Don't worry mom, I'm fine!
August 13th
I had to make my appointment to register with the police is what I mean. :) Everything I received from the Norwegian embassy said that I had to check in within 7 days of arrival, but after waiting in line for an hour and a half with everyone else in the same situation, the earliest date they had was Sept 1st. Sooo, hope that isn't a problem!? After that I sat and read in one of the buildings on campus while I ate my lunch and then I decided to explore more of the University and I found a little kids soccer tournament about a mile down the street which was pretty cute! I noticed something on my walk and it seems so crazy to me, but the side streets are pretty narrow and still people are allowed to parallel park, on the same side, facing different directions?! And it is still a two way street, even thought only one car can fit through at a time! I just thought it was interesting and different...
After my walk, I met up with my Buddy Group and we went around to different stations around campus to compete in different games they had prepared. We played doge-ball, brain trauma charades (who thought of that?! :/), potato sack/quiz race, 3-legged race through the campus fountain, and other little games like that. It was fun at first, but then people from my group started dropping out and so we joined an all Norwegian group. That was fun until I was the only international student left and they just kind of stopped talking or explaining anything in English.... so I left too. :/ It was still pretty fun though!
After that I returned home and attempted to make my first non-peanut-butter meal!!!! Lets just say... I need to work on my cooking skills... a lot. I started out by putting the pasta in the water without boiling it first. Then, I took what I thought was spaghetti sauce (really chopped tomatoes) and mixed it with some other random things that I had bought. It took forever to boil the pasta and water and I just gave up at some point... So when I finished, I had under-cooked soggy pasta with not enough sauce that wasn't seasoned at all. I had to crack up at myself and my hopeless attempt at cooking, but at least it was semi-edible and something other than peanut-butter! Progress! I am hoping I can learn some cooking tips from my roommates, because my meals can hopefully only improve from here!
Frieda also had some friends over, (from Germany and Hungary) so I hung out with them and got to meet all of them, which was cool and fun!
August 14th
I went to an informational meeting this morning with Frieda and her friends from last night and then we had lunch at the school cafeteria. I had a hamburger and it was pretty decently sized and not toooo expensive. The first presentation at the meeting was really funny and the chair of the Social Sciences department kind of joked around about Norwegian culture. There were cute little comics and stories about how awkward, shy, and quiet Norwegian's are. (I'm home! :) ) And how to try and get to know and befriend them. I thought it was cute and funny and pretty accurate.
I am also pretty sure I got hazed today.... The activity on our Buddy Group schedule said Oslo: East to West", so I thought, ok, we are just taking a nice ride along the metro and they are showing us some of the sights around Oslo? NO!!!! How wrong I was! We met at the end of the Mortensrud line and they told us that this was a competition! We split up into two groups and our first challenge was to go into the little mall and dress up in the craziest outfits we could find. That went well and we only had a few nasty looks from the store employees. The next four stops were drinking/quiz stops where we drank and answered quiz questions. (I had water mom, don't worry!) Then it just got worse/better and more embarrassing from there... We had twenty minutes to get as many "Scream-painting Selfies"with random strangers in front of the Munchmuseet (Munch Museum), which is rather difficult when you don't speak Norwegian. Then we had a race with carrying potatoes on spoons down the length of the moving and packed metro, and had to get strangers to pay for hugs from us. We ended up raising about 16kr, which was pretty impressive! Our team won in the end and it was honestly a blast! We made total fools out of ourselves, but it was a lot of fun and crazy at the same time. We had dinner at a kebab shop (kind of like a Gyro) and I will definitely have to show it to my family when they visit! The food was awesome and after that we ended up at a bar and played Cards Against Humanity which was really fun and a great way to get to know people. It was a crazy day and we did a lot of random things, but it was honestly one of my favorite things that I have done here so far! I think the next few days will be a little more laid back, so hopefully I have a chance to run some errands and explore a little more!
