WEEK 7 & 8 IN OSLO - ALEX

 

November 26 to December 8, 2024

Last week was a little hectic for us. We were all over the place and that got in the way of us, mainly Alex, from writing about the prior week’s happenings. Writing this blog has been a good exercise for us and one that we hope will help keep these memories alive for us in the distant future. Reaching back two weeks to remember what we did and what was of note to us was difficult enough, so I know 10 years from now that it would be infinitely more difficult. We hope to stay consistent with writing regularly.

Thanksgiving

The other week was Thanksgiving in the US, which meant it was Thanksgiving for us in Oslo. We marked the holiday by sharing our traditions with as many Europeans that would let us. Morgan went on a Turkey Trot with her Norwegian coworkers during lunch and then we hosted a dinner party at our apartment. Including ourselves, our dinner table included 3 Americans, 3 Norwegians, 1 French Belgian, 1 Dutch Belgian, 1 German, 1 British, and 1 Bulgarian. We had to use our patio furniture from the balcony to make a big enough table and have enough seats. If we would have had anymore guests they would have been eating from the couch over the coffee table.

It was the first time we had hosted Thanksgiving and, not to toot our own horn, it turned out very well. We ultimately prepared a few pounds of turkey breast, salmon, mashed potatoes, green beans, pumpkin (butternut squash) pie, and cranberry tart. Our guests brought bread, cheese, mac and cheese, and chocolate cake to round out the meal. 

Our Thanksgiving guests ready to eat and the subsequent aftermath.

In an effort to share a stereotypical Thanksgiving experience with our international friends we streamed the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and provided basic craft supplies to make hand turkeys. The Europeans all noted that the hand turkeys looked more like a chicken than a turkey, which was beside the point. Alex also prepared and hosted a fun, yet educational quiz for our guests. A Norwegian and American (we did not participate) tied for the win with 6/8 questions correct. Scoring was inflated due to a large range of acceptable answers. Answers are at the end of this post if you would like to quiz yourself.

Question 1: What year was the first Thanksgiving?

Question 2: In what year did Thanksgiving become a federal holiday in the United States?

Question 3: How many countries in the world have an official Thanksgiving holiday?

Question 4: What is the average caloric intake during an average Thanksgiving meal?

Question 5: How many people will travel at least 50 miles for Thanksgiving for 2024?

Question 6: What role does the president have in Thanksgiving every year?

Question 7: What is the food most associated with Thanksgiving?

Question 8: How many Americans list Thanksgiving as their favorite holiday?

Sweden

The week following Thanksgiving was Morgan’s week to meet and network at a Swedish engineering institute. This had been setup months in advance through a mutual connection in the Seattle engineering community. This connection put Morgan in touch with Yvonne, a Swedish engineer, who volunteered to host her and show her around/off to the Statens Geotechnical Institute, the official geotechnical institution of Sweden. The goal was to make a connection and see if there were any overlaps in their respective research. The schedule was to meet in Gothenburg on Monday, go for a field visit on Tuesday, and spend the rest of the week in Linkoping, where SGI is headquartered.

Not wanting to be late for her Monday morning meeting, we left Oslo for Gothenburg on Saturday morning. We had a nice weekend in the city where we were able to do some city exploring, visit Scandinavia’s largest amusement park, and enjoy more than one fika. Fika is a Swedish custom of taking a break during the day to enjoy a coffee and pastry, one of our favorite activities. We enjoyed walking through the old town neighborhood, Haga, which is full of some of the city’s original wood buildings somewhere between 300-400 years old. Haga was also playing host to a Christmas market, which was the best one we have been to so far this year.

Clockwise from upper left: View of Gothenburg from Skansen Kronan, a prominent defense structure finished in 1700. Alex on a high point at Slottsskogen, a large park in the central city complete with a zoo of native Swedish animals. Festive lights displayed on a large hotel outside the central train station. Alex taking a moment to warm up at the Palm House. Morgan during one of our walks through Gothenburg. The Haga Christmas market.

Going our Separate Ways

I have known about Morgan’s Sweden week for quite some time and planned on having some kind of an adventure during this week myself. When we first moved I wasn’t sure what I would do or where. After exploring some different ideas and pairing it with my evolving knowledge of non-car travel throughout Norway and Sweden I decided to return to Tromsø. This gave me a chance to spend a couple days playing in the snow, experience more days of the polar night, and it set me up to take an overnight train to Stockholm where I would meet back up with Morgan. Had there been snow in Oslo I probably would have stayed local, but the thought of staying during the current seasonal transition when I could be skiing somewhere else wasn’t very exciting to me.

The late November icy state of Nordmarka’s trails.

On Monday morning Morgan dropped me off at the bus terminal in Gothenburg. The bus was cheap, quick and ended up being very comfortable. Trains are more fun, but the bus experience was pleasant enough and I wouldn’t be opposed to taking the bus in the future. I would go out of my way to avoid a Greyhound bus trip in the US, which would be the closest comparison to this trip.

Lighted ski trails are commonplace throughout the country including in Tromsø. This afforded me the opportunity to go out Monday evening after I landed. The skiing was so-so and fresh snow had filled in all the tracks, but it still beat not skiing and I was excited to get out for the first time this season. I was able to go out for another couple skis on Tuesday including one with some daylight. At 69 degrees north the sun no longer breaks the horizon and Tromsø is in “total darkness”. However, some natural light reaches up from the south mimicking daylight, providing a protracted dawn/dusk. This is known as the blue hour and lasted between 4-5 hours, which was more than I anticipated. The amount of light adequately provided me with the sensory illusion of day.

Kvaløya ski trails, which were a short distance from the Airbnb.

After a few skis and 36 hours it was time to continue moving. This started with a 4 hour bus ride from Tromsø to Narvik. This route is part of the public bus system of northern Norway and was a beautiful bus ride along fjords and through mountains. The ride was during the day and coincided with the blue hour light which made it feel like it was a purposeful scenic ride on my part. In Narvik I connected on to the countries northernmost rail line where I rode to Abisko in Sweden

Abisko is not a city as much as it is a place on the map. It is home to two train stops, one is for the Swedish Tourist Association’s (Swedish DNT) 377 room hotel/lodge and the other is a small town with a few establishments and services. All of this to support domestic and international tourists that come to visit Abisko National Park. The park was founded in 1909 it is one of the oldest national parks in Europe. In Abisko I stayed in the hostel portion of STF’s accommodations where I had booked a bed in a 6 person room and shared a kitchen and bathroom with the rest of the hostel. I would guess 40 people total were staying in the hostel, but it sleeps well over 100. Private, hotel style rooms were also available.

This time of year Abisko’s biggest attraction is the Northern Lights. Later in the winter skiing will become more popular and in the summer hiking is the big draw. Shortly after my arrival on Wednesday the aurora was visible. Compared to Tromsø there is almost no light pollution in Abisko. I didn’t have to walk far from the lodge to find proper darkness for optimal aurora viewing. All in the show lasted for a few hours before it faded away. The lights are really made for social media. To the naked eye they aren’t that impressive, or at least the ones I saw, but they became much more interesting and visible after I took a photo. The photo brightened the lights and transformed the whitish glow to the colorful aurora we are all familiar with.

Clockwise from upper: Photo of the northern lights taken from the STF lodge, Abisko train depot, selfie of Alex with the northern lights. Note that wispy white/light green in the selfie photo is what the lights looked like to the naked eye. The upper photo is what it looked like when taking a standard photo.

Once per day a train leaves Narvik in Norway that is bound for Stockholm. It passes through Abisko about an hour and a half into its 18 plus hour journey. This is the train I took to Abisko on Wednesday and on Thursday afternoon I got back on the train to continue my travels to Stockholm. That meant that I had the better part of a day to kill, including all of Thursday’s daylight. I took advantage of the daylight to ski through the valley following snowmobile tracks. It was more of an exercise in adventure than anything else, because the terrain was much better suited for a type of skiing I was not equipped for. Nevertheless, it was very enjoyable and peaceful. 

The Abisko valley during the midday light.

The train journey to Stockholm was generally enjoyable I have never been on a train for 17 plus hours so that was a new experience for me, but it is much better than being on a plane for half that amount of time. I made sure to book a sleeper cabin, which cost only $20 more than a standard seat. This provided me with a bed in a 6 bed, 49 square foot compartment that had two bunk beds three beds high. When the conductor checked my ticket he told us that there would only be 3 of us total in the cabin. Therefore once all three of us boarded we didn't make sure we were in the correct bed or if our stuff was packed away efficiently, we just made sure it was acceptable to the other two people we were sharing with. This approach came back to bite us in the ass a little bit because a few more cabin mates joined us in the middle of the night and woke us up to figure out where they could put their stuff.

In the end I would give the train ride a favorable rating. It was dark all but the last 2 hours of the journey, so I spent most of the time either reading or sleeping. The sleeper cabin was a smart move on my part and provided me with the ability to get some sleep, even if it wasn’t the best. As I learned, the sleeper cabins are used by people taking shorter trips as well, which makes sense on an overnight journey. There are a couple of other sleeper routes in the area, including a few that leave from Oslo, which is something that Morgan and I are excited about doing together.

I left Abisko at 4:40 pm on Thursday and got into Stockholm around 10:00 am Friday morning. Morgan was set to arrive at 6:30 pm that evening, giving me the day to myself. After I dropped off my skis at our hostel I had a pleasant day enjoying the Swedish Capitol’s diverse food offerings and walking around the city. I was impressed by the architecture and number of parks and ended up putting in about 40,000 steps.

Reunited in Stockholm

Much like Gothenburg, we had a nice 36 hours together in Stockholm. Stockholm is a very romantic city, there is water everywhere and the architecture is extensive and quite nice. Another way to put this would be to say it is part of a 1,000+ island archipelago and has avoided direct conflict in the European wars of the last 120 years. We stayed in a floating hostel on a boat, and ate some good food. A highlight, especially for Alex, was going to see the Vasa, a large 1600’s warship that sank during its maiden voyage. About 60 years ago it was pulled up from the harbor and restored, an impressive feat in its own right.

Clockwise from upper left: view from one of Stockholm’s many bridges looking towards our floating hostel, old town Stockholm, our floating hostel, Alex in front of the Vasa, another look of Stockholm from another bridge, Morgan eyeing up the Swedish throne.

Swedish Takeaways

A highlight of both Gothenburg and Stockholm was grocery shopping, grocery shopping on Sunday, and revisiting the grocery shopping experience in our mind’s eye to this day. Not only was the selection of food better, both fresh and non-perishable options, but they also sold other basic necessities like toothpaste and shampoo making it possible to have a one stop shopping experience. Price was notably much better too, coffee beans were half the price then our stores in Oslo for example. It is easy to see why going grocery shopping, all shopping really, in Sweden is such a popular activity for Norwegians, especially when you can do it on Sunday.

Shopping hours were the one thing we observed that Norway does better than Sweden. Apart from grocery stores with their exceptional 7 day a week hours, most shops in Sweden close at 4pm, large malls close at 6pm, and the rare exception, Ikea was the only one we found, was open until 7pm. The shorter hours were also surprising considering that it is December and most stores in Norway have extended shopping hours this time of year. Standard hours in Oslo are an hour or two later than what we saw in Sweden and given our relatively short time in Sweden it made it difficult to do any shopping for the (relatively) cheaper house supplies, clothes, or outdoor gear that we are still looking to purchase.

If we lived here permanently and had a car we would probably participate in the Norwegian tradition of shopping in Sweden as well. There are a couple of large shopping centers that sit on the Swedish side of the border, about a 60 mile drive from Oslo. The combination of both grocery selection and lower taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and meat are the biggest drivers for shopping in Sweden. It is estimated that about 5% of all Norwegian groceries are purchased in Sweden.

Back in Oslo

We know we’re fully settled in Oslo now, because being back after 9 days being gone feels like a relief. During our time away it snowed and some of the trails in Nordmarka are ready to be skied. We took advantage of this before getting to any other chores Sunday afternoon and had a fantastic time getting in a quick 10k lap to Ullevålseter and back. Being able to take the bus 3 stops to get to the trails is a real treat that we will cherish the next few months. Chores do abound and Alex will have his work cut out for him, particularly laundry. Laundry that was started on Sunday was not finished until Tuesday afternoon.

Finally skiing in Nordmarka. The main trailhead is 3 train stops and a 10 minute walk from our apartment.

Quiz Answers

To improve your score grade with a tolerance that you think you might receive from a compassionate person with previous teaching and grading experiences. To take the quiz on “expert mode” you must have the exact answer, plus or minus 5%, to receive a point. Each question is worth one point. Please be advised that fact checking may result in finding slightly different answers. Answers were single sourced and not fact checked.

Questions 1: What year was the first Thanksgiving?

1621, one year after the Mayflower landed marking the first successful harvest for the Pilgrims

Question 2: In what year did Thanksgiving become a federal holiday in the United States?

1863, signed into law by Abraham Lincoln

Question 3: How many countries in the world have an official Thanksgiving holiday?

3, US, Canada, and Liberia. Other countries have harvest celebrations, but no other official, government recognized Thanksgiving holidays were found.

Question 4: What is the average caloric intake during an average Thanksgiving meal?

We had 4,500 calories with a discretionary 10-20% allowable depending on if Alex or Morgan was grading.

Question 5: How many people will travel at least 50 miles for Thanksgiving for 2024?

80 million people or roughly 25% of the population. Again we, mostly Morgan, were generous here with allowable answers

Question 6: What role does the president have in Thanksgiving every year?

The turkey pardon, which officially started with George H.W. Bush is 1989.

Question 7: What is the food most associated with Thanksgiving?

Turkey

Question 8: How many Americans list Thanksgiving as their favorite holiday?

~23%. Christmas is first with about one third of the holiday favorite market share.