Another American in Norway

Well, since I wrote last, I performed at the International Cultural Evening and I picked up my Dad from the airport. So I'll start where I left off. As you know, my friends, Stephanie & Christina, and I were set to perform at the International Cultural Evening. We had dress rehearsals on Wednesday and Thursday. They both went well as did the performance the evening of. It was quite a show! I enjoyed every act, but I especially enjoyed a Polish Dance, a Georgian Dance, a Pakistani Dance, a group of US students performing Michael Jackson's "Thriller," a Balkans choir, Africa United, and an American singer/songwriter. The show started off with "Thriller" and it was quite thrilling. Dancers emerged from the audience and made their way to stage where they danced a simplified version (while still maintaining the spirit of the dance). Although this act was cool because I got to see a lot of people do one dance together to a cool song, my favourite acts were really inspirational because of the message they sent the world and not only the content of their performance. Take the Georgian dancers for example: a large portion of the world doesn't believe that they're an independent country and for them to dance a national dance deeply rooted in Georgia sends a strong message. My other favourite acts presented unity where conflict normally takes place. The Balkans choir sang a song that each country claimed to have written, but representatives from five Balkan nations sang that song all together with five verses, each verse in a different language. The Pakistani dancers were inspirational for a similar reason. There has been conflict between India and Pakistan for a while, but it's not really between people, only the governments. The Pakistanis invited the Indians in the audience to join them on stage dancing showing that the people of India and Pakistan are united. The last act of the night was the "Africa United" act, where all the ISS students from Africa joined together and sang and danced many songs together. I really enjoyed seeing people so genuinely happy when they're from a place that most Americans consider unlivable. This will sound cheesy, but this program strengthened my faith in humanity and the power of working together.

Thriller

Polish Dancers

Georgian Dancers

Balkan Choir

After the International Cultural Evening was over, my friends and I went to a club called "The Roxy Bar" a block off of Karl Johans Gate near Stortinget. We had a great time dancing!

After sleeping in this morning for the first time in a couple of weeks, I read a play for literature class and made my way downtown where I met up with Stephanie and Christina before I had to take the Flytoget to the airport. I had a nice train ride to the airport and I met up with Sigrid and Hogne a short while later. We only had to wait a few minutes before my Dad came through the gate. It was good to see him as I haven't seen him since Christmas. We talked about our plans for the weekend with Sigrid and Hogne and then Dad and I took the train back to downtown. I got him to his hotel and checked in and then we set out to see some of the city. We got to see the inside of City Hall, we walked along Aker Brygge, walked on the roof of the Opera House, walked through Vigeland Park, attempted to find a geocache near campus, walked around campus, and ate Peppes Pizza for dinner. All in all, a very successful day and I look forward to an even better one tomorrow!

Random Observation: Norwegian drunk peoples' conversations are very easy to understand. Perhaps I should record them and use them as a teaching tool in class.

See more pictures from the International Cultural Evening here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072259&id=1282770014&l=c88e8b1a67

Munch Museum

In today's literature class we finished up discussion on Hamsun's Hunger and Pan -- both are pretty strange, but somehow likable books.

After my classes were over, my friends and I went to the Munch Museum in the Tøyen part of Oslo. This was the most security I've seen since coming to Norway. After The Scream and The Madonna were stolen in 2004, they've really hyped it up and we even had to go through a metal detector. Before we went through the exhibition, we watched a film about his life and that was very informative and very helpful to know the inspiration behind his paintings. After seeing the museum's collection, that my favourite Munch pieces are actually his landscapes, not the portraits as everyone else seems to be enamoured with. Below are a few of my favourites:

The Oak

Kragerø in Spring

New Snow

Dark Spruce Forest

Dark Spruce Forest

Children in the Forest

Oh, I will also mention that Christina, Stephanie, and I are performing at the International Cultural evening where Stephanie will sing Home from the Broadway Musical Beauty and the Beast while Christina accompanies on flute and I on piano. I'll give you more updates after we perform on Friday. We had a dress rehearsal today.

