Hello from Oslo!

I wish I had been able to start this blog a little sooner, as I am already 6 days into my study abroad trip to Oslo, Norway, but it's been such a whirlwind that this is my first opportunity to sit down and actually start writing! I titled this blog "Why Norway?" because that was most people's first response when I told them about this trip. The way some people said it, you'd think I'd told them I was going to Mars. To answer that question, I chose Norway for several reasons.

1.) It seems like the majority of people who study abroad these days go to France, Spain or Italy. Those are wonderful places, but they are much more traditional travel destinations that I would be more likely to visit on vacation or for business one day. I wanted to pick somewhere different, somewhere few people had gone before. In fact, I am the first person from UF to do this summer program. As a result, planning and applying and preparing for this trip became like a part-time job during spring semester, but I am forging new terrain and hope that my experience will pave the way for future Gators who want to go abroad and in a small way increase interactions between the U.S. and the Scandinavian countries.

2.) When else in my life am I going to have the opportunity to go anywhere I want by myself and meet other people my age and get very generous financial support from scholarships to help pay for it? Probably never. Again, I wanted to use that opportunity to do something different.

3.) In my psychology & sociology classes, the U.S. is always compared to other countries in terms of a wide variety of social issues, with the Scandinavian countries seemingly always being portrayed as the "ideal." From what I'd learned, it seemed like a pretty nice place to be, almost Utopian. I wanted to see for myself what the hype was all about. So far, it has not disappointed. The Norwegians have it pretty good over here. More details in future posts.

I've already learned a lot about their culture here and plan to include "fun facts" & interesting things that I have learned in each blog post. I will continue to play catch-up and post next about my journey thus far. Stay tuned!