A Summary of the Remaining Events in Norway

On Sunday, we went to a museum of music near Trondheim called Ringve. I thought it was very cool to see a collection of instruments that also showed the progression of music. Something very unique about this museum is that most of the instruments are playable and the tour guide played several throughout the tour. We spent the rest of the afternoon touring the Archbishop's Palace and Nidarosdomen. I thought both were absolutely stunning and it was also very neat to see the Royal Regalia in the Archbishop's Palace. In the evening, we ate in a rotating restaurant at the top of a communication tower for Trondheim.

Nidarosdomen

On Monday, it was time to visit Singås. It was very strange to visit the church and see relatives' graves and also all the same names that are at the cemeteries in Hendricks. Inside the church, it was cool to see a picture of the Singås church in Hendricks. After visiting the church, we drove up to Svea, the home of my great-grandfather who immigrated to the United States. The old buildings are no longer there, but it was very strange to be in this place that an ancestor left in search of a better life. After we visited Svea, we went to Lars and Lillegul's house in Singås and had coffee and cake. I had a great time visiting with everyone until it was time to depart for Røros.

Singsås Church

A Picture of the Singsås Church in Hendricks

Me at Svea

We drove to Røros and stayed with Arne Bakken for two nights. I loved Arne and Ingla's house! I can only hope to have my house be like that some day. It was all wood and cozy, just like the city of Røros. I learned a lot about the area and about copper mining in my few days in Røros. I would also have to say that it's one of my favourite cities in Norway. It's very enchanting -- almost like a fairy tale town now. Although, I'm sure that it was not that way when the mining was taking place; that looked like a pretty rough life. On Wednesday, we drove back to Vormsund and visited with Sigrid and Hogne for awhile before we got a couple of hours of sleep before it was time to get up and go to the airport. I left for Italy, and Dad left to go back home.

Røros

Røros

Now, I am in Italy visiting my friend Lucia. I have already visited Venice, been to Slovenia and Austria, and visited many old cities in the Friuli region -- already way more than I could have expected from just a week-long visit, but it's not over yet. I look forward to whatever we will do in the next few days before I make a stop in Iceland for a few hours and then fly back to Minneapolis.

Me on the Grand Canal Bridge

Random fact: I learned how to drive a manual-transmission vehicle someplace between Vormsund and Trondheim and back.

You can see pictures from my Italy trip here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074278&id=1282770014&l=6a964f8331

Well, I can't believe it, but this is the end. I hope that you've had as much fun reading this blog as I had writing it. I look forward to my next adventure that I can share with you. Takk for leser bloggen min.

ISS: Complete

I made it through my six weeks at the University of Oslo for the International Summer School! I finished my exams on Thursday and I think they went pretty well! I guess I'll find out when I get the transcript in a few weeks. After exams were over, I packed up all my stuff and it seems like I had more room in my suitcases even though I amassed more things. I don't really know how that happened. At any rate -- they are heavier because the majority of things I amassed were books. After I finished packing, I went to see the Norwegian film "Buddy" with Alina and Alex. We all thought it was really good. After the film was finished, it was time for our last evening meal at Blindern Studenterhjem. Finally, we finished off the last day in Oslo with a program celebrating the end of the summer school and a farewell party. All I can say is that I had a great time and I very much wish to keep in contact with the amazing people I met and I hope that maybe someday I can do it all again!

My Norwegian Class From the Summer School

On Friday morning, Dad and Hogne picked me up from the dorm and after making a quick stop at Sigrid and Hogne's house, we started on our way to Trondheim. We took E6 all the way and it was a great drive. I even got to practice my manual driving in Norway (I'm still not so great at it, but I'm improving.) On our way to Trondheim, we stopped in Lillehammer and saw the Olympic Park and a Folk Museum called Maihaugen. I really enjoyed seeing both places! When we got to Trondheim we made our way to Lars and Lillegul's house where we had a nice time catching up with them and Kjerstin. Later in the night, dad went to Bjørn and Gerd Inger's house and I went to Anne and Bjørn's where I stayed up until 2:30am catching up with Ingrid.

