The Final Post

Back in Philadelphia at the Norway flag on Ben Franklin Parkway (holding a Norwegian mitten and wearing a Norwegian sweater)

Well, one year ago today, I was on my way to Oslo. When I returned to the US in July, I promised a final post within a few weeks. But a few weeks in, I was still unsure what a final post would really say. Assimilating back to America was fairly easy. I made myself busy, spent months catching up with friends and family, and took advantage of cheap food and drink. It wasn't a culture shock. I wasn't depressed. I just picked up where I left off and let the busyness take hold.

But six months later, as I've settled into my first true break since returning, I can't help but find myself thinking more and more about the impact Norway has had on how I view life. Norway made the world huge. Ginormous. Full of options, people, cultures, and opportunities. As a senior entering my final semester of college, at times this fact seems overwhelming. How can I choose the best option when the choices are endless? Should I teach English in Asia, delaying starting a career and family? Should I move to a new area of the US and discover the hugeness that is America? Should I stay where I am and start a business? Or find a job at a company that I could learn from and become an adult? Norway put ideas into my head that abandon any sense of direction. But the flip side to this is a mentality that I didn't have before. That any option is a good option. That even if I fail or find myself feeling stuck where I am, I have the confidence to learn from it and better myself.

Mentality aside, I find myself just missing things. The free schedule with ample time to socialize, work out, walk, and cook. The relaxed environment without the pressure to be somewhere ready for something. The constant snow sticking to my beard. The daily grocery shopping where every item was price-checked. The sunsets. The long summer days. Grans Bare. The way the brewing beer gurgled in my closet. The traveling. Smoking hookah and freestyling on my guitar about Norwegian foods like Nugatti Crisp (chocolate spread with crispies), Brumost (brown cheese), and cheese with pieces of bacon in it. Club 46. Group dinners. Reliable public transportation. Naked manikins. Fresh shrimp off the boat. Constant story telling and culture comparisons. Making popcorn at parties. Wearing Norwegian sweaters and not standing out. That feeling that I could go anywhere and do anything on a dime. Akademisk Koreforning rehearsal. RyanAir flights. Collecting souvenirs (and stealing glasses). Taking friends to 'The Naked People Park'. Watching the entire country change as winter became spring. Eating strawberries. Making hamburgers and pølse on disposable BBQ grills. Pomme Frittes. And that empowering sense of discovery. It was truly amazing. It really really was.

A video I took in the first week of my room and apartment

Maybe this last post should be a bit more profound. But Norway for me is constant little stories. Little feelings. Little tastes and smells that leave me feeling nostalgic and lucky. I know that Norway broadened my view of myself and the world around me. But the little stuff - the facebook pictures or the videos on my computer or texts with people or skype chats or stories I tell to people now. When I think about the things I did, it's just insane that it was real.

It's been a year since I got off the plane in Norway. Since I met Lotte and searched for our housing building. Since Lotte and I met Chris and decided to live together after 5 minutes of meeting. Since I carried 4 bags and a backpack, all without wheels, for a mile or so down an ice-covered hill to our house in the next student village. Since I settled in and started the most unbelievable 6 months of my life.



- Jonathan

Finish the Innocence!

Waiting 5 months was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. And it feels weird that Katie's already came and left. She's now somewhere over an ocean in a small metal tube, squished between massive amounts of people in 10F. It hasn't hit me that she's left - the past few weeks flew by. Not only because we were having fun, but also because of how much we DID. She arrived on May 14th, and in that time, she experienced 3 different countries, 20 home-cooked meals including 3 soups and 3 artichokes, 2 movie nights, 7 sunny days, 12 illegal public transit runs, 4 over-bearing beggars in Berlin, a transvestite hostel owner, a hostel room with 32 beds in Amsterdam, Dutch cheese, 3 Vietnamese food dinners, 2 jam sessions, 6 hookah sessions, 14 street performers, and a whole lot of trolls.

