Snowy Paradise

I made it to Norway! The first couple days were the most relaxing days I've had in a while. I've lost track of time and day with this strange sunlight pattern and semi-jet lag. So far all the international students in our building have just hung out with each other. We literally have students from ALL over the world. We haven't met any actual Norwegians yet since it's just us in the village right now. My flat mates are from Austria and Italy and they speak beautiful English. They make me feel lame because I don't have a romantic accent. 

There is a lake that is about 5 minutes from our village. I've gone for a few runs there but it's really hard in the snow. I've heard that students can rent skis through the university so I am going to look into that once classes start. 

Frozen and snowed over right now

The woods surrounding the lake. Everyone skis. Even little babies

Downtown Oslo is beautiful at night. Our first night here we wandered around the city and walked along the harbor and through the streets. We were also scouting out potential places to eat and drink for later in the semester. Soon it will feel like a second home.  

I finally bought a cell phone. It's a Nokia brick that looks very similar to my very first cell phone in sixth grade. It has a flashlight feature at the top of the phone so when the sun sets at 4pm I have some light to guide me back to my apartment. As soon as I turned it on I realized that it was all in Norwegian (of which I only know 2 words and both are metro related) and had to sit at my computer translating every word into freetranslation.com to change the language into English. 

Last night a got a little taste of home thanks to Jake. Apparently college basketball games don't stream to Europe so I watched the Maryland Duke game through Skype at 2am. I love my friends.

I'm still not entirely sure when my classes start and maybe I'll like them, but right now I am loving this freedom.

Here's my contact info if you'd like to send some love:

Dydy Peng
Olav M. Troviks vei nr. 24
H311
N-0864 Oslo

Mobile #, but prefer skype (+47) 46 34 73 11