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

All Aboard the Copen-Wagon!

The View Down a Canal

It was a rather short trip to Copenhagen. On Friday afternoon, we boarded The Crown of Scandinavia - bound for a 6-hour journey in Copenhagen. The boat came complete with a pool, sauna, karaoke bar, club, family restaurants, and duty free stores. We didn't make it to the pool, sauna, or family restaurants. But I did sing karaoke while successfully rocking my new Norwegian Sweater.

Anyways, as we got off in Copenhagen, we decided the best thing to do was to walk across the city, stopping at various sites along the way. So for six hours, we walked through the freezing wind. But the sun was out, I ate a Danish, and we really got to see a lot of the city. We saw the palace, the Little Mermaid statue, Christiania (A kind of old hippie area that used to be solely bartering), and the outsides of a lot of museums. Cool!

So even though I didn't get to spend a full day in Copenhagen, the trip was a lot of fun. Tequila's a bad idea. Copenhagen's beautiful.

The Little Mermaid Statue

A Cool Canal - weird that the area that doesn't get sunlight is the melted part...

Oslo from Afar

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

Welcome to OsBRO

It's kinda funny. The album I've been listening to a lot lately (Teen Dream by Beach House) has a fantastic song called "Norway" on it. The song itself isn't really about Norway at all, but it's a really pretty song that, in feel, beautifully captures the landscape of the snow-covered, ice-embossed, festive city of Oslo.

I've been exploring daily, crossing off tasks on my incredibly long list of to-dos: register with the police, apply for a Norwegian ID number, get a Student Card, purchase a gym membership, sign up for a student public transit pass, register for classes, find a coffee pot, meet the hundreds of international students in a student body of thousands, etc. But as I've check off each task, I've begun to realize how much I'm settling in and embracing the people and places of Oslo. I feel like I've been here for weeks, and that while I still have no idea what people are saying or what signs say, I do know how to get where I need to go fluently. And even though I feel very alone sometimes, I have so many people to talk to and meet - something I haven't experienced since freshman year at Temple. And even then, I had an awesome family in Philadelphia to help me adjust. So while some aspects feel familiar, others are completely new in ways that I could never have expected.

Anyways, other than logistical check-list achievements, I feel like I should just tell you a little bit about what I've been doing/eating. For starters, I had a delicious bowl of fish soup and a cup of coffee for 70 NOK (approx. $14.00) the other day at a coffee shop right after getting lost and running into the gorgeous Oslo port during the sun set (3:15 PM). Last night, I decided to draw the only animal I know how on my curtain (a white sheet) to liven things up! And today, after getting my residency permit and passport validated, I stopped into an old army store with my roommate Chris and a few other friends and I bought a really a cool silver Norwegian pin from WWII. I also bought mittens.

Also, I feel like I should forward some contact info. If you don't know, I have my regular phone available for texting, so feel free to shoot me a text anytime at (513) 373-0775.

But if you'd like to mail me a letter or call me in Norway, below is my address and phone number:


Sogn Student Village
ROLF E. Stenersens
Alle 46, Rm. 201
0858 Oslo

Norwegian Phone Number: (47) 96 71 85 06

So far, even though I've had a ton of things to do, I've had a lot of freedom to explore and get to know my roommates and other International students. I've met people from all over the world including The Netherlands, Germany, France, Prague, Italy, Morocco, Brazil, Suriname, Latvia, Norway, and Canada. It's been interesting to talk about how the rest of the world views Americans, what American culture items go global (Ugly Betty?), and how different governments function. If nothing else, this semester will be a learning experience like none I've ever had.

Also, if you'd like, you can check out "Norway" by Beach House here.

The Library Main Entrance

The Main Cafeteria

- Jonathan