Utflukt: Trondheim

I know, I said the weekend, and it took until Monday. Forgive me, I was tired.

So, this is just the first part...I don't want to overload you with the WHOLE WEEK all at once...so this is just the first two days in Trondheim...before we hit the Arctic!

Monday Morning our group of 10 Americans, 5 Namibians, our Prof. Inger, our other Prof. Alexandra and her family jumped a train to Trondheim.

*I have to add a note about our Professor Alexandra. She is Danish. Her Husband is Dutch. They've lived in Norway for about 5 years. Her children are 6 & 8, they both speak Norwegian, Dutch and (some) Danish, and of course, when they get farther in school English will be required. I am jealous.

When we got to Trondheim, we took cabs to our youth hostel, where we had a feeble attempt at making dinner in their very non-functioning kitchens. So, since we had brought food and their facilities were not up to par, Inger complained and got us free pizza. SCORE! It was good stuff. I like Norwegian pizza; they have good variety.

After dinner we walked to a local elementary school where they were having the local elections. There was a city official there who explained the whole voting methods to us. (They have a lot of candidates and a lot of parties, so its a bit complicated.)
It was funny, because when we got there people were lined up OUTSIDE waiting to vote...this was just local elections. It was awesome. Norwegian voter turn-out is on average 77%. That's pretty sweet.

After that we walked up to the Fortress, where we could see a spectacular view of all of Trondheim.


From there, we went off into town and ended up at a nice little Italien restaurant where the funnest Italien in Norway served us huge dishes of ice cream.
From there, we headed off to find the election night parties at a hotel. The first party we crashed was the Left Socialist's party. Inger forced us to go mingle and talk to people, which was awkward, to be perfectly honest. They weren't doing very well (only 6% of the votes), so the mood was a little low. I ended up sitting next to a nice girl in a wheel chair who told me she was going to be in a wheel chair curling tournament in the US and Canada in the summer. That was interesting. She explained some of the election stuff to me as well; they had a big screen up that had the news of the election on and she told me about the places that showed up on the screen. Apparently I need to visit Rorøs sometime, because its a very nice old fashioned Norwegian town.

From there we moved on to the Labourers party (Arbeiderspartei). They were doing QUITE well. They had won 40% of the votes, which is obviously the majority, but also the best they've done since 1971. So it was really good, but strangely enough though, the mood at their party was similar to that of a funeral. We didn't quite get that.
A couple of us ended up talking to two of the candidates actually. They were 22 and 24 years old. Yes. Youth are very strongly encouraged to be involved and politics. They have special sections of every party for the "youth", even though they can't vote. So there were even people my age on the ballot, because the youth are that involved in politics. I thought that was cool. We also got to meet the Norwegian minister of culture. Yeah, seriously, like a government official..I shook his hand even. It was crazy. He is running the year of multi-cultural diversity that I described in an earilier post about our excursion in Oslo.

So that was the first day...

Tuesday was another day in Trondheim. We went to the Cathedral (which happens to be our project for the group presentations on the excursion). It is BREATHTAKING. Of the million and one cathedrals I've been to in Europe, this one is definitely in the top 10. It's the Nidaros Cathedral that was built for St. Olav, the patron Saint of Norway.
We had a really great Tour guide who told us the legend of St. Olaf. Here goes for those who are interested:
He was a King in Norway, and he discovered Christianity on a Viking trip to England. He was baptised in France, and brought his faith back to Norway. He wanted everyone to be converted to Christianity, so he basically killed people if they didnt convert. This method didn't work so well. Then there was a battle with...Sweden I believe, and he had a vision from God that he should martyr himself and so he went to war and basically let them kill him. So then people started to believe in his religion, and ask questions about whether he was really a Saint. So they dug him up and saw that his hair and nails were still growing and his skin had been preserved (which is all scientific) and they believed that to be a "supernatural" sign that he was divine, and so they built an alter right on top of his grave, and built the church around it. People all over Scandinavia heard about him and made pilgrimages from all over just to go to his grave, so they ended up spending a lot of money and time rebuilding and rebuilding and rebuilding the church. His grave was moved during the Reformation in Norway, but he is still buried somewhere in the Church area.

And now the part you've all been waiting for...the pictures:




The West Front of the Cathedral

Rose Window From Inside

Adam and Eve

This guy's story is interesting. He is the patron Saint of France. His head was cut off because of his beliefs and instead of dying he just picked up his head and walked...to the cathedral I think?...and while he walked downt he road his head told his story to the people he passed. When he got to the church yard he laid down and died. And here he is on the front of the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim.





Some of the group out front...I asked a nice German fellow to take this picture for us...I felt special I got to use my German :)

After visiting the church we went off downtown and did some window shopping. We also stopped at a Burger King, because some of us were hungry. Just a few random pictures from Trondheim:






Tuesday night we all ate together at a pizza/salad/really good food buffet. Then we went to a movie; most of the group saw Oceans 13, but a few of us went to This is England. It was intense; really good though. I would recommend it.
After the movies we grabbed our luggage from the Hostel and jumped on the Night train, heading North...