There and back...again

Well, I realize that is has been unusually long since my last post, but I haven't really received any complaints, except of course from mom, so I am assuming that everyone is pretty busy at home. This last week of school was pretty interesting, we took a trip back into Oslo, and toured the public tv station, the Storting, and the beautiful Vigeland Park. The TV station tour was pretty boring, it was mainly for the communication students I believe, but I did get to pretend to be a weatherman...on the blue screen and everything. The Storting, (literally big group) is the Norwegian Parliament. It was pretty interesting to learn the history behind it, but we never actually made it into the chambers, that wasn't allowed. Finally, we visitied Vigeland Park, and if you have ever seen a statue from Norway, it would be the angry boy or perhaps the Ascension tower, both in the park. It was neat, but I'm not exactly what you would call an art-buff so I got bored pretty fast.

After the tours in Oslo, 9 of us students climbed on a ferry and headed for Denmark. It is a boat ride that takes about 14 hours to make, so you climb on at 5 in the afternoon, take off, sleep in your cabin and are in Kobenhavn when you wake. It was tons of fun being with everyone, but I was quite happy to get back to Moss and take a good long recovery nap today. It was nice to get back to Copenhagen and again act as tour guide in that beautiful city. I will definately return there again. This constitutes the third time I have seen the city, and I love everything about it. I must learn more about the history of Denmark. Well, the plan is to sleep in tomorrow, but it appears that I have some family here in Norway somewhere, so it would do me well to contact them tomorrow and meet with them. When school ends, we will be here for a few more days until our plane leaves, so hopefully there will be plenty of time to catch up and learn of my family's history here in Norway. Sorry about the length of this post...if you made it this far. I promise to attempt to keep them shorter hereafter.

I hope the horror stories of poor crops arent' from anybody reading this. I wish everyone the best of luck with harvest and the rest of the summer.

blake

PS Mom my return flight is on August 20th. I arrive in Grand Forks at about 11:54 pm. and yes i have heard about the striking mechanics. As long as my plane doesn't need any repairs I'll be fine.

Radio Edit

I did it. I got up bright and early this morning, about an hour earlier than usual so it wasn't to unbearable, and started the long walk down to the school, where I then met Kristen who took us to the radio station. I was a little nervous as we made our way into the station, but no where near as shakey as the company I was traveling with. The girl that I was to be on the air with was a bit nervous as we approached time to go on the air. It went great, and no I didn't even begin to stutter on the air. The interview revolved around why we came to Moss, what we were studying while here, and then we were each asked one question. Kim was asked what she felt was the largest similarity between the US and Norway, and I, of course, was then asked what I thought the largest difference seemed to be. Kim answered that she was worried that she might get homesick for American music, but it turned out that there is plenty of American tunes being played on Norwegian radio. I chose the amount of environmental protection that Norway has as the largest difference, especially the difference between the car economy of the States, and bike and shoe form of travel more prevalent here. I wanted to talk more about it, but the interview was quickly coming up on some news at nine so we cut my answer short. I am sure, however, that everyone could understand what I had meant. We hope to get a copy of the audio from the station one day soon, and you can all then listen to an internationally known radio star (yeah right).

Now, it has also been quite a while since I have had any comments posted on my blog. I am beginning to think that I have lost some readers. I would like to hear from you all from time to time just to know that everyone and everything is ok at home. You can just send me an e-mail if you do not wish to get an account on here. Just let me know how everything is going.

seeya all

blake

another week

Well, I am writing this on Sunday night the 31 of July. It has been a very long weekend for me. It started with a field trip on Thursday that I have already told you about, and concluded with a long Sunday full of recovering from the weekend. The reason the weekend seemed so long was because we journeyed into Oslo on Friday and spent the night out on the town. We concluded the night at a friends home where we all quickly fell to sleep. We awoke the next day and borded the train for the Oslo central station where we were met with a rather peculiar sight. It just so happened that on this particular Saturday there was an enormous festival in town. That wasn't a peculiar sight in it of its self, but then we quickly realized something a bit off at this "festival". I had noticed some strangely dressed people walking around then I realized why it seemed so strange, many of them were cross dressers. We had walked right into the center of a large gay festival. Yeah that was more than an a little bit of shock. We meandered around the celebration for a while looking open mouthed at things too strange to describe. By midday Bjorn and I had enough of this place and excused ourselves to the train station and back to Moss. I had planned on going to be early that night, but surprisingly enough the RAs had other plans. Everyone piled into the common room and spent the whole night having fun, until it got nearly impossible to stay awake any longer. So, needless to say, I have spent my Sunday in bed sleeping comfortably. I now must quickly finish this blog and begin on the homework due tomorrow, not to mention the thoughts of the radio interview that I must give tomorrow. I am just a touch nervous about that. But I have continued on plenty long.

goodbye all
see you all soon

blake