No moon over Liseberg

Yesterday we continued our tradition of meeting up with people we haven’t seen in 20 years (remember my Spanish sister and LisafromAfrica?). When Jon was a teenager, his family hosted an exchange student from Norway for a year.  Although Jon’s parents have stayed in touch with the family, Jon and Eirik haven’t maintained their relationship (sound familiar??) until now. Eirik, his wife Janne, and their children Philippa and Sina drove from Oslo to Gothenburg yesterday and we spent the day with them at Liseberg amusement park. You might remember Sara’s wardrobe malfunction during our previous visit to Liseberg – if not, you can check that out here. This time we were much better behaved, and had lots of time to catch up with Eirik and see what he’s been doing since high school. He’s done quite well for himself, with a smart and funny wife, 2 gorgeous girls, a job he loves as Assistant Editor-In-Chief of a newspaper’s online division, and a new house in Oslo 3 minutes away from his parents and in-laws. Not bad. We like to think that his time in Orion with Jon’s family set him up for such success, but I guess his own parents had something to do it with it too. Probably. They must have. We’ve been so lucky to have rekindled these relationships, and are looking forward to spending more time with Eirik and his family in the future.

 

A 5 year old’s perspective on home exchanging…

Sam wanted to write a guest blog for me, so I sat down and asked him a few questions about home exchanging. Ever try to get a 5 year old to write an essay?

What’s the best part about home exchanging? The house and the car.

What place was your favorite? Holland, because of the chicken pen, because I could walk in it and get the chicken out.

Did you ever get the chicken out? Oh, it just walks out.

Did you ever touch the chicken? Yes!

Was it yucky? No, it wasn’t yucky, it was friendly. The chicken just ran out of its cage whenever I came up to it.

Do you remember some of the famous places we’ve visited?  Um, the car and plane museum.

How about in France? Well, the Eiffel Tower. Oh and that restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, it was in the leg.

Which place had the best weather? Holland and Sweden because they were warm.

Tell me about Norway. Norway was the best place because I could go into the igloo.

The igloo? The one in the circle, the roundabout. I know it doesn’t have a sign. I could fall down in the snow.

Was it always snowing in Norway? Yes, but not always.

What did you do in Norway when it wasn’t snowing? I just hanged around. You know about the net? It was the coolest because I could slide down.

Did you ever take a train? Yes!

Where did you go on the train? To the Olympics.

Do you mean Lillehammer? Uh huh. We went down the hill. In a snow mobile.

You mean a sled? Yes, I had brakes and I fell out a few times but it didn’t hurt me.

Were you scared? Yes.

Do you remember any of the pets you took care of? Jet, the cat, he was fun and playful.

Any others? Mira, the cat. I’m going to sing a song. Cat Scratch, catty cat, cat scratch, cat scratch. Boom!

So you can’t remember too much about Norway anymore? Well we builded a dam, I needed to get some huge rocks. I had an idea but we couldn’t use mine idea. We had to have a bungee cord to hook up on the logs, and then we’d hook it and we would sail out. We would put it on the other side of the dam and we would sail out to that area.

Wow! Where would we go? To the sea. We would have food.

Did anyone visit you during your home exchange? Yes, Roland. And Kerstin. Max the dog. Martin and Tina. Auntie and Allie and Uncle John, and Lisa.

Did anyone visit Sara? Grace.

Did anyone visit us in Holland? Grandma.

Do you like doing home exchanges? Yes.

What’s the best part? The Legos.

News from Norway

So we’ve stayed in touch with our exchange partners from Norway (click here for some back story), as the guys really developed a good friendship while we were exchanging. Sounds strange, but they chatted just about every day and found a mutual interest in cultural observations. Anyway, last night Jon got a message from him. Apparently there is a new house being built next to theirs, and the builders are blasting some rocks to clear the home site.  Their daughter had wanted to go outside to play, but her Dad said no, he hadn’t remembered hearing the all clear signal. All was definitely not clear. The builders set off a final blast that sent huge pieces of rock – boulders – into their yard and into the neighbors’ yards, missing their car by mere centimeters. Look:

Those big ass rocks that look like landscaping are actually the “debris” from the blast. Holy crap!

But wait a second…that’s not the car that we were using, the one with 468,000,000,000,000 kilometers on it, built in 1927 or thereabouts. That looks like our car that they were using at our house, the brand new 2009 we bought before our exchange.  Did they steal it???

Top 10 things I will miss about Norway…

10. Gas station lunch                                

9.  Candy by the kilogram

8.  Roundabouts

7.  Nestle instant Latte

6.  Mountains

5.  Ålesund center

4.  Emblem Skule

3.  Kids’ freedom

2.  This neighborhood

1.  Norwegians

Into the tunnel of hate?

Now that we’re wrapping up our Ålesund exchange, I realize that I haven’t posted anything about the tunnel from hell. By now you know that there are tunnels all over the place - it makes sense to drive through the mountains rather than around them. So when Tourist Bureau Lady suggested we visit the islands of Giske and Valderøy, we were excited for a close up view of the land we’d been seeing each time we visited downtown.  The trip started off nicely, we ended up finding a beautiful church in the countryside, and then went up a winding road where we saw a great view of the water and mountains in the background. Let’s keep going!  We’d already gone through one tunnel that was quite long (even Jon was starting to get edgy), but what the hell, we are here to see the sights, right?

The next tunnel was a disaster.  It went on and on, until it was just ridiculously too long, and then just kept on going. Sam started to freak out because Sara kept asking if we are really under the ocean, and what would happen if the tunnel collapsed. Are we really driving on the bottom of the ocean?  It was dark in there, and every once in a while Jon would make a slightly pained expression and tighten his hands on the steering wheel.  I don’t like this tunnel, he would tell me, as a random car would come barreling past us from the other direction. It was endless. And it was underwater. Eventually we made it through unscathed, but it was bittersweet: we knew that we had to go back into the tunnel to get home. Swimming miles across a frigid fjord never looked so appealing.

 

Oh, and just so you don’t think I’m exaggerating (why I never!), here is a photo I took from the Ålesund observatory:

And here is a brochure image showing the tunnel so that you believe me!!

Just when it couldn’t get any better…

Our neighbor Per just came by and rang our bell.  Seems he has season tickets for himself and one of his kids to the Ålesund fotball stadium, and he’s busy tonight, so guess who gets the tickets? Yes! Jon and Sam are heading out in about an hour to watch our local soccer team kick some serious ass.  Jon is going to wear his Ålesund sweatshirt that we got him for his birthday, and Sara and I are going to have a girls’ night of watching movies. Go, Ålesund!

3 more days…

I just got a lovely note from our exchangers in the Netherlands. They are gracious enough to start our exchange a few days earlier that previously agreed upon so that we can go straight to their place after leaving our house in Norway. They sent us information about their home and after reading the specifics we are even more excited to get there and to see what it’s like in Gapinge. The cool part is that they are going to be blogging about their trip and will share their stories and photos with us – our Norwegian exchangers sent a few pictures but not many, and we’re curious! Anyway, we’re eager to learn what there is in Holland besides tulips and windmills. Stay tuned!

image: emmerspaperarts.com

It’s a little known fact…

Originally the Hurtigruten cruise from Bergen to Kirkenes, at the Russian border, was the postal route. Not a postal route, but the postal route. During the 1800s, this was the only way to transport mail to the outlying towns along this coastal route. Hurtigruten ships still display the Norwegian postal flag by special permission, and today they transport vehicles, cargo, and the occasional piece of mail along with their rugged passengers.

Crashing a Norwegian cruise ship?

Tomorrow we are planning on taking a coastal cruise from Ålesund to Geiranger to see the famous Geirangerfjord, and the Brudesloret, Friaren, and Seven Sisters waterfalls.  The town of Geiranger, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is one of the most visited sights in all of Norway, and we’ll be sailing on Norway’s own Hurtigruten cruise line. 

Although the majority of the sightseeing excursions operate in the summer months only, we were lucky to learn about this round trip journey (starting tomorrow!!) from the tourist information office in downtown Ålesund. The ship leaves Ålesund at 9:30 and sails to Geiranger and back for a full day aboard the MS Polarlys. We’ve been lucky enough to go aboard two other Hurtigruten ships when they were docked in Ålesund harbor, and unlike the cruise ships we’ve been on in the Bahamas or the Caribbean, these ships allow guests to visit during their time at port. We’ll actually be joining a 7 day cruise already in progress, Bergen to Kirkenes.  On day 2 of this cruise the ship arrives in Ålesund and regular customers can go ashore or stay on board for the trip to Geirangerfjord. We’re not going to have a cabin or anything, but we chose a day with the best forecast and we hope to find a couple of comfy outdoor chairs.  Cross your fingers for a sunny day with not much wind – we’ll post pictures when we get back.

 photo 1: elegantvoyages.net, photo2: hurtigruten.com

Rocking the good weather…

Since we only have one week left here in Ålesund, we are maximizing our time outdoors by the water.

