Over and out

This is Oslo-based blogger # 8459 reporting for duty for the final time. The cases are packed, the bedroom is empty and sparkling, and bloody summer has arrived! The omnipresent Oslo themometers were showing 20 degrees, and, as if by magic, its population got out its collective pair of shorts. At Sognsvann lake, I even bore witness to some bikini-clad bathing by some extremely brave and rather overly-optimistic Norwegians.
And I'm getting that all too familiar feeling which is somewhere between deep melancholy and jittery excitement which comes from leaving a foreign place you have come to love and going back home to a place you know you love. But this time it doesn't feel like I'm going back, but more like I'm moving forward. Forward to a new stage of my life - my wanderlust satiated (for now) and with a desire to be a real adult person with a real adult job. I just hope I can remember this feeling... I think looking back over what I posted about being an assistant will help me a great deal!
It's satisfying to look back on myself a year ago, just stepping out of the 'Durham bubble', knowing nothing of these Nordic types, ignorant of caviar in a tube, the wine lottery, the great outdoors, how to pronounce ø, æ and å, what is feels like when your hair freezes, how to make a campfire in the snow, living twelve floors up, caramelised goat's cheese, online washing machine reservation systems, russ, beers that cost £6, Gustav Vigeland... the list goes on. On the train back from Sweden I composed a list of my best memories of Oslo, and here it is for your delectation:
1. Listening to various French people fantasising about cheese and/or dishes you can make with cheese.
2. Drinking beer with Marion and M-H on Marion's roof terrace.
3. The times my lessons kicked ass.
4. Walking along ski tracks with Mark Bennett.
5. M-H's face at the julebord (staff Christmas party).
6. Hiking in Stockholm with my bottes de sport.
7. Early evening on the quai in Copenhagen.
8. Taking notes during Meet Joe Black on my first night in Norway.
9. Drinking afternoon tea with M-H in Walberswick.
10. Being told my English was bad by a waiter.
11. Sunbathing with my brother at the General's bath house at Oscarberg fortress.
This list of course means little or nothing to anyone else, but they were the times I was the happiest (and/or highly amused, which amounts to the same thing) during my sejourn in Oslo. To that list (which I made about a month ago), I would add:
12. Being at the 17th May parade.
13. All the times I went to cinemateket with M-H and Jordan.
14. Goofing around with Chi-He, Jo and Meghan in Vigelandparken.
15. The arrival of Spring.

On that note, it is time to bid this blog adieu and turn instead to the problem of how I'm going to get my suitcase shut...

17th May

For this post I will take you on a U-turn from the whiny scepticism of my previous effort to a joyful account of what took (and always takes) place last Sunday. It was Norway's national day, on which they celebrate the signing of their constitution on 17th May, 1814. Now, I was suprised to find out that Norway has only been independent since 1905, having previously been ruled by the Danish and later the Swedish crown for over 400 years. Due this fact, the Norwegians have cultivated an extremely strong sense of national identity and love of their country which would quite possibly make us baulk back in England. Seeing the Norwegian flag hung from every house and waving in every child's hand, I realised that when I see the Union Jack, I'm more likely to think of the BNP, and when I see the St. George's cross, more likely to think of skinhead football idiots, than of the country of which I am a citizen. This is a kind of patriotism unrelated to the success of the national football team or the 'British jobs for British workers' Brown-bullshit we get fed at home (nice image), it's more an appreciation of living in a democratic and friendly state and living in a beautiful country (which just happens to be bloody freezing, but that's by the by). I think it's a nice idea. That's not to say it doesn't border on the arrogant and snobby among some Norwegians, of course, but in general they showed me that patriotism doesn't have to be cheesy or repulsive. As is tradition, the day started for me with breakfast at a colleague's house on her rooftop terrace in the brilliant sunshine. We had got lucky, last year it snowed. The party consisted of three French people, one Norwegian and yours truly, so heavily-weighted towards foreigners, but it didn't seem to matter. Afterwards we walked down into the town centre amidst a jubilant carnival atmosphere, the crowd peppered with women and men in traditional costume, the bunad. Those not wearing the bunad were either dressed up to the nines, or tourists.
A girl wearing a bunad, leaning out of the window of Stortinget (the parliament) to watch the parade.

