Hurrah! So, it has been a few days, and they have been great. I have some highlights of the past few days on the picasa site. So, woot for that. Look on there if you are interested. I have never had a blog before. Anyhow. If you are interested, read. If not, oh well!
First highlight was talking to a kindergarten teacher pumping up and saying how wonderful Norway is as a country.
Hannah and I are the interns here now, but there is a very cool volunteer exchange program that takes place throughout Europe where you can volunteer in another country, and the European Union will pay all of your expenses for nine months. We have two volunteers from that helping with the opera as well. They are both from Germany, and they seem very nice.
Hannah is from Idaho, and she is cool. We spend a lot of time talking on the bus and plane rides to Narvik from Oslo, which was BEAUTIFUL, and I included photos of this on the picasa site as well. That is the beautiful scenery.
I should include the bit in Oslo since there are also photos of the Skiing Championship party there. THAT WAS AWESOME! There were lots of sculptures and food and people singing music in the streets and fires in the middle of the streets, and just general jubilation. I got caught up in it for about 3 hours. I was only expecting to see a bunch of buildings, but got WAYYY MORE...including hot chocolate...varm skjokolate.
Back to the opera. The people we are working with are fun. The names that I can remember well are Elen, who is essentially the costume foreman. Hannah and I are working under her a lot. Hannah was sick today, so it was slightly sad. However, we went shopping for props and some small costume pieces. It was fun. Pavel came along, and I suddenly had a glimpse into his mind. I think that everything he thinks becomes an extended metaphor. He had this really long metaphor that lasted an hour and a half about how the people of Narvik were playing pingpong with us because we could not find a thrift shop. It was funny. The thrift stores here are AMAZING! They are super nice. Everything here is super nice. This is a tiny town, yet they can afford to have two theatres that do regular live shows as well as a cinema. HUMUNAH WAH?!
Other people we are working with are Helge, who is the tech director for the show. Katharina, who is the production manager...I think...she seems to be doing that work. Klara, who is the stage manager. Everyone is very nice. Then, there are two singers that have been talking to me a bit...named Trond and Pieter. Pieter is a student, and he talks about his studies a lot. Trond is a dad, and we had a good conversation about having kids. They are quite fun. I am slowly picking up the language, but because they speak a dialect that even the Southern Norwegians cannot always understand, I am having some difficulties. That...and Pieter is from Sweden, and he is the most helpful with teaching words and phrases...but they have a Swedish accent with them so it makes it unintelligible to the ears of everyone else. Then, I say something, and people respond in English, so it is difficult to continue to speak in Norwegian. While shopping, I listened constantly to pick up new words. I picked up skoliser and sko...shoelace and shoe...also vis...if...and a few others.
Finally, the food is very good. We have our food paid for. HURRAH! It is good. We had fish last night with potatoes and vegetables. Tonight we had stew with mashed potatoes and fruit. That was for Middag. Which is actually at 5ish. Then, Lunch at noon is sandwhiches...I think, though, that that is breakfast because everyone keeps eating late at night as well. It is good! HURRA! Ok that is all for now. I will post more later when I have time.
Here is the link to picasa...I don't have time to link it properly, but later I will figure it out.
https://picasaweb.google.com/114689853843773272255/TravellingToNorwayAndFirstDaysOfWork?authkey=Gv1sRgCJa-qaCK7oqYUg#
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar