Hei Norway

Managing time poorly

2007-07-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I have not been up-to-date with the blog, but I'm posting several entries that will be post-dated, so the will appear below this one. (But I still need to write about the Stavanger trip! Soon, soon I promise, but I have to go to sleep now so that I can wake up at 6AM tomorrow to go on a whitewater-rafting trip led by the school.)

Here are some pictures that I recently posted on my picture website http://picasaweb.google.com/apreble/

To the west coast!

Tubing in Sandefjord

The worst night of my life in Norway! (so far)

2007-07-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

After lunch I went to the Natural History Museum where they had an exhibit on animal homosexuality. It caused some controversy when it opened, but it really didn’t seem that controversial of an exhibit and there were more children there than adults. The most disgusting/interesting thing on display were two dried sperm whale penises that were about 3 meters/yards long. They also had a picture of two male sperm whales surfacing with their penises wrapped around each other.

I got back to my apartment around 7 PM, and put my stuff down and got ready to go out to see a movie with a guy who’s the cousin of a Norwegian girl I met on the first day I was here. I had just locked the bedroom door to my apartment when I decided I wanted to change my shoes because it had started raining. I tried to open the door, but the lock seemed to be broken. I tried harder, and then the door handle stopped working all together. I was late for the movie, so I just ran out the door and didn’t think about it until I was on my way home. When I got back home, it was about 1:30 in the morning, and the door still wouldn’t open no matter what I did. (I live in a four bedroom apartment that has a separate lock for the front door and all of the bedrooms, and all of my stuff was locked inside the bedroom.)

I decided to call a directory assistance service that advertises that they can fix all of your problems. I asked if they could find me the emergency phone number to the manager of the building who could help me get into my room. Unfortunately they just transferred me to a woman who was obviously asleep and who didn’t speak any English. I tried to call them back to get another listing, but my cell phone told me that I needed to buy more credit.

AHHH!!!! Not many places are open 24 hours in Norway, but I had seen a gas station on the way back home that was open. I walked back there to buy more minutes on my phone, and started talking to the guy behind the counter about the lock on my door. He called a few people for me and he said that I needed to contact the security company that watches the building. Luckily I had saved the number into my phone when I first moved in, so I called them from the gas station. He told me that I needed to try harder to open the door and really force the key into the lock, and to call him back only if I really couldn't get the door open. When I got back to the apartment, I tried for the third time to open the door, and it still didn’t work.

Now it was 1:45AM, and I was really tired. I called him again and he told me that he would come out to fix the door, but he wouldn’t be there for one hour. I went to sleep on the couch in the living room waiting for him to call. When he called, I was asleep, but woke up when he tried to call me a second time. He came up to the apartment, but when he got there, he only had the same key that I had to open the door, not the master key which opens all the doors in the complex. (The rooms have hotel-like keys so that they can be reprogrammed when someone new moves in, but there is a regular lock on all of the doors also so that all the doors in the complex can be opened with one key.)

He tried and tried to open the door, and broke the door more if it wasn’t already broken, then said that he would go and look for a master key in the office. When he got back, he said that he couldn’t find the key, but he couldn’t let me stay in the apartment because my name was not on the lease. I told him that was ridiculous, and I would walk downstairs with him, but then I would just walk back up when he left. (He didn't have a gun--this isn't this United States.) He left me in the apartment, and I went to sleep on the couch at about 4:30AM. I set my alarm for 10AM because that’s when the office opened up downstairs.

Well guess who came into the apartment at 9:45AM??? Painters! They had come to finish painting the living room. They had a master key. They finally let me into my room, and I slept until noon. At noon they knocked on my door and said that they would try to fix the lock, so I got up to take a shower. When I got out of the shower, the lock was in a million pieces on the floor, and he said that they didn't have any spare parts that they could fix the lock. Since everyone who lives in the apartment is home for the summer, I just left the door open.

But when I got back home that night, the lock was fixed! Thank you painters workers!

To Songsvann

2007-07-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

School started back again after a long weekend, and I showed up late to class because I took the train from Sandefjord that morning. After class, a bunch of students went up to Songsvann, a nice lake only a short T-Bane (subway) ride from campus. While on the subway, there were people checking for tickets. I had a ticket, but I just hadn’t stamped it correctly so she tried to fine me 900 Kroners. That’s about $150 US. I say “tried” because I don’t know my address in Norway, and I only had my Louisiana driver’s license with me. Honestly, I don’t think that there is too much they can do with only my name.

