SO! Last weekend went to a viking re-enactment thing. It was cool, though tiny... (the poster made claims of 50-100 viking merchants!!!) there were eight tents. So. A bit of an exaggeration. It also poured the entire time. But since my friends and I are fun loving people, it was still pretty cool.

Most of the stuff wasn't that much stellarly different from an SCA event really... I mean, mostly a lack of modern stuff in encampments, but lots of people not in garb running around so it balanced out. HOWEVER, we saw the POSTCARD GUY.... (There's a gentleman here that's on a postcard that's everywhere here, dressed up as a viking. WE SAW HIM..) Also, I was pushed into the realm of "oh that's cool woodwork" to "I need to learn woodwork" because I want wedge tents as elaborate as theirs. I think I want to try and make replicas of the Oseberg ship poles, because they're actually not ridiculously intricate like most other ones... Anyway... yes. That was fun. And I got a hat for my re-enactment stuff because I didn't have one yet.


Anyway, today has been the days of horrible things.... started out after going to class by doing laundry. I had been missing a pair of blue jeans for a while. I found them. And they were almost sentient. I had neglected to remember that they had been sitting in a plastic bag, wet from rain, since Bergen. You know, two weeks ago.

Yeah. It was like a rabbit in a bag. A dead one.

Sacrificed to the storm gods, threw them away. Ew ew ew.

THEN, I went to lunch. Oh god lunch....

You know that awful, awful salad that the midwesterners love to bring to the Lutheran potluck and every family function? That nasty fruit-and-jello concotion? Well, I always thought that was an abomination unto God. But I found the truly evil sent-from-satan himself version in the cafeteria today. The Norwegians apparently think it's a good idea to take gelatin, vegetables, shrimp and egg together. Yeah. It was clear gelatin, no idea if it was flavored since the idea of the texture alone made my stomach flop, with carrots, cucumber, corn, onion, shrimp and egg in it. In a big square block. Urrrrgh.... Norway, what the heck? Or maybe the cafeteria is just screwing with us... but people were eating it. D: WRY?!...

I'm pretty brave and have eaten many new things here, but oh man. No. People have been complaining about how much fish we've been eating here, which makes me sad, because it's the best fish ever since Norway is pretty good at that fish thing. No, that fish is not something to complain about. But the existence of veggie-jello block is a reason to quit living, and to lose faith in humanity.

( Anyway, to not leave on that note, pictures n' stuff. )

I can't believe I go home so very soon. So odd.

So! I promised to gush about the Bergen trip. Last Wednesday at two we left from Oslo via double decker bus towards Bergen, which is the second largest city in Norway and on the West coast. So it was a trip thru the mountains. It's about a seven hour drive, but we stopped at a stave church made of pure beautiful, and then spent the night in Lærdal, this cute little town on Sognefjord. So while there we wandered around the town, waded in the freaking cold fjord, and stayed in a hotel. The next morning we got up and headed towards Bergen.

There was a fjord cruise that day, which was amazing... I haven't been that many places, but I think Norway truly could be the most beautiful place on Earth. Glacier national park was winning, but Norway has more water, and I kind of love the water in scenery, soo... beautiful. I would gush more, but I'll just spam y'all with pics so you can see... but yes. Beautiful boat ride on a ferry, and the thing that amazed me is there were tons of people who lived out in the fjords. Just itty bitty towns cut off from everything all tucked in places. It seemed weird that people could live in that kind of nature. One more point for how connected Norwegians are to nature, I just can't get over that and there's just more and more points to it every day.

After the fjord, we got on the bus, I saw a viking encampment and whined at Kate pathetically while pushing my face against the window going "NOOO! I WANT TO GO!!!" Much agony was had, but it's all good now, I'm going to a viking re-enactment thing this weekend. Squee.

SO, we got to Bergen that night, Thursday around 10:30. Bedtime, right? Everything's closed anyway, right? NOT. NO. Everything was still open, people were still everywhere, the SUN was still up. Awesome. It wasn't just bars and open either (like the hilarious little metal/rock bar the entire group stopped in because we got wristbands giving us discount drinks. The heavily pierced and tattooed local patrons looked Not Amused,) but things like bookstores, clothing stores were open. So me and Kate wandered around Bergen by ourselves because we're hermits and lost our other friends. It was neato. The city is filled with street performers, I was particularly fond of the guy who was rocking the bagpipes.

