While almost everybody went back to see mommy daddy and caetera for Christmas, I decided long time ago that I would stay at Fantoft for this time. This time consisted mainly in mass sleeping, mass drinking, mass bullshiting. We had a Christmas meal (French Fries and salad, jeepee), we were around 12 people. Then for New Years we went to town in various venues/pubs and ended up in a kind of "private party" held by the Kunst Skole (Beaux Arts). Went back home, happy. Before leaving Fantoft some crazy folks from Alaska (!!!) were making a BBQ...


The first day of 2008 was the day of arrival for the first students coming for the second semester. I assisted Anwar, alias Mister Fantoft, see here, to welcome them and help them. We went out and got hammered with some of them on their first day in Fantoft ! Then came the usual Integration week, the walks to the stavkirke, Fløyen, showing the way to LIDL, etc...

This semester I only have two course, a Norwegian course, and a Religion course: Sami Religion.  I only have to pass the last one to get the 15 ECTS credits  I still miss to complete my Bachelor...

First off all, this article may be updated in the future...
So, everybody knows that everything is expensive in Norway, especially food. But it has to be said that it is incredibly cheap for the locals, food being around 12% only of the expenses of the families.
Where can you go buy your food in Norway? In Norway, hyper-groceries like the French Carrefour, the Portuguese Modelo, the US Wal mart and so on... doesn't exist, except in some places, for exemple the Giant Coop at Lagunen, south of Bergen. But there is supermarckets everywhere in Norway. On my way to the university (7km) I go along **at least** 8 groceries. The market is divided in local groups like Rema 1000, Rimi, Kiwi, Safari, Bunnpris, and foreign groups like Spar, Coop, Europris. If Safari is famous for its high prices and Kiwi for its low ones, it's not so easy. There is many many promotions here each week, and prices can be **very** differents from place to place and time to time. This is why many people do their food shopping in several shops (not so hard, there is a Rimi in front of every Rema, and vice-versa).

In Norway, in groceries, you find most of the time only food and some basic hygiene stuff. Impossible in most of them to find sheets to write, or for instance, a broom, etc.
Rows are not organized at all... ice cream is right to cookies, hygiene stuff in the same row as dog food. Every fresh dairy product is in the same place. Milk, cream, ect. Every cheese in the same place except the foreign - only good - and expensive as hell cheese. Rows are not placed symmetrically as everywhere else. Every grocery sells dozens of varieties of bread, from 5kr to 50kr, and most of the time the taste doesn't differ so much. Cigarettes and condoms are sold in the same place as tabloids and chewing gums, at the paying desk. Drinks are sold on **big** crates where you pop-off the bottle from its emplacement. You can find a promotion of anything in a row with something very different.
Alcools are hidden behind curtains after 10PM (8PM on saturdays) because of the law, and can't be purchased. Norway is probably the only country in the world where alcool-free beer or christmas-drinks (Julebrus) are sometimes cheaper than mineral water. Milk is only **fresh**, not pasteurized nor UHT. Expensive (2€/L) but very good. Tree main milks: Hel (fat), Lett/skummet (light) and Extra Lett. I have read on this cool blog that Norwegians drink so much milk (house, school, work) that it's adviced to drink light mik to avoid health problems.

Here is the land of sauces, junk food, fake/true exotic food and lyophilised stuff. Soups in powder. Sauces in powder. Preparations for bakery, desserts, etc, in powder. Many different mustards, ketchups, dressings. Entire rows of tortillas, wraps kits, chicken salsa, tikka masala, nasi goreng... the master of this dry-food is without any doubt the brand Toro, from Bergen (sponsor of the SK Brann).

Being expensive for foreigners but normal/cheap for the locals (see above) there is something very strange in Norway: Everything is mainly sold in **big** quantities: Cheese by cubes of one kilo, chicken by bags of 2 kilos, same thing for sliced meat. Jam is always sold in... buckets. As well as for the bread, the price of the cheese ridiculousely increase for nothing... for exemple, the Hvitost is around 50kr the kilo. The Gulost around 60, and is not better. The Norvegia is around 70 and better, but not so much than the previous one. Jarlsberg is around 80/90 and is only a pale untasty copy of emmental.