We then came to Oslo's main street, Karl Johans Gate, where the childrens' parade had already started. I have rarely seen so many people gathered in one place in my life:
Children from all of Oslo's schools were parading, in a parade so long it took 3 hours to finish. Away from the parade, people were gathered around the palace and in the neighbouring streets, tucking into the traditional dishes of hotdogs and ice-cream (not at the same time!) and generally having a good time. The 'russ' (school leavers) were strutting about like they owned the place and enjoying being rowdy and pissed, celebrating the last day of their celebrating.
Pictured: some russ partying on top of their bus at Solli Plass

After the childrens' parade there was some traditional choral singing on the University steps, which was most excellent. We rounded off the day with dinner in the park and a few drinks, by which point we were exhausted and somewhat less than ready to go to work the next day. I can say the same of the russ who had their first exams the next day too!

Alexander Rybak - The Second Coming?

Eurovision Song Contest 2009: Alexander Rybak celebrates. Photograph: Dmitry Kostyukov/AFP/Getty Images

You may or may not be aware that Norway won this year's Eurovision Song Contest with their entry Alexander Rybak and his crooning/fiddle-toting/catchy smash, Fairytale. Pretty good for one of Europe's smaller nations, who were erstwhile not known for producing international pop sensations and usually over-shadowed by their Scandinavian neighbours in that department (sorry, but Abba beats A-Ha hands down). But still, when I talk to people I find myself thinking... he won the Eurovision Song Contest for Christ's sake, not the Nobel Peace Prize. Coming from Britain, where Terry Wogan's derision of the greasy backing dancers and all too frequent bum notes is an integral part of the commentary, I was under the impression that no one takes it seriously. And we all know that the voting is politically motivated and has very little to do with the songs (see - Britain's null points the year of the Iraq war)... Even the sheer cheesiness of the music and the campness of the artists is enough to render itself laughable, surely. As my French colleague said, if it's a woman they are ridiculously slutty and if they're a man they are "deeply gay".
But nevertheless, it's a big deal here. And I'm not going to take that away from them. It's just a complete culture shock. Check out this article from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2009/may/18/norway-eurovision-song-contest-heidi-stephens
It turns out that a Guardian journalist wrote a review of Eurovision on her blog, saying, among other things, that she hoped Alexander Rybak would get poked in the eye with his violin bow. Now, to be sure that's a bit of classic journo over-exaggeration, but little did she expect the way the Norwegians were to react. You can see in the article that two of the national newspapers here, VG and Dagbladet, picked up the story, spinning it as if The Guardian had been cruelly slating their little Alexander out of spite, presumably because Britain always does so badly and we are jealous. One commentator made the point that yes, Norwegians 'do understand irony', which is of course true, but they also have the inclination to take themselves and matters of national pride extremely seriously, which to a briton is cringe-worthy and uncomfortable and Just Not British. Self-derision is practically a national sport.
The best commentary left by a Norwegian comes at the end of the article:
Me1981 said: "Heidi we Norwegian DO understand and use irony, we have a very good sense of humour...the thing is, when we all read you blogg the first time we were drunk out of our minds..and when norwegians get drunk,not only do we get so waisted we're lucky if we're able to walk the next day-but we also get very excited..So if you felt attacked..believe me none of us even remember regist. on Guardian websight in the first place. I only found out since the sight was still showing on my computer the next day..I was like"What the ¤#&¤#? When did I reg here??"

Sums it up?!

In future I think I will pass all comment on this guy - if I let on to anyone that I hate his song I'll probably be deported...

Ok, I've been bullied into posting something else... it's fair to say my heart's not in it, but I'll give it my best shot. The problem is is that a travel blog is essentially for recording things you find amazing/think will be amazing to others. So I think the reason I've had nothing to write over the past few months is that I've just stopped finding things amazing. I've started eating makerel in a can with tomato sauce and being overly direct with people... I think I'm becoming Norwegian! Well I couldn't beat them, so...

In all honesty I've still not got used to expecting nothing of my pupils and to them fulfilling my every (lack) of expectation - I still tut when I see one kid passed out in the back while the others spend the whole lesson on Facebook, but I've given up hope of changing them. Kind of sad, more for them than for me, but true.

