Photos

I am setting a new record for posting frequency. Also for my shortest post:

There are new photos.

Cabin Trips
Enjoy!

 

en dag i livet

I’m not sure they have this particular expression, but literally translated it’s “a day in the life”. I’ve been writing a lot about walking through the wilderness and chilling in mountain cabins, but believe it or not that’s not part of my daily routine. So, in the interest of filling in the picture of my life in Norway, here’s the story of Wednesday the 25th of February – largely a normal day, though a particularly busy one, lending itself to storytelling.

I have been feeling tired, and almost fell asleep in Galois Theory on Tuesday, so I have moved sleep up a few notches on my priority list. Wednesdays I only have one class, Classical Mechanics, from 12 to 2, so I let myself sleep in until 9. For the first time in several weeks I changed my eating habits, turned American, and had a bowl of cereal and milk for breakfast. I have adopted the Norwegian custom of smørbrød (lit. butterbread – open faced sandwiches with jam, cheese, veges, ham, etc. as toppings) for breakfasts, but I had run out of bread, and so was forced to switch cultures. The lack of bread also prevented me from making a matpakke (foodpack) for lunch, so I guess I’ll have to comment on my eating habits another day.

Class wasn’t until 12, but I caught the bus at 10:45 so that I could do some work before hand. I have found it is much easier to concentrate and avoid procrastination if I’m not at home. Go figure. I found a place in the cafeteria in the building where I have Classical Mechanics, and actually made some sense of the homework problems for the class. In addition, the lecture that followed also made sense for once. Physics has been really interesting, and I have missed that type of thinking, but it has also been very confusing. Slowly, it has been making more and more sense, though. Language isn’t a problem, as the lectures are in English, but it has been a long time since I have done any sort of applied math, and longer still since I have fought the good fight against differential equations and symbolic integrals.

Classes at NTNU (Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)) are all on a very logical schedule. Each period lasts 45 minutes, starting at quarter past. Most classes meet for two consecutive periods, with a 15 minute break in the middle. Since most of my classes meet around lunch time, this break is a convenient time for eating. I usually try to eat slowly so that I have something to munch on during the second lecture. It helps keep my eyes open during abstract algebra.

So, I ate lunch during physics, and afterwards took the bus down to the center of town to do some shopping. I was out partly just to explore, but there were a couple specific things on my list, namely socks and ski boots. I can rent skis at the university, but unfortunately a size 48 (US 13.5) is slightly uncommon, and they don’t have any boots big enough. I started with a sports store on Fjordgata, and almost immediately became distracted (You can find Fjordgata on the map right across the river from the police station). The sports store was nice, but way to expensive, so I continued down the street and discovered an amazing succession of three little shops. I am certainly no recreational shopper, but the combination of old stuff, cheap stuff, and Norwegian stuff temporarily changed that. The first was a tiny antique shop that seemed made for a nisse, with low ceilings, cramped passageways, and walls entirely hidden by hanging clothes. In other words, a typical antique shop, but with a Norwegian twist. Next was Fretex, the Norwegian version of Salvation Army. They had a very similar array of wares, but much better organized, and more spread out. Both places had a few old ski boots, but about half the size I needed – from some kid with growing feet. Finally there was the Norwegian army surplus store! What a great place. I’m not into camo, or hunting knives, but they had a large selection of woolen clothing, for reasonable prices. I got a pair of wool mittens for skiing, and some wool liner socks, for future cabin trips.

All of this was quite fun, but I was getting short on time, and still wanted to find boots. Like in most cities, the shops within walking distance of downtown are relatively high-end, so I planned to take the bus north and east to a section of the city called Lade, which has several shopping centers. As often happens, I missed the bus, and had 20 minutes to wait until the next one. Being dependent on a bus schedule has largely been a new experience. In New Wilmington a second stoplight was a major sign of urbanization, and it takes five minutes to walk across the entirety of the St. Olaf campus, so public transportation is a little foreign to me. Or, at least it has been. After two months of using buses daily I am no expert, but I am certainly experienced. Anyways, there is a small grocery store called Bunnpris (lit. “bottom price”) near the bus stop, and so I went there to buy bread while I was waiting. All of the grocery stores, and even the seven elevens, bake fresh bread daily. During February the bakery at the Bunnpris has a special where every loaf of bread, from the Norwegian wonder bread equivalent, to thick, dark rye bread, is 20 kroner (about $3, a good price for bread here). Of course I bought the thick, dark rye bread, and felt very good about it.

Snacking on a fresh slice of rye bread, I caught the bus, and wandered around Lade for a bit. There I found Intersport, a sports equipment and clothing store, very similar to Dick’s. They had ski boots, of course, and just happened to have a pair of 48s for $30! Since every other pair was at least $70, and as much as $200, I was wary, but they fit, and they weren’t falling apart, so now they’re mine.

A very good day so far, and it was only 6! I think I’ve written quite enough for now, though, so the rest will have to wait until next time. Sorry there aren’t any pictures. I’ll try to put up a few from a recent cabin trip, if I get a chance. Hope all is going well, thanks for reading!

mvh,

-Trygve

p.s. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it a permanent feature, but I’ll bring back the “Norwegian lesson of the day” to explain the abbreviation above. The letters “mvh” stand for “med vennlig hilsen”, literally, “with friendly regards”, the Norwegian “Sincerely”, though maybe slightly less formal.

 

Stakkslettsbua

WordPress tells me it has been 2 and a half weeks since I last wrote. My memory tells me it has been at least a month. Either my memory is failing – already quite well documented – or a lot has happened since then. This is also most certainly true.  I have finally realized that I cannot possibly relate everything of note that happens to me. Some will be told through pictures, certainly, and there will be more storytelling when I return, but I have belatedly realized that many will have to just become part of my private experience. This is a strange thought, and one that will take a while for me to come to terms with. So many of my experiences are impossible to capture with either words or pictures, and it is hard not to be able to share them. Not to mention that I don’t seem to be able to find time to share the ones I can.

I made time today though, and if I muse all day I’ll never get around to anything. Today’s topic is my first cabin trip.

My life here has developed a pattern: School work and social activities during the week, cabin trips, skiing, and exploring nature on the weekends. Studenterhytta was just the first of a string of weekend excursions into the Norwegian wilderness which have gotten progressively more adventurous and intensive. The weekend after Studenterhytta (January 31st to February 1st) I went on another cabin trip with my international friends here. The destination was Stakkslettsbua, a cabin a couple hours southwest of Trondheim (See the map for details).

Stakkslettsbua

There’s a volunteer organization at NTNU called Koiegruppa, literally “The cabin group”, which manages 22 cabins in the Trondheim area. To use one you (generic “you”. I got out of it this time.) get up really early Wednesday morning, show up at NTNU, and stand in line to put your name down for the cabin you want for the weekend. We got our second choice, and so Saturday afternoon we took a bus south to Vinjeøra, and then walked in to the woods! Actually, most of the hike was on a road, but by the time we started walking it was 4:30 – just after sunset – and so it quickly got quite dark. With a full moon and Venus to guide us, the shadows of mountains all around, and no signs of civilization, it seemed pretty remote. We walked for about three hours, at the end taking a trail that led up away from the road, into the woods and mountains. Because we were arriving so late, some of our group had managed to get a ride with a friend earlier in the day, so by the time we arrived they had the fire going and dinner cooking! That was the best part of Saturday.

Breakfast in the cabin. Through the door is a cooking area with a wood-burning stove, and then three bedrooms with a set of bunk beds each.

Since we didn’t get our first choice, the cabin was just a little small for our group. Stakkslettsbua is advertised as a ten person cabin, with six bunk beds. We had nineteen. Luckily the beds were plenty big, so thirteen people doubled (or tripled) up in sleeping bags on the mattresses, and the remaining six found places on the couch, on the floor, or on the table. I spent the night on the bottom bunk between two rowdy Catalans. Great fun.

Sunday morning the adventure really began. To the left of the cabin in the photo, outside of the frame, is a mountain. Somehow I managed to not get any pictures from the bottom, but I have plenty from the top, because we were there! Most of the way the climb wasn’t too bad because it hadn’t snowed for a few weeks. Most of the snow on the mountain had blown away, and what was left was a hard crust which made walking easy. When climbing was necessary, though, the icy surface made things interesting – the sort of thing you tell your mother about after the fact. At the top the view was amazing.

The view from the top

Amazing doesn’t do it justice, and neither does a panoramic picture, no matter how many pixels it contains. It’s one of those experiences that I can’t fully share. Just treat it as an advertisement for visiting Norway; I’m here until August – free weekend tours.