Once I got to the lake, it took me a little while to find the others, but students from the summer school are pretty loud and it didn’t take me very long to find them. I was exhausted from the weekend, so I just lay down in the grass and watched everyone play volleyball. I tried to study a little bit, but it just made me more tired, and I fell asleep.

I'm looking forward to a "real" warm day when I can go swimming comfortably.

First sunny day in three weeks!

2007-07-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

After a fun night out in Sandefjord on Thursday, we woke up on Friday to sunshine for the first time in more than three weeks! His cousin and her boyfriend from Germany were in town, and we really didn't want to waste the sunny day--we wanted to go out on a boat! (Espen’s dad’s boat capsized at the beginning of the summer, and was still being repaired, but we were able to go out on his friend’s Peter’s boat.)

The plan was to go wakeboarding and tubing for a couple of hours and then go back to Espen’s dad’s house for a BBQ. Espen went out wakeboarding first, and it looked pretty fun, but I didn’t feel like trying it today because the water was so cold. It was only 17 degrees Celsius or about 63 degrees Fahrenheit. We wore wetsuits because it was more comfortable and because of the many jellyfish in the water.

Jodi (Espen’s cousin’s boyfriend) and I went out on tubes next. It started out slow, but we were soon flying on the water and it was much more difficult to stay on than I thought. Jodi was the first to fly off the tube, but I was next with an impressive back flip when the tube hit a big wave. It felt really cool, and everyone said it looked awesome, too. We then got back on and only went for about five more minutes before I purposely jumped off again. I was so tired of holding on, that I didn’t really feel like doing it any more.

After we got back to the dock I really started to appreciate Norway’s “real” summer weather. Next up was Peter and Jana, and I rode on the front of the boat while Espen drove. At one point, Jana went over a bump and landed right on top of Peter. It was really funny looking, and on the next bump she bounced off. After about 15 or 20 minutes of pulling them behind we went back to the dock and called it a day.

We made it to Espen’s dad’s house in time for the barbecue and played a funny game of throwing wooden blocks around the yard trying to knock them over. The boy’s team won the most times! After that we had a great meal prepared by his dad and his dad’s girlfriend. On short notice—Espen told them we were coming over before we went out on the boat.

Here are the pictures:

In Stavanger!

2007-07-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

We made it to Stavanger late Thursday night, set up the tent, ate pizza, and went to sleep. That night it rained. A lot. Fortunately, the tent was a good one and we didn't get very wet at all. The next morning it was hard to wake up because it was still raining, but we did get up and then rain eventually stopped. We went to a really, really cool rock that hangs over the fjord that's a 600-700 meter drop straight down. There are some good pictures of Espen and I, but you will have to wait until Monday when my computer comes in.

I have to go now, but I'll write more later! Ha det!

A journey to the west coast

2007-07-05T00:50:00.000-07:00

Espen and I are off today on a road trip to the west coast. It's a pretty random trip since we have no plans of what we want to see or exactly where we want to go. I'm skipping the next couple days of class, but bringing my Norwegian homework with me. We have a tent, some air mattresses, sleeping bags, some clothes, and a sense of adventure!

Time to hit the road!
Ha det!

More rain in Oslo

2007-07-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

Honestly, we have had only one sunny day since school started. The rest have either been rainy or cloudy, and pretty cold. I'm told that it's not usually this wet, and that soon it will be summer; we'll see.

Anyway, today I went for a walk down the Aker river in central Oslo in the rain with about ten other brave souls. It was interesting because the water was very high, and looked close to spilling over the banks into the low-lying former factory buildings now converted into apartments or offices. It was neat to see so many old houses and factories were still standing, and that until electricity came along, the river was the primary source of the factories' power.

I also learned that since Oslo was covered up by heavy glaciers for thousands of years, the land was compressed. Once the ice melted, the land started to rise and even continues to rise today. In fact, most of the central downtown area was under water just 300 years ago--opposite of Louisiana's sinking land problem.

As we continued down the river we game to a huge waterfall that was now gushing and looked really amazing. I managed to snap some pictures with my cell phone camera, but unfortunately I still don't have the right cable or software to hook it into the computer.

We ended the tour a little bit early because everyone was soaking wet, and the guide explained that there wasn't much else to see. On Thursday and Friday I'm skipping school and I'm going to drive to the west coast of Norway with Espen. We'll stay there through the weekend and I'll go back to class on Friday. Next week we have midterms already! The summer's going by fast, let's hope there's some nice weather coming soon! Ha det!