Other high lights of the city was the cool Hanseatic Bryggen buildings, which have been there since medieval times. It's a UNESCO heritage site, and preserved. The whole city just felt more what I imagined a European city to feel like in comparison to Oslo. Older, for one. I was told by my much better traveled friends it was more typical European feeling as well. Didn't go to a lot of other museums while there, was museumed out. However, this weekend is what will make the trip for me. I love going to museums and stuff, but just hanging out with people I like and running around makes me infinitely happy. I'm realizing I'm quite social for an anti-social thing... I can't be around most people for very long, but the few people who's company I really, really enjoy I REALLY like being around as much as possible. This list just seems to be only a handful. Uh oh, I'm learning things.

Anyway, this is how we spent the three nights in Bergen. Staying up waaaay too late just wandering around checking things out. The two days we spent there was spent running around just looking at shops, going up to the top of the mountain in Bergen to have a fancy fish soup dinner made of pure tastyness, and seeing Ole Bull and Edvard Grieg's homes. (composers. You know Grieg's work, he did hall of the mountain king, and some other ones that you'd know if you heard. Srsly.)

The OTHER thing I managed to do in Bergen was eat weird meat, woot! I tried whale and reindeer. The reindeer was sausage, so that's not as awesome as it could have been, but ah well. Tasted like venison sausage. The whale was from the fish market, and was very odd. It's kind of fishy, but red meat, and kind of gamey... all around an odd taste. It was ok, it wouldn't be my first choice of dining again... It was from Minke whale, or at least I hope so since that's the only legal kind in Norway, and I like to avoid eating endangered animals.

So after three days in Bergen, we headed home, a long drive thru the mountains. I sat separated from my friends for most of the trip back because there weren't seats next to each other. This was lame, because I don't feel like I get as much out of things when alone. I like sharing what's going on, but didn't feel like trying to make a new friend with the guy I was sitting next to. Especially since he didn't seem to speak English very well, and I was tired and social interaction of that sort is energy sapping. Soo I just started at the scenery with ipod until it died. More pretty sights all around. We stopped at a couple different places and that was good because I could bug the friends. The best part of the drive home I think was when we passed the Hardangerjøkulen glacier, because it's the ice planet Hoth in Star Wars. They were explaining it on the bus "blah blah blah glacier blahblah" "oh, meh, that's pretty" "blah blah it was the ice planet in episode five of star wars movies" "AGKAgHSGKSadkghAJG CAMERA?!" </nerd>

The long drive brought us thru a fruit farm, and we got apple cake. Then we drove some more and got dinner, which was amazing deer stew. I looove the food here. I've never had so much yummy fish and deer. The Americans kept complaining the whole time because we got soup like three times (wild goat soup and fish soup and venison stew) and I wanted to smack them with something heavy, because it was super nice fancy stuff, even if it was just soup. And we got steak a different day, so, shut thy yap. ): People've been complaining that it's fish all the time too, which is irritating since uh, hello, it's Norway... fishing, big deal here. They warned us to boot. Shut up and eat it it's the best fish you'll ever get. Even the 'crappy' cafeteria fish is amazing. Boo.

Sorry, digression. The obnoxious people here have hardly put a damper on my stuff, because the people I've met who I'm friends with are fantastic. They're as awkward as me, so we go and be awkward together and it's a blast :D!!!!! I'm going to miss them when I leave. But after dinner and listening to That One Guy complain again, I switched seats and got to sit by good friend here again. Yay! Which made me notice one other thing about my evolving social state, is that my whole "OH GOD DON'T TOUCH ME *FLAIL!*" attitude has died a little bit. I actually fell asleep on Kate on the bus. while part of this was horridly tired, I don't think that was all. Being away from everyone I know lets me get out of the "I'm a grumpy bear. Rawr." thing that many of my friends have associated me with. It's all very odd, and I notice myself behaving quite differently than I do when at home.

No idea. I've rambled enough though, need to sleep to go to class. This weekend I'm going out to Gol with Kate and Elyse, and we're going to a viking re-enactment thing. I'm friggin' excited. :D

As for pictures from Bergen, I took 600. It took me four hours to sort them down and put them on facebook. So I'm not putting them here, because that means I'd still have to copy paste and comment on three hundred photos. I put them on facebook because other peopel in the pics wanted to see them. Sooo...

