CT Scan

Nice relaxing day today. As mentioned before, I had the appointment for my CT today at 12:25. When I made the appointment, I was told not to eat for four hours before, chew chewing gum or drink sweet drinks. Water would be okay. So I decided to go cold turkey this morning and had nothing for breakfast, although I packed a matpakke and a thermos bottle of tea for after the scan. Because this takes a lot less time than actually eating breakfast, I was lazy and staid in bed for thirty minutes after my alarm clock went off. Then packed my stuff up, and walked down to Gløshaugen to get to my non-linear dynamics lecture at 8:15.

Professor Myrheim was not in top form today; he hesitated a lot and had a very slow pace to his explainations. We talked supercritical systems, hysteresis, non-dimensionalisation, logistics and some other things. The last twenty minutes were fun though, because we spent them on an example using the classic “population” situation. You can do some interesting graphical analysis on that.

After ILD (ikke-lineare dynamikk) I walked down to Midtbyen and visited the main library for the first time. They have a lot of stuff there! I was mainly interested in some better books on meditation. The ones I had lent from the Moholt branch turned out to be written by some Guru-type named “Osho” who had some very strange ideas that I didn’t really like. One of my finds is “Lær å meditare” by David Fontana. It’s systematic, non-religious and a pleasure to read. I checked out two books and went to the bank of Nidelva to sit down and read until it was time for my appointment.

At 12:10 I arrived at the radiologist’s, check in and was told to sit down and wait a little. I was called almost immediately though. The CT machine looks pretty much like I imagined it. A moveable stretcher and a large metal donut. The two operators were very nice, although they were slightly surprised that I was not Norwegian. Appearantly, my name would not be out of place in Norway. So I laid down and after some chatting, they told me that this would be a scan with contrast medium, meaning they needed to give me a iodine injection. No problem there. At this point I was actually pretty curious how the entire thing works and chatting with them. The only thing that surprised me was the sheer amount of the contrast stuff. I think I got almost a deciliter, and the hypodermic was pretty damn big. No problem though, didn’t hurt at all. Supposedly some people feel a burning sensation or a metallic taste due to the contrast, but no such thing happened to me. Then I got my head fixated (moving is [i]bad[/i]) and in I went. I just tried to breath as calmly as possible and not move [i]at all[/i]. Staying focused and at the same time relaxed enough not to have muscle twitches is a little bit difficult. The test took a couple minutes. First some pictures without the contrast (remember, stuff takes a couple minutes to get from the blood to the brain), then with increasing contrast concentration. After we were done I had to wait for twenty minutes longer to see if the pictures had turned out alright and maybe take some more. The most annoying thing was that I had to keep the IV for the contrast in my arm vein during that time. Turned out that the pictures were fine and will be sent to Dr. Mohn.

Now it was 13:00, and I hadn’t eaten anything since 21:00 last evening. Time for some food! After my matpakke had been decimated a little bit, I walked back to Samfundet and sat down on a bench overlooking Nidelva and Nidarosdomen to relax a little bit. After that, I had to go back to the Realfagbygget to get to my chemistry lecture at 14:15. That was quite interesting, and when I got home I was happy and decided to make the best out of the currently shining sun. So, I grabbed a blanket, my thermos bottle (which was not empty yet) and the book “Trylledrikken”, the norwegian translation of “Der satanarcheolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch” by Michael Ende. Staid outside for two hours reading it, and am now at page 98. Fun! Then had some dinner (Seifilet, vegetables and tagliatelle in soy souce from monday) and switched on the computer when I was finished.

So far, a good day.

Belated: Football

I just noticed that I hadn’t blogged at all about last Tuesday evening. What happened on this particular day, you ask? Simple: Me and some other Erasmus students went to see a football game! The game of choice was the second game of the Champions League qualification. The best know football club in Trondheim, RBK Rosenborg, was playing in the Lerkendal stadion south of Gløshaugen against Steaua Bukarest. The first game in Bucarest had ended 1:1, so all was still open.

