Week 9: Personal Blog: 12.04.13 - 19.04.13

Our first day in Oslo

At the weekend I visited Oslo with my friend Lütfullah. We were very lucky to purchase our return flights for a total of 14€ each! I also registered on www.couchsurfing.org which is a website designed for travellers to meet other people who are travelling. I was so excited to go on this trip as I had never visited Norway and I had been told by many other Erasmus students how great an experience couchsurfing is. 

Standing on the Opera's roof

As I explored the website I discovered that there are so many people who are willing to open their homes to complete strangers! Most of them seemed to be motivated by their interest in other people, different cultures and new experiences. These people’s state of mind is reflected in the phrase once said by Fay Weldon; “The freedom of travel opens the mind to unlimited possibilities” (Global seekers, 2013).

The main benefit of couchsurfing is that it enabled us to find a native Norwegian who could ‘host’ us, which means to supply us with somewhere to sleep and show us some of the Norwegian culture.  Thomas or ‘Melby’, was our host, who was an open minded, lively and very funny guy. Unfortunately he had to practice a lot with his punk band that weekend, which prevented him from being able to guide us around, however this did not stop us seeing Oslo! Within the two days we visited many places including the parliament building ‘Stortinget’, The Royal palace park ‘Slottsparken’ and the Opera ‘Opergen’.

The one thing that we were disappointed about was that the Norwegian prices are not very similar to the Polish prices, quite the opposite in fact! We had been warned about this already and had brought sandwiches with us for the first day. We also brought our host, Thomas some beverages over from Poland to thank him for his trouble, which he very much appreciated.

The Royal Palace

Thomas lived in GrØnland, a very central part of Oslo in which Lütfullah felt very at home, as it is known as the ‘multi-cultural melting pot’ which includes a large community of Turkish people. Thankfully, in this area of Oslo, it was a little less expensive therefore we went for dinner in a Turkish restaurant both nights as it was more in our price range than the other restaurants in the centre.

The Parliament Buidling

In general, we found the Norwegian people to be very friendly people, who were happy to help us and give us directions. We also noticed that everyone’s English was almost perfect, even the older generation, which I was especially surprised about.

However, when we arrived back in Poland, we rejoiced in hearing people speaking Polish, even if we didn't understand it, it now somehow seemed familiar to us.

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” (Pratchett, 2005)

References:

Pratchett, T. (2005) ‘A Hat Full of Sky’ Corgi Childrens

Global seekers (2013)  available at: https://twitter.com/Global_Seekers/statuses/215123738897825792 accessed on 18/04/13