Cottages and Chomsky

Today we went on a field trip!! This is the first one of three for our history class. On the field trip, we visited two sites. The first one was the Folkeparken Perspektivet museum.

"In Cod We Trust"



Folkeparken Perspektivet museum is a collection of preserved buildings with some dating back to 1826. The building that we were able to enter was an Old Norwegian boathouse. In the boathouse were a couple of wooden boats that were once used by men to fish for cod, an important trade item for Norwegians. To emphasize how important cod was in the Norwegian life, there is a plaque within the museum that says “In Cod We Trust.” I thought it was funny, but most of the other international students didn’t understand the phrase.

 

Stockfish hanging on a drying rack



The main focus of this museum was the lives of fishermen. On the walls there were gloves, trousers, and boots from fishermen hanging. They also had a couple of wooden trunks that fishermen would carry on board the ships. In their trunks they would keep their food and clothes as well as a letter or picture to remind them of home. My favorite part at this site was the array of stockfish hanging on some wood. In my history and culture course, we have learned about stockfish and its importance in Norway’s trade. Stockfish is cod that is caught and hung to dry on fish drying racks. Once the fish is dried it is rock hard, not kidding. The stockfish is then shipped all around the world and sold. There are different qualities of stockfish; however, the ones that I saw looked pretty much the same to me.

The Folkeparken Perspektivet museum was very nice and I learned a lot more about the fishing history in Norway.

Our next site visit was a preserved Norwegian farm called Perspektivet Straumen Gård which means Stream Farm. This farm was located about an hour’s drive away from the city and was situated along the coast. The coastal farm consisted of 11 buildings and is among the most complete 19^th century farms in this region of Norway. The farm took me back in history and was beautiful.

I learned a lot about the Norwegian farming way of life from our guides and I will only include a few things.

Norwegian house on a coastal farm from the 19th century

 The farm was situated on the coast since almost everyone traveled by boat. This provided easier access to fishing and trading. Another common characteristic of the Norwegian houses was that that they were painted like the one shown in the picture. The house was only painted on the three sides of the house that could be seen from the sea. It did not matter what the back side looked like since theoretically no one would see it.



Living room in the main building



On the farm, there was the main building where the living room, kitchen, and main sleeping quarters are. There were other buildings, 11 in total on the farm, and each had a different purpose. One building was for potatoes, one was for the children, one was for the fishing tackle, one was for the animals, and so on. Additionally, similar buildings were situated in rows. For example, the boathouse, fishing tackle building, and fish cleaning shed were all lined up together.

Overall the site visits were really cool. It was a great hands-on way to learn more about the Norwegian culture and history.

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After my field trip with the class, I stayed on campus and went to the biomedicine meeting where pizza was served. The meeting was for the biomedicine students at the University. I was invited to the meeting by a student in my bioinformatics class. The bioinformatics class is a third year required class for the students.

At the meeting I sat at the conference table and listened to the professors. Luckily, they decided to give the talk in English since I was present. One professor at the meeting for the most part talked in Norwegian even though he knew I wouldn’t understand them. I was fine with this since this was their meeting and I was not a student in the program; however, I did not approve of how this professor communicated with me. The professor would talk for a few minutes in Norwegian, look at me and summarize what he said into like one sentence, and then ask me a question. After I gave my answer, he would sometimes say something in Norwegian and everyone would giggle.

Even though I was a little offended by the described actions, the pizza made up for it. There was no plain cheese or pepperoni or other typical American styles, but the ones they had included a different variety of ingredients. The pizza was good and I thoroughly enjoyed the treat.

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Thus far I have attended my bioinformatics class, gone on the field trip with my history class, and enjoyed pizza at the biomedicine meeting. To conclude my long day I went to Noam Chomsky’s talk on campus. Noam Chomsky is an internationally known linguist, philosopher, and political critic. He is also a professor at MIT. Because he is so popular, I had to stand in line at the University since only a certain number of tickets which were free would be handed out.

Picture of Noam Chomsky during his lecture

Chomsky’s talk was titled “Middle East Dilemmas: Simple Solutions, Difficult Obstacles.” The talk focused on the Iranian threat and the Israel-Palestine conflict. The talk was very informational and I liked listening to the question and answer period afterwards.

After being on campus from 8am to 11pm, I finally was on my way home. The day was exhausting, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am so grateful for the opportunities that have been presented before me.