We had gotten some pretty cheap tickets (under 20 Euro) and got into the stadion just by feeding them through a barcode reader. No searches, little security. Hooligans or terrorists seems to be no immediate concern here, which is very refreshing. We settled down in our seats, then had to move because we had accidentally gotten the wrong seats. Now correctly positioned, we whiled away the next thirty minutes discussing our prior experiences with football. A lot of us where in a stadion for the first time; for me, it was the second. I had brought a bottle of water and a quilt to keep warm. This served me well, since it was maybe 10°C and raining. The stands have a roof, fortunately, but the air is clammy nevertheless. The pre-game entertainment ended with the Rosenborg song, which we had learned in the language course, so of course we sang along!

Then… the long awaited moment – kickoff!
The game progressed goal-less but not boringly, which is a lot better than my first live football game. Bucarest and Rosenborg where both trying hard, showing a lot of effort but never quite managing to break through the others’ defense. This changed in the 38th minute, when RBK scored. No further goals fell before the break.

In the meantime, we were trying to get into the spirit of things (right, Karin?). Fortunately, the chants were anything but difficult (“R-B-K! R-B-K!” or “Ro-sen-borg! Ro-sen-borg!”) and we had some fun blending in. I doubt I’m hardcore enough for the fans’ corner, though.

After the interruption, the game picked up pace, and RBK managed to score twice more despite the efforts of Steaua, which made the score 3:0. At this point, victory seemed certain for Trondheim. Bucarest, however, managed to make spirited comeback, scoring twice in close succession, making the score 3:2. Because of the 1:1 in the first game, a 3:3 result would have meant a defeat for RBK. Thus, both teams spent the last twenty minutes under high pressure to make the goal that would save their team from defeat, or prevent just that goal.

However, RBK managed to disrupt Steaua’s efforts sufficienlty, and when the whistle sounded, the score board still showed 3:2. This had been one hell of a game! We took a group picture and filed out of the stadion. Talking about pictures: I didn’t bring my camera, but Karin took a couple, which I will be putting online later today.

Paranoia Mode: Activate

Whew, quite a day so far. This morning I had my appointment with Dr. Mohn. I told him that the dizziness had not improved since the last appointment, so he decided to go into paranoia mode and do some serious testing to pinpoint the exact cause of my problem.

First he had me do some basic motoric tests that would have indicated coordination or neural problems (there were none), and then decided to have two more involved tests done. First was the blood test. I got a blood sample taken at the legesenter, which is now being sent to the hospital lab, where it will be subjected to a rather in-depth test. This should pinpoint any unusual antibodies, nutriment deficiencies or similar I might have. Second was checking up on my balance organ; this means medical imaging. So I get to make an appointment with a radiologist for a CT scan of my head. Seems they are up to speed and my appointment will be tomorrow at noon. Nice! I worked as an intern for three months at the Philips laboratories in Aachen where they develop CT machines, but I have never seen one, nor been in them. This is going to be interesting!
I do not think anything will show up in these tests, but it will eliminate all doubt that there is nothing more sinister than an infection at the base of this. I have considerable faith in modern diagnostics, and if nothing serious is revealed I will assume that it is a viral infection and wait it out. This is by far the most likely case, anyway.

Of course, by then the day had barely started. On my way to the radiologist’s office I ate some of my packed breakfast (in expectation of a blood test I had not eaten before 9), then went back up to Gløshaugen to listen to my advanced anorganic chemistry lecture, have lunch and then move on to quantum optics with Prof. Skagerstam.

Of course, old Skagerstam was in his usual top form (for someone who is at least 35 years older than I am, that guy makes me envious of his amazing energy), and went from 12:15 to 15:00 with two breaks in between. We covered the quantisation of electromagnetic potentials, which is a huge calculation, touching once again on zero-point energy, having one hell of an index battle, summarising, integrating, conjugating… well, you know how it is. At three o’clock, I was really looking forward to a relaxing afternoon. I was supposed to have functional materials from 14:00 to 16:00, but I decided to finish listening to Skagerstam, so I arrived there at 15:05, just as Prof. Samuelsen announced the homework and said that he would cut the lecture short here. Blessed be!

I am now back at Moholt, getting my well-earned rest. This is not too bad, since it is raining outside anyway. Besides, I pulled a muscle in my leg two days ago, so jogging is not advisable at the moment anyway. I think I will meditate a little bit later on (have been doing some experiments with a couple of books I got from the public library) and see what I will do in the evening.

Annoying

Today is looking to be a rather obnoxious day.

