Alive and Sore after Hiking and Rafting in the Land of the Giants

Hello everyone! I have just returned from spending the weekend on an excursion to central Norway! The first day we went hiking. We stopped in a beautiful little town to eat our packed lunches. The video below is of the place where we ate lunch.

After lunch, we traveled up to Jotunheimen for a three hour hike. The hike was a bit more challenging than I expected as it was pretty steep and very rocky. However, the views were worth the climb! I felt like a picture didn't capture the 360 degree panorama at the top of the mountain, so I took a video.

The view as I climbed to the top

Me at the top! 

Once done with the hike, we drove up to the rafting camp. We had a DELICIOUS dinner at the rafting camp, and then I spent the night alternating between jumping in the ice-cold river and sweating in the sauna and hot tub before collapsing into my bunk bed. The following morning we set out on our rafting trip. We were all a bit nervous because there was a serious accident on the river the day before involving some people who went rafting on their own. Once we got out on the river it was a lot of fun! The guide on my boat was from Costa Rica and he was a fun guy, but sometimes we had trouble understanding him. Once, we thought he asked us if we wanted to keep going down the river, so we thought that was a dumb question and said of course! Then he had us paddle against the current towards a rock and all of a sudden our raft was flipping over! I remember being perpendicular to the water and thinking that the people on the other side of the boat were going to fall out, and then all of a sudden I was falling out of the boat! After some panicked struggle under the water I came to the surface. I must have been doing something stupid because everyone started yelling at me to "SWIM!". Then those 7 years of swim team kicked in and I swam to another boat where they pulled me out of the water. It was exhilarating and I was shaking for a good ten minutes afterward. Turns out the guide had asked us if we wanted to go "surf" in the river and had told us there was a very good chance off us flipping over. Whoops!

Getting the safety talk before setting out.

One of the rafts mid-rapid.

After a long and rainy bus ride home to Blindern, I was ready to collapse. This morning I am feeling this weekend in every one of my muscles. This week will be full of studying, researching and writing as everything is due next week, the last week of the program. 

Back from my trip to Bergen

Hello friends and family! This past week has been an exciting and challenging one. On Wednesday we peace scholars got to talk to the former Prime Minister of Norway, Kjell Bondevik. It was a pretty surreal and cool experience-it’s so extraordinary to be able to ask political leaders face to face whatever you want, to be able to sit next to them at the table. He talked to us about the organization he established, the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, which works at a pretty high level (rather than grass roots level). For example, through his organization he directly advised the leaders of Kenya on how to run their newly established coalition government. He was very friendly and it was a great experience. 

On my way to meet the Prime Minister 

Amusing bathroom sign in Bergen

 I have just returned from traveling to Bergen. I left early on Thursday morning and navigated the trains to the airport, with only minor setbacks. The airport is rather amusing-imagine IKEA as an airport, and then fill it with all the blond children in the world, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the Oslo airport is like. After only a 55 minute flight I arrived in Bergen and made my way to the city center on the bus. I was a little nervous about finding my hostel because it was my first time staying at a hostel and I’ve watched too many scary movies about girls traveling in Europe, but it turned out to be really great! 

My hostel in Bergen

My hostel was located right in the city center, close to everything. I stayed in a room with 13 other women. I am now a huge fan of hostels! They are especially great for traveling alone, because there is a common room where people hang out and where you can meet other travelers. Plenty of people in hostels are traveling by themselves and they are happy to have some company. They always have interesting stories-for example I talked for a while with one guy from Australia who worked in the same job for 8 years, and then just decided to quit and travel for a year. He’s working his way through Europe, North America, and South America before going home. I was surprised that there were older adults and families staying in the hostel as well as young people. The only downside was that I was woken periodically throughout the night by people coming in and out of the room. Other than that, it was great! I felt a bit lonely on Thursday exploring Bergen on my own, but on Friday when I woke up, I discovered that there were two other ISS students staying in the same dorm as me. They kindly invited me to join them and some other ISS students on a fjord tour. So, I went on the fjord tour, and I’m glad I did! I am absolutely in love with the fjords.

Sailing through the fjords

On Saturday I decided to hike up Mt. Floyen, one of the seven mountains surrounding Bergen. For some crazy reason I cannot remember now, I decided not to take my rain jacket with me on my trip to Bergen (where it rains something like ~300 days a year). The weather forecast predicted rain all day Saturday, but I wasn’t going to let my lack of a rain jacket stop me! 5 hours of hiking later, I was soaked through. Norway: 1, Maria: 0. The forest on Mt. Floyen was absolutely magical. Really, a lot of the landscapes in Norway seem unreal-like they should only exist in Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, not real life. Even though I was soaked, I thoroughly enjoyed traipsing around the trails. Later that night, my friends from the hostel and I had delicious pizza in a Beatles-themed booth (shout out to you Dad J), and then had ice cream at the harbor. I’ve discovered the easiest way to eat reasonably priced food is to find sketchy looking restaurants from far flung countries. Bergen has a surprisingly diverse restaurant scene-I had a falafel type thing from a Lebanese restaurant and a kabab at a restaurant from Kurdistan. Not only is that type of food way cheaper than Norwegian or American food, it is much more tasty!

The view at the top of Mt. Floyen

In the forest

I took the train back to Oslo on Sunday so that I could see all the scenery from west to east. My plan was to get my studying done on the train, but it was really hard to concentrate when the most gorgeous landscapes were going past my window.  The landscape here is so dramatic and varied. We rushed past deep fjords, cliffs, tiny towns nestled between gigantic mountains, Jotunheim (the land of the giants) which I don’t even have words to describe, valleys, rolling hills, rivers, waterfalls…this is the most beautiful train ride I’ve ever had. And I’m excited because I’ve heard the trip from Oslo to Stockholm is even more beautiful (I don’t know how that is even possible), and I get to take that trip in only 3 weeks! 

