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@work in Norway: Exploring Norwegian History

Twenty-three young Europeans from 12 countries met in Oslo for the Eustory History Camp “National Constitutions and European Democracies in Times of Crisis”. Read here from their daily blog.

Day 4: Exploring Norwegian History, From the Vikings to the First Constitution

Posing with the ‘Fathers of the Norwegian Constitution’

Posing with the ‘Fathers of the Norwegian Constitution’

Have you ever seen zombies? If not, take a group of people that were dancing all night long and make them go to breakfast at 7 a.m. That would be the perfect definition of what happened today. Somehow we managed to be at the bus station by 8 a.m. to visit Eidsvoll, a historical place you can’t miss studying the Norwegian constitution. After having long talks about our European constitutions it was now time to discover the Norwegian one in practice. Before having the guided tour we couldn’t resist taking pictures with the real-size participants of the assembly in Eidsvoll and we basically transformed ourselves into 1814. To make the pictures more interesting we took them according to our nationalities.

A Day of Education and Fun

The guided tour started with us having to put funny socks on in order not to ruin the floor. Even the staff of Eidsvoll House had to wear gloves before even touching anything at the mansion. Actually, we have to be precise: even though the owner of the Eidsvoll House was the richest man in Norway the house can still be considered as modest compared to other noble men at that time, something that illustrates again, that Norway was quite a poor country back then. We were really impressed by the symmetry of the construction inside the house.

Barbecue Team

Barbecue Team

The architect used wood for columns but made it look like marble, something the owner of the house couldn’t afford. After an educational morning we decided to have some fun and went to a beach to have a barbecue.

Our three Italians: Leonardo, Pietro and Giulia were in charge of cooking with their Israeli assistant Shir. As a dessert we made ourselves some smores. For those of you who are not familiar with that was this fabulous dessert. Smores are sandwiches made of cookies and hot marshmallows you should try it yourselves. We also visited the Vikingship Museum. Some members of our group liked it and some of them said that it’s not their kind of thing.

Yet another group picture

Bloggers Petra (Slovakia), Dorin (Israel) and Tancia (Germay) in Eidsvoll

Bloggers Petra (Slovakia), Dorin (Israel) and Tancia (Germay) in Eidsvoll

Bloggers Petra (Slovakia), Dorin (Israel) and Tancia (Germay) in Eidsvoll

But we had some time to make nice pictures and observe the large Viking ships. Later at the hotel we split up to groups and after discussions among ourselves we presented 5 questions/dilemmas of democracy and the role of media in front of everyone. Afterwards we started preparing material for the online magazine and the debate continued. And who knows..maybe we will have another dance session into the night..