Memorial Ceremony

Not much has happened lately in connection to my upcoming internship and therefore I have not been posting any updates. Unfortunately this weekend gave me a reason to post when a horrible terror attack happened in Oslo and on the small island Utøya. Any incident as horrific as this obviously makes a deep impression on everybody and when this then happens in Oslo and is an attack on the democratic institutions in Norway it makes an indelible impression on me also. It is incomprehensible how this Christian right-wing terrorist managed to convince himself that what he did was right and needed to be done. My heartfelt condolences go out to who lost friends or family and my hope is that the Norwegians will stand by the words of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg: “We meet terror and violence with more democracy and will continue to fight against intolerance,”. On Saturday I went to a memorial ceremony, outside the Norwegian consulate in Aalborg, for the victims in Oslo and Utøya.

Turist

On the third day in Berlin we went sightseeing, starting at The Fernsehturm where we about 204 meters up had great view over Berlin. Then we went to The Reichstag where we were not able to enter, because of the fear of terrorism you have to order tickets in advance. After The Reichstag we went to the Brandenburger Tor then to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe before the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie. We ended the day at Alexa Shopping Center which had more or less the same shops as Aalborg city.

View 2011-05-05 in a larger map

A Trip to Berlin

Last Monday I went to Berlin. My mother and her husband had rented an apartment in Richard-Sorge-Straβe in East Berlin so my sister and I went to spend a few days with them there. Due to being very late at deciding to go and being a bit cheap we decided to go by bus. The bus leaves from Aarhus and not Aalborg so I had to leave Aalborg by train at 06:01 to be in Aarhus for the bus at 08:00, on 09:35 the bus arrived in Kolding and we picked up my sister and on 17:00 we arrived in at Berlin ZOB. The trip was very comfortable with tables and power outlets for our computers and the price was also very reasonable for students 450kr (60,35 Euro) for a one-way ticket or 810kr (108,62) for a return ticket. If you are planning to go to Berlin from Jutland I can easily recommend Abildskou, more information can be found at http://www.abildskou.dk.

Student with a butler

One thing that I’ll need when I move to Oslo is a place to stay. The embassy can help find an flat and will support me with 3000 NOK/month for living costs. I have been looking at www.hybel.no to see what prices I can expect and they are quite higher than in Aalborg. A two-room flat is more than 7000 NOK/month and a room in shared flat is from 3500 NOK/month and up.

The other day a friend of mine was so kind as to share an article with me, the main point of the article is that there is a lag of housing in Oslo and that this problem will escalate the coming years to a state where a two-room flat in Oslo by 2016 will be 15.000 NOK/month. But it is not all bad news apparently the Norwegians (Danish, Norwegian) have invented a fantastic concept for study flats – flats with a servant… Unfortunately this concept has yet to be introduced in Oslo so I guess I still have to do my own grocery shopping and such. But it might be just the same since I think the price tag of 6900 NOK/month would be a little on the expensive side for me anyway. If you want to read more about the concept you can go to the website of Sorbonne the company behind the concept.


UPDATE: I just read this article today about the housing market in Oslo it is in English and touches on some of the same issues as the Norwegian article: http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/04/18/oslo-becoming-like-manhattan/

Money Issues

There is no doubt that Oslo is going to be an expensive place to live, according to ECA International Oslo was in 2010 the 2nd most expensive city in the world after Tokyo.  One way that this can be seen explicitly is when it comes to pizza, if you go and compare www.justeat.dk and www.justeat.no you’ll see that a pizza in Oslo is way more expensive that in Aalborg. If you want to buy a pizza in Aalborg you’ll pay around 55 DKK (7,38 Euro) but in Oslo you have to pay 130 NOK (16,66 Euro) that is more than double! I am happy that I don’t eat pizzas that often, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not in trouble a pint of beer in Oslo is unfortunately suffering from the same problem as the pizzas.

On a more serious note I think that it’ll be hard to make ends meet doing my internship, I will of course get my state education grant, and with 3000 NOK (384,54 Euro) per month to help cover living cost The Danish Embassy in Oslo is one of the more generous of its kind. But with living costs so high, no time for a job and me wanting to experience Oslo/Norway something more is needed. I have already applied for a grant from “Internationaliseringspuljen” at Aalborg University which can give my about 5000 DKK (670,47 Euro). But I also need to be looking at other grants and as this story proves it is possible to gain quite a lot of money from that:  (A former Danish student who managed to get nearly 100.000 DKK (13.409,38 Euro) from grants during her 5 years as a student). Fortunately I still have 11 month before I am leaving for the internship so hopefully I’ll be able to get some grant money as well.