Holmenkollen!

Hey everybody!

Apologies for the dearth of postings, but I'm going to make an earnest effort from here on out to post a few times each week.

The first blog topic I wanted to blog about was concerning the Nordic Ski Championships that were recently held in Oslo, Norway at Holmenkollen, which was the location of the Ski Jumping area of the 1952 Winter Olympics when they were held in Oslo. In order to host the 2011 Nordic World Ski Championships, Oslo revamped and built a new ski jump to meet the requirements of the tournament!



The Nordic Ski Championships are basically divided into two general categories- Ski Jumping and Cross Country Skiing, and are a HUGE deal in Norway considering that Cross Country Skiing is pretty much the Norwegian National Sport and Pasttime rolled into one.

As part of the festivities, there was a large festival held in the city center, along with huge screens for viewing and a giant stage for awarding medals by Nationaltheatret. It was so well attended that it was a bit of a pain to conduct day to day activities since all the subway stops were running off time- though the Norwegian metro system performed admirably under the heavily increased traffic.

The Chemistry Department at UiO had a booth at the festival that I helped man in order to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry- where we talked about chemistry as it related to the sports, e.g. How are skis made, how is snow made, what is the best kind of snow to cross country ski in, etc.

Norway did very well in the cross country skiing events this year, and as a result ended up winning the whole event overall and it was very exciting to be a part of that. We would take breaks in the middle of lab to go down to the cafeteria and watch the cross country relay races (Norway won both the men's and the women's.)

It was great to see how much spirit the whole country had. Lining the sides of the tracks were thousands of Norwegians waving Norwegian flags and wearing Norwegian hats and emblems. It was as if half the country flew to Oslo just for this weekend to cheer on their cross country skiiers.

My commute!

Hello, I thought I would treat everyone to some pictures of Norge this time! :)

This is my daily adventure- it's currently a little frostier than what you'll see, and I'll give another picture update of this commute after it's all white.

But starting out in the kitchen of my dorm flat.



Walking outside- this is what the complex looks like on the outside:



On my way to the subway- we pass by the grocery mart where I buy groceries:



The train pulling into the station.



On the way from the station to the chemistry building. The color changing leaves are particularly beautiful.



Welcome to the Chemistry building!



At last... my office!

001. A snapshot of Norway

Hello everyone!

Benji here, apologies for the delay in getting this set up, but this last month since I've arrived in Oslo has been a flurry of getting set up in lab and in life. I have pictures of all of that and more coming up!

As a quick first post introduction, my name is Benjamin Lin (aka Benji) and I'm a Rotary Ambassadorial Research Scholar representing Pasadena in Oslo, Norway.

My first post will be a quick snapshot of Norway in brief:

Quick Facts

Norway is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe (located in the picture below in green). It has a population of almost 5 million, almost a million of which is located in Oslo city proper (Norway's capital city). Additionally, it is one of the richest nations in the world, ranking 2nd place in GDP per capita.




I currently live in what could be considered a suburb of Oslo, in the Kringsjå student village. Reviews of the accommodations are mixed- but it is extremely popular among visiting students primarily due to its low cost, especially since the cost of living in Norway is so high.

The University of Oslo has many international students in attendance. This is primarily because higher education in Norway is free for all students, regardless of nationality, which is a pretty sweet deal. As a result students from all over the world come to study at the University of Oslo.

Benji