Everything is very expensive here

The country of Norway is quite rich, but as the guy at the bar last night told me, that means that most of its people can feel very poor when they try to spend money. And for poor Americans who are getting the short end of the stick in terms of exchange rates, it's just downright ridiculous. To be specific, the exchange rate is 5:1, and this means that a 150 kroner breast of chicken (which is an accurate price) costs 30 dollars. This makes eating well hard, it makes really touristy tourism hard, and it makes travel within Norway hard if you don't have a Scan Rail pass. Thankfully I do, but in the case of yesterday we went to Oslo and I decided not to use the Scan Rail pass since it works for a limited number of days once you decide to use it for the first time. The round trip was 340 kroner, so the math is relatively simple. The good news is that it was entirely worth it, as most things are once I manage to readjust my idea of what expensive actually means. First impressions of Oslo were not entirely positive in our group, but as we went further into the city it ended up being a great time. Oslo looks like a big city, but it's incredibly laid-back and has a low population density. It also places an emphasis on parks apparently, because we saw several and they were all large and full of character. The one where we actually spent the majority of our time was filled with some type of neo-classical Greek-influenced weird-something sculptures. They were all nudes, but they depicted people doing out of the ordinary things. A picture is worth more than a thousand words in this case, so I recommend looking at Kelley's pictures if you want to know how "unique" it was. The city as a whole is a good city for just walking around in, which is good since that's what we did. The Oslo fjord sits right near the city, and we got the chance to see a nice view of the fjord from a huge fortress designed to keep the Swedes out. I'd qualify that as a uniquely Norwegian thing to do. I also tried my first kebab, which was delicious, especially after a steady diet of food influenced by the aforementioned harsh exchange rate. We also saw the Royal Palace, which was incredibly low-key. This mirrors Norwegians' general attitude towards royalty, which is somewhat detached and uninterested I guess from what I've experienced so far. Maybe that's just the young people, though. I'm not sure. Two more things of particular note this week: we planned our mid-semester break trip today, and I participated in an iPod battle last night. The iPod battle involved playing tracks and the people choosing the DJ who they thought chose better tracks. I definitely think my first round exit was almost entirely due to regional bias. I might have chosen songs that were a little too far out of the mainstream, but I thought that would be the point. Guess I was wrong. Meanwhile, we've decided that our mid-semester break will encompass Munich Germany, Salzberg Austria, Bern Switzerland, Brussels Belgium, and Amsterdam Netherlands. It should be nothing less than awesome. Between that, a probable trip to Ireland, a probable trip to Sweden, and numerous daytrips to different spots in Norway, I feel like I'm making the most of my chance to travel here. And the best part about going to other countries? None of them will be as expensive as Norway.