Norwegian Saga

I apologize for my unusually lengthy silence. There’s lots to tell. My constant outings to Anne’s parent’s home for dinner have kept me from posting though. Not that I’m complaining, on the contrary, I don’t know how to properly show my gratitude. I’ve been fed dinners at their home just about daily and I’m beginning to feel as though I should somehow say thank you with more than just words.

The problem with paper

Anyway, a few days ago I was in the university bookstore picking up a copy of “A New Introduction to Old Norse.” If you can’t guess that’s the textbook we’re using in my Old Norse class. Walking the aisles it occurred to me that I didn’t have a single piece of paper to write on. I hadn’t taken any with me from Canada. I had no paper and no binders. For a student these are rather important. I set about the store looking for some. And you wouldn’t believe it but every single binder I found had some bizarre two-ringed configuration. There were only two rings, 1/4th and 3/4ths of the way down the spine. I couldn’t figure it out. I assumed these binders were for some archival purposes. For the kind of papers one files knowing they’re not going be looked at again until some microhistorian comes along and digs them up. I decided I would wait on the binder and talk to Anne in the hopes she’d tell me where I could buy real binders, of the three-ringed variety.

I moved onto searching for paper. I could use paper without a binder after all. No dice! They don’t seem to sell paper alone, it looks as though it always comes in some form of spiraled booklet, I hate spiral bound books, they always hurt my wrist. Not only that, once again I came upon the hole problem, they didn’t seem to sell regular three-holed paper either, every page in every spiral book I picked up had four holes in it. I discovered that Norway operates on a four-holed system. The paper here is also a different size, it’s not 8.5″ x 11″ as is common in North America, I’m told it’s the A4 paper size, it’s taller but narrower, and apparently more international. The issue ended when I spoke with Anne Marit asking her where the normal three-holed binders were and she replied: “How would you ever use a four-holed punch with a three-holed binder?”

Now I’ve got paper and a four-ringed binder in which to put it (I did manage to find a four-ringed binder, those two-ringed ones just seem ridiculous to me).

Government offices- every foreigner’s plight

Saturday (23rd) morning I had to attend the police station in downtown Oslo to submit my application for a student residence permit. They are clever enough in Norway to set aside one day at the start of the semester to help foreign students get residence permits, so the various government agencies (immigration, folkregistry etc.) and help services are all in one location at the police station. I left the house to be at the station about ten minutes early. As I rounded the corner I was feeling good, thinking the entire affair wouldn’t last longer than half an hour, I was only dropping off an application you see. However, upon rounding that corner I found myself looking at a hoard of people spilling out onto the street and rounding the corner of the block. With nothing for it, I got to the back of the line. Almost all services in Norway operate on the “take a number” system. It took me ten minutes just to get a number and then two more hours to talk to someone just so I could drop off the application. I was still fortunate though, I had number 219, I saw people with 450. The immigration officer was kind enough to tell me that the application looked fine. I should know in about three weeks time whether I’m getting deported back to Canada or not.

I’ve got lots more to tell you. Also for next time, photos from Hovedøya.