Norwegian Saga

I hope everyone had a restful and happy Easter.

On Thursday, 9 May I hopped on a bus to join Anne and her family in Risør. I’ve delayed putting up this post because I don’t have the photos from Anne’s camera and I didn’t bring mine. However, to not lose my audience and bore you guys, I’m going to post now and then update when I get the photos up.

The bus ride was pleasant, the bus was spacious and had wireless internet onboard, and a three and a half hour ride cost 35 bucks, which isn’t so bad even compared to Canadian fares.

I spent from Thursday to Monday in Risør, hiking the hills and enjoying the outdoors. The weather was fantastic and that allowed for a number of day trips. We went to see Norway’s largest glacial pothole (there shall be photos). As well we also climbed a peak and left our names in a logbook at the top. We also spent some time at Anne’s cabin which is some 15 minutes outside of Risør in the surrounding hills. I had plenty of time to be told about the local, tangled family histories. Anne’s mother’s side of the family originates in the Risør area so they know just about everyone there, it’s a little strange to me, an immigrant child who doesn’t know anyone.

I returned home with the Solheims so there was no bus ride on the way back. Since that time I’ve only gone to Hovedøya (same place as my first set of photos). I went with three friends, all internationals. It was a nice time and I overtanned my bald head *sigh*. It wasn’t burned but it was tender.

My Norwegian taxes have come in already, there were quite a few zeros on it. No income of course, the tutoring I do is on a private basis. The nice thing is of course I don’t have to do anything with my taxes, just jump on the web and confirm that the tax info they sent me is correct.

I want to mention something I found very strange about Norway. They put their blinds on the outside of buildings. At least they do at the public and commercial buildings. So the gym I go to, my school, the government buildings, all have large, automated blinds on the outside of their windows. It looks ridiculous and seems entirely pointless to me. How do you clean the blinds and the windows? What happens if something breaks? I will have some photos of this for you guys as well.

Thanks for reading and I will have photos up soon.

I spent Friday evening at dinner and a concert, kindly provided by Anne’s family. It was the first time I had heard Mozart’s requiem in fact and I highly recommend that piece of work, it’s incredible. Before the concert we had a wonderful dinner at Agra, a superb restaurant serving delicious Indian food that comes to you on sizzling iron skillets. Monika knows all about it because we took her there when she visited. If anyone else comes to visit you’re guaranteed at least one dinner at Agra. Not only is the restaurant in a nice part of town, it’s just darn good food.

About a week ago Anne and I went to see a film at Gimle Kino, The Reader with Ralph Fiennes. The movie was alright but that wasn’t a problem because the theater itself made it all worthwhile. The seats were huge and comfortable AND they reclined. Between every two seats there was a small table to put your drinks on. The establishment allowed your to take your beer, wine, brandy etc., into the theater as well so you could enjoy it while watching. But how do you know that you won’t have to be sharing a table with a stranger you ask… Norway uses numbered cinema seating so you select which seats you want when you buy them. The plush red seats were also spaced far enough apart that even fully reclined I could just barely touch the seat in front of me with legs fully extended, ideal for tall people I would think.

In other news the paper I’m writing about language is teaching me all sorts of neat things. For instance: The Old English pipor (pepper) was adopted into English before the Vulgar Latin change of the intervocalic p to a b (and later v) which is why English has pepper and the French (which adopted the word after the shift) has poivre.

The Norwegian word for nation, rike, Latin word for king, rex, and English word rich all share a root, obviously somewhere in Latin. There are loads more of such trivia facts, it’s great.

Being in Norway, knowing Polish and English, and doing the education I’m doing has really made me perceive language very differently. I can’t really look at a word, in any language, the same way any more. There are histories and connotations to every word and syntactic (as well as grammatical) function.

So that’s about it I suppose. I don’t have any of those long-promised city photos because the weather just isn’t here yet. It’s much warmer, about 5°C but still steely gray. As it’s Easter holiday here now (Norwegians love their holidays) Oslo is quite empty, the European students have all returned home and the locals have headed for the mountains so this upcoming week should be nice and quiet. I’m off school for a week and hopefully there will be some nice weather in which to get those photos.

*****UPDATE (07 April 2009)*****

It just occurred to me that I didn’t mention a thing about the French Revolution, as I had planned. (C.f. the title of the last post).

I’ve been playing quite a few board/card games. Some of the students from my English class have introduced me to a variety of them. One in particular that’s very enjoyable and that I recommend highly is called Guillotine. You win by collecting the heads (cards actually) of French aristocracy. The art on the cards is fantastic. So if you’re bored and tired of watching TV give it, or any game, a try.