Dawn of the Second Month

 Hei Hei! 

~ Steve ~

Well would you look at that - it's been 12 days already, sorry to keep you waiting! Time is absolutely flying by, for better or for worse, and I should admit that we possibly forgot to do an entry multiple times...BUT WE'RE BACK! This post will be mostly about what we've been up to since the last post, and Anna will be posting another update soon about the hikes we've been on so far! I'll throw some random photos in here just to break up all the text as well to make sure things don't get too boring. So let's jump right in:

A quick fun highlight! From the 10th onwards, we've found a big group that happens to play beach volleyball on the court at Fantoft so we've been playing quite regularly ever since the weather picked up! I've played previously in school so it's been awesome to jump back into a non-competitive environment with other former players and non-players; for Anna, this is one of her first times playing and she's been doing great (even though she'd say otherwise ;) ). We've met a good number of people through playing Volleyball, leading us to always running into someone we know the moment we get outside! A far cry from the first week when Fantoft was as empty as a ghost-town.

As I mentioned above, the weather has been GREAT! Though it's raining while I type this, there has been some absolutely lovely days over the past couple weeks. This has allowed us and our friends to go out and actually enjoy the area we live in, versus staring out our window at the endless downpour. I even got burnt a bit one day on our first big hike, leading me to slather sunscreen on for the next few days. We're starting to enter into the fall weather slowly but surely, thankfully though we have some warm days coming up to close out our Norwegian summer.

Weather's fine and dandy, but what about the actual reason we're here in Norway; how's the schooling? So far so good! Mostly. For this semester, Anna and I ended up with the same courses due to how they will be transferring back to UVic, being SAS13 (Norwegian Culture and History), NOR-INTRO (an Introduction to Norwegian, specifically the Bergen dialect), and PED200 (Education in a Changing Society). And yes, we're only taking 3 courses (with NOR-Intro ending in late October) since they will be counted for roughly 4-6 (!) courses back at UVic! We didn't want this to be a stressful semester since moving abroad would be stressful enough, but only having to worry about 3 courses has been a godsend so far. It has allowed us to manage our chores, create a social life here, plan some trips (which I'll discuss later), and most importantly, explore Norway! 

There have been a few downsides to our Norwegian schooling experience so far, however. 

Our first class was SAS13 on the 15th, and man, that first class sucked. We arrived--Anna, myself, and a few of our friends--15 minutes early to class. For some context, we arrive roughly 10-15 minutes early for classes at UVic; classes end at the 00:20 or 00:50 mark on the hour, and then there are 10 minutes between the next set of classes, allowing folks time to commute to their next class, time for the class to empty for the next one, and not too much time so as have empty classrooms. Arriving that early gives us tons of time to find seats and get to know the people around you before class starts.

But we're not at UVic. When we got there, with there being the top floor in an older, confusing building, the room as a cramped elementary-sized classroom with limited chairs and even fewer tables to sit at. We looked around the room to find no seats and no tables free, and we were relegated to standing near the middle of the room for the entire class. And we weren't the last people to get there, far from it. I would wager over 30 people were either sitting on the floor, standing at the back, sitting on the window sills, and creeping a peak from one of the two doorways while our Prof introduced the course. And each course is roughly two hours long, so the discomfort only continued to grow. Thankfully, we have a larger auditorium for our future classes, but that was a terrible way to start off the semester for us. The class was pretty good though! So that's a relief. Just a sh***y first impression, that's all. 

The final downside to our Norwegian classes, something that I personally am dreading, is the final exams--particularly, how they will dictate our entire grades. We've been so used to multiple assignments, exams, and research papers culminating in a letter grade at the end but here, only that final exam really matters. But on the bright-side (lots of sides here, I know), our grading scheme is pass/fail and we don't have much schoolwork to worry about throughout the semester! So yay for that :)

But we only had one class last week (13th-17th), which was wonderful! A nice way to ease into the school year. This past week, we had our other two classes for the first time. PED200 was on Monday at 2:15pm, and it was nice to have a psychology-based course to start off the week. We went over the course outline and delved into what education meant to us, and its sociological origins. Overall, a fairly interesting start! We're excited to learn a bit more education in Norway, though for me, it'll likely be a review of certain sociology classes I've taken previously. 

~ photos from this amazing castle downtown!~

On Wednesday and Friday mornings at 8:15am, NOR-Intro takes place in smaller group-setting, which is lovely for language courses. We're at a table with two great German students, and so far, Norwegian isn't too bad for us! It has many similarities to English, which makes our readings a breeze (after we translate the occasional confusing word). With any luck, we'll be back in Canada with a low-level grasp of Norwegian. 

And Wednesdays at 12:15pm we have SAS13, as I mentioned before! Our class this past Wednesday went MUCH better (we had a giant auditorium to sit in), and it's been fascinating learning more about Norway's history aside from just the Vikings--though I'm beyond excited for the Viking unit coming in September.

Anyways, enough about school, what have we been up to otherwise? Weeellllllll...lots of stuff! I'm going to leave the bigger things for Anna's next post (specifically, our hikes to Ulriken and Rundemanen, and an awesome castle visit we did spontaneously yesterday after class) and I'll go over our day-to-day stuff in here!

