Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

It's back to the real world this week, and I'm realizing though that my "real world" here is pretty cool!

Saturday I kicked off my second year of peace studies by meeting the Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai (in the bright dress). She is a Kenyan woman who focuses on the connection between the environment and peace and she talked in the Peace Center to crowd of students and talked later in town to a huge audience of Norwegians. It was pretty crazy to just sit in this tiny auditorium in Tromsø, Norway with such an important difference-maker. Inspiring to see that you doing your thing and working hard sometimes equals big results.

Saturday night was also a blast as we had a double-header of birthday parties. Maaike (housemate from the Netherlands) bought toliet paper with me (at the request of the birthday girl) and we joined a group of peace students met to celebrate Silje's birthday. After some lively conversation, we eventually migrated to a birthday party for an American living in Tromsø named Jeremiah. Just when I was about to head home at a decent hour, Stian called and I joined him and his hometown boys for a nattspeil. I had a great time seeing everyone again and seeing the sun rise on Sunday morning!

Sunday was intense because it was Diplomacy Day! Stian and I now have playmates in the house who will play conquer the world games with us, so Mostopha joined Maaike, Stian, and I as we meticulously began dividing up Europe. Just when it looked like I might be able to assert my dominance, Maaike stabbed me in the back and won the game. Needless to say, there is no more trust in this house. We had a great time though, and have already played some Yahtzee and Settlers of Catan since. It was also a good activity for Stian. He had a little accident when his bike hit a rock in our driveway and went head first over his bike. He was left with a nice beauty mark and was definitely ready to hide in the house behind a boardgame instead of showing his battle scar!

The rest of this week has been diving into the thesis project. I'm now focusing a little more on if and why people give charity/aid to places that are far away rather than locally. We'll see how it goes! Besides transcribing and talking with my advisor, I also had the opportunity to meet the mayor of Hiroshima. He gave a lecture at the Peace Center as well talking about a movement he started in which cities basically request that their city be removed as targets for nuclear weapons. The hope is that with enough pressure from the local level that national governments will be forced to reduce and hopefully eliminate nuclear weapons. It was a little idealistic for me, but interesting and just refreshing to be thinking and learning on a daily basis again.

So life is back in motion. I'm having a great time with everyone here and although the weather is pretty gloomy, I'm finding plenty to do. The next big event is tomorrow night when Rachel (the other American in the peace program) and I make our musical debut singing "Killing the Blues" at an open mic concert in Driv. Off to play a bit and get ready to take Norway by storm!