Two weeks in Norway

As of today I've officially been in Norway for two weeks and although its only been two weeks, they have been absolutely amazing. On Friday I went to Oslo with Krista and Kate to take care of some school business and after that was over, we spent the rest of the day shopping in Oslo which was incredible. Oslo is pretty fantastic. It had the big city vibe and feel but it wasn't overwhelming. Krista's husband Roger joined us later and he showed me around Oslo, taking me down to the wharf, showing me the Nobel Peace Prize Center, and other great attractions of the city. I was on a mission to find a new scarf and hat, which I found at a pretty schweet skater store. I bought a black and white checkered scarf and two stocking caps for 149 kroner...which is roughly $26. Later we all met up and ate at Egon which was delicious. After a tasty and filling meal, I was still on a search for a peacoat. I have always wanted one but never got one because they were either too expensive or they didn't fit me, but I figured that I would take a look. After looking at several stores and finding snug coats for 3000 kroner I thought my search was going to end with me being empty handed but lo and behold, I found the perfect coat at Dressman. It was exactly what I was looking for, so I tried it on with fingers crossed and sure enough it fit me perfectly, but before I got too attached I had to look at the price. It was originally 1000 kroner and it was marked down to 500! Which is about $87! I was so pumped! I bought the coat and walked out of Oslo a Sharp Dressed Man (thank you ZZ Top. now all I need is a texas goatee).

Saturday was a pretty chill day. I slept in and woke to find myself stuffed up and feeling the first symptoms of a head cold so I went grocery shopping and got some medicine to hep battle the congestion. Later that night I went to a birthday party which was fun, but I called it an early night and got some decent sleep.

It's a cloudy day today. No sun shining here and it proceeded to get darker when a cloud came over my head and delivered some crummy news to me. I was planning on going to Oslo tomorrow night to see The XX in concert. They're a great band from the UK and when I saw that they were playing in Oslo I wanted to jump at the opportunity for 2 reasons 1.) As I stated before, They are quite fantastic and currently hold a place in my "Top 10 Favorite Albums of All Time" and 2.) I was introduced to them by Chris Nelson, a professor back in Grand Forks, and I thought it would be funny to maybe brag about it a little bit ;) Anyways, as I was looking at the venue page reading about the concert I saw that there was two opening acts. One was a group from Canada and the other I had never heard of before. They had all capital letters and their name read UTSOLGT! I proceeded to look them up to see what their music sounded like and when nothing showed up my brain shifted into Norwegian mode. I looked at the name and remembered that "UT" means "out" and then it clicked, but just to be sure I turned to my trusty translator and it was confirmed...UTSOLGT also known as "Sold Out" is not a band but a word that smashes the hopes of seeing a killer concert. So...I will not be seeing The XX, but I will be getting my tickets for The Antlers concert in March tomorrow so I can secure my viewing of one of the best new bands on the. While today was a bit of a bummer, I'm still felling good about the day :)

-Xavier