Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

I had my first experience with the Midnight's, or rather 3am's, sun. I staggered out of Driv at a little after three am and my eyes began to dialate. What is that on the horizon? Oh...the sun. I guess I'll......go to bed?! We'll see if that works out.

I was so excited today to receive a package in the mail from Luther's Amazing Race Fan Club, complete with a new T-shirt for Amazing Race 9! I just started reading up on the Race and watched the videos. All I have to say is: Go BJ and Tyler!

Nothing like a lazy Saturday to learn new blog tricks. I learned how to have the songs that I have been listening to listed on my blog, so now if you are interested you can see what kind of music I've been listening to and mostly likely what kind of mood I have been in. You can also click on the list to see my favorite artists and other attempts at proving musical prowess. Enjoy, ignore, or taunt. I also take musical suggestions!

Most people come to Norway with a list of names in hopes of finding their roots and long lost relatives. I just get called up by them randomly one afternoon and spend 6 hours at their house.

I wrote three letters in the beginning of April to names that my Grandma had given me. Both my Grandma and Grandpa visited Norway in 1985 and found a few long lost relatives. I didn't hear anything after sending my letters so I thought it was a lost cause. Then, last Friday while I was in Bergen, I got a phone call from the Bottlofsons. They told me I was their relative, and I was happy to oblige.

Grandpa Bottlofson, who was maybe 64 years old and a taxi driver, picked me up and took me to their house on the top of hill overlooking part of Bergen. The whole family was there! Both Grandma and Grandpa Bottlofson, their kids ranging from maybe 23 to 38 years old and even a grandkid who was 8 years old. They were very hospitable and I had a great time with them, speaking Norwegian the whole time! It took us about 2 hours to figure out how we were related and about half way through we started to question if we really were. That gave me the great idea that I should call up random Norwegians and tell them that I was their relative. I could probably cash in on free food and a place to sleep!

Eventually, I called my Grandma and got the facts from her. Apparently the Bottlofsons my age are my fourth cousins and my great-great grandpa was a brother to their great-great grandpa...or something like that. I'm already forgetting! We had a great time though eating sandwiches and cake the whole time, and it was perfect timing because it was Grandma Bottlofson's birthday. We talked a lot about family and travel and studies, and I was especially entertained by the 8 year old Grandson Bottlofson who showed me his English by rapping "I don't know what you heard about me, but you'll never get a dollar out of me, because I'm a mother fucking P.I.M.P." It's so good to see our culture being exported! Not exactly the King's English, but it works. The other funny thing was their house. It was literally overflowing with junk. Antiques, pictures, and the most lamps I have ever seen! In their dining room alone they had 12 lamps scattered all over the place. The entire time people were stepping over Ottomans and dolls to try to get a peace of cake. The floral design of the room and the quantity of junk just made me clostraphobic! I'm glad the pack rat gene got lost somewhere in the past 4 generations.

It was a fun, random experience to meet some relatives and I hope to see them again. Maybe next time we'll even get to go to where my family originated in Etne, a small village between Stavanger and Bergen. I'm sure the Bottlofsons would take me and they would probably feed me the whole way because, after all, I am family!

When I was in Tanzania, it was a common occurance to lose water for hours, days, and even a week one time. However, I was surprised and frustrated when this morning I turned on the sink and heard a hiss of air followed by an absense of water in Norway. Again! There has been construction outside our house and our water was shut off yesterday for the afternoon, so today as I was ready to take the first shower in two days and couldn't do it, I was reminded of Tanzania. Stian was even more frustrated and we spent all day complaining about it.

Finally, at about 7pm after 9 hours without water, Stian called the city water people and had them come take a look. Before he could even get a sentance in, they walked in and turned a knob on a water line we had in our bathroom. They told him that it was fixed and that someone must have turned the switch.

Oh yeah. My bad. This morning I was up doing laundry and the water wasn't working so I turned the knob on the switch going into the washing machine. This fixed my problem, but apparently shut off the water to the rest of the house. Needless to say, Stian wasn't exactly happy, but I told him that i was just a role play to show how people in other parts of the world live and told him that he lost of the contest of who would be the first to call and complain. Now I can go to bed dreaming of a shower tomorrow and all the great pranks I can pull with this new found power!

I survived almost two weeks of running around Europe. It was such a great trip, but it feels envigorating to be back in Tromsø! The sun is out, the snow is melting, and did I mention the sun is out!? Seriously, today the sun rose at 3:54 am and will set at 9:34 pm. For those of you keeping track at home, that's 17 hours and 40 minutes of sunlight. Tomorrow we will add 10 minutes of sunshine! Crazy fun. Hopefully it will help me be productive all day and night to make up for the winter months.

