Please Note that this post contains some spoilers for those who haven't watched the first, four seasons of the HBO Series Game of Thrones. In fact if you're not familiar with/a fan of the show and/or George R.R. Martin's book series "A Song of Ice and Fire", you should probably skip this entry.
I'm obsessed with it and was pretty pumped when it was announced that the traveling exhibit for the show was making a stop here in Oslo. The news of the stop over in Norway was, in and of itself, big news. All throughout the world, the exhibit, containing actual clothing, props, and other pieces from the show, was only hitting eight locations. Oslo was only one of two in Europe (the other, oddly, was Belfast).
So yeah, big deal for Norway.
And, with the showcase running for five days, I decided to make the trek on Day 2 to see the behind-the-scenes of my current, favorite TV show (nothing will ever top The Wire).
I didn't make it in.
The doors opened at 10 and closed for the day at 8. By 3, the line, which on the first day stretched for numerous, city blocks, had been cut-off for new entrants.
Failed.
Fortunately, the next day was Monday and since I had nothing better to do, I tried my luck again.
It wasn't easy.
The expo was held at the old, Post Office headquarters of Oslo (conveniently named "PostHallen") and the line I found at my 10:20 arrival wrapped around the block. Despite the spaciousness of the hall, it wasn't nearly large enough to safely hold the amount of people (early estimates put the first two days at over 50,000 visitors). As a result, security and staff kept a strict tab on people entering and keeping the rest of us waiting.
And so we waited.
The above picture was taken twenty minutes after my arrival to the queue marking the point when I was able to just make out the entrance. You can't see it from this picture, but it's up there.
It was two hours and twenty minutes away, to be exact.
But it was worth it.
And with that, I was loosed on a 30 minute odyssey to the magical land of Westeros. I saw some of my old "friends" (RIP Rob Stark), sang along to "Rains of Castamere" as it was piped in with a real organ, and got to relive all the magical moments throughout the course of the show (there was even an interactive section that included this headgear and headphones that simulated the experience of climbing the wall at Castle Black).
This seems like a good time to explain how the Norwegian system is different (note: I didn't say better... but I, also, didn't say worse).
Norway is a democratic representative constitutional monarchy. But that's a lot to say. I just like to refer to it as a Social Democracy. No. Not in the way that North Korea or Congo are social democracies, but in the way that produces low unemployment, equal opportunity, and causes people to write articles like this.
There's more, but they're not going to factor in much...
Norway, also, has the same three, branches of government: Judicial, Executive, and Legislative (In the interest of being, well, interesting... I'm going to skip over the Judicial branch as it doesn't differ enough to warrant covering, save for the King, not the President/Prime Minister, having the ultimate "Get out of Jail Free" card)
Here's where things get a little word-y. Stay with me.
That's what a King is supposed to look like
The Executive branch consists of a (mostly... remember his criminal absolution powers) King and his council of state. Since I keep talking about him, I should probably mention him by name. King Harald V is the Norwegian telling you to watch the throne. He's cool, but his father, Olav V, was a straight G.
Anyway, King Harald V has his council of state (or referred to as King's Council) which consists of the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Council (really, the King is just co-opting the Prime Minister's council). The Prime Minister is appointed by King Harald V (or whoever is the reigning monarch) is like the electoral college in the United States. He awards the post to whomever is the leader of the party that wins the elections, holds the largest majority in the legislative branch (congress).
To determine the largest majority, Norwegians go to the polls. Just like in America, there are national elections every four years here. In fact, it happened this past month. Changes were made.
Can I just say how silly I think it is that Norwegians still use paper ballots... They're not voting for Homecoming King and Queen
For the previous eight years, the leading party had been the Arbeiderpartiet (Labor Party). However, in an effort to dethrone their socially and fiscally-liberal opponents, the Høyre (Conservative) and Fremskrittspartiet (Progressive) parties joined forces. In Norwegian politics, two parties can form a "coalition" and, in essence, they join forces (like a Portuguese Man-of-War) to gain more power in the political spectrum.
