Naylors in Norway

2009-08-11T09:22:00.001+02:00

Naylors in Norway (2009-2010) is continued at

naylors-in-norway.blogspot.com

Jeg liker meg i Norge

2009-06-17T21:10:00.006+02:00

Many people have asked why we want to go back to Norway. Some are excited for us and the adventure, but some have regarded our motives with suspicion. Is it really better in Norway?

The Norwegians have a curious way to say that they like a place. They don't say "I like it in Norway." Instead, they say "I like myself in Norway," or "Jeg liker meg i Norge." Maybe this phrase isn't just a weird little language quirk, but is a reflection of a philosophy. A place is good if you like yourself when you're there. It's not so much about liking your job or your friends or your house or your car. It's about how you feel about you. Maybe that's part of the reason we're planning to return. We like ourselves in Norway.

Continued...

2009-05-22T20:18:00.001+02:00

Naylors are planning a return visit -- another year in Norway. Stay tuned for our arrival in August 2009.

Signing Off

2008-07-12T23:57:00.003+02:00

Our basement is nearly finished, we have our cats and our chickens, we are winning the battle with our yard, and we've seen friends every day. It's feeling like home again.

I thought I'd end this blog with some kind of top ten list, and maybe I will do that eventually, but it is time to focus on life in Washington for a while. My mind stayed behind in Norway and I need it here now, so I'm signing off. Thanks for coming along for the journey!

Mike

Adjusting

2008-07-11T15:54:00.008+02:00

We finally have internet. Ahhh... We're still not moved back in, though we have new linoleum and carpeting in the basement and I'm hoping to finish trimming and plumbing today and we'll get those sinks and toilet out of the back yard.

So Much Stuff

The first strange thing I noticed being back is the huge selection at the grocery stores. I remember looking at the boxes of instant oatmeal in Haggen's here in Washington, and there were maybe 40 different varieties with all kinds of colorful and sugary ornaments, and I was disgusted with the excess and wondered how could the system could sustain so many different varieties of products. Obviously it can.

I was also disgusted with all of the stuff we own. Boxes of things we've carried around for 15 years and look at only when we move. It weighs us down. In Norway, we made do with very little and found that in fact we need very little. Moving back into our house is the perfect opportunity to make bold cuts in our inventory. We've made one trip to the dump already and our garage is filling with a pile of things to sell.

Driving!

Driving is challenging too. When I first arrived in Norway, I was very impatient driving. No right turn on red, it was very irritating to me to be sitting at a light unnecessarily. But now I find right-on-red stressful... you have to watch the traffic coming and wait for an opening, you must keep alert and focused. In Norway, you get to a red light and you relax and wait for it to change. The light will even give you a red-yellow combo to let you know it's about to turn green so you can put your magazine away. Here in the U.S., you can't relax at a light if you're turning right or the person behind you is going to be irritated.

Distances have stretched too. Driving to the Home Depot seems impossibly far, and the university is nearly 20 miles away.

There are so many cars on the road, traffic crawls. Traffic never used to bother me, but after living in Trondheim for a year, we notice the difference. There is also significantly more traffic on our roads than when we left a year ago and it will continue to get worse. The Norwegian government keeps coming up with ways to make driving less attractive in Norway – I thought at first this was bad policy but they are on to something.

There is a new roundabout near my house, and that makes me happy. So many roundabouts in Norway we have come to love them not only for their efficiency but also for their fun-factor.

The Kids Can Speak Norsk?

As far as we knew, Peter could speak only two words of Norwegian ("Bli død!" which means "Die!") He began speaking Norwegian with his sisters on the plane on the way home. The morning after our arrival he says to me "Se hva jeg fant under sofaen!" ("See what I found under the sofa!") Turns out he knows a lot of norsk.

Prices

Pam tells me that straight up grocery prices have risen 20% while we were away. Everything still looks very cheap to me though. Gas was $4.39 a gallon... so cheap! (I paid $10.26/gallon last time I filled up in Norway.)

Food

One of the best things about being back in the States: the food. Produce is so fresh and delicious. I'll miss my gravelaks, but my palate is very pleased at the return. Now I must find a place to buy brun ost...

Back Home

2008-07-06T08:31:00.003+02:00

Hei hei! Still getting set up. We have to redo several of our floors and have someone coming out in the morning, so we haven't really unpacked yet. Kids have been grumpy and we've all had a very hard time getting back into sync... it's not just the time zone but also being back in our house which is not quite the same (and has a yard our friends describe as "Jumanji", which is fairly accurate!) We still have no internet, but we'll be back online later this week and I should have some more Norway stuff up, so stay tuned!

2008-07-03T17:19:00.003+02:00

We are back in the USA and thankful we're on vacation because we have a fearsome task ahead of us.

Steve and Marcia picked us up at SeaTac. We were the last ones out because one of our bags went AWOL, just arriving at our house this morning. We went for Taco Bell on the way home. Mmmmm... The yard was a fearsome sight to behold, our yard just got mowed for the first time a day or two before we arrived and it's looks like a harvest happening out there. Our house and our stuff is in good order, and Steve and Marcia had set up our house with groceries and wine and coffee and all kinds of things. That was a nice surprise.

Our phone is back on and our phone number is the same as was before. I like that phone number, so we feel lucky. We won't have home internet for over a week, so we're checking email in a McDonalds this morning.

We were up for over 24 hours when we finally crashed Wednesday night. The first thing I did Thursday morning was clean up the hot tub, and while it was filling I took clippers to a blackberry bush which had eaten a row of trees. It will be a slow recovery moving back into the house and getting used to being able to turn right on red, but we're in no hurry.

More pictures coming soon when we get settled. It will be interesting to see how it is getting reestablished here!

Ha Det Bra, Norge!

2008-07-01T06:25:00.002+02:00

Monday we packed and cleaned all day, with an intermission to go to dinner at Paul and Hilde's. Paul cooked us an Irish meal while the children played and Anna put on shows with friends Eva and Elinor. Then back to cleaning. Pam and I were up until well past midnight. Allan will come in 2 hours to take us to the airport with our 15 bags.

Goodbye Norway! You've been very good to us. We've felt very welcome and wanted in this country, and I'm certain it has affected us in ways we don't yet understand.

Tonight we sleep in our house in the USA.

Final Fjording

2008-06-29T22:51:00.003+02:00

More packing, packing, packing. This afternoon we went to Ingvill's house for a cookout, then walked down to the shores of Lade with a kayak. Ingvill swam, I skipped stones, and the kids took turns paddling out in the fjord. It was a beautiful evening, and it's hard to believe we now only have about 36 hours left in Norway. Tomorrow will be very busy, doing our final packing and cleaning the apartment.

Here's Peter trying to walk Zeta. That's quite a spirited dog!

Mikrobryggeri og Den Gode Nabo

2008-06-28T22:40:00.000+02:00

Spent most of the day on Saturday packing, deciding what to keep, what to donate, what to discard, what to store. We sent the hamsters off to their new home.

This evening we joined friends at the Trondheim Mikrobryggeri (microbrewery) downtown. I ordered the Tiger Wings, and finally had something spicy in Norway! We handed out presents to everyone wrapped in colorful foil with tiny bows. What could it be? It's... bacon!

Afterwards we headed over to Den Gode Nabo (the good neighbor), a pub in Bakklandet right next to pedestrian bridge. I love this neighborhood. Den Gode Nabo has a floating bar out on the river Nidelva. It was here we said final goodbyes to Mat, Simon, Luke, and Karin.

Stop 4: Steinvikholmen

2008-06-27T19:40:00.001+02:00

Inspired by a design by (stolen from?) Leonardo DaVinci, Steinvikholmen is a two-tower fortress on a small island. Once upon a time, you could walk out to the island during low tide, but these days you can walk across a bridge. Although the fortress is currently closed for renovation, the kids loved finding spiral sea shells on the beach and we loved the fabulous scenery, which includes cows. This was a beautiful end to a perfect day.

On the way back home, we managed for the very first time to avoid the toll road! The trick: drive to the main entrance of the airport and take the Hell Bridge into Hell. You've got to go through Hell before you get to Trondheim.

Stop 3: Forbordsfjellet

2008-06-27T16:55:00.001+02:00

Forbordsfjellet means "before the foot of the mountain", which makes this an unusual choice of names for the mountain itself. It's an example of a place name changing over the years. Merete at the office recommended this drive. It's a bit tricky to find, if we hadn't had explicit directions we would've missed it. Driving north on E6 from Stjordal, you cross the railroad tracks and the road jogs to the right. Watch for this church:

Turn into the church parking lot, then down the driveway of a farmhouse. There's box to deposit 20 kr. which goes to the farmer who lives there. He maintains the road, aparently. Just like the drive to the rock carvings, there's a distinct feeling that you're not supposed to be driving on this road. Try to keep in mind that Norwegians are much more relaxed about private property than in the U.S. and keep driving.

Up, up, up, up. This road leads to the highest point in all Sør-Trøndelag. Finally, we reach the top of and it's yet another WOW! on this trip. We can see east to Sweden and west to Trondheim. We can see the entire route we'd driven to get here. Far in the distance we can make out Munkholmen, the island just off-shore from Trondheim. Nearby we can see Steinvikholmen, our next stop on our voyage, and beyond that we can see Tautra and the long long bridge leading out to this island.

We find a nice spot overlooking Åsenfjord and Trondheimsfjord to the east and light up the grills. Pølse, chicken, salmon with pesto... we eat like kings. Afterwards we walk all around the peak of this mountain taking in all the views. Glorious scenery, and we didn't even have to hike to get here. Not a bad deal.

Above: the small island to the left connected by a short bridge is Steinvikholmen, the next stop on our trip. Behind that is a landmass, and in the body of water behind that is a long very skinny island which is Tautra, home to a monastery.

Below: a dark dark mountain to the west, very mysterious. Two views to the south, including Værnes airport, and a mysterious UFO which landed on this mountain.

Stop 2: Hegra Festning

2008-06-27T11:20:00.000+02:00

Pam and I had visited the Hegra festning on our trip to Sweden last month and decided we needed to come back with the kids. After visiting the runes, it was a short trip up the mountain to this fortress hidden in the woods. As anticipated, the kids loved it. Last time we were here, it was raining which gave the woods an otherworldly feel. This time not only was it sunny, but the tunnels beneath the festning were open, and... WOW!

The tunnels are extensive, room after room, stairs and ladders up and down, each of the five or six turrets linked by underground passages that make unexpected turns and lead to surprising places. There were sleeping rooms, common rooms, headquarters, fireplaces, a kitchen, a machine room, and even a half-dozen saunas in true Scandanavian style. We played and explored for over an hour, and for some members of our group this visit was not only the highlight of the trip, but the highlight of their Norway visit.

The pictures below just don't capture the sheer awesomeness of this place. If you're visiting Trondelag, put this on your must-see list. Here's the link to our last visit with a lot more pictures.

Stop 1: Stone Carvings at Leirfall

2008-06-27T09:24:00.000+02:00

Past the airport, through Stjordal, and just a few kilometers past Hegra is the largest collection of Bronze Age rock carvings in Scandanavia. The road to the carving is a single lane track through a field that looks like someplace you shouldn't be driving. It ends in a parking lot with a nice information booth and a guide who was happy to show us around and tell us about the carvings.

Here's some of the carvings. This first on shows a rider on a horse and some footprints. The stones are covered with pictures of shoes, ovals with a line through them showing the strap that holds them to the foot. There are many theories about what the feet mean, from as simple as an individual leaving their mark (a permanent footprint) to as far-fetched as a representation of gods of the underworld walking on the other side of the stone and we can see only the bottoms of their feet. As appealing as that idea is, it's probably just the Bronze Age equivalent of carving your initials.

This second one shows a procession to a line of boats. The carvings are reddish because at one point they had been painted, but they found this makes them erode faster. Also on the site was a replica of a Bronze Age building. We were very pleased with this visit – we hadn't expected much and were very surprised with how much this area offered.

Road Trip!

2008-06-27T09:22:00.000+02:00

Just a few days left in Norway, time to see some sights in Trøndelag we hadn't seen. On the agenda for today, from right to left on on the map below, stone carvings at Leirfall, the festning at Hegra, Forbordsfjellen, Steinvikholmen, and Tautra (time permitting).

I told Anna we'd be going to a very cool fortress today.
"Fortress? What's a fortress?" she asked.
"It's a festning," I told her.
"Oh! A festning! Yay, we're going to a festning!" Bit by bit, the English slips away.

