Pulled over by the police

Illustration Photo.



Yesterday I went with Morten and Robin to watch Inglorious Basterds, what an incredible movie. After the movie it turned out that there was no more buses this late in the evening, well not a problem. Robin saw that the liquor store was open, so we decided to resupply.

We called for a taxi and waited happily outside the liquor store for it. After driving for a minute we noticed the police car with all the lights on and we had to pull over. Four armoured policemen then came to the car and asked if everything was ok. It turned out that there had been reports that three men were walking around town with masks, someone said anything about being in the wrong place at the wrong time? They had been putting two plus two together and got six! Well none of us had ID papers so we had to spend the night in the can....

Just kidding, the police were actually really polite and friendly, they quickly found out that they weren't looking for us and let the taxi driver take us home. Man, I generally don't like being stopped by the police in Norway, but in a foreign country definately not. Luckily it went ok this time :)

Cheers

Shopping spree

Some of the Scandinavians decided to make dinner Saturday evening, we ended up making steak which was good. It did however make me aware that I have absolutely no kitchen utilities here. I guess it limits what kind of food I can make with a spoon, fork, knife, small glass and a tiny plate.

So today Robin from Sweden lured me downtown, there was sale at Value Village, with 50% off on everything in the store. I ended up buying 8 big plates, 4 knifes and forks, a glass and a roasting pan - which cost me around 10 bucks, not too bad. Because I ended up saving so much on the kitchen utilites I decided that I had to get an Arc'teryx fleece and pants as well :)

Extremesports in Canada

Yesterday I had my first lectures, quite a busy day. First I had to get up early in order to register for my classes and then me and Max took the bus to Pine Mall, the biggest indoor mall in PG, there I got a Canadian sim-card and some running shoes. We also tried out tacobell for dinner, not really a memorable experience. The biggest surprise was that we took a stop by the tobacconist and they actually sell some kind of snus i Canada, it is however really expensive almost 16 bucks more or less the same price as in Norway. I guess I just have to give up snus eventually if we are not able to get fresh supplies from overseas.

My first lecture was in Financial Management II and it was from 6 pm to 9 pm! The biggest difference here compared to Norway is that the classes are really small. I guess that we were approx. 20 people in the class. It was nice to see some familiar faces in class, some Canadians that we ran into at the student pub earlier that day inbetween classes. The way to go with studies here is to be prepared for class as they are not lectures per se, more discussions where the lecturer guides us through the material. Part of the marks are also based on participation in class!

We were invited to some Canadians for a BBQ after the lectures, so we had to run to the residence, drop off the bags and take the bus downtown. The party started a lot earlier in the evening, so it was dying when we got there. It seemed kind of strange, but when we entered the parking lot they had parked a car there and everyone had to kick the car parked there. Afterwards the extremesports started, listening to country music for 3-4 hours straight. But all in all we met and got to know a lot of friendly people :)

Camp fire at Shane Lake

Max and Synne having a good time.











Morten from my school in Norway also an exchange student at UNBC.













My room mate Kevin.











Most of the international students went to a small lake in the forest yesterday where we made a camp fire and got to know each other better.

When we started to head back to the campus it was really dark outside and with paths going in all directions it was kinda hard to find our way back. Synne got a bit worried that we were lost, but thanks to my brilliant orientation skills we made it back without getting eaten up by bears.

Endelig kommet fram \ Finally arrived.

Det var ei ganske så lang reise for å komme seg til Prince George. Reiste via Oslo - Reykjavik - Toronto - Vancouver - Prince George. Flyet til Reykjavik var stappa med norske fotballsupportere som håpet på seier mot Island, gikk dessverre dårlig der.

Kom til Prince George tidlig på formiddagen lørdag, tok en shuttle bus med noen andre studenter fra UNBC så fikk vite litt om hva som fantes i byen. Etter å ha fått nøkler og flyttet inn var det bare å komme seg ned på skolen for å skaffe studentkort. Bor på studentboliger i Prince George, sammen med Kevin og Bradley fra Canada. I hver etasje har de ansatt studenter som RA's som ser etter at husreglene blir fulgt. De hadde innkaldt til obligatorisk husmøte og gikk gjennom regler og ting og tang. Mye virket helt vannvittig for meg ihvertfall, man skulle jo tro det var innlysende at man ikke løser ut brannalarmen midt på natta eller slår hull i veggene så jeg måtte bare flire litt av hele greia. RA'sene understreket dog flere ganger at det kostet en hel masse penger for universitetet hvis brannvesenet måtte rykke ut. Skulle tro det var sunn fornuft å ta vare på ting, men to timer etter møtet så var det en moroklump som hadde tømt et brannslokningsapparat i gangen her. Var med Kevin som jeg bor sammen med en tur i byen og når vi kom tilbake sto det ikke mindre enn to stigebiler fra brannvesenet og ambulanser utenfor studentboligene.

___

It was quite a journey to get to Prince George. I went via Oslo - Reykjavik - Toronto - Vancouver - PG. The plane to Iceland was pretty much stuffed with norwegian soccerfans going to cheer Norway on, it seems now that it didn't help much. I arrived in PG quite early on Saturday and took a shuttle bus brought me to school, there were some UNBC students onboard the shuttle so I got to know a bit about the city. The day was quite hectic, after some friendly people helped me move in I had to hurry down to school in order to get my student ID. I live at the residence on campus with Bradley and Kevin which are from Canada. Over here they employ students to work as RA's on every floor in the residence buildings which makes sure that the house rules are beeing followed. We had to go to a mandatory floor meeting where they told us about house rules and stuff. Most of it seemed pretty ridiculous for me at least, it seems logical that you aren't supposed to trigger the fire alarm in the middle of the night for fun or punch holes in the wall, so I had a little laugh about it. They did however emphasize that it cost the University money every time the fire dept. had to get up here. Everyone basically agreed on that and me and Kevin went downtown to do some shopping. Two hours later we came back... and there it was: two fire trucks and an ambulance, with all the people standing outside. Some guy thought it was a good idea to empty the fire instinguisher in the hallway. Yesterday we were told that he had been kicked out of the residence, good job after only living there one day.