two weeks to just bum around town after my exams and before my flight back, so the photos will be taken then.

That’s that for now then, if I think of anything else I will post about it. Cheers all.

Apologies for the silence.

Let me start with two weekends ago. I spent the weekend of the 25th/26th in the town of Risør (the ø sound is similar to the u sound in English), where Anne’s family has a little townhouse and cottage. It is about a three hour drive one way from Oslo. We arrived on Friday evening.

The reason that we went there though was to attend a “conference” of sorts held by Anne’s brother. He lives near the Risør. He had invited a number of his friends to spend the weekend at his home where they talked and ate all weekend. Anne and I joined in on the fun on Friday and Saturday evening. Anne’s brother managed to convert one of the structures on his property into a meeting/gathering hall complete with long table and fireplace. Since there were quite a few people in attendance (about 10) it would have been hard to fit them anywhere but a double-garage sized building.

In Risør on Saturday Anne and I spent some time at a cafe and doing some shopping, I bought a pair of gloves, Anne bought a sweater (I think). I did take a few photos though. Weekends in Norway are bit trying to my capitalist nature, everything closes early, especially in small towns. On Saturday everything closes at 2pm in Risør (and isn’t even open on Sundays) so one always has to keep an eye on the clock if you want to buy anything on the weekend. I will point to the photos so you can get an idea of what the wonderful little town is like.

Winter

In other news, the cold weather has set in on Norway. It’s gets dark quite early and the temperature is between 0 and 5 degrees C. The sun hovers at the same height above the horizon from 10am to 2pm. It’s a little unnerving. The entire day feels like it’s morning then the sun starts to drop below the horizon, (remember 1700km north of KW). The leaves have all fallen and it’s obvious the population is hunkering down for winter. Everyone talks about the cold more, the clothing people wear is changing. I see (and hear) more and more cars with their winter tires on and the candles are starting to become visible all over the place.

For my part, I have my parka thanks to my parents who sent it to me and I just bought myself a comfy pair of shoes for the winter. Not boots though, those I will buy in Canada. A semi-decent pair of boots here costs 350CAD and I’ve seen prices of 600CAD.

My thesis is coming along nicely. I’ve changed it around a little and since doing so things have become much easier for me. Now just to type up a few pages and submit it.

Oh and I also got a folk number, I think. I applied for one and a few days later I got a number of letters, one from the housing commission letting me know I’d successfully, legally, relocated to Norway (I had to file a paper for that) and another from the tax bureau, I guess they started a file on me. Though I didn’t get anything from the actual folk registry yet.

Btw, I had a bird fly into our flat today while airing out the common room/kitchen. The windows here don’t have bug nets and I guess he got curious. Thankfully the drama ended quickly because after two minutes he found the window again and flew out.

I’m sorry but I did not go on the stave church trip, hence there are no photos for me to put up in the gallery.

Winter draws nearer and with it the due date for my thesis outline, that would be 21 November. As you can see from the photo here, the leaves on the trees outside of my window have now completely fallen off. Just a few short days ago it was pretty and golden. The days are becoming incredibly short, already, it’s not even November yet. As soon as the sun peaks out from behind the clouds I will take a photo so you can see 3pm at this time of year in Norway.

Norway’s Forests

There are some very large forests that ring the city of Oslo. It’s a little bit strange to me because of where I’m from in Canada. The capital of Norway, as small as it is (not much larger than KW), has kilometres of forest surrounding it (like 10km on the “thinnest” side, go look on google maps). I’m talking thick, rocky, real forest, not planted. But that’s not all, hiking is allowed throughout all of them, even if they are privately owned. Norway’s laws make it illegal for a land owner to stop persons using their property. The laws make a distinction between a “garden” and a “property.” As a hiker you’re not allowed into a someone’s garden, or the property immediately surrounding their home, but you are allowed to hike and camp on privately held land that is away from the main home. So land that is privately owned can still be enjoyed by the public. If you decide you want to hike out to a given lake on a map, you don’t need to worry that you’ll get busted. It’s similar to the crown land concept in Canada. (Wiki even has an article on this).

That’s all for now.