Mat's parents and his friend Simon are in town, and they decide to follow us out on our grand tour. Simon has just returned from China doing conservation work on a Panda reserve. How cool is that?

Stina and Petter

2008-06-26T11:29:00.000+02:00

These are our neighbors Stina and Petter. We share an entranceway with them. They had us over for dinner tonight. Stina is a 6th grade teacher and Petter is in the math department at NTNU, which is funny because Pam is a 5th grade teacher and I'm at the mathematics center at NTNU. Stina teaches at Eberg, which is the school I taught at also for a week. Connections...

End Days

2008-06-25T09:42:00.000+02:00

Tuesday was an exciting day at work as we wrapped up our projects and talked about future collaborations. I packed up most of my office.

In the evening, we had dinner at Martin and Elisabeth's. It was a traditional meal of kjøttkake (meat cakes) and cabbage soup. Absolutely delicious! Maggie stayed overnight with Frøy for one last hurrah.

Wednesday morning, we started by picking up Pam's passport. She FINALLY got her work permit, 6 days before leaving. (My permit I arranged through the Norwegian consulate in the U.S. before we left, Pam arranged hers locally here in Trondheim. I got my permit in 3 weeks, she got hers in 10 months. Hmmm...)

On Wednesday, we went to Martnan, a special open air market downtown, this week only. The weather's been dodgy the past couple of days, raining one minute, sunny the next. We dodged raindrops as we navigated endless booths of cheap junk and food vendors. As one of our friends described it, "It's crap that is made to look like gold by all the crap around it." We did have a good find as we were walking back to our car: a kebab restaurant downtown called Mona Lisa Kebab. We got a very tasty kebab roll, which had an incredible amount of meat in it, enough to feed the whole family.

Afterwards, we went to Evelina and Daniel's for dinner. We had spaghetti, and feeling adventurous, Evelina and I grated brunost on top of our pasta. A dangerous move – brunost, or brown cheese, is a sweet caramelly weird substance that is not cheese at all. Surprisingly, spaghetti, tomato sauce, and brunost is actually very good. We said another round of goodbyes to our very good friends. Anna decided to stay overnight for one last visit with Sophia.

At 8:30 we picked up Maggie. A lot of tears were shed as the girls said their final farewells. They have been best friends all year. Frøy is leaving on vacation so they won't see each other again for a long time.

We also picked up Lise and Soniva and brought them back to our place. We played games, ate cookies, and watched Eddy Izzard, an English comedian that Lisa is particularly fond of and insisted we see. I don't often watch stand-up comics, but he was very very funny. It was a delight to get to know these two, even though we'll soon be gone.

Our neighbors Stina and Petter have invited us to dinner this evening to say goodbye.

This past week has been a series of goodbyes and we are feeling more and more empty. Five days remaining in Norway... time to get packing I suppose.

Romeo og Julie på Munkholmen

2008-06-23T22:28:00.002+02:00

Pam went with Patrick tonight to see "Romeo og Julie" on the isle of Munkholmen in the fjord very near Trondheim. They caught the 6:00 ferry (55 kr. round trip, about $11) for the 6:30 showing. Munkholmen was settled in 1105 and in the mid-1600s a fortress was built on the small island. Today it hosts a museum, sunbathers in the summer, and Shakespeare plays.

Tonight it was cold and raining, but the play was indoors so far as that went. Inside the old fortress it was cold and drafty, and patrons huddled beneath wool blankets to watch the performance. The plays in Munkholmen are put on by an amateur troop composed largely of young performers under the supervision of a brilliant director who has been doing this for 25 years. Pam says that it was just wonderful. It was entirely in Norwegian of course ("Romeo, Romeo, hvor er du, Romeo?")

Here's some Munkholmen pictures from Wikipedia, showing Munkholmen on a sunnier day.

The lights!

2008-06-23T12:31:00.002+02:00

In my building on campus there are several interesting sculptures. Hanging in three different areas on the main level are boxes containing neon lights. In response to the movement of people in the areas, they light up and make pleasant and mysterious noises. The lights haven't been working all year, but last week they fixed them and we now have light to accompany the sounds.

The Last Viking

2008-06-23T12:24:00.003+02:00

This statue near the fish market in downtown Trondheim is called "Den Siste Viking", or "The Last Viking". It stands next to the dock where you can catch a boat to Monkholmen every hour on the hour. We will be sure to visit Monkholmen this week.

We met Erik and Patrick here Sunday evening to go to an Indian restaurant. It was fun to eat Indian food, but I am still trying to find a decent curry in Norway. I asked them to make sure the curry was spicy, but they made it Norwegian spicy, not English spicy.

Erik left from the restaurant to go directly to the airport. Patrick leaves in a couple of days, and it unlikely we will see these two again anytime soon. Our list of friends still in town is growing smaller and smaller!

A Humble Bath Tub

2008-06-22T12:15:00.000+02:00

A few months ago, Allan loaned us this big plastic tub. The kids use it for a bath tub, and they couldn't be happier about it. As you can see, our bathroom is very small, doubling as a laundry room.

We'll be happy to be back to our hot tub in the States!

Catan Night

2008-06-22T10:19:00.000+02:00

Saturday night after sending the kids to bed, Patrick and Erik from ThIS came over to play Settlers of Catan. They'll be leaving in a few days, so this was probably our last game of Catan in Norway.

Afterwards, we stayed up to a ridiculously late hour, watching A-ha videos (remember them? They're Norwegian), talking math, playing with hamsters... I'm not sure what we did with all of those hours, but with the night never getting dark it's very easy to stay up until the early hours of the morning and not even realize it!

Here's a picture of Patrick with several of our hamsters.

Dinner with Svein and Astrid

2008-06-21T20:04:00.001+02:00

My friends Svein and Astrid are leaving for vacation in Greece, so they invited us over to dinner to say goodbye on Saturday. They live in a downtown apartment, and like many of the apartments I've seen in Trondheim, the building doesn't look like much from the outside but the space inside is quite beautiful. Their apartment overlooks much of the downtown.

Adults had wine and laks and all kinds of tasty Norwegian meats and cheeses, while the kids made 'pølse i pyjamas', or sausages in pajamas, which are hotdogs baked into pizza dough. After dinner we played games and talked and laughed. It was a very pleasant visit, and yet another goodbye.

Here's Peter and Svein with some of Svein's awards. In 2005, he won the award for best math teacher in Norway, the first year the award was given. A few years earlier he won best science teacher in Norway, and went on to the European competition where he took 3rd place in all of Europe. Not too shabby!

Starting to Wind Down

2008-06-20T22:46:00.008+02:00

School is done for Pam and the kids! They finished up yesterday, and we all stayed up late. Pam and I went to a get-together with our friends from ThIS which was very nice. We've made good friends here in Norway, and now we are saying goodbye to a lot of good people we're not sure if we'll see again. Earlier this week we said goodbye to our good friends Scott and Teresa and daughter Anna Lola; they left for Minnesota for a month.

So, we slept in late this morning and I went to work in time for lunch -- Friday is waffle and cake day, and no one ever misses that! Today, however, people did miss it. I was surprised that there was only a handful of people at lunch. Many people start their vacations today, and consequently, I found myself saying goodbye to several of my friends at the office. I thought I'd have next week with them, but alas, time is up. The sadness is mitigated however by the fact that I've been invited to be a presenter at the November conference at NTNU, so even though I'm saying goodbye, I will get to see everyone again later this year.

Maggie left with Frøy's family for a weekend on their family farm 2 hours away. She'll have a nice weekend with her best friend here in Norway.

This evening we went to the beach to grill and enjoy the pleasant weather. Lade, our favorite and closest beach, was packed with cars and crowds and a fence and ticket booth. It looked like there would be some sort of concert tonight. Fun! But we wanted quiet, so we drove to Ranheim to the beach we went to last week with the school for Beach Day.

The beaches were empty and the sky was illuminated in brilliant shades of blue and white that made it seem like the heavens were wide open and anything could happen. There's something exceptional about these beaches on these fjords, a certain energy... it's like you can feel the power of the Norse gods calling you to the sea, the same way they must have called to the Vikings who stood on these very beaches. You can sense their spirits around you and know that you are feeling exactly the same as they did 1000 years ago. It's powerful.

After pølse, we stopped by Daniel and Evelina's. Daniels parents are visiting from Switzerland and some of their other friends were over as well. When Evelina got a video call with her parents in Italy, the room was a cacophony of Swiss Deutsch, Italian, English, and Norwegian. What a mix!

Where has the summer gone?

2008-06-18T08:49:00.001+02:00

Here then gone again. The weather has turned cool and rainy, and yesterday we were pelted with hail for a good five minutes.

New favorite word: rumpetroll. It means 'tadpole', but the literal translation of the word is 'butt troll'. I don't know how Norwegian kids can say this word without laughing!

This morning I have my final kindergarten visit. We will play number games, build cubes, make kites, and even sneak in a little juggling.

Less than 2 weeks left in Norway. Vi er trist.

Watch the video of hail in the middle of June:

15 years Birthday Celebration

2008-06-15T23:43:00.004+02:00

Anna, Anna Lola, and Sophia had their 15th birthday party today. 15 years old, altogether that is. They all turned 5 recently and we finally had a party. (Anna's party is only about 4 months late!) Evelina took over planning and we had a big affair. Lots of decorations and face painting, frog races, crown making, pin the tail on the donkey, juggling show, cupcake decorating with personal cupcake candles, prizes, bean-bag toss, yummy treats. If we hadn't run out of time, we'd have had a puppet show, too. We thought the party was over-the-top, especially for Norway, but the girls had a blast... and so did the grownups! (We even were terrorized by a mummy, thanks to make-up artist Maggie and movie-monster Peter.)

Friday Photos

2008-06-14T23:35:00.000+02:00

Anna and Amanda getting sucked up some kind of tube at Phillip's birthday party.

Maggie discovered she likes diving at Pirbadet.

Hannah's birthday party at Peppe's Pizza.

The view from Peppe's Pizza.

Cookout with ThIS faculty.

The cookout isn't a Friday photo... it was on Saturday in a big beautiful courtyard in the center of a block of apartments, hidden from outsiders. Surprising!

School Trips, Language

2008-06-13T08:58:00.010+02:00

Pam took her 14 kids camping overnight. With weather predicted to be cold and raining, she changed the plans from camping on the wet mossy floors of the forest in Bymarka. Instead she managed to rent 4 cabins at a campground south of Trondheim about 30 km, and the weather even miraculously turned sunny in the afternoon.

Today she takes her class to Pirbadet, the fancy aquatic center in sentrum Trondheim. Then we all meet for dinner at Peppe's Pizza on the canal downtown. There will be some tired kids tonight!

I'm still floating from the incredible week we've had. I'll be at the office all day finalizing a book that will be sent to print this afternoon.

Language: We're getting a Norwegian newspaper now. It just started showing up on my porch 2 weeks ago, I don't know why. ("When the student is ready, the master will appear.") With effort, I can read the news. I'm learning a Trønderock song on guitar. I've been singing it around the office and now it's stuck in everyone's heads. I hear people whistling it in the halls. They think it's funny to hear the American singing a song in Trøndersk (Trøndersk is the dialect of Trøndelag, the local region. It's considered the coarsest and most difficult to understand dialect in Norway). I write long emails in Norwegian without stopping to look up words, and I still do look up words and ask grammar questions, even though we're leaving in just over 2 weeks. I speak with strangers in Norwegian and if they are patient and speak carefully sometimes we can talk just fine. I just called a store and navigated their telephone system and found opening hours -- the first time I've been able to follow spoken menus. Sometimes I even catch myself thinking in Norsk. Veldig rar.

One problem is that people now overestimate how much Norwegian I know, and I have to either continually stop conversation and ask about words, or in group conversations if I don't want to stop the flow I just nod and give a drawn out "Jaaaaa!" If I match the tone of the "ja" to the tone of the question, it usually works beautifully. People also think I'm a most agreeable guy -- "He says 'ja' to everything!"

In any case, there's lots of progress and it's still fun.

København

2008-06-11T17:15:00.006+02:00

I've just returned from the Nordic finals of the 9th grade mathematics competition. The top team from each of the five Nordic countries convened in Virrum, a suburb of Copenhagen Denmark, and I was invited as part of the Norwegian leaders team (I had written some of the questions for the semifinals). Four kids and a teacher and maybe a parent came from each of the countries Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. (Quick Nordic Fact™: "Scandanavia" refers to Denmark, Sweden and Norway, while "Nordic" refers to all five of these northern countries.)

