My daily life ("Leven naast mijn stage")

Hello you all!

Here's the translation to the blog from last thursday. 

Unfortunately still no blog about my internship. I did write it, but my internship-mentor (?) is on holiday so he can’t check it. So I’ll write something about my daily life here when I’m not at work! Life goes a lot faster now, on daytime I have my internship (I really feel comfortable there by the way!), in the evening I usually plan an activity, and then suddenly a week has passed. I mean, I’m here for a month already!

I finally got some routine, that feels relaxed. In the morning I don’t have to leave home early, because it’s only a 10-minute walk to the embassy, and I’m home at 5.15pm too. Lailai and I both make dinner, but íf we once are home at the same time, we tend to eat together. In all other cases, we cook for ourselves. And I actually manage! I buy some cheap vegetables at Grønland and I didn’t eat anything yet that didn’t taste good. Usually I plan things in the evening, because I don’t want to just sit on the sofa and watch tv, that makes me a little nervous. So twice a week I do kickboxing, and there are more and more people there that are actually are a lot more open than the usual Oslo-citizen. So it’s a pleasant group! On weekdays I sometimes join some students to watch a Norwegian movie at the university, or I meet one of the people I met here to make dinner together or something like that. That’s how I went to a pub with a girl I knew from my exchange four years ago, it was fun to talk to her again. In the weekends, I often meet the other exchange students here in Oslo. 2 weeks ago I went to a flea market with Marloes. Those flea markets here happen every week, on different spots in Oslo. And they are HUGE! Seriously, from closets to matrasses, books, clothes, ice skates and kitchenware. And everything is affordable! So this is something we definitely are going to do more often. Sunday 2 weeks ago I went to “friluftlivets dag”, the “outdoor activities day”, with Tram, a Dutch exchange student from Rotterdam. All kinds of outside activities at Sognsvann, with husky’s, free kayaking, free hotdogs at a fireplace, and a real mushroom picking tour! Unfortunately there weren’t many mushrooms because of the summer that lasts so long here this year (while in Holland it has been raining for over a week now, lol). Even the fact that picking berries and mushrooms is very common here in Norway, I just don’t have a clue which mushrooms are eatable and which are just poisonous… so this Saturday (yesterday, actually) we went to a more extended mushroom course! It still wasn’t successful, too bad.

Last week Sunday I went for a hike with a German exchange student in Oslo-North, with good weather, wonderful views and sometimes some climbing. I feel really sporty then! And then suddenly two Norwegian joggers are passing you on the left side and on the right side! Really, that feels weird. Many Norwegian people are focused on eating and living healthy (you barely see fat Norwegians), but some just go insane with this focus. A reason for this may be the Oslo marathon soon.

Next to that I met a lot of other Dutch people in Oslo! There seems to be a real, quite big, Dutch Club here in Oslo, who meet once in a while at a pub. A colleague told me about this, and I just decided to visit a meeting. And, how is that? Well, think about the most open-minded and enthusiastic Dutch people you’ve ever met, and put them all together. That is what happens. Everyone introduced themselves immediately and we’ve been chatting a lot. Many Dutch people told me they’re having a hard time becoming good friends with Norwegian people, especially the ones from Oslo. It usually takes quite a long time. So, respect, for the ones that decide to move to Norway permanently!  

In the Dutch version of this blog (“Leven naast mijn stage”) I put some more pictures about the activities of the last two weeks. So I hope now I told and showed enough to make up for the last two weeks where I didn’t write anything! 

View from last sunday, Oslo Fjord on the background :)