Norwegian Saga

I’m taking a Norwegian course as you all know and it’s turning out to be very fun. We’ve learned some simple sentences and questions (Hva spiser du til frokost?) and I’m able to more and more understand things that people are saying around me. Of course there’s no real chance of communicating beyond asking what someone had for breakfast (the question above) or how old they are, but it’s fun. One interesting thing that I have noticed with the local Norwegian speakers is the tremendous variation in pronunciation. The word tremendous doesn’t do it justice. I’ve never come across such variation. I’ve been here for about five months now and I still hear Norwegian spoken in some dialect that I think is actually another language. It’s strange.

The days are getting longer so now I get to enjoy the sunlight until about 16:20. This is still a far cry from the 18:30 I was getting in Kitchener. Summer will be the reverse though with incredibly long days, I’m looking forward to it.

My Britain class has an essay due as the final exam and I’m trying to find a topic that will link into my thesis nicely. Who wants to do more research than they have to right. If I can find a slew of sources and learn a great deal and then apply that to my thesis, all the better. However, trying to link England and Iceland and the honour system is proving to be a little difficult.

If you couldn’t tell not much has been going on here lately due to the weather, which is snowy and about 0°C. That added to the darkness just means that I sit around a watch a lot of movies. I’m also getting over a cold. I will endevour to have more interesting news for all of you in the coming days, especially as my sister comes to visit me .

In Canada I was greeted by a massive snowfall on the day after I arrived, and it proceeded to continue for about a week. I ended up shoveling snow for two weeks. I’m not complaining though, it was fun and with my father the two of us managed to do it fairly quickly.

Now upon my arrival in Norway as of Monday, I was also met with snows like they’d not yet witnessed this winter. And, needless to say, it’s been snowing pretty much ever since. The result is mountains of snow that are not easy to get around in. Norway, for all of its northerly ways, has terrible snow clearing practices (at least compared to what I’m used to) and when you couple that with the small roads and sometimes cramped sidewalks it gets a little crazy. It’s not all bad though. My housing situation means I don’t have to shovel and my transport habits (public transport) mean I don’t have to worry about getting stuck in the ditch.

One very noticeable difference between the climates of Norway and Canada is the moisture content in the air. I’m no weather man but it seems to be very much more moist here. There is fog here almost daily at least to some extent. It could be the temperature difference, but at 0C there wouldn’t be any fog in Canada, especially if the 0C had been the trend over a week. No doubt it has something to do with the ocean nearby.

How about a little info on my classes. I’ve got two classes at the moment, Norwegian and “England: Language and Settlement 400-1200AD.” The England class is only on Wednesdays. The professor is a pompous British weener that uses a monocle. He’s a nice guy but he’s exactly the type that makes me hate academia. It’s stuff like “As any educated person knows bronze is a mix of copper and tin” and how he doesn’t want lazy students in his class. By lazy he means those that aren’t willing to read a few hundred pages daily. I don’t have a problem reading, the problem is that this is the type of professor that pushes a long gone style of research, a very closed minded approach. From my professors of last semester this is a change.

The Norwegian course is great, it’s on Mondays and Wednesdays. I’ve only had one class of it but have already learned quite a bit. The teacher and fellow students are nice so it’s not a chore to be there.

Beyond that I haven’t much to report. I had to work yesterday at the school. They approached me about taking on another class, one of seven year olds. I’m hesitant because they’re not going to know any English whatsoever but the thought of an extra 1000 kroner per month is appealing. I will let you know how that develops.

The holidays are over. Of that I am sad. I had an absolutely wonderful time at home for the holidays. The month in Canada even helped me to crystallize some of my thoughts and ideas, but those I will write about in another post.

I’m back in Norway now. I arrived yesterday just after the noon hour. The Toronto-Frankfurt flight was delayed one and a half hours thanks to the snow. However, since I had to wait in Frankfurt 4 hours to start with it wasn’t a big deal. The flight from Germany to Norway was on time and quick, just one and a half hours, most of which I slept through. I collected my luggage without a problem and got out into the airport where Anne Marit picked me up and brought me home.

I showered, unpacked some things and then went to Anne’s place where her folks had invited me to dinner. I think they felt sorry for me because they knew I didn’t have any thing to do for dinner. I had cleaned out my fridge before I left so when I got back I had nothing to eat.

Classes have already started, one on Wednesday last week and one on Monday, both of these I missed. Next day of lessons is tomorrow (Wednesday). I have to get a few things before then though. That list includes: food, a phone card for my cell, paying a school fee, textbooks, power cord for my monitor, and a transit pass so I can move about the city. Today will be busy.

Updates will follow as I try to readjust to this place. And I do have to readjust, I feel like a foreigner again, this was a feeling that somehow went away after a few months when I was here before the holiday.

So on that note I leave to go and take care of some errands, I will write again later.