Wednesday, 5 Sept 07
Had dinner with Kenneth's Zimbabwe neighbours, Emmanuel and his wife. We cooked chicken rice (the last time was practice. this is the real thing.) and they made their traditional staple food (like the equivalent of rice for us), called Sadza. Its like super thick porridge that has a consistency more like dough and you use your hands to take some off the shared plate and roll it into balls before dipping it into the gravy that comes with the chicken. Super interesting, a bit like eating roti prata, but I still prefer chicken rice! haha

Friday, 7 Sept 07
Oslo Kulturnatt - I joined Alex and Leander and two other German girls, Rike and Malis for the Oslo Cultural night. See! so many Germans everywhere. And then sometimes in between speaking English for my sake, they switch back to German and it sucks not to understand what they're saying. Which is why now I'm trying to refresh all the German that I learnt like almost 2 years ago. I think I'll be returning from Norway without having picked up Norwegian, but being more fluent in German instead. haha

Anyways, back to the events. As a celebration of Norwegian culture, you could go into the museums at either a discount off the entrance fees, or totally free, but only for that day. There were other special programs, like these trips on ships sailing off to the Bygdoy islands, which are about an hour or so, either with opera performances (these ships were full of grey-haired people) or with parties aboard(where all the happening young people are!) . When we got to the pier, this ship was nicely blasting Alex Gaudino's Destination Unknown, full of people ready to party! But then the 5 of us had to sit at the pier and watch it sail off into the sunset just cause we had to wait for one very late person. I'm still very sad we missed it.

We ended up visiting the Nobel Peace Prize Museum instead and then going to listen to a classical music concert in commemoration of Edward Grieg, Norway's most famous composer. But the accompanying story-telling of Grieg's life was in Norwegian and we didn't understand a word lah so I got quite bored. It was really cultural stuff I tell you... haha Doesn't Edward Grieg look like Albert Einstein anyway?


Saturday, 8 Sept 07
Part of what people call Norwegian culture is this idea of 'nearness to nature'. That sounds like a weird thing to be called culture, but its really common for Norwegians to take to the woods and to their weekend cabins, away from Oslo for the weekend. And well, the University of Oslo, where Alex and Leander study, was organising a Hike in the Woods so I tagged along as usual. I think I was the only BI student around though. So extra :P

We stopped by this cabin halfway through the hike for a rest. I think this picture looks like a picture right out of a small town university website anyways. Except the building is supposed to be different lah. But.. really pretty picture.

I have to say... life here is so so different from Singapore. On weekends parents bring their babies in strollers and in little trailers behind their bikes on trips through the woods and past glistening lakes. I bet its tonnes more fun being a kid here, with all the cycling through the woods, and the cross-country skiing and hiking stuff they do here. I know I'm thinking too far but my kid(s) shall grow up here.

Oh yea and here's some interesting language stuff I found out yesterday. I joined in a vorspiel last night with a whole bunch of Dutch, Germans and a Canadian. Well, according to my German friends, vorspiel directly translates to English as foreplay. Vor = fore and spiel = play and yea I do remember learning them as individual words during my German class. But before you go and think I was part of some hanky panky business, vorspiel is just a term for pre-parties, where people go and get drunk before they hit clubs. There was drinking but nah, everyone was still very sober when we left. And I didn't go to a club with them either.. was too tired from the hike. Plus they were all going to a club that was playing House music so.. not my type. Ah well, next time then.. gonna go prepare for class tmr now. Ha det!