My travels end up being a little crazy on the way home, but I finally made it back to Norway. I got up at 5.30am to get a cab to the Pisa airport. I called and left a message on the taxi phone machine...and then nothing happen. I sat and waited and waited without a cab or car in sight. I finally decided that I could probably walk to the leaning tower and get one, but it was deserted. I then walked from their to the main road assuming I would see one and again nothing. At this point I was on the verge of being very late, so I started hitchhiking, to no avail! Come on, who wouldn't pick up a distraught looking American with a huge backpack tiny Italian vocab? Well, no one did, so by the time I got on the bus to the airport, I missed my flight.

I bought another Ryanair ticket which thankfully only cost 60 dollars and it was even scheduled to get in just in time for me to still make my connection...but of course we were slightly delayed out of Pisa. We landed in London Stansted and I ran to the gate to check in, missing it by 5 minutes! There were no more flights to Bergen from Stansted, so I hopped on a 3 hour bus to Gatwick on the other side of London. I got a ticket to Bergen on an SAS flight and finally arrived at 11pm (instead of 3pm). So, 17 hours and 300 Euro later, I had made it to Bergen and back to Norway. It felt so easy all of a sudden.

I had a great weekend in Bergen having the last session of an Election Observation course there. I said goodbye to my friend Marjaana who is leaving to start working for the summer and was again grateful for Andre's mom who did my laundry and made me some great food. One of the most random parts of the whole weekend in Bergen was meeting my relatives! I'm going to write about that in my next blog. It was quite an experience, so stay tuned and in the meantime, check out the photos I added from Italy!

Today I ventured out of Florence to Pisa, where I will fly out of tomorrow very early. And it was great! The sun was shining and I just checked in to my hotel where for the first time this trip I will be alone in my own room! What freedom. After dropping my bags I headed to basically the only attraction in Pisa...the leaning tower! It was beautiful. IT is in a plazza area surrounded by a church and other majestic marble buildings. And it really does lean. It looks quite hilarious and ridiculous I think to see this beautiful building slightly out of wack. After taking a few pics, I just sat in the grassy area and enjoyed the sun adn the smell of grass and a chance to relax on my own. It's been a great trip. The warm temps and sun remind me of home (since grass and tromso have no connection) so I'm starting to think about my next trip which will be back to the US. I just wrote in my journal and watched the silly tourists and the equally funny street vendors. A great day in Italy. I capped off the night at a pizzeria eating outside with a few of the leaning tower. While I was sitting eating, an older Italian man walked around playing guitar and singing opera music. It felt exactly like lady and the tramp! What a great night. Off to pack and head to Bergen. I'll be back to tromso (and my computer) late Sunday night!

Hello from Florence!

I am sitting in an internet cafe in Florence, Italy after 4 days of frisbee in Rimini, Italy. It felt so liberating to be physical and sweat and sunburn, and dive again and again in sand. Our team was really great. We gelled really well, especially off the field. We played well, not amazing, but we got 32nd out of 48 teams and won four games and lost four. we played competatively and had a ton of fun and even played a "beer in hand point" where everyone on the field had to have a beer in their hand and if you spill while running or catching the frisbee, its a turnover. crazy european stuff. add to that a male streaker at the championship game, a team called the mohawks who all wore mohawks, and a 50 year old german doing the post game cheer with his pants down, and you have a wacky, international weekend of fun and disc. My feet and body are sore, but I now have frisbee friends from all over the world and am once again encouraged to keep seeking out frisbee wherever i can!

i had a tiring journey after a tiring weekend to florence and made it to the hostel at about 11pm last night. i met a really nice canadian named rachel on the way to the hostel so today we wandered around florence toether. i saw the david statue. amazing. i have never had an emotional response from a statue before, but it blew me away. the way it captured human features and the beauty of the human body was unbelieveable. a definite highlight. (the picture here is just a copy because we couldn't take pictures of the actual statue.) we also went to a great local italia restaurant. we were placed at a table with other people and everyone was loud and drinking red wine with their pasta at 2pm. fun stuff. not sure what else is in store, but i fly to bergen thursday early morning so i might have to move to pisa tomorrow to be closer to the airport, not sure what to do with that yet.

out of time here at the cafe, but hope everyone had a great easter. i will be back in norway on thursday in bergen and back to tromsoe on sunday night.

Ciao!