Games people play…

One of the best parts about home exchanging is learning about the new culture. Today we found the neighbors outside playing their favorite lawn game, Kubb. Apparently it’s an old Viking game, and Sara learned how to play at Swedish camp past summer. There are 2 teams, and the basic idea is that teams take turns trying to knock down the other team’s blocks, and eventually knocking down the king.  It’s similar to Italian Bocce, French Pétanque, and Larry Carroll’s famous Washers game.  Larry is definitely on to something. There is already a Midwest Kubb club in Wisconsin – no telling how long it will be until the Midwest Washers Club incorporates and hits the game circuit. Anyway, the neighbors were gracious enough to let Jon and Sam play for the men. Check it out:

You can read how to play Kubb here, in case you want to buy it from Old Time Games or make your own set.  I know we’ll be playing this at home for a long time.

...and it made all the difference.

click me, I'm hilarious!

It was a balmy 52 degrees this afternoon so we set out on our daily walk with ambitious goals. Jon had found a trail that led up the mountain behind our neighborhood and we decided to hike to the top to see what was up there. We passed a horse farm with a handful of old, dilapidated houses and I resisted the urge to photograph one of the houses and pretend it was our next exchange house. Dumb joke, but it always makes me laugh. Once we were about halfway up the mountain, there was an information stand with a thatched roof and a sign indicating that fishing from Lake Blahblahblah is available but you need to have a license. There were forms to fill out, a pen, and a drop box for the money. You wouldn't see that back home without a security camera and at least one or two guys manning the stand, supervising. The views from the top were gorgeous, and we were able to find the general area of our house down in what looked like a valley, but we knew it wasn't.  Once we reached the top of the hiking path, we saw a sign directing us to some other place, 2.5 km ahead. We'd already gone 3 km, and decided to head home for lunch instead.  Just as we were turning around, Jon noticed a small bridge down in the woods. Bridge!!!  Surprisingly, Sara was all about checking out this bridge, and wanted us to take plenty of pictures - she was dressed in her indigenous garb, after all.  The rustic bridge was an unexpected surprise on the way back and, amazingly, nobody fell into the water.

On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese...

I don't think I stopped grinning for 2 hours, except for one tiny little incident.  After my trial run down the mountain when I understood why Helper Guy had reminded me more than a few times to use my brakes, I couldn't get enough. I flew down the mountain so fast that on the last few meters of the run I actually lifted off the ground. Yes, meters. We use the metric system here, do the math. I didn't lose the grin when Sara freaked out and decided she ABSOLUTELY REFUSED to ride up the lift, or when Sam joined me in my sled and the ride up was even bumpier with all the extra weight. Sara eventually agreed to try, and we didn't realize that she didn't know how to steer with one hand and brake with the other until she lost control of the toboggan and ended up flipped over in a snow bank.  Seems she couldn't hear me screaming Brake! Use the brake! with the wind whipping past her head at 60 kilometers per hour, and she veered off the path into a bank of snow on the side of the run and started to cry. She didn't know it, but just another few meters further and she would have gone right off the side of the mountain where the run circled around in a wide arc to the final descent. Oh, shit. My heart stopped for about an hour and didn't restart again until Jon and Sam came back down, knowing something was wrong when we never got to the bottom. Sara was scared but not hurt at all, and we left her sled there and Jon drove her down slowly and carefully to the bottom so she could watch us. When it was time to leave or pay for some more time, Sara bravely decided that she would try again with Jon driving to find out if she wanted to renew. Yay! My grin was even wider this time, as my amazing daughter and her Daddy spent an hour tobogganing together, starting slowly but then actually beating Sam and me to the finish line on our last run.  I loved it, really loved it, she said. Nope, this day sure didn't suck.

To see more about our tobogganing trip, check out Jon's blog.

No cheeseburger in paradise...