We met at Shäffergård, a house given to Denmark from Norway as a thank-you for Denmark's help during WW2. Denmark built one in Norway, also (and I think they built one in Sweden too, there's a lot of that kind of thing going on around here). We visited the Experimentarium, which is one of the best kids science museums I've seen. It was fun talking to the kids in the competition at the museum. That afternoon the teams gave presentations of projects their class had worked on. The theme this year is "Mathematics and Animals". The Swedish team, dressed as bees, gave a smooth and funny performance and scored first place in presentations. Here they are demonstrating how bees dance to express a particular angle between food and the sun.

That evening, we took the teams to Bakken, an outdoor amusement park. We all rode on a bus, and once everyone was settled, the leader took role calling out the names of each country "Iceland? ... ja, Denmark? ... ja, Norway? ... ja, Sweden? ... ja, and who else? Ah yes, Finland! Ja." I was in the presence of all of these countries, all these neighbors, all these people who look out for each other. It was nice.

As the kids rode rides and played games, I made friends with math ed people from all the Nordic countries. Several of them remember me from a conference in Copenhagen in 2004 where I performed mathematical juggling in a math circus.

As the time to the bus approached, I strolled the lovely park around the amusements area. I saw 10 white stripe tail deer. We regarded each other for several minutes through the ferms, then they nervously moved on. Here's a tree outside Bakken. It immediately struck me as 2 or more women. Perhaps this tree is a dryad, a spirit of the forest that takes the shape of a tree.

The next day was the other part of the mathematics competition. Teams had 5 minutes to solve a problem. During the 5 minutes the audience (which included a 3rd and a 6th grade class) furiously worked on the problems as well! I competed with the teachers from Iceland and Norway and we had fun coming up with novel approaches. The judges collected the answers and then one team would be chosen at random to present its solution (each team would present once, chosen at random.) After discussion, I then gave a short juggling show as the judges finalized their scoring, then points were awarded and each team's scorecards updated. We did this 5 times, which means I did 5 shows in total (the first show was juggling one ball, the second show two balls, etc. up to five. The first show was my favorite, I just threw and caught one ball dramatically... the end.)

The mathematics contest was thrilling and real nail-biter. Denmark was slightly ahead the entire contest, only to have Sweden jump to the lead on the last problem. Finally the long goodbyes, the offers to come visit Finald and Iceland and others, and then Ingvill, May and I rolled our suitcases out to catch a downtown train.

We had a late flight out of Copenhagen, and I managed to arrange a meeting with my old friend Henrik. I hadn't seen him for 17 years. How strange to be sitting at an outdoor cafe in Nyhavn with all of the boats on a canal down the middle of the street, having beer with a real viking.

Thank you Demark! I enjoy your country every time.

Festning Festival

2008-06-07T23:23:00.002+02:00

Boom! Boom! Boom! The cannons at the festning exploded in celebration of Norway's independence. Today is the official opening date for the festning, and at 12 noon their cannons shook the earth and belched giant smoke rings into the perfect blue sky.

Gerd works with Matematikksenteret and Kristiansen Fortress, and last night she told us not to miss this day! It was tricky getting up so "early" after last night, but we made it in good time. Inside the fortress, costumed soldiers beat drums, marched, and smelted lead bullets.

Bang! The candy cannon went off, blowing a barrel-load of caramels up in to the sky onto a crowd of children. "Candy! Candy! Candy!" Anna screeched. She soon had the crowd of young children chanting it. Here's a video of the candy cannon, unedited. Feel the anticipation as the cannon is loaded. Hear the children screaming "Candy! Candy! Candy!" (which later changed into "Godteri! Godteri! Godteri!") Be sure to catch the exciting finish. The cannon overshoots the crowd, pelting an old lady standing all by herself, who is then mobbed by 50 screaming children. Good fun!

We unexpectedly met Evalina and Daniel here, with Anna's friends Sophia and Eva. The girls had a great time running around climbing on the cannons. The festning, which is right next to our international school, overlooks sentrum Trondheim and the Nidaros cathedral.

We listened to a jazz band, ate popsicles, and explored the coves and buildings of the festning. A classical guitarist/singer played in the chapel of the festning It was haunting and beautiful... mmmm. The acoustics in the small enclosed space were amazing. Here's an audio clip to hear her playing and singing. I wish I'd recorded the whole thing. I'll need to find out who she is and if she has a CD.

Pam and I headed into the Donjon, the central stark white building in the center of the festning. It is now a museum highlighting the struggles of the Norwegian army, farmers, and skiers against the invading Swedes. It struck a sympathetic tone with the poor Swedes and the troubles they faced as well. Norwegians and Swedes are now like brothers... though they enjoy teasing each other like brothers as well!

Soon, the Norwegian Air Force band struck up some lively tunes. (This is the only band officially licensed by the Norwegian government, so we're told). We slipped off with the kids to the Red Shoe show, in a bunker next to the gift shop (also in a bunker). The show was designed especially for 1-3 year olds, but our kids were fascinated (and, well, me and Pam were, too). A woman in a leotard performed a very engaging act with dance, rhythm, and peculiar red shoes, while a man provided percussion as a soundtrack. It was very inviting and very well-paced, ending with all the kids experimenting with shoes and drums. Fun!

The event lasted about 2 hours, perfect timing for children. Finally, here's Pam with the lady who made it all possible, my dear friend Gerd. Tusen takk, Gerd!

We've done so many exciting things this week! What will our final month hold?

Blå Tur!

2008-06-06T23:59:00.007+02:00

Okay, tonight surely rank as one of the higlights of our Norwegian experience thus far.

Matematikksenteret hosted a Blå Tur, or "Blue Trip" tonight. It's a mystery a trip, a voyage out into the blue. Our instructions: be in front of our building no later than 7 pm. Dress nice but comfortably. That's all we knew.

We gathered outside and made introductions. Pam has not met many of my coworkers. She'd be passing into a Norwegian world tonight, which could be a little unnerving, but my colleagues are great and took to her right away. The bus pulled up at 7 pm sharp. We drove on the E6 west, making a stop near Vikhammer.

We stopped at a farmhouse with a beautiful view over the fjord. As we drank champagne and ate strawberries, Nurse Åstrid and Nurse Gina explained our teams and the first game we'd be playing. Our teams had to travel a distance standing only on small foam mats that we could move. Each player had a mat just large enough to put two feet on, and a team of 4 needed to travel 30 meters without stepping off the mats.

We played another game, got to know each other and our spouses, and then climbed back on the bus and headed out into Stjordal, past the airport. We had a trivia challenge along the way (Pam and I both solved several puzzles, even in Norwegian!)

We arrived at a placed called Re, a lovely traditional farmhouse in a beautiful setting. We settled in to a formal dinner at a long, candlelit table. Our dinner was a selection of local Trondelag specialties: shrimp, salmon, crusty garlic bread, local cheeses, sausages.

The best dish on the menu was also the biggest surprise: raw slices of moose served with a berry sauce! The moose was marinated in sugar and salt. This so was so delicious, I had seconds. After dinner, a pair of musicians told stories and sang Trondelag songs. We didn't understand half of what was said, but everyone at the table knew the words to all of the songs. It was beautiful, and very entertaining even without knowing what was being said!

After dinner we had cognac -- Norway is the #1 cognac drinking country in the world (I assume in liters per captia) -- and dancing! Everyone really cut loose, I danced with a lot of beautiful women tonight... none more lovely than my wife! We traded magic tricks and puzzles. Tor was in rare form tonight, wooing the ladies and holding his own against my puzzlers.

We drank and laughed and danced until 1 a.m., until the sun was finally setting (but not really).

The final song of the night is a Norwegian song asking "Vil du værra med mæ hjem i natt?"Will you come home with me tonight, and sleep in the same bed tonight." Here's 30 seconds at the end of the song. It's been stuck in my head for days now! If you listen closely, you can hear my wife proposition me... to go to bed with her and Anna, my 5-year old. Romantic songs are quite different when you have children!

Thank you friends -- this was a night to remember!

Parkeringsbøter

2008-06-06T21:37:00.000+02:00

In the paper this morning, 50 000 parking tickets were issued in Tronheim during 2007, taking in 132,5 million kroner, or $27,5 million dollars! (That includes 2600 pig tickets. Piggdekker are studded tires like we had on our station wagon this winter. If you use them, you must pay a $200 fee to cover damage to the roads or risk an expensive ticket. Pigg = stud, so ladies be careful in Norway if you call a man a "pig", as you might be sending the wrong message.)

Festning

2008-06-05T23:59:00.000+02:00

Went to dinner at Daniel and Evelina's last night. Anna stayed for sleepover. Then we met Mat out at the festning last night. Sunshine, people all over the grounds playing football and frisbee and juggling. People gathering in groups from 3 to 30. It was 9 pm and it felt like middle of the afternoon.

"It's like a different country," Mat observed. It does feel like an entirely different country.

We played 500, an Australian card game. I got the beautiful open mesire show here, it's the highest hand you can call and my deal was nearly perfect. Nice!

Tonight we go on a "Blå Tur", a mystery trip, a Blue Tour, a trip into the Blue! It's arranged by people at my work. We are to show up at a specific time and location, and then... what will happen? Who knows?

Beach Day

2008-06-05T22:17:00.001+02:00

It's winding down to the last 2 weeks of school. Across the country and around the world, children (and teachers!) will not be able to focus well in school. So off to the beach! Preschool - 5th grade piled onto 3 buses and went to a beach in Ranheim. I stayed with the preschoolers at one section of the beach while Pam and the older kids were at the other beach. The kids swam, we skipped stones, play Kongespill, grilled pølse, and got plenty of sunshine. Kids ate pølse (hot dogs) with a kind of flat potato bread called 'lompe', which the kids like to say because it rhymes with 'rompe' with means 'butt'.

Back in Trondheim

2008-06-04T08:30:00.003+02:00

We return to sun and 27°C (82°F) weather -- wow! We were told to enjoy it while it's here, Norway can be stingy with summer weather sometimes. After a cloudy and sometimes rainy weekend in London, the warm sun and endless days seem somewhat surreal.

Peter went to see the doctor the afternoon after our return. His wound is healing beautifully and they expect to remove the stitches next week. It's amazing how fast he's recovering!

London, day 5. St. Paul's and Tate

2008-06-04T07:58:00.005+02:00

Here's Maggie enjoying the breeze on the tubes.

For our final morning, we explored the area around St. Paul's cathedral and walked across the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern Art Gallery. (When the Millenium Bridge opened in 2000, it swayed so much it was renamed the Wobbly Bridge. It is rumored that the architect said: "The bridge was designed perfectly and built perfectly. The problem is the weight of all the people." Don't know if that's true, but it's funny.)

During afternoon naps, I went down to the post office to try to mail a box of winter clothes back to the States. We'd hoped postage would be much cheaper in England than in Norway, but they wanted $144 to mail the box home, so we didn't bother.

When our plane landed in Oslo at 11 pm, we watched a beautiful sunset through the plane windows, and at 1 am on our drive home after landing in Trondheim we watched a beautiful sunrise. It felt so very nice to be back in Norway!

We discovered on this trip how very difficult it is to do very much sightseeing on a trip with 3 young children. I remember as a kid being taken on family trips to wonderful places and being oh so very bored unless there was an arcade game or gift shop nearby. Having said that, we did plenty and I am very pleased with the slice of London we experienced, but it was smaller slice than what it will be next time when the kids are adults!

Near the end of the trip I realized that the grocers and the buses and the tubes and the boroughs and the clouds and the rain and the musicians in the stations and the bustle and the pigeons and the friends and the stories and tucking in for the evening with a cider in a flat by a park in Paddington, this is all London, too. And it was all good.

Thanks for the visits, cousin Drew, uncle Rick, aunt Jeanette, Eman and Nic!

London, day 4. Daleks and Frenchmen

2008-06-04T04:00:00.001+02:00

Maggie has been collecting newspapers in the tubes. She found us BK coupons, and yesterday an advert for the Doctor Who exhibition at Earl's Court! We headed out this Sunday morning to be there for the 10 am opening.

When my psychic paper didn't work to get us free tickets, Peter tried using his sonic screwdriver on the credit card machine. The ticket lady pretended to be amused.

Here's some pictures of the Face of Bo, Cybermen, and a Slitheen. Oh yes, there were plenty of Ood and Daleks, too. In fact, the Dalek Encounter room was quite good and frightened the children rather well!

Afterwards we tubed a few stops away to meet some old friends. Here's a neat picture in the Earl's Court tube station of a bright green plant growing on dirty black lifeless bricks.

