Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

It was a crazy weekend here in Tromsø with the unusual combination of Swedish hip-hop, American rap, and Norwegian pirates.

It all started Friday when I joined Rachel, Collin, and Jeremiah for the Insomnia Festival. It was a four day festival of electronica, hip hop, and rap music. I just checked out Friday because there was the awesome line-up of the Swedish hip-hop group Snook and the historic US rap group Public Enemy! Both lived up to the billing in my eyes. We were in a cozy venue with maybe 400 people, and Snook came out in white fraks like you would wear in middle school art class. Their music was very danceable and I took the opportunity to bust a move to the incessant, rhythmic stream of Swedish lyrics. The funniest part to me was when they would speak to the audience. It usually went something like this: (in Swedish) "All the ladies in the house" (in English) "Say ho. That's right." It was such a fun mix of Swedish with American slang. I especially loved the song "Längst fram i taxin" when they ask the philosophical question, if women make the same amount of money as men, (remember this is a Swedish group so maybe they can actually say that), why can't they pay for their own cab.

Following Snook was Public Enemy with Flava Flav and Chuck D. They put on quite a show. Over two hours of high energy performance. The highlight was the MC who had a scratch solo. He was unbelieveable making this 5 second sound clip into an amazing solo. Flava Flav was pretty ridiculous too with his gold teeth and huge watch hanging from his neck. I even got to give him a high five because we were so close to the stage. It was pretty funny and sad to see this 98% white crowd holding their fists up in the air singing "Fight the Power." Also hilarious to here Flava Flav yell, "Tromsø!" If you want to enjoy that one for yourself, check out the video on my webpage.

There was no time for rest following the concert because Saturday night was the Oktoberfest party! It was basically like an early Halloween party with a theme, which this year was a Pirate's Life. Rachel and I decided to try to be creative and we dressed as Royal Navy officers out to catch the pirates! We made our costumes, and I even hand sawed batons for us, and also made capirininhas! We ran and caught the bus and headed first to a pre-party at Tim's house, a friend from Germany. There we had a great time talking to some other pirates and after a while we headed out to catch the last bus. The northern lights were filling the sky and it was the best bus entrance ever to walk on and in the back of the bus see 30 pirates all singing, drinking, yelling, and being rowdy. It was one of the most fun bus rides I've had in Tromsø.

I felt the same effect walking into the party. We walked through the entrance and then the stairwell in the medicine building where the party was leads down into a huge open area. As you entered you saw down into the open area and it was packed with over 800 people all dressed as pirates! It's my impression that Norwegians rarely get dressed up or really into something, but they sure did for this party! It was great to walk around and see the costumes, dance to the loud music accompanied by lots of flashing lights, and live the pirate's life.

Now back to school for a while. I have an exam due Friday and part of my thesis due on the 10th of November, so it will be back to work for me. Arrr.