WEEK 9-11 IN OSLO & ABROAD - ALEX

 

December 8 to December 31, 2024

Happy New Year! After more traveling, hosting company, and light bouts of procrastination The Fjord Times has returned. Morgan and I have both expressed a desire to return to some level of normalcy and routine. Perhaps the New Year will be a harbinger for a change of pace, but expect that we won’t be able to help ourselves and that life will stay just as chaotic. We haven’t had a proper weekend in Oslo since the middle of November and have spent more nights in December away from our apartment. The weeklong trips have been put on pause, but our calendar is slowly filling up with overnight trips to huts around Oslo and beyond. We’re excited to see what 2025 brings.

Morgan has an unusual work setup even as far as PhD’s go. She is funded by a scholarship from UW, continues to have new work come in from UW, and is working at an office of a local private/public Norwegian consulting firm in Oslo. Everyone wants her to make the most out of this opportunity, which includes travelling and doing more than just working. In this spirit she spent more time away from NGI in the month of December than at it. She went to Sweden, took a week off to travel with me and our friends, and then the holidays closed the office for the rest of the year. It’s stressful to manage and has meant that Morgan spent a good portion of the month working at odd times and on the holidays. If anything we expect that the next few months will mark a return to a more traditional weekly schedule. After all, one of us still needs to work.

A Week at Home 12/9 to 12/13

When we got home on Sunday afternoon we knew we weren’t going to be around for very long before we picked up and left again. The following Saturday we were scheduled to fly to Prague to meet up with our friends Hannah and Luc. In the handful of days between we celebrated Morgan’s birthday, Morgan had NGI’s Christmas party, and we both took advantage of the snow and enjoyed a number of ski days.

Skiing after the standard work day is quite easy here. A number of the most popular trails are lit and everything is well marked. Compared to night skiing in Seattle where an hour drive and headlamps are required, the modest commute to the end of the city makes the post work ski much more common and practical. The two of us went out a couple of nights after Morgan got done with work, which only further bolstered our enthusiasm for the winter. I also went out during the day and enjoyed getting to know the woods and trails now that everything is white. We live in a very convenient spot for getting to some of the best trailheads around the city, which I am very thankful for. If I time it perfectly I get from door to trail in 25 minutes. However, there is a limit to my patience with public transit, connections, etc. and have decided to end my pursuit of skiing as many trails as possible for a more practical goal of prioritizing the areas closest to our apartment.

Photos taken throughout the week skiing in Nordmarka from Sognsvann and Frognersetern.

This week also marked Morgan’s 30th birthday. Incidentally she turned 30 the same day as NGI’s Christmas Party, sparing me the trouble of having to throw a party. A little looser than either of the work parties we have attended, the event started with drinks and snacks at the office around 1 in the afternoon and didn’t end until 1 the following morning. The night was hosted by a DJ and included, per my interpretation of Morgan’s comment, unabashed dancing and an hour or so where different employees aired grievances and mocked their managers. Considering how polite and reserved Norwegians typically are, the spate of inappropriate jokes and festive behavior was a side Morgan had not seen from her Nordic coworkers. As we are learning Norwegians are most likely to come out of their shells when either outside or when consuming alcohol.

The night prior to her birthday and Christmas party we went out to dinner at a restaurant at the edge of the city. Part cafeteria part restaurant we enjoyed our first proper meal out in Oslo. It was a little more than we bargained for and we both joked that maybe we’d only go out like once or twice more in the next 7 months, but it was fun and worthwhile to celebrate Morgan. The restaurant has a great view overlooking the city and fjord and the city lights twinkling in the clear night made it magical. We got to the restaurant by taking the metro and got home by skiing back down to Sognsvann, which was a little more than 6 miles of a mostly downhill trip on one of the lighted trails.

Morgan’s standing outside Finstua at Frognersetern, skiing down to our apartment after dinner, and the view of Oslo from the restaurant.

