Norwegian Saga

The title is a little misleading (purposefully so of course).

Today was my first day of school, not lectures but meetings and preparations. I guess they call it “orientation.” I had a chance to meet my “buddy” group. Buddy groups are a program that’s supposed to make new students more comfortable with their new surroundings. It was fun and worthwhile. My group has people from: Ireland, Scotland, Germany, USA, Ghana, Japan, China, Sri Lanka, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. My hope is that I get to meet them again and actually talk to them more as the entire thing, from gathering to my leaving a little early (I skipped the university bureaucrat speeches) was about an hour. There’s a Buddy group BBQ tomorrow though, which I may attend depending on what else I’m doing. More orientation stuff going on you see.

After the buddy group meeting I went to the university, Blindern campus (the “d” is silent as it is in many words and almost always when it’s on the end of a word) where I met with the others in the program. Present were faculty, staff, and the three other new students in the program. That’s right the Nordic Viking and Medieval Culture master’s program has an intake of just four students this year, two of which are Norwegian. The program in total has thirty students. It’s a small little thing but that just means there’ll be a good student/professor ratio, which is a plus, those that have been to university recently know that.

The structure of the program is like so: four terms, two per year, each term requires the completion of thirty credits. Each year has only one elective course. To start I have to take a dissertation seminar and “Old Norse – language and texts”, and one elective. Yeah, I have to learn Old Norse, or enough of it to get by reading a manuscript if I have a dictionary and grammar guide nearby. Here’s to hoping they have great teachers. You can read about it all here if you’re interested.

On to exciting travel news. With Anne Marit’s help I’ve discovered a semi-shortcut to school (Googlemap here). I’m going to be walking, or if I can get my folks to send me a bike, biking to school. Bikes are much too expensive here for me to even hope of buying one. However, I’m told there’s a police auction twice a year which I’m planning to look into. Hurray for criminals! So if I can get a bike great, if not then it’s a 1.6km walk to school.

A little bit describing my roomies. I live with three roommates. We share the bathroom and kitchen/common room. They’re all Norwegians which is good, too many cultures mixing could be a bad thing. There are two guys and one female. One of the guys studies medicine and the other studies computer science (I think) and the girl studies social sciences. I won’t put names to these people in case they don’t want to be named (that’s why it’s all guy this and guy that, not because of a poor vocab).

Two other notes: they have orange juice that always makes me do a double take when I buy it (pic); and they have slugs (which they call snails) that are 10cm long and about 1cm wide, get a ruler see for yourself how huge that is (pic). The slugs are a non-native species that are apparently destroying the local ecosystem. They’re all over the place, and did I mention they’re big?

I arrived in Norway on the 7th of August 2008 with more jumbled thoughts than I can think to write, of course that won’t stop me from trying.

It wasn’t easy leaving my family and friends. In fact, I still tear up when I think about them. I left a life in Canada that had people in it I love. Evening bonfires with my family and friends, I even went golfing for the first time in my life with my boss which was incredibly fun, I tried Indian roti (a type of bread) and there are many things which I miss already. However, I will be back for Christmas and then probably the summer after that.

I got to Norway and was picked up by my lady friend, Anne Marit, at the airport. The flights had been quite pleasant and not overly long either. I suppose after working 12 hour shifts one learns well how to sit and bear a slow passage of time, a seven and a half hour flight was easy by comparison.

From the airport it was straight to the student housing administration to get the keys for my student room. We found the place easily. I live in the “Sogn studentby” (Sogn student residence). I was expecting a dirty closet with a bed in it for a room but what I got was a nice clean, large room with a high ceiling and a big window. There’s a desk and bed that are both small for my liking but beggars can’t be choosers I suppose (pic). The common area (pic), that contains the kitchen, is clean and cozily furnished. The living arrangements seem nice enough. My only complaint, which I mention to everyone who asks, is the toilet. You see someone stumbled upon a great idea to separate the toilet from the shower room, essentially splitting the bathroom in two. This way the morning line up (which doesn’t actually exist because everyone wakes up at different times) is divided and everyone can do their bathroom business sooner. Well, the toilet was walled off and a small sink was put in. The problem is that the sink is almost on top of the toilet and it’s very difficult to do anything in there (pic). Just look at the photo and you’ll see what I mean.

The food in most places is fantastic but the weather kind of sucks. Seems I just missed a heatwave in this nation and caught on in time for a coolwave. It’s about 12-15°C with occasional rain. It’s also more expensive than I’d imagined. I thought I had a handle on some of the prices when I believed everything was roughly twice the price of what it is in Canada. I was wrong with some things, like bus fare, which for a single ride, if paid in cash, is about $7CAD.

I will write more, at the moment I’m going to focus on my breakfast.

I hope everyone is well. I miss you all.