Greeting from Paris!

Hey!!

So I've been in Paris for 5 or 6 days now and it has been wonderful so far. It's been a very 'cultured' trip. I've been museum and old church hoping for most of the time here. It seems like in today's day and age, people get so wrapped up in the technology around them that they forget to take the time to admire the classics. I know I sure do. On Friday I took the train out to Fontainebleau to see the giant chateau there. It's sort of like Versailles, but with out all the crowds. It was sooo cool being is those gigantic rooms all by myself without tons of 'bus weenies'. That's why I love traveling on the off season.

Last night was proof that I am indeed my father's daughter. I went to a free organ concert at one of the old churches. But before I go into that, let's jump back about 10 years. At one of my first professional piano concerts with my dad, he asked me, 'Where is the best place to sit.' I responded by saying over where the grand piano opens up because the sound is the best over there. He replied by saying, 'You're absolutely wrong. You want to sit where you can see the pianists fingers.' Now one would think that at an organ concert one doesn't have any choice because you can't even see the man during the performance. So last night, they set up a camera that showed his hands and feet live on a projector screen in the santuary. I thought that was pretty cool. Nonetheless, the musician was amazing! He played a series by Bach that lasted about an hour.

Summary of highlights:

Notre Dame
Musee d'Orsay
Musee Picasso
Musee Rodin
St. Louis en l'Ile Church
Madeline Church
Dome Church
Hotel de le Invalides
Chateau at Fontainebleau
Parisan Museum

Much much more....

Times ticking so unfortunatly I don't have time to reread what I've written. Hopefully it's atleast comprehendable.


Take Care!!

Half Way There...

As of 1pm today, I am officially done with my first semester. The last few weeks have been hectic, that's for sure. I've experienced the Norwegian school system first hand, by taking 4 very different final exams. First of all, finals here make up 60-100% of the final grade. So naturally, they're a lot longer than the exams back home. The shorter ones were 4 hours long, and my Norwegian final was 6 hours long. The exams are given at a convention center, and the elderly members of the community are the proctors. Taking an exam with a couple hundred other people reminded me of AP tests all over again. The only nice thing is that there isn't a time constraint like the tests back home. I never felt rushed, so I actually had time to stop and think. There's also time to eat lunch and use the little girls room (but the old people follow you when you leave).

The testing philosophy here is very different from the American philosophy. Personally, I hate it and found studying very stressful. The tests tend to test one's ability to memorize formulas and derivations more than one's ability to problem solve. All of my exams were closed book, except for statistics. The stats test was very similar to the math tests at CU. I could bring this school published book of formulas and a small sheet of paper. Otherwise, I had to memorize everything. Since the engineering tests were closed book, the problems themselves were a lot simpler. They were also more theoretical than practical. Rather than testing my ability to take what I read and apply it to a new situation, I pretty much had to spit out derivations from the book. Annoying. I definitely think the US school system does a better job of teaching people how to think, not just how to use formulas.

Another nice thing about the system here is that finals are spread out over the course of 3 weeks. Luckily, all of my tests were in the first 2 weeks, so I get an extra week of vacation. In between tests, there was still time to have some fun.

On the 2nd, I celebrated a belated Thanksgiving with some other Americans here in Trondheim. There's an international school here that is staffed by mainly Americans, and one of them was in my language course. So, she hosted a pot-luck thanksgiving dinner at her new townhouse. It was very nice to have a traditional meal and hang out with some fellow Yankees. It's amazing how the little things really make a difference. It was a big deal that we had real cheddar cheese and ranch dressing that night. For many people, it had been years since they had any. I also noticed that my English has gotten progressively worse. I'm almost never with native speakers, so I've definitely dumbed down my language. If I use to much slang, big words, or talk too fast then people can't understand me. So I think I've subconsciously simplified my daily talk. Plus I tend to speak a hybrid of English and Norwegian with many people. So trying to have an intelligent conversation with other English speakers turned out to be more difficult than I thought.

