Norwegian Saga

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.”