[Insert Witty Title Here]...

Salutations once again, readers! This week has just been a whirlwind of fun times, for I had to make up for my week of being quarantined with the flu! I have been racking my brain trying to come up with family appropriate moments to share, but it’s becoming more and more difficult as I spend an increasing amount of time with the relatives. Silje and Eirik are officially bad influences, but somehow I’ve learned to cope. ;) Oh yes, Eirik is another third cousin—I just didn’t meet him until this past week. He is pretty much my favorite person ever, just ever. It is hard to sum up his fabulosity unless you meet him in person, but I’ll do my best. He is an avid Buffy and *NSYNC fan, a dancer (just like Hillary and I… Sue’s Performing Stars for life), and he found purple rain boots for me. It just doesn’t get much better than that. Pictured below:

Eirik is the only relative I have left in Oslo for the next two weeks, as Jørgen and Lisbet are on holiday in Portugal starting today, just as Silje will be spending the next 12 days in the United States. She is visiting relatives on her mom’s side in Minnesota, but hopefully by the end of my 5 months here I can coerce them all to make a trip over to see the Hansen clan.

In other news, last Wednesday, myself and Becky took advantage of one of the nicer days and strolled around Vigeland Park (Pictures on Flickr). The Vigeland Sculpture Park is a part of Frogner Park and features bronze and granite sculptures created by Norwegian sculptor, Gustav Vigeland. A short walk from the park is the Vigeland Museum, which provided us with some super-fun Vigeland facts :-) Vigeland personally sculpted every figure out of clay and then individual craftsmen fabricated his sculptures into the large statues that are seen in the park today. The sculptures in the park are divided into six sections: The Main Gate, The Bridge, The Children’s Playground, The Fountain, The Monolith Plateau and the Wheel of Life. In a nutshell, Vigeland Park features a lot of naked statues. (approximately 212 statues, primarily featuring naked people of all ages, shapes, sizes, and genders. Vigeland also kinda went through some kind of iron lizard stage too...) This sculpture is my personal favorite.....

Class has definitely begun to consume a large chunk of our days here in Oslo, but luckily I only have classes three days a week. Before the whole “studying” part of my study abroad experience came into play, I was able to sign up for a tour of the Oslo District Court, where we met with a young deputy judge who showed us a court room and gave us a lecture about Norway's district court system. I was pretty much the only student there who isn’t actually studying law, but I channeled Hillary and did my best to fit in. In Norway, law school graduates do not take a bar exam, instead they must first complete a kind of apprenticeship along with completing some professionalism classes. The top students in each class often become deputy judges and are often the sitting judge (along with 2 'lay' persons who are usually average citizens w/ no legal education) for cases at the district court level. The district court judge kept us laughing with jokes about 'lay' persons coming in to help try prostitution cases and helping her evaluate the cases based on their personal experiences with prostitutes. Silly Norwegian judge.

SIDENOTE - while we were walking down to the lobby, we passed a fountain filled with tons of little silver kroners twinkling at the bottom... with Norway being so painfully expensive, it was all I could do to keep myself from tossing my pride out the window and diving in after those lucrative Norwegian "wishes." Unfortunately for my wallet, I restrained myself.

Anyways, after that we went to tour a "maximum-security" Norwegian prison. After walking past their gym, outdoor swimming pool, and fully-equipped kitchens (w/ knives in it - bad idea to anyone else?), some of us considered breaking our housing contracts at Sogn/Kringsja and bunking up in the jail for the next 4 months. Truly, I don’t understand how crime is so low here when people have a resort like THAT to face when they break the law.

But onward with Oslo tourism.

On Sunday, a few friends and I decided to try to run around and see some of the Oslo sights. The first stop we made was at the Royal Palace. The palace is located right at the top of Karl Johan's Gate, which is kind of the "Main Street" in Norway. On our way up to take some pictures, my friend Katharina and I were accosted by Norwegian children trying to give us free ice cream...but we ran away. I know better than to accept free ice cream from strange children. Anyways, the law school is located right down the street, I took a picture of that too, I believe. Again, all photos are on Flickr. We also checked out the Oslo Opera House, Akerbrugge, etc. etc.

Then we hopped on a train and went to go see the Holmenkollen Ski Jump, which is located on the edge of Oslo. I've been in Norway a little under a month and already have lost count of the times I've been told that "Norwegians invented skiing"; "Norwegians were born with skis on their feet"; "Norwegians have discovered cave drawings in the mountains dating back to the 1600s of people skiing down the mountains"...you get my drift. What I want to know, is which Norwegian dreamed up the scariest Olympic event imaginable. . . the ski jump.

Oslo was the host city for the 1952 Winter Olympics, and the ski jump is the centerpiece of the Holmenkollen nordic skiing arena. The Holmenkollen Ski Museum is located at the base of the ski jumping tower, along with a virtual entertainment device that allows guests to see and feel how the ski jumpers ski. It was pretty much as terrifying as I expected it to be. Unfortunately the weather again was cold and and my group decided we'd wait for a warmer day to practice leaping off the ski jump into the practice pool. Anyway, I guess that Oslo's city parliament voted to demolish the ski jump and replace it with a (taller? faster? scarier?) version later on...which will be great because I'm sure jumping off this ski jump was getting totally lame for the locals.

Well, I need to go get ready for my one and only three hour class today: Norwegian language for beginners! It’s about time. Perhaps my next post will be in Norwegian… get excited.