I just rolled in from a 5 days at a YMCA (called KFUK/KFUM på norsk) camp for 13-18 year olds in a tiny city called Sørreisa about 3 hours south of Tromsø. It ended up being a great experience! At first I wasn't so sure though. We arrived and were in a school in Sørreisa because its Easter vacation and Norway get off the whole week before and a couple days after. So I settled in to my little place on the floor in the classroom. I was in charge of sports and the choir. We played frisbee the first day which was a hit and started learning some gospel music which also went well, but most of the rest of the time I felt like I was wandering.

It got progressively better as the week went on, and it was exciting because I could literally feel my Norwegian improving because the whole week was in Norwegian. I think things changed into the great category after I busted out the acoustic guitar and the arms trick. Truly activities that transcend culture!

The camp routine consisted of a breakfast of bread and cold meat and/or chocolate sauce, a morning singing session, a morning activity (big game of capture the flag, sports, etc), lunch consisting of cold meat and/or chocolate sauce, more activities, middag (kind of like an early dinner) consisting of potatoes and fish/meat, choir, aftens which is an evening light meal with bread, cold meat and/or chocolate sauce, and then evening activity. So lots of bread and cold meat! It was great though.

The highlights would be the competition evening when they had every split up into two teams and had us dressed in red and blue clothes. We entered the gym and they had it set up like a real game show with fog, lights, a live band, judges, hosts, and a huge screen that show what we were doing live. It was so cool! My red team lost in a rock, paper, scissors match at the end of the tournament, but we both got pineapple as a reward which tasted great! My task was a head to head rodeo competition: rope the reindeer! Unfortunately, I lost so I think I have to head back to SD to practice. Another highlight was the talent show. I sang the female line to "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge with a guy named Daniel Scott, so it was the Scott show. I also played a Radiohead song with someone else and the gospel choir I directed sang "Praise His Holy Name" with bass, drum, and guitar which was fun! We also had a fundraiser for the international YMCA program and everyone made things or "sold" services such as massages, swing dance lessons, portraits, etc. I played street music in the halls of the school and then sold tickets to the "Amazing American Rubber Man Show." Somehow I extended my arm tricks into an 8 minute show complete with audience participation and the chicken dance. It was a fun time!

We left Sørreisa this morning and had to wait 3 hours in another small town called Bardufoss for our next bus. We had my guitar and 10 voices and nothing but time, so we sat outside the shopping center and played with our case open. We actually made 100 kroner which is about 15 bucks! Maybe I should give up this peace stuff for the troubadour gig...something that pays!

Tomorrow, I'm headed out at 7am for Italy! The SAS airline strike is over just in time to get me to the beaches of Italy for a 5 day Ultimate Frisbee competition! I hope my body and skin can withstand 5 days of sun and frisbee, not to mention all you can eat spaghetti and all you can drink red wine. I think my teeth might be permanently stained when I get back. On my way back I'll be stopping in Bergen for a weekend to go to my last class there and then finally back to Tromsø on the 23rd! Now, time to start the laundry!

I feel like I have now take the last step in embracing the Norwegian culture: I have a Norwegian rock boy haircut!



Yes, an exciting day in Tromsø. I called to Nikita where Rachel's roommate Vibeke works as a frisør, or haircutlady as I call them. I did what I've always wanted to do. I walked in, sat down, and told her to do whatever she thought would look best. I got the Cadillac treatment with a hair wash/massage, two chocolates, and a cup of coffee while we chatted and transformed me into hip Norwegian boy with slightly shaggy, waxed forward, artfully messy hair. I think she did a great job. I'm excited to have a new dew!

Tomorrow I will turn in my exam and then I'll get to compare hairstyles with other teenagers because I'm going to a 4 day YMCA camp 2 hours from Tromsø. I'm going to relive the Luther College Gospel Choir days by directing two gospel pieces. I will also be in charge of sports time during which I'm going to teach them how to play ultimate. I hope its as fun as it sounds.

Off for beauty sleep to compliment my Euro-dew.

I just received a hilarious birthday gift in the mail from my friend Emily Weninger. It's already up on my wall brightening my day.



That's right, it's a...well. It's a calendar/menu from Brookings' local Chinese restaurant. It has the Chinese calendar with a picture of a Golden Retriever that looks like Greta reminding me that I was born in the year of the dog (1982) and that it currently is the year of the dog! What luck. Additionally, it provides the following advice:

"Man's best freind you certainly are! Loyal and faithful without reservation Dogs are good companions, but catch one on a bad day and you will feel the bite of sarcasm. Your critical faculties give you the ability to sniff out the truth and pursue the course of justice for all. When life doesn't run smoothly you are prone to despondency and depression. Get together with a Tiger to life your spirits."

