Last night I had a craving and ran to the grocery store right before it closed to pick up some vanilla ice cream and root beer to make one of my favorite snacks: root beer floats. I was stunned to find no root beer! Anywhere. I came home a little frustrated, but today finally figured out what to do. I'm going to brew my own! I ordered the supplies and will soon have created the world's northernmost root beer brewery. I'm anticipating the northern location to have a particularly effective influence on the cold, frosty floats, so I'm excited to begin my chemistry experiment. I'm sure pictures will be posted as soon as the attempt is made.
In other news, today was the Tromsø Storm basketball team's last home game and they actually won! The best part was that they were giving away all the stuff they had left over from the year so I caught a Tromsø Storm t-shirt. Pretty sweet. It reminded me of the old days at the Jacks games trying to catch the shirts they would throw out. Finally, my time has come. Off to lose to Stian again in chess.
had choir today. i learned that they call these "hus ett" and "hus to" (house one and house two). ridiculous.
For a country of only 4 million people, Norway is doing pretty well in the olympics (OL in Norwegian), but you wouldn't know it being here. Everywhere you look are headlines of the "katastroffe" (catastrophe) in the OL. The Norwegians failed to get a medal today in the biatholon relay race and only got a bronze in the team ski jump. Along with the Norwegian men's curling team being upset, many of the supposed Norwegian medal contenders just haven't come through. And, unfortunately for Norway, all Norwegian media lists the medal count based on gold medals and not overall medals. So, instead of Norway being second (because they have the second most medals) they are somewhere around 10th with only 2 golds, tied with Sweden. The ultimate embarassment.
Despite the Norwegian disappointment, there is definitely olympic fever here. Every store you go into, including the grocery store, has a small tv showing the olympics. Today we even turned on a tv in our peace center and gathered around watching the biatholon relay. Hopefully things will turn around for the Norwegian team, but I think most of their best events are done (basically anything with skies.) Keep your fingers crossed though, the Norwegian women's curling team is in the semifinals and ready to make this country proud! While the Americans are all watching figure skating, I'll be watching "chess on ice": curling!
I feel so Norwegian right now! I just got home after an afternoon of fishing in the North Sea. It was great...and freezing!
Silje, who is in the Peace Program with me, invited our class to go on a traditional Norwegian fishing trip with her dad who owns the oldest fishing boat in the world or Northern Norway, I forget which. Anyways, we all got on the wooden boat that looked like a toy wooden boat I would have had as a kid. There was snow covering the deck, but that was no deterrent! We piled on and basically got to watch as Silje's dad did all the work and took us "out to sea." 
We had a great view of Tromsø and mountains. We drove around on a small tour until his sonar detected a presence of fish. No joke. It seemed a little unfair, but we took advantage of our technology and dipped in the lines. After two hours of fishing and chasing fish with sonar, we ended up catching 5 fish, three of which were worth keeping...so I guess our technology needs tweeking...or maybe it was just a little too obvious when five tasty looking metal lures dropped into the fishes' school at the same time. 
Regardless, I am proud to say that I did well! I caught 3 of our five fish and even more impressive, I helped Stian clean the fish when we finally got home. A new feat for me after years of watching my Grandpa clean everyone's fish.
Speaking of feet, mine are still freezing! It was -10 celsius outside and as soon as we got out on the water the freezing wind hit us. The water passage between Tromsø island and the mainland of Norway act as a wind tunnel, making the water the coldest place north of the Arctic Circle to be! We were all dressed warm and used the safety vests as wind blocks. We looked like a boat full of construction workers. Despite all our attempts however, we came to the obvious conclusion that fishing in the North Sea in February is a little ridiculous. I loved it though! Plus, we have dinner for tomorrow and it only took 4 hours and cost us a few toes each. 
Thankfully, a hot chocolate at a cafe as soon as we got off the boat help us to forget the cold feeling and helped get us ready for a party tonight at the peace house. We are taking the Luther tradition of "Gentlemen's Club" abroad, so I'm excited to wear a tie and start telling tales about my fishing trip. Soon, everyone will know about the 10 whales I caught!