On Wednesday, some friends and I decided to go camping up on top of a hill so that we could watch the sunrise the next morning. Here, watching the sunrise does not imply waking up early by any means. It only means getting out of bed by 9:15am. So we set up camp next to a frozen lake and hung out around the campfire. Despite the below freezing temperature, it was very relaxing to get away from the city life. Unfortunately I only made it until about 11:30pm. One of my teeth split in half, so I had to go home. The tooth was brittle to begin with after having a root canal this summer, so it wasn't too surprising. The annoying thing was I had to wait until Friday to see a dentist, so I couldn't bite down until then.

My timing is always terrible The following day, I hosted a "Traditional American Holiday Dinner" at my flat. This was planned before the tooth incident, so I cooked a meal I could barely eat. I cooked the stereotypical dishes for everyone here (mostly Germans). Many of them had never eaten real turkey before (i.e. not lunch meat). And surprisingly I didn't royally mess anything up. Trying to find vegetable shortening and corn syrup at the grocery store was an adventure though. No one had heard of it before except for a chef working in the back, who finally found some.

Finally, I have a picture with all of my flatmates. From left to right: Agata, Kay, Me, and Lorenzo. Unfortunately, Agata has already left to go home. So we'll have to wait and see who our new flatmate is. Well, tonight my adventure continues. I'll be catching an overnight train to Oslo, and then I'll fly to Paris tomorrow afternoon. I'll be spending a week on my own in Paris, and then I'll meet my parents and sister in Madrid. All in all, I'll have about 3 weeks to enjoy the sun and warm weather before returning to Norway.

Happy Holidays!

Sunrise: 9:47am
Sunset: 2:35pm

Winter is Gone.... For Now...

Hey all,

I've been meaning to post something for the past 2 weeks, but life has been rather busy here. Here's the short version of my life for the couple weeks:

I tried cross country skiing for the first time on a cabin trip with some friends. I am literally the worst downhill skier that's ever put on cross country skis. I say this only because I could not ski downhill if my life depended on it. I was fine as long as I didn't have to steer or stop. I still don't know how to do that. It probably didn't help that I was carrying a pack, and the snow was really slush. There's always next time...



The cabin itself was wonderful! This was my second time there, and it had changed a lot. The blueberries were all covered in snow, and the lake had a layer of ice on the top. Anne and I still took the row boat out though. (The name Urs is written in the ice. It's a nickname of a friend). The guys cooked a wonderful dinner of marinated salmon, veggies and potatoes. That meal was better than what I usually cook at home. It was such a nice break to spend the night just with a group of friends in the cabin. We passed the time playing games (Norwegian taboo), playing music, and enjoying some home brewed glogg.

School has been very busy. On Friday, I turned in my final lab report (all 55 pages of it). For the past couple days, it has felt like I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing dense fiber membranes. My fingers can now type the words nitrogen and oxygen in their sleep... sounds interesting right?

I followed the elections, but I didn't get to vote. I sent my absentee ballot application in back in August, but apparantly something went wrong. Earlier this week, I got a letter from the Cook County Clerk's Office. At first glance, I assumed that it was my ballot. Oh no. It was another application. The exact same one that I filled out this summer. Politics. Too much red tape.

There has still been time for fun. Mom, Dad, and Aunt Colleen, you'd be proud of me. I have finally gone out to eat at a restaurant here. It only took me 4 months to do so. The rowing team here had a Julebord (Christmas Dinner) on Thursday evening. We all got dressed up and went out to a restaurant in one of the nicer areas of town. The restaurant overlooked the harbor and city lights. As much as I hate wearing heals, it's still fun to get all dressed up.


Well it took 4 months, but I also finally took pictures of my room. I don't think a week has gone by without my mom bugging me, so here y'all go. I'll put a couple more on my photo website (see the link to the right). Pictures of the rest of my flat are coming soon, I promise! Anyhoo, I really like my room. There's a flat rate for utilities, so I no longer have to live in an 'Ice Box.' I'm enjoying it while it lasts, believe me!!



The sun came out this weekend, and the temperature rose!! I went trail running yesterday, and I actually wished I had sunglasses with. I think my eyes have adjusted to the low light, because I squint every time the sun gets close to peeking through the clouds. I think my language skills have changed too. I think I'm slowing forgetting English. With a lot of people, I tend to speak an English-Norwegian mix (with maybe a little bit of German) without realizing it. Winter break with the family should be interesting.

I've got one week of lectures left and then exams! The exam period is three weeks, but all of my exams are in the first 2 weeks. I have decided what to during that 3rd week, but I'll come up with something!

Happy Thanksgiving!

J

Sunrise: 8:49 AM
Sunset: 3:17 PM

The other day I got to see the sunset over the city on my way to class (at 3pm... crazy).

Random Thought to Ponder: Ica Maxi, a grocery store, has one of the largest selections here. You can by enough hair dye to dye your hair 35 different colors. You can not, however, buy any form of make-up. Imagine that.

Winter is Here!!

Hey All,

So the past two weeks have flown by!! I rented a koia (small cabin) with a bunch of friends up in the mountains 3 weekends ago. We had perfect fall weather up there!! Only 7 of us went up on Friday and there were 3 other people renting spaces that night as well. Then, at about 11pm, the other 5 people in our group showed up. The cabin was built for about 10 people. So it was quite a cozy night. There were people sleeping everywhere. On Saturday a bunch of us went for a short hike while others went fishing. Unfortunately I had to spend a couple hours that afternoon studying for a midterm, but I still got to enjoy the hike. That night we played a sick game of capture the flag. We played in an empty field on some farmer’s land. There were clouds so there was absolutely no natural light. We made some oil lamps out of glass spaghetti sauce jars and biodiesel from Martin's car. We placed the 3 lanterns at the boundary line between both sides. We played from about 11:30-2am, and it was intense!! There were some awesome collisions and wipeouts! It made any Tower capture the flag game I've ever played seem like practice (and those were pretty intense). We didn't go to bed until 7am the next day, so Sunday was pretty slow. We did go hang out by the coast for awhile though.

I took a midterm the next Wednesday in my Separations class. It went ok.... I made a really stupid mistake that I'm still giving myself a hard time for. Let's just say that the part I was missing was starring me right in face.

The next weekend I spent here in Trondheim. I'd had a 5th flat mate for about 6 days. A German guy, Max, that lived in the flat last fall came back to visit for awhile. We threw a party on Saturday night to bring together old and new faces. Good times, but I've heard the song American Women by Lenny Kravitz about 4 times to many. For some reason everyone got a huge kick out of the song, because there actually was an American woman there.

Winter came last week. Thursday night it snowed about 5". Unlike some places, (...cough.. cough... Colorado...) the snow is not expected to melt in the next week. The temperature has consistently been around freezing. It's humid though, so it feels a whole lot colder. About another inch came down Sunday evening.

I haven't had to walk to school in the snow yet, because I got a free bus card that's good through the end of October. A friend's girlfriend bought a month-long card while she was here for 3 weeks. So he gave me the card to use for the rest of the month. I just had to put my picture on it and make it look like the company had stamped my picture. Works like a charm.

On Saturday I went rowing on Nidelva (the main river through town) with some other girls. We took out a 4 person boat. It was fun, but sort of slow because one of them had never 'sweep' rowed before. That night, I was supposed to go out with some of them, but I accidentally made myself sick. So, all the sauce here goes bad really, really fast. You're supposed to use spaghetti sauce within 3 days of opening the jar. I guess that just goes to show that they don't pack their food full of preservatives here. Anyways, I put some Uncle Ben's Tikkal sauce on some food. I didn't notice the mold on the rim of the jar until after I did so. There were no chunks of mold in my food though, so I ate it anyways. It had definitely gone bad. That's expected though since I opened the jar about 1.5 months ago. I got quite the stomach ache, so I just laid in bed and watched old O.C. re-runs.

