oktoberfest

With the beautiful nature, hiking is a good way to spend your time here in Norway. You can walk for hours without seeing anyone else. In order to facilitate these trips, there are many cabins in the middle of nowhere that you can rent for a night. You can book them online, hike there, sleep and go on the next morning. They have pretty much everything you need and you only have to bring some food and blankets (the beds with pillows etc are there). We also did this last week. We went on a 4 hour hiking trip towards a cabin north of Oslo with about 40 international students. It was not as challenging as the hiking trips near Stavanger, but still it was nice to see more of Oslo’s surroundings.

In the mean while temperatures are falling and the first outdoor ice tracks are already being prepared. A nice discovery we made last week was that the Norwegians have copied the Oktoberfest. All over the month October student associations and bars have organized multiple editions and last week we went to the biggest one. This took place in a big tent at the student bar Chateau neuf. It had pretty much everything an Oktoberfest needed like the right music, lots of beer, lederhosen and dirndls but still it was far from the real thing in Munich.

Prices in Norway are really high and so are Norwegian wages. Therefore quite a lot of Swedes come to work here for some time and then go back to Sweden. A popular bar amongst those here in Oslo is sports bar O’learys. The same bar we randomly picked to watch the football match Netherlands – Sweden. Watching the Dutch team beat the Swedish team with 4-1 in a bar with 300+ Swedes is great but you won’t cheer that loud.

This week we are going on a trip to Stockholm and take a ‘student cruise’ from there to Talinn so more stories and photos are still to come.

Since my last post I have started to explore more of Norway than just the city of Oslo and its surroundings. Our first trip was to Stavanger, a city on the east side of Norway. As this is a really popular trip organized by InSA, we were happy to be one of the 100 exchange students to get a ticket.

We left Friday morning at 6.30 by bus to arrive in Stavanger at 17.00. The bus ride took a long time, but the views you got in return were breathtaking. It started with surroundings that remind you of Switzerland, whereas it ended with huge fjords. In comparison to the beautiful landscape, the weather was quite bad. In between the rain there were only a few moments of sun. Stavanger is the third biggest city of Norway but has got only 120.000 inhabitants. As the harbor is intensively used by the oil companies drilling offshore, the many small white houses around the harbor are often overshadowed by huge oil tankers.

On Saturday we went on a hiking trip to Preikestolen. Once you’re at the start, it will take you about 2 hours to reach the top but the trip offers you beautiful surroundings. Good hiking shoes are recommended as you will have to climb over waterfalls, walk through swamps, etc. But it is all worth it, the view from the Preikestolen is great. Take a look at the pictures on picasa to get a better impression. Once we arrived back at the hotel, the sauna at the 11th floor of the hotel proved to be the best way to relax. It provided a great view over Stavanger.

On Sunday we went on another hike, this time to Kjerag. The hike up the mountain, towards the rock that is plugged between two mountains, was even more steep and challenging than the one on Saturday. Once we arrived at the Kjeragbolten, we took turns to step on it. A small edge will lead you to the 5 m3 rock that is located almost 1000m. above the ground. The way back down the mountain was somewhat more difficult. As the rain started pouring again, the steep slopes became very slippery which made us more or less slide all the way down.

Other trips are still to come but I’ll keep you posted. You can find the pictures for the Stavanger trip here;
http://picasaweb.google.nl/111250985095698712771/StavangerTrip#

The first weeks in Norway

Hello everybody,

I'm in Oslo for almost three weeks now. Only 3 days after returning from my holiday I had to pack my bags to leave again, but now for a longer period of time. Once I arrived at Oslo Sentralstasjon a buddy from BI, the Norwegian school of management, was there to pick me and the others up and show us our rooms. From other exchange students I had heard that your buddy would give you your key. Unfortunately ours didn’t so we were one of the hundreds of students standing in line for multiple hours to receive it.

Norway is, amongst others, known for its beautiful nature and that is something I have noticed. The city of Oslo is really green and quite spread out. But still you can be from the city centre in the forests within fifteen minutes by public transport. During winters this means you can reach the slopes by public transport from downtown Oslo in less than half an hour and go skiing. From my flat it’s just a 5 minute walk to Sognsvann, a big lake with beautiful surroundings. Ideal for sporting or relaxing on a sunny day.

The first weeks InSA made us familiar with the school, took us to the best parties and showed us all around Oslo. This introduction week, fadderullan, is pretty much the same as the introduction weeks in the Netherlands. It is all about meeting new people and having a good time. Beforehand many people told me that the Norwegians would be more on their own but I don’t think they are that much different from the Dutch. Something I and other people from the Netherlands have experienced quite often during, amongst others, the fadderullan.

The BI building is quite different from our Tilburg university campus. Where Tilburg has multiple buildings spread over the campus, BI Oslo consists of one huge building. A really nice one but it looks a little bit like a shopping mall. It contains pretty much everything you need from class rooms, canteens, book stores, a sports centre, to everything you don’t need in a school, like an intersport store.

That’s it so far, for a better impression take a look on http://picasaweb.google.nl/111250985095698712771/Oslo#