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Kickstart! The bell rings, it’s 7:40 and I immediately realize that I have to catch the 8:25 train to Oslo at the Sentralstasjon, which is through half of the city. Trondheim isn’t that big but considering I just got up it is. I jumped right into my boots, performed a shaving stunt and would find myself jogging soon. Oh, pretty fast in thinking in the morning one might think, eh? Well, wasn’t that fast in thinking when I set up my alarm clock to 7:30 at 2:30. Just too much fun in the morning when jogging in light speed up the hill with your brain 5 meters behind. Tried to hike a bit abut bad time as most of the people being on the way to work or bringing kids to school. Time got pretty tight at 8:12 at the red old town bridge when I saw that guy pushing his moped into the right direction. The traffic on the red old town bridge is one way and most of the time closed so the guy went off his moped to push it when I got him. He wasn’t particularly exited about the idea taking me to the central station but as he would find me back on the seat he didn’t really had a chance to complain and soon I would find me few blocks further. It was 8:20 when I arrived at the station, quite lucky having a deodorant in my backpack.
8 hours to go. I was on the way to meet Henrique in Oslo where we would stay for 3 days, going to Tromsø thereafter and coming back to Trondheim then, where Mr. Faria would stay for another day. Quite a nice trip and about 2800 km if we would take the car, according to google maps. We have been lucky to find CouchSurfing hosts for both cities. For Oslo we have been able to find one available hostel before, being outside the city, for 30€. That would be expensive and boring. I arrived in Oslo at 15:23, Henrique would appear half an hour later as the bus from Oslo-Torp would take longer then expected. Kai-Sheng, our CS host for Oslo, would be available at 8pm so we decided to check out the tourist office and go downtown immediately. We bought 2 day tickets for the public transport including all museums for kr 256 (which makes about 32€!).

Kai-Sheng, called Sky, is a Taiwanese guy studying finance and taking his year abroad in Oslo. He picked us up at the Ullevål stadion in a down jacket, baseball cap and flip-flops. He lives at the 5th floor of a student house in Oslo Sogn sharing bathroom and kitchen with 5 other people. In particular the 5 remaining inhabitants were girls ad everything looked tidy and clean. After eating some wraps we got us some beers and spent the evening talking in the kitchen, as we would wake up early to discover the city.
Friday: Since we got the 48hours Olso card this would be our museum day. Starting with the Nobel Peace Center right next to the town hall, which was recommended to us by Mehman and Ilias who visited Oslo on their way to Trondheim. At the Oslo City Hall, where Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held, we had an almost private tour with a very nice lady explaining the building’s functions and origins of the paintings. After taking lunch at the Akershus Fortress, we took the ferry to see the Fram Museum, Norway’s Maritime Museum, the Kon-Tiki Museum dedicated to Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean, and the Viking Ship Museum. As the last stop we wanted to take some pictures of the new opera house when suddenly an Italian guy jumped right into the picture. It was Diego, my neighbor from Trondheim, who was visiting Olso with his parents and sister at the time! Also we have been very lucky to catch up Bente, one of the two girls organizing the social program for the intensive Norwegian language course. She graduated Biotechnology few weeks ago and just moved to Oslo for work. It was very nice to meet her because she would go to Trondheim that day and would be able to take the bottle of Bacardi Henrique brought me. We could take only hand luggage on the flights to Tromsø and Trondheim, were even considering to send the bottle by mail because of the new regulations for liquids in hand luggage! After cooking some paste with pøsle at home we went down town partying with Sky in a bar called Cafe Kaos.
Saturday: After 5 hours of sleep we went to see the Munch Museum dedicated to the famous painter, the Oslo City Museum and the amazing Vigeland Sculpture Park where we took lunch. After coming back home really tired, Henrique went to bed and I spent the night watching a movie with some girls next door.
Sunday: We got up at 6 and rushed to the metro station to get our plane to Tromsø at 9:00. Arriving there, meaning the metro station, we had to learn that the first train going to the central station would leave at half past 7 on Sundays and the bus at 9. Being so tired the day before we forgot to check the time tables.. yes, it also happens to project management students! The taxi took us kr 197, starting to run low on money but it still was within the budget. From the central station we took the airport express train for kr 80 and arrived on time.

