Bartending at U1 Samfunnsvitenskapelig-Fakultetsforening

Long word huh? I’ll let you look it up for fun. I kinda don’t know how to structure my latest blog posts in Oslo because most of the things that happen span a large amount of time, so its difficult to write substantial post about a certain subject or activity. So I’ll just write about some random stuff that’s happened lately!

Last weekend Trond, our Australian friend Alex, and I signed up to bartend at the social science bar. At the University each of the departments has a bar in the basement of the department building that hosts events and parties, for instance humanities and mathematics. Each of the departments is a kind of social group. In a way its kind of like fraternities competing to have the best parties and have the most fun/highest prestige, but on a more laid-back and more consolidated level (there are only like 4 departments). The Social Science bar (U1) is the best, no questions asked.

At the bars only volunteers work, so we thought it would be fun to try it out. We had the late shift from 10-2am, which we signed up for because we thought it would be more exciting. We weren’t disappointed. We walked in right as the bar was getting super busy. Roar Brakstad, the student barkeep who supervised us, pretty much just threw us shirts to put on and then dropped us in the bar with a few directions about the register and how to work the kegs. The first man I helped got pissed off cause I couldn’t understand his pronunciation of “pint” and then made fun of me for the rest of the night. The next hour was a struggle to understand the countless different Norwegian accents as well as the 30 different types of beer on the menu, but after I kind a while I got gist of things and it got really really fun. It was pretty cool to be able to help run a bar and pour drinks at age 20 with 0 prior experience/licensing (except for making vodka beers with the boys). It was actually just a beer/wine bar at U1, but it was an awesome experience that I’m definitely gonna do again.

Something I noticed from being in a lot of Facebook groups is how Norwegians are huge fans of meme culture combined with photoshop. What I mean by this is that in the events for parties and get togethers that they make, they usually set the cover photo to memes combined with famous people or friends they personally know photoshopped into the photo. I guess it's a way to make a funny little advertisement for the party and get people hyped for the event? Not really sure, but I thought it was kinda cool. Also not sure if they do this in the U.S too but I thought it was kinda weird.

Yesterday we had dinner with Trond’s two cousins Mattias and Johanna. Mattias is a little younger than 30, and he's a consultant for a tech firm in Oslo. He had a bunch of Rubik’s cubes that he loved to do, as well as a super nice small apartment. Johanna is a little bit older than us, she’s still in the university. Side note, no one outside of the U.S says college or school when referring to bachelor years they call it “going to university” or “Uni”. Another side note, she was the hands down the most beautiful Norwegian I’ve seen for the duration of my time here, which is definitely saying something. They were both really kind, and we talked a lot about XC skiing as well as Norwegian Independence day, which is on May 17th. The World cup comes to Oslo in a month, and supposedly people spend the whole weekend camped up on the courses getting drunk in front of bonfires. Sounds great to me.

In a couple days I’m heading up Tromsø, one of the northernmost cities in the world. Pictures to come soon!

Also, weightlifting, reading, and eating healthy has been going well. Just signed up for a 54km nordic race, almost finished my vikings history textbook for fun, and cooked some brand new meals I've never had before!