I decided to finally go to immigration and apply for a residence permit. However, immigration opens three days a week from 10 to 14, and the lines are long.
Thus I got up at seven, dressed and caught the bus towards the center. Unfortunately, traffic was bad and the bus old, so the ride took longer than usual and was not very enjoyable. I managed to arrive at the police station at 7:54 and pull a number for the immigration office – 637. I know they start at 600, and that Maike, who had 626, had her turn at 11 when she went. Okay. Off we go to the lecture “Non-linear dynamics” at 8:15. I arrived a little bit late, but missed only a short introduction to the Euler and Runge-Kutta methods of numeric approximation, both of which I already knew after some more talk about approximation methods, rounding errors and bifurcations, we had break.

For the last 45 minutes we got exercises to do from a book we didn’t have, so the Professor had to go and copy the two pages from his book. Unfortunately, the only copying machine he may use is on the other side of the building. Clever! When he returned, we discovered that the exercises are quite a bit more difficult than the lecture sofar. I will need to brush up on my differential equation solving right away, I think. Lucky I took the Mayberg-Vachenauer with me.

After non-linear dynamics I proceeded to functional materials, where I staid for the first half hour. We mainly settled some organisatory issues, such as where to meet, when, what the exam would be like, and so forth. I really have to make myself a new timetable; so much has changed since the last version that I keep losing track. Professor Samuelsen seems to be on a bit more engineering track, which I guess is not surprising for a materials lecturer. This will be refreshing, since non-linear dynamics and quantum optics are both pretty heady stuff.

Now back to the police station. On the way there I meet Frank, who tells me that his number (635) had already been called. But I had 637- …oh-oh. However, Frank (blessed be his name!) had taken a second number as insurance (653) which he gave to me. All hail! Armed with this new hope, I went to the immigration department, waited 40 minutes or so (not wasted, since I read Zeit) and then handed in my form, showed my passport and my health insurance card, and was told that everything seemed to be in order and the residence permit would be mailed to me. At this point in time, my balance was troubling me a litte (the waiting hall had modern unsteady chairs), so I was glad to get home and rest a little. Turns out that the main problem I have with labyrinthitits is that you get stressed by overcompensating your balance using your eyes. Well, I have been sitting down and doing some stuff the last hour, so by now I am pretty much back to normal. I can’t wait to get a move onto treating this, though. Well, my appointment is tomorrow morning.

The rest of the day will feature a quantum optics lecture, hopefully of normal length (not the three hour thingy Prof. Skagerstam pulled on friday), cooking dinner, maybe some socialising for the evening. Not really sure about what I’ll be doing.

EDIT: Okay, the afternoon turned out to be the better part of the day! After relaxing a little bit and refueling with a bowl of muesli, I took the bus down to Gløshaugen and sat in the quantum optics lecture for two hours. Questions were asked and answered, little tricks were explained and lots of funky stuff (zero-point energy, Casimir effect) was talked about. After a nice walk in the sun back to Moholt I’m now sitting at my desk again. I feel like every step I take is a little bit bigger than I want it to be, but it doesn’t annoy me like this morning. I guess a lot of it is in how you take it

Rejected!

Today was the audition for Trondhjemer Studentersangforening (TSS), the major student choir. I arrived at 16:00 sharp, got a time slot at 19:42 to sing a little song and conduct an interview, and left again. I had already decided on “California Dreaming” several days ago and had been practising.

The audition got of to a bad start though when I got so nervous (first audition in my life, singing in front of four people taking notes) that I forgot the text and had to rack my brain for thirty seconds before it would reappear to me. Even then, my voice was a little bit shaky from nervousity. Ah well, I am certain they had worse that day. The interview conducted by some choir members afterwards was much more relaxed and went quite well. All good impressions seem to have been for naught though, as I received this email:

*****
Vi hadde desverre ikke plass til deg i våre rekker, men husk opptaket
for resten av gjengene på samfundet på søndag 28.8

Mvh TSS styre v/sekretær
*****

Translation: Sorry, we have no place. This was not just sent to me, but several other applicants as well. This [i]might[/i] be polite version of “you suck!”, but after the repeated emphasis that there were no particular quality standards for the audition and the pictures I have seen of the choir, it might actually really be the case that they cannot fit any more people into their rehearsal room/stage.

For me, this means that the search for a choir continues. I am giving some consideration to this [url=http://org.ntnu.no/aks/www/index.php?view=koret new=true]one[/url], although it may not be on the same level as the JCO. I will make do with nice company and music, though, even if it is not as challenging. TSS can blow me!

