Well this past week or so I have spent in Bø, but they have been filled with many adventures- some not so wonderful. Here at Telemark University, every Feburary for 10 days the students host 'Viko' which is comparable to a Homecoming week. It is basically time for a bunch of different student run activites aimed at breaking the winter time blues. This year Viko ran from Feb. 14th until the 24th. I missed the beginning of it because of my trip to Italy, but I was able to participate in some of the activities this past week and was even involved in 'hosting' one of them. Some of the Viko activites I missed were various concerts, a talent show, different speakers, etc., but here are some of the ones I participated in....
I went to my first Viko activity on Tuesday night, which was an taco/pizza buffet at one our our local restuarants. It was only 70 NOK, so super cheap for Norwegain standards (actually about 12 USD- I try to avoid converting- it is just too painful). Since being over here, the one type of food I crave the most is Mexican food, so to say the least I loaded up on tacos. I went with a group of US students after we were done planning for 'International Day'.
On Wednesday, it was 'International Day'. All of the international students got together with others from their home countries and made a poster, food, presentation, etc. showing off their home and culture. Members from the community and school then came from 2-4 in the afternoon to our different stands set up in the foyer of the school to learn about everyone. Most coutnries had food/ drink, photos, facts, costumes, and some even performed music, dances or cultural traditions for everyone. It really was a contest between the countries and at the end we all voted for our favorite. We Americans realized we really didn't stand a chance because we do not really have any special cultural traditions and those that we do have- everyone already knows. But we did make a stand and had some visitors- really I think it was just for the food :) My friends from Kurdistan won and Lithuania took second.
On Friday we had our second excurison for my skiing class. It was slightly dissapointing because our excursion was the same loop that I do almost daily with my friend Meg, but it was fun going with a larger group and all skiing together. Tune (my professor) also talked to us about the biathlon and we played some more games with our skis on, which is always an adventure.
On Saturday, for Viko, there was a 'sledging' competition at the school. There is a pretty big sledding hill on the side of the school and so students can make teams and enter a sled or 'sledge' as they call it. They take turns racing them down the hill and have to race to hit a bell and whoever does it the fastest wins. There were only about 8 teams, but so many people came together to watch. Some of the sledges they raced down on were so terrifying- you could not pay me $100USD to go down in one! There were so many wooden things attached to skis and some guys even went down in a shopping cart. Thankfully, although they were there, the Red Cross was not needed. Afterwards there was an 'afterski' part at school, which was pretty much everyone sitting around talking and dancing to music. It was based off from the tradition of people getting together after a long day of skiing and having a party.
Other than Viko, my life hasn't been too exciting. Unfortunately on this past Monday or Tuesday, my computer completely crashed, like took 2 hours to turn on and then only worked in 'Safe Mode'. So I took it into our tech support at school and they had no idea what was wrong with it. The only suggestion I got was to reboot it to factor mode. After talking with my brother, we decided it was the best idea. So I first headed to my bookstore and bought a jumpdrive and filled that, along with the two I already had, with all of my pictures and important files I had on my computer. Then I completely wiped it down to factor mode. It took a while, but I finally got it working (mostly). I had some problems getting connected to the internet until today, but think I have it. I am rocking it 90's styles with Internet Explorer, so its testing my patience, but at least it works. My mom can relax a little bit too now, because I can skype, so I still have some connection to the world back home. I think my computer had just had enough of the power coversion and connecting to all the foregin internet connections and gave up. I had been warned this would most likely happened, so I am happy it will last me at least for the next three months and I am looking at the bright side that this is one less thing I have to pack to bring home!
This weekend, my friend from the States, Amanda (Ace), comes to visit me for about 5 days and so I'll be spending the week in Oslo and taking a trip down to Slovakia to visit some of our other camp friends- so I am very excited to see some familar faces. And today marks exactly 3 months till I board a plane for home... I simply cannot believe it is already the end of Feburary and I still have so much more I want to do! Ahh!!
Wish you all the best- hugs and kisses!
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