Day 1: Arrival, Vigeland Sculpture Park, and a visit to a local grocery store

Other than having feelings of exhaustion and a little jet lag from the 6-hour time difference and lengthy airplane ride, I can say we have made it safely to our final destination in Oslo, Norway. We all got great rest last night and are ready to embark on our adventure!

Yesterday was a day dedicated to figuring things out. Figuring out how the bus transportation works, getting our groceries for the week, and getting the chance to meet a few of the LDUC nursing students that we will be working with over the next couple of weeks. We spent the afternoon going to the Vigeland sculpture park and split up into small groups, with each group having a LDUC student as our guide.

Being here for such a short amount of time, I have already seen the ways in which the public health competency 1B11 to, “Identify the assets and resources that can be used for improving the health of a community” is being achieved (The Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice, 2014). One example of this was visiting the Vigeland Sculpture Park. This park encompasses Gustav Vigeland’s life work, with around 200 sculptures in total that reflect the diversity of human experiences and relationships across the lifespan. Initially, I was surprised at how expansive the park was, and could not even think of a single park in our community at home that could compare. Something we noticed was how much green space there was beyond the sculptures. We saw lots of tourists walking along the sculpture walkway as well as many locals walking, biking, and playing games on the green space that expanded for what seemed like miles on either side of the sculptures. It was clear the space was vital to the health and wellbeing of visitors and locals alike by encouraging physical activity, social interaction, and getting people to spend a lot of time outdoors.

 

Photo from Vigeland Sculpture park that depicts a taste of how expansive the park was and amount of green spaces.

 

Since we have arrived, it has been evident that Oslo embodies the sustainable development goal number 11 for sustainable cities and communities (United Nations). They achieve this in several ways, but what has been most prominent in the last 24 hours is the number of people who walk, bike, and use the public transportation systems provided rather than using cars. Beyond this, they really encourage the use of electric cars rather than traditional cars by giving tax exemptions and parking privileges to those who have electric cars. From talking to the students, it seems parking and driving in the city is very challenging, so it does not even make sense for people who live here to use cars as their main way of transportation. For those who do drive in the city, they have created tunnels that direct cars away from places that have a lot of pedestrian traffic, making the city even more walkable. It is not unusual to see streets through the city center with filled lots of people walking through rather than cars. By having these resources in place, they are able to have less air pollution from car exhaust. We have all been joking that the air seems so much cleaner here, but I believe there is a lot of truth to that. The transportation system seems to be directly influencing the environment in a positive way.

An example of an alternative transportation to driving cars in Oslo, the streetcar.

 

A street near the city center – it was interesting to see only people walking in the streets and no cars.

 

Another, more modern, mode of transportation in Oslo – motorized scooters.

 

We also had the opportunity to visit a small grocery store near our hotel. At the store, you needed to purchase plastic bags. I thought this was a great incentive to bring in your own bags and contribute to less plastic waste, as the current way our society uses plastic is not sustainable. It will be interesting to observe the other ways Oslo strives for the sustainable cities and communities SDG in the coming weeks.

 

 

Sources:
United Nations (n.d.). Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/cities/

The Council on Linkages between Academia and Public Health Practice (2014, June 26). Core competencies for public health professionals. Retrieved from http://www.phf.org/resourcestools/Documents/Core_Competencies_for_Public_Health_Professionals_2014June.pdf

Day Zero: Oslo, Norway bound and being a good (global) citizen

I am passionate about travel because it has had a large impact on the person I am today. So far, I have had the privilege of traveling to 6 different countries: Italy (2007), Costa Rica (2011), Peru (2014), Germany (2016), Haiti (2017), and Iceland (2017). In just a couple of weeks, I will be embarking on a new adventure as I travel to Oslo, Norway with my fellow nursing classmates. Traveling in the past has encouraged me to be more conscious of how I can be a better global citizen. Becoming a “good” global citizen is an aspect of myself that is ever-evolving, requiring self-awareness and openness to change.

With each of my experiences abroad I feel more and more confident in my ability to shed the “ugly American” sentiment that harms global relationships and adopt a more thoughtful way of traveling. Reflecting back on my previous trips, I can see how I have grown from being oblivious to what terms like cultural humility even mean to now being able to live out the principles practically. At first, adopting this new attitude and way of thinking towards traveling felt uncomfortable. Going to Peru for a service-learning trip was the first time I began aligning my new thinking with my actions. In Peru, I learned that being open, flexible and having a positive attitude when traveling to another country makes all the difference. One example of this that stuck out to me during my experience in Peru was seeing that most people in the town we were staying in did not own any clocks. As a result, I experienced time very differently in the two weeks I was there, learned a great deal of patience, and the importance of slowing down. If I had the attitude of an “ugly American” going into that trip, I would have been very frustrated with the differences between the USA and Peru rather than celebrating those differences. We limit ourselves and the ability of our experience to transform us when we travel as “ugly Americans.”

As someone who is passionate about global health and learning about cultures different than my own, I was eager to apply for the nursing experience in Oslo, Norway when the opportunity was presented to me. I am also drawn to their unique health care system and desire to learn more about how they care for their aging population as a future Adult-Geriatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner (AGPCNP). Through this course I will be able to further develop my communication skills interacting with others from different cultures, which will translate well into my future practice as an AGPCNP where being able to interact with diverse populations is crucial to delivering quality patient care to all of my patients who will come from many different backgrounds. I hope to gain new perspectives on delivering health care that I could potentially implement into my future practice.

When in Norway, I will share my flexible, go-with-the-flow attitude I have gained from traveling to other places with my fellow classmates to help foster a mindset that is open to changes in the schedule that often naturally occur when traveling abroad. I will also strive to fully engage in the experience to contribute to the enrichment of the course. I look forward to making more memories in Norway and embody what it means to be a good global citizen!

 

Some of my favorite memories from previous trips: