Signing Off and Final Thoughts

Tomorrow will be full of packing, cleaning, and all the final measures I need to take before I can get on the plane Saturday morning. Today will be full of saying goodbye to people. So on that note, I'm going to give my version of a conclusion to this experience and say goodbye to the Norway Travelogue. Before I can do that, though, I have to talk about Oslo yesterday. The Nobel Peace Prize festivities might have been more exciting to me if the recipient was someone that I was more familiar with, but as it was it was still a great time to be in Oslo. There was a class trip to the modern art museum to look at an Andy Warhol exhibition, there was lunch, and there was wandering through the streets, but it was the different events that surrounded the Nobel Peace Prize that were the most interesting. The first of these was the children's parade, which turned out to be quite scary. A large gathering of children learning about peace, listening to music, receiving a speech by the recipient himself. I think that's something that Norway is on the short list of: countries who think that children should be hearing complicated lectures about conflict mediation in groups numbering 1000's. Of course, I couldn't understand any of what was going on, but the event was clearly a big deal. The crown prince and princess made an appearance, Martti Ahtisaari made a speech, and there was food for all. Also, few chaperones were to be seen. I can't help but think that America's children entrusted with more independence and responsibility while learning about complex issues may grow up to be less apathetic and removed. This isn't the first time when I've seen children in situations that Americans would find either unruly or pointless, but the Norwegian kids seem to handle it just fine. Not that I give them that much credit, but maybe. Then there was the CNN interview, which I was tragically undressed for. It was a really cool event, broadcast live, and it turned out to be a great summary of everything that our class had learned about during the year. Ahtisaari has done a lot of conflict mediation since he was president of Finland in places like Kosovo, Namibia, and Iraq, and we've learned a lot about these types of processes, specifically in Kosovo. Being able to notice the subtleties in what he was talking about, even in a television event, was cool. The interviewer was not great, though, and for some reason seemed obsessed with getting Ahtisaari to say that the "international community" (which seemed to not include any countries in Africa) should use military force to remove Robert Mugabe. This would be a valid question if it was at all relevant to what the interview was about, but it wasn't. The interview took place in City Hall, which is beautiful and a great place for an interview I guess. I thought it was a perfect way to wrap up the class. Now to the more unpleasant parts. Tonight and tomorrow I'm going to make sure I can say goodbye to all the international students that are left, and that's going to be kind of depressing. It's one thing to say goodbye to people that you know you'll see again, or will at least have a chance of seeing again. It's another to say goodbye to somebody who lives in Hungary or Tanzania, and who you've just started to get to know and think is really cool. Such is the nature of these types of programs, but it does put a bitter touch to the generally sweet part of going home. I'm sure I've touched on this before, but one of the most valuable parts of this experience for me has been getting to make friends from countries and cultures that really are foreign to me. It's a good learning experience, but more than that these have been great people and I'll miss them. Facebook makes some type of communication a possibility, and that's nice, but being back in a comparatively homogenous classroom will be an adjustment. And something basic like just not hearing different languages being spoken at a party will be strange. It's not something I had thought about before. Now I'll probably think about things like the lack of students from "developing" countries when we're talking about globalization in class. But it goes deeper than that, too. These people aren't just a learning experience, or it wouldn't be hard to say goodbye. But it will be, because it's hard to say goodbye to friends. Trying to emerge from this depressing pit, I'll say that I'm looking forward to going home. I feel like I've become more of an American since I came here, paradoxically, and it will feel like my true home in a way it never did before. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. And more locally I miss my friends and family from Phoenix, and my friends and the outdoors in Washington. Those always felt like home, but I'll feel at home with all the more general American traits that I just kind of put up with or ignored before. Ice water, fast food, and cars: they all exist in Norway too, but I don't think they're as ingrained in the culture as they are in America. And there are of course more essential parts to the American culture that I can't even think of now, but will be entirely welcome when I return. I've talked about the minutaie of my study abroad experience, and I've taken the chance to look at the bigger parts of it too. I've covered the travel and the staying inside, so I guess now it's time to talk big picture. The learning has been both gradual and sudden, and most of it will take a couple months to sink in once I get back home. But the general experience of being in a foreign place, physically and mentally, has dropped my guard more than I expected it would. That effect is not quite as drastic as it was when I left for PLU, funnily enough, but I've gained opportunities to learn about myself and the world in a way that was unexpected. On a personal level, I've learned skills for dealing with situations that I don't understand and I've just had a lot of fun. On a less personal level, this trip has been about being in the world and experiencing that. If that's not broad enough, I don't know what is. What I mean is that the USA is a large and influential corner of the Earth, but it still is a corner of the Earth. So is Norway and every individual country represented by our program and every country I travelled to. But when I combine Norway with Tanzania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Nepal, Namibia, most of Western Europe and Scandinavia I get an experience that may be even more than the sum of its parts. It's a little more subtle than saying I've become more open-minded, because that implies that I'm the most important facet of the equation. I'm just glad to have seen and experienced a greater portion of the world than I was familiar with before. It makes me feel even smaller than I did before, but less insignificant. All of this is abstraction, though. Concretely, Norway is expensive, travel is great entertainment, and I'm not as comfortable with the cold as I orginally thought. To put a capping thought on the last 3 months would be impossible, but I hope my travelogue has given some insight into some aspects of daily life, some aspects of travel, and some aspects of the overarching importance of this trip to me. I look forward to seeing all of you back home soon.

I think I'm going home at the right time

It's starting to get mighty cold here. Apparently, when we go to Oslo on Wednesday it's going to be -14 Celsius which is pretty cold. Also, the snow and ice are really starting to take their hold on Hamar, and I've taken my first fall. I think if I stayed much longer I'd have a concussion and hypothermia, neither of which would be all that nice. So I guess the bottom line is I didn't realize how truly mild Washington's climate is (at least in the West) or how wimpy I actually am when it comes to the cold. People always ask me "how did you put up with the crazy heat in Phoenix?" and I usually said "I don't know, I just did". I imagine Norwegians and other people from more frigid climates would have a similar answer to my question: "How do you put up with the cold?". Because it's not so much a question of how does your body handle it or something like that. It's the day-to-day knowing that it's going to be very cold outside and having to prepare for that and getting used to it that is hard to understand for me. That is what I would mean if I asked a Norwegian "How do you put up with the crazy cold here?". And it's not even that cold here in Hamar. To the North, they're looking at epically cold temperatures like 80 below. That's a different story altogether. I couldn't even put up with 5 below for any longer than a month. Then add the ice to that and I'd probably be dead by spring. Good thing I'm going home.

I know what orange juice and cinnamon are in Norwegian, at least

The language barrier has been a weird thing in my time here. On the one hand, I've never really been in a situation where I've been unable to communicate with someone or had to use hand gestures or anything, since so many people speak English here. On the other hand, sitting on a train or in a restaurant and not understanding anything that's going on around me has been a bit disorienting. It's almost tiring to spend so much time unaware of what your surroundings mean. In the U.S.A., airports are still confusing but because all the signs around me are in English I'm able to go about figuring out where I should go and so on. But the airports and train stations in Norway, and the rest of Europe for that matter, become a lot more intimidating because of having to guess at what things mean. This mostly doesn't matter, because I can pretty much always ask someone where I should be, and also because there's nice universal symbols for bathroom and exit and those types of words. It's more of a psychological problem, the feeling of never having complete control. It's something that I guess I took for granted back home, or maybe didn't realize that I have, but the ability to understand written instructions or menus or maps at a glance is pretty wonderful. The flipside of that, though, is that it's kind of nice not to have to understand all the personal or mundane conversations behind you on a train. And it's a little bit funny to let someone talk to me for a few seconds before I stop them and let them know that I've wasted their time for the last 10 seconds while they tried to talk to me. This is especially great when somebody makes what's obviously supposed to be a joke and I laugh to play along. It gets kind of awkward if they follow that up, though. I just feel like such a failure among the people here, especially the international students, none of whom know less than like 4 languages it seems like. Some of the students knew English as their 3rd language and were getting by in the class. This is something I've felt on my previous shorter trips to Europe, too, but it's a little more deeply ingrained than I knew. For example, when I was doing my field study, I think every person I met with asked what other languages I knew, as if that was just a given, and I said Spanish but really I don't have any fluency with it. I just don't see the incentive of learning a foreign language (besides the inherent learning value) when it seems so obvious to me now that English is really becoming, to an extent, a universal language. Of course it's a good thing to be able to communicate with people in the language that they're most comfortable with, but as a student or a tourist like I've been it isn't necessary or expected. I've been continually impressed when somebody comes up, asks a question in Norwegian, I say "Sorry" and they continue to ask "Do you have a lighter?" without even pausing. Having to engage with people in their language is a great learning experience, and it simply hasn't happened since I've been here. Meanwhile, all these Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Germans, and Dutch have had that experience of interacting with me in my language. I just wonder if us Americans have missed a chance as all of Europe seems to pick up English. Granted, my experience has been limited, and I know there's places outside of the tourism/commercial industry where one can really be in a foreign place in terms of language. I just mean that, in general, there's less necessity and fewer opportunities to have to learn a language and use it. I don't know if this makes us dumber or somehow less complete, but it was always something I thought I'd have to deal with in a study away experience and that hasn't been the case. Maybe Spain or Chile or something next time, then. So with one week left, I will continue speaking my English. Actually, this last week will not be nearly as boring as I had anticipated earlier. Plenty of activities lined up, and the final goodbyes are starting to happen. As potentially depressing as that is, it's been fun while it lasted and it's important to be able to say that. It doesn't hurt that I do feel ready to be back home as well.