In theory, these links will let you see the pictures from Bergen. A number of them are even actually of me this time, since it was a lot more hang out buddy time and less sight seeing time.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033504&id=144301985&l=8aad7bdcdc

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033520&id=144301985&l=8654a0ea06

If these links do not work, please please let me know, and I'll just dump them on photobucket.

Bed now, or I'll never get up for history.

Oh my god Western Norway. I love western Norway. I'm fairly certain I just got back from the most beautiful place on the planet. Everything about the trip made me go "I LOVE THE WORLD..." because the scenery was gorgeous, there were amazing feats of human achievement, and I know some awesome people. The last five days were awesome ^__^

Pictures will come eventually. I took 599. Cutting needs to happen lol... Bergen is a wonderful city, and forget New York being the city that never sleeps. That'd be BERGEN. But as a result I'm exhausted, so it's bedtime. Will babble more later, figured I'd just let the world know I'm back safely in Oslo, and back to classes tomorrow.

Erk, I feel bad that I haven't been updating, I've just been really busier than I thought I would be. Trying to cram in as much Norway as possible in six weeks. Been doing an alright job, apparently as I haven't had time to update.

Things I've done since last posted:

+Went to a soccer game, and it was awesome.

+Went to the historical museum, and saw a crap ton of viking things that I've seen ten thousand times in pictures, and it was sort of like the whole, you haven't seen a painting until you've seen it in real life effect. It was amazing. And I saw the brooches my brooches are based on... which made me squee a little

+Found an awesome little used CD shop that had music in it. And my love for Scandinavian metal was shell shocked a little when I discovered no one here listens to the stuff. Boo. It is their number one musical export, but they do not listen to it. They listen to this. Which is cool and all, but it is not this. The upside of this whole love of crappy pop though? Metal CDs make their way to the discount rack much faster. Yeees.... I got cds... Including one of some band I've never heard of called Asmegin, which is the second link up there... I like.

+I have formulated some interesting ideas and thoughts on the politics and culture here and think it's hilarious when put in context with my other views. I will post about this EVENTULALLY!!!

+There is a Norwegian (or as far as I can tell Scandinavian in general) phrase that is awesome: There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. Yes.

+The Swedish Chef from the Muppets is called the Norwegian chef in Sweden. Bwahahahhaah...

Sorry I've not been diligent on updating this. Thought I'd do a quick one so y'all knew I was still alive, also, because I am going to Bergen (western Norway) tomorrow until Sunday with the school and my fellow hermit-buddy Kate. I will see real fjords there, and probably die at how pretty it is, because it is mountains, AND water. Eee. And I'll get to really see the ocean. I saw it when we flew over it and into Iceland, but maybe it'll have a bigger impression on me when I'm out in it in the fjords. Because I was like "oh, looks like lake superior..."

Anyway, better go to bed. Before Bergen and fjords and the stave church, there will be a history midterm..... Which I will be fine, because we mostly have been covering the vikings, and I can yammer about them for days weeks years ever.

One thing that keeps striking me about this city over and over again is how very, very green it is. And I don't mean in the sense of the ridiculous gross American capitalization of the movement that does more harm than good, (Hello, tangent,) but simply the abundance of nature. It's a city center, 500,000+ people in the city itself, 1.7 million in the area, but you don't walk around and go "ew, pile o' concrete." (Or rather, I don't, like I do in every other large city, even Minneapolis/St. Paul, which aren't THAT bad as far as US cities go)

But compared to here, MSP might as well be Detroit. Over half the city is forests, most of them protected. And even outside of the forests, there's just so many trees and plants and shrubs everywhere. You can't see across many places for very far because there will be groves of trees. The Norwegian attitude towards nature is fantastic, it is the heaviest influence on the culture that I've noticed; it seems to play a key role in the art, lifestyles, and just the people themselves. It's prevelant in nearly all the major artworks to come from the country, seriously. Even Munch's "The Scream" was influenced by the surroundings of uh... that one area. That I'm spacing on. I keep wanting to say Akre Byrgge but that's wrong. Anyway... Most of the postcards are of gorgeous fjords and water, even tho there's plenty of other things they tourist sell about, like vikings, trolls, several pretty awesome buildings, etc. (Not that postcards are fine art, just another place it's prevalent.) It's what defines the country. Which makes sense because it is so pretty, but hey, the US has equal beauties, but it's not the very forefront of our identity. (But American identity is a bit schizophrenic itself hah, so... But that's a different post.)

