Hyggelig

Why does my life seem so eventful these days? I swear my day-to-day isn’t so exciting. Yet, since my last blog, much has occurred. You ready for this rundown?

I spent a weekend in Geilo with the Zachrisen’s and their (our) friends, the Tverlid’s. It was nice to experience a Norwegian mountain cabin weekend. I had a blast rolling around in the deep snow, getting “helped” by Cato which actually meant him diving down a nearly vertical slope, to where I was trying my hardest to climb up, and tackling me back downhill. Not helpful in the least! And roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over a fire built in the snow was quite a fun experience, as well.

My American friends and I then celebrated (probably not the most accurate word though since we are all single) the Hallmark holiday, Valentine’s Day, in true American fashion – a night of wine, cheese, and dessert. Despite the lack of acknowledgement of the holiday by Norwegians, we still felt the need to embrace it and all it’s mushy glory. I like them ‘merican folks, we are quite the ridiculous bunch.

I also recently received news that Charlie (my pooch) may have had bone cancer. Being away from home made it that much more emotional so of course I was a mess. Solfrid is quite the wonderful supporter when I have my moments (tusen takk hvis du leser dette!). So I was quite bummed for a few days and then got word that it might not be bone cancer!!!! He had surgery this past Saturday to have a toe amputated…..and the results are back….cancer free!!!!! Such a relief! J

The same day that Charles Worthington Vernizzi III had his surgery, I embarked on my next adventure, Bergen à Oslo à Kirkenes à cruise back to Bergen. (As I write this first chunk of the blog, I am on the cruise and holllyyy smokessss we just went under a low bridge, it was a TIGHT squeeze bahhhhh) Anyway, Mariann and I ventured to Oslo by way of the Bergen-Oslo train. We lucked out and had blue skies all the way and it was b-e-a-utiful! Upon arrival, we walked around for over an hour trying to find an apartment that was supposedly just 15 minutes from the train station. We FINALLY found it and met Andreas, who is a cousin of our American friend Eric, and was letting us CouchSurf! That night we made a nice, random group dinner then headed out for a tUnE-yArDs concert at Blå. Whoa whoa wee wah that was awesome! The band is quite unconventional in their sound and their performances are very interesting because the singer builds up each song by recording noises and sound bites and then looping them back on top of each other, then playing instruments and singing on top of that. Not your typical band, to say the least! After the show, we headed to a bar that plays only 1950s-1960s music (totally Mariann’s cup of tea, she luuuhss dattt stuff). At first, they weren’t going to let Mariann and me in because apparently you have to be 25!!! Andreas talked our way into the bar by pointing out that the bar was far from crowded and we would be spending money on drinks (not me, too stingy). So we got in. And we got our groove on big time.

The following morning, Mariann and I woke up surprisingly early to beautiful blue skies, cleaned Andreas’ and Siran’s (his wayyy cool roommate) kitchen and made “American” pancakes from scratch. Now, as you Americans know, we all generally stick with Bisquik or something foolproof of the sort, so making them from scratch was a whole new concept. They turned out pretty decently! Then we headed out for a day of touristy things. After coffee/tea with one of Mariann’s former coworkers, we headed to the nearby fortress Akershus, which was built in like the 1100s or something like that. Old and pretty! And conveniently within Akershus was the Norwegian Resistance Museum, which was all about Norway during the WWII German occupation…fascinating! I am so very interested in WWII so I was diggin’ it. I was also diggin’ that we both got in for half price by using our old college ID cards muahahaha thank you Cal Poly and ASU for not specifying graduation years on our cards!!! Then Mariann had to go back home to Bergen so we had our sad goodbye at the train station and I headed back to Andreas’.

The following day, I awoke to many inches of snow! At this point in my stay in Norway, I was not the least bit phased by it. I headed out to visit the Royal Palace on my way to meeting up with my former Norskkurs 1/2 classmate, Magali. We did our touristy bit by going to the Norwegian Folkemuseum where we walked/slid around on thick ice to check out tons of really old Norwegian buildings from all the eras of Norwegianness. It was wildly interesting to stand in homes from 1300 and see them as they really were back then. Imagine all of the historical world events those buildings have stood through! And how many people have lived normal lives within the walls! Fascinating. Then we got hungry so we headed back into the city sentrum to check out W.B. Samson. BEST SANDWICHES EVER. I don’t say that lightly, either. I have yet to be very impressed by lunch options in Norway, but hot damn, this was life-changing! I had a foccacia sandwich with lettuce, mozzarella, tomato, pesto, onions, and probably something else. Ohhh god, it was too good. And the chai latte was also the BEST EVER. I even ordered a little applecake for later and it was AMAZING, too. Long story short, if you are ever in Oslo, getchyo butt to W.B. Samson, right behind Storting on Karl Johans. Mmm. Then Magali had class, so I headed back to Andreas’ and baked him and Siran a cranberry apple crunch. If either of you are reading this, thank you so very much for letting me surf your couch!!!

And now begins the big part of the adventure. I left Andreas’ by about 5:20AM, walked 30 minutes to the train station, snuck on express train with plans to play oblivious if I were to get caught since I paid for the regular train. Yeahhh I got caught at the airport station because apparently the express ticket scans to let you off of the platform…so I was stuck but I then played oblivious and got off the hook no problem at all. From the get-go, the flight was terrifying. Delays followed by turbulence like you wouldn’t believe! But it was great nonetheless because the two other people in my row were also from California. What are the chances?! The lady actually lives in Rome and works at the UN headquarters and the guy also works for the UN but in the field in Sudan. Wayyy rad. It was so cool to hear about their jobs. And they even knew Martinez so that was nice to discuss home with somebody. They were headed up to the Kirkenes Ice Hotel for a couple nights and some dogsledding to celebrate the guy’s birthday. Chatting with them has motivated me to do something interesting with my life. Normal people CAN end up doing cool jobs!

We finally made it to Tromsø, the just-past-midway stop of our flight. The landing was wild, and we later found out that the runway was actually rather icier than usual….which then delayed us about an hour and a half to takeoff for Kirkenes. The flight from Tromsø to Kirkenes is about an hour and the bus from the airport to the dock is about 20 minutes…the ship was scheduled to leave at 12:45, so by 11:30 I was so bummed that it looked like I’d be buying a return ticket home from Kirkenes and losing almost $1000 by missing the ship. I had tried to call the cruise company but I could not remember the PIN to my phone’s SIM card, so my phone was locked until my return to Bergen. I decided to talk to the flight attendant about the situation since I seemed to be the only one worried about the delays. Just as I headed to the back, so did two other people (who have since become my comrades in cruisin’) and we teamed up to contact Hurtigruten. And the ship said they’d wait because apppparrrentlyyy almost the whole plane was headed to the cruise, too! Whew. So then I relaxed and embraced the huge delay as a chance to chat with people, including the flight attendants. I was already so happy to have met two Californians on the flight, and THEN one of the flight attendants said she didn’t know much of CA other than SLO….SHE STUDIED ABROAD THERE DURING FALL ’09!!!! I just about died of joy. The first thing she said was that she misses Albertson’s….hahahahahahahahahhaha of all things…but I get where she’s coming from, the grocery stores in Norway aren’t too great.

So finally, at about 1:00 PM the runway was melted enough for takeoff. We start to build up speed and as we all expect to take to the air, the pilot throws on the brakes and we skid to the end of the runway….uhhh so scary….then we turned around and tried again in the opposite direction, luckily with success this time. The rest of the flight was surprisingly fine, until the landing, which I recorded on my camera, because it was the most brutal and violent landing I have ever experienced. It was about -12ºC outside and they let us out right onto the runway…which, by the way, is solid ice with grooves in it for traction. I was only outside for about 7 minutes as I waited to board the bus (last, I obviously let the older people get inside first), yet my hands were already screaming in pain and stiff…I had to have someone else grab the coins from inside my wallet because I literally could not get ahold of them. Then I was on the bus to the dock and I found my gloves in my backpack so all was grand!