Mondag og Tirsdag

Well, compared to the excitement of my weekend when I took an excursion to Hallingdal, my Monday and Tuesday have been relatively uneventful. However, on Monday afternoon I went with my Literature class to Henrik Ibsen's Apartment on Henrik Ibsen's Gate in Oslo. I thought it was very interesting although hardly any of it was original. All of the rooms except his study have been recreated based off of pictures of Ibsen in a room using his known shoe size to recreate the floor patterns and other items. So much of the museum is unoriginal because after Ibsen and his wife died, their son offered the state the opportunity to buy the apartment, but they turned the offer down because Norway was poor at the time and the apartment was expensive. So, all of their belongings were sold to other museums around the country and the world. The museum has done a pretty good job and is still working on reobtaining items from Ibsen's apartment. When I saw the museum, it was though I was looking directly at the apartment of "The Doll's House" set in Christiana at the end of the 19th century.

I also learned some interesting things about Ibsen. Ibsen was a very vain man and was known to put on all of his medals and wear them around the house even if he didn't go out. Also, after he obtained an honorary doctorate degree from a university in Sweden, he insisted to be called Dr. Ibsen after that. Besides being a vain man, Ibsen was also a man of habit. He wrote at his writing desk from 9:30 t0 11:00 each morning, when he would put on his overcoat and top hat and walk down Karl Johans Gate to the Grand Café where he would sit everyday in the same chair drinking a German beer while reading the German newspaper. How could he afford this you might ask? Well, in those days a typical salary for a university professor in a year was about 3,000 kroner or about what Ibsen paid for his yearly rent. However, he made much more: upwards of 30,000 kroner a year.

Today (Tuesday), was not an extraordinary day by any means, but interesting nonetheless. In my literature class, we had a guest lecturer who discussed translating. He is currently writing translations of Ibsen for Penguin Classics and he is a professor at University of Surrey. He talked about the various challenges of making a translation in that it can't just be word for word -- one must try to encapsulate the feeling the words provoke in one language and provoke the same feelings in another language. Overall, one of the more interesting topics I've heard about in a long time.

In the evening, we went to Sognsvann to study and enjoy the nice weather while it's here.

Well, that's all for now. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures.

Hallingdal & More

Before I talk about Hallingdal (the home of Rosmaling), I will mention a couple things about Friday. Firstly, I found out that I got an A on my Norwegian Literature midterm. I was very excited!! I got my haircut later early that afternoon and the my friends and I went on a tour of Akershus Fortress. It was very interesting and we got to go down into a room where canons were fired from. I would like to go back sometime and get a tour of the castle part. In the evening we went to see "Inception" at a theatre in Downtown Oslo and then I came back and packed.

On Saturday, I got up relatively early (7:00am) and ate breakfast and packed a matpakke. We left Blindern at 8:30am and we arrived a Vassfaret Bear Park a couple hours later. We saw lots of bears, moose, sheep, & goats. We also had a nice time walking up a big hill and picking lots of nice, sweet, and ripe blueberries. Apparently, the bears like them a lot!

After spending three hours there and eating our matpakke we made our way to the Hallingdal Folk Museum in Nesbyen. It was cool to see some really old houses, but the coolest thing to see was actually a house that was built in North Dakota for a Norwegian Immigrant and then it was moved it to Norway.

We left the museum and made our way up the mountain to the Hardanger Plateau where we stayed at the Fagerhøy Fjellstue. It was an amazing mountain resort where people stay during the winter to go skiing and during the summer to go hiking. It reminded me of the lodge in the movie "White Christmas." The rooms were so nice and I loved the sitting areas with the nice couches, lamps, wood walls and ceilings, and free coffee (something you don't see that often in Norway)! The lodge had some sheep and pigs next to a pond next to the lodge and there were also a lot of rabbits. They were huge!!