I went to the Holmenkollen ski jump on the 16th of October. The subway-turned-street car took me up (200m) one of the hills surrounding Oslo. I stopped at the Holmenkollen stop to go see up close the ski jump that you can see from everywhere in the city. It was decided that the ski jump is to be demolished and a new one put up. I’m not sure if the new one will be located at the same place or elsewhere. At 16:30 they were to be removing the crown portion. As you can see from all of the construction work in the photos, it was fairly busy. As tempted as I was, I could not approach any closer for the fences they had erected. (The photo I’m showing here was taken when I was in Oslo during Christmas 2007. I wanted to show the prominence of the ski jump over Oslo. The white building to the bottom left is Oslo’s new opera house and just above that, in the line of trees, is the royal palace. NB: it’s a large photo.)

Though there’s a photo in the gallery of a sign that says Lillehammer ‘94, the winter Olympics ski jump event of 1994 was not actually held at this location, it was in Lysgårdsbakken.

I apologize for the photo quality, it leaves a lot to be desired I know. I didn’t have a great camera and the weather was perhaps the worst possible for photo taking.

Other news

In other news, I got my residence permit, valid until 31 August 2009, so now I don’t need to worry about getting deported. The next day I hustled over to the folk registry office (every folk has to be registered you know) to get my personal number. To my surprise, every woman behind the desk, that I could hear, spoke Polish. Not only that, all of the men waiting for their turn to apply for a personal number also spoke Polish. It was unnerving actually, I felt like I was in Poland. My number should get to me in a few weeks then I can do the other things regular Norwegians do such as: open a bank account and use a cheap monthly cell phone plan (not a contract though).

Tomorrow I’m going to visit those three stave churches. Photos will be up shortly afterwards.

One of Anne’s friends went to Iceland for a week, she brought back some coins and I got two of them. They were worthless then but now, with the market correction in full swing, they’re even more so. The value of these coins isn’t the point though, I just want everyone to see them.

First some Norwegian coins (50 ore, 1 krone, 10 kroner, 20 kroner; front and back photos):

See the cool stave church and the Viking ship on the 10 and 20 crown piece?

Ok and now the Icelandic coins (1 and 10 crown, front and back):

Do you notice anything about the Icelandic coins? How about the curious absence of any monarchical symbolism. It may not be entirely obvious because the Icelandic coins do have a face on them. However, that face is of a Viking, not a king. The pictures on the ten crown piece (tiu kronur) are a Viking ship bow, a bull, and an eagle. The bull was a symbol of wealth and often used in court proceedings as payment etc. The eagle… well like every other nation that uses the eagle. The fish on the other side are representative of the sea based society of the Vikings.

But to return to the concept of a kingless nation. Iceland, from its beginnings (c.900), did not have a king or monarch of any sort. It’s viewed as one of the few (or only depending who you ask) examples of a society that ordered itself without the need for a single supreme ruler. They had an elaborate system of courts that determined laws and settle suits. Iceland did fall under the Norwegian crown in about 1250, and later under others. The point being, that unlike even America, there was no ruler, no single office. All men were technically equal. Quite a feat for the 900s, if you ask me.

Alright, enough history. Things have been going very well for me. I teach English every Saturday for four hours and I tutor on Monday’s and Wednesdays. Manuscript class is fabulous, Old Norse is a little bit difficult and my thesis is coming along very slowly. I have to have a ten page thesis outline finished for 21 November and I’m getting nervous about it.

Fall has come to Norway and quickly at that. The days are getting colder and shorter. I have to run out and buy myself a comforter because the blanket I brought from Canada will not be enough for winter. Ikea: a student’s best friend.

More to come. In a week I’m going to visit three more stave churches, so there will be photos of that. And I’m planning on doing a walk about of downtown Oslo which will include photos for ya’ll.

Once again I’m grateful to the Solheims for taking me on another trip. Without a car, as I am, it would be almost impossible to see these places.

Heddal

This time we went to Heddal (see map) to visit, what Wiki says is Norway’s largest stave church (kirke is pronounced “hir-keh”). As you can see in the photos, the church is incredible. It was constructed nearly 1000 years ago in the style that was then popular. As everywhere in the medieval world, wood was significantly less expensive than stone and so was used to build the church.

It’s a gorgeous piece of architecture that’s in remarkably good shape for being 800 years old. Interestingly, there are pagan symbols all over the supposedly Christian building. You can see the dragon heads in the photos. Also note the saint’s head on an animals body carved into the church portal as well as the character Fafnir carved into one of the other church portals.

