Danish Boat Cruise

Easter Break

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone had a very relaxing Easter break. For people in Norway Easter break started on Thursday. I’m not sure why workers in Norway get the extra day off, but with a 5-day weekend ahead I wasn’t complaining. It was really quiet around the apartment over the weekend as all my flat mates left for their hometowns to visit friends and family.

Many people here in Norway (mostly foreigners), have told me that a Norwegian experience experience the one-day cruise from Oslo to Demark and then back to Oslo. is not complete with a party on a Danish Boat Cruise. So I decided to take the leap andOther trainees that are also working in Oslo accompanied me so we were a group of nine. The boat left Oslo at 8pm and arrived in Denmark at 8am the next day, and then arrived back in Oslo at 7pm that night.

The boat was an actual cruise ship filled with families and retired couples enjoying the trip. We were probably the only ones there to party. The best part about this cruise is probably the duty free shop. Alcohol was actually NORMAL price compared to the Norwegian price of alcohol. Each of us stocked up on duty free beer and alcohol before the evening got started

After a trip to duty free, we then headed to Viktor’s cabin for a pre party. Viktor, who is a very proud Ukrainian, was celebrating his 23rd birthday and brought along Ukrainian vodka. Now I’m no expert on vodka or anything, but this was the best vodka I have ever had. In fact, I think I enjoyed it a little too much ☺. Then we headed to the bar on the ship and too be quite honest I don’t remember much after that. The next morning was a little interesting because a hang over mixed with a moving boat is not that great. The boat traveled overnight and we arrived in Denmark at 8am. The shipped docked for 2 hours to let some people off and let some people board. The original plan was to get off the boat and take a few pictures in Denmark, however, we all slept through. It was a cool thing to experience and I would surely go again.

On the way back from Denmark, I took some pretty cool pictures in the Oslo fjord so check them out. The Norwegian landscape is truly beautiful.

That’s it for now, have a great weekend everyone!

GO SENS GO!!

Jason

Holmenkollen Ski Jumping

Hey everyone,

Last Sunday March 18th, a few colleagues of mine and other trainees that work here in Oslo attended a World Cup Ski Jumping competition that was held at Holmenkollen, which is located just one tram ride away from Oslo. I am not a huge fan of ski jumping because it is basically the same thing over and over again, but I thought it would be a cool experience. The atmosphere was terrific with a lot of crazy ski jumping fans. Half the people there were Norwegian and the other half were Polish and I think all of them were drunk haha. It started off as a very mild day, but it turned out to be very cold and windy which cancelled the last jump of the competition. There were jumpers from over 15 countries and there was even a Canadian guy in the competition. He came in 57th of a field of 60 jumpers but I have to give him credit for even jumping. When I see this competition at Olympics on TV, the slope doesn’t seem to be that steep but in person the slope is huge and I think I would crap my pants if I had to take the jump. It was a very cool experience but I’m not sure if I would ever go to another ski jumping competition again.

I have posted some pictures of the event which you can check out here
http://picasaweb.google.ca/chartrand.jason

---------------------------------

Ah yes spring is in the air! The snow has almost all melted here in Oslo and the temperatures are reaching 13-15 degrees. There is that springtime smell in the air that is very familiar to all Canadians after a long winter. People are coming out of their winter hybernation and are starting to creep on patios to have a few beers. There is a very nice area here in Oslo along the waterfront called Aker Brygge. There are bars, restaurants and street vendors along this strip which makes for a very cool atmosphere. I am really looking forward to a nice summer here is Oslo.

That’s all from Oslo for now. I would love to here from you guys, so please leave your comments.

I hope everything is well back home. Take care and have a great week everybody,

Jason

Hemsedal Ski Weekend

Hey everyone,

Last weekend I joined my roommates Bjorn, Hanne and their friends on a ski trip to Hemsedal, Norway. Hemsedal is considered the Alps of Scandinavia, so I was pretty excited that my first time trying snowboarding and downhill skiing would be at one of the biggest ski resorts in Norway.