Vigeland sculpture park walk

2007-06-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went for the second time in two days to a park in Oslo where an artist called Gustav Vigeland created 192 sculptures containing over 600 figures. He even designed the layout of the park, and the placement of all the sculptures.

Let me say this, it's really an amazing site. Here are a couple pictures that I took around 10 PM. Notice how bright it still is outside.

(No more pictures until I get my computer... the good one's were up and down and this computer will not let me rotate them.)

Now in Oslo

2007-06-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long lapse in updates...

I've been without a computer, and there have been a million people to talk to since arriving at the international summer school. Last week, I was still living in Sandefjord, about two hours south of Oslo, and having a good time. The weather was nice, and I was spending my days walking lazily around town.

Last Thursday, I went to the whaling museum, which had just put on display a blue whale vertebrae from a blue whale that was beached and died (maybe somewhere near the town). It explained the whole history of whaling, and how they were an important to the lives of many people all around the world.

I didn't think it explained Norway's current pro-whaling stance very well. The only thing they seemed to say was that it isn't currently important to the economy, and it's a very small operation compared to what it used to be.

The on Friday, I moved to Oslo and checked into the dorms on campus at the University of Oslo. The dorms are housed in a very pretty building from the outside, with rose gardens all around, but the inside is a different story. The rooms are really only meant to house one person, and most rooms have two or three people in them. My room happens to be on the first floor next to the only set of stairs in the building. The stairs are hard concrete, and when people are walking up and down you hear them very loudly. The outside door slamming shut makes a nice complement, and together prevent me from getting too much sleep.

I may be in luck since I've found someone to switch with, but I haven't brought it up to my roommate yet to see if he would mind another guy moving in. My roommate is named Isa, pronounced EESA, and he's from the Chechnya Republic--which is preety interesting, but I feel like it's hard to communicate with him sometimes.

Classes have started and they seem a bit slow. It's three hours long, and it can get boring by the end of class. It will probably improve once we start moving into more advanced concepts, but we'll see.

Got to run because dinner isn't served after 7. Ha det (another form of goodbye)!

Rudolf tastes pretty good!

2007-06-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

Last night at dinner I had the privilege of eating Rudolf and Bambi all in one sitting! Espen's mom prepared a "Norwegian specialty" which consisted of a reindeer stew that was served over rice, deer tenderloins to eat with a raspberry-like sauce, mashed potatoes, and steamed vegetables. An appetizer of shrimp with a peach-colored cream sauce. Everything was delicious!

Earlier in the day I went with Espen and his sister Maja to hike on one of the peninsulas that jut out into the Sande Fjord. At the tip of the one we hiked, there were old German military bunkers that were built into the rocks during the war. It was pretty interesting to see, and his mom's friend explained to me that it used to be closed off to the public until 10 years ago.

As we were climbing the rocks, I watched Espen jump over a crevice with ease. When I tried the same feat, I clumsily fell and ended up scraping my hands and knees. I will admit I was a bit hungover, so kids (by kids, I mean mentally deficient adults) let this be a lesson to you: don't go jumping over rock crevices after a rough night out!

The day before (Saturday), Espen had a work party to go to for the whole day, so I spent the day with Tuva walking around the center of Sandefjord and meeting up with some other friends at a cafe. It was a pretty day, and warm enough to wear a tank top and shorts. At the main square they were having a modeling show, but it looks pretty silly and out of place. In the crowd were people dressed up in ridiculous looking costumes, so i snapped a few photos (you'll have to wait until I buy a new cable to hook up my cell phone to the computer).

That night I went to a foreplay party (again, not what it may sound like, but a gathering before you go out on the town), and then we went to a club called Cactus. I think it's the only club in town, but I'm not really sure. It was nice and sweaty, and it looked like everyone was having a good time.

Today I spent the whole day on the phone with insurance companies, but tomorrow I have no plans. I've been having a great time despite the chilly weather and losing EVERYTHING of value.

Check out this map of the city on Google Maps. I'll get some pictures up soon! Hadde!

Made it to Norway!

2007-06-16T11:23:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, the glee of arriving in one piece doesn't make up for the fact that I had about $5000 worth of electronics and clothes stolen from me at the JFK airport. This included a new jacket, my fancy flip-flops, a new iPod, a new computer, a hard drive, a 6 month old camera, my chargers, noise-cancelling headphones, all my shorts, several t-shirts, important documents, mom's jewelry, dad's prints, and maybe other things that I'm forgetting. It could have been worse, I could have died.

