Fall Saddles

I thought I had caught up with my sleep pretty well.  The first night here, I slept a solid 13.5 hours.  It was definitely necessary.  I thought that going to be tired would be enough, but last night I slept less than 4 hours before waking up.  I was up at about 4:30 AM here, and ended up sitting on the computer for a while until the events started.  Tonight, I am very tired, so I’m hoping for a nice rest.

The only events planned for yesterday where an informational meeting with all international students followed by a walking tour of Bø and free pizza.  After that, I sat around with a Frenchman in the Norwegian language program named Pierick and a California guy named Brian.  We watched music videos and listened to music until it started getting late.  I like these guys.  I haven’t met anyone here that I haven’t liked yet.  The problem I’m having now is that I feel there are just too many people I’m expected to know – but that’s no different than summer camp, so I’m all set.

Today I took a scenic walk to the school, which features a bubbling stream, woods, bridges, and a half-pipe.  Yes, a half-pipe in the most random of places.  I don’t even think you could successfully ride a skateboard to this half-pipe.  Pictures coming soon.

We met with the leader of our study program later in the day.  She’s a very nice woman who has been in Norway for 40 years now – Judy Torvik.  It was nice to know exactly who else is in this program (a total of 6 or 7 of us).  I think we’re all US students in this group.

After losing our group more than once with Anjuli, I eventually went back to Grivi, skipping the hour-long Norwegian speech by the dean.  None of us were really into the idea of sitting through a long, boring speech that we couldn’t understand while sitting on rough stone steps outside the school.

Instead, we met up at Kroa for some information on various student clubs, some free food and gear (including lots of coffee stuff from the folks at Nestlé’s Nescafé.no).  The only problem was that I showed up about 45 minutes earlier than the rest of the students.  I awkwardly took a seat inside Kroa while the volunteer students finished setting up the student club fair.

Luckily, relatively early into the sitting, I met a Norwegian student starting her first semester of studies in Bø.  She’s a freshman just starting here, named Silja (pronounced like the end of our Cecelia).  She was pretty outgoing for a Norwegian, and seemed to have a lot of interests in different areas.  So we were able to talk about Japanese and Norwegian and lost of other fun stuff while we waited for everyone else to show up.

Part of the even included a rather poorly-attended 5 PM show by the melodic hip-hop group Ess I Ermet. I cannot at all say that it’s my kind of music, or that I even like it.  But I did think they had some good energy on stage (well, the woman just stood there, but the rappers were having fun despite the small crowd).  This band is moderately well known, meaning somebody knows, but you probably don’t.  Here’s their “breakout hit single”.

I think it’s also important to add that today I got in contact with people working the student radio station.  Stay tuned for the possibility of Bridges and Balloons coming all the way from Bø, Norway!.

At the moment, there are a number of parties going on, including the opening disco at Kroa (which in Norway means a dance party that probably has zero disco music).  My friends are going, but since my debit card might have a lock on it now and I still haven’t gotten groceries, I’ve decided to stay away from buying any alcohol for the night.  There’s also the fact that I desperately want to catch up on sleep.

Tomorrow, we start getting lectures about Norwegian culture, free lunch and a trip to the police station to tell them we’re in Bø (and that my residence visa is coming).  I’ll also spend some time with Hope, maybe playing cards.  With no active cell phone, our contact has been limited.  Maybe a free concert at Kroa.  Sorry this entry’s been a bit long.

Ha det! <3 John