Looking back on Oslo

Happy new year and a sincere apology from the writer of this blog - it's almost two months since the last update. The only apologiy that I can bring in is a Thesis Colloquium that had to be written and some travelling all over Europe. Oh yeah, and Christmas, maybe. Stupid apologies. Hereby I give the New Year Intention to write at least two blogs every month. (Some help of other students would be much appreciated in this, hinthint.)

So, what to start with? It turned out that my camera still had quite some pictures left from the time in Oslo, the last days of November. After our visit to Minhaj Ul Qumran our week was far from over.

Thursday we were 'off' - except from 6 hours of classes. Eric and me made a little tour through Oslo.

Oslo Harbour. Time: 15.05 CET.

Friday afternoon brought a visit to another mosque: the Bosnian mosque. We were present at the the Friday prayer. Here 5 of the 7 women in the 4th cycle prior to the prayer. Photo: Zejian Zeng.

After the prayer we talked with Imam Faruk Terzic. We felt very welcome and learned a lot! 

From Islam to Judaism - Friday night we were invited at the house of our teacher Gunnar and his family for a sabbath meal! A very special experience to witness 'theoretical knowledge' in practice, a chance to pick up the Hebrew that I had all forgotton and, not in the least, a night with great food and good conversations. 

On Saturday morning, we also visited a synagogue, but we couldn't make pictures there. Instead a few from the trip that Eric, me and Rasuole made in the afternoon. We took the the subway up for 20 minutes and suddenly we had left Oslo behind and were in the middle of nature. A great end to a great seminar.

/PD

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

Copenhagen here we come!

While a heavy storm from Great Brittain is heading towards the Öresund area, all fifth cycle RRE students are currently making their way to Copenhagen for the first Compact Seminar of this term!

For readers who wonder what that means: twice a semester students from all the six host universities get together at one of the institutions to get some real-life lectures next to all the distance learning and the local tutorials. Needless to say that this is not only an intellectual, but also a social peak for us RRE-ers. (I.e. I think four out of five nights dinner parties have already been planned.)

From Monday afternoon to Wednesday morning, the fifth cycle will have classes in their compulsory course ‘Emergence of the Three Religions’. On Wednesday afternoon, most fourth cycle students will arrive too and four elective courses (Women in the Three Religions, Philosophy and Wisdom Traditions, Quran (Arabic text course) and Early Christian Martyrdom (Latin text course)) will head off until Friday afternoon.

I will make the trip to Köpenhamn (less than one hour over the bridge from Lund) on Wednesday morning and I can’t wait to catch up with many friends! Hopefully, I’ll manage to give an update of how things are going later during the week.

Stay safe during the storm!

/PD

Must-dos in Rome

In a little more than a week, the new 5th cycle students will leave for their one and only RRE initiation: the trip to Rome! Sharing a dinner, me and some other 4th cyclist went on a nostalgia trip, while thinking of last year. Although we would rather join again, having good memories is also valuable. Moreover, we could thus create a very arbitrary and personal list of everything we think one should do when being on the RRE Rome trip. Anna, Thomas and Ivana, thanks for the inspiration! ;-) 

When in Rome with RRE, one should: 

- Arrive after 11 PM at the Lebanese sisters or at least have to run to make it in time once
- Sit on the roof of the Norwegian Institute with self-cooked dinner.

- Get awesome pizza for lunch at That One Pizzeria that is close to the Institute.

- Get lost. Somewhere.

- Enter the Vatican. Either decide not to enter the St. Peter because of the long line or stand in line for two hours and be eventually not allowed in because of too short pants/skirt.

- Find a topic for both of your papers.

- Go to a Conference on an exciting Coptic fragment.

- Pet the Norwegian-Institute cat. Be careful, she can be mean.
- Get into an academic discussion with Einar Thomassen

- Eat at least one of the following: tiramisu, lasagne, risotto, crostini. Or all, that's even better. 

- Curse the stairs (You'll know what I mean)

- Learn all the names of your fellow students. 

- Conclude that Einar Thomassen was probably right.
- Find out the Coptic fragment is a fraud.

- Found a Facebook group with your classmates. (If there's none yet.)

- Eat seven ice creams. That's once every other day and we have concluded that this should be the minimum.

- Study

- if you still have time for that...

Any additions are welcome, fellow students!

/PD

Guess what they are saying and win a chocolate bar!

This weekend we start a competition here at the blog. By leaving a comment to this blogpost, where you suggest what the professor is telling his student, you enter the competition for winning a nice RREprize. Be creative, have fun!

#Comments considered insulting in any way will be deleted