Last Wednesday we only had one class session early in the morning, so we all took the day as an opportunity to relax a bit, and took the bus into the main part of town to do a bit of exploring. I had to stop by the bank to try to set up some bank account things, which was interesting. I first googled the bank to make sure it actually existed and to have some idea of where it was. I had a pretty good idea of where it was and how to get there, but I managed to walk right by it without even noticing--I was too busy people watching and such, I guess. But I had a fun adventure walking way too far down the street the bank was on and finding Lillehammer kirke (church) and taking some pictures of it and the cemetery all covered with snow.
When I finally found the bank it took me a bit to gather up the courage to go in--it was my first time meeting with a Norwegian that hadn't arranged to meet with me and I was a little intimidated. BUT, I wanted money, so I did it! Then I realized the part I was most nervous about, finding a person to sit down and meet with, not just a teller that wasn't really like a person with the authority to start bank accounts and such, wasn't a big deal, because at this bank you walk in, take a number, and then sit down to talk to a person about what you need to do, because all of the "bank teller" type of transactions are done by a "mini-bank" machine that's right outside the door. You can make deposits, switch money, and everything there. Anyway, when my number was called, I sat down and said "Hey" to the bank worker. Then I asked him "Snakker du Engelsk?" which means "Do you speak English?" (at least that's what I tried to say). He looked at me with a look that was like "yeah, duh, you tourist." But I just went with it an explained my stuff. And it was all good then. And his name is Tom, so I can actually say it without feeling like I'm butchering some traditional Norwegian name or something.
The rest of the week was pretty traditional and filled with classes and a bit of homework, although we haven't had too much work yet so far, which was good. We learned about Norway's oil and economic policies, which was a tad boring and hard to follow, because I don't know a lot about economy anyway, let alone Norwegian economy. Although we did learn that Norway focuses a lot on exporting raw materials, not manufactured goods, which I thought was interesting. So, if you buy Norwegian fish, chances are that the whole fish was sold from Norway to somewhere else, processed, and then sent to the US. Also, Norway is very rich because of oil, but they don't invest a lot of the money they make within the country, for fear of influencing the markets too much, they use it for international investments and things. I'm not exactly sure what those international investments are, but it sounds like a good idea to me I guess.
On Friday we went bowling with the other international students and our Norwegian buddies. That was pretty fun, and I even managed to get on a team with people even worse than me. I got 83, and that was the 2nd best score on my team of 5. I was pretty proud of myself, since I usually can't get a score above 50 without bumpers or playing on Wii. I also learned a new bowling technique from the one girl who had a higher score than I did. She bowls with her thumb down, rather than up, which is the way I was taught and the only way I've ever seen anyone do it. She claimed it gave her more control of the ball's speed. I tried it a few times, and I ended up with gutter balls, so I'm not sure if she was just trying to trick me or not. ;)
Saturday I went to the mall with some of the other people from our group. It was a pretty typical mall, even though the store names were different they had about the same things. There were a few shoe stores, some clothing stores, a food court, although the food court was different since it didn't really have fast food like our food courts do. It had sandwiches, some cakes and doughnuts, ice cream, and beverages. Outside the mall we saw our first McDonald's since the airport in Chicago, which was interesting. We didn't go in, but we saw from the ads that they have a few different burgers than the ones that we have in the US. There was one, I don't remember the name, that I thought looked kind of spicy. That was interesting to me because one thing we've talked about in our food culture class and that I've just noticed in general is that the food here is more bland and has less spices. I almost never add salt or pepper to my food, but I've found myself doing that here more and more often. Some of us were also mentioning today that we've missed having garlic, too. We had pizza in the cafeteria one day, and the pizza sauce was definitely a bit different than US pizza sauce.
Shopping at the mall was fun, it was interesting to see what kinds of clothes and other products were in the stores, but the people watching was even more interesting. I've been trying to decide from watching people what exactly it is that makes a person look "European." There's definitely a look they have, but it’s been hard to decide what it is. I decided the cashier we saw at H&M looked very Norwegian to me, she had blonde hair and blue eyes, and her hair was in a braid. She was very nice and smiley, and she was wearing a sheer floral top over a white tank top. From watching her and other people, I've decided European-ness is more than just clothes, because a lot of the clothes people wear here wouldn’t look that out of place in the US, at least the women's clothes. Even though college-age girls only wear skinny jeans, leggings, or tights, those are worn in the US, just not as often as more flared jeans. And their tops mostly look like things Americans would wear too, but again just something that wouldn't be an everyday thing, since they look nice everyday. I haven't seen many people at all wearing sweatshirts. At the mall I also saw a mom walk into a shoe store and see that her daughter, who looked like she was maybe 3 or 4, wasn't following right behind her. The little girl was kind of just wandering in the main aisle of the mall. The mom called her name one time, but when her daughter didn't respond, she just kept walking around in the store. She looked at a couple pairs of shoes, walked down another aisle, and then walked out toward another store. Her daughter was still kind of wandering around, and eventually just kind of fell into step behind her mom, but the mom never really seemed to look back and see if she was there to me. Maybe I just have a paranoid mom and have seen more of them around in the US or something, but it definitely seemed to me that she, and maybe a few other Norwegians, didn't worry as much about that kind of thing.