I still really love teaching and staying in Norway, and I have been overjoyed at the arrival of Spring, but I just feel like I've stopped learning things. I think I've just got into a routine. It's the same priniciple as if I had blogged about my everyday life as a student in Durham - I would've thought everyone else would be finding it as about as interesting as I was. So it'll soon be time to head on home I think! And stop this blogging malarky.

Just for now, a little word about the Norwegian exam system. Today, the students found out which subjects they will have to take an exam in. YES, THEY DON'T HAVE TO TAKE AN EXAM IN EVERY SUBJECT. They just had a lottery and let fate decide... Of course. So instead of the 11 exams I had for A-Levels, they have two. Or maybe three if they're really unlucky. But then again, they have been getting pissed everyday for the last month (see earlier post about Russ), so I guess two is all they can manage! In the subjects they don't take an exam in, they just get the mark their teacher gives them for the year. Strange but true!

So Sunday is the 17th May i.e. Norwegian National Day, so you can expect a reportage from there...

Beautiful blossom in Copenhagen

I have never been so delighted by Spring!

A French lesson

At Rory's request, here is the lesson I did today about Paris.

Match the photos to the name of the tourist attraction and its description!

Have fun reliving your school days!

The beginning of the end?

Even though I have two months left of Oslo time, I feel like everything is drawing to a close. Spring is (finally) in the air, and with it a feeling of time seeping away... Spring is all I'm going to see of Norway's vaguely mild weather (not that it's much of a spring by international standards). Saying that, there are still great piles of snow in the streets and a distinct chill in the air, but when the sun shines on me I am like a tiny lizard basking in its glow.
I think this idea that I'm leaving soon is also the end of term feeling, as I'm coming home for Easter on Friday. Everything at school is about mock exams and all the final year pupils are talking about their yearbook, their leavers ball and all that. Actually it's quite a big thing in Norway to be a 'Russ', or school leaver, so called because they take to wearing a little red hat during the raucous celebrations. Apparently this all kicks off on the first of May, then they party until Norwegian National Day i.e. 17th May i.e. BEFORE their exams! So it seems most them will be pissed every day during study leave. And it's endorsed by tradition... right...! This wikipedia article tells you a bit more about it, and more than I actually knew: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RussThis picture is from Mark's visit at the weekend, when we went to the Norsk Folkemuseum, which is full of different wooden houses which the museum picked up from all over Norway and transported to Oslo to show the traditional ways of life in Norway. This includes an original stave church, as pictured (much to Mark's amazement). It is entirely made of wood, and quite incredible. They decided to bring it down to Oslo by sled (!) from Northern Norway during the 19th Century, as with most of the houses you can also see at the museum. They have also transported an authentic 'town centre' and school house. Really quite a bizarre concept, but very interesting all the same!
We also did a little 'hiking' around near in the forest close to my house, walking on ski tracks and piste-ing off (gaffaw!) the very serious looking skiiers. We were also at the Munch museum, freezing our arses off eating packed lunch outdoors and generally just walking, walking, walking. Oh and drinking. Alcohol just tastes better when it's duty free.
All in all I got the impression that I was on holiday, and I still do a bit because at school there really is nothing to do, what with all the mock exams and that general end-of-term feeling. And with the prospect of another weeks' holiday on the horizon, I'm really not inclined to do any work!

Blogging fear

Having not written a blog for over a month, I've got cold feet... too much to tell all in one post. I've had visits from all my favourites and moved house and been enjoying the unseasonal sunshine... basically having too much of good time to write anything!
Here is a photo to make this a proper post and not just idiocy:
Oooh Bergen!

Hammerfest in photos

The Northern Lights

This weekend I took a trip up to Northern Norway, to Hammerfest, which has the claim of being the world's most northerly town. It was truly awe-inspiring to see that see that people live, and live well, up there where it's dark for half the year and well within the arctic circle. I was staying with a friend of mine, Elin, who moved up there from Oslo last month. We had a great time, with bottomless pots of tea (with milk, of course, she learnt to drink tea in Wales) and bracing walks around Hammerfest, admiring the striking natural landscape of fjords and mountains. We were lucky enough to also have gorgeous sunny weather, which meant that the night was clear and chilly - the perfect conditions to see the Northern Lights. We went up to the top of a hill above the town and gazed up to the starry sky, where we saw a great band of ethereal green light, almost like a wispy cloud striking out across the sky. It seemed at once to be right above our heads and yet higher than the atmosphere. While we watched, it changed and evolved, creating fleeting patterns and swooping arcs. It was magical. I was unable to take a photo as my camera lens isn't good enough, but I don't think any photo I have ever seen has done it justice. You just have to go for yourself!

