home-making 104: oslo, norway
Posted by torytolles | Filed under Uncategorized
Thankfully, finding an apartment here is significantly easier (and cheaper!) than in Geneva. After sending hundreds of emails, Chris and I actually got to visit fifteen apartments. Imagine that. The deliberations followed; we have firmly established that Chris’s priority is a central location and I only care about finding a cozy place within a block or two of a park. Within a week we found a place that satisfied all of the aforementioned requirements and six hours after viewing it, Chris and I settled in to our new home, Holsts Gate 1.
We share the apartment with two Norwegians, one Swede, and one Russian. They are wonderfully respectful and quiet people, excepting the 11:30 pm laundry load last night - our room is right next to our free(!) washer and dryer.
The only downfall to sharing an apartment with so many people is that we cannot fit all of our groceries on our shelf after I go to the grocery store. (Our shelf is second from the top).
Most of my time is spent doing errands. Learning to navigate the new city and new language means everything takes about three times longer than it did in Geneva. However I still have plenty of time for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. About four times a week I pick one of six different forests around the city, layer just about every piece of clothing I have here, and board a bus with either the skis or the ’shoes. It takes only twenty minutes to truly escape Oslo and be surrounded only by snow and conifers - and just a handful of other people skiing.
Did I mention that I love snowshoeing? I had to include a picture of my new toys - and the pile of clothing I wear for my outdoor excursions. I included the Nalgene for scale. All of the Norwegians think I am crazy to snowshoe.
“Truger? But WHY? Skiing is so much faster!” they say.
“And SCARIER!” I reply.
Maybe someday I will be able to handle going down hills some other way than on my rear end, but for now I prefer to snowshoe if I have the choice.
Oslo is not nearly as dark and cold and depressing as I thought. Okay, maybe it is just as dark and cold as I thought, but I actually really enjoy being able to be outside in the sparkly wonderland. Or maybe I just like snowshoeing. Either way, it is going to be a wonderful few months.
punchline: norway in january
Posted by christolles | Filed under Norway
Yay! We are now in Oslo, Norway, and our adventure continues. Just a quick post to let you all know we’re here safe and sound, and yes, we know we haven’t posted about our Christmas travels yet. I (Chris) will be undertaking a short-term project here in Oslo in collaboration with the Norwegian Refugee Council (Flyktninghjelpen for all you Norwegian speakers out there).
The project is just getting under way, so there’s not much to report for the time being, but basically I’m working on NRC’s Core Activity Database (CAD), a sexy application that automatically collects data from field staff and helps give an overview of what’s going on at NRC programs around the world. NRC has five Core Activities: Education, ICLA (Information, Counseling and Legal Assistance), Emergency Food Security and Distribution, Camp Management, and Shelter.
Currently, CAD captures quantitative (numbers) data only - my ambitious undertaking is to begin to figure out how qualitative (good vs. bad) data can be standardized and incorporated into CAD v2.0, scheduled for roll-out sometime in 2010. For the pilot project, I’ll only be working with data on the Core Activity of Shelter. Yes, for all you designers out there, I agree CAD is a bad acronym.
I promise to actually keep you all updated as to the work I’m doing in Norway, but for the time being check out the very well-produced ad below. Before your media-oversaturation-fueled cynicism kicks in, try and remember the real people living day-to-day in fear for their lives in Gaza, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and far too many other places. NB, bli fadder means “become a sponsor.”
