Some resolutions

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Upon reviewing our pictures from the last couple of weeks, Danielle and I were kind of dismayed but not at all surprised to discover that most of them were of food we had cooked. Certainly homemade farfalle and magenta curry are more photogenic than your average meals but the fact remains: we've become a bit too cloistered. It seems understandable, mostly a reaction to the price of food and entertainment here; the cheapest activity we can engage is cooking (mostly) from scratch. It really accomplishes a lot: cuts down on food costs, allows us to eat things we otherwise can't find here, challenges to cook with minimal gadgets, space, utensils, etc., kills a good deal of time probably otherwise spent obsessively reading about the election, and on occasion serves as an excuse to interact with people while we still overcome our impaired social skills.

But we're afraid we may be losing sight of why we're here. If it weren't for the array of IKEA products in the cabinets, our kitchen could seemingly be a kitchen anywhere. It doesn't overlook a fjord nor is it affixed to skis. Now that we've recovered from the initial shock and terror of living here and our joyful reunion with home internet access, we're beginning to sense that maybe we're missing out. Well maybe not missing out, but not doing enough to deepen our time here before we get stuck in a rut we might as well have had at home for a fraction of the cost. So to avoid this, we've concluded we should consider some of the following:

(a) Travel outside of Oslo - Until the mid-20th Century, Norway was a land of poor (but proud) farmers and Oslo just wasn't much of a hub (though it now has one of the highest growth rates in Europe). The "let's outdo the other European capitals" spirit I guess never had much appeal and Norwegians by nature disapprove of showiness. I don't think the Renaissance quite made it this far north. A Norwegian friend of ours claims that most every Norwegian family owns or has access to a cabin in the Nowegian countryside for reconnecting with the pastoral and paying homage to their rural ancestors. If Norwegians are at least historically averse to urbanization and believe strongly in a rural heritage what are we doing stuck in the Oslo city limits? I spent most of yesterday thumbing through my travel guide and plugging in various combinations of dates and destinations on rail and bus websites determined to develop some semblance of a travel plan. All I could come up with was that the traveller in Norway gets to choose from any number of indescribably beautiful places. So how do you even decide? Would I rather see a fjord that is "signature" or one that is "vertiginous" or will only "spectacular" do? Not much help. From what I understand of the Norwegian national mythos, the fisherman and the mountain farmer are powerful archetypes. So maybe they could give some direction to our travels? There are two places I currently have in mind: the Lofoten Islands in the north (the fisherman destination) and Undredal on the Sognefjord in the west (the mountain farmer). The Lofotens are a mountainous island chain and a center of the Norwegian fishing industry. From the pictures I've seen, they look somewhat like the Tetons if they were partially submerged in the Arctic Ocean. Scary stuff. And an 18 hour train ride away, don't know if we'll make it there. Undredal is a hamlet along a branch of the Sognefjord (Europe's longest fjord) where goats outnumber people about 5 to 1 and are allowed to roam freely. The town survives off the profits of its artisan cheeses and tourists trying to escape the crowds in nearby Flam, the town at the heart of the fjord tourism industry. This should be a little easier to get to. We're also planning to head to Trondheim (very very old city on the west coast about halfway up the length of the country) with some Norwegian pals in November and to participate in our student society cabin trip. Of course, classes and money and weather will complicate all this but hopefully not too much.

(b) Serve the cause of international students - At TU, we have one weekly student paper and one good-for-nothin monthly conservative scandal sheet. At UiO, there are all manner of student publications and all in Norwegian. The only other English language outlet on campus is the weekly international student radio show which mostly consists of music. Danielle volunteered for the position of press editor for the International Student Union and has the honor of revamping their printed offerings to the international student body. Previously, ISU published a bizarre biannual tome called "The Academic Review of Norway" which consisted of assorted academic articles from the sciences and original essays and creative writing all from international students. A fine idea in theory but the reality is just a mess, not so readable. So Danielle has decided to parlay her experience at the helm of the variety section of the Collegian into an effort to give international students something not only published in english, but worth reading. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a lot of resources at her disposal and will have to recruit people to write for free. She's organized a planning meeting for next week. What a go getter!

(c) If we're going to cook all the time, we could at least try to involve other people. Who doesn't like having a delicious meal cooked for them? We've already had one tremendous success applying this idea, which Danielle will describe in her next post, in addition to all those pies and cakes we baked a few weeks ago. Maybe we'll even go out to dinner some time.

(d) Regular exercise - Goes without saying. Norwegians seem to get it.

(e) Get a cell phone - It seems like everyday we tell ourselves that we're gonna go downtown to the pay-as-you-go cell phone place that all our international friends use and put our money down. And every day we tell ourselves that, we manage to not go. Let's just face it, socializing just isn't feasible without one anymore.

Well dinner's ready, thanks for reading,

Dan

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Comments

[hannah]

gud ideeyuhz
fjords fjords galore, i can't wait for the pictures. and pretty plz post some of the student newspaper stories/submissions on here so we can read??