garbagelove

okay so bergen is not quite as cool as trondheim, BUT I did go dumpster-diving with Patrick today (meaning he jumped in there while I took care of his Space Invaders backpack,..) it was fun. It was a container close to the academy, on the harbour (so dirrrty) I screamed out in excitement when I saw a bunch of coke glasses. I got overly excited at the sight of a norwegian keyboard (obviously useless to me, but I took it anyway) . They were throwing out so much stuff, P was even considering getting the vaccuum cleaner too.
afterwards some girl started talking to us, and she asked if there were any food dumpsters around there, so we said no, but asked if she wanted some food (we’d just come back from the master degree students presentations, and they had free food there so we ‘stole’ sandwiches) I had one vegetarian one but obviously it was for me (especially since the fiskekaker episode), so patrick asked her if she was a veg., and she said that she was FREEGAN, god I love that word – so he gave her the extra ham sandwich he had and she was happy.

so far, my garbage excursions have brought me way too much for my own good. I actually OWN things here now, isn’t that weird?

Fiskekaker og Flatbrød

okay so I was convinced by a few people to try Fiskekaker, a norwegian traditional dish. I might as well, since I won’t go near a whale steak and fiskeboller are just too strange.
I stood in front of the fiskekaker selection at the supermarket for ages.

I got home, made two of them (thank god, just two) and I SWEAR it was awful. it tasted like sausage :(
So from now on the only norwegian tradition foods I will eat are vafler and flatbrød. seriously.

home, where is home?

I was walking back to the hostel today – under a light summer rain – when I started listing in my head a lot of things I miss about France. It’s funny because I don’t miss France all the time, or everyday – I hardly ever think about it – but sometimes I see something that’ll remind me of a certain scene, or moment.. like, pine cones, which really remind me of when we’d walk to the forest from school, just to sit around under trees… so anyway, I’ve been away from home for one month and ten days (only! it feels like so much longer) and I believe it is time for me to make a list…

Things I miss about Vienna:

crossing the river every day
the playgrounds at every block
iced white moccaccino
tap water
doing laundry at 3am when I can’t sleep
cheaper art materials
the austrian postal service
that perfect moment when summer ends and rain is right around the corner
complaining about the subway
the shows
…and people..

that’s all for now. to whoever reads this back home, please remember that even if I don’t mention it, you are most probably missed over here :)

Fantoft

I feel like I should now write a little about the place where I will be living for half a year.
I’m slowly starting to get used to the small dark kitchen, the big bedrooms make up for it and besides, Ana (my flatmate) and I have started a beautiful wallpaper consisting of cutouts of our favorite Flatbrød boxes. What I love most about it is that I can see Mormor from my desk if I keep my door open. Wonderful.
Since we are poor students (poor students in any other country become, by default, even poorer when living in Norway – I’m scared of one day realising I will not be able to afford food anymore and starving to death) we try to get as much free stuff as we can. We’re pretty lucky, too, because it seems like the people living in Fantoft are too lazy to walk to the garbage containers to throw stuff away – so old clothes, broken computer keyboards, etc… appear from nowhere in the staircase. It has become a habit now (and I’ve been living here for four days only!) to walk up and down seven floors to find things.
So far, I found:

  • a pair of ripped denim jeans
  • a pair of khaki pants
  • a white long-sleeved shirt
  • a lot of random midnight blue silky cloth

we also adore people who move out of their apartments and fly back to their country leaving a lot of things behind. One of those being Ana’s friend Sara, from whom I got:

  • a really cute turtle laundry basket
  • a winnie the pooh cushion
  • a neon green desk lamp
  • a permanent marker
  • a yellow highlighter
  • a set of speakers
  • a pillow! (finally)
  • fishing wire
  • wood glue

we also got all the tools to make beer (we were going to buy them in town tomorrow, but we were lucky), an extra mattress in case we have guests, a red pillowcase, and a duvet.

better than being Freegan!

