An Affair to Remember

Interestingly enough, some of the Norwegians really agree that the oil money hasn't made that much of Norway; they were better well off before and that the oil isn't that large of a percentage of its economy.
There are tons of bikes here and cars actually stop for people in the crosswalk.

Interestingly enough, as public as they are about services, I don't think mass transit was public. There were several companies that ran the transit service so it was hard to figure out where you were going if you had to use different lines (and I don't think the prices were subsidized, my example was that it cost $12 to take a 1/2 train ride to Oslo).

There is a fee if you drive a car into central Oslo, but the city is much smaller than London and some of these other super size cities that charge these fees.

Social Issues

Norway has been #1 on the Human Development Index for 1/2 a decade.
The minimum wage is about 3 times the US minimum, but the per capita incomes are almost the exact same. Of course tuition is free there and many students get a stipend, or at least loans, to survive. An interesting policy of theirs is that they provide living expenses oftentimes for students from developing countries (sorry the US is not quite the kind of developing country for that category). But they will also provide loans and if the students go back to their home countries, the loans are forgiven, but if they stay in Norway they have to pay them. It is an interesting way to fight the brain drain.

Supposedly Norway and Sweden are the most feminine countries in the world. Norway had the highest percentage of women in its legislative body of any government in the world just a few years back. It was also the 1st independent country to provide women with the right to vote (Finland was first but it was controlled at the time).

All of the Europeans think us Americans are absolutely nuts for having people pay for tuition for school. They really think we are honestly crazy and think it is a violation of human rights.

The People

Yes, Norwegians are quiet people and come off as being aloof, but really they are just quiet. Sometimes it takes them many drinks to open up.

I am with students from all over the world, but mainly Europe and Africa. I have been hanging out with the Germans, French, some Norwegians, some Spanish, Ethiopians, etc. I also hung out with the Americans and Canadians.

One interesting tidbit is that the most common vegetable is rutabagas (spelling), and potato (ok, not a vegetable) which just happen to be the main vegetable ingredients in pasties (you rangers and UPers from da UP understand this). Supposedly pasties came from England, but I wonder if there was some Norwegian influence there too, I can’t say I remember the rutabagas being so prevalent in England, maybe the potato.

My housemates include 2 gentlemen that are doing research for their PhDs from Italy and a Nepalese who resides in England. Later on we had several more Nepalese. The other person is a Korean professor on sabbatical who actually taught at Yonsei University where I attended 4.5 years ago.

I had the chance to attend church and become involved in the activities with them too. Fairly interesting, especially since they have state sponsored churches.

Weather

It has rained almost every day here this summer, too bad we can not transport that rain home. It was about 60 degrees for the high most often.

Environmental

They do recycle a lot of things here. Ikea is really big about it, the other day I was there and there were about 10+15 different slots for different kinds of recycling.

I was surprised; the Norwegians were using green roofs hundreds of years ago.
Supposedly the water is so clean you can drink from any lake or stream in Norway, except the one that was by our university.

Other Interesting Facts

The email system was the St. Olaf system; it has been a few years since I used that exact system/look.
I did get the chance to finally get to a fjord.

I also got a chance to go to Copenhagen and London.

We went fishing one day and three of us caught around 30 fish. I had to throw a fish fry to get rid of all of the fish.