The next morning, I had lots of waffles -- something we don't get at Blindern. I also made a couple and packed them in my matpakke. We left at the leisurely time of 10:00am and got to the Fairytale Museum a little while later. The house was built by a lumber baron at the end of the 19th century and it was five stories high and 2000 square meters. There was a lot of art on display and some displays set up of Norwegian Fairy Tales. Overall, it was quite impressive.

After the Fairy Tale Museum, we drove for a few more minutes and went on the Krøderbanen, a steam train that took lumber from Krøderen to Vikersund where it was put on the river and floated down. I had never been on a steam train before to my knowledge and it was really cool and really slow -- only about 30 km/h or 19 mph.

I had a nice and relaxing weekend in Hallingdal seeing the wonderful nature and bonding with Christina and Alina.

See more pictures of Hallingdal here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071266&id=1282770014&l=0ee9cc045e

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072259&id=1282770014&l=c88e8b1a67

The National Gallery

I went to the National Gallery today and I saw all the famous Norwegian paintings and some others including a Monet, a Van Gogh, a couple Picassos, and a sculpture by Rodane. There's not much to say other than I enjoyed the museum so I'll just show you some pictures of my favourites. Note that these are not my own photos; pictures are not allowed in the museum. The good news is that the museum is free!

This painting is of course, The Scream by Edvard Munch. It was quite surreal to actually see this painting in person. It's much more impressive than the T-shirts with the skull like faces make it out to be. An interesting side note on this painting is that there are several versions of this painting with the people in the background in different locations and the facial expressions different on the face in each one. The one shown here is the most famous and the one I saw. This painting was also stolen from the National Gallery in 1994 and recovered shortly after.

This painting is entitled Vinternatt i Rondane and is painted by Harald Sohlberg. I would have to say that this is my favourite Norwegian painting. I really enjoy the deep blue colour, the snow, and the night scene. It is HUGE in the museum, that is also a plus.

Apart from The Scream, this may be the most famous Norwegian painting. Hardanger Bridal Procession by Hans Gude captures the beautiful essence of Norwegian nature in this wonderful painting.

I also like this painting even though it is quite gloomy and not because the painter shares my name. Fyr på den norske kyst by Peder Balke is almost a surreal interpretation of nature. When one sees it in the gallery, the lines are so crisp that it almost looks cartoonish. Definitely one worth noting.

You might live under a rock if you don't know who this is. This Self-Portrait by Vincent Van Gogh is impressive to be around not only because it is a great example of Impressionist Art, but because one can think that Vincent Van Gogh once touched this canvas. Amazing!

There and Back Again -- A Weekend in Bergen

Well, after my midterms were over on Wednesday (which went very well, by the way), it was time to finish some last-minute packing and head to the bus that would take us to Bergen. This is when I encountered the largest bus of my life. It was not only a charter bus with one level, but two levels! It was quite a strange experience driving along and being higher up than most houses and some trees.

After driving out of Oslo for a couple of hours, we stopped at a small town called Fagernes near a lake for a quick break to buy a snack and use the restroom. Shortly after leaving Oslo, I came to realize that Norway is the most beautiful place in the world. The green mountains with tips covered in snow, millions of evergreens, and lakes with the roads winding along the shoreline are the things that made me realize this. Well, after our quick break, we were back on E16 for a couple of hours until we got to Borgrund Stave Church. Although this church near Lærdal is not the oldest stave church in Norway, it is the best preserved. This

church has a lot of the original wood and has some ornaments still remaining after a few hundred years. There are even some runes carved into the entranceway! When we were done with our tour of the church, we hopped back in the bus and reached the secluded city of Lærdal nestled in a valley next to a widened spot in the river with waterfalls cascading down the sides of the mountains around it to reach the river in the valley. Our hotel was nice as a whole, but my room looked like they hadn't quite finished renovating it yet. It was missing a couple night stands and had some peeling paint in the bath room, but it was only for one night, so it was okay. After dinner, we walked around Lærdal enjoying our first Norwegian city outside Oslo.