Prague – Dresden – Copenhagen (12/14 to 12/20)

We met Hannah and Luc at the Prague airport around noon on Saturday. We had the advantage of sleeping in our own bed the night before whereas they were already fighting jet lag when we met them. To make the trip to our Airbnb easier we elected for an Uber instead of taking public transportation, which ended up being a mistake. Uber’s were checked out from a kiosk not your phone and were much more like a traditional taxi than a stateside Uber. This became apparent when I copied the address from the Airbnb app to the Kiosk and did not account for the fact that the address might exist in another district of the city. Without a map view to confirm where we were going we didn’t figure out we were headed in the wrong direction until after we had already loaded up the car and started to leave the airport. This was caught before leaving the immediate area and within walking distance of the terminal, so it could have been much worse. However, since the Uber’s were just glorified taxis queued up waiting for people to prepay inside I wasn’t able to update this in the app or in the car.

More than anything else it was a reminder that not everyone in Europe has the English competency of the average Norwegian. Our driver didn’t speak any English and we had to have an awkward conversation over Google Translate where we kept repeating the same thing to each other before I just got out of the car and looked for help. Being in a tourist hotspot in a European capital does not guarantee easy communication. This was a reminder to be less presumptuous and more respectful when traveling. After what was probably 30 minutes, a couple comical moments of Uber’s support staff insisting above all of us to help, and having a conversation with three different people of varied English comprehension we gave up on the $20 and took the simple and easy method of public transportation.

We all collectively enjoyed Prague, but it’s fair to say that it was a bit of a mad house. The touristy, Old Town Square was packed with visitors from all over looking to capture a bit of Bohemian magic for their Instagram. The city’s gothic and baroque architecture is quite beautiful, but the throngs of people and countless souvenir shops took away from some of the charm. We also were disappointed by the Christmas markets that lacked authenticity consisted of the same 4 or 5 food/trinket shops selling the same goods. Still in the tourist area but away from the most congested areas of Old Town Square, Prague Castle, and Charles Bridge we found the city much more enjoyable, especially the number of green ways. Over the course of two days we had a great tour of St Vitus Cathedral in the heart of Prague Castle, visited a beautiful library at Strahov Monastery, and went to a classical music concert in a cold church, as were told by a local gas conservation and being cold in the winter has become a matter of Czech pride since Russia’s invasion. As with our visit to Copenhagen later in the week we couldn’t help but think how nice it would be in the summer months.

Clockwise from upper left: overlooking Prague from a nearby park, one of the many festive trams driving around Old Town, a photo of us on Charles Bridge, our view of the classical concert from our seats, Morgan and Hannah peaking into a baroque library at Strahov Monastery, inside St Vitus Cathedral.

After a couple days in Prague we took a train to Dresden. We found the German Christmas markets much more charming and were pleasantly surprised to find that the German’s Striezelmarkt, which is supposed to be a mile of Christmas Markets, undersold the actual length. An annual tradition since 1434 we were appropriately charmed. Originally keen to see how many bratwursts I could eat, I was unable to resist the cow skewered on a rotisserie, my first time seeing that, and happily tried that instead. In addition to getting in the Christmas spirit and walking the markets we also climbed to the top and visited the Frauenkirche, which was recently rebuilt after being heavily bombed and destroyed in the last world war.

Clockwise from upper left: Morgan at a Dresden Christmas market, Hannah observing an art installation, another one of Dresden’s many markets, inside the dome of Frauenkirche, Luc and Alex at the top of Frauenkirche.

The last stop for the four of us was Copenhagen. We travelled to Denmark from Germany and I personally have never been as intimated or impressed by airport security as I was in Berlin. In a stereotypically German manner, exact and orderly, the security agent manning the conveyor belt took exception with how almost every person put their belongings in bins and did not appreciate being asked questions. This only added to our fellow traveler’s anxieties and made them more mistake prone. We were largely spared the agent’s wrath, but Hannah was required to relocate her toiletries from her own clear plastic container to a BER supplied plastic bag.