I think that's supposed to be about me. So, I hope that I can indeed pursue justice for all and keep up my bite of sarcasm. Any tigers out there? (1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, or 2010)

But wait. There's more. In addition to the awesome calendar and advice, it also comes with the entire menu to King's Wok. Now I can sit at my desk dreaming of ordering a quart of Moo Goo Gai Pan. It's only $7.09. What a deal! So watch out Brookings residents, prank Chinese food may be ordered in your name. But only if you catch me on a bad day.

I have a pair of black, square "Harry Potter" glasses. The first pair I ever got in 8th grade. Well, they've been with me awhile and have some sentimental attachment as well as surprising trendy staying power. Well, needless to say I was quite devasted in February when I thought I lost my glasses. Today, I was pleasantly surprised as I put on my red tennis shoes for the first time since, well, February to feel something inside my shoe. My glasses! Who knows why I put them there, I'm just glad that the temps are warming up, and I had a reason to wear some tennis shoes!

Ahhh. I'm back. After a randomly fun, up-and-down week (both emotionally and longitudinally), I have returned to Tromsø in more or less one piece. In the past week, I have been in the Tromsø airport 5 times, flown over 2600 miles, and have traveled by plane, train, car, bus, catepillar, and dog sled. Needless to say, random and fun.

After Alison's arrival and the stolen bag incident, we headed out on Sunday to ski jump show. No, I haven't taken up a new sport, but I had a performance there. I joined a choir about 3 months ago in Tromsø and our director is supposedly a famous Norwegian ski jumper from the 1960's. Because of his connections, we were the entertainment at a ski jump competition. The ski jump area was inland, which in Norway means cold because there isn't the ocean breeze to keep the temperatures bearable. So we arrived and waited, and waited, and waited. After a couple waffles, a hot dog, and maybe two hours around the fire that was warming the coffee, we finally got ready to sing. Little did I know all the dramatics that would take place. Our director jumped off the ski jump with his pink ski jump suit on while wearing a black tux coat on top. He jumped and then skied over to us and started our song. Ridiculous. To make things even more entertaining, we had to learn two songs just for the event. "Love, Love, Snow" and "Jump and Fly." The lyrics to "Jump and Fly" were especially hilarious: "Let's jump and fly and have more joy. Let's make love and have more peace." Little did I know that ski jumping was the key to peace. Man, that could have saved me almost two semesters of studying.

Well, after shivering and singing, we thawed ourselves out for the concert that evening. The concert ended up being like a high school talent show with a band playing 70's rock songs, a trio of women singing "Proud Mary," and then us. Singing the Hallelujah's Chorus. Not exactly a well planned Lenten line-up, but it was ridiculously entertaining. I think the best part of the whole day was the drive home. We had a two hour drive home and the sky was filled with Northern Lights, so Alison and I just sat looking out the window watching the lights dance us home.

Monday we decided to listen to the lights and went north. We took a two hour flight north of Tromsø to Longyearbyen, the northern most settlement in the world at 78 degrees North! It is on the island of Svalbard which is governed by Norway and is a tiny community of about 1800 people. The ocean currents keep Svalbard habitable (maybe) and it attracts arctic researchers, tourists, and interesting people who don't mind having to travel by snowmobile everywhere. There are no roads connecting Longyearbyen to any place else and you have to take a gun with you if you leave the city limits because of the risk of polar bear attacks. Typical. Also, all the pipes are above ground because the ground is too cold to bury electricity, water, and cable lines. Another thing that struck me immediately was the fact that many of the buildings are built on stilts so when it snows and drifts they can still get in and out of their homes and offices. Yikes!

Alison and I arrived to beautiful sunny weather and cold temperatures around -10 farenheit. We rolled in to the guesthouse we were staying at and at first I wanted to try to find a new place. Tiny military looking beds in a room the size of a dorm room, made me a little wary. But we stayed and were rewarded throughout the week with nice people and great food and ice cream with fresh berries served at their restaurant. How is it possible to have fresh berries in Svalbard? I don't know, but they tasted great! And how is it possible to get great meat and vegetables in Svalbard? Again, I'm amazed by transportation and distribution, and heck, refridgeration too. After we dropped off our stuff, we went to explore the city. Thirty minutes later after we had seen the grocery store, the bar, the restaurant, (notice emphasis on the singular) and walked up and down main street we decided to go back to the room and get out of the cold. We did a lot of that in Svalbard, sitting, relaxing, and watching season 2 of Gilmore Girls on our laptop. It seemed like in Svalbard we were either doing something really crazy, or nothing at all. Both of which were fun!