I also notice very little litter, there's obviously some here and there, it is a city, but it doesn't coat the gutters and stuff like in so many other places. I find this extra interesting, since it's much harder to throw away plastic bottles here, you aren't supposed to throw them out, and there's no recycling bins, you're supposed to take them to the machines that'll give you back a little bit of money for them. But they're hardly on every corner or anything like garbage cans.

That aside then, another one of the things that I notice that is much like home is people getting out and enjoying just sitting around outside. I think part of that is the Norwegian pace of life seems to be much more slower/relaxed (they take their weekends VERY SERIOUSLY. Nothing is open on Sundays, and close very early Saturday.) The going outside thing is of course hardly foreign, people do it all the time in Minnesota, we love our lakes and outdoor recreation. Soo that's a similarity I noticed haha... there's a bunch of other little things I notice and go "hah, that's so Minnesotan..." like they hotdish everythiiing with the leftovers. The more relaxed nature is a little different tho. America does really seem more about being busy all the time. Makes sense in cultural context, but bleh. I jive a little better with the system here. Too bad I feel so very illiterate here hah...

Anyway uhm yeah. I like the coexistence with nature here. Not perfect obviously, there are parts of the very heart of Oslo that aren't super green, but considering I could walk from those streets to very forested areas? Impressive. Nature feels like something they live with, rather than just in, if that makes sense. It doesn't feel like it is used to whatever ends that suit man, but cooperating with and enjoying it. Cohabiting. I like the attitude, and wish it was something I had an easier time finding back home. Minnesota is close sometimes, but there's still too much abuse of the outdoors I feel like by many people.


tl;dr version: NORWAY HAS TREES AND GREEN! I LIKE TREES AND GREEN! MOAR TREES AND GREEN!

Week one is finished! Went alright I think. Found out I HAVE to be enrolled in two classes, so they're trying to shove me into the international politics class, but haven't heard what's happening with that... we'll see... History is going well though, enjoying the class and the homework, lots of reading, but it's been sagas and viking history, something I've been meaning to read anyway.

Friday night there was a party the school put on in the campus pub, there was a fun Balkan band playing called Rakija, awesome stuff to dance to. Not much to report there, just a lot of hanging out and stuff. I'm sure pictures of horrible awkward white girl dancing will surface on facebook, because Bilge LOVES HER CAMERA. But she's so cute and bouncy no one cares.

The birthday plans for Saturday was me and Kate were going to go to the Oslo Folk museum and the Viking ship museum. Ended up spending all day at the folk museum instead because there was so much to see, and we still didn't see everything, despite painful feet efforts hah... Luckily the heatwave in Norway seems to have stopped, it's been about 55F today, rainy, but feels nice. Yesterday wasn't awful either.

Sooo I took an unholy amount of pictures. There are 110 here, so uhm, yes. And in no super coherent order, because I fail at photojournalism.

( oh heavens )

Been incredibly busy, hence lack of updates. Classes have started, I looove my Norwegian History class, and am bailing out of Norwegian language. I thought for the longest time my ineptitude and Japanese is because it's a hard language, but I'm having just as hard of a time with Norwegian. Nothing sticks, my mouth refuses to do what it needs to do. I'm not that well spoken in English, so... apparently I have very little gift for spoken language in general. Oh well. I'm not going to continue the class tho and stress myself out. A lot more time to focus on just the history class then at least, and I'm going to register the Norwegian life and Society class which just does tidbits about modern Norway. The next lecture is on art and music, the professor (who was my language proff ahahah aaawkward.. >_>) mentioned there will be an itty bitty section on black metal. Yeeeess.... <3 More of a fan of viking and folk metal but homg, metal in an academic setting, bwahah.

ANYWAY, Norway has been having a heatwave the entire time I've been here, it's 78F, and is supposed to get up around 86F again, while being fairly humid. And since this is unusual, no where has airconditioning. So much for stretching laundry by keeping some clothes in a reusable state, too hot for that.