Pretty house in Bergen

Bergen's harbour

Somewhere between Bergen and Oslo

The pictures and videos don't do justice to the scenery in Norway-you'll just have to come see it for yourself!

Love,

Maria

Learning Norwegian folk dancing and other exploits

Hello lovely friends and family!
Thanks for all the suggestions for where to go on my four day weekend. I have decided to go to Bergen, on the west coast of Norway. I will fly there in a week, stay for a few days, and head back on a train so I can see all the country between Bergen and Oslo! Looking forward to it.

This past weekend I had a fabulous time at a party the ISS threw for all the students. We danced to music from around the world, at times even attempting to jig-not your typical party! The next day several of us made  a trip out to a nearby island. The great thing about Oslo is you can get anywhere using public transportation, so one train, a bus ride, and one ferry later, we were at a beautiful island. We explored and eventually found a rock to jump off of into the water. It was a really fun day! Hopefully we'll go to another island this weekend.

The next day, the 4th of July, all of us Americans put on our red white and blue and went down to the official celebration at Vigeland Park for the day. It was hilarious-there were classic American cars on display, outrageously priced hot dogs and burgers for sale, an "Independence Idol" competition, country and Mo-town music, and lots of free USA gear. Below are a bunch of us in front of the bust of President Lincoln in Vigeland Park.

...

This week has involved a lot of reading for both of my classes, as well as excursions everyday. The Peace Scholars met with Steinar Bryn, the director of the Nansen Dialogue center, which works to promote dialogue in communities torn by conflict. It was really enlightening and interesting, and also something I might look into more in my research. His is a community approach to peace centered on the home and the school as the places where ethnic identity and hatreds are formed. The next day we met with the graduate level peace researchers at a picnic. They all have such interesting stories to tell and so much real life experience. Today we went to the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament) to learn about how government works in Norway. Tomorrow will be a visit to PRIO (Peace Research Institute Oslo)...should be great! 

This is where I get to live!

In non-academic news, I can now do a few Norwegian folk dances! The ISS had an open lesson for anyone who was interested. Where else could I learn to Norwegian folk dance with people from Sudan, Colombia, Armenia, India, and more? Definitely a unique experience!

That's all for now! Miss you! 

Love,

Maria

More than a week into my time in Norway

Hello beloved family and friends!(or, Salam! Namaste!) Life continues to be lovely in Norway. Today I got to meet Jan Egeland-many of you might not know who he is, but he is basically a superstar in the peace-keeping/humanitarian world, so I was really really excited to meet him. The other peace scholars and I were nervous and prepared some questions to ask him. We were only given one hour with him, but what a great hour it was! He's pretty much an expert on everything that I'm interested in, so it was such an incredible opportunity to be able to directly ask him a question. I'll post a pic of the group with Mr. Egeland once it becomes available. This week the peace scholars class also got to visit the Nobel Institute, where the head librarian sat down with us to tell us the fascinating history of the Nobel Peace Prize. She was a pretty cool lady-she has met every peace prize winner since the early 1970s! We got to see the room where they decide who gets the prize (it's all very secretive-they don't even release the names of the other candidates until 50 years later). Overall a great experience!

The view out my window at 11:00pm...this is as dark as it gets. 

My other class, Scandinavian Government and Politics, continues to be interesting (though not as much as the Peace Prize Seminar). It's a little difficult adjusting to the learning style of some of my classmates, who tend to be outspoken and long-winded. We watched a short cartoon at the beginning of class this morning which I really liked. You can watch it here, if you like. We watched it because we are learning about Norway in the Scandinavian context, and this cartoon illustrates how mixed the ancestries of Scandinavians are.

This is the inside of Oslo City Hall, where we had our opening ceremony and reception which I mentioned in my last post. Those are the portraits of Norwegian royalty on the wall.

Yesterday for class we went on a "critical walk" around the Gronlund neighborhood in Oslo, an area known for being diverse and lower in socio-economic terms. We observed the area, noting what kinds of restaurants they had, who was walking around on the streets, what kind of housing was there, etc. Below are some pictures from that excursion.

This is a really cool sculpture in Gronland-the hand looks like it ripped apart the sidewalk.

Crazy looking mannequins in one of the shop windows in Gronland.

Street view in Gronland.

In my free time, I've been up to the lake to run a few more times, which has been lovely. I also went down to the harbor and walked around with some friends I treated myself to an ice cream ($6! yikes!), but it was delicious so I felt justified. :) The ISS is also really really good about putting together stuff for us to do, so I've gone to a Norwegian movie and a lecture on Norwegian art and music that they put on for us. I'm looking forward to going on a weekend rafting and hiking trip either next week or in three weeks-should be exciting, if a bit cold! I'm also trying to figure out where to go for my upcoming four day weekend-I might just pick the cheapest flight and go where ever that takes me! Suggestions are appreciated.

Cool eternal flame of peace sculpture along the water's edge in Oslo.

 I'm still enjoying the international environment-it's so true that a big part of learning at the ISS is learning from each other. For example, I was just reading about the conflict in Sri Lanka involving the Tamil people. I don't know a lot about that, so I just asked the nearest person from Sri Lanka to explain it to me!

Tonight there is a party for all the students, and this weekend should involve going to the beach and celebrating the 4th of July, weather permitting. I hope you all have a fun weekend, and I would love to hear from everyone! Miss you!

Love,
Maria

P.S. Here is the picture of the peace scholars with Jan Egeland.