That's exactly what happened.
While the Labor Party maintained an overall advantage in the congress with 55 seats (garnered by gaining 30.8% of the vote), they lost nine seats (as they had 35.4% of the vote last election). Those seats went to the Conservative party, who saw a gain of almost 10% (17.2 to 26.8%). The Conservatives didn't bring much help as they lost twelve seats and six percentage points (22.9 to 16.3%).
Why the change? It has little to do with the economy as Norway is humming along. It was a variety of issues but, from my outsider viewpoint, it seemed to be a sense of fatigue. The Labor Party had been running the show for eight years and people were ready for a change. However, a change for changes' sake can be dangerous, especially when the party is talking about a "restoration of public trust" and "maximizing wealth for all it's citizens". I know from personal experience.
Now. I know what you're thinking. Would this be like the Republicans and Tea Party beating the Democrats in America? Not exactly. While most Norwegians will be quick to note that all of their political parties would be "Democrats" in America, I think that isn't entirely the case as some parties have radically different views from one another (most notably Progressive and Conservative with regards to oil exploration, both are "drill, baby, drill!" and immigration, best not to bring this up, would definitely raise some eyebrows in the donkey party).
Regardless, there will be a change (I'm not just talking about the appointing of the second, female Prime Minister in the Conservative Party's Erna Solberg).
Ariel/immigrants are in trouble!
I guess I should probably run down the other parties...
The Conservative/Progressive coalition can't do it all on their own. While they'll be the ones running the various ministries, they will be joined by two, non-socialist parties, Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian Democratic Party... Norway has a State Church who the King is upheld with protecting) and Venstre (Central Liberalism) in order to get majority votes on various bills/issues in the congress.
Additionally, there's a lot of other parties that have little to no parliament representation that, again, I'll skip over.
Will much change?
Hard to say. While the Conservative/Progressive have a lot of big ideas, the losses suffered by the Progressives in the elections will ensure that they'll need to compromise in order to get things accomplished. Before the handover of power, outgoing Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, in addition to driving a taxi, issued one of Norway's many debt-cancellations (Norway loves to forgive debt). The sovereign wealth fund is a good problem to have, yet still a problem.
Though, despite how things go, it will not end in a government shutdown. Norwegians, while passionate, determined, and, at times, stubborn, have a general sense of community and the common good over one's own self. Regardless of your ideas of how to best help your countrymen, its understood here that you have to actually listen and compromise to help anyone.
It is one of the ways where American individualism is detrimental (and one of the ways where Jante Law is beneficial).
That was the temperature when I woke up this morning.
Almost in disbelief, I went outside in jeans and my summer coat (that's a funny thing, before I came to Norway. I had three coats. One I wore in fall, one I wore when it was winter, and another I wore in both months when I was wearing something sorta fancy... Now, I have eight coats) and was quickly re-buffed.
It was, indeed, cold outside.
(I realize "cold" is relative, but, when you're anticipating low-teens Celsius/mid-50s Fahrenheit, getting smacked in the mouth with something quite lower than that registers as cold)
Fortunately for me, I had (at the behest of the lady) swapped out my summer clothes.
The week prior, I had carried up the winter clothes, in their dormant boxes tucked away in the back of the unit in the basement, to the apartment. Then, solemnly, I folded and sorted which summery things I still dreamed of wearing between now and when the sun's warmth returned from those which I could go without (this seasonal change is the saddest I feel for inanimate objects... Sorry, threadless.com t-shirt. I just don't have space for you. I don't like you any less... It just won't be that warm and... you'll understand when you're older?). The unchosen were placed in the spot formerly reserved for the winter clothes, which, in turn, replaced the summery clothes spots in my drawers and closet, and then, I returned the boxes to their sub-terrain storage.
Please Note that this post contains some spoilers for those who haven't watched the first, four seasons of the HBO Series Game of Thrones. In fact if you're not familiar with/a fan of the show and/or George R.R. Martin's book series "A Song of Ice and Fire", you should probably skip this entry.
