After hiking through the Norwegian mountains for most of the day, through fog, rain, and endless mud, a little red wooden building appeared on the horizon just when I had begun to wonder if it ever would. Inside, wet jackets hung from every available hook, boots crowded the entryway, and strangers sat around a table eating dinner together. I had never met any of them before. Yet within a few minutes, someone made room for me at the table, and the tiny cabin began to feel like home.
Hi! My name is Claudia, and I am a Master of Architecture student at the University of Washington, entering my third and final year. This summer, I came to Norway through the Valle Scholarship and Scandinavian Exchange Program and UW Study Abroad. I arrived with a research project focused on the Norwegian hytte, or cabin, and plans to spend the summer traveling, hiking, photographing, and learning as much as I could about Norwegian architecture and culture.
But I was also coming to Norway for a more personal reason. I have Norwegian roots, and relatives who live there, so the country has always existed in my life as something I knew about from a distance. This summer gave me the opportunity to experience it firsthand. I wanted to understand not only the architecture, but also the landscapes, traditions, everyday routines, and culture that I had heard about through my family. In many ways, studying abroad became a way of getting to know a part of my own background.
Learning to Live Somewhere New
Unlike a traditional study abroad program, much of my summer was independent. The Valle Exchange Program gave me the opportunity to develop my own research project and travel throughout Norway, but that freedom also meant I had to figure out how to build a life and schedule around it. The first few days were overwhelming. I was learning a new transit system, navigating grocery stores in Scandinavia, trying to understand unfamiliar social norms, and figuring out how I was going to spend the next few months solo traveling across Norway. Coming from Seattle, I expected Norway to feel familiar. There were mountains, rain, hiking, and people who seemed to share my love of the outdoors. But the similarities almost made the differences more noticeable.
I was subletting a room in central Oslo from some students around my age. My roommates helped me navigate the parts of everyday life that aren’t covered in a study-abroad orientation. They introduced me to places I would never have found on my own and helped Oslo feel less like a city I was visiting and more like somewhere I was living. I joined a run club and a hiking group. I found community through the activities I loved, outside of my research and outside of the UW community. I also learned to explore without needing a destination. My first few days, I rode public transportation simply to get used to it. I wandered through neighborhoods. I tried new foods at grocery stores. And I asked people around me questions when I was confused even if I thought the questions were simple or silly. Eventually, the streets started making sense. I knew which train to take. I found comfort in the brown cheese and Smash candy at the grocery store. The unfamiliar slowly became my new normal.
A Classroom in the Mountains
My classroom that summer looked a little different than some study abroad programs. Sometimes it was a museum or library in Oslo. Sometimes it was a train window. Sometimes it was a muddy trail leading into the mountains. Over the course of the summer, I traveled across Norway as part of my research on the country’s public cabin system. I visited remote mountain huts and contemporary interpretations of the traditional Hytte (cabins) that had welcomed hikers for generations. After spending hours hiking through the mountains, arriving at a cabin felt completely different than looking at one online or in a photograph. You noticed the wood stove because you were cold. You appreciated the communal table because you were hungry. You noticed the drying room because your clothes were soaked. Architecture became something I experienced with my whole body rather than something I studied from a drawing.
Finding Community Along the Way
One of the biggest surprises of my summer was how often I found community in places where I expected to be alone while solo travelling. At a cabin, you might arrive after hiking for hours and find yourself sitting around a table with people you’ve never met. You share dinner, compare hiking routes, play cards, or simply sit together. I began noticing how many of the things that made these places special were small acts of care. Someone cleaning a floor they didn’t dirty. Someone carrying in buckets of fresh water from the river. Someone making space at a crowded table. These experiences changed how I thought about studying abroad. I had expected the most meaningful parts of my summer to come from the buildings or museums I visited. To my surprise, many came from the people I met along the way.
Learning to Slow Down
For my research project I decided I would document these cabins through analog photography. With only a limited number of exposures on a roll, I had to slow down and decide what was worth photographing. I couldn’t immediately see whether I had captured the image I wanted. That changed how I experienced Norway. I began noticing the things that were easy to overlook: wet boots by the door, morning light across a wooden floor, handwritten notes in a hyttebok (the cabin log book), or clothes drying beside a stove. I also began to understand friluftsliv, the Norwegian idea of an open-air life. Being outdoors isn’t simply a weekend activity or an escape from everyday life. It is woven into everyday routines. Hiking, running, skiing, sitting outside, and spending time in nature are simply ways of living. Even Norway’s most recognizable snack seemed to participate in this culture. There is, quite literally, a chocolate made for hiking: Kvikk Lunsj. It appears in backpacks, at trailheads, and beside coffee cups in cabins. Norway taught me that you don’t always need to fill your time. Sometimes it is enough to walk, look, sit, and be present in the environment, and maybe share a Kvikk Lunsj.
Finding Home Away from Home
When I arrived in Norway, I thought I was going to study cabins. Instead, I learned how to live somewhere new. I learned that settling into another country doesn’t happen all at once. You build familiarity through small routines. You find people. You learn useful phrases of the language, you find your favorite new foods. You ask questions. And eventually, without really noticing it, you stop feeling like a visitor. My connection to Norway also became more meaningful throughout the summer. Spending time with relatives, learning more about where my family came from, and experiencing the country for myself made Norway feel less like a distant part of my heritage and more like a place I knew.
The Valle Scholarship gave me the opportunity to pursue a research project that I could not have experienced from a classroom. But studying abroad gave me something I didn’t know I needed: the chance to become comfortable being uncomfortable. If you are considering studying abroad, you don’t need to have everything figured out before you go. Let yourself be new at things. Ask questions. Explore. Find your people. Stay connected to home. Give yourself time. Eventually, the place you once arrived in as a stranger begins to feel a little like home.