Here are some pictures!:
August 13th
I had to make my appointment to register with the police is what I mean. :) Everything I received from the Norwegian embassy said that I had to check in within 7 days of arrival, but after waiting in line for an hour and a half with everyone else in the same situation, the earliest date they had was Sept 1st. Sooo, hope that isn't a problem!? After that I sat and read in one of the buildings on campus while I ate my lunch and then I decided to explore more of the University and I found a little kids soccer tournament about a mile down the street which was pretty cute! I noticed something on my walk and it seems so crazy to me, but the side streets are pretty narrow and still people are allowed to parallel park, on the same side, facing different directions?! And it is still a two way street, even thought only one car can fit through at a time! I just thought it was interesting and different...
After my walk, I met up with my Buddy Group and we went around to different stations around campus to compete in different games they had prepared. We played doge-ball, brain trauma charades (who thought of that?! :/), potato sack/quiz race, 3-legged race through the campus fountain, and other little games like that. It was fun at first, but then people from my group started dropping out and so we joined an all Norwegian group. That was fun until I was the only international student left and they just kind of stopped talking or explaining anything in English.... so I left too. :/ It was still pretty fun though!
After that I returned home and attempted to make my first non-peanut-butter meal!!!! Lets just say... I need to work on my cooking skills... a lot. I started out by putting the pasta in the water without boiling it first. Then, I took what I thought was spaghetti sauce (really chopped tomatoes) and mixed it with some other random things that I had bought. It took forever to boil the pasta and water and I just gave up at some point... So when I finished, I had under-cooked soggy pasta with not enough sauce that wasn't seasoned at all. I had to crack up at myself and my hopeless attempt at cooking, but at least it was semi-edible and something other than peanut-butter! Progress! I am hoping I can learn some cooking tips from my roommates, because my meals can hopefully only improve from here!
Frieda also had some friends over, (from Germany and Hungary) so I hung out with them and got to meet all of them, which was cool and fun!
August 14th
I went to an informational meeting this morning with Frieda and her friends from last night and then we had lunch at the school cafeteria. I had a hamburger and it was pretty decently sized and not toooo expensive. The first presentation at the meeting was really funny and the chair of the Social Sciences department kind of joked around about Norwegian culture. There were cute little comics and stories about how awkward, shy, and quiet Norwegian's are. (I'm home! :) ) And how to try and get to know and befriend them. I thought it was cute and funny and pretty accurate.
I am also pretty sure I got hazed today.... The activity on our Buddy Group schedule said Oslo: East to West", so I thought, ok, we are just taking a nice ride along the metro and they are showing us some of the sights around Oslo? NO!!!! How wrong I was! We met at the end of the Mortensrud line and they told us that this was a competition! We split up into two groups and our first challenge was to go into the little mall and dress up in the craziest outfits we could find. That went well and we only had a few nasty looks from the store employees. The next four stops were drinking/quiz stops where we drank and answered quiz questions. (I had water mom, don't worry!) Then it just got worse/better and more embarrassing from there... We had twenty minutes to get as many "Scream-painting Selfies"with random strangers in front of the Munchmuseet (Munch Museum), which is rather difficult when you don't speak Norwegian. Then we had a race with carrying potatoes on spoons down the length of the moving and packed metro, and had to get strangers to pay for hugs from us. We ended up raising about 16kr, which was pretty impressive! Our team won in the end and it was honestly a blast! We made total fools out of ourselves, but it was a lot of fun and crazy at the same time. We had dinner at a kebab shop (kind of like a Gyro) and I will definitely have to show it to my family when they visit! The food was awesome and after that we ended up at a bar and played Cards Against Humanity which was really fun and a great way to get to know people. It was a crazy day and we did a lot of random things, but it was honestly one of my favorite things that I have done here so far! I think the next few days will be a little more laid back, so hopefully I have a chance to run some errands and explore a little more!
Here are some pictures!: