17.8. - 21.8.: Party at Samfundet and Trip to Oslo

17.8.: After a tour around the medical campus Øya and a relaxing afternoon in the park by the river a big party at Studentersamfundet for all first-semester students was organised. At the campus tour I asked to get a first semester T-shirt and I was very happy about it in the evening, as it turned out to be a great way to get to know other medical students. I was also very proud of myself as I talked in Norwegian during about 80% of the evening and met many nice people!

18.8. - 21.8.: As I basically had nothing to do during the Orientation Week I spontaneously decided to go on a trip to Oslo and visit Philippe, a fellow student of mine from Innsbruck who is spending his Erasmus semester there. I had a good look around the city and will definitely go there again because I had too little time to see everything I wanted to. He was a very good host and we had a lot of fun together with his nice flatmates. I even met a friend from Vorarlberg (who started medical studies with me but left to go to Vienna) again at a students' party after not having met her for 3 and a half years - what a coincidence!
Who can find me on the big picture of the opera house? ;-)

(I've finally figured out how to create panorama pictures!)

Johnny and the Gang also happened to be in Oslo at that time, so we spent an afternoon together, watched the changing of the guards and visited the Vigeland Sculpture Park. It was nice to see them again!

On my way home I had to change trains twice and therefore had three hours to spend in Røros - an old mining town and now UNESCO World Heritage Site. This stop was very much worth it (even though my journey took 12 hours from door to door) as Røros is a very beautiful and interesting little town with well-preserved old buildings!

Yesterday my flatmate Andreas hosted a "Nachspiel" (after-party) in our flat which was really fun, so I finally got into bed at 7 o'clock am this morning and slept way into the afternoon. Now I'm looking forward to tomorrow, the official start of the semester and my first day of lectures here in Norway!

16.8.: Great sunny afternoon in Korsvika

Today I spent the sunny afternoon with two wonderful people from my language course group, Karin and Christoph. At first we went shopping in town (where I bought a book for 15 Kroner: "Die Kunst des Liebens" by Erich Fromm - a very interesting and enlightening psychological book! Thanks again to Karin for recommending it!) and carried on to Korsvika - a recreation area with a little beach and high cliffs at the fjord. The weather couldn't have been better for us to relax on the cliffs in the sun. It was quite a climb for me with my acrophobia, but it was well worth the jelly knees! We stayed there until sunset and I was happy to get some rest after these turbulent first three weeks.

11.8. - 15.8.: Hellos and Goodbyes

These last few days have been packed with visitors, good mood, nice food, (mostly) beautiful weather and certainly also lasting memories.

11.8.: Semmi and Christian arrived in Trondheim on their way south and spent two nights in my appartment. I was really glad to see them again and to spend some time with them. We spent the first evening on a little hill in Moholt where we played around with our cameras trying to take some good night pictures, enjoyed the mild weather + cool beer and hoped to see some shooting stars.

12. - 15.8.: One day later Johnny, Momo and Daniel also arrived in Trondheim, so I had 5 guests in my appartment for one night until Semmi and Christian left on the 14th. This made things quite tight at times, but it was nevertheless also very nice to have a lot of friends around me. I spent some quality time with them in the evenings after they had explored the city, enjoyed a delicious meal of Fish & Chips which Johnny cooked in my kitchen and had a refreshing swim with them in the fjord before having to bid them farewell again. Thanks for visiting me, guys! :)
On the 14th in the morning we wrote our final Norwegian test, the official end of the Intensive Norwegian Summer Course, which went quite well. I am really glad that I took the intermediate level course, I learned a lot and our teacher Nils was great!

15.8.: After having said goodbye to my dear visitors, I was invited to Robert's - a friend from my language course group - together with some other friends from the course and he cooked a wonderfully tasty fish dish with us based on a recipe by Jamie Oliver. I'll definitely cook this at home, too! Fully satisfied after a big plateful of tasty food and some freshly picked berries + joghurt we spent the rest of the wonderful evening chatting and playing cards. (Unforunately I don't have a group photo, but if I get one, I'll of course add it to this post.)

2 afternoons on the fjord

Saturday (7.8.'10): After having a good night's sleep I spent the afternoon on the little island of Munkholmen with Rosie and Vera. I also took part in a short guided tour of the old building which was all in Norwegian, but I was proud when I realized that I understood more or less almost everything. The island has a very interesting history which I don't want to write into my blog, though. If you want some more iformation visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munkholmen or http://www.trondheim.com/monks_island/. Unfortunately the last ferry left as early as 18:15, so I didn't have enough time to take a swim in the fjord. I hope to catch up on that soon, though!

Sunday (8.8.'10): Our Social Programme presented us with another exciting pastime: Fjordrafting! On a boat powered by two engines (combined power: 600 hp) we were propelled to speeds of up to 100 km/h - so fast I thought it might blow my face off! Of course our captain tried to find the roughest spots of the fjord so we could jump over the waves, which was huge fun. This is really an experience for people who love speed!
After an hour of boucing up and down and speeding aroud the fjord most of our group was hungry, so we went to "Mormors Stue", a Café in a small back alley which serves all-you-can-eat cake and coffee / tea every Monday for 69 NOK. Finally I cycled home with a full stomach and spent the rest of my energy on a game of volleyball with some friends in Moholt.