Sorry for not writing more lately, I've been caught up in the summer.
Where to begin?
Well, for starters, I passed on a trip down the coast to watch boats and eat ice cream so I could write this. It wasn't a popular decision, but I had to catch you up on everything.
There was camping in the Oslo fjord. It was great! If you were on Facebook, you could see my photo albums, but I'll include some here.
The fishing didn't go so well. It took me about three, different outings to figure out how to catch actual fish and not just seaweed.
But the swimming has been fun. It started with the water being really cold! Like 15 Celsius (59 Fahrenheit), but, in the last few weeks, its been up to 21 (69 Fahrenheit). Which is pretty cool. Not so cool is that most of the beaches are rocky and don't have the easiest exit strategies.
Of course, there have been a few nights out.
But, uhmm, there was also a field trip to the old harbor town of Skudeneshavn.
The crown jewel of this old town is the old, foghorn factory which is now a store... which doesn't sell foghorns.
It feels very appropriate that the last post I wrote delved into the issue of "American-ness" as this one falls on the actual, definitive day of America.
After living abroad for a year and a half (give or take a few months), the one thing that an ex-pat starts to feel is a disconnect with their homeland.
There are a few times I will do an overwhelmingly American thing (eat a greasy burger with my hands, drink a beer in public with no shirt on, impose my will on a small country... I kid) just as a reminder to myself that "hey, idiot! You're an American!"
I say all of that to say that, last night, I stayed up until 6am to watch Game 7 of the NBA Finals (The championship for those of you who don't know).
While I'm not particularly a NBA fan (I have no favorite team and have only been to a half dozen actual, pro games), it felt like something that was important. It was only the fifth time the title-deciding series had gone to the last game. Plus, the world's best player (Lebron James) was battling against the player that most embodied stoicism and old-school efficiency (Tim Duncan).
The only hang-up was that the game started at 9:00pm east coast time, which made it 3:00 am Norway time.
That's a lot of lines between the East Coast and Central Europe
The hardest thing isn't the actual staying up (you just don't go to sleep), but the hours preceding the event. What do you do? I watched a movie (an ill-fated choice as I watched the incredibly underwhelming Seeking A Friend For the End of the World), I tried to watch that Bill Maher show (but that's sorta hard after he got sonn'd by Wayne Brady)... Afterwards, I just watched Russell Brand do Russell Brand-y things and Amy Schumer be awkward.
Tangent. Sorry. Re-directing. Re-directing
Anyway, soon, it was game time. I was double fisting and had my browser tuned to NBA UK and my twitter feed primed in another window.
Both teams battled fiercely, though, not always making for the prettiest basketball, but it was a memorable game. I was only off by 2 points as the Heat won back-to-back titles.
However, it wasn't just the game that made the whole evening worthwhile. The lack of sleep and energy drink induced rapid heart rate was vindicated by the feeling I got reading tweets and refreshing my Facebook newsfeed and seeing all my countrymen's comments. We were all sharing in a collective experience at the same exact time.
We were connected.
The distance between here and where I grew up is a little over 6000 kilometers, but it felt like I transcended it for a few hours in the early, Scandinavian morning.
I was trying to get back on my regular schedule, but I spent yesterday assembling IKEA furniture.
Thankfully, it went better than this
Maybe its the close proximity to its place of origin, but I found putting together the furnishings easier than I previous had with other IKEA purchases.
Procuring the items were another matter altogether.
The IKEA we went to was in the neighboring town of Bærum. The 20 km were traversed by a free, express, hourly shuttle from downtown Oslo. We embarked and IKEA'd are brains out (Rather my girlfriend fiancé did as I have little no opinion on duvets and dining room table chairs) and, when we were ready to leave, found we had a little problem.
How would we get all of our stuff home? (I won't say "furniture" because, as you know with IKEA, it was a pile of flimsy wood and bags of nuts and bolts)
The first option was to have them deliver it. That wasn't tenable as our spending had pushed us into a higher delivery cost (Because, whenever you can incentivize people to purchase less, you always do it... Consumerism works differently here than back in the US). Thus, we had to go with renting a car which was cheaper and went well (except for having to return the car and wait 40 minutes for the next bus to take us home... that sucked).
The one thing I am critical about here in Norway is the food (not the homemade food... All of that has been awesome!). You don't have to scan back over past blog posts, but yeah, I talk about it... A lot.
There were between 20-30 vendors (it was a rainy day and a lot of the booth were not prepared for the downpour so there was a lot of combinations) and all types of amazing food (well, except for Norwegian Kimchi... Not Yet!). I settled on trying various seared lamb and moose ribs (free sample, so it was like a spoonful and 1/3 a rib so I didn't get enough to make a firm conclusion on either, but I will say that seasoning is not a key feature of cuisine here) and reindeer kabob (oh have mercy, percy was it good! I take back the "seasoning" snide remark I just made). However, the standouts were the french dip sandwich made by an actual Frenchman (alas, the meal was created in California, but, by a Frenchmen... That counts, right?). How good was it? It made me question whether or not I had ever ate a real French Dip before as nothing I'd ever tasted was remotely as good.
Then, came the two burgers...
Døgnvil (the long-standing, Oslo's #2 burger spot) offered two sliders that were mind-numbing... One was called The Dutch and it featured pickled onion, gouda cheese, and their special, burger sauce that made me sit down (which was problematic as the ground was wet... I had to walk around with wet pants afterwards). Their other concoction was called BCN and it had grilled Chorizo, Smoked Gruyère, and herb mayo. I began eating it and felt my insides melt. However, about halfway through, I detected a salty element and wondered if there was some hidden ingredient I had missed. It took me a couple seconds to realize that it was just the taste of my own tears. It was that good.
I'm no longer young and cool (or, rather, I no longer have the illusion of being young and cool... if ever I had been the latter is debatable).
I'd been aware of this fact for some time, but a three-hour whirlwind through the crowds and music of the 2013 Oslo Musicfest (Oslomusikkfest) confirmed this truth.
I thought of writing a running diary for the proceedings, but that seemed silly considering the fact that my experience was only 180 minutes of a possible 12 hours and a decent portion of what little time I did commit was spent walking between venues.
So, in lieu of a blow-by-blow, here are a sampling of the highlights (Please keep in mind that I only visited 7 of the 20 venues and only saw 8 bands):
Best Setting I visited. The Kristparken venue was epic. The park itself is little more than a huge courtyard between a kindergarten, Church of Sweden's Norwegian headquarters, and the Norwegian Dental headquarters. There are numerous trees and wide alleyways leading in, so there was a cool breeze and dabs of sunny spots. It was packed and it was a festive crowd (i.e. there was a lot of marijuana being smoked). It most embodied the idea of a music festival (at least, as I have known them). Unfortunately, they had a less than ideal vendor situation (the lines spanned the width of the courtyard) and the sound was distorted. Which did no favors for the sounds of Man the Machetes and Blood Command.
Most Enjoyable Venue I visited. Strangely, the Vulkan Scene provided the best combination of space and sound. There were more tables and chairs brought in for sitting, as well as beer being sold from multiple spots to avoid long lines (50 kroner/$8.33 for 33 cl beers, that's an ounce less of a standard, American beer can). The stage was set-up at the bottom of the stairs, providing good acoustics. The wide walkways could've accomodated 500 people (it was about 1/7th that number in attendance).
Worst Venue I visited. While it had one of the better programs, Cafe Sør was unbearable. There was approximately 290452834982734 people squeezed into an indoor and outdoor area meant for about 75. However, the sound was exquisite (which makes sense as it was one of the few places that actually hosted music on a semi-regular basis). A shame because I would've loved to have stayed through EMILY's whole set, but I just couldn't... People-induced claustrophobia is a real thing, I think...
Most bizarre question I was asked. Can me and my wife have your mulatt babies? (I'm paraphrasing and this ended my first stint at Kristparken)
The one scene that is impossible to describe but I will try anyway. There are few places that combine the unintentional comedy of people trying to look tough in bright colored clothing and oblivious, drunkwhite girl dancing (Oh my God! Is that racists!?!?!? I didn't mean for it to be, like, racists!!) better than Turkish Delight. Though, this all pales in comparison to the awkward, reggaeton stylings of Son of Light!
Best Band. I guess the perfect combination of space, sound, and charm of Vulkan was aided by the fact that the perfect band was playing, DUDES. Now, please don't take this to mean that I think the band, itself, is perfect (or even very good), but, as so often happens in life, the combination of their energy, the setting, and the crowd's reaction (somewhere between riotous and perplexed excitement) just made the set unimpeachable. What were they saying? I don't know. But they meant it! Also, the drummer looks like Micheal Cera and their base guitarist looked and dressed just like the Don Dawson character in Dazed and Confused.
Why Did I Lead into this post with melancholic musings on youth lost? Well, the following four reasons... 1) Because I didn't understand any of the clothing the trendy concert goers were wearing (I saw an assortment of "NOFX" and other mid-90s screamo bands. I couldn't tell if people had these on to be ironic or to chalk it up to their Norwegianness... I feel like, with most things, the answer lies somewhere in-between); 2) I didn't understand the appeal of most of the bands (granted, when you're playing a free event, you tend to not have Kanye West or Counting Crows show up); 3) I just referenced Counting Crows like they released a relevant album in the past decade; and 4) I was pretty done after three hours. There was still more to see, but I wasn't up for it.
