Honey, I'm home!

I feel at home in Norway I must say. It quite hasn't hit yet for how long I'll really be here, but for the time being I’m in the right place. It’s hard to imagine that just a week ago I was up at Widji, and that too felt like I was there forever. It was a swift change and maybe somehow that helped with the quick switch over. Time is truly irrelevant…that is until someone tells you have to be at the canteen at 8:45 for the international get together breakfast.

Today was the opening ceremony of Hedmark-Hamar University College. We kicked off the morning with a breakfast for the international students and the professors that will prove (and have proved) quite helpful to us. The group of international students numbers about 50 strong and ranges from all over the place including: US, Spain, Latvia, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, Pakistan, and Nambia. It is a diverse and collective mix of students and it looks like it should be a great year!

The breakfast was the only true thing that was delivered to us in English, for the rest of the opening ceremony was given in Norsk. During the opening ceremony we thankfully had our society and culture professor, Inger, whispering a translation to us. The ceremony was a pretty typical welcome address, except that they had songs played by the professors and one opened it up with a traditional drumming. The songs where an interesting mix of more traditional songs and songs like We Shall Overcome and I Get by with a Little Help from my Friends. They also had the mayor of Hamar as well as a person from the parliament (I believe) speak on top of the school heads. After the ceremony we did a little 10 minute parade-march from the hotel where the ceremony was held to the campus. Once at the campus we met up with Inger and got to learn about the society and culture class I'll be in for the semester. It is a group of four Norwegians, five of us from PLU, one from Hungary, as well as four that will be joining us from Namibia once their visas get sorted out. Inger is a great professor and she is very friendly. I'm excited for a great semester and I think the classes shouldn't bore me to sleep for once.

After the talk we got a short tour of school and then Inger gave us all yellow bikes to use while we are in the program. After a sort debacle of pumping up the flat tires we were on our way back to the Fredrick Monson student apartments. It turns out that we really didn't get the typical student apartment, but rather a family apartment. I like it though because we have a sleeping quarters and then a living room with a kitchenette annexed on. I'll get a picture up of it one of these days.

We decided it was time for round two of shopping so we wondered about the mall for a bit and then went to the grocery store to get yet another round of groceries. After wondering around and picking up this and that we finally, I think, have most of what we need. If not, we at least have enough food to feed an army. It was great because I asked another lady in the store if she could point out the difference between wheat and white flour as well as the yeast and baking powder. With everything in Norsk, it was hard to tell which was which. Once we were done she ended up giving us a ride back to the apartments which was amazing because that walk would have been tough. Kindness pays off.

For the nightly activities we went to the student barbeque on campus for a little bit and talked to some people. It was a good little barby of bringing your own food and drink. We sat with a few other exchange students from Belgium and Spain as well as a few Norwegians. After that we headed over to the student run pub to hang out with Christine’s roommate Marla and her friend Marthe. Turned out to be a pretty fun time where we got to meet quite a few Norwegians. I went to the bathroom and when I was going to wash my hands somebody had said something to me in Norsk which I promptly replied that I don’t speak that much. Within a minute or so I was surrounded by six people who were like oh you’re American, that’s awesome! We talked for a couple minutes and then I brought the mass unit up to the rest of the American crew. We talked all night and had a blast trying to learn Norsk. I had always pictured the Norwegians as pretty closed off and reserved so it was good to be able to go to the pub and meet a lot of people. They are hilarious and friendly people. I’m excited for the days to come.