Tromsø is a nice small town far up north (350 km inside the arctic circle) and eventually the first I got to know where you can reach the airport walking. Since the directions given me by Ula, our host for Tromsø, were geared to the bus lines and the first bus would not leave before 12 (we arrived at 11), we took the printouts from Google Maps and started walking.

Monday:

Markus just moved over into our flat share from the other kitchen today! Jana, the girl who had the apartment next to mine, finally managed to get a couple room with her boyfriend. They were applying for a couple room before coming here but someone at SiT messed up so they got 2 single apartments: one here and one in Steinan, which is 45 minutes by walking. So Markus could just move over here since he was unhappy with his other room. On the picture above can see him migrating his food to our fridge! YEEEEY!

Toga-Party time! Someone from the ErsamusStudentNotwork came up with the idea and we met at Hildruns place while posing and preparing for the party at the basement. As we alone had a crew of 15 togas the party would start off fast at the small basement, and the DJ playing the best music from the last 4 decades (should really get to know who was responsible for the playlist that night) would let it escalate fast. During the next 2 hours we were partying the hell out of us, dancing, screaming and hammering against the ceiling until a guy trying to be angry with half of a smile on his face came downstairs, shouting that he is living above and that we should stop. Immediately someone answered (it was me): Get him a beer! and everyone would start hammering the ceiling again and scream. We proceeded to Basti’s place later on, dancing on his kitchentable till 2.

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Friday: Micha, who would be my third guest here in Norway, arrived at half past one AM. Finally and equipped with a T-Shirt and a bag from the duty free shop. His KLM flight from Amsterdam that has been scheduled to arrive at 22:35 in Trondheim got canceled and he has been put on a flight though Oslo with his luggage being messed up. That should follow the day after. We came home where Micha’s room was already prepared (Jana, my neighbor, was so kind to let us her room for the weekend again) dropped off Michael’s stuff (basically the bottle of Gin and a carton of smokes from the duty free shop) and went down town. During the short nightly sightseeing tour we met a Norwegian guy giving him some basic lessons in German (“Ich bin Ausländer und spreche nicht gut Deutsch.. ich bin Ausländer und..”) while he introduced the local Barnehage culture to us (“Min hatt den har tre kanter… kanter har min hatt.”)

We woke up at 10 on Saturday as some people wanted to go hiking to Bymarka at 11. We joined them for the trip.. well, at least up till the recreation ground called Rema, where we decided to go back.

On Sunday we went to see the Kristiansten Fortress, Trondheim’s world famous bicycle lift and the former Nazi submarine base DORA 1.

Monday: After the 8:15 class (Corporate Finance indeed is a good test for attention on a Monday morning) and a short meeting with Tim I joined a Research Study on Social Networks. I will have to fill out a diary twice a week for 3 weeks, with the delivery shortly before my departure to Oslo. It is about social contacts to new people in Trondheim on the one hand, and to friends back home on another. The link to family, friends and its development. I decided to skip Strategic Management afterwards as we had some serious plans for the day: going to Hell and back! After getting us some spaghetti we met Markus and Jannik up the hill here in Berg and took a ride to the Airport located 50km outside the city. Markus had upgraded his car for Autogas to avoid the rising prizes for gasoline and one chance to refuel was a Shell station next to the airport. Very nice weather for driving along the coastline of the fjord. After filling up the car and the common jokes about the gas blowing up our asses in the air within the next few minutes, we reached Hell. Hell is a hicksville with some 500 souls that became a minor tourist attraction because of its’ name and the “Gods – Expedition” sign at the train station (which means: “cargo handling”). We spent almost half an hour in front of the buildings, screaming like skinned to get some nice pictures. The people arriving by train seem not have been scared neither of Hell nor the bawling creatures; must be a common picture here. From Hell we went straight for shopping. Well, for some shopping is Hell too.. for me it was a good day as I was able to get me a new rain-proof jacket for 999 kr ! After some additional fun at the local pet store, Micha and me went on to see a Harness race.. that we concordantly adjudged as boring very soon. We finished the whole tour with some gin, the basement and a walk down town.

Tuesday: Started the day with an all-you-can-eat pizza dinner at the TV tower. Our plans to go to Munkholmen were thwarted by a closed bridge in the harbor that wouldn’t let the ferry pass for the next few months, so we had some walk down the river. We returned home at 18:00 where Rambo got elected for the Hero of the Day after watching the movie.. “Rambo iss echt der gröößte!”.