I took last Friday off work because we had to take the bus 10 am to get to the resort. It was a nice 3 hour bus ride with plenty of beautiful scenery along the way. Once we got there we settled into the 10-person chalet and headed for the slopes for some night skiing/snowboarding. I tried snowboarding first, and to be quit honest, I didn’t enjoy myself too much. Having never tried it before, having no lessons, not being that coordinated, and having no one to really teach me the basics, I spent the night falling on my ass haha. Before I go snowboarding again I will have to get some lessons. After snowboarding we headed back to the chalet for a few beers.

Since I wasn’t too successful with the snowboarding, the next day I thought I would try downhill skiing. I have to say that I really enjoyed skiing even though, like snowboarding, I have never tried it before. I think the big difference was that I could actually control both of my feet when I was skiing as opposed to snowboarding. I still fell a bunch of times and was sore all week, but I can really see myself going skiing a few times every winter.

After a skiing, we went to the sports bar at the resort the watch the Man U vs Liverpool football game. It was a pretty good game with Man U scoring at the 90th minute and winning 1-0. Norwegians really love their football! After that we went to an after ski party at the Hemsedal Café and partied all night.

All in all it was a pretty cool weekend hanging out with all Norwegians. Also, I’m glad I did try both snowboarding and skiing because I got a chance to see which one I enjoyed the most. I would like to go skiing again, but I would like to take a few lessons before hand. Even though I fell a ton I really enjoyed the experience and I’m looking forward to the next ski trip.

Have a good week everybody.

Take care

Jason

Pictures of Oslo

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been quite busy with work but that's a good thing. I'm learning more and more everyday at work and I am getting more responsibilities. This week I got a clear vision of what I will be doing at work and I will mostly be tracking various Opera ad campaigns on various websites to see which ones work and which ones don't. It's pretty cool for me since I studied this kind of
stuff, and to actually put it into practice is very interesting.

It was pretty mild last wekend so I got the chance to take a nice long walk in downtown Oslo and I brought my camera with me. So here are some pictures of Oslo.
The picture above is of two of my colleagues. We share the same office and they are really fun to work with. Vyoma, on the left, is from Singapore and Anna is from Poland. Vyoma has been here since August 2006 and Anna has been here since September 2005 I believe. They both got there jobs through the same program as I did : AIESEC.

Enjoy the pictures everyone and have a great week !

Go Sens!

Jason

Hockey Day in Norway

Hi everyone!

I hope everything is well in Ottawa. I heard there was a winter cold warning for the past few days! That’s a shame … hahaha. Here in Oslo it was a very mild over the weekend.

Last week I started my Norwegian course offered by the company. I have class twice a week for 1 ½ hour each class. The teacher is really cool and funny. Right off the bat she was speaking Norwegian to us. I was completely lost and clueless to what was going on because I did not buy the textbooks yet (but I since bought them). After about 30 minutes I started to get it. The language will be a little difficult to learn because the pronunciation of words is completely different from French or English. The reading of the language wont be that bad, but it will take me awhile before I feel comfortable speaking it. Luckily I live with 3 Norwegians that are more willing to help me out.Sunday was a very cool day sports wise for me. As I mentioned before, my roommate Bjorn and I bought the sports pack for our TV. With that we get lots of English Premiership soccer games and quite a bit of NHL games. I say Sunday was special because I got a chance to see the Sens vs the Leafs and the Flames vs the Canucks. The games were on tape delay so they started at noon. We got the Hockey Night in Canada feed and I had the extreme pleasure and joy of hearing Bob Cole and Don Cherry on a Sunday afternoon ugh… Oh well, I can’t complain, I got to see the Sens (even though it was in a loss) After the hockey I watched Manchester United (Bjorn is a big fan) beat the crap out of Tottenham 4-0. After being on the couch and being completely useless for the entire day I took a walk. Then I waited until midnight for the Superbowl to start. After the first half I was way too tired to watch the rest of the game (it was around 2am) so I just went to bed.

All in all, not an eventful week but I’m really happy I’ll get to see hockey, and the Senators while I’m here. It’s a nice touch of home.

Also, my cell phone is fully functional now!!! WOOO!

Have a Good week everyone,

Jason

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