London calling!

Ok, I know, I'm a bit behind on my posts, but only because of my current nomadic state... I thought I'd begin with a few thoughts on my recent much-anticipated trip to England with my friend and assistant-comrade Marie-Hélène (pictured with Rory and Rob, touristing it up, above).
Our first port of call was my mum's house in deepest rural Suffolk. It was lovely to be back again, as always. The next day we chuntered on down (across) to Bury St. Loveliness and then on to Cambridge, which did itself proud, giving us blue skies and that weird mix of hobos and toffs which only Cambridge seems capable of. It turns out this is a ridiculously beautiful city. As a teenager I mainly regarded it as being similar to my hometown, but with more shops. I realised as we walked around, however, that if I went to this place in Germany or somewhere, I would probably faint upon sight of the stunning architecture, luscious parks and the fact that they have invented their own river-propulsion method, which almost validates the invention of both the picnic blanket and the boat shoe (I mean punting, of course). It is, in a word, delightful.
It was in Cambridge that I began my mission of giving M-H a full tour of the culinary delights of our fair British isles. My first assault was the recommendation of the cheese and pickle sandwich as an appropriate lunch choice. I'm not sure how well it went down, but our penchant for putting sweet sauce with savoury produce was presented, as the cultural oddity that it rightfully is.

Next on the agenda was a bracing seaside walk and flying visit to East Anglia's other noteworthy city, Norwich (sorry Ipswich didn't get a look in - it is just too awful). We took our walk in Walberswick, which combines the merits of a cutesy village green place and classic Suffolk shingle beach. The walk was made more exciting by the fact that a job lot of timber had washed up on the beach, which had apparently fallen off a Russian ship somewhere in the North Sea.
As you can see, we were also lucky enough to have blue skies, though the sea was pretty rough. My second culinary assault came at this point, with a visit to an eerily empty tearoom in the village.
We avoided the ciabattas at £8 a pop and went instead for the classic English breakfast tea and accompanying scone. Heaven! A lovely English time had by both of us.
On the Saturday we were London-bound with Rory - I had my first experience of driving in the capital, which was a nightmare, to say the least. This was the point at which my love affair with satnavs ended, abruptly. But we managed to make it to Rob, Jim and Simon's before I chucked it out of the window across the four lanes of on-coming traffic it was trying to make me cross. These three cheeky chappies live in Shepherd's Bush, or 'The Bush' as they affectionately term it. They were to be our hosts for the weekend, or as it turned out, long weekend, as I will get to later. And fabulous hosts they were, plying us with tea and comfy beds. We spent the afternoon on a worldwind tour of the city - Soho, Picadilly Circus, Westminster and Buckingham Palace - basically the tourist staples, which left us feeling tired out and a little bit queasy. Abortive attempts were made to meet up with our gaggle of Norwegians who had been let loose in the city for the day, but they seemed quite happy on their own, which wasn't too disappointing. We did our bit by meeting up with a teacher from our partner school in Ramsgate, Clarendon House, who also happened to have been working at our school in Norway last year. He is a jovial spaniard by the name of José, who will feature later in the Ramsgate leg of this tale.
Sunday morning arrived with a distinct lack of motivation on our part to leave our aforementioned comfy beds. We were treated to another British culinary classic, this time instigated by Simon - the great Full English Breakfast. It was time for Rory to leave for Brighton - sniff - where he had a meeting, but M-H, Rob and I ventured once more into the metropolis for a visit to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern. It was as we stepped out from the gallery that it started to snow. We were excited, and amused. Snow in London! It doesn't happen all that often. As we watched the blizzard from the pub window later that night, we started to get just a little bit worried. The buses had stopped running, so we had to bribe a taxi driver to take us home, crawling along the road as cars were slipping and sliding all over the place and we saw at least two broken down buses.
We awoke the next morning to see London at a standstill. No trains running out of London, half the tube paralysed and no buses whatsoever. Our planned trip to Ramsgate was, of course, impossible - there was nothing we could do but stay put until the next day. But we made the most of it! We put on our best woolly jumpers and headed for the park at the end of their road. We made ourselves a 7-foot snowman and had a more than satisfactory snowball fight.
Turns out living in Norway hasn't dulled my love of the powdery white stuff! NB: I mean snow. In the afternoon we got bored so went down to the Shepherd's Bush Vue (note to francophones: why the feminine ending?!) to catch Slumdog Millionaire, to see what all the fuss was about. It turned out to be a good film, making me feel all warm and fuzzy on that chilly winter's evening.
Unfortunately the fun had to end sometime - we were off to Ramsgate the next day to justify the school giving us time off to go on what may appear to some to be a holiday. Of course Ramsgate had had not one flake of snow, making our story somewhat suspicious. We spent the afternoon shaking hands, getting a tour of the school and generally feeling like a pair of dignatories. We went off to explore the delights of Ramsgate, which, I have to say, I hope to not to sample again any time soon. It has the classic symptoms of being a small coastal town, too far from anywhere, with inhabitants who have a penchant for binge drinking (didn't remind me of anywhere...). It was a bit of a shock after London. This was made up for by José and his girlfriend taking us for a lovely dinner at a place called The Belgium Café which did lovely seafood served by a swede called Kevin.
Our last day in England was spent at the school. We had hoped to be able to take a look at some lessons while we were there, but this didn't really work out, so we were instead sent to watch the school play, an interpretation of The Sound of Music. Now... The Sound of Music has its place. I can't say I don't know all the words to all the songs, but this was TOO MUCH. I kept trying to think back to my own school days... I'm sure the acting wasn't quite as wooden or the singing quite as ear-splitting. As you may recall, it is a musical that calls for yodelling. Yes, yodelling. Need I say more? I think the problem may have been compounded by the fact that it is a girls' school, with a few boys only admitted to the sixth form, so candidates for the male roles may have been a little thin on the ground. Needless to say, we were glad to escape in our minibus to Stansted. Inevitably we had a slight passport-losing drama on the part of one of the kids, and a big cringe on my part at the rudeness of the very same kid to the teacher organising things at that end, but eventually we were back on Norwegian soil, with just a slight tinge of regret...