The weather in Denmark was a bit nastier, windier and rainy than it had been in Prague and Dresden, zapping some of our collective motivation for exploring and spending time outside in the city. That being said, we managed to do a pretty good walking loop of the city. While out and without any planning Morgan and Hannah ran into one of their old La Crosse Central classmates who is now an opera singer in Copenhagen. On our walk we stopped in Freetown, a partly autonomous district in the city, that is home to lots of local artists. Walking through a market Alex was stopped to help a vendor place merchandise high in their booth and was rewarded with a Christmas ornament for his efforts. The four of us also toured Christiansborg Palace, Kronborg Castle (famous for its protrayal in Shakespeare’s Hamlet), and the Louisiana Museum, which houses a modern art collection and has a great architectural aesthetic.

Clockwise from upper left: Nyhavn canal in Copenhagan, Alex taking in Kronborg Castle, Alex and Luc checking out the interesting if not very odd tapestries at the Danish royal palace, Luc posing for an architectural instagram at the Louisiana Museum, Alex and Luc basking in the heat at the Botanical Gardens, Alex acting out a Giacometti Spider.

After three nights in Copenhagen Luc headed home to Minnesota and the three of us took a boat ride to Oslo. The overnight ferry is a 19 hour trip, is advertised as a mini-cruise, was recommended to us by some of Morgan’s colleagues, and was described as a party boat. In reality mini-cruise is an apt description, but it was much more of a floating daycare with kids running wild all over the place than an alcohol fueled party. By the time we left the dock at 3:00 PM the on board pool was already full and the idea of going for a sauna in the attached facilities was unappealing. There was no open seating outside of our individual cabin, which was a bit of a disappointment and if we took the boat again we would probably spring for a window view, so we didn’t have to sit awkwardly in the back of a restaurant avoiding service.

The three of us had our own private cabin equipped with a bathroom and 4 beds. Not large by any stretch of the imagination, it was considerably more spacious than my sleeper cabin on the train earlier in the month. Similar to the train ride, most of the journey took place in the cover of darkness, so even though we left at 3PM, it was quickly dark and difficult to make out our surroundings. We passed our evening knitting, Hannah and I are learning and Morgan has started a big project, and enjoying one of the best buffets any one of us have ever had. The boat was more comfortable, had more amenities, and better food than the overnight train journey. With that said, the duty free shopping aboard the mini-cruise was not as charming and wholesome as the experience on the train.

Upper: Sailing through Oslofjord approximately an hour before we docked in Oslo.

Lower: Hannah and Morgan starting their knitting projects.

Back in Oslo

When we pulled into Oslo the following morning we were greeted by fresh snow blanketing the city. We were excited to have a guest and get to share our home and Norwegian experience with someone. It was also good for us because it allowed us to confront our idiosyncrasies about life in Oslo head on. Over the course of the previous week with Hannah and Luc we had laid out a number of petty complaints about basic life in Oslo regarding shopping, groceries, and societal conformity. Sharing this with an outsider gave the two of us a healthy reality check that we were beginning to make a bigger deal out of things then they needed to be. With that said we’re both still disappointed by food selection and envious of the selection granted to other European countries.

In addition to more quality time with a dear friend and the chance to show off our life we took advantage of the recent snowfall to ski what has now become a routine route from Sognsvann to Frognersetern. At Frognerseteren we enjoyed some sweet treats, including their famous apple cake, next to the fire before taking the Metro back to our apartment. Over the next couple of days we enjoyed a floating sauna and plunging into the 40 degree fjord water, went shopping for wool sweaters, and visited the Nobel Peace Prize Museum. The rest of awards are voted on and awarded in Sweden, but Alfred Nobel mandated that the peace prize be decided and awarded in Norway. Our friends Alice and Dan invited us over for a traditional Bulgarian Christmas Eve dinner, interestingly enough it’s all vegetarian so that you can eat as much meat as possible on Christmas Day. We also cooked and ate lutefisk for the first time and found it much tastier and less smelly than we had been told. Lutefisk is a traditional meal in the north and west portions of the country, but not the populated southern regions. It is seasonally available in grocery stores and restaurants as more of a novelty item than anything else.

Clockwise from upper left: a random building turned advent calendar in Oslo, Hannah modeling the famous apple cake, the view from the saunas, Alex and Hannah on the trail.

Hannah left early the morning of Christmas Eve marking the start of a weeklong stretch of lazy and uneventful days. We spent Christmas night having dinner and playing games with our friends Alice and Dan. The next few days Morgan worked, we binged all the Harry Potter movies, and didn’t accomplish much of anything else. The weather in Oslo was quite dreary, high 30s, foggy, and the occasional rain shower, so all the snow surrounding the city melted leaving a depressing grey and brown landscape.

Morgan took advantage of limited distractions to get some of her UW work done and I nursed an ailing back that I threw out slipping on ice around time. I also battled a 24 hour flu and finished setting up my bank account. Unfortunately, in the process of depositing money we learned that DNB does not support BankID for people with D numbers. Since our visa isn’t tied to employment in a traditional sense we were issued the lesser of the two social security numbers. Citizens, permanent residents, and other permit holders are given an F number. Becoming employed now wouldn’t change the type of social security number we have, but this doesn’t matter because there are many other banks that support BankID for people with only a D number. At the time when Alex started the application process at DNB we weren’t aware of this distinction or that different banks would have different rules. In hindsight we were still learning the system and didn’t have the wherewithal to do our due diligence on this topic. I’m not sure that would have helped anyways because I asked this question during my first bank appointment a month ago and was told it was not a problem. Regardless, after 6 weeks of navigating the process of setting up a bank account I am primed to start 2025 restarting this very process at another bank. BankID is more valuable to us than having Norwegian currency stored in an account and is the last step in having a more seamless day to day life here. We plan to have this settled before we move back.

After a few days of not doing much and in a lot of ways letting our mood match that of the dreary weather outside we decided to shake things up and leave the city. We took the train to Lillehammer, where there was snow on the ground, to enjoy some of the best Nordic skiing trails in the country. We stayed at the train/bus station, which couldn’t have made getting on and off the train to Oslo and the bus to the ski trails any easier. Lillehammer was home to the 1994 Winter Olympics and hosts a number of high profile winter competitions each year. Other than this excitement it is a sleepy town and seems to be more a popular area to have a cabin then to live full time. There were regular bus services to different trailheads and the skiing was fun. It also gave us an opportunity to see a portion of the Birkebeinerrennet ski course, which is a 54 km ski event we signed up for in March.

Pictures of us skiing and the vista looking across the treeless plateau in the mountains above Lillehammer.

New Year’s Eve 2024

We spent New Year’s Eve with our friends Dan and Alice. This marked the third time we got together with them over the past 9 days or so. Together we checked off another cultural tradition after doing an American Thanksgiving, Bulgarian Christmas Eve, and British Christmas Dinner. This time we were treated to a traditional Russian New Year’s salads. Some could argue that it was a little heavy on mayonnaise, but all in all it was delicious and I happily have leftovers. They might not be Norwegian, but we have enjoyed making friends and getting to learn the traditions and foods of new people over the last 2+ months.

As I alluded to earlier and in previous posts Norwegians have an all or nothing approach to alcohol. It is heavily regulated, expensive and by our observations not consumed frequently. However based on Morgan’s experiences and anecdotal from friends and acquaintances when consumed it is binged. Not surprisingly, it also brings out a more social and extroverted Norwegian. About 30 minutes before midnight the four of us went to a nearby park to watch Oslo’s light show. It used to be fireworks, but for one reason or another has decided to transition to lasers shooting through the night sky. The light show was a complete dud, but the drunken atmosphere was a lot of fun. People were singing in the streets and a random Norwegian came up and gave me and Morgan a hug, talked at us for 30 seconds and profusely wished us a Happy New Year. A day later and we’re still buzzing from this interaction and wondering how to get more.

The fireworks that we heard off and on all afternoon and evening came to an epic crescendo at midnight where for 5 minutes we were treated to the best firework show I have seen in. The fact that the city wasn’t burned down is impressive in its own right. The fireworks were everywhere and were all shot off by private citizens. While in the park ash was actively raining down upon us and fireworks were being launched from every direction.

Upper: Alex, Morgan, Alice and Dan

Middle: Fun with sparklers

Lower: A view of the firework show as the clock approached midnight.