But despite the heat, I've still managed to run around Oslo a little. The school did a bus tour of the city. We went to Vigeland Sculpture park in Oslo, which has a large bridge with tons of statues of people in it. There is also a huge human grotesque monolith in the park, as well as a neat fountain. I took a ton of pics there, they will follow....

We also spent a BRIEF 30 minutes at the Viking museum. I got goosebumps, hah. It was amazing to see how well preserved the Oseberg ship is, it's almost a whole ship. There were also other neat little artifacts that were fairly well preserved, including some astounding fabric stuff. The trim I saw was particularily stunning. I didn't get as much pictures of this yet, I just wanted to soak it up since Vikings are kind of a big deal for me. There will be in depth pictures of every little thing in there later, I'm sure. The best part of it though was I had this odd little moment of "persona deja-vu." The part of me, Ulfhildr, that does Viking re-enactment went "Oh my God. I know this stuff." It's strange to know what all the bits do and see them often and then SEE THEM for real. Amazing. It was an odd feeling. Next time I go I can hopefully look at things more studiously instead of just standing there going "OMG OMG OMGOMG"

More briefness was spent at the Opera house. We walked around the roof. It's very odd lol, they built it with inspiration from the glaciers, and you can just walk around the (very steep and BRIGHT WHITE) roof. I guess if I spent billions of Kroners on a building, I'd want to make sure I could walk around the roof too? It's weird, but cool, and won all kinds of architecture awards and stuff.

The last place we went to for way too short and me and a friend will also be going back to is Akershus fortress. It's this big fortress in Oslo, we walked across the bridge and went inside of it, my group mobbed the poor guard with pictures, (I didn't. Might snap one when I go not in a giant group of OOGLING COLLEGE STUDENTS,) and then we left. Bah. It was neat looking, will have to go back.

Yesterday walked around downtown Oslo near the opera house, there was all kinds of little shops and stuff that were cute and touristy. I lol'd when I saw a gamestop.

One of the biggest things I'm having trouble with here is the money thing. When I'm out and about at stores and stuff, the prices mean nothing to me. This city is really expensive (high taxes due to the welfare state. Works for them, cool, but ooouch,) but I don't even recognize it, because 10 kroners, 100 kroners, 89 kroners, means little to nothing to me. Like I buy a pop from the vending machine and go "MEH, 18 kroners, whatever. *coin coin coin*" It doesn't cross my mind until later when I go and do the exchange rate that I realize that was a THREE DOLLAR HALF LITER BOTTLE OF SODA. D: Its overall very weird. I'm not terribly worried or anything, since I am fed at the dorm so that's not a problem at all (and some of it is omg yum amazing, best fish thing EVER last night,) but it makes it hard to buy little souvenirs and whatnot since I have no comprehension if I'm paying an ungodly gross amount for an ugly little troll figure Myriah wants... d: It makes me go "WOW, MONEY IS SO ARBITRARY..." easier than bartering I guess, but it's funny how all in all worthless the pieces of paper and chunks of not-so-precious metals are. Humans are weird critters.

Anyway, picture time.

( again, picture heavy, dial up beware etc etc )

There will be many many more from that museum later on. Gotta go now. Take care!

So I made it to Norway, mostly alive. Flights were pleasant, I hadn't ridden on a plane in a long time, so I stared out the window at things like a little kid. Boats driving across lakes looks super awesome from above, as does the moon, and sunset aaand sunrise. (Joy for flying so close to where the sun doesn't set. All of those in six hours.)

I had a ten hour layover at Reykjavik, Iceland. I read a lot, wandered, attempted to eat a smoked lamb sandwich and failed because it tasted like a campfire, and watched people... Keflavik airport wins for most bizarre work transportation. All throughout the airport, employees can be seen zipping along on scooters. Like razor scooters, but nicer. I was infinitely confused at first, but then as I saw several more, realized it was normal ... kind of. Hats off to those ladies kicking their scooters along in heels, I'd kill myself. Other than scooter-people, the airport was fairly empty and boring. And confusing due to monetary matters, I had no clue what the exchange rate was. So I tried to figure out some math based on how much things were, and took out money hoping it wasn't too much or too little. (4000 kroners = 31 dollars, by the way.) It made me think about how arbitrary money really is, 1000 kroners is something that means nothing to me, you tell me what it's worth.

