A few points to note about last week: Tim, Mike, Julia, Julia's boyfriend Magnus and I attended the launch party for Oslo Student TV at Chateau Neuf last Thursday. It was a little hard to get into the swing of things at first; I don't think Tim and I had been back to Chateau Neuf since our last failed attempt at "mingling" during International Coffee Hour on some Friday either in late January or early February. Either way, this gathering was much more exciting, and even though I couldn't understand most of the TV clips from the launch, it was very cool to be surrounded by so many students who were enthusiastic about independently run student work. Unless I'm mistaken, Julia's boyfriend actually contributed to the script of the TV spots, so I'm glad we were all there to offer him kudos and support.
Friday was another Uglebo night, after a very good dinner (Irish stew, yum!) provided by Geoff, a Canadian who lives here in building 12 but several floors up. I don't really have much to add about going to Uglebo, except that it was good to spend so much time with my friends again. This was the first time since my return from the states that I'd seen some of the usual crowd; Bastian and Ray came to Geoff's dinner, as did Richard, who also joined us at the pub afterwards. But pub nights are fairly standard around here now and don't require too much elaboration anymore--though I feel like I should make mention of Saturday evening's very chill festivities. Aside from working on some homework for most of the day, I didn't do a whole lot, though that night Tim and I did walk over to Velferden, the student residential pub here at Kringsjå studentby, just to keep Mike company as he tended the bar as a volunteer. We mostly just played around with the sound system and played whatever music we felt like listening to, and discussed the possibility of going to Stockholm and Copenhagen over our Easter holidays. Fingers crossed that pans out.
No, the real adventure of the weekend took place on Sunday. Actually, I suppose I should say adventures, plural, since I spent the majority of the day stressing anxiously over my Nordic languages presentation (which I successfully gave today, despite technological trials and tribulations). However, at around eight or so, Tim, Mike and I sallied forth into the cold night air to find our way back to Blå, which I may have mentioned once or twice before. Getting there was a little bit of an adventure this time, because for some reason we thought it would make more sense to take a series of buses and trams instead of just hopping on the T-bane to Oslo S. and taking the tram from there. ...so it took us about an hour to actually get to Blå--but once we got there, we rather enjoyed the artistic, jazzy atmosphere and waited around for Tim's very cool Chinese friend Damon to join us. It's rather unfortunate that the music didn't start up until close to 10pm, but we were closer to the stage this time and I was able to get some better shots of the Frank Znort Quartet (plus some guest vocalists). These guys put on a great show; I found a cool recording of one of their performances from last month on Youtube, so you should take a look at that too.
Tonight was yet another Norwegian film night, which Tim and I went to see around 7pm. Jernanger is a touching story about a surly older man named Eivind who has turned his boat, the Jernanger, into a floating pub off a pier in Stavangar, where he grumpily keeps himself aloof from pretty much everyone and anyone who tries to get close to him--but is persistently hounded by memories of Beatrice, the love of his life who he let slip away (because he's an idiot man, and that is what men do, of course). His story is wound up with Kris's, a young guy trying to reconcile his love for his girlfriend Erika with his phobia of becoming a father. Through a series of surreal events, Kris and Eivind become friends, and the rest of the story unfolds itself from there. I've posted the trailer (all in Norwegian I'm afraid) below as well.
With this blog entry out of the way, I've got to commence working on my Norwegian homework, which should occupy me for the next hour or so before bed. God natt, internet!
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