Reflections I: The Whole Money Bit

When I first arrived here in Norway, the exchange rate with the dollar was about 5:1 and a really basic sandwich from, well, anywhere was over 50 kroner. That means a ham and cheese sandwich was 10 bucks. I found that kind of ridiculous, but what was even worse was that beer was even more expensive than that at bars. A chicken breast or two ran about 100 kroner, and the list goes on. The exchange rate has improved drastically, thanks almost entirely to the economic collapse of the world, and is now at about 7.5:1. That said, this must be one of the top 5 most expensive countries to live in right up there with Switzerland and Luxembourg. And I've been to Switzerland; it almost seemed cheap in comparison. Part of this is due to sales tax, I guess. They tax gas pretty heavily, and the tax on liquor is 25%. But that only explains part of it. The sales tax at the grocery store, for example, is not any more than at a grocery store in the states. Another part of it is simple economics I'm sure, but I don't know simple economics so I'll leave it alone. The good news for Norwegians is that their jobs pay pretty well. The least you can make at a part-time job, according to the people I've talked to, is somewhere around 80-100 kroner/hour. So that would've been 17-20 bucks back in August and somewhere between 10 and 15 dollars now. Not bad. For me, without a job, prices looked pretty terrible at the beginning. Though that's eased up a bit now, I'm still looking forward to returning to a place where I can get $4 appetizers and beers that are in the single digits. To veer left a bit, I'm now officially done with coursework, tests, presentations, and the like, so the next 9 days will be a chance to say goodbye to everyone (yet another international student party on Friday) and clean the room. It's a small room, but it is a dirty one. Probably have to start tomorrow, I think 8 days should be enough time to clean. And that ties back to the money bit again. It's bad enough to buy a broom when you don't really want to but you know you have to so you do, it's worse to buy a broom at a ludicrous price and then know you'll only use it a couple times (yeah Curt and I are pretty dirty people). I guess I'd take it home, but a broom takes up a fair amount of space and I'd look pretty crazy carrying a broom on the train and they probably wouldn't let it through airport security anyway. To wrap things up, I will now list the 5 things I look forward to most when I return home (excluding friends and family): 1. Chipotle 2. Rock Band 3. playing music 4. having a TV 5. eating chicken.

What It Feels Like To Be Done And Still Be Sitting For 2 Weeks With Miserable Weather Outside