One Month!

It has now been one month since I arrived in this city, and I believe that is cause for some retrospection. What have I done the past 31 days?

* Did a lot of shopping. My room went from a bare minimum with stark walls to a warm home with an aroma lamp, usually a candle burning somewhere and one heck of a nice chair. Included are a small selection of books, clothes, cookingware, plants, and some random riffraff that is always useful (sewing equipment, ointment, band-aid, scissors, batteries, …)

* Met an amazing amount of people. My name memory has never been the best and now it is getting seriously overloaded. Well, so is everybody else’s. I met over 100 Erasmus students, several people from the International Office, people from Delta, co-students, flatmates, salespeople (see above) and some more.

* Got a heck of a lot of fresh air. If you are an outdoors person, you are a Norway person. I don’t think I have ever been walking, hiking and barbequeing so much in my whole life. The air is wonderful, and the landscape is beautiful in all but the drabbest weather. I didn’t really have the nerve or the time for a prolonged hiking tour yet, mostly because I am always occupied somehow and not feeling overly energetic at the moment. I am largely happy that I am keeping up well with all the stuff that’s happening
However, I am noticing an improving fitness. I go jogging every day where I do not already have something else, and I walk long distances. As a result, my stamina is increasing, and my weight has started to decrease again.

* Improved my Norwegian significantly. Reading newspaper is now no longer difficult, and my own writing is getting better by leaps and bounds. Oral communication is still a challenge. I can put together some simple sentences, but if the discussion becomes more involved I have to slow down too much to think. Understanding the Norwegians is growing easier slowly, but they talk quite fast. Well, I think my lectures will provide ample training.

* Learned how to survive without spending too much money. Notwithstanding the shopping part, I try not to live too expensively. A major step in that direction is cooking a lot myself, and being cost-conscious when selecting the ingredients. Chicken and high-quality meat is hilariously unaffordable. Minced meat however is quite tolerable, and some of the fish has to be considered dirt-cheap by norwegian standards. Another important thing is to hold back on the alcohol, and try to drink mostly at home or to take something with you.

* Had my first lecture of the semester. The Advanced Inorganic Chemistry course at NTNU has 11 students and takes place in a very nice room which is just barely big enough for us. The lecture was in Norwegian, but the transparencies where in English. I had trouble catching a lot of the words, but since the first lecture was concerned with topics I could do in my sleep (crystal lattices, molecular binding), I missed nothing. It will probably be another month before I can really follow the lectures in Norwegian.

Last Week

A lot of things happened in the last couple of days. Whatever I can say about Trondheim, lack of things to do will not be a problem in the near future.

[h2]Tuesday[/h2]

I decided that I needed to get some more things for my room. Cookingware seemed in order, and the cheap desk chair that I was sitting on was not the pinnacle of furniture development. In fact, it was rickety, uncomfortable and really starting to be the bane of my evenings. The obvious solution was to find someone who would drive to IKEA in the near future. So, I posted to the International Student Union’s mailing list, and received an answer with the hour. Someone from Hamburg was taking the car to IKEA that evening and would be happy to take me along for a beer or two.
So I met them at Moholt, and off we went. First to OBS!, a combined supermarket and sports store to get some touring equipment they wanted. I seized the opportunity to get myself long jogging pants. At the moment it’s still fine with shorts and t-shirt, but it’s not going to stay this warm forever. Especially in the autumn rains, water-repellant jogging clothes are a boon. I also got a small compass, because the sun can often be difficult to spot and knowing where north is is really useful when you are out in the woods and getting the feeling that maybe you are not on the path you thought you were.
Thus we descended onto IKEA like harpies. Okay, so I was the one who actually bought stuff. My companions just bought a cheese knife (no kidding), while I assembled an office chair ([url=http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=12&langId=-1&catalogId=10101&productId=43424 new=true]behold![/url]) , a frying pan, three pots, various kitchen utensils and some knick-knack. Fortunately, because if they had bought the same amount of stuff we would have had a space problem in the small Polo they were driving.
It was past nine o’clock when we got home. They helped me carry my things up to the room, and since they had been very patient and helpful, I decided to repay them generously, with some of my precious whiskey that almost cost its weight in gold. The gift was well received and after saying our goodbyes, I was left to unpack and assemble. I am now sitting in the chair, and am fully satisfied. I finished the evening by breaking in my new kitchen equipment and cooking a curry. Unfortunately, the salmon I used was so salty that it completely overshadowed the mild curry sauce I was using. The result was a salty rice dish with some peppers and carrots in it. Tolerable, but not stellar.