I hadn't seen Emman for 15 years. We were good friends at Michigan State, and were immediately friends again. We met at Sloane Square and all went for a big greasy lunch at a pub, then over to his apartment to let the kids play video games and to meet his son, Nic. Last time I saw Nic he was 6 years old so I didn't know what to expect. It was quite a surprise to see him fully grown! We got along right away. The kids grew tired and so we took a bus and a couple of tubes to go home. As Pam put the kids to bed, I returned to Eman and Nic's flat to visit some more. It was exactly like the old days, as if I'd walked out of their apartment one day and returned the next, but somehow we were all 15 years older.

Emman hates it when I take his picture, so he'd probably hate it even more if he knew I put on my blog. Don't tell him.

Below: Peter boxes with Nic's girlfriend Celia on the Wii. Me and Nic look more alike now than we did 15 years ago.

Circle Line Party

2008-06-03T17:36:00.005+02:00

We found a big grocery store in Victoria... and we shopped hard. Cheeses, candies, dry goods, pickles... all kinds of things at 1/4 the cost of Norway. At the check-out lane we realized we had 6 bags of groceries to take through three tube stations. Hmmm.

To complicate matters, this night is the last night in London that open alcohol is allowed on public transportation. In protest, 10 000 people plan to board the Circle Line tonight for a giant cocktail party. Aaaannd, as fate would have it, the closest way back home is on Circle line. Well, we would be part of history, then.

The Circle Line train was delayed 20 minutes. As the time grew closer, the crowd grew larger and larger on the platform waiting to board. Would all of these people fit into the train? Surely the train would be full. We would push. Finally the train rolled in, and indeed we saw many of the cars were packed full of singing cheering drunkards. We thought we'd never be able to squish into a car with all of our groceries, but luckily, a lot of people left the car directly in front of us. It was still standing-room only but we had space. We pressed into the car, luckily a non-party car. We waited and then the train shut down. Police ran by and a voice on the loudspeakers threatened drinkers, telling them to leave. (The drinkers weren’t doing anything illegal, though, but the British police were working hard to keep the partiers calm.) Finally, the train started and we left. At the next stop, though, the train shut down again and police tried to remove troublemakers from cars. Near our final stop, a crowd of partiers in colorful costumes climbed onto our car, and the smell of alcohol intensified. It was fun, but we were relieved to hop off at Notting Hill station and leave the boozers behind.

London, day 3. Trafalgar, Science, and more Naylors

2008-06-03T16:22:00.007+02:00

We'd planned to meet my uncle Rick and aunt Jeanette at Trafalgar Square this morning at 10:30, and we'd heard on the bus tour that at 10:00 there would a practice precession for the Queen's birthday next month.

We headed to the square and the Mall and watched soldiers march down the street. A bobby (policeman) asked if we wanted tickets to the grandstand. Someone couldn't go and he had two tickets, stand A, block 1, row A, seats 007 and 008. Pretty good seats. They just give you stuff in this country! Pam and Maggie went while Peter, Anna and I went to climb on lions and wait for our relatives.

Uncle Rick took us for icecream and then bought us lunch in Leicester Square, where there's lots of theatres. We ate at an outdoor cafe (the sun was shining today) and then tubed it to the science museum. The museum is huge and has the best collection of math artifacts I've seen in one place. It has some fun kid zones, but the museum has a dark feel to it that gets creepy after a while. Nearby is the museum of natural history, with a butterfly garden and maze. We hear this is the best museum for kids, but our days were always shorter than intended and we never made it back to the museums in South Kensington. Nevertheless, I was quite pleased to have seen the collections.

After the museum we ate at Sea Fresh in Victoria, some very excellent fish and chips. Perfect! Uncle Rick picked up the tab again -- no small thing feeding a family of 5 at a restaurant in London! Rick, Jeanette, Drew and family are very recently discovered family members. It was great to meet Rick again and meet Jeanette for the first time. Thanks for meeting us in London, Naylors!

Meeting Beefeater 385.

2008-06-03T14:34:00.006+02:00

Oh, yes, there's plenty of pigeons to feed in London. They're quite funny. We like birds. Feed the birds, tuppence a bag.

The Tower of London is wonderful. Very expensive, it cost us 40 or 50 quid for the family, plus ice cream, but I loved the tour. The stories of famous executions that happened here were quite fascinating. We met beefeaters, saw the crown jewels in a newly renovated vault, and while Pam and Anna participated in a play facillitated by costumed actors, I took fidgety Peter and cranky Anna into the White Tower in the center of the Tower of London (the Tower has 20 towers). The White tower was built in 1078, and is now full of weapons and armor, top to bottom, plus a gift shop. They liked looking at the nasty weapons and full size armored horse statues.

Here's two of our Beefeaters, including celebrity Ms Cameron, who became the first and only woman beefeater just last year.

Nila came with us, of course.

From the Tower we boarded a Thames River cruise boat, included with the price of the bus tour. We floated from Tower of London down to Big Ben, hearing stories about the places we passed. It was quite nice! Afterwards, all the kids were tired so we tubed it home for a relaxing evening reading stories in our rented flat.

London, day 2. "Look kids, Big Ben!"

2008-06-03T13:18:00.005+02:00

Traffic drives "the wrong way" in England, which makes crossing streets hazardous for right-hand driving foreigners because you tend to look for cars in the wrong direction. In London they label the street crossings with LOOK RIGHT or LOOK LEFT. It helps!

The mall is lined with plain trees, Andrew told us yesterday, a kind of tree that was planted all over London decades ago to combat the smog. They absorb carbon in their bark and then the bark peels away and the carbon is swept away. The strategy worked, clearing up much of the air pollution in the city.

Friday morning we head out to catch a double-decker tour bus. This was an excellent activity to do early in our trip. The kids loved riding up top and seeing all the fantastic buildings and dragons and statues and pigeons! And my were there pigeons!

We never got tired of saying, "Look kids, Big Ben!" Here we are in matching outfits waiting for the tour bus and Anna spotting the tower.

Cool architecture everywhere. I liked this one with golden women diving into space.

Big Ben through the London Eye, taken from the top of our bus about to cross the Thames.

We got off at Tower of London...

London, day 1. Off to see the Queen.

2008-06-03T13:06:00.007+02:00

Thursday morning Pam picked up me and Peter from the hospital at 7 am sharp and we headed off to the airport to fly to London for the weekend. Peter had recovered quickly and his stellated laceration (thanks for that medical term, Hez!) is a pretty easy location, so he was good to go with plenty of tape and thick thick band of padding. We’d called SAS ahead of time to arrange a wheelchair for Peter at Heathrow in case there was a long walk, and this was a good move... it seemed like miles from the gate, through passport control, baggage claim, customs, and down to the trains.

There’s many ways to get from Heathrow to downtown. We considered taking the tubes, as this would cost only 8 pounds for the family. But the trip would take more than an hour and involve changing trains in unfamiliar stations with all of our bags. Instead we opted for the Heathrow Connect, a modern comfortable train with few stops which got us directly to Paddington station for 24 pounds.

Before leaving Paddington Station we had to find the statue of Paddington Bear... which to our surprise and delight, is right next to a Krispy Kreme donut shop! Ahhhh...

Paddington Station is only a short walk to the apartment we’d rented for the weekend. In Barcelona and again in London, we hunted online for ‘holiday rentals’ and got apartments for half the cost of hotels.

We arrived at the apartment the same time as my cousin Andrew, who took a train down from Leeds to visit with us for a day. He has just finished college and will be working at a law firm in the City of London starting September. He brought bigs bags of sweets for the kids. Mmmm... England has legendary sweets. (Maybe I'm genetically aligned to English flavors anyways.)

After getting settled, we headed off for adventure. It started to rain, a London specialty, but we didn’t mind. It somehow felt more London-y to be rained upon. We cut across Hyde park, a HUGE park in the middle of London, walked along a lake, and stopped for pizza at the Spaghetti House. Peter was wanting to run, climb, and turn somersaults, and it was very hard for him to remember he is damaged. Still, it's good to see he has full energy! We headed off walking down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace.

Here's Pam and Drew in Hyde park, and a sign asking you to not allow your dog to "worry" the wildlife. (That's a funny thing about England, it's so... English!)

I thought these chimneys were cool, too:

Our first sight to see was Buckingham palace. The palace was a disappointment to the kids. It’s just a building. I was already expecting to be disappointed, so it wasn't such a shocker.

From here we walked to the underground and bought Oyster cards. They let you ride the subway for half price and also have a daily maximum charge of about 4 pounds. Kids 10 and under ride for free also, so for us the tubes were the perfect way to get around. Maggie also enjoyed figuring out the system and guiding us through us our stops and transfers.

We rode to Oxford Circus to visit Hanlee’s toy shop, a six story kid wonderland. We had to buy some Doctor Who toys, of course. Here's Peter trying on a Dalek helmet.

Afterwards we bought some matching GAP sweatshirts, picked up some groceries from Marks and Spencers, went back to apartment, bade counsin Andrew farewell and settled in for stories.

Peter is doing great

2008-06-02T00:34:00.003+02:00

Thanks for all the messages! I'll reply when I can... we don't have internet right now. Peter is doing extremely well, full of life and energy and healing beautifully. Cheers!

Æ e i A. Æ e å.

2008-06-01T10:07:00.002+02:00

We were talking to Martin and Elisabeth about Tronders, the local dialect and apparently the most difficult to understand form of Norwegian. I commented that I thought it funny that saying "Me too" in Norwegian is "Jeg også", but in Trondish it is spoken as only two vowels: "Æ å", pronouched "eh - oh".

They had an even better combination, where a string of 7 vowel sounds is a perfectly legitimate pairs of lines from a conversation saying "I am in A" and "I am also." ('A' is the name of a political party, or it can be a name of a room for example.)

Here I'll let Elisabeth explain it to you... click here.

Rare Lego Error

2008-05-31T23:50:00.000+02:00

Peter got some Lego Technics from Grandma Ann and Grandpa Ike. Lego sets are never missing pieces, because each bag is weighed to 1/100 of a gram. Or so I've been told. I was excited when Peter found 3 of one piece and 1 reflection of the piece, when there should have 2 and 2. Peter was less excited, but thought it was cool that the swapped pieces weigh exactly the same. We thought Legos were packed by robots... maybe some of the robots are turning evil.

Hospitals

2008-05-29T12:00:00.000+02:00

This was our second hospital experience in Norway. Our first experience was a few months ago when Pam fell on ice and broke her thigh. Some of friends congratulated us on milking the socialized medicine system. (In truth, they are billing our insurance companies.)

We had two very different experiences. The first time, we were in the main hospital building, a very old and depresing place. Yesterday a nurse told me the building reminds her of second-world hospitals, maybe in a war zone. At the time I had been in Norway for a month and spoke almost no Norwegian. Consequently, everyone was quite crabby and exasperated with me. Most hospital staff either don't speak English or not so well, or maybe they are tired of foreigners who don't speak the language. Whatever the reason, I was made to feel like a nuisance whenever I needed something. Also, we felt like we got no information the first time. Nurses would tell us only to wait to talk to the doctor, and the doctor did not visit for four days. When he did, he grumbled that Pam had not been moving her leg enough. All in all, apart from the expert surgery, our first experience was quite negative.

This time, we are in the children's building which is ultra-modern and very happy. There's a food room down the hall stocked with things to eat and three or four play rooms on the floor. The staff is friendly and check on us all the time. They're younger too, and speak English quite well, although this time I can speak Norwegian (and was quite pleased that I talked to a lot of people in Norwegian only). We met lots of doctors, more than we needed to I think, but we had plenty of information. The surgery was delayed for a very long time (22 hours), but apart from that we are very pleased with this hospital visit.

Advice for going to the hospital in Norway: (1) speak Norwegian, and (2) be a kid.

Peter in Sykehuset

2008-05-28T22:26:00.004+02:00

Peter had surgery this morning, 22 hours after arriving at the hospital. Ugh. He did very well, no damage to the muscle, nerves, or vascular system... it's only a flesh wound. An hour after the operation he wanted to walk around but we made him stay in bed. Two hours after the operation he went out walking, and Pam had a hard time keeping him from running and climbing. Yep, he'll be fine if we can get him to take it easy.

They'll let him leave in the morning, but in typical Norwegian style they'd prefer he stay four more days. In the U.S., they try to hurry you out the door from the hospital. Here they want you to stay and stay. We'll stay one more night.