If you want to actually know, or see the truth, make sure to check out the photos I just added from our trip in the "Photos from Norway" link in the right column!
I embarked on the frightening task of giving a 15 minute presentation this evening...in Norwegian! Fortunately it was for the Rotary Club which has to be one of the best audiences one can have. As part of my scholarship as an International Ambassadorial Scholar I am supposed to teach Norwegians about America and learn about Norway to eventually share with Americans. Well, one way to do this is to give a presentation to my host Norwegian clubs about the US and my experience here in Norway.
I told the all male Tromsø South club about how it is important to meet people from other cultures to truly learn what others are like. With all the debate over the Muhammed Cartoons, I thought it was appropriate to praise Rotary for encouraging cultural exchange as well as pressing them to continue their contributions. I told them a bit about my home in South Dakota and the "Norwegians" there. I also told them about the Peace Studies program and wanted to put a bug in their ear about working with the Peace Center in the future. Finally I told them about my experiences here in Norway. I got the most laughs telling them about my experience with "Lett Øl."
In Norwegian, Lett Øl means light beer, but it is light in the sense that there is less alcohol, not that there are less calories like in the US. Well, the first time I went to the grocery store I saw the light beer and it was so cheap! So, of course I bought a six pack. When I got hom and was informed by my roommates about my mistake, I put the Lett Øl in the back of the fridge. I think it took about 6 months to finally finish it! The old Norwegian Rotary Men got a kick out of that.
So, things went well! I got to practice Norwegian and even received a bottle of red wine as a thank you! Definitely a valuable item in Norway. Plus, I received a Tromsø Rotary flag to give to the Brookings Club when I get home. So, cross-cultural understanding is underway.
The American tradition of Valentine's Day spread its wings across the Atlantic and even reached Tromsø yesterday. The International Student Union decided to have a Valentine's Party, and it wasn't quite like the 4th grade Valentine's Day parties I remembered. I walked into the cafe/bar where they were having the party and Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name of" was playing. Not exactly the sappy Valentine's Day music I was expecting. But, despite the odd music, they gave everyone a number so you could write Valentines to people in the room. Lots of international love. So, instead of conversation hearts I had a Mack and instead of talking about love, I talked about the best bars in Cape Town. All in all, a fun night.
I’ve been a bit out of it the past few days battling a cold, and I think I know exactly the source of my problems…the reindeer rodeo!
That’s right. Last weekend I experienced one of the most random, hilarious events I have seen in Norway. It was Sami Weekend in Tromsø and to help celebrate the cultural heritage of the indigenous Sami people, who could be compared to the Inuits, (or Eskimos), in Alaska, there was a Sami market, Sami music, and the highlight: reindeer races. It was incredible. Storgata which is the main walking street in downtown Tromsø was lined with people three deep for 6 blocks along the race track. The reindeer started in a gate, much like in a horse race, but instead of having people riding them, they had a young Sami teenagers skiing behind them while holding on to their reins. 
The reindeer were the most awkward things to see drag racing. Their tongues flailed to the side of their mouths while their eyes blinked and darted around like a cartoon character being electruocuted. Despite their odd looks, those babies could move! Supposedly they got up to over 100km/hr, and I believe it after standing on the sides watching the races only to see a blur and have to look to see what went by me. 
There were lots of Sami people in their tradition bright blue and red clothing, and it was fun to see the city packed with people. It was unfortunate that it was absolutely freezing! It seemed the wind picked up and brought the cold temperatures from Kautokeino to Tromsø just for the races. I felt just like this little guy!
After trying to stay warm during the reindeer rodeo, we finally gave up and went to a coffee shop for some hot chocolate.
Then, after warming up, we headed to our second Tromsø Storm game, and yet again we were disappointed. They were ahead the whole game, but somehow in the last 4 minutes were able to lose the game. The effects were still hilarious and the whole event, and weekend, was entertainment pure and simple.
