The Ups and Downs of Week Ten

Week Ten, oh wow already?

This week was filled with some highs and some lows... or perhaps they aren't lows so much as snaps back into reality.

(In order to not bore you with too much text and too few pictures I will be mixing in some pretty pictures of Hamar in autumn courtesy of Kate)

One being that Kate and I are no longer going to the Balkans at all. The tickets were both expensive and inconvenient (spend 2 nights in London and only get 3 days in Macedonia). So we have decided to just do our research in Lillehammer at the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue. Which is great in its self. We have full use of their library plus the PRIO (Peace and Research Institute of Oslo) library. We also can of course interview the dialog workers that are at the center while we were there.

Kate and I were also invited to view/participate in a workshop that Nansen is putting on for politicians from Montenegro on how to be a peace promoting leader. This should be pretty great and extremely informational...even if it doesn't exactly pertain to either of our subjects directly.

I have a chosen to focus my paper on the Romani people in the Balkans and their struggle to gain an identity, as well has how the war in the Balkans effected this process. I am also going to look into how dialogue has been used to help their situation.

November is going to be a crazy month for sure. Kate's friend Maryn is coming to visit from Switzerland. Kate and I are potentially going to Brussels for a few days. I am going to London to visit Austin for a weekend. Plus I will be doing all of my research and going to Nansen in between all of this. Our final papers are due the second week of December and we present around then as well.

I got my ticket for back home... I found this great website studentuniverse.com that gets students super cheap flights. You just have to prove that you are a student which is a relatively easy process. My flight was somewhere around $600 which was half the price that we could find otherwise. So I will be home the 15th of December.

-Noreen

3 Observations of Today
1. Medieval Long Bow shooting is sweet to watch
2. Fall turns to winter rather rapidly in this part of the world
3. Time really does fly by

Lillehammer + Ski Jump + Stairs + Field Study + Confusion = Week 9

On Friday we went to Lillehammer,which is about a 45 minute train ride from Hamar. We went to visit the Nansen Dialogue Center, which is where one of our lecturers is from. It is also where Catherine Katie and I are going to be doing our field study here in a few weeks.

It was great, the city is beautiful and we got to meet some actual dialogue workers from Serbia and Kosovo. They talked to us about what Nansen does in the Balkans and what they do while they are there. It was really interesting to hear their different approaches, especially compared to Stienar's (our lecturer) approach because he is not much of a planner and just plays everything by ear.

They not only do work in the Balkans but on occasion they bring people from those countries up to Lillehammer to have conferences and discussions. Part of the conference is touring around the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 winter Olympic games. This includes walking down the ski jump. Stienar told us that they use this walk as a way to have a common bonding experience. If everyone is sore from walking down a million stairs then you all have something in common to talk about. So we all walked down a million stairs and now have that as a common bonding experience.

The view from the top

View from half way

At the bottom! After 1.2 million stairs

Me+Kate

Yeah, we started at the top

The Olympic touch

Field Study is making me excited. I think that I am going to try to focus my research on the Romani people and how the conflict in the Balkans affected there path to being recognized as an ethnic group. I'm really excited and have started reading some books about it, but here is where the confusion comes in. I'm not sure what exactly i'm looking for, or how to go about finding any of it. Also our trip to the Balkans is not going as well as we were hoping. We were all psyched up and ready to go Belgrade, Serbia until we found out that they don't actually do field work at that office. So now we are hoping to go to Skopje, Macedonia. At that office they do field work and if is a short way from a few other centers that do field work in the area.  Another plus is that we would have our own driver and car to take us around while we are there. However Skopje is really hard to fly into and very expensive. Which is a bummer. So now we are trying to get things worked out there.

So that is the end of week 9 of 18.... Things are great, the people are great, school is great I hope this continue on this path. 

-Noreen

3 Observations of Today 

1.) Family meals, even if you aren't particularly conversing with everyone, are always better. 

2.) Fall is beautiful... It makes up for the cold

3.) I can almost feel winter in the air

"If victory was the solution to conflict then why does the world fight the same wars over and over" --Cliff

Movie Weekend

Thursday
        The Departed

Friday
        Hokus Pokus
        Step Brothers

Saturday
         Casper
         Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

Sunday
         Blood Diamond

The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning our room and then destroying it at the next movie night and then cleaning it again.

This week in class we've learned some really great things about conflict management and what that entails. We had a lecturer come in who is a historian and we discussed how history affects conflict and could either help promote peace or it could enable war.

Peace journalism is interesting, it just makes me frustrated because to me the basis of peace journalism, which is more fully covered stories that have views from all sides of the issue, should be the way all journalism is done. Its responsible journalism so it shouldn't be like a big controversial issue, but alas it is.

It is very much becoming late fall early winter here. I was going to try to take some pictures of the tree/leaves to post on here, but they have already turned from bright orange/yellow/red to brown. Kate and I went on a walk around town the other day and stumbled upon a wonderfully beautiful cemetery that was covered in the brightest yellow/orange leaves I've ever seen!

The forecast calls for snow next week...

Field Study, Fountain Pens, Bank Loans, A Tank and a Package

What a week...