[h2]Thursday[/h2]

Today, the international students were given an introduction to the so-called social unions. These are clubs of students, organizing parties, trips and other fun activities for their members. All the unions in Trondheim focus on the students of particular subjects. This means that a group called “Delta,” which handles math and physics bachelor and master students, is considered “my” social union. Some subjects are applicable for several unions, but not physics. Of course, the other unions are not going to turn you away, but they do not consider you part of their clientele proper.
On thursday evening, Delta opened its basement in Moholt. I had fun taking to several norwegian firsties. Many of them are just as new to Trondheim as I am, like Pål, who comes from Hilsøy, or Lasse from Trysil. However, I went home early on Thursday (about 22:30), since I still had language course the next day and the exam waiting on saturday.

[h2]Friday[/h2]

I left the language course a little bit early to make a doctor’s appointment I had scheduled earlier this week. I met my “fastlege,” a doctor who is allotted to you and is considered “your” doctor. Mine is Torkel Mohn, and seems to be alright. The reason I headed there is that I have been feeling unusually tired and occasionally dizzy the past weeks. After having some questions answered and checking some things in my ears and my eyes, he told me that it was most likely a light case of labyrinthitis, i.e. an inflammation of the balance nerve. Symptons should decline during the next week. If not, some further tests should be undertaken. However, it seems that it has already been getting better the last 2-3 days. I have also been able to relax a little bit more now that the summer course is over. Well, we will see how it works out. I am relieved though that it does not seem to be related in any way to circulation, blood pressure or something like that. The rest of friday was spent revising for the exam and later on relaxing a bit.

[h2]Saturday[/h2]

This was a rather… interesting day. It started of course with the summer course exam. The exam would decide whether we qualified for language course level 2. Unfortunately, there seem to be very few places left in the course, so a high grade is necessary in order to have a chance at one. That is the main reason I studied so much for the exam. I feel that I did very well on the exam, though. I made only a few mistakes in the grammer section, and after triple-checking my essay, I hope that it gets a good mark as well.
After the exam, I went to Moholt Folkebibliotek and raided their shelves. I am now the proud loaner of two DVDs and four books. Details as follows:

* DVD #1: Norway – the country of contrasts. Norway’s official PR video, with commentary in eight languages. I watched it in Norwegian, and understood most of it, surprisingly.
* DVD #2: Final Fantasy in Norwegian. Yes, the movie sucks, but it will provide some easy practice
* Book #1: Verden i sang. A song book (mostly international). The TSS choir is auditioning nexy Thursday, and I need something to sing there. Want to start practicing today or at the latest tomorrow. I think I will sing “Killing me softly,” although “California Dreaming” is a possibility as well.
* Book #2: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (norwegian). I really like the Narnia chronicles, and this one should be a simple introduction.
* Book #3: The lost continent (norwegian). Bill Bryson is way cool, and I actually haven’t read this one yet.
* Book #4: Creative Meditation. A bit of a change, I know. I want to inform myself about relaxation and concentration techniques, so I looked around the bookstores and libraries for a book with interesting ideas and no religious mumbo-jumbo about energy flowing out of your chakra centers or something like that. This book has a large number of possible routines for different occasions and temperaments, and it seems to regard meditation purely as a state of mind. It often makes reference to buddhist monks and practitioners, but which book on meditation could avoid that? I played around with some of the exercises already, and rather enjoyed it. No true enlightenment of the soul yet, but very relaxing and good for concentration.

Of course, the end of the summer course required some celebration as well. So we met at the Vista bar in the evening to party. In short, I had fun, but felt pretty ripped of by the establishment when I ordered a cocktail (very expensive, like all drinks there) and got a glass filled up to 20% with cocktail and then topped up with ice. Isn’t that illegal somehow? Rather displeased, I left about three hours after I had arrived and walked back up to Moholt, where I wanted to go to the Delta basement and chat up some people. However, it all came differently when my flatmate Ole and his merry men where at the flat just when I came in, and we started to have a long discussion about world economy, military service, history and some of the other things you talk about when you are no longer completely sober. By the time we were finished it was 01:40, and the basement was only populated by the hardcore drinkers, not amenable for conversation. So, I went home, surfed a little bit and then went to bed.