Made it to the ship! We walked right on, got our room keys and settled in. Opening up my room was such a new experience – there I was, on a cruise, with my own room that I paid for with my own money. I felt so grown up! But this cruise is definitely for old people. There are a few kids and a few other people my age, but the average age must be about 70 years old. It’s okay though! I think old people are the funniest. They fall asleep everywhere, take pictures of anything and everything, and basically just sit around doing nothing the whole time while wearing binoculars around their neck. But when they do get to talking, they say the darndest things…and have some great advice on travel, life, love, everything. So, despite being an awkward loner young person, I’m still enjoying my time here aboard Midnatsol.

My first night on the ship, I befriended one of the crew guys who books all of the excursions for everyone. He’s super friendly, as he ought to be with that type of job, and he thinks I’m crazy for moving from CA to Norway, as most Norwegians say when we meet. But he’s younger than the average bear on this ship and fun to chat with.

An important sidenote: this day marked the 2-year anniversary of my cousin, Matt’s death. I’m not any type of prayer or anything, but throughout my hectic day of traveling, I kept saying “Look out for me here, Chew.” And I’m sure he did. He was the best. He still is the best. Also, as corny as this sounds, when choices need to be made, I literally ask myself “W.W.C.D.?” meaning What Would Chewball Do? He lived his life right and remains such a rolemodel to me.

Anyway, then we had some Northern Lights at 1AM. That was pretty neat, but more of a Northern Smudge.

The next morning, we stopped in Hammerfest, the northernmost city in the world. 10,000 people are crazy enough to live there! And there isn’t much in Hammerfest. Although I did buy a shot glass with the city’s name on it, said I didn’t need any bubble wrap when I paid for it, then dropped it as I walked out the door. Classic. Worry not, the glass survived! When I got back onboard, I sat next to some old people and tried my best to fit it – which was a great success because I fell right asleep. It was marvelous! Oh, to pretend to be old. Then later in the evening, I went onto the sundeck for a bit of spa time! Yes, hot tubs in the open air, during winter, in the Arctic Circle. It.was.awesome. I hung out with two middle aged couples from England and Germany and they told me about all the cool places to go and how much they absolutely dislike Parisians but love Paris. Great spa sesh before bed. And my awkward moment of the day: I was sitting at the public computers, I sneezed, glanced up and randomly made super distant eyecontact with the tour info guy I chatted it up with the day before, even though he was about 50 feet away. Eruuughh I just looked away and pretended I didn’t see him even though it was blatant eye contact. (No, Mariann, no snot was shot. It was a good, clean sneeze.) Then like 10 minutes later I was in the glass elevator and I glanced down to the floor below me and randomly made eye contact with him again. Whattt. I’m pretty sure we both felt awk about it hahahhaa oh boy.

The following day began with a lovely breakfast and an “excursion” through Harstad with my new friends from England, Nigel and Laura. The busses were loaded with old people, but that wasn’t actually surprising. We apparently accidentally signed up to attend a sermon (held in three languages, so it was extra long) at an old church, then we walked through a museum that I thought was about Vikings but apparently it was about everything in Norway…ever. So that was interesting and overwhelming. Then the journey continued with a bus ride to a ferry, then more bussing, looking at a ton of mussels for no reason, and eventually we made it to the next stopping point for the ship. The excursion was wildly unexciting but a nice bit of time on solid ground. Highlight of excursion was realizing I’ve apparently acquired decent footing on ice, for now at least. While all of the older folks were cautiously taking baby steps, slippin’ and slidin’ like I usually do, I was gliding around pretending to ice skate. I was 100% okay, no slipping at all at each occasion that I was off of the ship. That is usually not the case.  After the excursion, Laura and Nigel invited me up to their super fancy, ultra posh suite to eat their room’s daily fruit basket and make use of their huge private deck as the ship navigated a tight passage through Lofoten. I was elated to have such a perfect, wind-sheltered deck for the viewing of some of the most intense scenery of my life! I sporadically jumped and danced around as awkwardly as you can possibly imagine. In the wider parts of the passage, the waves were huge and rather than fight the force, I’d let myself get tossed around as they willed. It kind of looked like I was just running back and forth on the deck…so be it. It was fun. Then we retired to their suite’s lounge to watch the mountain pass by while staying warm and dry.