1.) Field Study
     - SO EXCITED!!! Kate Catherine and I talked to one of our new professors, Steiner, who works for Nansen Dialogue Center (where I am doing my field study) and now we are extremely excited for our field study. He told us all about what the center does and about the groups that will be there soon and about all the things we can study there. He also told us that we're only here once so why not just go for it and go to the Balkans and visit the centers we will be studying. He then pulled out his laptop and proceeded to look at flights for us. So it is decided, all we have to do is buy the tickets and we're headed to the Balkans!!! I haven't been this jazzed about my future since I decided to come to Norway. Things are really starting to work out in the direction that I wanted them to.

2.) Fountain Pen
     - While in Tondheim I bought a wonderful fountain pen from an antique store. Until now i havent been able to test it out because I have been unable to find ink anywhere. Catherine however found ink yesterday and the pen works wonderfully! Success!!!

3.) Bank Loans
     - Well... I just found out that I have to pay interest on my new loan every month, even while I am still in school. This was news to me, unfortunately it was 12 days too late and now I have a delinquent account... This is a great start to my life in debt...

4.) Tank!
    - Imagine Kate and I walking down the street to class. In the distance is a strange shape.
          (In my mind) "What is that thing? It looks like a space ship"
          (To Kate)     "What is that?"
                               "A.....Tank!?"
                               "holy shit, it is!"
                               "Is that a..... UN tank?!?"
                               "It is!!!"
       We then spent the next few minutes getting out of the way of the tank, contemplating why a giant white United Nations Tank equipped with 4 of 5 soldiers would be in Hamar and getting holla'd at by the soldier in Norsk.

5.) Package!
    - I got a PACKAGE!!! What a wonderful surprise!!! If any of the Wheelers read this... THANK YOU!!!! Is perfect!!!! thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!!

-Noreen

3 Observations
1. I've sort of gotten to the point where this is home, and the novelty of somethings have worn out. Not because they aren't fun, but because they are no longer foreign... they are just normal. (I see this as a good thing)
2. The days are getting shorter, but I will not complain... I knew what I was in for when I signed up for this
3. I talked to Nathan (baby brother) and it made me miss him/home a lot.. first time I've been homesick since getting here...

LOVE YOU FAMILY!!!!

    

München; "Where is all the womens!"

Our time in Munich can be broken down into two groups, Oktoberfest and Dachau.

First Oktoberfest:

CRAZYYYYY it is like a giant carnival. I wasn't expecting all of the lights and roller coasters and games. The beer tents were ridiculous. Some of them can hold 10,000 people (says Josh Lyberg... which is rather credible)

We went Wednesday night with Josh after we met up with him at the camp site and sort of just looked around... taking it all in.

Thursday we did the whole Oktoberfest thing and had great food and some beer. It was fun and crazy to the extreme.

A stein at Oktoberfest!

Josh at Oktoberfest!

Friday we went to Dachau Concentration camp. It was intense. Moving. Depressing. Hopeful. Beautiful. The whole grounds is a memorial and was beautiful. Which I think shows a great amount of respect and love for those who suffered there. The contrast between that beauty and the horror of the buildings and the museum is monumental. Here are some pictures I took.

The walkway between the barracks

Looking into one of the cells

The foundation of a barracks

A memorial set up by
the Catholic Church

A bit of the fence

The Gas Chambers

Crematorium 

Then we went back and had a nice non depressing dinner. :)

Over all it was a really fun weekend. Getting to see Josh and getting to talk about Ohio things was awesome. Staying in the tents was really funny, and cold but mostly funny. All around us people we talking in different languages to each other.. we heard bits of some funny conversations. Like being woken up one morning by an Italian man yelling "where is all the womens!"

I had a great time :)

-Noreen

Food Quest

Praha Prague Prag Praga

What a beautiful place.
I've heard some not great things about going to Prague, like that it is dirty and that it is rather unsafe. These I feel are not quite legitimate. I felt safe the whole time and the city was clean and beautiful.

Here are some photos

Astrological Clock

Castle

Castle

Inside the Castle

Castle Tower

Ice Cream!

Most of these buildings I have no idea what they are. Every building in Prague is beautiful even the shops. The first day we just walked around looking for food. Which we found at a street fair.. it was authentic bohemian food and it was delicious. We had goulash soup, bread, hot wine and meat cut of a roasting ham.

Then we just hung out and walked around the Old Prague Square which was wonderful. Day two we went to the St. Charles Bridge (spectacular) and to the Castle. The bridge was packed with tourists, but I could see why. Every ten feet there was a beautiful statue. And the view from the bridge was wonderful. The Castle was like a dream. It was HUGE and beautiful. We just walked around it in awe for a while. The inside looked rather like a church, but in reality the castle is a bunch of palaces all together so that part could have been the church. Then took the long way back to get more food. Hailey and I spent the afternoon just wandering around having great conversation. Then getting chocolate...yummmm

That night we went to a bar with some Americans that we met in the Hostel... We've met so many great people on this trip!  

Over all we didn't do a lot of things in Prague but it was super super fun. I liked that we had a break from planning and just sort of went. 

I would totally go to Prague again

-Noreen