Out of my depth...

This week is turning out to be uncharacteristically busy, mainly due to my having to cover for the teacher who is away in England with some students (who M-H and I will be escorting back to Oslo in a couple of weeks). This involves me acting as jumped-up babysitter to a gaggle of 16 year-olds, persuading them to take an interest in the frankly dry material I have been left with by said teacher. In his considerate way, he set the students the task of translating the poem L'automne into Norwegian. These are students who have had French for ONE TERM. And I am girl who has been learning Norwegian for TWO MONTHS. And it's most definitely not AUTUMN. The problem was confounded by the fact that I was given the material I had to cover on the morning of the lesson. So, as you can imagine, I felt somewhat out of my depth. *Inappropriate lesson alert!*

Somehow I got through it, though it wasn't the most calm I have ever been, let's put it that way. But those two months of chaos at Grimsby Institute have really stood me in good stead! At least here I have a textbook...
This evening I went to see this year's Cannes sensation Entre les murs (The Class). The action takes place in a French inner-city middle school and focuses on one teacher's (mis)adventures as he takes on a new class and attempts to drag them through their school year. It really crystalised for me the stark differences in the teacher-pupil relationship between here in Norway and back in England. I certainly remember that when I was at school, I didn't even consider that teachers were in fact real people, with their own lives and their own problems. For me, to be a good teacher, you really have to be a good actor. Once you're stood up in front of the blackboard and the spotlight is on you, the pupils really have to believe that you are actually outraged that they are chewing gum in class, or that you are scandalised that they spoke without putting up their hand. Because your job as a teacher is to prepare them for real life, basically to make them into someone who can function and succeed in society. For this they need not just subject knowledge, but also the notion of respecting other peoples' ideas and being able to communicate with those around them. As a teacher I feel like I should be a model for them to follow, i.e. fair, consistent and tolerant. I don't think the intimate details about your teacher's personal life are really relevant. The most poignant scene in the film for me was when one of the boys asked the (male) teacher, "So... people are saying that you like men. Is that true?". The way he diffused the situation was just amazing, turning the question back to this boy and making him question why he really had an issue with the fact that he may or may not be gay. The film ended with this boy being expelled, much to the horror of his teacher, who, when he saw the boy's home situation, could understand why he behaved the way he did. He also knew that if he were expelled, there really was no hope for him. It questioned whether these sort of sanctions really work, because ultimately they lead him to the point of no return and he dropped off the face of the earth, as far as the teachers were concerned. The point I'm really trying to make here is that as a teacher you walk the tightrope between your role as representative of society's factory of good citizens, and appreciating that your pupils are as fatally flawed as you are. The comparison with Norway comes when I observe teachers here really acting as mates with their pupils, which undermines them when it comes to setting down guidelines for good behaviour or attempting to motivate students to work independently. An example of this is that some teachers give their class their mobile number so they can text them if they are ill and not coming to school. If ever that were a license to take advantage! A lot of the students at my school are really there for an easy ride; the expectations aren't there so they simply aren't motivated to work. The film was also made in the style of a documentary, and was actually largely unscripted. This meant that it was uncomfortably close to reality! The fact that all the action took place within the school walls (hence the French title I guess...) helped to intensify the feeling that what you see of the pupils is really only half the story, and the same of the teachers.

