The first few weeks

Hello again from Oslo, where the weather reached -12 yesterday.

Last weekend was fantastic, we had a wide selection of parties to attend on the Friday night (including one at the med students pub again!). Then on Saturday we rode the urban train line up the mountain to Frognerseteren (there is a webcam there, if you're interested see link on the right), where we hired sleds. Then we were off, down a 2km sledding track known as the corkscrew. It twists and turns down the mountain, taking about 15 min, then you grab the sled and jump on the train back up the mountain to begin again! Awesome fun and something you can do all day, as the train is heated and takes about 15-20min to get you back up. Steering sleds is an interesting challenge, especially the fast ones. I had one major spill, I hit a wall, then the sled and I parted ways, leaving me in the path of oncoming sledders, who had a collision whilst trying to avoid me. I recovered and stopped to help the boy, but forgot to secure my sled, so anyone further down would have seen a lone sled building up speed, followed by a red-troused, green-hatted madwoman running down a mountain behind it. The most fun however were when there were two of us on a sled. We laughed and swore the whole way down the mountain! Bruised and happy we returned for showers and a warm drink then all trooped to someones house for dinner.

The following day, a Czech girl and I managed to join a uni-run tour of the National Gallery, and saw one version of The Scream (Munch), which has the dubious honour of having been stolen twice from the gallery. The uni has a program of events for international students, many of which are free (except overnight trips). The weekend before I went on a free bus tour of the city, with entry into museums and a tour guide for 2.5 hours. Other activities include a free coffee hour on Friday afternoons, tours to many of the major galleries and sights, walking tours, rock climbing excursions, skiing trips, free Norwegian film nights (with English subtitles), a rafting trip and tours to the fjords. The people who run the accommodation also arrange activities, including a weekly trivia night at the student pub at our accommodation, a ghost tour of the castle, dance classes and other exciting activities. So despite this being an expensive country, I think students are looked after quite well.

My first two weeks of uni have been lectures and anatomy and histology pracs, so I am yet to spend time doing clinical stuff. But as our lectures have been run in the hospital we have been able to gain some idea of what to expect. The first novelty is that when we arrive at the hospital in the morning we have to change into 'hospital clothes'- white scrubs and a white coat with our indoor shoes. No more ironing shirts for the hospital! The other thing I have seen so far is that there are lots of scooters in the hospital. These are used for transporting patients' files around the hospital! The have baskets of different sizes and people ride them from one end of the hospital to another. Very cool!

There are so many people from around the world here and the unofficial second language is English. Whilst it may be some people's third language, it is the common language amongst most students here. Thus it is hard to learn Norwegian. I started classes the other day and am surprised at how much easier it is to read signs and so on. The classes are twice a week, totalling 5 hrs a week for 12 weeks, and best of all, they are offered free to exchange students. We were also given the option of an extra 30 hours of lessons for free, but they started before I arrived. Apparently these lessons would cost around $3000 if we had to pay for them! It is interesting as well, because in most situations here native English speakers are rare, and such we are sometimes consulted on the pronunciation and meaning of words. I think my English may actually be improving, as I can't use slang here, whilst there will be a whole group of Norwegians saying words like 'hypertrophy' with an Australian accent. But the level of English is so outstanding that I am sometimes struggling to answer the questions!

Well I might head off to bed and add some more a bit later.

See ya,

Anneke