The best piece of advice I ever received from a friend who
also studied abroad was to not spend any more time in your room other than what
is absolutely necessary for survival. I
failed at this piece of advice a couple of times because some days weren’t the
prettiest but every time I left campus I found one more thing I loved about
Oslo, Norway. One fact I found
interesting about myself was that I didn’t mind going into museums as much as I
thought I did.
Some of my favorites were:
Viking Ship Museum
The day after we arrived, our program took us on a mini tour
of the city. One of the places that I
really loved was the Viking Ship Museum.
Inside it holds three original ships: the Oseberg, Gokstad, and
Tune. Each was used in war and to transfer
goods for trade. The museum is famous
for the Oseberg ship because it was excavated from the largest ship burial in
the world and is nearly completely whole.
It is interesting that the ships were first found on a farmers land and
the University of Oslo began to build shelters to keep the ships
protected. The museum also includes art,
clothing, woodcarvings, and grave goods that were used during the Viking
age. The Vikings lived in a barbaric period of time
and it was definitely exciting to see the original ships right in front of
me.
Oslo Opera House
When we first got to Oslo and started thinking about all the
attractions each of us wanted to see, the Opera House was on top of Alex’s
list. She was dying to go there and we
were happy to tag along. The American
Ballet was performing original African American tribal dances and we found that
we had seen some things similar to their choreography and songs back home. The theatre was absolutely beautiful inside and the roof was built so that you
could walk on top to see an overlook of the Oslofjord. The view was absolutely breathtaking.
Munch Musset
Towards the end of my trip I knew I still had some places I
needed to see! Unfortunately, I couldn’t
find anyone to embark on a new adventure with me but I took the opportunity to
explore by myself. It is very fulfilling
to know how to get yourself from point A to point B in a completely different
world. It could have also helped that I had already
been in the country for 4 weeks… The Munch Musset is somewhere that I knew I
could not leave Norway without visiting.
Edvard Munch created the famous “Scream” painting and over 28,000 other pieces
of artwork throughout his lifetime. Through his paintings and portraits of
himself one could tell that he had many deep thoughts about love, life, and the
afterlife. After walking through each of the exhibitions, I felt like I learned
a little more about him and what he was trying to express in his art.
The point of studying abroad is to expand your
knowledge of the world and learn something new about yourself. If you don’t think museums or opera would be something that interests you then, I challenge you to give it a shot. You won't regret it!
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