Here's some pics:

1. Peter being loaded into the ambulance at school. It was big news at school. Many classes made 'god bedring' (good recovery, or good 'bettering') cards for him. Most were addressed "Dear Petter". Petter is the Norwegian version of Peter.

2. The rooms have a TV/video game console built in. Peter had his choice of a stack of Playstation 2 games. He was pretty happy!

3. 4. & 5. Off to the surgical theater. I got to go in to help him get settled. He was pretty excited!

6. & 7. He recovered pretty darn quickly. Here he is eating cornflakes with whipped cream on top, and down in the lobby checking out the candy selection.

8. Wicked! The wound is about 8 cm across and shaped like a Mercedes symbol. That's going to be a very cool scar... Peter is pretty pleased with it.

Peter Falls From Tall Tree, Lands in Hospital

2008-05-28T01:39:00.004+02:00

There's always debate at the international school about tree-climbing at recess. The Norwegian way is "let them play... if they get hurt, that's part of learning." The American way is "don't risk anything or we'll get sued!" (How did America go from the land of taking risks to the land of playing it safe?) The international school is a mix of native Norwegians and foreigners, and some parents think kids should be kids and other parents freak out at potential dangers. We're the kind of parents who think kids should climb trees. And as fate would have it, it's our kid that falls.

Peter fell from the top of a tree this morning and landed on a fence, piercing his thigh rather deeply and rather dramatically. The wound is large and rather hideous looking. We're in the hospital right now, he's doing quite well and sleeping soundly, but he hasn't had surgery yet. Surgery was scheduled for 5 pm, but then there was a car accident. They had him ready to go again at 9 pm, but then a chainsaw accident came in. So surgery will wait until morning. He seems to have no problem moving his leg, so it looks like the muscle may not be damaged bady. We'll know the extent of the damage tomorrow. I'm sleeping with him tonight.

Frøy's Hytta

2008-05-27T19:46:00.001+02:00

Sunday morning after a lazy start, we headed off to Hommelvik to spend an afternoon at the hytta of Maggie's friend Frøy. Again we took the back roads, avoiding the tolls. I love this drive.

I don't know Elisabeth and Martin very well at all, despite the fact that we've been sharing our daughters with each other's families for the whole year. This was a nice opportunity to get to know them.

Below is Elisabeth and Martin, a picture of Elizabeth from a Norwegian tourist magazine that she appeared in many years ago. Yes, today we were hanging out with a magazine model!

The hytta is small and lovely. It runs on 12V solar electricity, it collects rainwater and filters it for washing, pressure provided by an electric pump. Add in a compost toilet and they have a very nice eco-friendly getaway, perfect for end-of-the-world scenarios. The cottage looks over both the fjord and a smaller building that the girls use for their sleepover.

We walked down to the fjord and explored the rocky shore. Today the sun is shining warmly but the wind blows cool and steady. The surf is loud and the waves break dramatically at our feet. The stone is fascinating, striated layers, slashed with thin ribbons of white quartz. Vikings once roamed these shores, 1000 years ago.

Coming back we wait for the train. The rails sing to us 30 seconds before the two-car train thunders past us.

Back at the hytta, Elisabeth serves us sod, a traditional soup made with meatballs and carrots, served with a boiled potato and flatbread. Absolutely delicious!

This was our busiest weekend yet, and certainly one of the best.

Bakklandet Music Festival

2008-05-26T21:37:00.000+02:00

Saturday evening after the party we walked downtown to hear friends of a friend playing in a band. A makeshift stage was set up in an empty lot right across the street from Bakklandet Stajson, a restaurant we visited some weeks ago. Wedged between buildings overlooking the river below, we danced and danced and danced to world beat music

Above: our friend Lisa. Her wife is in the band. Below, after the show we walk up the only bicycle lift in the entire world. As downtown dwindles beneath us, we hear the sounds of Def Leppard rocking downtown Trondheim. I saw Def Leppard in Seattle last year, it is funny to hear them a second time.

Daniels Bursdag

2008-05-26T12:31:00.001+02:00

Our friend Daniel from Switzerland and his wife Evelina from Italy had a party for Daniel's birthday. 12 grown-ups and 8 kids were at the party. We met a lot of new friends and enjoyed wonderful food and wine. A beautiful evening!

I made friends with a very cute baby named Lily. She became quite possessive of me and wouldn't let other people hold her. It was nice to soak up some good baby love again.

Dandelion Morning

2008-05-26T09:22:00.001+02:00

Saturday morning Maggie went to Frøy's hytta and I took Anna and Peter down to the Traffikgård. We walked past the soccer fields, busy with games this sunny morning, and stopped by the BMX tracks. Several kids were biking down the hill and over the jumps. Peter tried a couple of times, wiping out beautifully until I helped steady him and talk him through it. I cheered for the other kids as they completed runs... very un-Norwegian of me. The kids were surprised and pleased and took to smiling at us.

At the Traffikgård, or Traffic Garden, the kids were not interested in using the comprehensive sets of practice streets for bicycles, but rather in picking dandelions. We made crowns, bundled weeds, collected grass seeds, and climbed trees. On the way home we stopped at the playground at Eberg Skole. They were totally wiped out when we got home and took long naps, reviving themselves for our evening adventure.

The dandelions are a different variety than in the United States. The yellow flowers look the same as in the states, but when they seed, the white fluffy stuff is much finer and fluffier. Huh.

The Settlers Fra Catan

2008-05-25T21:18:00.005+02:00

We talked Mark into having a cook-out after school on Friday. We met another Mark who works for Stadt Oil. (A lot of people we meet work for the oil companies, perhaps especially in Trondheim which is home to the science and technology university). Mark tells out the between the piers and Munkholmen (the sole island in the fjord) lies the most technologically advanced sea floor in the world. His team of geophysicists is conducting research scanning sea floors looking for oil that is left behind from drill sites, and the floor is crawling with sensors and robots. Coooooool.

We played The Settlers Fra Catan, our favorite game. Mark has the game in Norwegian. We've started getting a regular crowd of folks who are hooked on the game now... this is a very good thing. We had some disagreement about the name, though. fra = from, so they're calling it the Settlers from Catan whereas we call it the Settlers of Catan, a subtle but important difference. Are they settling Catan, or did they come from Catan and are now settling some unnamed land. Mysteries.

The kids were up to midnight tonight. It is very difficult for anyone to want to go to sleep when it's still light out!

Protest over gas prices

2008-05-25T17:57:00.001+02:00

Here's an article in Aftenposten about the record setting gas prices. We just blew past the $10.00/gallon mark (13.30 kr/l), and gas in Norway is now the most expensive in the world.

When we arrived in August, gas was $6.77/gallon. Gas prices are expected to rise to $13.60/gallon by this summer, doubling in one year.

Sweden, part 4. Storlien and Home.

2008-05-25T03:24:00.002+02:00

We needed gas, and it was 14.40 sek in Åre. How much was that compared to kroner? We weren't exactly sure, but it looked like a lot. Turns out that the exchange rate is a bit better than we expected and the gas here is slightly cheaper than what we paid in Norway this morning. On returning to Norway, we found that while we were gone those few hours, the price of fuel rose from 12.85 to 13.65, nearly a whole crown! We leave the country for a few hours and everything goes to hell.

Back through the black zone, the rain drizzling. On a dry day, this road would be fun to drive. Our last stop is the strip mall at Storlien. It's kind of a weird place. Trolls and Frog Princes were being held as prisoners behind chicken wire. Look at how cute they are. Don't be fooled! These "cute" trolls will chew off your arms and legs if they get mad.

We asked the checkout guy where we could buy alcohol. "Åre is the closest place, but you can buy it here if you call and order it one day ahead. I'm afraid it's Sweden, and we're weird in Sweden," he explained with a maniacal grin. He then shut down his register, the only one open, and took us across the store to the special orders window where he gave us a catalog and chatted with us. It didn't seem to matter that there were four people waiting in line for him back at the register.

We leave Sweden and the rain stops at once. Meråker is still beautiful -- what a contrast! -- and we see two moose standing by the side of the road. Moose! Moose are exciting.

When we get home, Pam cooks bacon right away, doesn't even take her coat off. We have yummy food for a lot of days. And some really big crackers.

Sweden was just as were told: a very nice drive through Norway but terribly dull from the border until Åre, and although you can save a little on groceries (and quite a lot on meat), it will cost you in gas. We're glad we went!

Sweden, part 3. Descent into Darkness.

2008-05-24T11:49:00.001+02:00

The road from Hegra passes through Meråker, a huge region of pleasant scenery. Parts of it were like Stevens Pass in Washington. But as we neared the border, the scenery changed. Storlien is a weird tiny speck of a town, home only to a strip mall containing a grocery store, a touristy gift shop, and a cafe. The shopping bus was parked outside as we approached. We didn't stop.

The landscape flattened. Dark evergreen trees flanked us, interspersed with blood red foliage. The sky darkened and it began to rain. Mile after mile after mile, the same depressing scene. This was the 'black zone' we were told about, the part of the world that no one wants, the tracts of uninspired land clinging to the edge of Sweden.

above: endless nothing, and finally arriving in Åre.

Åre is a very small town, home of a big ski lift and a giant warehouse-like building called the Holiday Club, which has indoor minigolf and a swimming pool. Families can take the train from Norway to Åre, and step off the train into either the Holiday Club or a mini-mall.

Åre was deserted today. Aparently, this is two week period between winter and summer season when they everyone leaves except for maintenance crews. The mini-mall was open, and we parked in the garage underneath.

$5 to use the bathroom at the mall in Åre. Your admission comes complete with a shower. If you hop the turnstile, the bathrooms are free. Or you can use the baby-changing bathroom for free. I figure I've changed enough babies in my life to earn entrance to that room!

Inside the grocery store a stuffed reindeer is standing watch over the dried goods. There's exotic groceries: flavors we've never seen before, unknown products labeled in a weird language with umlauts, so many varieties of spreads in tubes (fishy things and unknown vegetables and varieties of mystery meats and other "things". How brave are you?) It was some interest we noticed that we could understand most of the signs, about 3/4 of the words are similar to their Norwegian counterparts. I immediately shifted in a language mode, sorting words and trying to discern roots and meanings, but I quickly managed to stop myself.

We found bacon by the cartload. Our holy grail. You can't find bacon easily in Norway. (tangent: I bought a pack once at a specialty shop in Trondheim, it was 10 dollars for 10 razor thin slices. Oh, it was very good, but was it one-dollar-a-slice good? Of course it was, it's bacon.)

Bacon at this store was on sale, 10 packs for 8.90 sek... $1.50 per pack. Mmmmmm.... bacon.

Frozen chicken was 1/4 the price, and meats were half the price. The meat looked so fresh and lean. Hamburger in Norway is often turning brown when you buy it (maybe Norwegians like it brown?), but this meat is beautiful. We pick out some marinated steaks and babyback ribs, and enough hamburger and chicken to last us until the end of time.

Milk and yogurt, also 1/2 price, but most other items, cereal, bread, cheese, chips... all are about the same price as in Norway, maybe a little cheaper but not by much. We loaded up the trunk and headed off into the rain.

Sweden, part 2. Hegra Festning.

2008-05-24T01:09:00.001+02:00

Past the airport we hit some gorgeous countryside in Hegra. We knew we should start watching for the Leirfall stone carvings, and as we rounded the corner south into Hegra, we entered another world. The lush beauty of the countryside and wooded mountains drew us off the E14 and we found ourselves following a sign pointing us to the Hegra festning, an unscheduled side trip. Up, up, up, we drove on a one-lane paved road through the forest, reaching the woods on the top of a small mountain. We couldn't see a fortress... and as it turns out, that's part of what makes it a good fortress. This surprise trip was the highlight of our strange voyage.

The festning was built 100 years ago during WWI and was in operation from 1910 to 1940. Tunnels, trenches, bunkers, secret passages, bridges... the passageways went on and on and on. There were still seemingly endless places to explore. I was in the fort of my childhood dreams.
We were in a ruin on Halo, or maybe Yavin IV, or perhaps a moon of Endor. This would be the perfect setting for capture the flag or paintball.

The view through the trees over the wooded valleys was spectacular. . . and no one else was there. No cars in the lot, no signs of life at the museum or infomation centers, not a single person, vehicle, or sound save for the roar of the river far below, hidden in the trees of the steep green valley.

We stayed so long, we decided to forego the runes. We shall see the carvings another day.

Here's some tiny pictures, click on them to see bigger ones.

The final picture shows some graffiti on the wall by Norwegian royalty.

Sweden, part 1. Driving to Sweden.

