OSLO

Here are just a few highlights from this past weekend in Oslo! It was great to finally get out and travel! Day one we made it around to the Nobel Peace Prize Museum, the Resistance Museum in the Akershus Castle, then the outside of the castle, and finally the new Opera House! That night for supper we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe!

Pheegan overlooking the docks at Akershus CastleAkershus Castle - where they still have guards and we watched them change!

The new Opera House
Day two we started off early and made it to the Vikings Ship Museum, Holocaust Museum, Kon-Tiki Museum, Fram Museum, Folk Museum, and Vigeland Park! They were a couple of exhausting days, but definitely had some good days despite the layers of snow and slush everywhere!!

The Vikings Ship Museum - The Oseberg Ship

Me steering the Fram ship which we got to roam around in and check out!

Vigeland Park entrance - this pic has its back turned to the main top portion, but I liked this view of Oslo in the background!

...these previous days

So I realized I haven't really posted anything lately, but to be honest we haven't done much but prepared for upcoming travels. Here are a few highlights... We had a girls night at our place with all the international girl students and made brownies and cookies and watched Love Actually to celebrate Valentines' Day. We tried to go out and eat at a restaurant as a group, but the buses were running awkwardly so we canceled and ordered in pizza instead and played a couple rounds of the cup game! Went to a "Lovefest" student service on Sunday. We were invited by a lady we are taking religion sessions from. We met the choir girls from our school and may join their sessions to try and meet some Norwegians! The other day in a search for Andrea's lost key in the snow I tried cross-country skiing and only fell once! I must say though it was going down a really big hill and cross country skis are not as stable as downhill!! Since then it has been plans for the coming three weekends Oslo, Tromso, then Oslo again. Also we did some spring break planning which consists of Italy and London! Last night we went to the better dance club in Lillehammer - Brenneriet and tonight we head back out to Bingo for a live band!

Maihaugen

We made a stop at the cultural museum in Lillehammer today and Pheegan tagged along. Maihaugen was the name which means May Hill. Very interesting place with a lot of very old equipment, chests, and clothing from all the previous eras. Norwegian culture at its finest! Like a picture find... Where's Pheegan?

Address

I know a few of you were asking for an address over here - so here it is! I am certainly not expecting anything - it is way too expensive and I don't need anything - so if you do perhaps a card or save the date invitation ;)

Martha Pearson
Flat 8A 13D:
Storhove Studenthjem
Overjordet 8A H0103
2624 Lillehammer, Norway

A little more

Since my previous post a few things have been figured out. After visiting the Olympic park on Friday we went to a Karaoke night at one of the discos and had our chance to sing! The five girls from Concordia got up and sang "I Love Rock n' Roll" to a pretty full crowd of Norwegians! Unfortunately that is about the best pick of us singing! Also that night a Norwegian guy got on stage and danced full out to Michael Jackson which was phenomenal! Saturday we had the chance to host and have our "American" party and invited all the international students and buddies over to our flats for some beer pong and circle of death drinking games! Definitely a hit in any country! Since then we have been spending endless hours trying to figure out places to go on weekends. So far we have booked a weekend to Tromso which is way in the upper part of Norway in the arctic circle where we hope to find polar bears and the northern lights!! This weekend we hope to find the ice hotel and have a very girly Valentine's Day!

Olympia

On our day off Friday we took a trip to the Olympic museum to check out the history of the Lillehammer games in '94. Pheegan met the children mascots of the '94 games, Haakon and Kristin, from original Norwegian Folklore!

And by the end of the tour he came out on top and proudly took the gold!

A taste of Norway

We recently met a local named Hans who has met the American students from all the past trips and recommended a few places around town. One was a brewery that we had to check out! I of course read the menu on the first page and knew immediately what to try!The straw conveniently points to the name! For anyone who knows me I love the Pirates movies and had to give the drink a shot! And it sure was good!!

School

What can I say... we have to attend school now!!

I already mentioned the classes, but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves

This is the view from our flats of a few of the main buildings of the school
These are the main stairs we walk done everyday to class or to eatThis is the view to the right after the stairs ~ very open and spacious Here is the cafeteria where we choose our meals
and this is the seating area where we eat
Stick with me...more travels to come

What!?

So a fun fact about the flats here in Norway is that the bathroom floors are heated! Quite a fantastic invention I must say! So whether you are taking shower, brushing your teeth, or just chilling on the bathroom floor (like we do!) your feet or any other part of you will warm up in seconds!! I will admit we run into the bathroom every chance we get! Pheegan too :)

First couple days

Over the past couple of days we have had some free time to check out the city, take some buses, see the sights, and so forth. We got orientated within our group - really sat down and got to know everyone. All of us are really excited about the plans for travel and the weekends off that we can plan ourselves. We had a night with the international students from all sorts of countries including; Denmark, Netherlands, Latvia, Spain, France, Germany, and England! They are quite the crew, we headed to a night club and danced to some pretty techno style music! Yet we hope to hang out with them again soon. We have been taken around the school, learned the lunch/dinner routine, and got our student IDs. I love the look of the school and the food there is not too bad - still feeling it out and trying new things! Today we started classes and enjoyed them for the most part. We have culture and society class that will mostly focus on a bunch of different topics and we'll have speakers everyday. We are taking a Norwegian course with all the international students and that class is just a riot!! History started which is part 1 of 3 for our scan studies. Then religion will start later this week! We all realize how busy we are going to get and just how fast time will fly!

The View!!

The first pic is our buildings with the view behind - ours are the black flats in the back
This is the view from the opposite side that we see from our windows ~ this is from the bus stop
And the third is a view from downtown!
A little more has happened here...we have bummed around town and met some of the international students, we await the start of school, meeting our Norwegian Buddies, and the traveling to begin!!