Exam Week - A New Experience

It's exam week here in Jönköping and I have been spending plenty of time studying already. The pressure is on considering 100% of my grade in my Mathematical Statistics course is based off of this one exam. This type of pressure is very different for me, considering that we do not have this style in the USA. Usually by finals time I have a majority of my grade determined from other exams and assignments so the final is just a way to "separate the men from the boys" grade wise.

The University system in Sweden has taken a little getting used to. I can definitely tell I'm not in Platteville anymore. No more 30 person math courses, nope here there are 120 students in my class. The professor doesn't know me by name and I'm not so sure about his office hours. Also, the semester (termin in Swedish, semester in Swedish means Holiday. Confusing right?) is broken up into two halves. For these first few months I have had two courses; Mathematical Statistics and Swedish Language, Culture, and Society I. After my math exam on Friday and my Swedish exam on Monday, I will begin a new set of courses for the second half. Those courses will be Swedish II and Applied Finite Element Analysis. This split system may be beneficial since you can really focus on a subject and not have so many other things on your brain.

Anyways, I feel that I have more pressure on my upcoming exams that most other exchange students since my grades transfer back. I am trying to keep my GPA as high as possible so A's and B's are my target. Most exchange students have a "pass-fail" system where as long as they pass, they get the credit and the grades do not show up on their transcripts. I do not mind having my grades transfer back because it enforces that I am still responsible for my studies and this isn't a semester to slack off. I have been keeping up to date on everything so now I just need to refine my statistics and Swedish skills and I will be all good.

So wish me luck on my exams! I'll be rewarding myself for completing my exams by traveling to Rome from March 27-31. Can't wait for my next adventure!

Lone Traveler goes to Oslo, Norway

Last weekend, I hopped on a bus for six hours over to Oslo, Norway. I wanted to get some traveling in before I became busy studying for my exams and Oslo is close and Norway is very interesting for me considering I am 3/8 Norwegian. I will start off by saying that I had an incredible adventure and one that will probably never happen again in my life. After finding no one interested in traveling with me, I took it upon myself to still go and try solo traveling.

Upon arrival in Oslo, I started to explore the city. The first stop was the famous Oslo Opera House where you can actually go on top of the roof! The view overlooks the city and also the fjord so it was neat. Since I was unable to find a tourist station where I could pick up a map, I began to explore the city on my own and also find my hostel. The hostel was not the nicest place but it was a warm place to sleep and the cheapest in town. (~$50... This is Oslo so that is reasonable). Oslo is always in the top five for the most expensive cities in the world so I really had to watch how I spent my money. I visited many free sites while in Oslo including the Royal Palace and a few churches.

With my exploring, I stumbled upon a grocery store and went inside to pick up some of Norway's Lefse. Lefse is a Norwegian specialty and a variant of it is made in my hometown back in the USA. Basically it is a potato flat bread that you put butter and sugar on. It's absolutely delicious. While in the store I also picked up Norwegian chocolate which is also delicious. (I've decided that European chocolate blows American chocolate out of the water). After exploring for a while, I decided it was time to find a place to eat dinner. I ended up in the harbor are which was filled with nice restaurants. In Europe, almost all restaurants have menus outside the door so that was very convenient for me. I discovered a TGI Fridays where a burger was about 200 NOK ($33). So this was going to be an expensive evening. I'm pretty sure I went around to all of the restaurants in the Aker Brygge area before picking Rorbua. Little did I know that this choice would affect the rest of my time in Oslo.

After entering this nice restaurant with fishing items around the entire place and wooden benches and tables, I took a seat by myself since I was traveling alone. Shortly after, a Norwegian man approached and asked if he could sit with me (he first spoke in Norwegian of course). I said sure and this was the best thing that happened to me in Norway. The man was Bjørn, a local ship captain who had just finished with work for the day. He was one of the nicest people I have ever met. After he recommended I try the whale steak, we spent much of the night talking. The whale was not fishy tasting as you would expect, it was like beef but more "gamey". While in Norway, why not try something new that I may never get a chance to eat again in my entire lifetime. Anyways, he grew up in the very north of Norway in a small fishing village. It was incredible to hear his story about how he has been fishing his entire life and has earned all of his own money since he was 12. He raised enough money to buy his own little boat and continued fishing and selling his catch to continually upgrade to a bigger and better boat. Learning about his story of independence and all of the lessons he learned along the way, I realized that I had a very similar experience growing up on the farm. We discussed how "city kids" are much different than those raised in rural areas. It was such a great conversation and along the way I learned so much about ships and fishing. 