2008-05-23T11:35:00.011+02:00

We've not been to Sweden yet, except for changing planes in Stockholm which doesn't really count. Rumors are told in hushed tones of the 1/2 price groceries just across the border. A bus runs from Trondheim to a grocery store in Storlien, for 25 kr. you can ride round trip, and if you spend more than 500 kr. (100 usd) you ride for free. Tempting as it was to ride a bus with a lot of old people, we wanted to drive, see some things on the way, and maybe go past this town all the way to Åre, a small resort town 2.5 hours away and the first real civilization you reach across the Swedish border.

Everyone we spoke to told us not to go. When you reach the border, so they said, you be in boring ugly forest for miles and miles. There is nothing to do in the towns. And yes some things are much cheaper but overall it's not worth the gasoline.

Discouraging words could not stop us – adventure surged in our blood! Besides, of course Norwegians would tell you not to go to Sweden! With the border only an hour and a half away, we could not resist making the drive.

I had many potential stops planned for us on the way to Sweden, marked with triangles on the map below. From left to right they are:

Drive around the fjord to the ruins of an ancient monestery on the isle of Tautra.
Visit Steinvikholmen, a DaVinci inspired ruined fortress on a nearby island,
Drive up the highest mountain in Trondelag, just north of Stjordal,
Visit a festning (fortress) in Hegra,
Stop to see the earliest stone carvings in Scandanavia, also in Hegra,
Go shopping at strange grocery store in Storlien, across the Swedish border,
Drive all the way to Åre, a small resort town.

We could do the first 5 of these all of these in one day, but with the Sweden trip we decided to see the Runes on the way there and the Ruins on the way back if there was time.

The weather is hard to predict right now. This morning the sky is cloudy and threatening as we drive out of apartment. Yesterday, freezing sleet fell on our laundry. We've had sun and rain and wind and calm... the weather is very strange.

The tank is almost empty. Filling it will cost 700 kr, about $140. Is fuel cheaper in Sweden? We didn't know, but we'd take the risk. We filled the car with 10 liters in the tank, just enough to get us to Åre. (Fuel this morning was 12.85 nok/liter, the highest I've paid yet ($9.73/gallon). Some weird things happened with gas prices today, more later.)

The first part of the trip takes us towards the airport, 30 or 45 minutes away, depending which way you go. The fast way is to take the toll road, a beautiful sleek black and red asphalt motorway speeding through three tunnels. They want you pay 35 kr. ($7) to drive on it.

The other route takes you on a lovely scenic route, but it's easy to be tricked back onto the toll road. Groups of signs point you back towards the E6, "Stjordal this way! Værnes this way!" We only had to backtrack once this time.

On the back roads we passed three different groups of school children out on bicycle trips. Past the airport at Hegra we took great pleasure in some of the very scenic countryside. The scenery looks like some of the best places in the state of Washington, but it's everywhere, for miles and miles and miles. So much beautiful country, so few people to spoil it!

The Light

2008-05-22T23:45:00.003+02:00

It's 11:00 pm. The sunset has stretched for hours, and the sky is changing pink in the west. It will not be dark tonight.

The light through the window at 8:00 in the evening.

Rock Hunt

2008-05-18T14:47:00.004+02:00

Maggie has had "rock fever" since geology day last week. Allan sent us directions to a good spot to go garnet hunting, and so this morning we drove along the fjord past Trolla looking for whitish rock walls with a dusting of orange rust. Finding a good spot, we hunted for loose stones bejeweled with embedded red crystal garnets... and we found them!

The kids loaded up a backpack and as many stones as they could carry back to the car. Maggie and Peter spent much of the afternoon with hammers chipping away the stone from the gems, and now have about 100 of the geometric crystals. A fun day!

The stone shown above has about 30 garnets clearly visible in its surface. How many more inside? The kids couldn't wait to get home and began banging on rocks right away.

The garnet is shaped as a rhombic dodecahedron, one of 3D geometry's most delicious shapes.

Unfortunate Band Name

2008-05-18T14:46:00.002+02:00

17th of May

2008-05-17T20:14:00.004+02:00

17th of May is National Day in Norway, the celebration of the nation's birth. We parked at the university and headed downtown to catch a morning parade, one of many today. Downtown was packed... seems like everyone in Trondelag had come to a one square km area. People are dressed up in traditional costumes... and they look great! All of the kids go on parade with their schools, all expect for our kids – the older two weren't particularly interested and our youngest was too young for regulations. However, after naps, I took Anna to a special parade for young kids and their parents, which was perfect because I wanted to be in the parade, too! A marching band led the way, and Anna waved the biggest flag in the entire lineup. She was thrilled! She wore her sparkliest princess dress (it was not quite like the traditional Norwegian dresses worn by most of the women and girls, but it was worn in good spirit!)

Happy Birthday, Norway!

Peter's Birthday lives on

2008-05-17T20:10:00.004+02:00

Here's Peter with some more birthday goodness... first there was a trip to Toys R Us with a gift card from Grandma. Peter picked out a castle Lego set. Yum! Then a package arrived from Grandpa full of robots and goldfish crackers! Could there be a happier kid? Below, his munch-bot attacks Lego castle.

Geology Day and Sleepover (plus some Torghatten)

2008-05-16T10:52:00.004+02:00

Pam has had an exciting week. On Tuesday she took her class to NTNU for a geology day with Allan. The kids used tools to smash open stones, saw very cool videos, toured the labs, and walked around Trondheim observing local rocks. A very exciting day! Allan does many of these shows for 5th grade classes each year, and is well-known in the community as the "guy with the orange cap."

Last night, Pam's students had a sleepover at the school. They played games, had pizza, watched a movie, and basically didn't sleep much. I saw the class this morning, and all of the kids were quiet with baggy eyes, but looked to be quite happy.

Sven just brought me some of his pictures from Torghatten, so I add a few of the very nice ones here.

I sent the picture below of me with the ARMY MATH T-Shirt to my buddy Brian at the Military Academy at West Point. He showed it around and it got universal "Hooah!"'s. Go Army!

Brønnøysund

2008-05-14T13:32:00.002+02:00

I like writing the letter 'ø', so I like the name 'Brønnøysund' twice as much. On Tuesday we presented at a regional math teacher meeting. I gave a 3-hour workshop, "Big Ideas for Small Learners" to 40 teachers. (I gave the workshop sort of half in Norwegian and half in English. Norsk is getting easier all the time.) I also gave the afternoon plenary session to all 240 teachers at the meeting. After a day of hiking and then a day of teaching, I was quite exhausted!

It was a good two days in a very beautiful part of the world.

Torghatten

2008-05-12T13:00:00.001+02:00

Once upon a time, the troll Hestmannen (the horse-man) caught sight of the beautiful maiden Lekamøya and chased after her all night. As dawn approached he realized he could not catch her, and being something of a poor sport, he shot an arrow at her. The Sømna king, who had been watching the whole affair from the mountains, decided to intervene, and threw his hat into the path of the speeding arrow. The arrow pierced the hat just as the sun rose, and the magic of the moment turned the hat into a mountain with a hole in it. That's where Torghatten came from, and that's the absolute truth.

On Monday, finally recovered from my week-long flu, I took an early flight to Brønnøysund, a coastal town of 5300 people north of Trondheim an hour by plane or 4 hours driving. Sven and I came early for a Tuesday math event, and we went hiking on and through this extraordinary mountain.

It was cold and raining when we left the hotel, but the rain had stopped when we arrived on the trail up to the cave. It was a short easy walk up to the hole, and then we picked our way through stones and boulders to climb through the cave to the other side. The hole is no small thing... it's 160 meters deep, 35 meters high, and 20 meters wide! All the while, we're looking at the huge boulders inside realizing that they all fell from the ceiling at one point... and more could fall at any time!

The view from the end of the hole looks out over small farms and countless islands in the sea... just gorgeous!

Looking through the hole, in this picture you can see two figures standing at the far end.

After exploring the cave, we walked back to where we started and headef around the south end of the mountain to where the slope was not as steep. Here we scrambled up the rocky side.

As we neared the top, it got too steep to walk. Someone had thoughtfully mounted a chain that we could use to pull ourselves up the final 50 meters.

The view to the south...

... and to the north. We could see the town of Brønnøysund, just right of center in this picture, and to the right of that we could make out the airport landing strip on its own island.

On the top is a pile of stones encasing a plastic jar with a booklet and pens so that you can sign your name. It began to snow while we were up there!

We were advised not to ascend the north side, but we thought we'd try going down that way. It was very steep most of the way and would have been a very difficult ascension indeed. Going down was all right, especially since the mountainside is covered with thick soft moss. It was like climbing down a pile of pillows. I had the feeling that should I slip and begin rolling, it would be a most pleasurable tumble... if I could avoid the giant sharp boulders!

The cool weather was perfect for hiking, and the three hour climb was just the right amount of time. We arrived back at the hotel with sunburns, huge appetites, and feeling very satisfied.

Rock Scissors Paper

2008-05-11T20:39:00.002+02:00

I've been sick all week and haven't done much... so instead I'm pleased to report on Rock Scissors Paper instead. This game is popular in Scandanavia and is called the same name in Norway as elsewhere ("Stein-Saks-Papir").

Here's a fun surprise: in Sweden they don't play Rock-Scissors-Paper, instead they play Rock-Scissors-Bag ("Sten-Sax-Påse). Bag! Yes, I laughed a lot when I found this out – we all did – but if you stop to think about it for a moment... Bag makes a lot more sense than Paper, doesn't it?

Peter is 8

2008-05-08T10:53:00.005+02:00

It's Peter's birthday today! Last night he wanted to go to bed early so his birthday would come sooner. This morning at 5:30 a.m. he was standing at the side of our bed wondering if he could open his present.

Well... why not? By the time we dragged ourselves out of bed at 6:45, he had build most of his Lego Mission to Mars set (complete with aliens!). Here he is with some of his creations and favorite stuffed animal named "Snow Kitty".

Today he'll have popsicles at school, a few small presents tonight, and his choice of restaurants to go out for dinner. He's planning to choose Burger King, which has Iron Man happy meals right now. That's one happy kid!

These Just In

2008-05-07T14:09:00.001+02:00

Here's a couple more photos from our Skudeneshavn trip a few weeks ago. This is me and May jumping off the tire wall to swing heroically to the tire structure, and then a shot of Ingvill, me, and May, about to eat our homemade dinner.

A good place to have a baby

2008-05-07T14:06:00.001+02:00

Norway was ranked 2nd best country in the world in which to have a baby, coming in behind Sweden and ahead of Iceland in the top three. News article is here.

No, I'm not speaking in code. No baby on the way here.

Twilight

2008-05-07T11:08:00.005+02:00

Pam and I went to bed at 11:30 pm last night. We hadn't intended to stay up so late, but it was still light out. We woke up at 3:00 am... it was still light.

The sun now sets at 10 pm and rises at 4:30, with civil twilight lasting until 11:15 and beginning at 3:19. Civil twilight is defined at the times which the sun less than 6° below the horizon. During this time, known to some as the "blue hour", the light has special romantic properties and it is a favorite time for painters. Another less precise definition of 'civil twilight' is the time after sunset and before sunrise where it is still possible to engage in outdoor activities without the need for artificial light.

The time when the sun is between 6° and 12° below the horizon is called 'nautical twilight'. During this time, if you're at sea you can still see just fine.

Right now in Trondheim, it is nautical twilight all through the midnight hours, which is a little bit strange. In a few weeks, it won't even be that dark: May 20th marks the day when it will get no darker than civil twilight, and these 'white nights' as they are called will last until July 20th.

It's time to find where we've put our heavy curtains, or they'll be little sleep around here!

Here's a cool graph of twilight times at various lattitudes and times of years.
Click for big version.

Global Gas Prices

2008-05-06T10:46:00.008+02:00

Just read an article about rising gas prices. Seems the U.S. gas prices, averaging $3.61/gallon this weekend, are in the lower third of global gas prices. The cheapest gas is $0.12/gallon in Venezuala, and the most expensive gas right now is in Bosnia at $10.86/gallon. I filled up this weekend at $9.61/gallon here in Norway. (I'm watching the prices, waiting for them to hit 13.30 kroner per liter, that's the magic ten dollars per gallon mark.)

It's a bit strange that Norway has become very wealthy from oil drilling off their coast, and has many refineries, so we are buying locally produced gasoline, yet it is sold for one of the highest prices in the world. Perhaps it is these very high prices that encourage people to live close to where they work. Decades of cheap gasoline in the U.S. has resulted in urban sprawl across the landscape. Maybe $8/gallon gasoline is just what we need in the U.S.