Sunday was the Super Bowl, and we discovered in class on Friday that there was a Norwegian channel airing it, so we decided to have a mini Super Bowl party at our flat. The only bad thing was that coverage didn't start until 23:15 (11:15pm) here, and the game itself didn't start until about midnight. We invited the other international students, and a few of them showed up, which I appreciated and was impressed by, since they had to walk back to their housing because the buses stop running after about 23. We tried to explain a bit about how football works to them, and I think some of the boys were shocked to think about some of the rules from the perspective of someone that has no background in American football. Especially explaining some of the penalties, the other students would ask what the reasons behind the rules were and there wasn't always a good answer. I also was shocked to watch the game from the perspective of a non-American and realize that the Super Bowl is really patriotic, and very cheezily so (that was kind of a Packers pun, ha ha). It was kind of awkward, and yet really cool, watching the video montage of JFK and MLK and a few other people at the beginning, and talking about where we are now. I hope that the other international students didn't think that we were forcing American patriotism on them, because that wasn't our intention (or at least mine) but I guess they probably figured they would get a little bit of that coming to watch a sport that is pretty much only played in the US. The other students got bored kind of quickly, and decided to leave since they had early class. Within about 5 minutes of them leaving, the first two touchdowns were scored, so unfortunately they missed out on the most interesting parts, but one of the guys said that he looked online this morning for a recap to see how it turned out, so at least one person didn't think it was totally horrible! This year was the first time I watched the Super Bowl in a long time, so it was fun to see it again, even though I don't really love to watch football. I was SUPER sad though, that we didn't get to watch the American commercials. This morning I found the place on You Tube to watch them though, so I got to see them and procrastinate my homework even more, how wonderful!
Today in our Norwegian Language and Culture class we finally started learning some Norwegian, which was exciting. I now know the Norwegian alphabet, although I get stuck because I can't roll my R's and the extra vowels (å, ø, and æ) confuse me a bit. Especially because å doesn't sound like any sound I would ever associate with an a. It sounds a lot like our o. CONFUSING!!! This is another area where knowing Spanish has partially been bad. There aren't really a lot of words that I've encountered that are similar between Norwegian and Spanish, and I keep reverting to pronouncing words as if they were Spanish instead of Norwegian, since the foreign alphabet my brain thinks of automatically is the Spanish one. But, I learned to say my name and a few other things. I learned how to log on to the site that we use to reserve a time to do laundry, even though it was all in Norwegian, and today I also ordered my supper in Norwegian. I said "Jeg vil ha fiskekaker." That's fish cakes. They were gross, but at least I was brave and tried them, it was the first time I've had fish here in Norway. They were a lot like salmon patties except that I couldn't really tell what kind of fish they were, and they were really salty. I mushed them up and mixed them into my potatoes, and added a lot of pepper, which made them not too bad. Besides that one meal, the food we've had here has been really good, and a lot healthier, I think, than the food I usually eat at home. We have very little preserved stuff, and the bread is all not white. There's no yellow cheese of any type, which has been weird not to have. I tried to make macaroni and cheese with the white shredded cheese we got at the grocery store, and it was pretty different, although still pretty good. I've discovered that fruit is really expensive here, so we eat it when we can with our lunches in the cafeteria, but we haven't bought it from the grocery store.
I have more things I could talk about--like trying to figure out the bus schedule, (knowing Norwegian and remembering that it saying 11:25 doesn't mean it will be coming late at night would help) realizing that things like groceries aren't always available, (especially on the weekends) and those kinds of things, but this post is getting pretty long, so I will save that for later. I feel like my life is getting kind of routine around here, we have class and go around the city a bit, so I will see how much I can find to update about, but so far I've enjoyed having this blog, and I think its a fun way to connect. This weekend the international students and our Norwegian buddies will be heading to the mountains to stay in some cabins and spend some time together, so perhaps that will lead to some interesting stories to share. I've heard there will be a sauna there....
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