Montebello

I think I'm finally starting to really settle in in Oslo. The sun is setting earlier and earlier, which has stopped evoking morbid fears of depressing darkness and is instead has brought with it the great feelings of fall. The leaves are changing into great splotches of yellow and orange, and the hills surrounding the city are exploding. Last night I had what could have been a miserable mass transit mishap - heading home from a party I got on the wrong line that headed out of the city ring instead of into it. I ended up in the pouring rain at Montebello station on the outskirts of Oslo. I was thankful that there was one more train headed back into the city, but I waited for twenty five minutes. Standing in the rain can be a fun and self-important time and luckily that's what this experience was. I had one of those, this wouldn't be bad if I were a character in a movie, so I guess I'll be a character in a movie. I had headphones for a soundtrack and waited in the cold in a trenchcoat for the train to come. Which it did. I got back to the subway stop thats a km from my apartment, but the buses had stopped running so I walked home in the rain. It was actually really nice.
This week I went on a road trip to central Norway with a friend who wanted to go look at a schoolhouse built in the 1850's. He was considering buying it and developing an artist collective out in the hills. It was foggy and humid but the hill outside of Oslo deliver everything majestic that you think about Norway. And this time of year, before the real cold, and naked trees, the views are perfect. We drove through Lillehammer, which still boasts of being the host of the 94 winter olympics. The drive was perfect, as I've been itching to get out of the city.
And a few nights ago I got to see a Yemeni scholar speak about internet censorship in the Arab world. He set up a site that aggregates all of the news stories about Yemen and puts them in one place. After a year of operation, the government, who owns the only internet service provider in Yemen, blocked his site and he has since been crusading with technological skills to get around internet censorship. After the meeting I met up with a couchsurfer from South Africa, a friend of hers from Norway, and a smattering of kids from all over the world for drinks. I stayed out way past my bed time and barely made it to the last bus. It's my first time having to crawl out of bed and intravenously inject caffeine into my system to get to class. I was almost late, almost sick, almost an idiot, and hope that I formed full sentences when talking to my classmates (something makes me doubt that).
Which catches me up to last night. I went to this posh apartment in the Vigeland park neighborhood (google it. its amazing) to a couchsurfing party and mingled with a pack of really great kids, made some friends, got some phone numbers, and will hopefully be seeing some of them again. And then I got on the wrong subway. And came home drenched and cold, but having made peace with the impending winter.