Winter's not so bad yet. (The picture on the left was taken at 5:30pm on Sunday). I went for an amazing run today! Soren and I ran up on the ski trails in the woods behind the Dragvoll campus. We ran on a narrow path of packed snow that had been made by other skiers and runners. It was dark, but the trails are lightened in the winter time. There were still times that we were in the dark though. Thank goodness for trail runners with good traction! Running up snowy hills in anything else would not have been fun! It was picture perfect at times. I wish I had my camera.

Hope ya'll have a wonderful Halloween! I can honestly say I miss it!

Sunrise: 7:47am
Sunset: 4:16pm

Daily Life

Hey All!!

So the past two weeks have been very normal (at least I think they're normal). I've stayed here in Trondheim busily working on school projects and hanging out with friends. Midterms are right now, but I have only one actual test. The 'midterm' for my statistics class was voluntary. I don't think I can actually call it a 'midterm.' It was more like: show up and we'll give you some questions to work on; you can do them if you want, or just take the sheet and leave kind of test. Nonetheless, I forced myself to go just to see how much of the material I really knew. I have a midterm in Separations next Wednesday, and this one counts for 20% of my final grade (that's about how much the finals are worth at CU).

Today I'm leaving on a trip with some friends. We've rented a koia (small cabin) just outside the city. 6 or 7 of us are heading up today (Friday), and the remaining 5 or 6 will join us tomorrow. Even though I have to study for my exam there, I'm still looking forward to getting out of the city. The weather has been getting wetter and wetter every week, so I suspect that there will some rain this weekend. Then maybe I'll be more motivated to get some studying done.

Differences I've Noticed Here: (despite that everything is expensive)

Grocery Stores: They're smaller. Not allowed (by law) to be open on Sundays if they're bigger than a kiosk. You have to pay extra for plastic bags at the checkout. You always bag your own groceries. Don't sell beer past 8pm on weekdays.

Alcohol: Expensive. Hard liquor can only be bought from special stores (Vinnmonopolet). There's only a couple of places in Trondheim. At the grocery store, it is perfectly acceptable to rip open a 6 pack and only take as many as you'd like (ie you don't have to buy all 6 if you don't want).

Buses: There are signs that say: "Don't eat ice cream, hot dogs, or chips." So is pizza ok? Still a mystery to me.

Norwegian etiquette: Bring your own. If someone invites you to a party, they provide fridge space, but you provide your own drinks.

Term: vorspeil. In the US, we say 'pregame'. It's when friends get together to share some drinks before going out on the town. Vorspeil is actually a German word that means foreplay.

Smoking: Not allowed inside any public buildings. Not in restaurants, cafes, bars, etc. Good for asthmatics like myself.

Sunrise: 7:56am
Sunset: 6:12pm

More to come when I get back. Hope you have a very 'lucky' Friday the 13th. Take Care!!

Julie

P.S. Rusty: your "bad-ass personal e-mail" is coming after I finish my midterm.

Life in Trondheim.

Hey All!

So the past two weeks have been very busy, but unfortunatly not with any exciting trips. I almost went hiking 2 weeks ago, but I got a little bit of a cold so I decided to stay home. I've spent the past 2 weekends hanging out in Trondheim, mostly with my flatemates. I love my flat! There are four of us living there. We've each got our own room and then we share a kitchen and bathroom. There's 2 guys (Lorenzo and Kai) and 2 girls (Agata and myself). Lorenzo is a petroleum engineering student from Mexico. He's been here since January and will most likely be here till June. Kai is an Engligh major from Norway. Agata is an architeture student from Poland, and she arrived here this summer as well. She was born in Australia so her english is practically perfect! Anyways, it's a very well mixed group and we all get along really well. So far it's been a blast hanging out and going out on the town with all of them.