Sign For the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics

Norwegian Curling Team's Pants Fromt the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics

Ski Jump Used in the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics

Maihaugen Folk Museum

On Saturday, we walked around downtown Trondheim and saw some sights. We didn't go to the cathedral, but that is planned for Sunday. We had lunch with Wenche and Chalg at Wenche's apartment across the street from the cathedral. After lunch, we took a tour around Sverresborg Folk Museum and I thought it was quite fascinating. On the museum grounds, there is a spot where an old fortress from the Middle Ages used to stand and on that hill there is an amazing view. We went back to Bjørn and Gerd Inger's house for a great dinner and then I made it back over to Anne & Bjørn's house. I'm looking forward to tomorrow when we will see the cathedral and Singsås.

View From Anne & Bjørn's House

Warehouses on the River

Trondheim

Exams and a Break

Well, I can't believe it's been six weeks! As I'm writing this, I'm taking a short break from studying Norwegian Literature. I have my Norwegian Literature test on Wednesday as well as my oral exam for Norwegian. On Thursday, I have my last test, Norwegian. There's not much to report as far as my classes go, but since Sunday I've had a couple nice evenings.

On Monday evening, Sigrid, Hogne, & my Dad picked me up from campus and we drove to Sigrid and Hogne's house in Vormsund. We had a lovely evening sitting outside and eating some great food -- salmon casserole and wild blueberries with ice cream.

On Tuesday I met Sigrid, Hogne, and Dad at the Munch Museum after they had been sight-seeing in Oslo for the day. We then drove to a restaurant near Frogner Park called Nodee. After a great dinner we walked through the sculpture park in the evening -- quite an amazing sight.

Now, I'm back studying for tomorrow.

Time Warp?

Okay, let me inform you that while I am writing this I am thoroughly exhausted. I feel like I walked back and forth from one side of Oslo to the other about 500 times today. I'll just provide a list of the things we saw today.

1. Ferry from Rådhus to Bygdøy
2. Fram Museum
3. Kon-Tiki Museum
4. Viking Ship Museum
5. Norwegian Folk Museum
6. Akershus Castle & Fortress
7. Resistance Museum
8. Nobel Peace Center
9. Palace Gardens
10. Tour of the Palace
11. Sognsvann
12. Hiking in Nordmarka for a Geocache
13. Find a Geocache Near UiO
14. Holmenkollen
15. Dinner

I'm amazed that we were able to see all of this! Everything seemed to work out for timing perfectly! For example, we basically walked right up to the palace, bought tickets and were inside touring within five minutes.

I'll now explain some more about some of the day's highlights if I haven't mentioned them in the blog previously. First off, we went to see the Fram, a ship used by Roald Amundsen when he sailed to the North Pole twice and the Antarctic once. It was very cool to see the actual ship and be able to go inside and see several rooms of the ship. The maritime theme continued with the Kon-Tiki museum where we saw Ra II, one of Thor Heyerdahl's reed boats that sailed from Morocco to Barbados. We also saw the famous Kon-Tiki raft that sailed between Polynesia and South America.

Fram

Kon-Tiki

The Norwegian Folk Museum was amazing! It was very cool to see different Norwegian buildings from different time periods and different areas so well preserved. There was also a dentistry exhibition in the "Old City" section of the museum and Dad was very amused and had a good time. After the Folk Museum, we took the ferry back to the City Hall.

Stav Church

The Castle at Akershus is extraordinary! It was my first castle I've been in and I must say I was impressed. It was all very grand, but I would imagine that it got quite damp and cold in there in the winter. All in all, nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

The Royal Mausoleum in the Castle

The Norwegian Resistance Museum, which is located within Akershus Fortress, is a nice museum. I really enjoyed seeing all the different ways the Norwegians tried to fight back against the Nazis and the methods of communication they used (i.e. hollowed out screws and papers printed in basements).

The Peace Center had a few neat things and I enjoyed seeing it, but it's more of an experiential museum than a "look and read" museum, so maybe it would have been better with more time and more interest.

Finally, we took the T-bane to Sognsvann where we hiked around a bit and found a geocache near an old iron mine. I was very happy to find such a well-hidden cache and I was also happy to eat the blueberries and raspberries along the way. We found another geocache by the NRK building by UiO. It was most certainly cleverly hidden.

Also, if anyone journeys to Oslo, I highly recommend the "Oslo Pass." It includes entrance to virtually all museums and the public transportation ticket is included. It's well worth it!

Tomorrow I'll be back to class and studying.

See more pictures here:

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

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.