I'd like to start at the beginning, but I'm not. I'm going to start with a quick story we quickly called "The Clusterfuck". It all began with a bit of wine and a lack of sleep. That soon turned into the morning we were to leave for Berlin and Amsterdam (An exciting week-long trip). So we were mostly packed as we woke up in a groggy state at 6AM. I put on the coffee. We slowly showered, got dressed, threw things together. We realize we were pushing the time we need to leave by, and rushed to Ulleval Stadion to catch the subway to Central Station to run to the bus terminal to catch the bus to the Rygge airport (a 55 minute or so ride). Unfortunately, we had to wait a bit for the subway, making the situation look quite bleak. So we started running with our bags packed for a week-long trip. When we get to the bus terminal, we'd missed the bus by 2 minutes. Bummer.

So we got in line at the help desk, looking to see if any buses are going anywhere near Rygge. As we were in line, I start patting my pockets. "Katie, I think I forgot my passport." We stared at each other for a bit before "Yeah, mine's in my suitcase too," came out. So we picked up our bags and began to run. We got outside, hailed down a cab, and asked how much it would cost to get to Rygge with a slight detour back at Sogn Student Village to pick up our passports. He responded with a great deal of NOK 800 (about $140). That's pretty awesome considering just the bus would've cost 250 for the two of us. We got our passports and drove for 25 minutes or so before I realized that I was seeing signs for the other Oslo airport, not Rygge. He thought we were flying to Riga (in Latvia), not going to Rygge (the airport). So off we go in a high-speed race to get us to the airport on time after a 50-minute detour. Then, the kicker: We get out at Rygge airport with actually a comfortable time cushion. The cab driver goes, "1400 Kroner. The other airport is much cheaper."

So that was fun. But before we even left for our trip to Berlin and Amsterdam, Katie was in Oslo to help celebrate May 17th - the Norwegian Independence Day. The choir I'm in, as one of the oldest student choirs in Oslo, annually leads all of the traditional Norwegian tunes at the graves of several famous Norwegians: Henrik Vigeland (responsible for eliminating the Norwegian ban on allowing Jews to immigrate), Edvard Grieg (composer), Henrik Ibsen (Author), and others. We woke up at 6AM to make it to the cemetery, and Katie and my roommate, Lotte, decided to come along and see the event. The craziest part about it (other than the insane amount of dogs) was the costumes Norwegians wear on their independence day. Decorative bonnets, capes, sweaters, and 'cowboy hats' were donned by the coolest of Norwegians. It was actually amazing to see everyone so proud of their shared heritage - something Americans lack mainly because of the sheer size and diversity in population. But the rest of the day was spent watching the parade and sleeping and eating ice cream and strawberries. The weather was gorgeous. And I've never seen Oslo so alive.

Lotte, Fiona, and Katie on May 17th, 2010

It was on this high that we then left for Berlin. I'll say now that both cities, Berlin and
Amsterdam, had a great feel to them. And also that our trip in general was fantastic. Fun, exploratory, hilarious, and romantic where it needed to be : ). Annnywho, I think Berlin is one of my favorite cities in Europe. It's cheap, hip, full of awesome graffiti, squatters, cool people, and festivals. The city itself is broke, so that's why it's so cheap. And while it was honestly a bit weird walking around knowing that people's grandparents had hated my grandparents solely for being Jewish, it didn't stop me from enjoying a cool, new place. There are memorials everywhere from Germany's past, and Germans I know in Oslo have described to me the paradox in expressing German nationalism and patriotism. Basically, it is not socially acceptable to say, "Go Germany!" unless it's a soccer match or Olympic event or international competition of another sort. I thought about this a lot, especially since a unified Germany is pretty new, and unified Berlin has been struggling with establishing an identity and its financial stability. And I found myself imagining the country in war a lot - something I didn't do anywhere else in Europe.

Some really cool art in Berlin

But that aside, we really enjoyed a lot of Berlin (especially the summer rolls!). We went on a walking tour of the sites (checkpoint charlie, museum island, etc), got a 3-liter beer tower, went on an alternative Berlin tour (turf wars, graffiti tags, squatters), wound up at a squatter sculpture garden, went on an alternative Berlin pub crawl (full of 18 year-olds, but funny lol), wound up at a cultural festival with millions of people and booths of food, alcohol, crafts, and psychics. Really, really awesome. Side note: It is legal to pee in public in Berlin, as long as it's not a front door or public monument. It is also legal to drink in public, have sex in public parks, and prostitute (though you'll get taxed). It is illegal to cross the street when it's 'don't walk'.

