Politics, Nature, and Lots and Lots of Food

September 17, 2017

Politics, Nature, and Lots and Lots of Food

For the first time maybe ever, this blog post may not be too long. We'll see if that's true when we get to the end of the post, though. While there were a couple exciting things this week, my week as a whole was pretty normal. I realized this week that I've fallen into a routine and that at this point, I'm really just living. The fact that it's happening in Norway obviously has a huge effect on me and my life, but it feels more normal every week. I was talking to a few friends from home this week and when they asked how everything was and what was different, I realized that I couldn't really point out exactly what was different because it doesn't feel different anymore. This is definitely a good thing, but I didn't expect to feel so... Norwegian so fast.

Monday was an exciting day in Norway. So exciting that I didn't even have school :) It was election day for Parliament and, similar to the US, this only comes around once every four years. This election would decide not only the makeup of the 169-person Parliament, but also the prime minister. The whole system is a little complicated but in case there's anyone reading this who is interested in Norwegian government and politics, I'll leave a link here where you can read more. In the end, the more conservative side (I say more because compared to the US, the right-wing is not nearly as conservative), which is made up of several parties, got the majority of the votes. This meant that Erna Solberg, the right's PM candidate and current PM, kept her spot as prime minister for another four years.

Thursday the whole first grade went on a field trip for our science class. We are currently learning about succession in ecosystems so we took a trip to a nearby lake that is surrounded by forest. We spent the day visiting different areas and observing the different stages of succession in forests and lakes and, of course, having a little fun :) We were assigned to take pictures throughout the day for a poster we're now making which means I have tons of pictures of a few of the different types of nature that surround me here in Oslo. Although it's the capital of Norway and has a very urban center, Oslo is by no means restricted by it's city title. The city border extends over lakes, forests, mountains, and pastures and the nature it encompasses is a huge part of Oslo's identity.

I can't say whether or not the freshman fifteen is an actual thing because I haven't been to college yet, but I can say that probably 90% of exchange students gain weight in the first few months. There's so much new food and of course you want to try it all so suddenly you're eating wayyyy more than you usually do. Personally, I am not helping this issue with my baking obsession. I've always liked to bake but it's now a full-on obsession. All I want to do is bake and this week alone I've made cookies, apple crisp, and pancakes. Before you discount (American) pancakes as a baked good, I should inform those of you who are not from Norway that sweet breakfasts are not very common here. While I've grown to love the less-sweet Norwegian diet, I do occasionally miss the high-sugar foods that are typical in the US. Anyways, this paragraph went off on quite the tangent but the point is I'm eating a lot and it's not all healthy. I have no idea why I'm talking about that in the first place but the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have a problem...

Now that this post has just turned into a collection of very random things, I'll wrap it up by saying that next week I plan on talking about my observations about Norwegian high school (at least my school). This is so everyone back home can learn a little more about what I do during the week and so that future me can see how my views on school change over the course of the year!

Word of the post:
sperregrensen = the boundary that marks the minimum amount of votes (4%) a party needs to get in the parliamentary election to be considered for the 19 representatives that are based on the different regions. This is one of the more complicated parts of the Norwegian election system but the word was requested so now everyone can sound very informed and fancy when talking about the recent stortingsvalg :)