Oslo airport wasn't as hard to navigate as I thought, at least not for getting off the plane and picking up baggage. However, I still managed to screw up. To get to downtown Oslo where the University is, you need to take a train. So I bought my ticket from a kiosk, and then went down the tracks to the train that was just across from said kiosks. After boarding and the train has started, conductor comes to take my ticket and informs me this ticket is not for this train, it is not the same company. I imagine I made the most freaked out/pitiful face ever then, because he quickly assured me I could just buy one from him. So after fumbling to get change because I had a ridiculously large bill since currency orders don't seem to believe in sane denominations, new ticket got. The T-bane train went pretty well, I think I bought the right ticket (it was in Norwegian, so who the heck knows.) But there was no one there to check, and I made it so that's a win. Got all checked in, got into my room, said brief hellos to my roomate (who's name I still haven't quite remembered, agh,) promptly passed out.

Woke up this morning with a severe case of "WHY THE HELL AM I HERE? I SUCK AT PEOPLE," and flopped around in bed a little, willing myself to get up. Finally did so and went to register, get my ID card and all that good stuff. While in line talked to an American woman for a bit, and found out she will be in my history class, so that's a yay. After check in, went back to the room for a bit until the orientation meeting. I went to it with my roommate, who is from Georgia (the country,) and about 14 other Georgians. Which was all kinds of fun awkward times because they were speaking Georgian. Finally someone brought along their roommate and another friend, one who was American, and the other Turkish, so we ended up talking and hanging out most of the night. I got dinner with them and then we wandered around the neighborhood and campus. The American girl cracks me up, she's from Tennessee, and LOOOOVES Minnesota and can't wait to move there and all that good stuff. So odd, I've never met anyone like that from somewhere else. The Turkish girl is also very nice. Sometime during the night we gained another friend, a girl from Seattle who hung out with us in the student lounge.

I'm astounded that I've been here one day and seem to have managed to make a few friends, at least ones good enough to hang out with and exchange facebook info. Apparently I'm getting better at being social, even if I was being fairly quiet. The SCA must be working. d: (Aaah and I explained about that to Tennessee girl, she thought it sounded awesome. Recruit recruit recruit......)

Anyway, very tired. Tomorrow there is a tour bus around Oslo that I'm going to go on, see the sights. We're going to the Oseberg viking ship museum, eeeeee.... So that way I will know where it is and where I need to go later to stare at it for HOURS AND HOURS and take a kabillion pictures intricate enough so I could rebuild the thing.

It's very odd being here. When I look around, it doesn't feel like a foreign place. It's very green, and looks a lot like home. I basically feel like I'm in America, but now magically illiterate since I can't read any of the signs except obvious ones like the days of the week. However, my schedule is getting super confused. It's currently 12:41, and it's pretty light outside. It stays for real light out until eleven or so. Awesome, but man, it confuses the body something fierce. Anyway, that is more than enough blah blahing from me. Picture time is now.

( Pictures be here. There are quite a few )

Anyway, I am exhausted and going to go sleep now. G'night!

Hi there! So I'll be using this blog to ramble about what I'm doing while in Norway. I'm there for six weeks, June 25th through August 7th. It'll probably be a lot of "I did this today and thought xyz about it. Also, VIKINGS VIKINGS VIKINGS VIKINGS!!!!! This is helpful for SCA research!" because I'm a huuuuge nerd. (for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, the SCA is a medieval re-createment group I play in. That's me in the armor in the icon over there. I try to recreate vikingy stuff.)

Anyway, thought I'd do this so anyone who is kind of interested in what I'm doing can read about it. It's likely pictures will end up here too, since I've been threatened if I do my normal thing and don't take pictures. I bought twenty batteries for the occasion, there will be pictures.

If you leave a comment and aren't a registered user on here, it'd be cool if you left your name or something so I know who is saying what (:

I leave on the 25th, seven PM. I am a bundle of nerves. But I get to see Viking ships soon, so I'm sure once I get over the terror of sitting in Iceland's airport for a ten hour layover, the geeky excitement in me will explode forth.