Going down was fun. Wearing snow pants, I could just sit down and push! There were enough ledges that it wasn’t too dangerous. When we got back we had lunch, cleaned the cabin, and then walked back to catch the bus at five. It was a wonderful trip, and a great introduction to the Norwegian wilderness.

 

Photos Fix

Hey.

Thanks to a tip from a dedicated reader, I realized I was the only one enjoying the photos! There aren’t many of them, but now you too can see them. On the right hand side of the page (or at the very top) look for the link “Photos”. Be sure to click on the thumbnails a couple times. Once gives you a larger view with comments, and once more gives you an even bigger view. Some of the photos are really big, particularly the panoramas. All this clicking isn’t exactly how I’d design a photo gallery, but I don’t have time for that, so we’ll make do.

 

Nordmenn

Hello all!

It is unfortunate that in the times when I have the most to write about, I of course have the least time in which to write. This past week has been a fine example (Edit: week and a half. I meant to have this finished Sunday). It was the first “normal” week, if there is such a thing, in that all of my classes have started and activities have started their spring schedules, so I got a glimpse of what my life might be like here in the weeks to come. The future looks good! I think I won’t write about the week, though, and instead skip to the weekend (I like them better anyways). This one in particular has been wonderful.

Over the past few weeks I have been slowly culling through the lists of links to websites that I have gathered from various sources, and perusing (slowly, as most are in Norwegian) the information about events, services, organizations’ meetings, and so on. It was in one such endeavor that I found out about the studenterhytta, and the wine and cheese evening scheduled for this past Saturday.

Studenterhytta

The studenterhytta is a cabin up in the woods west of Trondheim (see the map for details) that is run through volunteer help from the student community. It is open weekends and Tuesday evenings for students to come eat dinner, sleep over, go skiing, or just relax, chat, and study. They have a kitchen and a big dinning room, a living room with a fire, beds upstairs for about 50 guests, and downstairs, a sauna! Sounded pretty good to me, so I signed up, and then Saturday afternoon I packed for the night, went out and bought a sleeping bag, and caught the bus at 4:30 which goes up to the cabin. I’m not sure what I was expecting at the bus stop, maybe a nice sign saying “Studenterhytta” with a big arrow, but all I got was a roundabout, a couple of buildings, and several dark paths. Of course it was pitch black, and I had no idea where to go. No one else I knew was going (I admit, I intentionally kept a little quiet about it, in the hopes of meeting some Norwegians there), but there were only four others on the bus, and two girls were clearly packed for an overnight stay. They also knew where they were going, so I managed to ask them where to go in Norwegian, and of course they said they were headed there and I could come with them. They were Nina Thorvaldsen and Silje Heiland, two master students at NTNU. On the way I managed a decent enough conversation in Norwegian, though after the predictable exchanges concerning names, majors, and home towns I find I have to ask everyone to repeat almost everything at least twice.

Throughout the evening I tagged along with Nina and Silje, and thus managed to have a nearly English-free evening. There were about 40 people at the hytte for the event, and I found the Norwegians! There were only three other exchange students, and they mostly kept to themselves. The event started with a course in wine tasting, where we tasted five different wine and cheese pairs from around the world. Along the way a wine connoisseur talked to us about the subtleties of the wine and cheese, and what to look for when tasting. It was all in Norwegian, with a slightly different vocabulary than what they teach us at St. Olaf, so I understood very little, but enjoyed it all the same. After that they brought out a spread of 45 different cheeses, 43 of which were from Norway, accompanied by crackers, vegetables, and fruits. It was basically a huge all-you-can-eat buffet of cheese and crackers, with not a hint of a bland American cheese in sight! We ate and talked for a good three hours, and still only got through maybe half the cheese. I mostly just ate, listened, and smiled, trying to understand what people were saying. I did speak some, but only when they directed a question at me, and then repeated it. It was a lot of fun, though, and there was a lot of laughter about the particularly strong cheeses, which required no language. Around 10 we helped clean up (really an excuse to eat more), took a walk in the woods, visited the sauna, and then chatted (listened) by candlelight before bed.

I stayed the next day through an early dinner. Around noon Nina and I went for a cross-country ski trip on some of the trails near the cabin. The Norwegians were out in force (It’s the thing to do here on a Sunday afternoon). All ages were represented, from the toddlers who were being pulled along in little trailers equipped with skis, to the retiree community in their official spandex suits and the latest ski technology blazing past us in perfect form.

