Julebord !!!

Hey Everyone,


I hope everybody had a great week and weekend. This week I was given more of an idea of what I will be doing for Opera. Basically I will be split between, business development, marketing and analyzing stats. I’m not sure how much details I can give about the projects I will be working on because I signed this confidentiality policy. So in fear of them breaking my legs, if you have any questions about what I do exactly just ask me and I’ll send you a more personal e-mail. On Friday, we had our traditionally Friday beers. After a few pints a few colleagues and I went back to one of the offices and played Nintendo Wii for a few hours. The reason why this guy has a Wii in his office is because Opera provides the web browser for the Wii. It was the first time I tried the Wii and it was pretty damn fun ( the beer helped haha).

I am having trouble with my cell phone. I can receive and send text messages but I cannot receive or make calls. It’s the weirdest thing. When I first tried to call someone it gave me a long message in Norwegian. My roommate helped me out saying that I need to register my phone … no problem right? Well, in Norway, with some service providers you need a social insurance number to register your phone. I applied for my social insurance number last week and was informed that it would take about 4 weeks to get it. I am working to getting my phone to work faster. Here is my number and address for those who are interested:

Cell: +47 94 42 73 16

Address:
Asaveien 20
0362, Oslo
Norway

On Saturday night I attended a Julebord party that is normally held at Christmas time. A Julebord is the Norwegian equivalent to our Christmas. This was held by AIESEC and the reason it was held this late is because a lot of people went home for the holidays and were unable to attend it at the regular time. Julebord is basically the same as Christmas, there is a lot of eating and drinking! One thing that I found pretty cool was that in Norway, whenever there is a formal dinner, there are two toasts during supper; one for the men and one for the women. The way this works is that during the meal one guy holds a speech and toasts the women. After he is done the other men at the dinner stand up and sing a song in Norwegian that toasts the women. After that the same thing is done but it’s the women toasting the men. It’s pretty interesting because most of the speech is centered on bashing the other sex and the last few lines of the toast are to honor the other sex.

After the julebord celebrations, we went downtown to the bars. Downtown Oslo on a Saturday night is insane! Every single club or Pub had a line of at least 50 people! I’ve never seen a downtown area so busy. The club was ok, I only had one beer because it’s so freaking expensive. After that we went outside to get a cab. In Oslo, public transport stops at 12:30 … so all those people at every club needed a cab. There is something pretty weird in Oslo for cab services. Since it is so busy and impossible to get a cab by phone, there is an actual line to get a cab ! There are certain street signs in the downtown area with a taxi logo. So people wait in line next to these signs for the next cab to arrive. A friend and I waited 45 minutes in the freezing cold to get a cab! It wasn’t the best first night out in downtown Oslo, but now I know what to expect.

Tomorrow I start my Norwegian classes paid for by the company. I’m pretty pumped to start learning a new language.

Feel free to leave comments. I would like to hear from you guys!

Have a good week! I have posted some apartment pictures for those interested.

Miss you guys a lot!

Go Sens Go!

Jason

P.S. The picture is of our doormat. Welcoming ...no?

My First 2 weeks in Oslo

Hi All!!!

Well, I arrived safe and sound in Oslo about 2 weeks ago. I was seriously jet lagged for the first 5 days but have now fully recovered and I’m settling into a routine in my new hometown for the next year.Two days after I arrived in Oslo I attended a conference in Trondheim, Norway that was held by the organization that set up my international internship: AIESEC. If any of you want more info on AIESEC and want to know what they are all about go to www.aiesec.ca. The conference was pretty cool and I met a lot of people from many different countries. I met other trainees but none that worked at the same place that I do. I missed my plane to come back to Oslo, so I had to buy another one that left one hour later. I thought the shuttle bus for airport was supposed to be fast, the bus stopped every 2 minutes so I was late. So I got a great experience at the conference and come back with 800 kroner less in my pocket…. Oh well!

My new apartment is really cool. My room is a bit bigger then the one I had in Amsterdam (so slightly bigger then a broom closet). The kitchen, the living room and the washroom are all very big. The kitchen has everything you need and there is a washing machine in the bathroom. In addition to my bedroom, I have an extra living room of my own that I can put anything I want (maybe I’ll cover the room in porn ..hahaha), so there is plenty of place if anybody wants to come visit. I found out that I will have to move out at the END of July so it gives me plenty of time to find another place. The reason is because the apartment was promised to another guy for the month of August. I live with a guy, Bjorn, and two girls, Eva and Hanne (pronounced Hanna). They are very nice and helpful. All three are Norwegians studying in Oslo. Bjorn helped me out buying a cell (which is a must in Europe) and the same day we bought the sports pack for our TV so we now get soccer games and even the NHL!! WOOOO!

After my first week of work, I think I will like it here. I work at Opera Software (www.opera.com) as a marketing intern. I haven’t been given any tasks because there was a sales and marketing seminar all week. Basically the sales and marketing reps from all over the world reunited at the head office in Oslo for some info sessions and team building. I got an idea of what the company will be doing strategy wise for the upcoming year. Also, for the team building we had a dinner last Thursday night and on the Friday we went Go-Karting and went for beers after. I will get more of an idea of what my tasks are this week. There is a canteen at work that is completely paid for. Each employee pays 200 NOK (kroner) (around 37$) each month and we get breakfast, snacks and lunch for free. That will save on the groceries !!!To give you an idea of what kind of atmosphere the company has, I got pretty drunk with the current COO of the company at the dinner and he used me to pick up girls! On Friday the CFO of the company was on my go-kart team! So the company seems pretty cool and it should be a fun working environment. I’m looking forward to the next year.

That’s it for now my friends, I will post pictures of my apartment soon! I have posted pictures of the beautiful town of Trondheim, Norway. Enjoy!

Oh by the way, the girls here are absolutely gorgeous!!!

Take care everyone, I miss you all.

Go SENS Go!!

Jason