What happened in Oslo

As many of you already know, there has been a bombing in downtown Oslo. I happened to be near the incident, so I'll share what I experienced. I am still processing what happened.

A friend and I went downtown for a cup of coffee with the communications adviser for the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights. He spent 10 years in the media in Oslo before he switched to a public relations role. I asked him many questions about the media here and what his role is like at the center.

In the midst of our conversation, we heard a loud bang. The windows next to our table shook as though they were about to shatter. My left ear, which was right next to the window, started to ring. We were uncertain about what caused the sound. At first we thought it might have been a demolition with explosives. People in the coffee shop stepped out into the street to see what was happening. They were speaking in hurried Norwegian, but I couldn't understand what they were saying.

Haavard, our host, checked his smartphone for more information. No one had posted anything, so we carried on with our conversation. Then I looked out the window and saw hundreds of people running. Many of them were on their cell phones. Others looked like they couldn't possibly run far enough away. One woman covered her face as though she was in shock. This was the point that we knew something bad had just happened.

We decided to end the formal discussion then and there. Curious media people as we were, we walked the 2 blocks to the site of the incident. There was shattered glass all over the sidewalks. Many of the stores were damaged.

We walked up to the police line. A haze of smoke filled the air. I can't imagine what kind of carcinogens I breathed in. Just as we were taking in all the wreckage left over from the explosions, a police officer moved the police line another 50 meters away from the scene. He seemed to be in quite a hurry.

Thato and I bid farewell to Haavard and made our way back to the subway station. Along the way, we started to unravel what just happened. If we had been at a cafe just down the street, we could have had glass shards in our skin. I am so glad we tried to stay relatively close to the national theater station.

A Norwegian man stopped us on our way back. He asked if we were tourists, and I told him we were. He was concerned that we hadn't heard about what happened, so he told us that there was an explosion and that they didn't know what caused it. Even though we already knew what happened, I felt a little bit of comfort through his concern.

When I got back to campus, most people had heard what happened. To many of the students here, bombings are a normal occurrence. They were not that concerned about it because the didn't know anyone who was hurt or killed, and they personally felt safe. Others were glued to their computers.

My Balkans friends tried to tell me to calm down and relax since I am safe now, but it has not been so easy to just let it go. This is the first bombing I've ever experienced. I've been to places where one could expect a bombing. Kosovo is still considered a conflict zone, and South Africa has had some riots and and crime in the last few years. Here, in the "peace nation," I let my guard down. Things are going to change for Norway. We can be certain about that.