Heia Oslo!

As I’m for the moment the only writer for the blog, this blog’s focus will be on the fourth RRE cycle, as that’s my study year. (Fifth cycle, do something about this! Let me know if you want to write for the blog, even if it’s just four times a year or so.)

So, what’s up with the fourth cycle? Well, most of us are preparing for a trip towards Norway’s capital, Oslo. From Wednesday to Saturday, we will have lectures in our compulsory course ‘The Three Religions in Contemporary Perspective’. Apart from work in the classroom, we will also visit a mosque and a synagogue – that is verily a contemporary perspective! 

It will also be our last official compact seminar, which could be a good moment for nostalgic reflections on how time has the awful tendency to fly…but let’s leave that for another blog. Sigh.

Instead, hereby a few ‘did-you-know-that’s’ about our destination and the RRE seminar for the coming week. Thanks be to Wikipedia.

Did you know that…

-          Oslo was founded around 1000 CE? (Alas, too late to be a study subject for RRE.)

-          Oslo was known by the beautiful name of Kristiania from the 17^th century until 1925?

-          Everybody has been telling me that Norway is so extremely expensive that I have already bought instant noodles to take with me?

-          You can see ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch in Oslo’s Munch Museum?

-          Norway’s capital has about 620.000 inhabitants?

-          There is one (brave) student in the 4^th cycle in Oslo?

-          Norwegian and Swedish are so similar that it works to send a mail to the hostel where we will stay in Swedish?  

-          You might then actually have to read the mail three times to understand it?

-          Oslo yearly gives away large Christmas trees to several big cities in the world? A fun tradition, I think!

-          Oslo houses the National Theater, which is Norway’s largest theater?

-          The weather might bring anything from -2 to 7 Celsius during our stay? (http://www.weather-forecast.com/locations/Oslo/forecasts/latest)

  /PD