Getting to Know the City

The past few days I've spent going from several different meetings to joining up with "Buddy Groups" and exploring the city. Luckily everyone I've met knows English! The funny part is of the international students I've met so far I'm the only native English speaker and also know the most Norwegian (which isn't saying much)

On Monday we only had to pick up a packet from the International Office, however, I forgot my map at home and I didn't know the name of the building I needed to look for. So I wandered around campus until I luckily found the name of the office written very largely on the building (Knutepunktet). After that  I just walked/wandered for a few hours. I saw some old churches, graveyard and walked through several parks, including the Frogner Park. There are many really cool statues all over, however it started to snow really hard and the temp was -6 C so I didn't stay for very long.

Yesterday, we had a welcome ceremony and then were put into Buddy groups. These groups are supposed to be of other students with similar majors. However two other girls and I ended up not having groups because apparently the Medical majors do something different but none of us had received emails, so we joined the Economics group. Later that night we joined up with our groups again to go ice skating.

Today, we had a information about the Norwegian Language courses. I learned my first Norwegian curse word: Fon (shortened/slang version of "the devil"). Then I met my first American! As fun as it is meeting new people from all over, it was definitely nice to have someone understand you and you understand them. Apparently there are quite a few Americans in our group but I just hadn't run across one yet. I stopped at my first Norwegian bakery/cafe for lunch and got a delicious "tomat og mozzarella panini" (tomate & mozzarella) much to the amusement of the guy working there. Apparently my Norwegian sounds funny. After lunch I saw King Harolds Palace & the guard change which was pretty cool!

Today was the first clear day (for the whole day!) since I've been here so I got to see my first sunset over the water & islands! It was gorgeous!

At the Orientation yesterday we were told of many different "special events" different groups put on for the international students like: hiking expeditions, a ferry ride to Copenhagen, island hoping in the Oslo area, ice climbing and of course tons of ski trips!

I have the use of cross country skis and a snowboard at my cousin's house!! On Friday I'll be trying out the cross country skis for the first time!

Frogner Park

The Kings Palace

Sunset over the Fjords