Winter's back... and so is the nudity

January is white again! We had a snow storm last night, which meant that this morning I stepped out into a veritable obstacle course on my way to work. Of course the bus was late, so I missed most of the Norwegian lesson Marie-Hélène and I had planned with Sigve (one of the teachers kind enough to endure our faltering pronunciation). The journey back was a little less eventful, most of the paths having been cleared by then by the ever-present snow ploughs.
The inhabitants of Marseille aren't quite so used to this kind of event, as evidenced by this video, which M-H showed our French class. They were fascinated to find out that people didn't go to work for two days, just because of a bit of snow!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDnYL059PW4
As an English person it's quite hard for me not to feel a little bit excited at the sight of some real snow! Must keep childlike glee contained...

You might be glad to hear that I have been keeping my New Year's Resolution - I have been swimming a total of twice (!) since the last post. We go to a lovely new pool, which is absolutely huge! It exposes my country bumpkinness that I have never swum in an olympic-size pool... it is ace! Though very disappointing when you count the number of lengths you have covered in an hour. So far I'm not finding it too boring, the only downside is having other people there. Some of them think it's 'chat time' when they are swimming along. Grrr. Is it rude to swim under people to get past them if you can't overtake? I think so. But I'm definitely gonna do it now I have goggles.

I've got to say, the most interesting part of the pool is the changing rooms. After years of 'the knicker trick' (where you put your swimming costume on over your knickers and then cunningly remove them, ensuring no unsightly bits are revealed... just me?!) and tiny changing cubicles, it is refreshing to do things à la norvègienne i.e. just BE NAKED. Yes, in front of OTHER WOMEN! I don't know what it is about being British that stops us from admitting we have anything under our clothes. Many of us are perfectly happy to go out on a Friday night wearing next to nothing (as our European counterparts are constantly reminding me) and we are fascinated by everything bums and boobs (I'm thinking here of the popularity of programmes like Eurotrash and pseudo-documentaries entitled The Secret Life of Ladies of the Night or similar). But when it comes to our own nudity we are infected with a sort of 'action man' syndrome - as far as we can go is down to the blue plastic pants. I think this might just be true of women... I can't say I have ever ventured into a male changing room.
So I have been embracing the Scandinavian way, and I feel better for it! I think if we were freer this way in Britain, girls might have more of a healthy idea of what real women look like, instead of this 'make me younger/thinner/trendier and therefore happier' rubbish.

Godt nytt år!