So I mentioned previously that we've been playing lots of Volleyball, but exercise-wise, we've been trying to hit the gym 3-4 times per week to escape school and to ensure we burn off all the tasty Norwegian chocolate! It's been nice to have a gym so close to the house and one that fits our needs almost perfectly! We just have to find times when there aren't so many people working out...

At Fantoft, there have been loads of events that we've been to so far. One Friday night, we went down to the "Klubb" on campus, which has a games room and a large dance floor space, plus comfy lounge couches and booths on the sides for doing work or playing games. There was music playing and we met some new exchange students as well! There's been a movie showing in the klubb, a bingo night (which we had more fun prepping for and chilling afterwards), and last night was a silent disco! It's a weird experience to have music playing through headphones, only to take them off and hear absolutely nothing besides the stomping of feet and random singing of drunk strangers. Tonight, there's a karaoke night that we're going to, just to hear a bunch of insanely drunk students scream popular songs. 

Our room has become the de facto movie room when the one large common room downstairs is occupied. The projector has been working wonders for us and I can safely say that everyone else has been thoroughly enjoying it too. It's also been great for a few Mario Kart tournaments too! Still need to find some real competition though...Having the larger apartment has been such a blessing that Anna and I are incredibly thankful for, it's made connecting with others so much easier! As I'm typing this, Anna and two friends are currently watching "The Conjuring 2," so typing this blog post out is the perfect excuse not to watch another horror movie (if you didn't know before, you know now: I can't do horror, sadly).

Here's something fun we did, something that really brought us out of our comfort zone: we went to a Norwegian club downtown! And what an experience that was. I'll let you decide if it was positive or negative experience ;) We started off having a few drinks with our friends in the Klubb Fantoft lounge area (a much cheaper alternative to buying our drinks at the club). Around nine o'clock, we jumped on the tram (a large group of us, over 10 or so) and headed downtown to the club. We arrived to a short line, which quickly filled up as we waited to get in, and soon headed on in. The floor was crowded with little room to move, the music was loud and blaring wicked bass lines, and everyone was jumping to the beat. We danced for a couple hours and then, around midnight, we all seemed to get that late-night craving for a burger! Food is a little pricey here, but thankfully, McDonald's is not. We grabbed some food and headed for the tram back to Fantoft, but not before exploring the beautiful square in the heart of Bergen. A small group of us then proceeded up to our room to talk, laugh, eat, and drink water before we headed for a nice long sleep. My ears were ringing until the next day from the music. It was one hell of an experience, but I need a bit of time before I'm ready to do that again. 

And swimming! In the Fjords! So lovely, so cold, what a wonderful feeling. There's a Fjord location nearby (Gamlehaugen, beautiful castle and grounds too) that we have frequented on warm days, and we took a large group to a dock area downtown to do some jumping and diving! It's been wonderful to get some swimming in after having little-to-no time to swim, or no way of getting to the swimming spots, in Victoria. We have developed a reputation as the people who don't get cold, as we are usually the ones that stay in the water the longest, and likely annoy people by saying how "warm" the water is. I suppose enjoying the refreshing temp is a Canadian thing, I'm not sure! Either way, exciting to be swimming again, and we can officially cross off swimming in a Fjord from our bucket lists.

Other than all that, we've been watching lots of movies (I can HIGHLY recommend "Day Shift" if you're in need of a good time and don't mind some John Wick levels of violence and blood) and TV shows, while playing lots of video games with each other. Our days are slowly being filled with more readings and note-taking sessions, and our sleeping schedules are reverting back to the usual school-year early-morning-late-night schedule. We've been trying to keep our diets healthy and filled with lots of veggies and proteins. Just like in Victoria, we spend loads of time cooking--something good for the mind and body. We want to continue to explore the Fantoftvegen area we live in further, so expect some pictures of our little walks soon. I've included a couple photos of a nearby Stave church from the Viking era (sadly it had to be rebuilt as an exact replica since a Metal band burned it down for publicity - interesting story there, look it up if you have some time) as well as a cool little forest walk nearby. 

We've got some exciting things coming up in the next few weeks! This Monday evening, we're going to a Football match at Brann Stadium--the team is undefeated in their league, so we're excited to (hopefully) see some high-level play! We've got our first mandatory (but unfortunately worthless) assignment due on September 5th, plus over 150 pages worth of content to read before Wednesday (hooray) so that'll be "exciting." But now for the big news. Friday morning, we'll be leaving with two friends to head to one of the most beautiful places on the West coast of Norway: Trolltunga! It's an amazing hike with a huge ledge that overlooks the water in the Fjord 1000m below! Stay tuned for a post about that sometime in early September!!

Well, I think I've talked everyone's ears off at this point, so I think I'll call it there! This has been a little insight into the last couple weeks and I hope that you've enjoyed it! As you've hopefully gathered, we're doing okay here. Things can be stressful, exciting, lonely, serene and peaceful all at once, and it's always a lot to take in when you're trying to balance a life here. But I think we're handling things really well here! We miss our lives back in Canada, and most of all, we miss you! We're loving things here, but it'll be great to see everyone once we're back in December. Let's not rush things though, because I think we've got many more adventures left to come. 

So cheers for now! Anna will be posting soon when she can, but until that time, ha det bra! Leave us a comment or send us a text when you can :)