He told me about how he spent many years out on the fishing boats in which he was gone for weeks at a time. He enjoyed his time doing that but wanted to try something new, so he began driving a ferry in Oslo that connects the center of the city to one of the peninsulas. It is a short 20 minute ride, while if you were to drive by car, it would be an hour and a half drive. He invited me to come check out the ferry the next day and go for a ride. I wasn't sure what this consisted of but I accepted since he told me it would be free since I would be with the Captain. After we said our see you laters, I returned to the hostel where I found a guy in my hostel from Canada who explained to me that he was there on business and the company bought him a vegetarian dinner which costed $100! Insane! After a short discussion with this man, it was time for bed. 

I woke up the next morning rejuvenated and ready to spend my last day in Oslo seeing as much as possible. First I checked out the Nobel Peace Center Museum which was very interesting. I learned about the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and their work on eliminating chemical weapons in the world. They are still finding chemical weapons from WWI and this organization has the means to disable them and dispose of them. The one room consisted of an interactive book that told about Alfred Nobel and his life. Even though he invented dynamite, he really wanted a world without war. The was also tribute to all of those who have received the Nobel Peace Prize and then interactive monitors where you could learn more about the Nobel Peace Prize and the recipients. I easily could have spent another hour here learning. 

Next, I went to Bjørn's ship and found him. He took me up to the captain's chambers and I got to talk with him and his crew while seeing all the beautiful sites of the fjord. There is a marine engineer on board that makes sure everything works smoothly and he offered to take me under the deck to show me all of the mechanical components. This boat has four engines; two natural gas and two diesel. The diesels were Scania and the natural gas engines Mitsubishi. It was great to see these power generation units since they were just a scaled down version of what I worked on last summer at my internship. The engineer described to me how after the ship is made, there are a ton of changes that need to be done since they never do it right the first time. The ship building companies try to do it for as cheap as possible so they often cut corners where they shouldn't. Also this was a prototype ship so it has many extra safety features for the natural gas engines that make it quite a hassle for the engineer. There are always sensors that break or something along those lines. The day I was there the natural gas system was throwing an error, so that is why the diesel engines were running instead. Basically every system on the boat had a back up, with the natural gas engines being the main engines and the diesels being the back up. The experience under the deck was unexpected and really great professional development for me. It is always interesting to learn about possible engineering careers. Lastly, when I returned back to the captain's chamber, Bjørn asked if I would like to drive the ship. I was completely surprised and excited. I can officially say that I drove a 600 passenger boat in Oslo, Norway! It was really cool and I was surprised at how agile this large vessel was. Driving was very simple, with Bjørn just telling me what number to change the computer to which then changed the direction of the boat. It was simply a little knob, not a big steering wheel as one would expect because of the movies. I have to admit that I had an incredible time! 

Next, I made the mistake of walking instead of taking the bus. Although I made it to the Viking Ship museum, it was roughly an hour walk in the rain. Worth it though! I was able to see Viking ships from around 1000 AD. Vikings were buried in ships with animals, food, things they loved, etc. These burial ships were looted before they were found but the find is still incredible. The craftsmanship of the Vikings was amazing and I cannot believe that they were able to build such things without modern technology. 

Lastly, I made the walk over to Vigeland Park where there are a ton of statues. Oslo is very interesting in the aspect that you can be in the middle of a busy city one moment and the next moment you can be in a quiet and huge park. It gives you the feeling that you are never far from the wilderness, and I like that. I will let the pictures tell the story of this park. 

There are no words to describe my experience in Oslo. The things that happened to me are truly once in a lifetime. How many people can say they drove a large passenger boat or eaten a whale steak. I will never forget my time in Oslo, Norway. Sometimes traveling alone can be scary, but you are given opportunities that you would not otherwise be given. Here's the lesson I learned, if you want to do something, just go do it! Don't wait for others to go with you or support you in it. Jump headfirst into something new and something incredible is bound to happen. :)