Blogs from Oslo, Eastern Norway, Norway, Europe

Our Norwegian business partner had invited me to speak at their client event in Oslo on the 5th of April. The event took place in the Grand Hotel in the city centre. I arrived there the night before, stayed the night in the beautiful art nouveau hotel and was thrilled to be part of this event. My 45 minute talk was on “Fair Testing in Web 2.0”, and I was happy to present some of the ideas we have been working with for years already. But what was really exciting was that the other invited speaker was Michal Kosinski from Cambridge University. He is well-known for his studies with facebook data: he found that it is possible to predict the Big Five personality traits, but also other aspects like sexual orientation, ethnicity, or political views from ... read more

Today started with a fabulous breakfast at the hotel for frees. I have never had salmon for breakfast before but it was a delight, along with the customary European cold meats, bread and cheese (including one I tried about a month back which tastes of caramel - it actually exists in Norway!). I thought I'd eat as much as possible as I have discovered that much like Finland was it is very expensive. (Which got me thinking....do people earn more comparatively as a result? We're talking £8 for a glass of wine, £2 for a chocolate bar and £8 for a sandwich here...I'd be bankrupt!). First on my hit list was somewhere I was really excited to go - Vingeland Park. This is a park 20 minutes away on tram number 12 and contains 212 granite ... read more

I made a lot of plans for this short journey. There initially were featured some other cities, but finally the plans took shape and everything was arranged. I lost some money on non-refundable air tickets and in future will plan better. I chose Oslo and Vilnius because of cheap flights, and Riga because it’s relatively near to St. Petersburg. I’ve seen a bit of Riga in summer and was anxious to return for a more complete impression. While the previous trip to Stockholm was 100% pre-planned and about 95% fulfilled according to plan, this 5-day experience was not planned as regards what to see and what to do, I was unaware of what Oslo and Vilnius had to offer. Somewhere at the back of my mind, though, the “word” Sigulda stood emphasized (I had a vague ... read more

Troll hunting, dance parties, and fish soup? Where do I sign? Oslo was the destination for my first adventure of November. The schools in Ireland take a week off for "midterm break" so I joined my classmates Maeve and Mariana for a 3 night excursion. We reunited with a handful of others with whom we studied last year in Belgium and were welcomed more warmly than we could have imagined. Between the borrowed snow gear, the shared bathrooms, and the delicious homemade meals, I'd say Friederike (our lovely German) and Malene (Norway's greatest) weren't all that sad to see us go on Monday morning. ;) Our original class of 20 is now split between Norway, Ireland, and the Czech Republic (with a few scattered elsewhere for various reasons). I am so thankful that we had some ... read more

Our departure date is getting closer! We don't actually have our tickets yet (our deadline is next tuesday, as it seems that tuesdays have been the cheapest arifare days... hope the waiting pays off!) but it looks like we will be leaving between october 30th and november 1st. And that means there is much to do! And one of the things that was highest up on Sadie's list was finishing work and (finally) quitting her extra-casting job at Hotel Cæsar, Scandinavia's longest running drama series. So now that at least one of us is unemployed, the packing and shopping and organizing can begin! And of course there are the prerequisite parties to be had. First on the list was Thanksgiving, a tradition we started only last year but that we had to repeat before we left ... read more