I was warned the night before at the information counter that if I slept at JFK overnight to be extra careful of my belongings, but I didn't spend the night at the airport. My bag was stolen off of the Air Train that connects to the different terminals at JFK. The train I was on broke down and we had to be evacuate from the train when it finally made it to a station. In the confusion of the evacuation, I left one back on the train. (I had also just met a Lufthansa employee who was helping me pull strings to get on a flight later on that day, and I was following her closely so I could keep talking to her.)

After getting off the train we had to wait for a bus to take us to the terminals. When I finally made it to terminal one and got off the bus, I realized that I didn't have my big bag with me. I immediately called the Air Train security, and they said that they would check every train. It had only been about 10 minutes from when I got off the train, so I thought they would be able to recover it quickly.

A couple hours later I was talking to the Port Authority Police Department because no one had been able to locate the bag. So now here I am in Norway, the most expensive country in the world, $5000 poorer. I do carry insurance on all the electronics, and I have general travel insurance which ended up paying for a new ticket to Norway at $1500. They may cover the non-electronic items.

Everyone here has been great to me so far, and it's been an interesting start to my journey. I'm off to a vorspeil party (foreplay party). It's not like it sounds, honestly. It's just the general term for a party before you go out on the town. Hadde (bye)!

The fun's not over in New York!

2007-06-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

After a crazy day of running errands around New York, here I am. Still in New York. I was supposed to be on a plane right now over the Atlantic Ocean, but instead I'm stuck, typing out another entry to my blog. Aren't you lucky.

I didn't really have that much to do today. Meet Wesley for lunch, visit the Skyscraper Museum, buy a new pair of the same sunglasses that I left at home, meet up with Jennifer so she could pay me back $20 she borrowed for a cab fare, and have dinner with Wesley and Lauren. I was even planning to go to the Museum of Natural History if I had extra time.

Well things got off to a slow start when Wesley didn't realize I had been waiting for him in the lobby for 30 minutes before he came down. Then I decided to walk from Battery Park up to the South Street Seaport to go to the Sunglass Hut. They didn't have my glasses, so I was directed up to midtown. She didn't tell me the right address so I was walking around forever trying to find it. Then meeting Jennifer turned into a hassle when she had to step into a meeting at the last minute. And the fitting room line at H&M took 30 minutes.

Already behind, I should've skipped dinner, but I thought I'd make it quick. For some reason I spaced out and didn't realize that it was already 9:15 by the time we left. The subway took forever (I was originally planning to take the faster LIRR), and then I couldn't locate the LOT check-in counter at the airport.

They wouldn't let me board if I wanted to check in any bags, and they told me they were sold out for a week. Fortuneately, Lufthansa has some flights, and they might be able to help me out tomorrow when their tickey counter opens. I'll be first in line!

(By the way, this is the first flight that I've EVER missed.)

So much fun at JFK

2007-06-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine, I had a blast at JFK maneuvering all my stuff from the JetBlue terminal to the LOT Polish Airlines terminal where I could store my bags. It was just one stop on the train, but just getting to the train was a bit of a challenge requiring three elevators that would have been huge normally, but not big enough for my six-foot, six-inch bag which I had to bear hug for the entire ride in order for it to fit.

When I finally made it to terminal 4 at JFK, it was a couple more elevators until I made it to the right level. Other people were not as friendly as I would have hoped (or expected). In the end I made it to the city with just a few blisters on my hands, and was easy enough that I would do it again if necessary. JetBlue is an amazing airline and didn't charge me anything for two overweight and over sized bags.

Let's hope LOT will be as friendly on Wednesday.

Nothing to do

2007-06-08T11:21:00.001-07:00

To say I have nothing to do might be a little bit of a stretch, but I'm waiting for my snowboard bag to come in before I can really start packing. Exactly this time next week I will be settling in to whatever Norwegian life has to offer. Oil? Whale blubber? Who knows? I know now that I'm excited! (But worried about how I'm going to get all my luggage from JFK to my cousin's apartment, up six flights of stairs, and back again.)

We'll see...

Snowboarding in Louisiana

2007-06-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

I just thought I'd get dressed up and have some fun... I'm wearing my sunglasses to simulate goggles because I won't get the goggles until Friday. (The feminine looking goggles that REI sent me were actually women's goggles! What a surprise!) They didn't fit too well so I returned them and they are overnighting another pair to get here by Friday.