Bergen – day 01, day 02

I arrived at the Bergen airport at 7:50am thursday morning – after rushing to the gate, missing my flight by like a second (thanks to the security which was pretty tight for internal flights – I believe norwegian airport security guards have never seen an external hard drive before…) Of course, my backpack was the biggest of all the luggage on the conveyor belt. I could have sworn I saw people laughing when I managed to lift up my 25kgs to put them on my back, while at the same time balancing two camera bags on either side of my hips, a rucksack in the front and a small sport bag (mostly full of books, yay..) wherever was most convenient. When I got out of the airport bus at Fantoft, I thought I was going to die – the stop was by a highway in the middle of nowhere. I followed people who looked like students.
Fantoft is obviously on a hill – who would have thought!
It took a long time to register at the reception. On my way out I met Johannes – the only person I know in Bergen – who helped me to carry my 50kgs of luggage to the 7th floor of an amazingly ugly greyish concrete building, so I could barge in on my flatmate (Ana, from Spain) and her friend Sara. I had breakfast with them and things were a little slow the whole day.. the sun was shining, I hung around outside a bit, read a book, unpacked, settled in.
Day two – my first experience of the city centre… my headphones on my ears, walking around aimlessly until 10am, when the first informal meeting at KHiB took place. What can I say – the building for Fine Arts looks amazing, it has a kitchen and a terrace with view on the sea..

Elverum-Karlstad-Stockholm

Last weekend, Uno, Eirik, Hanne and I went on a random roadtrip to Stockholm to see the Smashing Pumpkins.

We left from Elverum in the afternoon on friday, accompanied by our friend, Santa Claus.


Dwarf


for some reason I only ever have pictures of Eirik driving..

When we got to Karlstad, Uno got really excited. He had to show his excitement by putting a random bag handle around his head. That’s what reaaally cool people do.


Santa checks up on our car once in a while

This one is for Anna…

The next day (Saturday) we went to a recordstore. It was in a basement and had graffiti all over the place on the way downstairs. Continue reading

norwegian postal service

I am really into mail. I love writing postcards and sending people things.
Before coming here, I did have the suspicion that the mail service wasn’t working as well as one would have thought, but that was just a theory.

About ten days after I moved to Moholt, I got a letter from Anna. So I thought, okay, everything’s working all right… I’m getting mail! most kids around here told me I was supposed to go to the post office to get registered if I wasn’t getting any, but when I mentioned I had already gotten some, it seemed like the norwegian postal service wouldn’t be a problem in my life.
Letter #2 arrives. everything fine.
About a week later, I get a notice in my mailbox about a letter for me. The notice is obviously in norwegian, but I understand from it that I’ve gotten a letter from a certain Anna from Australia (obviously the confusion between Austria and Australia is not uncommon here, either) and that I should go to the post office because I have to pay some kind of fee to receive it. Strange, but okay..
I get to the post office and, lucky me, I get the most unhelpful guy, ever.
I start off in norwegian, because I’m nice like that, but then he realises that I’m foreign so he replies in english. I show him the letter and tell him I don’t understand it all, he translates for me looking pissed off and annoyed; apparently my letter is stuck in Oslo at the customs and I have to fill out the paper with my name, phone number, date of birth and sign it, and he will send it back; when I leave the country I’ll have to pay some kind of tax to ‘export’ my letter. right, whatever.
While I’m at it I think of asking him about whether I should fill out the form about me having changed address. the conversation goes a little like this:

Me: Oh.. and also, should I fill out that form about the change of address?
Rude Guy: It’s up to you.
Me: But is it going to make a difference at all? Will I not be getting mail if I don’t fill it out?
Rude Guy: Yeah. Maybe. Maybe it will.
[silence]
Me: ok so I probably should I guess. [smile]
Rude Guy: yes. [no smile]
Me: can I get the form please?
Rude guy just stares at me blankly for like 3 minutes before turning his chair around so I can have the stupid form.

This is obviously not over. because after all that hassle at the Post Office, Anna got her letter back, with a sticker on it saying “does that live at that address”.

Tusen takk, Norge! :(

post-exam, day 1

Vanilla coffee in the morning with georgia, I really took advantage of the fact that I had nowhere to be today.. no people to meet, no places to go. No waking up at 7:30am, no rushing to the usual morning meeting place headphones around my neck, with an apple in one hand and my house keys in the other.

I made vegetable soup for lunch, fumbled around with my htaccess file and installed a perfectly useless calendar plugin on this site. Listened to music, continued reading Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, and made the big decision of flying to Bergen on thursday rather than leaving in a rush at the beginning of the week, taking two trains, 14 hours of travelling for just about the same price. I do enjoy trains and buses, a lot, and I actually love having to sit in a bus for like 8 hours, with nothing to think of and no one to have to talk to. But next week is going to be stressful enough…
There’s a party at basement 19 tonight. still undecided on whether I should go or not… my conscience is telling me not to – replying to emails, late night reading and going to bed early sounds more tempting than beer and loud people, no?