Unfortunately we couldn’t go inside the church. They close it up after 1 September. It has something to do with heating the structure, which they don’t do in the winter to preserve it. Temperature changes decrease longevity of most materials, especially wood. Amazingly, the church is actually still used for various functions during the summer. So it’s more than just a monument to the past.

Gaustatoppen

After visiting the church we drove a little way further into the mountains. Heddal is nestled in the foothills of Norway’s north-south mountain range so it wasn’t far to get to some cooler hills. We almost got to the peak of Gaustatoppen (see map). It’s a popular hiker’s destination sitting at 1800m above sea level. The road doesn’t reach the peak of course but does come to some 600m within it. People park their cars and hike up, it takes about two hours. Needless to say I’m planning on hiking it just as soon as I have the chance.

Norway, as I think you know by now, is a rocky place so vegetation has it hard here and this is even more true at higher altitudes where only scrub brush survives. Because of this there is nothing obstructing the view. The large open areas made for a very strange sensation, like I was standing on a different planet. I did my best to capture the scale by using a distant farmhouse so hopefully you’ll see what I’m talking about when you look at the photos.

Oh and the day we went, Oslo enjoyed 14°C while up on the hill it was 4°C with a very strong and cold wind. So if we look cold in the photos it’s because we were.

(Sorry that some of the photos look like they were taken by a drunk, I didn’t realize how off-level they were until I put them up and after that I didn’t feel like fixing them.)

Let me post some more of my observations about Oslo. For those that don’t know, I use public transport to get around. I’ve never had any experience with public transport but that in Kitchener, so some of this may not surprise you. Here in Oslo you buy your ticket for the bus/tram/sub somewhere other than with the operator of the vehicle. Though on buses and trams you can purchase a ticket from the driver. Anyway, this of course leads to people freeloading off the system. People simply jump on the sub without buying a ticket, there are no gates blocking people and no ticket checkers on the trains. What they do have is “billet kontrol.” The mafia that terrorizes public transport travelers.

I exaggerate of course. They’re friendly enough. They step onto a sub wagon and once the doors close they pull out their IDs and demand to see everyone’s ticket. That’s not a problem really. It’s the streetcar ticket control procedure that’s really interesting. Without anyone’s knowledge (obviously) the streetcar will just stop somewhere, conveniently enough, next to a bus. The thing is they park the bus in such a way that it’s really close to the streetcar and they line up the doors of the two vehicles so that anyone who tries to jump off the streetcar can only go into the bus. Not only that, there’s a security guy squeezed between the two to make sure no one runs (see photo). At this point the control folks jump on the streetcar and start asking for tickets. If you don’t have one, you get shuffled off onto the bus and I don’t know what they do to you there. I’ve been here almost two months now and it’s only in the last five days that I’ve seen these control people. Though I guess it common enough. A guy sitting next to me, knowing his fate, upon feeling the tram stop and catching sight of the red bus, got up without a batting an eyelash and hopped from the streetcar to the bus with practiced swiftness.

So I also have a cell phone now. I’ve had one for about a month though I forgot to mention it. The number is: 40 23 00 25. They don’t have long distance charges or area codes in Norway. It’s weird. Norwegian cell phone plans don’t charge for incoming calls, no matter what plan you have. And their pay-as-you-go cards don’t expire. So if you happen to have a pay as you go plan, (as I do) and don’t talk very often, you could potentially buy one refill card that would last for years. On the flip side, to be a on plan (plans here don’t require contracts they just give you a better deal than pay as you go) you have to have a personal number, which is the Norwegian equivalent of the Canadian SIN. Imagine giving a cell phone company your social insurance number…

Alas, I’ve also found a few new cheeses, which I plan to bring to Canada. One of them is an incredibly fattening (38% fat) cheese called Ridder. It’s unbelievably delicious and anyone who comes to visit me will have the pleasure of getting fed plenty of Ridder. http://www.igourmet.com/images/products/ridder.jpg

I plan on having some more photos up for you folks soon. Look for them in the next few days.

I’d like to take the opportunity, here on my soapbox, to explain exactly what I’m doing in Oslo, Norway. I’m sure most of you have a vague notion that I’m here for school but you may not know any more than that. Hopefully this post will elucidate everything nicely.