Anyways, we really had a great time. My dead camera was replaced with a disposable that should be fun. And sandwiched right in between the whole thing was a quick trip to Amsterdam. Besides being stuck in the worst 8-hour trains ride possible, Amsterdam was like a giant carnival and music festival - kind of like the Hollywood of Europe. The city itself was beautiful and full of crooked buildings, trees, and canals. We got lost so many times since the streets look very similar to each other. And while all the rumors of coffee shops, prostitutes in windows, and a liberal atmosphere in general, are true, the city itself was really cool. The public park was unbelievable (as was the cheese). And everyone was on bikes (must hurt on the cobblestones...). The Anne Frank house was cool, and the people were super laid back. We were staying in a hostel complete with its own smoking room, club, and 32-bed room. One of those things you say you've done and leave it at that!

How ridiculously crooked are these buildings??!

In front of the many canals in Amsterdam

Even though getting from Amsterdam to Berlin turned into a nightmare (arriving at 4:20AM when the hostel didn't open until 11AM), the trip was really special. And coming back to Oslo to take my Norwegian exam (One of those things you're not really sure how you did lol) and watch movies and mellow out felt amazing. We made little day trips around Oslo and wound up seeing a FIFA Soccer match with the Norwegian national team. While not the most exciting games, Norway won, and it was pretty cool to see a game at the stadium I've lived next to this entire semester.

But now she's almost back in Philadelphia. It'll be another month, but a busy one, and Grandma said the time will fly (She's always right). I'm headed to Stavanger June 7-10th, and David's coming to visit on the 13th for our insane trip to Tromso, Helsinki, Riga, and Prague before heading back to Cincinnati! It's so weird that things are coming to a close. Already, Grant has left our flat, and Aurel is leaving tomorrow. Katie's gone, and I'm terrible at goodbyes. I guess things always move forward, huh? The future's coming fast.


Love,

Jonathan

Snow, Music, Candy.

The Central Station Tiger with Snow-Stripes

by:Larm Music Festival Tent

We were sitting around a hookah, eating my new plethora of Pez, talking about life and love and meaning. And then Grant sat up and said, "Yo man, we've been here like 7 weeks. In Norway." I threw out a 'yeah, man,' and began to think about how much I've done. How many nights were fantastic. How I've been attaching and detaching myself to certain aspects of Home. How I'm taking classes. How I've taken advantage of being in Oslo (FYI, Oslo means 'Pasteur of the Gods'. Now you know!) and being in a gateway to the rest of Europe. Trips to Rome, Madrid, Berlin, Amsterdam are coming up sooner and sooner. I've already been to Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Tromso. I now have 2 Norwegian sweaters! I just experienced a Norwegian music festival called by:Larm. I've settled in. In Norway. Wicked.

The past few days, we just keep getting more and more snow. On Monday, I went for a run around Sognsvann - a beautiful lake a few kilometers from where I live. I finished with icicles clinging to my beard. But the frozen lake and blanket of pure whiteness was gorgeous. No cars. No muddy snow. Just cross country ski tracks and the occasional dog. During the run, I spent a lot of time thinking about the previous weekend. I bought a pass for a 3-day industry-geared festival featuring all types of Scandinavian (though mainly Norwegian) bands. Hundreds of bands were playing in dozens of venues, and the only band I'd heard of was Katzenjammer. So getting myself involved in a bit of the Norwegian music scene was cool. The bands were as anonymous to me as I am to Oslo. Everything was new - foreign band names didn't even tell me if a band was hardcore or a mellow singer/songwriter. Something I've never experienced anywhere else. I even ended up reviewing a mellow, expansive band called Pica Pica. You can check it out here.


But in other news, I just got a fantastic package from home filled with so much candy that I'm still giddy about it (though I guess that could be the sugar high...). Either way, the pile on my floor is slowly shrinking, but I'm still thrilled about it.

Snow, Music, Candy.


<3,

Jonathan

Fulfilling Unconscious Dreams

Welcome to Tromso

The View of the City

A Gorgeous Sunset

It started with the most beautiful landing I've ever experienced. A gorgeous sun over a lake surrounded by snow-covered jagged mountains, a bright blue sky, and rolling clouds. I was in awe - snapping pictures with my camera as we landed. Then we got up (Laudry, Lieneke, Neil, and I), only to realize that we had only finished the first leg of the flight. We were unaware that our flight to Tromso had a stop! But it did. So we sat back down, and enjoyed the take-off as much as the landing.

