The first place to visit was the National Gallery because it was Thursday that day, and on Thursdays this museum is free. Everything is super #%!*%& expensive in Oslo, so take advantage of all the free stuff when you can. Pretty sure the only reason I went was because of this:

The artist who painted this, Edvard Munch is a big deal around here.  He’s even got a fancy grave.

I certainly didn’t go to the art museum for this. This piece of art literally looks like some little kids just scribbled on the wall.

The food, while expensive as #%&$ was delicious.  Here I had smoked salmon, some shrimp, reindeer sausage, and WHALE!!!  Another animal crossed off the list. Surprisingly it tasted super gamey.

What a beer selection.

The inside of the city hall in Oslo is pretty whack.  This is also where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held every year.

These toilets are clearly made of libery, equality and fraternity.

This is definitely one of the most memorable pieces of architecture I’ve ever seen.  It’s an opera house built like an iceberg!  It’s so white that people must be constantly cleaning it.

There’s even Mormons! They’re everywhere telling people about their most amazing book. Which one is Elder Price and Elder Cunningham?!

Oslo has these palace guards like the ones outside Buckingham Palace too, except these ones are allowed to talk. I asked one of them how he got the position and he said that he has to specifically apply for the job and meet specific qualifications! I had previously thought that having this position to stand guard all day was a punishment as opposed to a privilege!

I paid a lot for this reindeer steak… like $70 USD… and it tasted like a steak, but gamier. And the beer glass to the right, I asked the waiter if I could buy it from the restaurant, but the guy was so chill he brought me a new one and let me keep it.

What are these guys doing here? They kept asking me if I was Chinese and I have no idea why because as a Chinese person, I’d be statistically more likely to have the same negative views towards the Falun Gong.

Vigeland Park is super cool. It’s got a bunch of sculptures representing humans at different stages of their life. This particular sculpture for some reason, is in literally every single piece of tourist info literature about Oslo.

Then there’s this guy hulk-smashing like four kids.

Everyone says this chocolate called “Kvikk Lunsj” is the best, but really it’s just a Kit Kat bar with slightly better chocolate.

The coolest part about this chocolate is that the inside of the wrapper shows off a cool ski route/hiking trail or whatever. I actually don’t even know because I can’t read Norwegian, but it is kind of similar to German though! If I took some literature and had the German and Norwegian versions side by side, I’m sure I could learn a ton of Norwegian.

On the way to visit some islands in the Oslo Fjord, Akershus Festning was in clear view in all its glory.

One of the islands has an old abandoned monastery, which was pretty cool.

Another island has these cool colourful houses and their own private docks! Must’ve been all that oil money that Norway got that made them so rich!!

That’s it for Oslo!

Photo album: Oslo

It seems that since I got back I never wrote an entry about the end of my time in Germany.  When I realized I’d be going home soon a few weeks before, I felt a rush of excitement.  At the same time I felt sort of sad when since that also meant I’d leave all the friends I’ve made when I returned to my old life in Canada.  It was kind of reminiscent of when I left the first time – the idea of leaving everything behind for a little while.  However, unlike Canada, a place that I knew I would return to, the thought of never seeing all those people I met over there ever again made going home a scary thought. 

I never aimed to be good friends with people there.  Being good friends with certain people just happens.  It could’ve been part of my psychology where I unknowingly looked for companionship in the form of friends in a foreign place.  Now I wonder, if I will lose contact with them now that I’ve returned to my old friends again.  It seems like a real possibility to me now.  It will be weird not to see them.  It’ll be weird waking up in the morning and not take the 98 bus to work.  It’ll be weird not taking the U6 to Schlossplatz for our weekly hangouts. 

I suppose it was good that I was not the only one eager to go home.  It mitigated the scariness of it when I knew everyone else looked forward to it too.  A friend of mine who still had four months to go at Bosch was jealous of the fact that I got to go back.  Another friend from Germany was also excited to go back to his hometown.  As I coped with the reality of me leaving I got more and more excited about it.  For a few days before I left, I was so excited about leaving that whenever my mind wandered, I’d be thinking about going home. 

When I landed in Vancouver, I could hardly believe that I was actually back.  The moment I stepped out of the plane, I immediately recognized that I was in Vancouver International, but there was something about it that was strange.  I kept questioning whether I was actually back yet.  After awhile, I stopped getting that feeling and have now adjusted back to life in Vancouver again.

I definitely learned a lot of things in Germany and I think in many ways this experience has affected who I am in some ways (I probably wouldn’t even notice some of them).  For example, I now kind of have a better idea as to what career path to pursue (or not to pursue).  I learned a lot of things about MEMS, but I can’t see myself become a MEMS researcher in the future.  I also learned a bit of German and it’s always good to know an extra language.  The other day, I heard some people speaking German in a store and I could pick up a few words in what they were saying.  German’s even useful for showing off too.  I even have a better familiarity with foods in different European cultures.  I feel that I am now more aware of a lot more of the cultures that exist in this world.

In these eight months, I saw a large chunk of Europe, but I’ve only scratched the surface.  There are so many more places to go that it would take multiple trips to see it all.  There are places like Venice, Copenhagen, Oslo, Dublin, Glasgow, Budapest, and Belgrade, just to name a few.  In total, I travelled to 11 different countries on about 20 different trips.  It resulted in me taking over 5000 photos (I’m glad I was using a digital camera and not film).  Even though I’m already back in Vancouver, I still feel like travelling.  Maybe when I’m done school and have money for it I will start doing that, but for now, I think I’ll be staying in Vancouver.

To my surprise, my reassimiliation back in to life in Vancouver was rather immediate.  Apart from unpacking, I still remembered exactly what I used to do at home.  A lot of it was just little things like where I’d put on my contact lenses or where I put my toothbrush.  I remembered these little differences, and I guess that can be attributed to the fact that I have such an intimate familiarity with the house I lived in that I shouldn’t forget it.  When I first started driving again, it felt so natural, despite what I initially thought.  In a way, that was like riding a bike.  I also notice that now I am no longer as compelled to take photographs as I was before.  I can’t really put a finger on why, but it might be due to the fact that to me being back in Vancouver is just “ordinary”, while being abroad, everything seemed to be to be “extraordinary” and people do like to take pictures of extraordinary things.  I guess my life has returned to normal again.