Wildlife at Klæbu

Today was our last trip with the Erasmus social programme (ooooh). We started at nine in the morning and went to a wildlife camp Klæbu, which is about 30 kilometers from Trondheim. We were greeted by three overseers, each of which was responsible for one activity. So we split in three groups, each of which would get to do every activity, just in different order. Of the other two groups went, while we staid in the camp, to start with our first activity: Games.

(Pictures are [url=http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~andrstef/pictures/Klæbu/imagelist.html new=true]here[/url].)

Our group, containing of fifteen people, had to split again in two teams, who would compete against each other in several contests. First we had to think up a name though. Our opponents christened themselves the “Tuborg TT Terminators,” while we went with the somewhat ironic “Pølser” (=sausages). For those who don’t know, Pølser are what we get to eat at every one of the Erasmus barbecues. They are not particularly fine meat, and we got fed up with them quite quickly. The games were standard fare, but quite fun: Build a pyramid out of certain blocks, a race on those four-man skis, building a tower out of drink cases, throwing balls, tug-of-war, and some other things. Unfortunately, we lost: We won more balls, but in the last game, we had to throw them into a basket, and the Terminators, despite having won fewer balls, landed more hits. Ah well.

After a little lunch break, we walked off into the woods to get to the climbing place. In a circle of several high trees, fifteen meters off the ground, there were a number of plattforms, connected by various arrangements of rope. Of course we all got a safety harness, and where always connected to a sturdy safety line. So we climbed up a tree, using a number of hooks that had been hammered into the wood. After that, each of us went around the circle once. I am not afraid of heights, but being high over the ground on a rope that starts swinging under me made me quite nervous. So much that my knees shook, which of course made the rope I was standing on shake even more. I managed better with the elements where I had three different ropes to hang on to; this gives you a much more stable position. It was very exciting, but I was glad to be back on the ground again afterwards. Several other people seemed to think the same.

Our last activity for the day was canoeing. Two persons per boat, and up the river we went. Several people from the groups before us had fallen into the river when their canoes had flipped over, so I took some precautions: I was wearing a t-shirt, swimming trunks and shoes, and left everything of value behind at the camp. Yes, even my beloved camera, which is why you will find no pictures of us canoeing. We looped through a side-arm, before tackling the main branch, which had several places with noticeable current in it, as well as a small stretch of wildwater, which we were going to circumvent by dragging the canoes fifty meters over land. Just as we were approaching the landing place, we turned our canoe too hard, turned into the current, tipped, and wham! we had flipped. The river is fed out of Lake Selbu up in the mountains, and correspondingly cold. Really cold. Nevertheless, we managed to pull us and our canoe to shore, tip the water out and then continue the trip to the landing place. There we carried the canoe by the wildwater, only to discover that the plan was for us to return to camp now. As the highlight of the canoe trip, we would go over the wildwater. This turned out to be easy and safe, since the water looked wild, but was still deep and not agitated enough to give our canoe any trouble. We returned to the camp without further incident, merely enjoying the beautiful river and the mountains around us.

After return to camp, I decided to make the best out of being wet and go swimming. This plan was changed to “sit in the sun on the landing place” when I re-discovered just how cold the river was. A couple of other guys jumped in the river and swam a little bit, but they got back out almost immediately as well. Nevertheless, kudos. I took a motion picture series of their first jump with my camera, which you can see [url=http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~andrstef/pictures/Klæbu/Sprung/ new=true]here[/url]. The remainder of the day was business as usual for these trips: Barbeque (with pølser, yes), frisbee, kubb. Wait till the bus comes, go home, rest.

It was a beatiful day, and I am tired but satisfied. I hope that the trips we undertake during the semester will be as nice as the ones organized by Erasmus!

Estenstaddammen or Bust!

Finally, a free day! Tomorrow we go to Klæbu wildlife camp with the social programme, but today I could just relax – yeah right!