Although the cartoon incident has only gotten worse here in the Eastern Hemisphere, we solved our little incident in our house. After coming home late on Saturday night, Stian took the initiative to tear down Igor’s racist posters. Igor responded in turn by taking down Stian’s Palestinian flag. Apparently they talked it over and made up. Igor agreed not to pust up the posters again and thus far Stian hasn’t put up the Palestinian flag. We’ll see if peace is maintained in the Peace House.
I'm now sitting in the Oslo Airport on my way to Bergen for a weekend correspondence course I am taking called Election Observation. Hopefully after 3 weekends in Bergen and weeks of reading on my own, I will be certified to travel to other countries and observe their election process to determine how democratic it is. Sounds interesting. I'm excited too because I'll be staying with my friend Andre who is also in the peace program with me. He is from Bergen, so I'll get to chill at his house with his mom, probably watching the Winter Olympics! Go Norge!
The cartoon madness has reached a new high as we just learned that in Syria the Norwegian Embassy was looted and burned. Insanity. I guess Norway is not as well loved as they would like to imagine. This horrible act has also brought out the worst in our housemate Igor. After he found out, he promptly printed out signs he put on the outside of his door with racist text, one saying "White Power World Wide." This man is crazy. The walking example of why things like this spiral out of control. I guess we'll have a little case study here in our house dealing with conflict transformation. I'll keep you posted on these disturbing happenings...
After waiting 3 months, today was the big day: we saw and felt the sun! It was crazy! At about 11.30am, I was walking down the hall of our peace building and I saw people gathering. It was seriously like aliens had landed, everyone was just standing possessed, staring out the window at the sun. We went outside and even though it was -10 degrees Celsius, we acted like it was summer with our arms outstretched absorbing the rays. A beautiful day. It was incredible how cheery everyone was as well. Such a perfect day.
On top of the sun, we were also treated to a great evening of Northern Lights! Green lines were zig-zaging across the clear sky while quarter moon just hung right above the mountains. A good day to be in Tromsø, if you can stay warm enough! Tomorrow we're going to enjoy our newly found friend by going sledding. Probably while wearing sunglasses.
The rage over the Muhammed Cartoons continues and today we had a very interesting discussion in our class hearing input from all over the world. As a Westerner I have a natural bias towards free press, but I think in this case the newspapers were out of line. The intent seems very important for me. They obvious didn't publish the cartoons to showcase their right to free press, they did it as an ignorant joke. People would never get away with doing that about blacks or Jews. They do have the freedom to if they wanted, but they have ethics and are educated enough to know that it would be devisive and harmful. Where are the ethics and education in this case? Why at the very moment when we should be trying to bridge the divide between the Christian and Muslim worlds do we have to further stratify it? The newspapers do have the right to publish the pictures if they want. But they also need to be ethical in their editorial decisions. And to make these decisions they need to be educated, and so do we. Let's worry less about defending our right to free speech and more about learning about the world.
There is an enormous debate going on right now in Norway that is extremely fascinating and relevant. It all revolves around the idea of free speech versus humiliation. Late in the fall, 12 cartoon drawings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad were put in the Danish newspaper "Jyllands-Posten" and later in the Norwegian Christian newspaper "Magazinet." These drawing depict Muhammad sometimes as a terrorist carrying a bomb under his turban and other fairly derogatory ways. This has enraged much of the Muslim world because first of all, Muhammed is not supposed to be depicted at all, and secondly because he was drawn in such an offensive way. The newspaper however responded by saying that it was their free speech to be able to print and publish whatever they want. In response, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have began boycotting Danish goods, the Libyan embassy in Denmark was closed, and the cartoonist have received death threats. There is even increased security supposedly in Denmark because they are afriad someone could attack them.
So, the debate continues in Norway. Should a newspaper be able to publish something that offends another, especially when dealing with matters of religion? How far does free speech go? The debate has been raging in Norwegian media, so here's your chance to set aside thoughts of the state of the union and the super bowl and weigh in, what do you think?
It's been interesting being able to hear the perspective from a few of my Muslim classmates and the interesting interplay of religion and politics. I'm still formulating my position. Who would have thought that "peaceful" Norway would be at the center of such a controversy!
Read more about the story at this website: Muhammed Cartoon Story