That's pretty much all I have. Youngstorget was a complete and utter debacle of people (there was at least 300-500 people milling in-between a logjam of two stages with music that ran over each other and a dozen vendor stands selling everything from Eastern scarves to cowboy hats) and Revolver was nondescript (there's only so many ways to describe loud rock).
Above is Norway's entry for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest held last Saturday.
(If you're asking yourself "What is Eurovision?" Here is a long answer, but, in short, it's a competition where many of the countries on the continent + a few, neighboring countries perform songs, one per country, and the citizens of all of Europe vote for the winner)
Even if this is confusing to you, there's only one thing you need to know. Norway finished fourth. They should have won.
Listen to the song. It's epic (I think it sounds like a Bond song!). It's moving (she's feeding you her love!). It's well performed (even if this isn't the actual contest performance, it pretty much is identical). Yet, it languished in a distant fourth place to the eventual winner (Denmark, whose song is aptly described as "Rihanna in Westeros"), Azerbaijan, and Ukraine.
Yes, in a European-wide song contest, they finished behind a country that's not in Europe.
At least they didn't finish behind this behemoth from Romania.
And that's all I can muster about Eurovision... If you want a better, thought out summary, please refer to this blog.
OTHER, WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS:
- As I stare at the third, straight day of chilly weather and rain, I just keep thinking about the days preceding those. They were three, magical days of uninterrupted, 70+ F (22+ C) weather and it was amazing. You'll be in my heart forever...
- I, seriously, just listened to the entirety of the Tarzan song just now. Wow. It's not even my top-five, favorite, Disney song. Here's the order of my list that it's in: 1) "A Whole New World" (Aladdin); 2) "Colors of the Wind" (Pocahontas); 3) "Circle of Life" (Lion King); 4) The Beauty and the Beast song... Tale as old as time?; 5) "Kiss the Girl" (The Little Mermaid)
As a way to get to know the city (and kill time and calories), I am prone to wander aimlessly through the streets and alleys (not so much the latter since I've discovered scooping up dog poop is met with a very meh approach here in Oslo). During my sojourners, I have discovered various little "gold markers" on the ground. At first, I didn't really pay attention to it because, well, there's a lot of random signs and markers in Norway (That tends to happen in places with thousands of years of history).
However, one afternoon, I passed a series of them and, since I really wasn't in that big of a hurry, I decided to actually read what it said. The first word that jumped out at me was "Auschwitz", which needs no hyperlink as everyone knows the name as that of the largest, concentration camp run during World War II.
The rest of the marker gave the name of the individual and listed that they had, indeed, died at the aforementioned internment camp.
As this was unusual, I went home to research this phenomenon to see if it was an isolated plaque or whether it was part of a larger network.
The formal name is Stolperstein (German for "Stumbling block", it is spelled Snublesteiner in Norwegian) and they're monuments created by Gunter Demnig, a German artist, to commemorate individual victims of Nazism all over the European continent.
Naturally, Oslo, the largest city and initial target of German invasion in April 1940, has the most Stoplerstein/Snublesteiner of any Norwegian city. I've come across ten so far in my travels, including the first one which sparked my follow-up on the subject
Her name was Ruth Maier, an Austrian Jewish woman, who sought refuge in Oslo in April 1939 and, as the memorial denotes, she was deported for Auschwitz in 1942, where she died later that same year.
Maier is known as "Norway's Anne Frank" as she, too, kept an extensive diary detailing the horrors and atrocities that befell her in her homeland and the harrowing escape to a believed safe harbor only for it to not be so. Her lesser acclaim can be attributed to the fact that it took 65 years for her writing to reach publication (in German and Norwegian), 67 for it to be in English.
But now I know of her and her life that happened a short walk from my apartment. It's good to know of history and not to forget it.
OTHER WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS:
- As a follow-up to my remark about the civic pride and holidays, two weeks ago, comes even more. A Norwegian associate of mine told me that a Norwegians favorite month of the year is May because there's hardly any working days. While this was said in jest, it's easy to see where the joke is derived. The following are holidays where a vast majority of the country is shut down: Labor Day (May 1), Ascension Day (May 9), Constitution Day (May 17), and Pentecost (May 20)
- It's comforting to know that no matter how obnoxious you may think this blog seems at times, it will never compare to this guy
- While we're on the point of exploitation, I love how many Norwegians think of Americans in terms of this video... When, based on my "limited exposure", an extremely small number of Norwegians could place my home state on the map or articulate much about it even though it has a larger population than Norway (and it's a pretty notable state with an infamous TV series based on it's largest city... it's not like South Dakota or Wyoming)
So, as I wrap this up, I want to give a shout out to all the youngsters in Russ. Step. Up. Your. Game! Not once have I been awakened by drunken hooliganism, not once have I had to step over a passed out teenager, and not once have I felt a twinge of jealousy for not having as cool of a senior tradition... Class of 2013, you better bring the noise tomorrow on Constitution Day
