Sunday afternoon I avoided the SAS strike and took a plane from Oslo to Trondheim. From there, I flew on what are now my favorite planes, a tiny Widerøe 39 seater.
The first time I landed on an island in Norway, I wasn’t sure what I had gotten myself into. It was windy and rainy and my plane was more like a bus, island hopping to my destination in Finnmark. Now I actually know what it means when a Widerøe pilot says “there will be a little turbulence” or that not even En-tur knows the correct bus schedule (or lack of one) in some of the more remote island towns throughout Norway.
I made it smoothly into Namsos, not too far north this time and only at 25-minute flight from Trondheim. I made my way in my shared taxi to my hotel—Scandic Rock City. I’ve spent a great deal of time in Scandics during my Fulbright. Now I get room upgrades and gifts (from chocolates to cloudberry jam). I stayed in the D.D.E. room, a 7th floor corner room with an amazing view of the fjord and harbor.
The next day that Olav Duun VGS I learned from the music students who I was doing a workshop for that D.D.E. is a famous band from Namsos and that there were a number of bands from the area. Namsos houses a national resource center for Norwegian rock and pop. It fit well with my workshop on American Music to learn about Namsos’ music history and some of the Norwegian bands and artists the students listen to.
I had only one session on Monday. It was gorgeous out. The teachers were excited to have a visitor for the school and students. This was their first rover visit. They told me about the open-air museum and the trail on a closed railroad line. “You even go through tunnels,” one of the teachers told me.
I got a ride back to the hotel (the bus schedule on En-tur, the app I usually rely heavily on, was wrong), packed my lunch and headed out to hike around Namsos. It was a perfect day for hiking. Seventeen degrees and sunny. The weather where you can wear a light jacket and don’t need to worry about being too hot or too cold.
I spent the next few hours hiking around Namsos. I found my way to the railroad trail and the open-air museum. It’s the time of year where everything is a deep green, starting to come back to life, rich browns of fresh earth mixing with lush forest green, pops of white birch and purple heather peeking through hoping that the sun chooses to stay. I geocached, translating every fifth or sixth word and relying on my shoddy GSP to find the caches. I spent as much time as possible outside, walking through the town, exploring, searching for ice cream and finding a kebob instead. In my hotel, I kept the windows open. I lay in bed watching the mountains and water and preparing for my visit the next day and my early morning wake-up.
I’ll never get sick of Norwegian hotel breakfasts. And I may never eat at an American hotel that says they have a “full breakfast” again without complaining. The fresh bread, yogurt with a mix of granola and fruit, a fabulous selection of teas, cheeses, vegetables and waffles. The breakfasts make the 8:00 classes worth it.
Today I started with a VG1 sports class. We talked about Athletes as Activists. By now I’ve gotten a feel for typical “feel” of many of the groups. The music, dance, and drama students like those I had yesterday are always chatty. They LOVE to talk, ask questions, and just have fun. The sports students are jumpy. They need to move and are pretty squirrelly. But, they do love to talk about their sports. My second group was communications students. Some of them were really talkative, others just listened. We talked about the American Teenager and they had questions about schedules, tests, detention and were surprised what they saw on television was not what it was like “in real life.” Plus, there was student from Russia who said it sounded like US schools were more like Russian schools than Norwegian schools.
My last group of the day was two general studies classes. We talked about the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. There were 60 students and we were supposed to be in the school’s auditorium. But, because the local police needed to spend the day talking the VG3 about Russ rules in Namsos they got to take over the auditorium. Blue and red coveralls with large, white lettered names and patches crowded the space for the entire day, learning about noise, driving laws, and Russ rules in Namsos.
The third group was studies specialty. And, they were pretty typical as well. The students who didn’t want to talk, the ones who have jokes, and the ones who think that if you look at your phone under the table no one can see you. They researched examples of police brutality in the United States and we talked about some of the history of institutional and cultural racism in the US that has led to social movements like Black Lives Matter, The Civil Rights movement, Women’s Liberation, and the LGBT movement.
Then they asked questions. Fun questions. In addition to wanting to know my thoughts on Trump and guns they wanted to know what American waffles were like (not as good as Norwegian waffles), if I liked brown cheese (yes, especially brown cheese ice cream), my favorite city in Norway (Stavanger), if I thought Norwegian or American food was better (we have better pizza and pie, Norway has better lefse and waffles, and I miss American Doritos), if I could speak Norwegian (Jeg snakker ikke Norsk), what I thought about the fact that Norway has so many dialects (I can’t understand most of it anyway, so it doesn’t bother me), and the biggest difference between the US and Norway (trust in people and government and the freedom and trust in youth). They probably could have kept asking questions, but class was over.
Those are the sessions I love. The ones where students want to know the little things. They want to know about the everyday. The ones where the students are as drawn to daily life as they are about the billboard questions and topics. That’s where the poetry is in being a Rover. In the everyday.
One of the teachers said that was the most attentive her class has been. I asked if she had the group of boys in the middle who seemed to want to burst out at any time. Those were hers. My host finally figured out that I could catch a bus back to the hotel and the city centre. I found my way back and spent a few hours walking around before my plane.
I got a taxi to the airport. When the driver learned I wasn’t Norske he asked what I was doing and loved learning about my year. My plane took off in sun and landed in rain and now I am waiting at the Trondheim airport. My original flight was cancelled due to the strike, but the travel agent was able to find me a new flight so that I can make it home to see Avengers: End Game with my son tomorrow afternoon. We’ve been patiently waiting for this experience.
My time in Norway has been one of teaching, learning, exploring, and reflection. I can’t put it all into words or a short account. I could tell you about the 70 plus schools I’ve visited, that I’ve been to every county in Norway, that I have met almost 10,000 students, that I have been to 7 prisons, done hundreds of workshops, visited museums, hiked mountain trails, took ferries through fjord, got stuck in a town because of a waterfall, almost never made it out of Hammerfest, learned to love tiny planes, made friends and connections across the country, and learned that Norwegian students really love The Ellen Show and Friends (and are okay with my love of Supernatural). But instead, I hope a snapshot of my last few days gives you some insight into Roving.