All I really have to say is that I'm super excited, and I can't wait until I go try it out. My friend Espen in Norway told me today that there's a glacier in Norway where you can go during the summer and sometimes you can even wear a t-shirt and shorts.

I'm expecting (packages)

2007-06-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of days, I've been going crazy trying to order everything that I'll need for a year of cold temperatures and snow. I think I've moved on with my jacket fetish, and now I'm onto snowboard gear. Mind you, I HAVE NEVER SNOWBOARDED BEFORE. I've never lived anywhere cold, and the closest thing I've come to snow is visiting New York City after a winter storm in March. It was pretty nasty, but I didn't go outside more than I had to.

So now here I am imagining myself snowboarding in the alps, and buying gear. I started out at REI.com and I was VERY impressed with their sale prices and quality equipment. Below is a picture of the board I ended up purchasing. A K2 Titan... I'm having a hard time saying that with a straight face, but whatever.

Luckily it turned out to be the PERFECT time to purchase snowboard and winter gear since it's the end of the season, and the board cost less than an iPod. (But I bought one of those, too--hey, it's my birthday!) With everything else it looks like it will cost over a couple iPods, but remember I have NOTHING. No helmets, goggles, gloves, jackets, pants, boots, etc.

And no bag. Which I realized late last night. Bags must be more popular than the actual equipment because most places were out, including REI. Somehow I managed to find this company called Buckman's out of Pennsylvania. They had more than a few bags, good sale prices, and free shipping. But wait. I need this bag by Friday so that I can pack up everything on Saturday.

I didn't think their free shipping policy would cover overnighting it to me, so I set my alarm to call them at first thing in the morning (actually 10:45 AM). When I called I noticed everyone seemed to be happy and you could really tell they were smiling on the other end. I was told that they could get out the biggest bag they sold for snowboards that had wheels today, and if it would cost anything extra to get it here by Friday then they would call me back today.

To make a longer story shorter, they did call me back, but told me the bag didn't really have wheels after all, but they could send me one tomorrow and they would eat the additional shipping (about $90, he told me, because they messed up on the wheels). It was WAY more than I was expecting, and they were extremely nice during the whole process. I told them to throw in some pants that are on sale to help offset the shipping cost, and that I really appreciated everything they were doing for me. If and when I'm ever in the United States, and if and when I ever need any ski or snowboard gear, I will definitely check them out first.

I can't wait to get all my gear and play dress up, and I'll be sure to post some pictures when I do...

But they do have some problems...

2007-06-02T16:49:00.001-07:00

It seems that the heated sidewalks article from Condenast Traveler may not have told the complete truth. What a surprise!

Norway it seems does have a few problems. Heated sidewalks are only used in the downtown areas, some tunnels have problems, taxes are sky-high, and they have a problem with graffiti and littering. Hummmm.... Has the author been to a city in the United States? Or perhaps Latin America? Where littering is the norm (Mardi Gras!!), and where police can't even control the murder rate.

In other news, a man wrestled a monkfish for 15 minutes before he killed it and brought it to the surface. This fish was almost 40 feet long and weighed over 120 pounds.

I'm expecting a Hellen Keller moment

2007-05-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

Fact: I lived around at least two, sometimes three, Norwegians for 5 whole months!
Fact: They liked to talk about me and other people in Norwegian, so no one could understand them!
Fact: Hellen Keller met Annie Sullivan on March 3, 1887!
Fact: Hellen Keller ran to the water pump understanding the word water meant water on April 5, 1887!
Fact: I think I'm smarter than Hellen Keller!

So how long will it take for me to have my Hellen Keller moment? All I've got is 6 weeks of school, so we'll see.

Hi with an "e"

2007-05-24T22:03:00.000-07:00

It probably won't come as a surprise to see that I'm headed off to another location, but Norway? Why is the land of fjords and vikings so interesting to Andrew? Well I'll tell you why. The have heated sidewalks!

Norway also happens to be home to some wealthy friends (you know who you are) and pretty girls (you know who you are), and since I haven't been to "school" in a while I might as well take some classes. And learn something useful, like the Norwegian language. Hey, you never know, if they finish off all the whales, they may start hunting those land-based whales of the United States. Since I can speak Norwegian, I'll be able to talk behind all the fat people's backs and make fun of them without them understanding.

And it just so happens that Norwegians like to stick an extra e into hi. But honestly, that's all I know. I have a lot to learn. More later... They say something that sounds like "halla" when they say goodbye but I have no idea how to spell it. And remember, they have heated sidewalks!