Finally the 14th of January, moving day! I will live for the next 6 months together with my roommate, Claire in a room (bedroom and bathroom) and share the rest of the apartment (kitchen, storage area and common area) with some other fellas. My housing apartment is really close to the university. It feels a little bit like my housing that I had at home. Here there are also a lot of housing apartments together close to the university.
After a couple days/weeks we were with six people in our apartment. Claire (Idaho, USA) and me shared a room. Carolina (Colombia – France) and Marina (Spain) shared a room and Elena (Germany) and Anna (France) shared a room. Claire and Elena also study the outdoor education program and one room was still empty and locked (what is kind of weird, because they said they didn’t have enough housing for all the international students).
The first couple of days was a lot about settling in, buying necessary stuff and getting used to living with a roommate and share the rest of the apartment with others. It was really nice that we already got a big box with kitchenware from the university, so we didn’t have to buy that all ourselves. I bought a bike for myself, because the city centre is on the other side of the bridge on a 40 minute walk from where I live. It took some time getting used to having a roommate, but after some time we bonded a little bit. Especially with little situations, like when one of us wants to go to sleep or to get up etc. . For the rest I really bonded with Elena. We cook and eat almost all the time together and Claire also sometimes joines us. It is fun to get to know dishes of their country, like farmers breakfast from Elena and sloppy joes and American pancakes from Claire. I made for them meatballs in tomato sauce and pancakes/crepes to represent Belgium.The others cook mostly for themselves, because they eat vegan or have allergies, what makes it more difficult to cook all together.
The week after settling in a bit we had our first classes! Unfortunately still mostly online, but after a week we could already meet up for some classes! We have theoretical and practical lessons. In the theoretical lessons we learned about ‘friluftsliv’ and group dynamics (and in one break about the structure of snowballs). Our practical lessons are different from the last years, because of COVID-19 and financial cuts in our study, but I’m still really glad with all the stuff we still do and what our teacher wants to do with us. It is also nice that we can change all our classes around looking at the weather and what we want to do. In our practical lessons we made first some group rules, around respect, including everyone etc. . The second thing we did was talk about all our gear we had to took with us and if all the gear was good enough. The third practical lesson was about tents and shelter. We learned what is a good spot to set a tent up and how to do that. The fourth practical lesson was about what is good food to take with you on a trip. There we looked for food that gives a lot of energy, is healthy, is lightweight and easy to
prepare. After these classes we had our first overnight trip to test our gear out and to practice setting our tent up, making a fire and cooking with our stove and gasfire. It was nice to test and practice everything. My gear is all warm enough, the cooking was nice. I only have to practice on my fire making, because in the snow with wet stuff making a fire is new for me and didn’t work so good as I expected.
In the weekends I also didn’t sat still. I worked for my bachelor thesis, did online meetings and activities with my youth movement (KSA), went to do groceries and did my own wash. I also explored the surroundings around the university. I went for a hike
and a run in Jegersberg (note: sliding down on ice with jeans is not a good idea). We had a BBQ with the class, which was great to meet and get to know everyone (note: Germany takes our class over). It was a lot of fun, with games and dancing. I also joined another event, where you did with a group some challenges and afterwards a BBQ. It was nice to also meet other international and Norwegian students in this way.
Class photo! (from left to right)
top row: Anna; Kathrin; Sara; Wil(lemijn); Laura; Mira; Ida; Antje; Asger; Wydse; Thomas; Elena; Claire; Laura (me); Nico; Roman; Luca; /; Maike bottom row: Pauline; Toni; Leoni; Laura; Elena; /; Deborah
Weather update: Cold but not as cold as I expected. Even possible to ice skate or walk on the frozen lakes! Also some snowfall (but not a lot)!
COVID-19 update: Really strange to have less and less restrictions here. After some time everything was open, no mandatory mouth mask to wear, back ‘normal’ classes at university, again meeting up with people and doing things. I’m grateful to experience again a more normal life and world.