Hello friends and family! My first few days in Norway have been a whirlwind of meeting new people. There are 550 students from over 90 countries attending the International Summer School. A bit unfortunately, Americans seem to be the largest group, at least among undergraduate students. And of those Americans, the majority are from Minnesota, especially from St. Olaf. Consequently I've taken to introducing myself as from Colorado (instead of as from St. Olaf) in order to appear a bit more interesting.
Norway from above, taken out my window on the airplane
It turns out that Maria is a name universally understood. When talking to an Olga from Ukraine, I was told that Maria is a common Ukranian name. An English man said, no, no, Maria is an English name. And still another insisted it was Russian. So, while other people have to repeat their names 5 times in order to be understood, no one has a problem with mine. Thanks for that, parents! :)
In addition to geographical diversity, there is a wide range of ages at the school, from 18 to 68. In my discussion group for Scandinavian Government and Politics, there is one boy from St. Olaf, one from France, one from Washington, one from Indiana, a doctor from Iran, and a woman (Maria) from Ukraine with a doctorate in sociology. Needless to say our first discussion was an interesting one! My roommate, Neenee (don't know how it's spelled) is from Georgia (the country). She is 20 and just graduated from university. This is her first time out of her country aside from one trip to Turkey. Above is a picture of me, my friend Maddy (the other Peace Scholar from St. Olaf), and our Georgian roommates Neenee and Lika at the Vigeland Sculpture park in Oslo. It's a bit surreal meeting so many different people-just yesterday I walked through the park with an older woman from Sudan, who told me about her Arab tribe and relations between the northern Muslims and the southern Christians. At dinner I sat with a Latvian woman interested in gender equality, an undergrad from Wisconsin who seems to have been everywhere in the world, a man from Kenya, and a woman from Sri Lanka who talked about restrictions of freedom of the press and media in her country. All just in one dinner! I spend a lot of time listening rather than talking, but that's how I like it.
The nearby lake
Oslo is a beautiful city, with tons of green space everywhere. Yesterday Maddy and I and Erica (a Peace Scholar from Concordia) went up to a nearby lake. It felt like being in Colorado, except there was oxygen. :) This place is literally about ten minutes from my dorm on the T-bane (train type thing). My dorm is also less than ten minutes from the city center as well. I went down to the city center to watch the USA/Ghana game on a big screen. There were hundreds of people there, mostly cheering for Ghana. There was one guy wrapped in an American flag who would engage in shouting matches with the crowd.
It looks like my Nobel Peace Prize Forum Seminar will be spectacular-I love all the other students already and our professor is brilliant. It looks like we will be meeting with a lot of really interesting people, from a former Norwegian prime-minister to ambassadors and diplomats. I've got quite a lot of reading to do already, but it all looks pretty interesting.
Tonight we're having an opening party at Oslo City Hall-it's supposed to be a pretty swanky affair, so I've got to go get ready!
Love,
Maria