I woke up at ten o’clock, had breakfast and got off to a slow start. At half past eleven, I took the bus to the city to finish my shopping from yesterday. I bought two flavours of non-coffeinated tea: Rhubarb and apple-lemon. Haven’t tried apple-lemon yet, but the rhubarb one is quite nice, with a hint of vanilla. Then took a look at a book store I haven’t been in yet, got myself a Norwegian Asterix and went to the final shop, Vinmonopolet. These are the state-owned shops where all alcohol over 5% must be sold. I had a look around, and decided to get myself a nice bottle each of whiskey, vodka and calvados. That should be enough for quite a while. To my surpise, the prices where not as high as I had expected. I ended up paying about 40 EUR per bottle. That is a lot, no doubt, but it was high-quality alcohol (no use in being cheap) and would have cost EUR 30 per bottle in Germany as well. I had expected something more like 70-80 per bottle, but that must have been misinformation. Being the impatient person that I am, I didn’t wait for the bus but walked back to Moholt. That did take an hour, because I took a different way which didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. Ah well. It was now quarter past one.

For the remainder of the day, my masterplan was to go hiking. There is a small lake in the hills south of Moholt, called Estenstaddammen. On the map it looks like an easy hike, and some friends of mine who had been there before said it was forty minutes on foot. So I packed myself a blanket, a book, a thermos bottle full of rhubarb tea, and a matpakke (=food package) containing two pieces polar brød, one with leverpostei and one with ham, an apple and some liquorice drops. I also took my map and my camera, and set off.

Pictures are [url=http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~andrstef/pictures/imagelist.html new=true]here[/url], relevant starting from 0915.

Unfortunately, my map didn’t list all hiking paths, and I managed to turn off the road into the wild about 200m too early. This caused me to go into a narrow loop, which goes through two small valleys and takes about three kilometers longer than the more direct path. I didn’t notice at first, and was merely confused that there seemed to be no lake nearby. Whenever I climbed a ridge, there was always just a dry valley on the other side. After asking some joggers and still not getting anywhere, I sat down for a rest, ate a bread and was just about to give up and try to go home, when the sun came out. Using the sun’s position, I could finally figure out where I was, and that the lake was maybe half a kilometer further. I decided to give it one last try, and managed to find the lake. Hurray!

Out came the blanket, the book and the matpakke. I ate the rest of my food while reading a nice book, drinking fine tea and enjoying the beautiful landscape. After a while, I was joined by a mother duck and her little ones. They were not the only company though: Every five minutes, another group of joggers, family or couple passed by. Obviously, there must be a shorter way up!

After relaxing by the lakeside for half an hour, I decided that it was time to go back. Shortly after packing up, I met some other Erasmus students, who told me the way down. I managed to find it, and after another forty minutes walk I was back in Moholt. That was two hours ago. I am still a bit beat (I tire easily in the last few weeks – maybe I need some longer relaxation to reload my reserves), but it was a lot of fun. I am definitely going up there again, only this time by the right path.

A Close Encounter of the German Kind

A close encounter of the german kind|CONTENT|Yesterday, I decided to do some shopping after my daily run. I have been quite tired the past week and therefore I haven’t really been down to the city for a couple of days. However, I still wanted some tasty non-coffeinated tea, slippers and one more plant for my room. My Ficus doesn’t seem to be doing so well with the north window: It’s losing leaves and turning brown. The ivy on the other hand is thriving, but that is hardly surprising.

Unfortunately the tea shop I patronise closes at five o’clock on friday, so no tea. But I did manage to get nice slippers. The fact that they are nominally size 46 doesn’t really matter. Slippers are supposed to be too big, otherwise they are not comfortable. That taken care of, I headed to a florist I had seen earlier, in the Byhaven shopping center. I wanted a plant that would do well without direct sunlight and rather little light in general. After the first few words, the saleslady shrugged and said, “Sorry, bad english.” Oh dear. I definitely can’t do this in Norwegian yet. Just as I was about to excuse myself and leave, she asked, “Can you speak German?” “Huh?” “German – Tysk.” “Äh, ja. Können Sie gut Deutsch sprechen?” “Ich komme aus Deutschland!”.
Okay, so that was definitely a first. I never expected German to be useful where English had failed, but this is a strange world, after all (see heading). I had a nice chat with her. She came to Norway ten years ago and has been running this flower shop ever since. Appearantly, a friend of hers lives in Aachen, so she even knew where I was from. In the end, we decided on a plant and I left the shop, pleasantly surprised and with lifted spirits.