It's funny how sometimes it feels relatively "warm" here and sometimes you just feel chilled to the bone. I experienced the latter on the walk back to my room. Brrrrrrr.. While it is incredibly beautiful here, I do not think that I would like to live here. I keep telling myself to embrace the cold because it will probably be the last country I ever visit at this latitude. I know that January and February will be the worst, and after that it will continue to get warmer and lighter (I hope!), so that is what is getting me through it. For me being a person who hates the cold so much though, it is not as horrible as I expected. You just deal with it. Everyone just deals with it.
Today we had our first official orientation week activity. We met in Auditorium One of the Georg Sverdrup Hus for the welcome ceremony. The first group of people that greeted us was a choir! They were awesome and looked like they were having a ton of fun (especially during the Queen song). We met the heads of a couple different international student groups and organizations though I am not sure which ones exactly. I did get a free trial (3 time use) to the fitness center. Lucky for me that's probably about as much as I'll want to go ;). We then met our buddy group which consisted of international students studying sociology and some similar fields, along with three or four "buddies" (current UiO students). We played a couple ice breaker games and then sat in on another part of the welcome ceremony. We watched two students in a sort of interpretive and traditional Norwegian dance, accompanied by a traditional Norwegian fiddle. I met a man from Minnesota (going to college in Montanna) in my group and discovered that he actually lives in my building in Krinsja! I was very excited because I haven't met many people who live in my building. I am always going to other people's buildings to eat and hang out because more people live there and they are usually more centrally located. I'm not sure if I mentioned before, but I did meet two girls who live on my floor the other day. Jera (pronounced "year-a") and "shin-ade." They both came from a program that studies in London, Oslo and then somewhere in Germany. They both seemed very pleasant and we talked about purchasing things for our kitchen together.
We also got a tour of campus today (sort of). They basically just showed us the buildings we would be using, though the actually campus is quite a bit bigger. The building where I have most of my classes is quite close to the library and the other main buildings. As you can see below I (sneakily) snapped a couple of pictures inside the library. The top picture is just the label at one of the ends of the rows of books for sociology and social anthropology texts. The library is four stories. The sociology section is on the second level, philosophy on the third (and other things) and it looked like different languages on the fourth. It's way bigger than any library I've ever experienced and I am really excited to put it to good use. The farthest picture down is one that I snapped from a balcony on the fourth floor looking down into the lobby of the Georg Sverdrup building.
I mentioned that I had purchased a SIM card for my phone because the Norwegian plan was cheaper than the global plan from Verizon that I had gotten before I left. After figuring out how to get my SIM card out of my iphone I discovered the SIM they gave me was too big so I had to send out for another, which will take 3-5 days. When I do finally get my SIM card working, I will have a new number for the time that I am here in Oslo.
Tonight my buddy group and I have been invited to a get together in Kringsja by one of our "buddies." Should be a good chance to hang out with some people and meet some new ones.
I can't believe it's only 11am at home right now..
Today we had our first official orientation week activity. We met in Auditorium One of the Georg Sverdrup Hus for the welcome ceremony. The first group of people that greeted us was a choir! They were awesome and looked like they were having a ton of fun (especially during the Queen song). We met the heads of a couple different international student groups and organizations though I am not sure which ones exactly. I did get a free trial (3 time use) to the fitness center. Lucky for me that's probably about as much as I'll want to go ;). We then met our buddy group which consisted of international students studying sociology and some similar fields, along with three or four "buddies" (current UiO students). We played a couple ice breaker games and then sat in on another part of the welcome ceremony. We watched two students in a sort of interpretive and traditional Norwegian dance, accompanied by a traditional Norwegian fiddle. I met a man from Minnesota (going to college in Montanna) in my group and discovered that he actually lives in my building in Krinsja! I was very excited because I haven't met many people who live in my building. I am always going to other people's buildings to eat and hang out because more people live there and they are usually more centrally located. I'm not sure if I mentioned before, but I did meet two girls who live on my floor the other day. Jera (pronounced "year-a") and "shin-ade." They both came from a program that studies in London, Oslo and then somewhere in Germany. They both seemed very pleasant and we talked about purchasing things for our kitchen together.
We also got a tour of campus today (sort of). They basically just showed us the buildings we would be using, though the actually campus is quite a bit bigger. The building where I have most of my classes is quite close to the library and the other main buildings. As you can see below I (sneakily) snapped a couple of pictures inside the library. The top picture is just the label at one of the ends of the rows of books for sociology and social anthropology texts. The library is four stories. The sociology section is on the second level, philosophy on the third (and other things) and it looked like different languages on the fourth. It's way bigger than any library I've ever experienced and I am really excited to put it to good use. The farthest picture down is one that I snapped from a balcony on the fourth floor looking down into the lobby of the Georg Sverdrup building.
I mentioned that I had purchased a SIM card for my phone because the Norwegian plan was cheaper than the global plan from Verizon that I had gotten before I left. After figuring out how to get my SIM card out of my iphone I discovered the SIM they gave me was too big so I had to send out for another, which will take 3-5 days. When I do finally get my SIM card working, I will have a new number for the time that I am here in Oslo.
Tonight my buddy group and I have been invited to a get together in Kringsja by one of our "buddies." Should be a good chance to hang out with some people and meet some new ones.
I can't believe it's only 11am at home right now..
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