I’m at the very earliest stages of pursuing a master of philosophy (M.Phil) in Nordic Viking and Medieval Culture at the University of Oslo (they don’t have M.A.s here). I have to complete 60 credits to earn the degree. The majority of the work will be a thesis of 70-100 pages. (How I’m going to write so much I have no idea). The work is to be completed in 2 years (4 semesters). I get to take five courses over that time in addition to the thesis seminar. Two courses are taken in the first semester, which I’m currently doing, they are: Old Norse language and medieval manuscript studies.

My thesis topic concerns the Viking understanding of property and ownership. I will attempt to study these concepts through the law tracts and the sagas. Of course the thesis itself will be significantly smaller in scope, ownership is rather broad. I have to limit the work in a few ways such as selecting which sagas I’m going to use, which location I will focus on (probably Iceland), and which subjects specifically to deal with (inheritance, oath-giving, the corporal body, conventional owned goods, land, marital relations, etc.) and so on.

As for sustaining myself, I’ve managed to find work teaching/tutoring students who want to learn English, cool huh?

All that I need now is a residence permit (as I mentioned in an earlier post). Having filed it almost a month ago I’m expecting to hear back shortly. My passport only grants me the possibility of staying here without a residence permit for 90 days (until 8 November 2008). If, for some reason, they decline my application for a student residence permit I’m going to have to fly out to Poland for a weekend and come back in.

I’m returning to Canada on the 18th of December for Christmas. I’m not sure for how long, but as long as I can. I still don’t know when the term starts in January.

As for why I’m here not anywhere else. That’s easy, it’s all about a girl. Don’t mistake, I love history, but to change my life as radically as I did for school… just wouldn’t happen. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like change, that I’m a creature of routine (and comfort). School just doesn’t meet the requirements for Tommy to change his ways, this girl on the other hand does.

So I will keep you posted regarding the residence permit and everything else. I’m sorry for the lack of photos folks, but my batteries ran out and I’m looking for a charger. As soon as I get one I get out again and get shooting.

I can hardly believe a week has gone by since my last post. I apologize. Time just seems to fly here.

The winters here in Oslo, though they may be slightly less intense than in Canada, are longer. You see Oslo is 16 degrees of latitude north of Toronto, that’s about 1770 kilometres. It’s far. If you need a map, my obsessive personality has created one for you (see map). Anyway the point is that winters here are rather long due to the northern position of Oslo, this also means long nights in the winter. From experience when I was here during Christmas last year (and this handy chart) I can tell you on the shortest days here the sun rises at about 9:00 and sets at 15:00, that’s not even six hours of sun. Compare that to Canada’s 7:48 and 16:44 times, giving you nearly nine hours of sun. Anyway so the winters here are long but perhaps not as cold due to the warm ocean currents that come from the south. To deal with this rather unappealing darkness the Norwegian populace has taken on an extreme love of candles. You see them everywhere you go, inside and outside. The outdoor cafes also have space heaters everywhere. I will have photos once people start using them. Also, and this I really love, every private bathroom has heating cables in the floors. The bathroom floors here are nice and warm which is great on those cold winter mornings. It’s also nice when you step out of the shower. Instead of stepping out onto a cold floor there are nice warm tiles to enjoy. It’s great.

How about a few photos then (photo gallery)? Today I only have a few. On the 30th of August I went, with the Solheim family again, to a town called Horten where lies one of Scandinavia’s greatest collection of burial mounds at the Borre Burial Mound Park. The place has been turned into a park and so these burial mounds are protected. The cemetery did not contain ordinary folk though, it was the resting place of kings. I say was because the remains have been since removed and much scientific work has been on them but I won’t bore you with the details. The mounds themselves are about five or six metres high and thirty or forty metres in diametre. The park has seven large mounds and number of smaller ones.

Vikings buried their dead in the ground or sometimes cremated them. Regardless of which method was used, and they changed over time and with the coming of Christianity, the dead were always placed in a ship or a boat of some sort. The poorer families of course couldn’t afford to use a real boat so they used “imaginary” boats made of rocks (see the photo - not taken by me). Of course the boat was to ferry the deceased to the “other side.”