Midnight sparklers

After an uncharacteristically great New Year's Eve and a lovely time in rural Suffolk, I was quite sad that the holiday was over and that it was time to come back to the cold north. But after a few days, it feels like I've never been away. And I remembered that being here is quite a lot like a holiday! Well, if your idea of a holiday is spending your days in the company of Norwegian teenagers, your evenings watching re-runs of Blackadder (and studying the subtitles, of course!) and as much of the intervening hours as possible on public transport and/or discovering bigger and better supermarkets, then I am in paradise! But, in all seriousness, it's good to be back. The teachers have entrusted me to plan some lessons for next week, on such diverse subjects as Gandhi, Geordie and gooseberries (the last one is a lie, but it begins with G!). Marie-Hélène and I are also very excited about our week in England coming up at the end of January. We are tagging along with a school trip in the interests of 'widening our experience of the Comenius project' i.e. having a jolly. And many more travels should be had this year. I would make it a New Year's resolution, but I think the idea is that they should be hard to achieve...
My actual resolution is a pretty damn massive cliché: to do some bloody exercise! I'm headed for Tøyenbadet tomorrow for a bit of a dip, and I'm hoping my laziness will permit me to get myself down to the pool once a week... we'll see! My housemate Asbjørn has been encouraging me by reminding me of all the 'humanity' in public pools - but I will have to ignore that and embrace the wee wee!
Other plans for my precious day off include... opening a bank account. My cup overrunneth! Red tape is my friend.

**Norwegian word of the day**
munnsår!
Which I learnt off the telly. It means 'coldsore' and, I am reliably informed, can be used as an insult (to call someone a pain in the arse)!

Now, get out of here, you bunch of coldsores, and let my frozen befuddled brain recover!

Christmas in Blighty

So I am back in this, the land of my birth, to celebrate Christmas in my own atheist/capitalist way. I wish you all a very merry time of it and I will be seeing many of you over the next few weeks - I look forward to that! I will recommence writing in the new year with even more vigour as I commence my 3 month stint of pure Norwegian immersion before coming home at Easter (you've got to love these conveniently dispersed Christian holidays...).
Ha det!

Oslo Internasjonale Filmfestival 08

Oh what bliss! An excuse to go to the cinema every night! And what a lovely poster. The week began last Friday with W, Oliver Stone's biopic of George Dubya. It didn't really satiate my thirst for "world cinema" as we anglosaxons love to call it, but fairly good all the same. Though I felt it really failed as the cutting exposé of Bush's incompetency and fecklessness that it was billed as. It didn't feel like I'd been given a new insight into this story: it described what everyone has been banging on about during his whole presidency. Bush is dumb, we get it. It seems like Stone was trying to write history rather than make a film. He saw his opportunity, when all eyes were turned to the White House, to make his own contribution to this 21st century narrative.

My definite highlight of the festival was La belle personne, which has to be one of France's best offerings this year. It was a kind of high school drama à la française, i.e. featuring a melodramatic pupil-teacher love triangle which ends with suicide. The director Christophe Honoré attempted a loose adaptation of the 17th-century novel 'la princesse de Clèves' (I'm told) - I liked the way he managed to weave parts of the dialogue into the story, without seeming fake (to my naïve French ear, that is...). But most of all it had that quality which completely involves you in the story, and when you leave the cinema you feel like you're walking on air. In my imagination I am 17 years old, French, living in the 8e arrondissement and sitting in Italian class at my lycée, involving myself in the perfect affairs of the heart of my camarades.

But sadly, I'm sitting at the back of an English class, watching Norwegian teenagers watch a film. And it's so early, it's still dark outside. And no chance of a gauloise.

Life in the Grorud valley

I've had this post mulling around in my head for some time... well, about the amount of time in which I have been too lazy to post anything. It centres around my increasing urban malaise produced by living in a tower block in the nowhere part of town.
The Groruddal, as it is known, is a valley radiating from Oslo which is home to two major motorways, some heavy industry, shopping centres and countless tower blocks. Together with the weather at this time of year, this makes for a pretty grey urban atmosphere. The other day I heard a sort of squeaking sound from the window - I wondered for a moment if it was a bird, but it turned out to be the sunshade on the balcony, squeaking away happily. At that moment I realised this is the first place I have ever lived where you never hear birdsong. I got so used to living close to nature that I stopped noticing it, but now I'm living here it's one thing I really miss.
When the urban planners of the fifties and sixties dreamt up this 'machine for living', they really failed to consider that you can't live in a machine. Certainly not a country bumpkin like me!

