Almost an Olympic Champion: the 10th fastest runner in 1956

NY Times has released a fantastic feature on the environmental costs of economic growth in China. It sums up many of my fears as they relate to the destructiveness of our civilization. I highly recommend reading the article, or at least checking out some of the interactive features. Click here!

I've had a fairly social weekend. I went to ye olde floor four on Friday night to say goodbye to Marius, who is leaving to do his Masters in Sweden. We were never really close and it was a bit awkward. Ingvild was there too, which was fun. She's moving to Grunnerlokka soon, and I don't know if I'll see her again.
In the world of strange coincidences, someone I met on Thursday night had just moved into floor four, into Kari's old room no less. I spent most of the night talking with her. We really hit it off and met yesterday to walk around the lokka and get some coffee. Her name is Sierra, she's from Wisconsin but goes to school in Ottawa, and studies Geography.

Yesterday I also met up with Tim (the german) and Pete (the briton) for a walk in nordmarka. It was nice to get up into the forest and hills again. We went to Holmenkollen first, then walked over near the TV Tower, then walked down to Sognsvann. It was a good hike and we had quite a bit of fun, I dare say. This is us at the Holmenhollen gift shop.



We also met an Olympic Athlete! No shit!
We asked this person for directions, and at first he completely ignored our request and asked us where we were from. It was a bit funny actually. Eventually he got around to saying he would walk part of the way there with us to show us where to go. During our walk he mentioned that he'd run 40 marathons (!!!) and had placed 11th in the marathon in the 1952 Olympics and 10th in the 1956 Olympics. (!!!) The dude walked brisk too, like he was at most 30, but he said he was 87. He said he'd run his last marathon in Berlin at the age of 75 (!!!).
He then mentioned that he was an engineer and that he had built over 16,000 flats, most of them in Oslo. Dude was driving at Jaguar too.
The whole thing was just RIDICULOUS!



Anyway, right after the hike I had to catch the T-Bane straight into town to meet Knut Erik (a friend of Martin's). We chatted about a bit about the States, racism, and the welfare system. We talked about maybe playing some chess or hanging out to watch some Leone films. Hopefully something will happen.

That was my busy and social day. Today I need to do some reading. Tonight I may go to a football match. Tomorrow is class focused on Scandinavian Arts and Literature.