The next morning it was time for breakfast and time to make a "matpakke." A "matpakke" for anyone who doesn't know is a "food pack" or a packed lunch that normally consists of slices of bread with a spread and one or two toppings served open face. After everyone managed to get themselves and their belongings on the bus actually on time, we drove through Lærdalstunnelen -- the longest tunnel in the world at 24.5 km or about 15.2 miles. Only a few minutes on the other side of the tunnel was the city of Flåm where we boarded our Fjord Ferry to take a tour of Sognefjorden. Our fjord cruise took us from Flåm to Gudvangen with a couple of ferry stops along the way. Although this is a fairly short distance, it took a couple hours and was enough time to take in the gorgeous scenery -- even if it was raining and foggy! Traveling along this fjord seeing small towns and thinking back to Lærdal, I started thinking about what people actually do that live in these locations. They can't really commute, and the towns are quite secluded and hard to get to. One can't even get to some of them by road. I'm still unsure about that.


When we returned to land and reboarded our bus which drove around we drove a few minutes to Hotel Stalheim, a very famous (and expensive) hotel in Norway with an amazing
view! We got to eat our "matpakke" here overlooking the amazing view. Well, now it was time to get back on the bus and drive for a couple more hours until we got to Bergen coming in from the north. Now, Bergen's streets are quite different from Oslo's. They are not wide and sometimes the angles are less than ninety degrees. Driving through downtown Bergen was probably the most interesting bus ride of my life. Let's just say that at one point we nudged a stop sign. However, our bus driver was talented and managed to maneuver the monstrosity to our hotel. After checking in, Brady & I found our room to be significantly nicer than our previous room which was great. It was quite nice and was comparable to a 3-star hotel in the USA. After quickly dropping off our stuff in our room, it was time for a quick walk around our hotel area before dinner.
We saw Johannes Kirken, and the Botanical Garden by the University of Bergen. Both were very neat. We had also just missed an organ concert at the church by a day. Now it was time for dinner at Zupperia, a restaurant near the Art Museum in Bergen. It was amazing food complete with a dessert. I had seabass with mussels and a chocolate and white-chocolate pudding for dessert with fresh norske jordbær (strawberries). The evening concluded with my group of friends walking around some more, stopping at H&M, walking to the bryggen (wharf), and thoroughly exhausting the supply of souvenir shops on the bryggen that we hadn't seen. My favourite was a Christmas-themed store of course. The bryggen is composed of merchants' housing remaining from when the Hanseatic League had an office in Bergen.

Another breakfast and another matpakke. After the eating and packing had concluded, our group walked across the city to Håkonshallen, a viking-style hall part of Bergen Festning dating back to the thirteenth century and the most important building for quite some time when ruled by King Håkon Håkonsson. I should mention that when I say "walked across the

city," it is not as if I'm walking across Minneapolis. Downtown Bergen is quite small and you can reach almost anywhere by walking within 15 minutes or less. The most interesting thing about Håkonshallen is that although some of the stone walls are original, most everything else has been replaced since 1945. In World War II, a German ship carrying 120 tons of dynamite blew up in the harbor right outside Bergen Festning decimating most of the buildings and starting fires. The anchor from the ship was blown to the top of a mountain next to the city. After our tour, we walked to Mariaskirken, but we couldn't go inside as it's undergoing renovation for five years. We then ate our matpakker in an area near the church and behind the German houses on the wharf called Schøtstuene. An interesting thing about Bergen that you wouldn't expect is actually that there's not a lot to see in Bergen proper. After we exhausted the area by the