I am pretty well-travelled and have eaten all sorts of different food in my lifetime, and I just can't get myself to appreciate the Norwegian food. It is gloopy and bland, and God help you if you're vegan. As we were eating, well I was staring at the other people in awe but Jon and the kids were eating, we joked that there was almost nothing a vegan could eat, just some apple juice, cucumber, and tomato. Maybe the bread, hard to know. But for the rest of us, there was deli ham and a million kinds of salami, liver pate, sliced Norvegia cheese (like Swiss), blue cheese, and tubes upon tubes of spreads: caviar spread, ham cheese, bacon cheese. Yes, bacon cheese spread. Think tube of athlete's foot cream, but filled with something the texture of toothpaste and the smell of meat. Very odd. There were hard and soft boiled eggs and six thousand types of jelly in big tubs, spread on bread with the back of a giant communal spoon. A bowl with something that looked like a fancy spice rub for meat, white and black speckled sand, was labeled "cappucino." Okay, fine, I drink this, but mine is better. Mine is called Latte and it looks like something that I find in the bottom of my sandals after a walk on the beach. There were cucumber slices, tomato wedges, and 2 bowls of yogurt, melon and plain. Melon yogurt was clearly the more popular, they had a hard time keeping the bowl full.  Ick. There was muesli to top the yogurt, and corn flakes that you top with a thin flavored yogurt the consistency of milk. Oh, and orange wedges with the peel on, like you get in a bar drink from TGI Friday's and throw away. You know, they are stained red from a marascino cherry and come on a plastic fruit spear. Delicious. Oh, yeah, and some capers, but no fresh salmon. I think the capers go on the bread with the salmon roe cheese (the foot cream with kaviar written on it). There were also rubbery, cold scrambled eggs that I took one bite of and literally could not eat, despite the thoughtful touch of freeze dried chives. I had to spit them into my napkin, and I'm even used to institutional scrambled eggs. Jon and Sam had a bunch of little sausages that actually smelled delicious and reminded me of the kind the airlines used to serve with pancakes, back when airlines served breakfast. I loved those as a kid, truly adored them, but was afraid to ruin that memory. Instead I made new memories that will probably stick around just as long. Sorry, new Norwegian friends, I don't mean to be rude, but you guys aren't exactly known for your cuisine. Forgive me for agreeing. 

image: Sosia Bert

Lillehammering away...

This day sucks. Admittedly, it's hard to keep my spirits up when hearing this from Sara but after explaining that tobogganing does not involve going down a hill head first on your stomach, she started to ease up.  Seems she just didn't know what it was, she had it confused with some sort of backwards version of the luge. Don't you just love the way that word sounds? Luuuuuuge. Anyway, once we explained it to her she started to relax and we were able to get through dinner and get to bed early in preparation for the big day.

After the hotel's buffet breakfast the likes of which I'd never seen before (more on that later), we got dressed in our borrowed ski gear and headed up the mountain on foot to the Kanthaugen Freestyle Arena. We were all loaded up in silk long underwear, hats, scarves, layered jackets, and were missing the most important item: sunglasses.  Within minutes of walking uphill in the bright sunlight, I was blind from the snow's reflection and sweating my ass off. Sam couldn't take the sunlight and started freaking out, so I made him a turban with visor from my trusty scarf again. Yes, again. He peeled off all his clothes and was bitching and complaining, but I couldn't get mad because he had a turban on his little head with the end of the scarf folder over and sticking straight out out to shield his eyes. He looked ridiculous. We eventually made it up to the tobogganing area and got ourselves helmeted and ready to go. The guy was really friendly and I heard him ask another guy to explain to us in English how to connect to the tow bar. Listen, dude, if I can understand that much Norwegian, maybe you should just give it a go.  We were given the quick overview by Helper Guy and he even attached the tow bar for Sam and Jon's first ascent, and there they went. I got mine connected on the first try and started up the mountain after them, not realizing that it wasn't exactly going to be the easy breezy ride to the top that I'd been assuming. Tow lift? No walking up? Perfect! Well, not exactly. The toboggan is made of plastic, and for the first 25 percent of the ride up it banged my ass against the ground two or three thousand times per second as it rode over the uneven ground. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam! Just when the banging stopped and I thought I was home free, I almost fell right off the back and toppled backwards down the mountain, boots over brain. Oh, yeah, I am lithe as a cat.

I'm going to kill you, Lilly Smith!