School has kept me very busy! It's kind of hard to believe though considering my Kinetics homework took 30 minutes and one sheet of paper last week. Two weeks ago, I had a 10 hour lab determining the kinetics of a reaction carried out in a CSTR. Then last week, I spent 9 hours distilling ethanol from water. To bad nasty solvents are used in the columns, otherwise I could have gotten some cheap alcohol. You have to take what you can get in this country because everything is so expensive!! (Don't worry I didn't come up with that idea. My supervisor actually brought it up when I asked where we should dump the solutions at the end of the day.)

Yesterday (Sunday) was a big day for me. I went rowing with a club here in Trondheim!! It was the first time I had been in a real boat since the last time I rowed for U. of Colorado. Not only that, but it was also my first time sculling. All the teams I had been on before did 'sweep' rowing. This means that each person has only one oar. But sculling is where you have 2 oars. I went out in a double with another girl, and it was quite the adventure! Let me tell you! We both weren't that good so the boat was rarely set. We were both catching crabs left and right. Then at one point we managed to flip the boat and go for a little swim. It was brisk. We'll leave it at that! It's so nice to get back into rowing again, and I especially love how the atmosphere isn't all competitive here. (Note: Picture is from Colorado, not Norway).

Hope all is well!
Julie

Two Weeks Down.....

Hey All!

Sorry, I know it's been awhile since the last post, but life has been super busy. I'm in my 3rd week of school now and time is flying! I'm taking 3 engineering classes and a language course this semester. Statistics and Kinetics are both in Norwegian, Separations is in English, and of course Norwegian is in Norwegian. Luckily, all the textbooks here are in English, so it hasn't been a problem to learn the material. Some of my homework assignments are in Norwegian, but I'm picking up the vocabulary pretty fast because many of the words are similar to the English words. The Norwegian lectures are getting easier to understand by the day, and luckily none of my teachers have a thick dialect.

The school system and philosophy is very different here. Lectures are optional. Only some of the short homework assignments are obligatory, and none of them count towards the final grade. In most cases, you have to turn in so much homework 'to be allowed to' take the final exam. Then the final exam is worth 75-100% of your final grade. The homework assignments are very short and simple compared to the ones back home. For most of my engineering courses at CU, we were assigned a problem set a week that normally took 6-15 hours to complete. These assignments also made up 30-40 % of your final grade. Here, we get one assignment a week, but they only take 1-2 hours. I have a lab course this semester that is shared by both the Kinetics and Separations classes. The projects are rather open ended and the lab reports will definitely take some time.

Now for the fun stuff! Two weekends ago I drove down to Geiranger fjord with some friends and camped right along the water. It's a 8 hour drive from Trondheim, so we left at noon on Friday. Along the way we drove over Trollstigen (troll path), which is this a really steep mountain pass. The road going up has tons of hairpin (pinpoint jk) turns and a waterfall. At the fjord we went for a hike up into the mountains and swam in the fjord a bunch. On the way back, we took a little bit longer route so that we could enjoy some ferry rides. FYI: ferries and tunnels are an integral part of the transportation system here. You usually can't get from one place to another with out them. There are simply no roads that go around.

Anyways, last weekend I rented a koie with some friends. A koie is a small hut in the middle of nowhere that has bunks, some cooking equipment, and a wood burning stove. It's like one step up from step camping. The sports organization here owns several of these, which can be rented for very cheap. This one was about a 30 minute walk from our car, was along a lake, and had a row boat. We saw a phenomenal rainbow the first afternoon (look closely at the picture to the left). Saturday was spent hiking and of course eating blueberries. A group of us came back on Saturday night, because we all had school work to do on Sunday.

Hope all is Well!
Julie