I know prices in Bellingham have to be quite a bit higher than the national average... my friend Steve told me diesel was selling for $4.13/gallon last month...

How much is gas where you live? Leave a comment for fun.

(This is the kind of journal entry that I will read in 10 years and laugh. Ten dollars a gallon?! Oh, that was so cheap!)

A favorite word

2008-05-05T10:58:00.000+02:00

Norwegian has been described to me as a "poor" language, in the sense that it doesn't have a lot of words. That means that one word has many, many meanings, which makes for some interesting jokes and wordplay.

This one has always cracked me up. I don't know why, but I share it now. Slange means serpent.

BMX course

2008-05-04T11:01:00.001+02:00

I took a new way home today, and passed this BMX track I had never noticed next to the Eberg Traffikgård. Cool.

Jeg er Iron Man! Going to the movies in Trondheim.

2008-05-03T23:32:00.001+02:00

Peter's birthday is coming up in a few days, so we decided to splurge on taking him to a movie. We haven't yet been to the movies in Norway, so this was also a chance for a new experience.

First challenge: buying the tickets. The preferred method, we understand, is to purchase them over the internet. This requires navigating the website and creating a user account, all in Norwegian. This is the sort of thing that would have given me fits a couple of months ago, but I'm starting to get the hang of it, so it wasn't too bad.

After creating an account and selecting which show you want to see, you then get to choose your seats. Yep, seats are reserved at the movie theater the same as at a live performance.

The site shows a map of the seats and fills them in with little people icons. Pretty cool.

We decided on the Saturday afternoon matinee – the tickets are 10 kroner cheaper. Instead of costing 85 kr., they only cost 75 kr., or about $15 usd. Yikes.

Then came some credit card trouble. It wouldn't accept my credit card because my Trondheim address didn't match my U.S. billing address. But it wouldn't let me enter an address outside of Norway. I battled with this all evening the night before the film. After each attempt, it would give me a "processing" message with the note: "Please wait until your status changes to 'failed', and then try again." How's that for some old-style Norwegian pessimism!

Finally, we decided we'd just have to buy our tickets at the theater, even though it might cost more.

So Saturday we dropped Anna for a sleepover at her friend's house, parked downtown and walked to the Nova Kino, the city's big screen theater. There was no problem buying tickets at the window, except for the 20 kr. service fee. Yes, it's a bother for them to actually sell you the tickets, so you have to pay for the privelege of paying. (Weird? We've seen these fees a lot, especially at the bank, where you practically have to pay to get in the door.) There were plenty of seats available.

Since this was an "experience", we decided to go whole hog and buy popcorn and soda. Here was a surprise: all of the popcorn was in "warmers", just like the coolers you'd see at the local 7-11, but instead of keeping things cool they kept them warm, and instead of being stocked with overpriced bottles of soda and energy drinks, they were instead filled with overpriced buckets of dry popcorn and horrid looking "bacon snacks", which I think are fried pork rinds colored to look like strips of bacon. Sorry, even though we were going for an authentic Norwegian movie experience, there are some limits to what we're willing to do for culture. The pork rinds stayed in the warm fridge.

We got settled into our seats right at 2:00, eager for the film. Unfortunately, first we had to sit through 20 minutes of commercials first. Apparently, it's not enough that you pay the price of DVD for each ticket, they force you to watch commercials as well. I should have asked for 10 kr. back.

Well, the movie was very good. The theater was very fancy. And with the final bill for 4 tickets (Anna didn't come), popcorn, soda, candy, and parking, totaling more than $100, it even had the feel of a high-priced fancy event!

Aliens!

2008-05-02T23:23:00.002+02:00

Discovered behind a school near the Tyholt Tårn: this strange alien vessel! The orb slowly changes color from cosmic grape to galactic magenta. Does it communicate with the tower? Mysteries, mysteries...

First of May

2008-05-01T22:45:00.005+02:00

May Day! First of May is a national holiday in Norway, a celebration of labor with roots in pagan traditions, the unofficial first day of summer. We headed down to the festning (fortress) to meet our friend Mat for a cookout. Our neighbor Stine warned us that the festning might be trashed, as April 30th is a major party day for NTNU students.

Last week, the International School did a school-wide cleanup of the festning ground. Located right next to the school, the kids were tired of the litter on the grounds and decided to pick up all the trash. They did a great job... and then two days later there was big party and the grounds were trashed. How trashed? Check out Monday's front page:

A parent of a child at the school called the newspaper in disgust. The newspaper called the univeristy. The university organized a cleanup, and by Monday the grounds were clear again. But today, heading to the festning grounds the day after the biggest party of the year, we were afraid we'd be greeted by a site similar to the picture in the Monday's paper. When we arrived, though, the grounds were pristine. Did the students clean up after themselves? Did a group arrive early today and pick up? I don't know what happened, but maybe the actions of the kids at ThIS had a community-wide effect. Nice.

We played frisbee, hacky-sack, and freeze tag. The kids tried riding Mat's bike, and we cooked scallops, shrimp and salmon. Mmmmm...

Afterwards, we walked over to Mat's apartment and played cards while the kids watched movies. Mat lives in a third floor apartment over a restaurant. Check out the view from his apartment over the rooftops of Trondheim. I half expect to see to Dick Van Dyke dancing acroos the skyline with chimney broom in hand!

Heading back to the car, we ran into a student who is soon graduating from high school and enjoying his wild week. We saw many of these students tonight and I was eager for a picture, so I asked him and he was happy to allow it. In Norway, students during their final week before graduation run wild, engaging in all kinds of silly behavior usually involving lots of alcohol and pranks. They wear some kind of costume; in Trondheim the costume is a white lab coat decorated with school and club logos. The color of the pants indicates what academic focus the student belongs to. When wearing this costume, everyone turns a blind eye to their stunts and misdeeds. They can drink all night, swim in fountains, climb buildings, whatever they want. It's so fun in fact that once is not good enough for some students: during this week, some former graduates don their old costumes and run wild for a second or third year, enjoying their expired "get out of jail free" ticket! A strange custom.

Science Fair

2008-04-30T23:17:00.000+02:00

Pam's students had their science fair yesterday. Maggie designed airplane wings based on bird wing designs and tested them by launching an airplane from a catapult I borrowed from my colleague Gerd (whose hytta we visited last weekend). The science fair fell on the same day as International Day at the school, where each class served food and did activities from a different country, so this was a very busy day. Pam's class did Mexico, and after a day of tacos and the Mexican hat dance, we were quite ready for an evening of margaritas at home with our friends Evalina and Daniel. (Did you know that a fifth of tequila in Norways costs $60. Yup, $60! ¡Ay, curumba!)

Vacation

2008-04-30T23:15:00.002+02:00

Today I hosted another barnehage. May came in and out for parts of it, but lost interest because I really didn't need any help. During lunch I followed parts of conversations in the lunch room, in the afternoon I wrote several emails in Norwegian, and after work I talked to several people in the grocery store in norsk. Very weird -- I'm getting better at this. The tricky part is that people now think I can speak Norwegian so they're speaking less and less English to me... and correcting my mistakes less and less because I can get my meaning across okay. The bar just keeps getting higher. Ugh! Even though there are now only two months left before I return home, I'll keep working at this language.

Tomorrow is a holiday so businesses and schools are closed, and Friday is not really a holiday, but since it's pinched off by the Thursday holiday it's called a "squeeze holiday" and most people won't work. We are anticipating a relaxing four-day weekend.

Tunnels!

2008-04-29T09:55:00.004+02:00

During a one-way trip from Trondheim to Frøya, one drives through 10 tunnels. Some are a relatively modest 600 meters, others are 10 times that long and take 5 or 10 minutes to traverse. The two longest of these tunnels go underneath fjords. Norwegians have perfected tunneling technology, and can build them for 1/5 the cost of tunnels in the US. Norway has now surpassed Switzerland to become the tunneliest country in the world. (Is "tunneliest" a word? It should be.)

Here's a psychodelic tunnel trip. Enjoy!

Gerd's Hytta

2008-04-27T17:29:00.000+02:00

Passing Snillfjord (my favorite fjord name, it means "Nice Fjord"), we hooked around Austefjord and took a detour to visit my friend Gerd. She and her husband have a hytta which has been their summer project for almost 30 years. Reaching the hytta requires a short hike from the road, and it's hard to believe that they were able to build the house and grounds carrying supplies by hand.

Gerd's husband is a civil engineer and he has poured his craft mastery into this building. Consturcted largely from salvaged parts, found driftwood, and harvested logs, they have built a beautiful summer palace for their family, full of creative and clever bits of engineering. The view from their boat-like living room is absolutely breathtaking.

We stay for coffee, brownies, and ice cream, then we're invited for a boat ride out in the fjord. Out on the glassy water surrounded by high supple canyon walls, it's hard to imagine a more beautiful place. Reluctantly, we leave this slice of Asgard and head back home, wholly satisfied with our very full weekend. Thank you Allan!

Maggie and Maia became good friends this weekend. Maggie has been telling Maia all about life in America. Maia and her family will be spending next year in Bellingham with us.

Max and Peter found a comic book on the boat. This is far more interesting than looking at some boring old fjord.

The road around the fjord was not built until 1982. Until them, all of the small farms along the fjord were accessible only by boat. Farmers would raise sheep and goats, sending them up into the mountain to graze during the day. Fields of grass, cultivated with manure collected over the winter, would be harvested during the summer and fermented to use as feed during the winter. What a life!

Heading Home

2008-04-27T11:14:00.000+02:00

Blåskjeller
Remarkably, we were on the road soon after 10 am. It had rained all night again, and the day started cloudy but soon brightened up. We made a bathroom stop and the kids walked down to play near the water and made a great find -- thousands of blåskjeller (="blue shells" = "mussels") all along the water's edge. We spend a few minutes filling a bag with them... tonight we will eat this unexpected treat!

Spikertelter

We passed a couple of this ugly temporary villages on the fjords. They're called "spikertelter" or "nail tents", and they're RVs that have a small wooden hytta build onto the side. They're for people who can't afford a hytta so they buy a campsite in a designated camping area, then build a "tent" on the side of their motor home. By pushing the definition of the word "tent" to beyond where it should go, they manage to legally have a hytta on the fjord for cheap. Some of these nail tents are quite elaborate, the more expensive ones with solar panel roofs.

Orkanger
There's a city called Orkanger. Full of angry orcs, one would presume. It's in Orkdahl, or "Ork Valley." Hide your hobbits!

Corn on the Cob in a Can

2008-04-26T21:05:00.000+02:00

Allan's kids were very excited that the local store had maiskolber on sale. Canned corn on the cob... hmmm. Having grown up in Michigan and now living in Washington, both corn-growing states, I was very suspicious of this abomination.

It tastes just about how you'd imagine it: like mushy canned corn, but on a cob. Once I got over the initial shock of the unholy texture, it really isn't so bad. At least it won't kill you. I promised Maia and Max that when their family comes to the United States later this summer, we'll buy corn from stands on the side of the road and grill 'em in the husk. Mmmmmm....

Kongespill

2008-04-26T18:41:00.000+02:00

I'd seen this game in Denmark some years ago, and at the time I sat in a park watching for quite some time trying to discern the rules. This evening I finally got to play, and I must say this is perhaps the most enjoyable lawn game there is.

Two teams attempt to knock over their opponents blocks of wood by hurling lengths of dowel. There is a complicated series of rules for what happens when blocks are knocked down, with the large wooden "king" in the center as the final target.

We played until it started raining, then headed inside for the evening.

Fishing

2008-04-26T15:56:00.000+02:00

While Pam and Anna napped, the rest of us headed down past the neighbor's horses to the boat house and launched Allan's aluminum row boat. We rowed out to sea, six of us in the small boat, and hunted for cod and mackerel. The fishing gear consisted of 6 or 7 lured hooks spread out along a length of heavy fishing line with a weight on the end. The line was wrapped around a spool like you might use for a kite, and lowered deep into the water. By jerking up and down, apparently fish can be snagged, sometimes 6 or 7 at once if the time is right.

We climbed out on a distant shore to explore briefly before heading back. It felt viking-ish out there on the water, but the only fish we managed to snare this weekend came from Bunn Pris.

Frøya Geology

2008-04-26T15:40:00.001+02:00

Why Frøya? To a geologist like Allan, it all comes down to rocks. Frøya is covered with lovely pale pink granite boulders that sparkle in the sun, a geology that is unique in Norway. Back when the continents banged together, Frøya was part of North America. It got left behind with Norway when the continents drifted apart again. This island is like a piece of home from overseas!