But this was only the beginning. We soon landed in Tromso, found our 4-person cabin, and booked a trip to try and see the Northern Lights. So at 4PM (the sun was beginning to set), we got onto a bus, drove along a mountain and watched the sun set over the city. We were on our way to a boat that would then take us back to Tromso, getting us out of the city lights in an attempt to see the infamous bright green and blue Northern Lights fill up the sky. Four hours later, across two ferries and two buses, we wound up on a cruise ship determined to see the northern treasures. So we made our way to the top deck of the ship. We sat in lawn chairs in a circle on the deck - the four of us facing different directions. I sat in my mustache ski mask, bundled in two pairs of long underwear, staring at a blankly dark sky, determined to wait the full 3 and a half hour boat ride on a freezing and windy deck. Pretty soon, everyone got cold, and I was the only one left braving the cold (I came much more cold-prepared than the others. Thanks for the tips, Mom ; ). Anyways, 3 hours into sitting on the deck, me and one other person were still out there. She came up and said, "I think I see something." So I got up, saw a wisp of whiteness grow brighter in the sky. I called the crew, and continued to watch the white vapor grow a bit and change for about 3-4 minutes, snapping pictures that came up as completely blank shots. Then we went under a cloud, and that was it. A 7 and a half hour journey for 3-4 minutes of white light. But a cool experience nonetheless. Not completely satisfying, but I saw something!

Luckily, that was only the first part of our trip. The really cool part was dog sledding. In sixth grade, we followed the Iditarod (A 12-day dog sledding race in Alaska). We all picked a person and I don't remember how mine did, but I remember thinking about how cool it would be to drive a dog sled. And that's exactly what I did last Friday. I drove a dog sledge with an experienced dog team - two of the six dogs had actually been on the company's Iditarod racing team. I stopped them with my hard brake, slowed them down with my soft brake, and drove them across the track in the middle of a snow storm. Laudry and I were a team (we switched drivers half way through) and had an unbelievable experience. The smell of dog poop was in the air, the snow was making it difficult to see, and dogs barking created the atmosphere I'd definitely never experienced anywhere else.

After the sledding, we then ate reindeer and vegetable stew - a traditional Sami meal (the northern Norwegian indigenous people). We sat in a giant tent with an open top around a birch-wood fire and really got a chance to digest what we'd just done. They talked about how they treat the dogs (hundreds of dogs each have names and their own houses) and how they gear them for racers or trainers for younger dogs. I felt like I'd just fulfilled an unconscious dream of mine.

Later that day, we went to the Polaria museum - a museum of arctic animals. It was a cool shaped building with seals, king crabs, sea urchins, and arctic cod. A little kid-oriented, but still really interesting. As we left, I soon realized that I was experiencing the warmest weather yet. It was raining. Which means it was above freezing! Wow! This was fantastic until I was drenched and then it got cold again, turning Tromso into a giant sheet of ice. This made for interesting walking/shuffling. But it also made for another cool element to the trip.

Overall, the trip to Tromso was really awesome. Even as we left the city with a 2-hour delay because of a snow storm, I couldn't have been happier with how unique and exciting the trip was.

Neil, Laudry, and Lieneke in our Cabin

Norwegian Frost Fighters De-Icing our Plane

Flying Back into Beautiful Oslo

Freezingly,

Jonathan

Sup, Stockhomie?

Mr. Gnome, please don't say anything.

Well, it finally happened. My addiction fed, my pride reinstated, my taste buds back to normalcy. Last night, I made popcorn kernels successfully on the stove. It involved about 6-8 minutes of shaking the pot over the med-high heat and periodically taking the pan off of the heated burner and moving it to a non-heated burner as to not burn the delicate love-kernels. I'll admit, I did use a lid that didn't fit, and so some popped out of the pan and onto the stove-top/sink/floor/mouth on accident. But I did succeed in making delicious popcorn that reminded me of the fact that the only reason I have friends at school is because I make them popcorn. Who da man??

