Is it wrong that I'm already skipping class?

Tuesday was a VERY busy day for me. I still only have one class (the other 4 start next week - more about those later!) which started at 8 am, and goes until 11, but I had to leave at 9 for the Intercultural Communication Workshop for Master level international students. It was a brief introduction to Norwegian life and things we should expect in general and how different things work at BI; such as exams, term papers, etc. The best part of the class was that I got to meet a lot of different international students. There were probably 50 of us there (out of the 250) and I was the LONE American...but oddly enough the professor conducting the workshop is a transplanted-Californian... We did different activities where we talked about the culture in our home countries and stuff like that. We also got a free lunch - a typical Norwegian lunch of open-faced shrimp sandwiches - shrimp, mayonnaise, lemon on bread. Not the best for someone who avoids as much seafood as possible, but I went with the flow. Over lunch the head of the exchange program sought me out and sat at our table. FINALLY figured out why she knows me - apparently FIT has NEVER sent a student to BI, and because of this- FIT is no longer accepting BI students (and if you live in Norway- why wouldn't you want to go to Florida?!?!) So I got this feeling she's trying to be SUPER nice to me so I report back to my school so more students will come to Norway. She asked why I thought more students from Florida didn't come here - I don't think she believed me when I said it was REALLY cold here! After lunch we had mini-presentations on what we learned about "culture" and nothing has given me more confidence in making a presentation- after all- this is MY language! (Not only was I the ONLY American, there was no one else there from any native English speaking country). (Side note: Ellen - the head of exchange said the reason why there were no English, Mexican or South American students this year is because they all had gone to Germany because of the World Cup games - thought that was pretty funny!) At the end of the day, I had a lot of new friends, new email addresses, skype contacts and mobile numbers (even though I don't have my cell yet!).

The workshop ended at 4:00, which was ideal since I had to meet for the Oslofjord cruise at 4. After a long walk through some shady parts of town (I'm talking- SHADY), we got to the pier, and then we were off! This was a Graduate Student Society event so many of the people I had met the previous week were on the cruise, as well as some of the girls I met at the workshop. It was fun- cold, but fun! We got free food on the boat, and guess what- it was a "typical summer Norwegian meal" - open-faced shrimp sandwiches with mayonnaise...Twice in one day- what a lucky girl I am! The problem here wasn't that I had just had this for lunch, as much as the shrimp weren't peeled- I'm talking heads, tails, and eggs - the whole bit. After peeling one or two shrimp, I decided to just go with bread and butter with some salad.

After the fjord cruise (and meeting more people) - it was on to a nightclub in Oslo, and all the Norwegians were talking about how excited they were cause of the club's cheap beer - only 39,- kr. Which OK, I've paid between 55-65 kr for beer, but as a ref: 39,- kr- = USD6.19; might be cheap in Norway standards, still really expensive for my standards! (They don't call it the world's most expensive city for nothing!) The last tram back to Storo came around midnight- so I had to leave so I could get home without taking a taxi.

Wednesday morning I woke up to rain. One of my new friends (from Finland) was going to IKEA and asked if I wanted to go along- like I'd ever pass up a trip to IKEA?!?! So with 2 other girls, we headed for city center to take the IKEA bus. We thought it came on the hour, but by 12:25 we gave up and found a cafe to have soda while we waited for the 1 o'clock bus. Just as soon as we sat down did the 12:30 bus show up! So we sat and relaxed and caught the 1:30 bus. There are two IKEAs on the outskirts of Oslo, and this time we went to a different one than what I had been to before - this one was bigger and I found all those remaining items I needed (pots, glasses, pizza cutter, etc). Of course we finished just as the IKEA bus back to town was pulling away so we sat in the little cafe and had hotdogs. Then it was back to Oslo, and we hit major traffic on the highway so it took a while. We got back to our dorm around 6. Yep- it literally took 6 hours to go to IKEA! (Which is "ike-ah" to all the foreign students I've met). We dropped off our goodies and went back out to walk around town. We walked all around and were a little lost when I recognized a park along our tram line (All that walking from my dorm to downtown paid off!). We decided to grab a beer and just sit outside for a bit, and then we headed home.

I had school on Thursday, and I attended all three hours. Today's class was an special joy to attend, being American and all- today's topic? Just how "unethical" America is for the war in Iraq. Does this seem like a topic for Corporate Responsibility? Not that I'm a huge war-activist, but it just seemed like a downward spiral attack on America and the general stereotypes associated with it. I was sitting with my Norwegian friends and they were quite funny cause they were constantly checking with me to see how I reacted to things. In the end, I wasn't too offended and I even learned some new words (obsequiousness and anhedonia) - I must admit I like it when sitting in class and someone will ask me what a word means- I do NOT like it when I have the exact blank stare on my face cause I've never seen the word before either!

After class I had some lunch, and then a tour of the library services and then met up with a group of new friends and we discussed a trip for next weekend to the Geirangerfjord - which should be very cool!

One observation I discovered today- so I've heard weird pronunciations for things and I just wrote it off as accents or whatever, but by the time EVERY foreign person called IKEA "ike-ah" and when the IT guy was talking about the BI website - ending in a "e-du", I realized they don't say the letters in an acronym...they are saying the acronym as a word! I'd heard the school referred to as "by" and I didn't get why then never said the "i"! Makes sense, and of course now I'm just laughing at myself cause it took SO long to catch it!

Tomorrow is Friday and its the start of yet another weekend for me! I'm getting used to having Monday and Friday absolutely free! However, Monday (Labor Day!) I will actually have school, I'm taking a Norwegian Language class on Monday and Wednesday evenings...even though everyone speaks English, I want to do whatever I can to avoid that deer-in-headlights-look when someone asks me something in Norwegian...I'll let you all know how the weekend goes!