Ich bin ein Berliner

The weekend was, quite simply, a whirlwind. I hopped on the plane on Friday night and took the 1.5 hour trip over to der Hauptstadt. The guy I ended up sitting next to insisted on buying me Champagne, so by the time I saw Maria's lovely face at the arrivals gate, I was already feeling the effects. I'm blaming the altitude. No time for a nice cup of tea and a sit down - we were straight on the bus to a house party at their friends' place. They had decided to make it a fancy party, so we rocked up in pretty dresses and most of the other guests had followed suit (ah ha ha). The sheer number of LBDs and black waistcoasts had the potential to turn this gathering into a wake, but we managed to keep our spirits up. We ended up playing drinking games, which in my fairly tired state I failed at miserably. Someone then had the idea of going to do some graffiti under a bridge (hmm... the evening was nose-diving at this point for me). Any onlookers would have been treated to the sight of me standing by bemused with my roller suitcase and a certain someone trying not to drip spray paint on her Kurt Geigers - mentioning no names... ;-) I felt like I was in La Haine. Almost. Well, if all the actors had been replaced by the cast of Six Feet Under.

So the next day I posed as a tourist on Maria's Free Walking Tour. There is something quite eerie about seeing your friends in a different context to the one you're used to - it was as if Maria had been replaced by a Tour Guide double. This weirdness was added to by the fact that she even has a different name - Mary - for doing tours (aparently 'Maria' was already taken!) This is stupid of course, I know that Maria knows all that stuff about the Nazi book burnings and the fall of the wall, but she doesn't usually give me talks about it. I don't think I am articulating this sensation very well, but perhaps some of you can emphathise?

I also got to earwig on what the punters were saying about her, which was, on the whole, quite retarded. One guy commented that she was 'like a little book' and another told her friend that she thought Mary was 'very historial'... But a compliment is a compliment! The same girl also made the observation that there in Berlin, you could walk around without realising any of its history, whereas Paris is 'more obvious'. Any comments on that?

Later that evening we went for a huge platter of sushi and rented a DVD because we were all falling asleep in the pub (pretty lame... we must be getting old). A lovely time was had by all.

On Sunday I managed to meet up with Euan, a friend from my Lübeck days, and we went for a storming brunch buffet and to a flea market, which made for a great Sunday. I amused Ashleigh by saying some Norwegian sentences. She summed it up in a lovely phrase - 'it sounds like Welsh German'. So true. Then it was my time to leave that city once again, and fly back to this city which is beginning to feel more like home.

I'm giving a lesson today on Robert (Rabbie) Burns... och aye. My luve's like a red, red rose.

Norwegian word of the day (it's back!)
pen = pretty. My favourite part about it is that you have to pronounce it in a Northern Irish accent (with a dipthong for those of you interested).

Photographs

My dream school

Statue outside Nationaltheatret T-bane








Some very Norwegian Christmas decorations

Terrible picture of a statue of a horse,
as aforementioned.

View from my flat... a mixture between soviet
wasteland and charming forest view

A trip to Norway: a chance to practice my… French?

Mais oui, la Norvège… il faut s’en habituer, hein ?!
Apologies for my francophonic ramblings. Today was officially ‘French day’ in a new scheme devised by the French assistant Marie-Hélène and I, in which, essentially, we both get our own way. Every other day I get to stumble my way through an entire day of francophilia, while she gets to anglaise it up during the following 24 hours. Vive l’entente cordiale!



Number of things I messed up recently by pretending I can understand Norwegian: 2
1) Daily confusion on my bus ride to school (will I ever buy the right ticket?!)
2) Saying no to a free coffee. Sob.

Number of things that surprised me recently: 5
1) Being asked whether I want an adult’s or a child’s ticket on the bus (I don’t look THAT young do I?)
2) The sheer range of shockingly overpriced baubles in an Oslo department store (and the fact that they have taken over the shop in NOVEMBER… actually that doesn’t surprise me any more).
3) The fact that every student in my school is given a laptop to use… while they don’t seem to have heard of interactive whiteboards.
4) The fact that discipline in the classroom seems to be so lax (students chatting while the teacher’s talking, students ‘sharing’ the arduous task of actually writing anything down in the lesson i.e. so one of them does nothing…) I think the basic principle is that they are responsible for their own learning, but this seems pretty harsh on the weaker ones. Perhaps the national curriculum is based on natural selection?
5) How I am suddenly an insomniac. Too many thoughts in my head… Probably because I haven’t been purging them onto here. And I need a novel to read.

I’m departing for a weekend in former East Berlin on Friday, I will write more when I return. Auf Wiedersehen! Farewell! Adieu! Ha det bra!