Always on the Move

         As you all know, I've been absolutely living it up in my double room all to myself. It's been great! I pushed the two beds together, completely filled both closets, and really made it feel like home. However, what's life without change? 

        I went out the other night with some friends, and two girls were talking about their rooming situations. Essentially, one of them had a single room, and the other had been crashing on the floor because she couldn't stand her roommate/dorm-mates downstairs. They had decided they wanted to be roommates, but there were no more double rooms available. 

        I think I need to explain the dorms, but it's kind of confusing, so bear with me. The dorms are divided into 6 sections, two on each floor--basically there's a really long hallway with doors in the middle dividing the sections. (Each 'hallway group' is in charge of cleaning their own dorm kitchen, living room, hallway and stairs each week. The groups all have names--random Norwegian words--and they host 'bogruppekveld' (living group evening) events every couple of Thursdays for the whole school to attend). While there's 15 or so people living in the same main hallway, there are also smaller dorm groups of two or three rooms that share a bathroom and shower. This is a picture of my old dorm-group area. The rooms are to the left, that white door is the shower, and the big door to the right leads to the main hallway.

        The girl with the single room was living right down the hall from me--still in my hallway, but not my dorm-group--and when I mentioned having the double to myself, we started talking about swapping rooms. In the end, we decided that I would move into the single room, and they would move into my double, but all of our payment schedules would remain the same. It seemed perfect! They got to be roommates, and I got out of my rather loud dorm-group, plus, now I wouldn't have to worry about the school randomly assigning me a roommate, should someone get sick of theirs. 

        During cleaning hour on Monday we moved! They brought all of their stuff over as I quickly packed, and my friends helped me bring everything to my new room (in Sofia's dorm group!). When we were just about finished, there was some whispering and chattering outside, and we were told that a different girl had decided to leave the school. 

        More people have left this year than usual, mostly because when they signed up they hadn't anticipated the virus, and now they can't travel or do any of the normal activities they had come for. Meanwhile, I'm having a great time--living abroad and experiencing something new every day--and this year has been perfect for me. 

        The girl that decided to leave had left behind an empty double room, so now the question came up of who would take it. I had already moved and was pretty happy with the security of a single room, but one of my good friends, Elise, lived all the way downstairs in one of the noisiest groups of the school. She had spent the whole year looking for a new place to live, so I thought it would be perfect if she took the single room. That way she could be out of the dungeon, away from the noise, and right near us!

        We talked it over with the teachers and the Dorm Leader, and it was decided we would move on Wednesday. I spent two nights in my little 'hotel room' without unpacking anything I didn't immediately need. On Wednesday, a team of us cleaned the empty double, moved my stuff, cleaned the single, and moved Elise upstairs. Thursday evening I finally finished putting everything away, and now I'm back to my old double room life. The only thing is, I'm in the next section down, so I have a whole new group of people that I'll be cleaning and organizing evenings with! It's been a crazy couple of weeks, but I think everybody is happy about the way it worked out.