After leaving port in Svolvær (or something like that), the waters started getting so rough that I was literally worried about the well-being of the ship. Although I missed the safety talk (myyy badddd), I wasn’t ever worried about my personal safety since I was certain I could outrun 99.2% of the ship’s population so I would totally have first dibs at a lifeboat. Anyway, since the waves were so huge, I figured I ought to head up to the top deck to watch them. Probably the safest idea, right? Calm down, Mom, it was fine. But whoaaa they were so big! And our cruise ship definitely wasn’t the ship of your typical cruise ship. We were getting’ rocked. But one can only stand being pelted in the face by hail for so long so I pried open the door, against the intense force of the wind, and went in to sit among the old folks in the complete darkness of the front lounge, where I listened to some Sigur Ros (music of the blog) and the pounding hail, and watched as the shadows of the Lofoten Archipelago slide by….it was a good day.

At 2AM, the ship sent out a call for the Northern Lights. again. This night was more of like a solid, giant smudge across the whole sky so it was hard to take a cool picture.

The next morning, we crossed over the Arctic Circle, back into the normal world. The ship held a ceremony on deck, which involved taking a shot of Tran (cod fish oil), followed by a shot of some sort of Norwegian alcohol. Dominated it, of course. We then passed the Seven Sisters, which is a perfect line of seven peaks and seven u-valleys from glaciers. It was impressive. As if that wasn’t enough, we then passed Torghatten, which is a big island/mountain, with a hole right through the middle. C’mon, that just doesn’t HAPPEN! Laura decided that it must have been made by a troll shoving his nose through the mountain. I think that may be more believable than water and ice erosion. Google it. Ended the night with a bit more hottubbing with awkward old German men in speedos and a night of Northern Smudge watching with Laura and Nigel until about 2AM. Another solid day.

I woke up really early to go into Trondheim and spend some time walking around before the rest of the world woke up. Laura and Nigel spoiled me by bringing me along in a cab to avoid the 20 minutes of walking each way, then we went to Nidaros Cathedral. Whew, I was blown away. I took a thousand pictures of the church, graveyard, and the surrounding river. We then visited a different, simple church where they were running a soup kitchen for homeless people, so we totally left donations. We left with Trondheim with a good feeling. The weather was perfect, too. I spent most of the day reading in the front lounge and chatted it up with two old Americans next to me, which was fun. I met up with Laura, Nigel, Chris, and Cheryl for sunset on the top deck in Kristiansund. I think I fell in love with that city despite not actually getting off of the ship. Absolutely breathtaking. After that, Laura and Nigel treated me to dinner with the REAL people (not just the cafeteria for cheap people like me)! We had fancy bread with pistachios in it, the best fiskesuppe imaginable, and pork neck with broccoli and who knows what, followed by some lime pollet? I don’t even know what the dessert was called but it was delish. And it was all washed down with Chablis white wine. Ohhh lord that was one of the best meals I have ever had. I literally wanted to lick the plate! But…literally. Nigel actually did. Then we sat in the bar area finishing the Chablis and being ridiculous. I figured it was necessary to say goodbye to the top deck so we went up and I ran around in circles, and finished the night with a bit of dancing to the terrible pianist/singer in the bar area….nobody else was dancing but heyyyy they got a little free entertainment and probably ideas for some sweet new moves. Great people, great atmosphere, and I feel like such an adult!

The last day consisted of breakfast, hanging out in Laura and Nigel’s suite, lounging in the front lounge, giving the tour guy my number (BOLD MOVE, he’s so nice though so I didn’t want to say bye yet, especially since he lives by me, we talk sometimes still), and saying some sad goodbyes. I definitely hope to visit the Snook’s in England someday. They were definitely some of the coolest baby boomers I have ever met.

Upon returning, we celebrated Mina’s 4^th birthday. And since then things have been normal. Hanging out, living life, going to class. Life is good. And tomorrow morning, I’m off to Ireland…….St Patrick’s day anyone? Oh Matt, keep an eye on me for this one aahahahha…..

Okay, takk for reading! Much love.