To recap this week...
February 22nd - Dinner at Delicatessen
I had dinner at Delicatessen on Feb 22nd with Jennifer, a girl from Toronto Canada. She moved here 8 months ago and she's married to a Norwegian. If she's reading this and I'm wrong I stand by to be corrected. :) Dinner was tapas. It was not too bad. We paid about 500 nok (89 australian) for 8 of the little things shared between the two of us. I don't eat out a lot since it's rather expensive here, but the food is worth it if I had to spend that much on food in Norway.
Fooooood... miam miam.
After dinner we walked to Karl Johan's Gate where they had built ice sculptures in celebration of the ski championships. Here are some photos.
Professionally sculptured snowmen.
The screams, modelled after MaCaulay Culkin in Home Alone of course.
Professionally sculptured snowmen.
The screams, modelled after MaCaulay Culkin in Home Alone of course.
The largest ass creams I have ever seen.
More Edward Munch.
Norsk jenga.
There was also the rehearsals going on for the opening ceremony outside the old University of Oslo. I thought it was the opening ceremony but I've since discovered it was the Moods of Norway fashion show (credit to Jennifer on finding that out) that was part of the opening ceremony. It was interesting to watch. At some point there was death metal, pop, and some 80s music. One of the songs played was this song, which is pop but has a bit of a corny title. And of course, performers in sailor costumes. I was freezing and wearing "proper" winter clothes. Can't imagine how the performers must have felt. All in all it was a good evening.
February 23rd - Ice skating at Frogner Stadion
On this day I went ice skating, 12 years since my last time. I've only ever ice skated twice, once in Singapore, once in Australia and today was my first in Norway. My first goal was not to fall on my ass, which I succeeded in doing. I didn't do too bad. Of course most people were gliding past me, but I've got an excuse where I've lived for years in countries where snow only existed on tv and in Arctic wet dreams. It was fun. The previous times I've ice skated it was in an ice rink, but this is in a more natural environment. Heck I would even go as far as to say I enjoyed myself. Although there were times I had to concentrate while people were talking to me, because I was trying to balance myself. We ice skated for close to 2 hours then went to a pub which for the life of me I cannot remember the name of. I ordered food even though I had some microwave food earlier at work, I've got hungry starving child syndrome almost all the time, which was tequila scampi (prawns). It was alright, I can probably make better. :) I'm embarrassed to say I can only remember a few names off the top of my head but the nationalities and gender that were present comprised of Dutch girl, German girl, Ukrainian girl, Romanian girl, Norwegian girl, Italian male (?), Canadian male and one unknown. That's excluding me. So it's a very multinational, multicultural environment, which I find stimulating. Many more Europeans here, which I'm not used to, but that's not a bad thing. Living in Australia the company I'm used to comprise mainly of Australians and some Chinese now and then. :)
Speaking of which a new guy from Sweden joined us on the 22nd. I spoke to him on the 23rd, Matthias is his name as I recall.
February 24th - Stayed at home learning Norsk after work. There was an event gathering at Internations somewhere in the city but I didn't get to go even though I really wanted to! There would've been at least 38 nationalities there. I also went to pick up a rose that Lauren sent for valentine's day, delivered by delayed pigeon carrier at Lysaker Blomst. You receive an SMS on your phone in Norsk informing you that you have a rose to pick up, and you have to pick up the rose by visiting the nearing Interflora florist. The lady who served me told me that the roses are grown in Stavanger in greenhouses. That's a pretty long way the rose has travelled, shown here on Google maps, it's 554km! They probably deliver by planes though so maybe it travels a bit less.
Here are the images of the well travelled rose.
Up close.
February 25th - I went to the old University of Oslo after work and met Asgeir and Jessie and we watched the medal ceremony for the women's ski jump. While I was waiting for them outside Nationaltheatret I spoke to a Norwegian girl by the name of Sirin who was helping out with the Salvation army, they had set up a stall just outside. She's from Bergen, a little island off Bergen actually and came to Oslo 8 months ago to go to bible college. And the bonus is that her boyfriend lives in Oslo. Haha. No I did not ask for her number, and she did say come to church at 8pm but that didn't happen because I was having dinner. Anyway, the common theme I realise is many people, expats or otherwise, who come to Oslo come because of love, or they're here because they already have a partner and are working here or trying to find work here. Unlike me the nut who left Australia and came because I didn't want to be 70 and think I had a chance to work here and turned it down. Anyway, the women's ski jump isn't in the olympics but it might be in the near future. The winner was an italian. I bet the Norwegians aren't very happy about that. :) The area was quite packed, when we arrived it wasn't so but at the end it was. There were also some stalls set up that sold food, different clothes and other misc. Little cans of coke were given out to the public, they're tiny! Only 150mls, smaller than the ones you get on the plane. Here's me holding the can to show how small it is.
We had dinner at a kebab place, 49 nok what a bargain. I don't know if there is anything cheaper that you can get from any food places. After dinner we were going to have a game of bowling but that didn't come to fruition as the waiting was an hour so we called it a night.
February 24th - Stayed at home learning Norsk after work. There was an event gathering at Internations somewhere in the city but I didn't get to go even though I really wanted to! There would've been at least 38 nationalities there. I also went to pick up a rose that Lauren sent for valentine's day, delivered by delayed pigeon carrier at Lysaker Blomst. You receive an SMS on your phone in Norsk informing you that you have a rose to pick up, and you have to pick up the rose by visiting the nearing Interflora florist. The lady who served me told me that the roses are grown in Stavanger in greenhouses. That's a pretty long way the rose has travelled, shown here on Google maps, it's 554km! They probably deliver by planes though so maybe it travels a bit less.
Here are the images of the well travelled rose.
Unwrapped.
February 25th - I went to the old University of Oslo after work and met Asgeir and Jessie and we watched the medal ceremony for the women's ski jump. While I was waiting for them outside Nationaltheatret I spoke to a Norwegian girl by the name of Sirin who was helping out with the Salvation army, they had set up a stall just outside. She's from Bergen, a little island off Bergen actually and came to Oslo 8 months ago to go to bible college. And the bonus is that her boyfriend lives in Oslo. Haha. No I did not ask for her number, and she did say come to church at 8pm but that didn't happen because I was having dinner. Anyway, the common theme I realise is many people, expats or otherwise, who come to Oslo come because of love, or they're here because they already have a partner and are working here or trying to find work here. Unlike me the nut who left Australia and came because I didn't want to be 70 and think I had a chance to work here and turned it down. Anyway, the women's ski jump isn't in the olympics but it might be in the near future. The winner was an italian. I bet the Norwegians aren't very happy about that. :) The area was quite packed, when we arrived it wasn't so but at the end it was. There were also some stalls set up that sold food, different clothes and other misc. Little cans of coke were given out to the public, they're tiny! Only 150mls, smaller than the ones you get on the plane. Here's me holding the can to show how small it is.
We had dinner at a kebab place, 49 nok what a bargain. I don't know if there is anything cheaper that you can get from any food places. After dinner we were going to have a game of bowling but that didn't come to fruition as the waiting was an hour so we called it a night.
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