So that was my weekend. It has of course been fun meeting all of the international students from around the world, but I could do that anywhere (except the US). Finally I have found some Nordmenn (Norwegians). The studenterhytte seems to be a great place for that, so I hope to return there as often as possible for skiing, eating, and learning Norwegian.

 

En dag

In the past 24 hours I’ve had an interesting mix of sights and sounds that in many ways summarize my activities here. Three events, characterized by strikingly different musical accompaniment.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookie Crisp

First, I baked cookies last night, to calm and cool jazz from my laptop. As chocolate chips are virtually an unknown here, I brought a couple bags with me – ostensibly for gifts. I wanted to bake, though, and missed good old American chocolate chip cookies, so I used a bag. I can justify it because I was joined in the baking by Anika Seidler, a friend from Germany. She had never seen chocolate chips, and so the baking was really an exercise in service, spreading the good word of chocolate chip cookies. Buying ingredients at the store was an adventure. Flour, butter, eggs, and baking powder were all fine, but baking soda is disguised, and vanilla extract wasn’t so easy to find either. Baking was just an exercise in conversions – 1 cup butter = 250 grams, 375°F ≈ 190°C, etc. I think everything would have translated just fine, except I only added one of the required two cups of flour. Oops! So our first tray of cookies oozed out from their nicely formed balls to cover the entire cookie sheet in chocolate chip cookie crisp – a new creation! For the second tray I added more flour, and that fixed it, of course. Baking was relaxing; a great activity for a Saturday evening.

And now for something completely different! Yesterday was the grand opening of Huset (phonetically – hooseh. In English, “the house”), the bar, cafe, movie theater, concert house, and main gathering place for students living in Steinan. The building is a small house with an office, bar, and lounge area downstairs, and an open living room sized space upstairs for concerts. For such a small place they have a pretty decent sound setup, and host live, free concerts for students. Playing last night were two bands. The first just made a bunch of noise, and in my opinion, weren’t very good at all. I stuck around, though, because I didn’t want to go home to an empty room. The second and main band was better. Still not my kind of music by a long shot, but their Argentine, Swedish, and Norwegian origins made their music somewhat interesting. Spanish lyrics, electronic effects, distorted guitars, and pounding beats. There was a good crowd, too, which made it better. I’ll have to find other ways of meeting Norwegians, though, as the music easily drowned out any idle chit-chat. Huset is also open as a cafe on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which might be a better venue for talking, meeting people, and hearing one’s own thoughts.

Nidaros Cathedral, after a Sunday morning service.

Nidaros Cathedral, from across the river

Finally, this morning I went to my first church service in Norway! On my first day here I stopped in the Nidaros Cathedral while sightseeing, but today I went there for church! It’s exciting to think that the cathedral could be my weekly church for the semester. Today was a familiegudstjeneste, a “family church service”. I’m not sure what services are like when the aren’t for the family, but this one was a little like a playground. The church is set up with everyone facing sideways in to the center aisle, which connects the altar with the choir and organ. I came late, and found a spot on the far left, in one of the last rows of pews, but pretty close to the altar. In front of me was an aisle, which towards the second half of the service also served as a play-place for several young children. Now I really don’t mind the occasional crying baby in church, as it’s a sign of a more diverse community than we ever have at St. Olaf. But there are crying babies, and then there’s talkative kids, exploring toddlers, and crying babies. I managed to find it all more amusing than annoying, but it made understanding the sermon nearly impossible (something about the woman at the well, and spreading the good word). Everything, of course, was in Norwegian, which was great, and they had a children’s choir which sang some Norwegian hymns with familiar melodies. On top of all that (and probably the reason for a lot of the little ones’ presence), it was baptism day! So I got to see the baptism of Isabella, Kristian, and three others whose names I don’t remember. It was great to be part of a community, even as a guest, and great to hear organ music again.

So in many ways these three events characterize my stay so far. Some time spent at home: cooking, reading, writing to all of you, figuring out my class schedules, and listening to relaxing music. Some time spent with other students, more often than not in the presence of very loud music with a solid beat. And, some time spent exploring the city, finding places to go and things to do that contribute to my goal of a Norwegian cultural experience. To be sure, my time here does not all fit into these categories. For instance there’s the whole school thing; I don’t want you to think I haven’t done any work (though I really haven’t – not yet). But other topics are for future posts. I hope this finds you all well.

Med Vennlig Hilsen,

-Trygve