Peace Be With You

‘I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.’ –Steven Wright

So I apologize to everyone about the lack of posts for the past couple weeks, but life has been crazy! Travels and finals have taken over my life. But now that I’m back in Bø I’ll take the opportunity to fill you in on my two most recent adventure and to make it easier on myself, I’ll do it in two posts and first I’ll start with my trip to Oslo.

After my afternoon final on Friday Dec. 7^th, I hopped on a train and went to Oslo to meet my friend Angela (the one who is studying in Spain) for a weekend. Luckily one of my friends here in Bø has a friend living in downtown Oslo, Ǻshild, who let us stay with her for the weekend. It really helped because hostels in Norway are so expensive. So once I got into Oslo it was pretty late at night so we just spent the night talking with and getting to know Ǻshild.

Saturday morning Angela and I got up early to start our day and on our way to the metro we were stopped and became famous Norwegian movie stars. Well actually here’s what happened. Right outside of the metro stop there was a giant chalkboard that had written in “Before I die I want to...” and then people could take the time to fill it in. There boards are all over the world and they actually started in New Orleans. I had heard about them a few years ago online on a TED talkà  http://www.ted.com/talks/candy_chang_before_i_die_i_want_to.html

Here’s what the board looks like….

So we had walked past this board on Friday night and then on Saturday morning as we were going past, we noticed a group of people with cameras and a tent set up. A guy stopped us as we went past and started asking us if we knew what the board was and if we could help them out with a film they were making. They were a part of the Norwegian Humanist movement and were making a film to raise awareness for their campaign in January/February. The Humanists main statement is that you do not necessarily have to be a part of a religion or believe in a higher power to act morally. We agreed to help and so they filmed us washing off the board with a bunch of different shots and angles. They told us they were going to film people throughout the day filling in the blank slots. We helped them out for about an hour, but once they started asking to interview us, that’s when we decided we needed to leave. We weren’t exactly ready to speak in from of the camera.

After that eventful morning we headed off to Vigeland’s Sculpture Park. It’s a park located in the middle of Oslo covered with 100’s sculptures of people from all different ages throughout life. They were really beautifully done. Here are a few of my favorites.

After that we decided to head up to Hollemskolen or the Olympic ski jump. We had asked a person at an information desk how to get there and either we misheard her or she misspoke, because we did not take the right stop at the metro. We ended up getting off way too far up the hill and had to walk about an hour farther down until we came to it. But the walk down was really beautiful and we got to see a really nice view of the sunset over Oslo. 

Once we got to the ski jump we walked around outside and the museum inside to warm up a little. We were even able to take the elevator from the top. Here’s a short video I took of the view from the top.

After the ski jump we headed back down and went to a Christmas market right outside of the National Theater. There were many crafts and good traditional Norwegian foods and for our supper we decided to try a whale burger. It was pretty good, but had a strange texture. It was like there were little bubbles inside of it. That night was finished with some tea and warming up at Ǻshild’s.

The whale burger

Sunday morning we got up early and hopped on a train to Lillehammer to go cross country skiing. We arrived around 10.00 but had to wait until 11.00 to take the bus up to Hafjell- the ski hill. After getting our rentals, taking a really long ride up to the top and finally locating the path- we were off making fools of ourselves as we tried to ski. It was a good thing the paths were not full of many people, because we probably looked completely ridiculous. In one of my classes next semester we’ll be cross country skiing, and I’m just praying that I’ll learn a lot very quickly, otherwise it’s going to be a long semester. My legs and body just don’t move naturally in skis. But on the plus side, it looked like we were skiing through a winter wonderland. It was snowing and so peaceful up on top of the mountain.

We skied for about 3 hours or so and then came down to warm up. After returning our skis we got something to drink and warmed up inside one of the cafes at the bottom of the hill. The information desk had told us we could catch the bus back to the train station at 3. 45, but as we doubled check the schedule, we discovered she had read the wrong day and really the last bus left at 3.15 and right now, it was 3.11. We quickly grabbed all of our things and sprinted down the rest of the hill. Luckily we caught our bus and the train ride back was a piece of cake too. What was even more wonderful was that night we came home and Ǻshild had made us a nice big pot of soup for supper.

The next morning we got up headed to the fortress and lead ourselves through a walking tour of that.

 We then walked past one of the parliament buildings which was all fenced in and covered with news reporters and security. At first we had no idea what was going on, but then later discovered that the Nobel Peace Prize conference was going on right there! After a quick lunch we decided to finish watching the conference in the Nobel Peace Prize museum, literally right next door to where it was actually happening. We were able to watch most of the acceptance speeches- it was awarded to the EU if you didn’t know. Then afterwards, we snuck around back of the building and watched all of the important people coming out to their cars. 

We then headed back to Ǻshild’s to grab Angela’s things so she could head to the airport. I spent another night at Ǻshild’s and then caught a morning train back to Bø on Tuesday. My next few days were then consumed by studying, taking my finals, unpacking/repacking and saying goodbye to friends. All of that before Thursday night! I don’t think I even had a chance to breath, because it was then off to London!