I am currently sitting in my new home for the next 18 weeks. Moss seems to be a very beautiful place. There are a ton of hills and trees which I think will make for some great photos :) This was a very very very long journey for me. I have never traveled internationally before or traveled alone for that matter so this was and is a big deal for me. I'm not gonna lie...it was pretty hard for me. I'm not very good at saying good by and I've been know to not handle change very well so this will definitely be an opportunity for me to grow.

I flew out from Minneapolis to Newark , NJ. The flight was pretty good. I was sitting next to a young girl and her mother. After about 45 minutes into the flight the young girl whipped out her copy of twilight. This made me laugh and feel bummed. I laughed because Twilight really is everywhere, I was bummed because I had forgotten my copy at home, luckily, I had brought along my copy of Chuck Klosterman's IV, which is very entertaining . That flight lasted about 2 hours which wasn't bad at all. We landed in Newark at night which was pretty sweet. The city at night from that height reminded me of the embers glowing in a log that is burning out, either that of a circuit board...which reminds me how excited I am for Tron Legacy. Jeff Bridges+Light Cycles+Daft Punk=AMAZINGNESS...anybody else agree? Anyways, when I arrived in the Newark airport I grabbed a bite to eat and headed to my terminal. I ate at McDonalds, which wasn't my first choice, but it was quick and I had just finished reading about Chuck Klosterman's McDonalds experiment in which he ate nothing but chicken McNuggets for a week. I don;t know how he did it, but he made McDonalds sound good. I have to say that the part I hate most about traveling is waiting in terminals. I always feel like I have no home...it sucks. The closer I got to Norway the better I started to feel because I knew that I would be arriving in a place that I could call mine for awhile.

The plane to Olso was fine. It was a 7 hour flight which was a bit rough but I got through. I was already feeling a little homesick, but when I saw that I could watch The Office as part of my in flight entertainment, my mind was put at ease :) There's something about watching Dwight, Andy, and Michael doing Parkour that just warms my heart a bit hahaha.

Sleeping on a plane is THE MOST DIFFICULT THING EVER! I have no idea how people do it. I mean, being 6'4" doesn't help but no matter how hard I tried, it just wasn't going to happen. I guess you could say that I rested my eyes but that's about all that happened on the 7 hour journey.

The Oslo airport was wicked cool. Lots of Hard wood floors and lots of glass. My plane was delayed an hour but I arrived in time to make my shuttle bus to Moss, which was about an hour and 20 minutes. Colin, the RA of the dorms, came to pick me up. He's a grad student working on a Masters in Accounting. he also teaches an accounting course. He was super kind and showed me around my place. He lives next door to me which is nice...i don't totally feel alone. And that leads me to now. Im showered, full, and wanting to sleep so badly but am trying to stay up to get used to the time change. Anyways, enough babbling for today. I miss you all very much and I'll see you in 18 weeks :)

-Xavier