In Norway I'm average

In Turkey you may be beautiful but in Norway you're just average. Haha. The book title...Get it? I think I just killed the joke...

But seriously. I've been here for 48 hours and it's starting to hit me, like bad Thai curry and gastro, that this whole Norwegian people looking ridiculously attractive thing has got to be a joke. It must be something in the water. I mean, to go as far as saying every single person in this country is attractive would be overkill (I'm thinking frequent flyer, creepy middle aged men with bad psoriasis and flaky skin who travel to Bangkok regularly for "good time" and "happy ending"). But otherwise, if you could somehow calculate attractiveness into GDP (Gross Domestic Product), I'm fairly certain that Norway would come out on top. Perhaps the Norwegian government should consider using this as a platform for global trade/marketing. "What do you export? Iron ore? Interesting. You sell palm oil? Shit, we export tall hot models. [shrugs shoulders casually, but even that casualness is posed to perfection].

I know there's the whole hoo-ha about Norwegians being blonde and all, but I think the attractiveness transcends beyond that. Firstly, a lot of the attractive people are actually not blonde (not that the blonde ones aren't attractive - see my point?) It's also everything else about them. Everyone around here seems to be fit (at least the young ones are). Those who are tall aren't tall and sickly thin. And a lot of people are tall here. I walk around campus and I constantly go: "Shit, your 15 year old daughter's taller than me...". And then there's the whole "I'm highly educated and even if I'm not I look like I've got a PhD" sort of thing going on. Smart people are hot. And everyone speaks English nearly to perfection here. Imagine speaking to your grocery guy in Armenian and he speaks back to you in Armenian like it's just another language up his sleeve...did you know I also speak Latin and Ancient Greek too?

Anyway, my point is, it's actually disconcerting to be constantly faced with quite beautiful people when buying groceries, when getting mail delivered, when speaking to the receptionist, etc. etc. It makes me wonder how Prince Frederick of Denmark had such difficulty finding a wife back home? It's like, bloody hell, how far do you have to look? You had to go to Australia?? Seriously?

Anyway, here's a photo of my student accommodation

And here's a photo of the university campus map.

Jeg laerer norsk nå. I går, jeg har kjøpt en ordbok. I dag, jeg må få meg studentkort. I have mixed feelings about this. I really want to learn Norwegian, but somehow I think the ship of my 22 year old Broca's area has sailed away long ago. In the supermarkets, I hear kids age 5 speaking norsk and I get jealous. It's pretty bad, being jealous of 5 year old kids...