Speaking about brands... Norway high-tax his imports, whatever they are. The best exemple of official/unofficial monopoly in the food market in Norway i probably Tine. I don't know the exact terms and functions of this brand but it seems to be a cooperative, as almost every farm in Norway has their stickers on their windows. Tine cover **almost all** the milk and dairy products market. They produce and sell most of the Norwegian cheese and European copies of Brie, Camembert, etc. The other brand selling Norwegian cheese is Synnøve, with the Gulost. Here is a **little** overview of products sold by Tine.

It had been a while that we were talking about hiking together with Wolfger, a German guy from my Norwegian course. Time  fleeing, exams and so on made Sunday 9th the only possibility for us. I first wanted to go to a mountain in the Voss massif, like Kvitanosi (1200amsl) for instance. But I don't know those mountains yet, so a maiden hike by winter and deep snow was not a good idea. We therefore choosed Gullfjellet (987amsl), in Bergen,  30 minutes drive from the center. I planned the hike and checked the routes on the wonderful site Hiking in Hordaland (see links in the left column). It would be around 14/17km for 4/6 hours. The starting point is near a lake, around 300 meters amsl. The trails were very icy, and from 500 meters amsl the snow was quite deep. The south part called "the cairn trail" between the summit and the valley was the hardest part of the hike... it seems that most of the hikers do it in the other way. I had slept only 3 hours the night before and it was very hard for me... we crossed the path of several people but during most of the time near and at the summit we didn't see anybody. Time to head down before dusk. We took a wrong trail and did a big loop, we had Østerøy in front of us and Samnanger at right, we were supposed to have the Sørfjord right of us and Byfjellene in front. So we headed trought DEEP SNOW and smooth covered slopes before finding our way to Kinndalen, which was icy like Nifelheim... hopefully we went along a frozen stream, there were bushes surfacing, good grip, we could walk faster. The boring part of the hike was then going aaaaaall along a lake to reach the car, eat a cookie, and go back home. We reached Fantoft around 5PM, I took a nap until 9, and ate a **giant** pizza on which I added **many** cheese, ham, and an egg.

 

This week-end marked  the beginning of the **real** holidays. Wednesday 5th I had my Norwegian written exam and the day after I had the oral one. I was anxious, for the written one in particular. But it went not so bad I think, and the oral one went good. Questions were asked by both my teacher and another person. My teacher (hello Dag) was cool and nice with me and asked be to talk about what I like in Norway and Bergen... from trips to Taake, and from pølser to rømmegrøt. Was fun.

Thursday evening after all the oral exams, with my class and Dag we went for a Julebord at Zupperia in Bergen, a cosy restaurant/bar under the Museum of Decorative Arts (Vestlandske Kunstindustrimuseum). Some beers and jokes, nice evening. Actually, rather nice start .  Back in Fantoft around 10PM... time to meet in a kitchen and to drink some crates of beer. Around 12:15 we left Fantoft to reach the Center with the last buses, and to go to Studenten, a nightclub with shitty music but with free entrance and "cheap" drinks, located in Vaskerelvsmuget, just behind Dickens. The ambiance and mood are always good there because we are mving there like masses. Beer is 39kr, cocktails are 59kr.  I choosed to smash myslef with  Jack & Coke this night and my wallet seemed very empty just after. We spent good moments why the German guys singing - pissed drunk - Brann and Bergenske sanger in front of the nightclub... nobody cared because everybody was drunk in this area... Back in Fantoft by maxi taxi around 4AM, meeting at the 9th floor, some beers, and schlafen. Friday morning I was fucking dead but I needed that! And after all, this is for what Erasmus exists.

The following days were nice with a lot of snow, and sunday 10th I awake early, took my coffee cup with me and went for a photo session at the snow-covered Fantoft stavchurch. Grim and frostbitten. I didn't see any people there but the tracks in the snow obviously said that locals have been walking there in the early morning before me. crazy Norwegians. The other day i saw people going out of their house for jogging at 11:30 PM.