The longer I am HERE, the more I LOVE OSLO! Today, I finally had some free time. This past week has been pretty intense with classes, seminars and reading. Our semester schedule is much different than what I got used to in the States (10 LONG years ago), there is no consistency. We have 4 units this semester and we just finished up unit 2 in one week. Unit 2 covered literature, lectures and discussion on the "processes" of Higher Education which included: teaching & learning, curriculum, discipline classification and accreditation. Did you know that Europe just started accreditating Universities in the last 5 years? The U.S. has been doing it for over 50 years. The U.S. tends to be the model in many areas within Higher Education. But watch out, the EU is not too far behind, the European Commission on Higher Education came together in 2000 and developed initiatives with the intention of becoming the world leader in Higher Education by 2010. Not too sure that is going to happen, but some pretty cool and innovative initiatives (like this scholarship-Erasmus Mundus.) grew out of it.

Needless to say, I was more than ready for Friday (today)! So, this morning I had a class and then went to the Doctors office to get a prescription refill (that will be a whole different entry in my blog.) Then, I headed down to the pier, aker brygge which is just beautiful on a sunny fall afternoon. I sat on a bench down by the old (early 1900's) sail boats and ate a chicken tandoori sandwich while the seagulls befriended me and waited patiently for some bread. After some shopping at the aker brygge mall, I walked over to the Akershus Fortress, across the pier. I found a bench in the sun and unzipped the backpack and pulled out (yes!) my literature for Unit 3. Woo...I'm trying to stay ahead of the reading! And to be quite honest, I am thoroughly enjoying the material (some of my classmates think I'm crazy). It is SO interesting to me! I guess that means I chose the right program.