For five months, Norway was my home. I travelled to the far North, to Tromsø, to eat ice cream above the Arctic Circle and watch the green Northern Lights twist and turn, I travelled to København to be disappointed by how small the little mermaid really is, and I travelled to Stockholm for cheap beer and coffee. But for most of the time, I lived in Oslo.
On Friday afternoon I was being instructed in menial receptionist work, when the news on the law firm’s posh flatscreen made my mouth drop in a rather unprofessional manner. explosion in Oslo, it said. after some time, the police attribute the explosion to a bomb. in the governmental quarters, the PM is fine. the buildings didn’t seem familiar at the time. little by little, more information surfaced. people were going crazy with anger, fear, and plain amazement on facebook. amazement at how this could happen in the most peaceful city we’d known. a city I’d gotten lost in, drunk, in the middle of the night, and the only person I’d come across was an Afghan taxi driver who offered to drive me home for free (and did).
Then I saw pictures of a friend who had been to Oslo just one day before the attack. pictures that showed said governmental buildings that were targeted. and that’s when my mouth really dropped- and I, too, finally became really angry and scared. it’s only that they’re so ugly you don’t usually notice them when you go by them every day like I did- so close to the university.
Norway is probably the only country in the world where the acts by a right-wing conservative are considered “anti-establishment”.
I am confident Norway will show the world ways to counter these acts of terrorism it has never seen before. ways that will still make me proud of having called Norway my home for a semester. there’s a reason the Norwegian flag is the only one I own.