The second day in Svalbard we went dog sledding which was great! We were picked up by our Polish guide and the Japanese couple and two Norwegian ladies who were going on tour with us. We drove out of town (gun in hand) to the dog kennel where our sled dogs were laying in their own urine that only disappears when it is covered up by more snow. We were assigned our dogs and had to get them off of their leash and connected to our sled. Easier said then done. I had my mitten ripped up by the barking, excited dogs. Once we got them connected to our sleds though, it was awesome! Just the sound of the wind rushing past our faces as we drove the dogs in between tall, bright, white mountains. The dogs would awkwardly pee and poop while running, and we just got to sit and enjoy the ride or stand and drive the dogs while they carried us into the wilds of Svalbard. It was amazing how simple, monotonous, barren, and beautiful the landscape was. Everything was either white or blue and everything looked untouched by humans. Natural, wild, and quiet. Until...the dog fight! We stopped about halfway through our ride to switch drivers. While we were stopped a few of the dogs from two different teams got in a little fight, and before you knew it all the dogs were jumping in to fight. Our fearless Polish leader had to get in the middle and try to seperate the dogs, but it's hard to keep 12 dogs apart! One white dog came out bleeding and everything was tangled when the fight was finally over. But man, it was entertaining! We survived with our warm clothes and goggles and felt like we deserved a day of relaxation after our dog sled trip was over.

Our next adventure was ice caving. We rode in a catepillar-like vehicle for about 30 minutes that took us up the mountain to a glacier. There we climbed down a small tunnel and shimmied our way inside the glacier. It was amazing! What is a rushing river under ground in the summer turns into a beautiful, still, and surprising warm cave in the winter. We walked around exploring and looking at the ice version of stalagmites and stalagtites in awe of the extent of the caves. A little hot cider and cookies inside the glacier perfectly capped off the adventure.

So Svalbard. Exciting and boring. Barren and beautiful. International and isolated. It is a random place that I am glad I visited. Everyone wears four layers of clothes everywhere and has to take off their shoes before going into stores or museums. Everyone drives snowmobiles. They have a bar with one of the largest spirits selections in all of Norway and there is little or no tax in Svalbard to convince people to stay so people take advantage of the selection.
The Longyearbyen residents even have "summer cabins" located about a mile outside of town where they go to get away from the hustle and bussle of the "big city." It is hard to describe, but if you ever want to take the scenic route to Tromsø, you should come over the top and make a stop in Svalbard.

After returning to Tromsø, we felt like we were in the big city near the tropics! We went shopping at a retro store Friday morning and came back to the house to have a barbequeoutside with my housemates on our porch. It was so much fun! It was probably 15 degrees farenheit out and there was two feet of snow on our porch, but we still sat outside with sunglasses on, sunbathing our faces while the rest of us were covered in sweaters. A grilled burger never tasted so good.

The barbeque gave us the strength to continue onwards to Oslo. There we took buses and trains in an attempt to find the apartment of my friend Andre. We were going to stay at his place, but we couldn't get a hold of him on his phone. We knew we were in the right neighborhood, but after about 15 minutes we gave up calling and just sat down on the steps of an apartment building and watched another episode of Gilmore Girls. Leave it to Svalbard and getting lost in Oslo to get me addicted to Alison's favorite show. Andre finally called and we found his apartment.

The next morning we got up early and caught a ride to Hønefoss, one hour from Oslo. There I played in the Norwegian Indoor Ultimate Frisbee Championship! It was great fun. I was placed on the B team from Bergen which consisted of players from South Africa, Germany, Norway, and Colombia. Most of the players were new to the game, so after a few games of finding our rhythm, we ended up doing well finishing 5th out of 6 teams. It felt great to run around again, even though I'm still feeling sore! Alison was a great sport to sit in a gym for a day watching ultimate. I think at the very least she got some knitting done.

Then, Sunday...back to reality. Alison and I had to say goodbye and I had to come back to work on my exam which is due on Friday. As you can tell from the length of this blog, I'm doing well at distracting myself. It's been a great week though. From dogs to discs and ski jumping directors to Danish comedians (one of whom we met in a church in Svalbard!), I feel like I've experience all the extremes of Norway this week. It's crazy to think that I actually live here. A good crazy.