Mausundvære

2008-04-26T14:32:00.002+02:00

We spent the afternoon on Mausundvære, an island assessible via a 45 minute ferry ride. We rode our bikes onto the ferry -- the kids were happy to ride their bikes around on the nearly empty car deck while the grown-ups watched dozens of small flat islands float by.

It had rained the night before, but now the sun was shining. We explored the island, up and down hills, trying each road until it ended in some kind of curious farm house. The houses here appear weather-weary, and with the many stones and cool salty air it gives me a feeling that life here demands hard work.

All was well until we lost the boys, then we had to split up to search. We lunched on fruit and boller, then caught the afternoon ferry back.

At first glance, this island's name looks like "Man's Underwear."

Saturday Morning

2008-04-26T10:17:00.000+02:00

Despite getting to bed late, the kids are up early. Adults pull themselves up a bit later. Allan bakes us boller, round rolls that are slightly sweet. Allan bakes every day, and we sure do love his boller!

Many Norwegians have two hyttas, one for summer and one for winter, and Allan is no exception. In the winter we stayed at his hytta on the skiing trails; that hytta was quite rustic. This one is not as primitive -- it has water and electricity, but it is heated with a woodburning stove. It's yellow with a red roof, and I'm told it used to live a few hundred meters away and was moved decades ago, rolled on logs to its current location.

First order of business is setting up the trampoline. The kids insisted we put it next to the porch so they can jump down onto it. Anna joins in, soaring like a bird.... she is absolutely fearless.

To Frøya

2008-04-25T21:50:00.000+02:00

After various types of weather had spoiled weekend-on-the-island plans, we finally got our chance. Allan picked us up after school Friday in his new used Mercedes microbus (seats 15), and we headed out to his hytta on Frøya. Frøya is an island about a 3-hour drive west of Trondheim. With stops and bathroom breaks, make that about a 4-hour drive. To get to Frøya, we drive under two fjords. These underwater tunnels are each about 6 km long, taking us from the mainland to the island of Hitra and then on to Frøya. (The names Hitra and Frøya come from words meaning "near" and "far".)

We arrived about 9:30 pm, twilight well under way, and hurried to unpack and get the fire going to heat the cabin. What adventures await us?

The new "magic bus"!

The bus seats 15... we had 8 humans and 8 bicycles.

One of the waterfalls on the way.

Barnehage Visit

2008-04-24T08:37:00.004+02:00

Wednesday morning at the senteret I hosted my barnehage (literally "child garden", or "kindergarten" in German) -- a visit I was nervously anticipating. The night before I was up late practicing my lines, which included some fairly sophisticated sentences, like "Will you roll the dice so we can see how many passengers the bus will pick up?" and "I don't think she likes it when you bite her ankle." That night I had a dream about the visit, and in the dream I was talking in Norwegian, a sure sign that I'm about to "lose it."

I had tagged a colleague to accompany me if I needed help with translating. She didn't show up however until sometime after the kids arrived, so it was up to me to meet the teachers, greet the class, get them settled, and begin our activities. The kids were a little nervous about the "guy with the funny accent," but after talking about the circus and doing a juggling show I had them on my side. We played a bus game, worked with numbers and counters, had a snack, and then learned all about cubes and prisms. It was an exciting math-filled morning for the kids, and much easier to communicate and connect with the kids than I feared it would be. Success!

(Notice the kid in the Detroit Red Wings jersey?)

Skudeneshavn

2008-04-23T13:08:00.005+02:00

Karmøy is an island on the west coast of Norway, about halfway between Bergen and Stavanger. The final village at the end of the road on Karmøy is Skudeneshavn, a charming fairytale town and our destination.

Sunday evening Ingvill, May, and I checked into Norneshuset (the North Cape House), located right on the water in Gammel Skudeneshavn (Old Skudeneshavn). The house has several bedrooms, a kitchen and a common room. My room has a sink but the bathroom is down the hall. I don't mind one bit -- I got the room on the end of the house looking out at the water. Below is the view from my bedroom.

In the morning we walk about 10 minutes to the school. Truly an exceptional school, they won national recognition for their playground. Basketball, climbing walls, swinging rings, a rhythm section, gazebo, ping pong tables... the building is completely wrapped in a wonderland of kids playthings. The crown jewel is their tire jungle, a huge area made largely of tires for climbing and swinging on. I couldn't resist playing on it myself... I felt like a suburban Tarzan.

I observed demonstration teaching at the school, juggled for a few classes, and did my best to speak and understand Norwegian. I am starting to grasp complete sentences now, rather than just guessing at meaning from the few words I can pick out. After school May and Ingvill went running and I took myself on a walking tour.

I met the owner of Norneshuset outside and he told me of the town and how he came to live here after a lifetime of managing canneries from Bergen to Bodø and teaching food technology courses. He tells me many of the houses are summer homes, and the town will become quite busy next month but for now it is quite calm and quiet with few people in the streets. I took his advice and headed south along the harbor. The houses in this part are all several hundred years old; when remodeled they retain their original design. The narrow streets snake between these white buildings with red terracotta roofs, past coffee shops and art cafes, to a large park and a trail up the hill overlooking all of downtown. I am struck by the charm and beauty of this town, and find myself envious of those who own a summer home in this enchanted village.

When May and Ingvill return, we walk down the Coop Mega and buy groceries. We all work together to cook a lavish meal and enjoy it in the common room watching the sun set over the harbor as the fishermen return with their day's catch.

Leaving Tuesday I felt sad knowing it may be a long time before I see this town again. Some cities, like Barcelona, I've been pleased to have visited and happy to "check off the list" of places I've seen. But Skudeneshavn is special; there is no joy in checking this town off the list.

Busy Evening

2008-04-22T22:16:00.004+02:00

Back from Karmøy! The trip was great and I'll post some photos soon, but tomorrow morning my kindergarten class is coming to the Math Center and I have to learn my lines. I've got about 50 sentences of things I want to say and questions I want to ask to the kids tomorrow, all of which I've translated with the help of Ingvill and May. Tonight I will rewrite, practice, and make them mine. Unlike my 3rd graders, these kids will have no English words.

I found my friend Henrik from Denmark, and last night we spoke on the phone for the first time in 15 years.

Saturday Drama

2008-04-20T14:57:00.004+02:00

Maggie worked on her science fair project this weekend. How does the shape of bird wings affect flight? She's making airplanes with 3 different wing designs based on different bird wings. Cool.

Pam and I went to Brænnebukta, a beach on the west side of Trondheim, to check it out as a field trip destination for Pam's class study of ecosystems. Cool little beach. Mossy forest, grassy plain, cobblestone beach, waterfall cliffs. A good outing.

In the evening, Anna hit her head on a table and cut her eyebrow open. A scary amount of blood. While Pam and I tended to her, Maggie and Peter took it upon themselves to get paper towels and cups of water and clean up the mess. Then they build a nest for Anna and after she was calm and bandaged, they tucked her in with all of the stuffed animals. Anna took her role as patient very seriously, and the older kids were wonderful nurses. Maggie even made a get-well card for Anna. I am very proud of them. Anna is just fine.

Nyorsk 2

2008-04-20T14:41:00.004+02:00

Here was a stumper. Got a card from the post office saying we had a package. On the other side the printing was the same. A card printed with two sides the same? Wait a minute, slight differences...

Flipping back and forth is like one of those "spot the differences" puzzle. One side has an Ankomstdag and the other an Innkomstdag... outgoing and incoming? No, Ankomstdag is arrival date and Innkomstdag has to mean the same thing.

Then the other subtle differences: Må hentes innen 14 dager on one side, and Må hentast innan 14 dagar on the other. Hjem vs. Heim. Stader vs. Steder.

Aha! The telltale clue! In one corner it says "Bokmål", in the other "Nynorsk". Of course! There are two versions of Norwegian, "Book Norwegain" and "New Norwegian", and every official document must be written in both languages. Even though the two are very nearly identical and anyone learning one language can read the other with no difficulty, and even though Nynorsk is spoken by 10% of the population and then only in specific areas far from Trondheim, the card from the post office is printed on both sides with both languages. That's an expense Norway could do without, and further, for a country very concerned with environmental issues, that's a waste of ink and paper. A very curious issue, when Norway's ideal of fairness and equality clashes with other ideals. It will be interesting to see how this eventually plays out!

The cost of transport

2008-04-19T14:09:00.003+02:00

Where did the week go? I wrote an article this week, made big progress on a puzzle book, and submitted final version of my geometry art book to the new publisher. Also ran a high school math club meeting and visited with a kindergarten.

Tomorrow I leave for Karmøy for two days of lesson studies... we'll see how much more I can understand this time around. It should be a nice trip, but I'll likely be out of internet contact as we'll be staying in a historic house in the harbor section of town. Some good photos should be coming next week!

Pam went out with work folk last night downtown last night, left the car in a parking garage and took a taxi home. I took a bus downtown to pick up the car today. Extra expenses for taxi, parking, and bus came to over $70! (We are less than 10 minute drive downtown). I guess with gas at nearly $10/gallon, that's what the prices are, but I was surprised at the $6 fare for a 9 minute bus ride. You'd think the government would be highly subsidizing public transportation to encourage people to ride. And yet... the bus was packed. Back in Washington, bus fare is 1/10 of the price here, and buses are underutilized. Maybe with expensive gas and car fees, people are more willing to travel primarily by bus.

Spring Cleaning

2008-04-19T14:06:00.002+02:00

No good Norway pics this week, so I'll post a cute one of Anna cleaning the floor during our "spring cleaning."

Grocery Store Quirks

2008-04-14T21:11:00.003+02:00

Grocery stores close on Sunday in Norway... unless they are less than 100 square meters. Some stores, like this one in Klæbu, fence off most of the store on Sunday, leaving only a fraction of the store open with the most popular items. Sometimes you'll see a person working in the closed off section, with the wall open a little bit. This will allow you to "sneak in" to the closed section to get that item you really need, and then "sneak out" back to the register. It's illegal for shops to allow this, but many do it anyways, a beautiful work-around to a peculiar law.

The other strange grocery store thing: stores stop selling beer at 6 pm on Saturday. I found this out when I walked down to the Bunn Pris at 6:10 Saturday evening, to find the cooler doors locked and big blue Ringnes Beer curtain pulled around the stacks of six packs. (No one buys a case of beer here, 24 beers would cost about $120). Unfortunately, I don't know of a good work-around to this law.

Gravel

2008-04-13T20:13:00.002+02:00

The snow is almost gone, and the sidewalks are full of... gravel. They don't salt road and sidewalks here, they gravel them. We've seen trucks out sweeping and vacuuming the roads. I wonder how they'll clear the sidewalks. Until then, rollerskates are definitely out.

Do you like this nice picture of Norwegian sidewalk gravel?

Eberg Trafikkgård

2008-04-12T21:09:00.005+02:00

We've been here – how long? – and didn't discover this until today. The Eberg Trafikkgård is a a bicycle play area for kids where they can learn all about traffic. It has small size streets of all varieties... a 4-lane main street with traffic lights and pedestrian crossing lights, a roundabout, a winding mountain road, a gravel country round... it's huge! The lay out is very smart and the kids just loved it. The funny thing: it's right next to Eberg skole, about a 5 minute walk from our place, and we didn't even know about until one of our friends said "Oh -- you're lucky to live right next to the kids' traffic course!" A good find.

On the Rocky Shores of Lade

2008-04-11T23:54:00.002+02:00

Friday after school we headed out with friends to Lade. The surprise snow disappeared as quickly as it had come, and the evening promised to be sunny and, if not warm, at least not cold. We walked from Scott and Teresa's down to the beach. Dads carried laughing daughters on their shoulders as we hiked through a neighborhood to the fjord ahead:

Scott brought a bag of wood and we soon had a fire going sheltered against some rocks. We cooked pølse (hot dogs) and marshmallows, gathered sticks, conquered islands, scaled rocky hills, and gave ourselves Viking names.

This area is where the largest viking ship was built centuries ago, and it's easy to feel history calling from the fjord. We stayed until the sun dropped low in the sky, then took the long way back home, choosing which of the houses in the neighborhood we should like to move to. The smell of the campfire lingered in our clothing, and now we can truly believe that summer will come again.

On top of that pole is our lookout, Anna's purple kitten, "Sparkle Kitty." Tonight, Sparkle Kitty earned a name: Sparkle Kitty Walks-Through-Fire. Use your imagination to figure out how she got that name!