wharf and the Fish Market (where I tried whale -- tastes like beef), which can't hold a candle to Pike Place Market in Seattle (What? I guess I'm just a biased Seattleite), there's not much to do unless you wish to go up on the Fløibanen, see the aquarium, see the art museum, see the Leprosy Museum, or take a walking tour of the churches in Bergen -- all of these things we did that one afternoon except go to the aquarium and go to the leprosy museum. I really enjoyed riding the Fløibanen (a train built to go up steep grade to the top of a mountain next to the city) and seeing the view (except that it was raining) and going to the Art Museum or Kunstmuseum. I loved seeing all the famous Norwegian painters and a few pieces by Picasso. During the day, I had also received an email from Dan giving me a list of "must-dos" in Bergen. I managed to do all of them, plus more, except getting to see Kjell Johannessen's sculpting studio. Kjell is my father's second cousin. I looked around for it around Mariaskirken, where it's located, but I wasn't looking in quite the right spot and I didn't get a chance to go back. After a good dinner at Egon Restaurant, we went back to the hotel where we played cards for awhile and then we went out to a club and sang karaoke.

We're now up to recounting the events of Saturday. After packing yet another matpakke and eating breakfast, we boarded the bus and drove through the tiny streets of Bergen out to Buena Kai where we took a ferry to Lysøen, the island home of Ole Bull, the famous Norwegian violinist. Ole Bull built his eclectic home and bought the island with the money he made from ONE concert!! It was interesting to see the performance hall he made in his room and the piano that he co-invented that was never supposed to go out of tune, but then did after the second concert. He made it into an office desk because it couldn't be tuned because of the way it was built.

After taking the ferry back to the mainland, we drove a short distance to another famous musician's home -- Troldhaugen -- the home of Edvard Grieg. This was short of a surreal experience for me growing up hearing about Grieg my whole life and hearing about his grave in the side of a hill. One of my favourite things that I saw was his composing hut right next to the water. I also picked up a couple of postcards to send to Nancy, my piano teacher of over ten years, here.

We returned to Bergen and because we were all thoroughly exhausted we took a nap for a couple of hours. It was then time to go to dinner at the restaurant connected to the art museum -- Bølgen & Moi. It was an excellent meal and a great time!

I would have to say that the next day, Sunday, was one of my favourite days of the trip. After departing Bergen around 9am, we drove for a couple of hours until we reached Steinsø Fruit Farm on the Hardanger Fjord.

Here, we had the excellent pleasure of eating a delicious apple cake, drinking fresh apple juice, and getting a tour of the orchards and learning many new things. This farm grows strawberries, raspberries, lingenberries, pears, plums, and apples -- several varieties of the latter three.

From this location perched high up on the hill where all the labour must be done by hand, I was also able to see a viking burial mound and a salmon farm in the fjord. Not counting the farmed salmon in the fjord, there are an amazing 30 million salmon in the fjord -- an unfathomable amount! We continued driving for another couple hours until we reached Vøringsfossen -- one of the highest and most visited waterfalls in Norway. It was beautiful! One thing that I was a little surprised about was the lack of safety rails that would be present in the United States in a similar location. One was able to walk up to the edge of a sheer cliff that drops 200 feet or more. That would not be a nice trip. However, it did make for some amazing pictures! After making another stop for dinner, we arrived back in Oslo at about 9:30pm.

I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had experiencing it.

Make sure to see many more pictures at these albums on Facebook. I took about three hundred pictures just on this trip. You don't need to be a member to see them.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070187&id=1282770014&l=fd3de62134

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070188&id=1282770014&l=0fb7d5684a

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071266&id=1282770014&l=0ee9cc045e

Midterms already?

Well, the long weekend will begin after classes tomorrow and I will be off to Bergen for about four and a half days. However, before that can take place, I have two midterms to take -- one that counts for 40% of my Norwegian Literature class and another in my Norwegian class, that doesn't count for my grade, but I need to study for all the same. This is why I haven't posted anything since Saturday and I don't want people to get worried so I'm posting something before I go to Bergen.

I did do things between Saturday and now, but they are mostly go to class and study so you probably don't want to hear about that. I won't have my computer with me in Bergen so I won't be posting until at least Sunday and probably Monday, so don't stress if you haven't heard from me in a few days.

I'll make sure to post a lot of pictures and a summary of all the cool things I do!