It feels pretty good, actually. The test yesterday was a final, I guess, but the hardest part about it was walking through the ice to get to the building where it was held. After that, it was pure cake. I'm often forced to confront the fact that I may have learned something during the semester, but I'm not sure that the test brought out that fact as one might think. A couple funny points about the test: the people administering the test either didn't speak English or refused to speak English, which is funny because our class is taught in English and only a few of the people in our class spoke Norwegian. Lucky we had our teacher there to translate, then. I guess I overstated it when I said there were a couple funny points; it was pretty much just the one. And the ice. I almost died in the ice on the way over. That's been the way it's been the last week or so, mostly sitting inside and then embarking on a journey outside that mostly involves slipping on ice and being freezing and then coming back inside a few groceries richer or, in the case of the test, glad to be done with school. There is the formality tomorrow of presenting my case study, but I'm more excited than concerned about that because I'll be able to further explain and understand what I was talking about. After that comes the long haul. 10 days of preparing to return to a place that is probably a good 60 degrees warmer than where I am and 200% lighter. I guess it'll take some time to pack and probably a longer period of time to clean the apartment, but for the most part I'll have even more free time than usual. The only travel that I'll do is to Oslo with the class for the Nobel Peace Prize festivities, which will be my 3rd time in Oslo not counting train connections, and the only outdoor time I'll spend will probably be in 20-30 minute stretches in which I need to get groceries or money or something. All in all, though, the boredom at the end is a fair price to pay for what has been an outstanding experience this semester. I'll try to write everyday in this travelogue as a sort of debriefing, talking about my reflections and stuff like that. For now, it's a wonderful snowy day outside so I'm going to go about making some lunch or something.

Two parties tomorrow, it's too late to talk about Bergen, and I'm almost done with my paper

Those three things sum up the status of life here in Hamar. I can feel everything wrapping up in the form of a fiery crash. My 21st birthday will be celebrated a day early in a country that diminishes the accomplishment of turning 21, if you know what I mean, because my birthday happens to be relatively close to another classmate's and we're having a joint birthday party. I'm most definitely looking forward to it, especially because it coincides with the due date of my case study and my case study is pretty much finished. I have a few revisions to make and a bibliography to finish, but it's going to happen and that's a good feeling. Then the 22nd (my actual birthday) will play host to the christmas/goodbye party for international students. It's always a fun and unique time when the international students come together, so I'm expecting big things from the final jamboree. Between those two parties, my birthday will not go un-celebrated to be sure. As for the second point of the title, it is kind of too late to talk about Bergen, but not really. I didn't want to write a large travelogue entry then because I was working on my case study and typing was beginning to hurt my fingers. Excuses aside, however, Bergen was a great way to (maybe?) end the many and varied travels in and around Norway. It was very rainy, somewhat cold, and ridiculously scenic. As with all cities we've been to, it seems, the city was built around water, and between that and the inclement weather the best word to describe Bergen is wet. The first day there was all about hiking, and the second day was all about wandering. At this point, that's become the status quo, but the hiking was unusually good here (no Switzerland straight uphill debacles) and the wandering was solid due to the fish market, preserved historical buildings, and the better exchange rate than a couple months ago. I'll give you a sense of daily life in Hamar at this point: I slip on ice a lot these days, I eat a lot of pasta, and I get rather cold outside. Also there's this cereal called Coco-Pops: Crunchers! which is a wonderful cereal and really needs to catch on in the States. I mean, sure I like Marshmallow Mateys and Golden Grahams and stuff, but this is some good dessert cereal. I will miss it when I leave this place. Finally it was dark at like 3 today, and it was never really light. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that.

Are gas prices really that low?

When I left Washington in the summer, gas was just over 4.00 a gallon. Now I'm reading its like 2.50 or something on the West Coast. Is this true? I suppose it's possible, considering oil prices have like halved in the last couple months. I guess if there's one good thing in the global economy verging on collapse it's that I'll be able to drive when I get back and not go broke. Hooray. I've been working on my case study, incidentally, about the effect of Puritanism on political structures in colonial New England and will have the rough draft of that done tomorrow. It's basically a two week academic dash after a whole lot of nothing, and then there will be another two weeks of nothing until I'm back in the States. And then I will drive my car without regard to the environment, the economy, or my own sanity. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if someone would comment if this news that I have read is untrue, because I feel like I've actually missed something huge in America. Not the changing of a president; I'll get to see that happen for real on January 20. No, gas prices returning to American levels. I think Norwegians hate us; even though they have the largest oil reserves on the planet save Saudi Arabia, they still pay quite crazy gas prices. But at least they have a decent train system. Win some, lose some, I guess. This post seems more like a blog than a travelogue. But do not fear, because I leave for Bergen on Thursday, and after that the content will become blissfully travelogue-y again.