Money- That's What I Want!

“You can be young without money, but you can't be old without it.” - Tennessee Williams

Life has been pretty interesting lately, well mainly just Thursday evening/Friday morning. On Thursday evening I was all ready to be really productive- had my grocery list in hand, train tickets figured out, and my Ecophilosophy homework all laid out awaiting my return home. All I needed to do first was stop by an ATM after class and take some money out… and then my card got EATEN BY THE MACHINE!!! So I started to panic…’But wait!’ I thought to myself, ‘I’ll just go and ask the bank to get it out for me. Jeeze, Marissa, you are so smart to use an ATM directly attached to a bank and not a free standing one!’ Wrong-o… it was 4.15 and the bank was already closed, in fact it closed at 3.00. So I start to panic. I have no money, I have practically no food left, and I have no way of talking to anyone at the bank! I come home and luckily was able to get in touch with my wonderful Momma, who had got my bank back home to cancel my card and rush order me a new one! Thanks again Momma! I was very happy to remember that I have an emergency credit card and then tried to proceed about my life and go ahead to buy the train tickets so they don’t jack up in price. Again, how wrong I was...Did you know that at many places in Norway that in order to use your credit card, you also need to have a 4 digit pin number for that said card? No, well I didn’t either until I tried to buy my tickets. Apparently most European credit cards have a pin number like our debit cards do. So this is going to make life pretty difficult until I get my new debit card in the mail.

Yesterday (Friday) I took a class field trip to the museum here in Bø. We were able to look around at some of the historic homes and see inside the old general store. In one of the old houses, we had some tea and cookies and learned a little about the music culture here in Bø and we also got to hear someone play a few songs on the hardanger fiddle. On Bø’s coat of arms there are 3 hardanger fiddles (1 for the fiddle makers, 1 for the fiddle players and 1 for the audience) and it claims to be the home of inventing the modern hardanger fiddle. Here’s what the coat of arms looks like.

Last night, some other Americans and I got together to spread a little USA Halloween love to Norway and we carved some pumpkins, ate pumpkin seeds and watched Hocus Pocus.

Cinnamon pumpkin seeds

My happy pumpkin :)

All four of ours- 2 smiling pumpkins, a platypus and vote 'yes' on ref. 74 in Washington

Well, I’m having a pretty boring weekend and just doing a bunch of research and homework before I leave for 5 days in Prague on Wednesday! But I hope you all have a wonderful (and SAFE!) Halloween weekend and Halloween! Eat some extra candy for me! I love and miss you all!