Back to studying...

Karl Johan is French, or...Swedish?, or...Norwegian?

First of all, I have an update to an earlier post! I have pictures from my visit to Vegard, Berit, Magnus, and Christian. Tusen takk til Berit for å sende bildene!

Today was one of my favourite days so far in Oslo. I got to tour the Royal Palace, Akershus Fortress, walk around Oslo with Christina and Alina, visit the Moods of Norway store, sit outside and enjoy the outdoors, and have a glass of wine and have prawns on bread with mayonnaise and lemon juice.

First, Christina, Alina and I toured the Royal Palace. It is quite a sight and an amazing place to be when one thinks of the history of the building, the royal family, and the people of Norway. Sadly, I have no pictures because they were not allowed, but I got a couple nice books about the palace and I have pictures of ducklings; that has to count for something!

The Gate Entrance

Ducklings

Ducklings

Royal Guard

I learned a lot that I didn't know. The King and Queen are not allowed to wear crowns because they are not coronated. There has not been a coronation in Norway since King Haakon VII was "adopted" from Denmark. Ok, here's a history lesson -- when Norway became fully independent in 1905 and no longer was under the regency of the Swedish King, so Norway did not have a king. However, the people of Norway voted to have a constitutional monarchy in place in Norway. This was a problem for one reason -- Norway hadn't had a king since the 1300s and it didn't have a surviving royal family in 1905. So where does a country go looking for a king? Why, Denmark of course! King Haakon VII was imported from Denmark and to show the European countries that Norway was really a monarchy, a coronation was held for King Haakon VII and King Maud. After this, a paragraph was added to some official document saying that coronations would no longer take place. Therefore, Norway's "first" and last coronation was in 1906 and that's why the King and Queen of Norway cannot where the crown.

Also, it appears to be that none of the Scandinavian royals are actually Scandinavian by blood. They're actually French or German or English or something else. Take Karl Johan, King of Sweden and Norway in the early 1800s. Karl Johan, born Jean Bernadotte, was born in France to an aristocratic, but not royal family. During the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden was lacking an heir to the throne and, Karl Johan caught their eye. He was instated as King of Sweden and Norway in 1818.

Another quick interesting item is that the dinner menus for Royal Galas (of which there are two a year) are in French.

After our tour of the palace, we walked down Karl Johans Gate to the "Moods of Norway" store, behind Stortinget and next to Louis Vuitton, looking for a cool t-shirt. We found the store and the t-shirts, but they were 499 kr. That's a lot of money for anyone who doesn't know! Needless to say, I didn't buy one.

We continued on to Akershus Fortress where we took a free tour about the "Prisoners of Akershus." All the way from the 1300s or earlier up until 1950, Akershus was used as a prison. It was very interesting to see different cells and find out about the Nazi occupation and how they used the prison.

After returning to Blindern Studenterhjem for a couple of hours and sitting outside, Alina and I went to go see The Twilight Saga: Eclipse at the Colosseum theatre in Majorstua. It was good, and pretty much what I was expecting. It was also very hilarious, but it was not meant to be -- the best kind! An interesting note about the Oslo cinemas is that they are state-owned and have assigned seating. You can also go to any cinema in Oslo and buy tickets for any other one.

At around 9pm, Christina and I went down to Aker Brygge to a bar/club/restaurant thing that is on this floating dock thing. We had a nice time enjoying the view, having a glass a wine, and eating prawns on a baguette with mayonnaise and lemon juice -- peeled, spread, and squeezed yourself (a very Norwegian thing to do.) The prawns and bread pictured is not mine, but is close to what we ate sans the fancy bread and vegetables.

Oh, I also ordered my plane tickets for my flight from Oslo to Venice.

Now I'm back writing this blog and thinking back upon the great day I had!

Tomorrow I plan to soak in some rays at Sognsvann and catch the last match of the World Cup 2010.

See more pictures on Facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070187&id=1282770014&l=fd3de62134

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