Sara and Sam did a great job leading us to the Lillehammer train station, which included a train change in Dombås and of course the clue was Don't be a dumb ass, change trains here. Do you really think I could resist that? Everything was going great until they got the next clue, a map. Using this map, find your way to 24 Birkebeinervegan. Easy, yes? I thought a regular map might be too hard, so we used Google maps and drew the line that showed the best route. It was the easiest clue, or so I thought. Well, it turns out that Sara doesn't know how to read a map. Really? Is this actually possible that she doesn't know how to use a map? So the kids were sort of screwed now, since Sam can't read anything, and the pressure finally got to Sara and she had a bit of a meltdown. It didn't help that the directions were up an enormous hill covered in icy sidewalks. So Sara wasn't in a good state of mind, and she refused our help and instead headed back to the train station in quite a mood. At least she has the map, Jon said. Determined not to let one bad attitude ruin the adventure, we let her go back to cool off, and just when I wasn't able to take it anymore I saw her heading back up the hill. Fine, we can move on. So remember those icy, hilly sidewalks? Sam wanted his turn to complain, I guess, so he spent the rest of the walk whining about how he was sooooooooo tired from walking. Luckily, we were heading to a hotel (24 Birkebeinervegan is the address) so that the kids could rest their weary feet and attitudes, and Jon and I could lock ourselves in the bathroom.

The amazing kids

We're big fans of the TV show The Amazing Race and decided to create a weekend adventure for the kids based on the show. I wrote a bunch of clues modeled after the show, made arrangements for a weekend away, and told the kids that they would be leading the family to someplace cool just like on TV. Sam is up for anything so he instantly thought it would be fun, but Sara is more apprehensive of the unknown and told me it would suck. Well, we had a pretty cool adventure planned so I was quite sure the sucking would be minimal. Anyway, we set out early on Saturday morning and Sara figured out the first clue, a word scramble, in about two seconds. Not that impressive, except that the word was in Norwegian. The clue told them to go to the train station in Åndalsnes, about 100 km away, but that's all they knew until we got there. The next clue was a bit harder, but they could choose between a trivia question that I thought might be hard, or a pictogram that my mother thought was hard. Luckily they went with plan B, and they solved the puzzle to discover that we were headed on the train to Lilly Blacksmith. Um, no. Try again. Take the train to Lilly Smith? Nope. Lilly Hammer? Yup, we were going to the site of the 1994 winter Olympics: Lillehammer, Norway.

S is for Super...

It's not every day that your kid comes home from school telling you that tomorrow the class is going into the woods for lunch, or that today she taught her classmates how to play 4 Square in a combination of Norwegian and English. We knew when we were planning this trip that the kids might have some trouble assimilating, and we were dead wrong. From the second day here, Sara was attending the local Norwegian school and had made friends by the time she walked home. She was fearless and speaking Norwegian to her teachers and friends as best she could. With all of the new things to learn, we worried that she'd be too tired to do her American schoolwork on line, as going to school all day and then working on line at night is a lot even for adults. The on line program is new to her, and she can be easily frustrated sometimes. We expected bad grades, or, worse, missing assignments. Turns out we are the ones who can't assimilate. Sara is doing exceptionally well in American school, with only As and high Bs and a chance of getting all As if she keeps it up. She is quite popular with her Norwegian classmates and is speaking more Norwegian every day. We are in awe of our amazing daughter!

Somewhere over the Rainbow Warrior

We decided to shake things up this morning, so instead of our morning walk we drove into downtown Ålesund and hiked up to the observatory.  Well, it wasn't exactly hiking because there are steps, 418 of them to be exact.  It was more like a breathless climb that made me realize I need to do more cardio.  The views from the top were just unbelievable, and we were able to see the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior docking in Ålesund harbor.  Sometimes I forget what an experience this is for the kids, until today Sam says Come over here, Dad, and get a picture of the Rainbow Warrior. Pretty cool experience for a 4-year-old, and not bad for the rest of us, either.

Grønt hår!

This morning was haircut day for Jon and Sam.  So, Jon comes home and while Sam is still getting out of the car he says to me, So how important is Sam's haircut to you again? That's never good. In my defense, I'm not picky about Sam's hair; really the only look I don't like is the 4 year old military man. You know, a buzz cut, very short all over and all the same length. Ironically, this is Jon's look but that's another story. So anyway, Sam steps in while I hold my breath and brace myself. I'm picturing Sam walking around the corner.  The truth?? You can't HANDLE the truth!! But my fears were allayed. Sam was the very picture of an adorable, scrumptious, Norwegian boy, complete with the requisite green hair.  And I love it!


Click on the images for a closer look!