In from the rain

The rain this weekend has given way to an incredible amount of TV and movies. I spent a majority of the wet weekend here at the girl’s house on Brenbakkvegen known as 'the Beehive.' Today we watched the two final matches of the Women's Soccer World Cup. The morning match, which decided third place, was a rather fitting showdown between USA and Norway. Unfortunately for my fellow Norsk citizens the US dominated the entire match and took home this year's bronze. The final match was a showdown between Germany and Brazil. And although the Brazil team proved to be just as exciting to watch as their men's team, their ball handling came up short to Germany's endurance...not to mention all the lousy calls in Germany's favor.

Life has been really interesting here. I have noticed that I am much more comfortable and settled in. The decline in both my personal journal and blogging is an indication that I find myself needing those tools less and less to feel comfortable. When I blog to recap my day or week and explore ideas aloud for all of you in the web-o-sphere, I have you ‘at home’ to live life with me in a way. I have found however, that as I have become closer and more comfortable with the group here, I am less apt to blog. It's as if that need to reflect and think is better satisfied in the flesh. I do regret that I have kept so much from all of you these past weeks. Yet, at the same time, you all know how much of a one-on-one, think out loud, kind of person I am. As such, the more opportunity I have for live, person-to-person interaction the more I rely on that to process my day, week and subsequently life.

That was in part to apologize about my lack of blogging and remind you all that I am thinking about you constantly. It is also a great thing to be able to tell you that life has begun to regulate itself over here. I have a scheduled daily life; it doesn’t feel like vacation anymore. Many friends have told me that it takes 4 to 5 weeks of living somewhere before you will really start to see the society around you. I think for the most part that is true. The rosy coloured glasses of Norway have begun to slide down my nose, so to speak. I am noticing differences in cultural life that at first seemed, well, maybe not exotic, but respectably different and are now just plain frustrating. The first one being: commerce on Sunday does not exist. Now although this is a cornerstone principle that allows Norway to be that much more relaxed and happy than the US, it is an inconvenience to me. I am used to doing my grocery shopping on Sunday and in this way, Norwegian cultural values impact the way I must practically live life. It is an odd, maybe petty complaint even, but one that I have found continually frustrating and thus thought it should get some blog time.

A second grief I have is charging money for so called, ‘public toilets.’ Now I know all of you with personal European experience can vouch for the fact that this is basically the norm. In the 5/6 (depending your opinion on Kosovo/a) European countries I have visited, I know this to be the case. It may be the optimist in me however, but I would think that my 10 Norwegian Crowns (nearly $2 USD, considering its recent decline) might contribute to a CLEAN and FUNCTIONAL bathroom. Instead many of these bathrooms are far worse than any NYC McDonald’s bathroom I’ve used. On top of that, it seems odd for a country like Norway to boast about its social welfare that provides a standard of basic needs to people far beyond almost every country in the world, but excludes a clean and free toilet from such provisions.

All in all, the frustrations are far outweighed by Norway’s natural beauty and the way of life here. I absolutely love how many people I see out everyday biking, running, walking along the lake, kicking around a soccer ball. I love the small cars and no trucks. I love not being able to find a vacant bike stall everyday at school. I love the weather. The rain, the sun, the hills, the evergreens, the fall colors are all so special. The cute stores, and gågate (the promenade) paved with cobblestones and full of people in our little town each day. It is so much quieter in stores and public places. Our mall, just a five-minute walk from the apartment is such a peaceful place of commerce, no loud people and thus no loud music!

As far as the program goes, I have discovered some fertile ground for improvements. It has become frustrating how isolated our English-speaking program is. We just go to school with each other, and eat with each other and live with each other. Although there is something to be said about our group’s willingness to go outside the comfort zone and meet more people, but the three pubs in Hamar has been really our little bit of success. Norwegian people are not outgoing, full stop (to quote Inger). As such, the friends we have made chatting, whilst drinking tend to be quite shy and reserved when they see us again sober. Although this is a frustrating social fact of life, there is room in the program we are a part of called “society and culture” that could contribute to our participation in the culture. The obvious one is of course language requirements. This program cannot sustain itself if we are to live in Norway for four months, study the culture, political system and way of life and disregard the language. Not only is this language far more contextual than English, but to learn a language and to think in that language is to start to understand…(‘walk around in their shoes’). By including a language component this program has the potential to really grasp the important balance of study abroad with both academic and social bases for learning and growth.

I have mentioned these feelings to Inger already and have documented them for later evaluation of the program. But, as you can imagine, I find it quite frustrating that there is such a roadblock that keeps us from integrating even with our fellow Norwegian students.

There are a number of topics I want to write about this week so expect to see lots. As far as upcoming news goes, my mom will be here this Thursday to spend 10 days here with my on my mid-semester break. Yup, that’s pretty scary…already half way! She and I will be traveling around Scandinavia by cruise boat to Helsinki, Finland and back to Stockholm, Sweden and then to Oslo and a southern trip through my neck of the woods here. I am looking forward to having her and I know it will be great to see a familiar face. Speaking of trips, as some of you have heard through various channels, 8 of us traveled to Stockholm, Sweden 2 weekends ago for a friend’s 21st birthday and painted the town red. It is definitely the best major city I have visited in the world second only to Cape Town, South Africa. I have pictures from that crazy weekend up on my photo album. Check them out and eventually I will post a blog about that third day adventure where not one planned aspect seemed to go ‘right,’ which kind made for most of the fun. Anyhow, there was an update, some fairly cogent thoughts and a whole lot of rubbish. I hope you are all well.

Vi snakes.