Also, I just got back from Stockholm, Sweden on Sunday. It was a fantastic four days of traveling, sight seeing, eating (much more affordable food), and wandering the streets of a new city. We stayed in The Number 1-Rated hostel in the world, complete with free pasta, free internet, hot check-in ladies, and rude Spanish fools who decided to get up at 6am and be incredibly loud as they got ready for 2 and a half hours. Though weirdly, Pablo's girlfriend is in her second year at Temple studying Spanish Theatre...

But anyways, Stockholm is a beautiful city. Clean, old, bustling, and full of energetic, fun people. I was talking to a friend the other day, and we decided that Norway is like the good, no fun older brother - high-esteemed, self-complimenting, reads the paper, drinks the coffee, likes to be better than the rest. Sweden is like the hot little sister of Norway who wants to have a good time and that everybody loves. And then Denmark is like the youngest brother who nobody paid any attention to. And he's pissed about it.

So now that that's been put into perspective, here's what I did in Stockholm. I ate kebabs the first night, then pizza from a different kebab place later that night. For breakfast the next day, we made it a brunch since it was noon when we woke up. I had a seafood soup that was yellow. It also tasted pretty solid. For lunch, I had a cheap day-old sandwich from a cart, and then for dinner we went to Taco Bar - a sort of much much-worse Chipotle, before we went to a casino (the same one that wouldn't let us in the night before at 4AM since we appeared intoxicated). Later that night, I had two hot dogs from Swedish street vendors (one before, one after going to a 3-story club that made me feel awkward. They also played a rap version of Shenandoah going into Cotton Eye Joe...). The next morning, I started off with a ham and black olive quiche and coffee, along with a delightful little lemon meringue tart. I didn't have lunch, but enjoyed a huge cup of coffee in a fantastic old part of Stockholm by the main palace. We met a fantastic gay couple from Toronto/NY who wanted to talk about Obama and his health care reform. Hooray for American politics in Sweden! For dinner, we went to an awesome Swedish meal (complete with losing half of our group along the way forcing me and Grant to run up and down the surrounding streets trying to find them before our table was ready). I got a stir-fry type thing of potatoes, meat (unspecified as to what kind), onions, and some other stuff topped with a fried egg. That night, I went back to the hostel to get some sleep when the rest of the crew (9 of us total) went clubbing again. I then woke up the next morning and got a bagel-esque roll with smoked salmon. The shmear was sub-par, but it was a really tasty sandwich. For lunch, I felt like I had to get some Asian food since it was abundant and affordable in Stockholm. So I hopped on the bus back to the Stockholm airport with a to-go order of pad thai and a set of chop sticks. And now back to not eating out ever. But now that I have popcorn, I guess that's okay!

Some pictures from Stockholm:

Welcome to Stockholm

The Royal Palace

I hope you enjoy!

Jonathan

1000 Naked People Later...

Vigelandsparken - "Naked People Park"

A wise old man once said something I didn't pay attention to, but my roommate Chris said of Norway, "It's unreal!!!". And as I've booked trips and looked at what I've done, I've noticed just how unreal this really is. This weekend, I'm hanging out in Oslo and going to a few 'start of the semester' parties. Next weekend I'm going on a cruise to Copenhagen for two days through the University of Oslo international programming. The following weekend I'm going to Stockholm, Sweden from Thursday to Sunday. And the weekend after that, I'm going to Tromsø, very Northern Norway, to dogsled and see the Northern Lights. And I'm working on booking trips to Amsterdam, Rome, and possibly Helsinki for the rest of the semester.

In addition to some great planned events, I've also had a great couple days getting into a sort of routine. I had two of my 4 classes (I only have class Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays), bought a guitar, bought a Norwegian sweater, bought a Norwegian cardigan, cooked Norwegian salmon filleted right in front of me, had a job interview with the disabled students department at the university, and bought a mustache mug. I toured the Oslo opera house, visited an awesome sculpture garden, joined a choir (we sang songs in English, Latin, and Swedish?), and just explored.


I was talking to my friend Lily today (She's in Cairo, on her way to South Africa for the semester), and I thought about how this entire experience is constant exploring. It's nuts how new everything is. I never would've known that Norwegian police drive Volvos. I never would have known that Oslo's main public park is full of statues with nearly 1,000 naked bodies. Or that they make spookniforks!

Unreal.

Sweet Aviator Mirrors

Translation: "Never Trust a Man Without a Mustache"

I don't think the sculptures were sacred or anything.

- Jonathan