WEEK 40 & 41 IN OSLO AND THE UK - ALEX

 

July 14 to July 28 - UK Visa Trip and Marka Move

Coming back from Lofoten we were both tired and feeling the pressure related to our time in Norway coming to an end. Morgan is contending with the pressure of deadlines she has with her Norwegian colleagues as well as deadlines back in Washington. Both of us, although the major responsibility will fall with me, need to deal with packing, organizing and storing our belongings here, as we prepare to move to a cabin in the forest inaccessible by car at the end of July and ultimately return to Seattle at the beginning of September.

Returning to the city on Monday morning was a bit of a shock. Not because of the terrible overnight bus travel we had just experienced, but because of how quiet the city was. The month of July is when most Norwegians take an extended holiday. This means no traffic, fewer people in the city, stores have reduced hours, and transit systems schedule closures/cancellations to trains and buses. It also means that Morgan’s office is significantly quieter than it would typically be, a general positive for her productivity, although the handful of her colleagues that are have been more interested in taking protracted coffee breaks.

Post Lofoten Fun

Morgan went on a post work bike ride with our friend Clarisse. After they finished they came to our apartment where I had made dinner for them and we all hung out. On Friday we went to the park with a group of Morgan’s NGI colleagues and friends. After a couple weeks of minimal social interactions with anybody not named Morgan this was a lot for me, but probably good. Outside of my daily chores I went on a few long bike rides and enjoyed the opportunity to watch the Tour de France.

Tacos on our porch with Clarisse. Morgan scooting around Oslo, our new favorite way to get around. Morgan knitting one of her many gifts on the metro. She has a long list of things she wants to make before we leave, so she is knitting everywhere we go. She is not the only one.

There was also a heat wave in Oslo this week with temperatures topping out in the low 80s. Although it is quite warm for the city, people are enjoying the once in a year heat. We went to Sognsvann and after 9 months of walking/running around it, picnicking at its shores, and skating on top of it we finally swam in it. It was very refreshing.

A weeknight at Sognsvann during the heatwave. A lot of people were relaxing next to and in the water.

Legal Status Limbo

When we came to Norway we had an end date of July 15 for Morgan’s studies. At some point this spring the opportunity for Morgan to present at a conference in Oslo at the end of August presented itself and we took it. This meant we are staying here until September 1, which is past our visa expiration date of July 22. Since the extension is short enough we had two options to legally remain in the country. We could follow the immigration procedures and extend our temporary residence permit or we could leave the country (the Schengen area to be exact), return after our visa’s expiry date, and stay for the extra 5-6 weeks under a tourist visa. The more formal way takes at least 3 months and would have cost us a few hundred dollars a piece. The tourist visa way got us away from the 3 month, bureaucratic black box track that frustrated us prior to arrival, gave us flexibility, and was ultimately more or less the same cost for us. It also gave us the opportunity to see friends in the UK, a welcomed bonus.

We flew to London on Saturday morning where we met with our friend Hannah who was finishing a two week class in the city as part of her law school program. Looking for an alternative to the hustle and bustle of the city we elected to head south to the British seaside and the quaint communities of 300,000+ strong in Brighton and Hove. When Hannah pitched us on staying in Brighton we pictured a sleepy, ocean side town with a few beaches and fewer people. The reality was quite the opposite and we were taken aback by how many people were milling about shopping, eating, and drinking. The weather wasn’t particularly good so the beach was one of the few quiet places we could find. We didn’t do much in Brighton save for hanging out and walking around. The highlight was getting a classic roast dinner from a local pub on Sunday afternoon before heading to an airport hotel outside of Heathrow.

Different photos from our time in Brighton with Hannah including at the beach, by the salt cliffs, walking through the never ending commercial streets, and at our Sunday Roast dinner.

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Minnesota bound Hannah and Morgan and I went into London for a few hours. We parked ourselves at the British Library conveniently located only a few blocks from the train station we would be departing from later in the afternoon. Morgan attempted to work, the public facing part of the library did not have the best work spaces, while I walked around the city a little bit. I hit some of the central London highlights of Westminster, St James Park, Trafalgar Square, while also popping into the National Gallery. Nothing I hadn’t done before, but still a nice afternoon. What I had forgotten, and what was a little jarring coming from Norway, was all the people and just how busy the city was.

Manchester

In the afternoon we took a 2 hour train ride to Manchester where we would spend the next two nights with Morgan’s former roommate from her time studying in Dublin, Lorcan and his wife, Batool. They were tremendous hosts and upon our arrival we were treated to a feast of traditional Jordanian food, Batool’s native country. She made so much food that we happily ate leftovers for the next two days.

We quite enjoyed our time in Manchester. It felt similar to Seattle, a bit dirty, problems with drug use and homelessness were present, but also a bit quirky and charming. Much of the city is brick thanks to its industrial roots and a lot of effort and money has been poured into refurbishing the old factories into usable spaces today. Manchester is England’s second largest city, but despite Lorcan and Batool’s apartment being central it felt considerably more relaxed than London or even Brighton. Per Lorcan the work culture in Manchester is also much more relaxed, since the most professionally ambitious go to London. Remote work is quite popular in Manchester and we passed a number of coworking spaces.

Lorcan, who works remotely himself and enjoys quite a bit of flexibility, acted as our tour guide. On Tuesday the three of us went to the Peak District, a national park of rolling hills and charming English countryside towns that is less than an hour from Manchester. We took the train to the town of Hope, enjoyed some pastries and coffee, and hiked through wind, rain, and the occasionally sunny break to the adjacent village of Edale. As we learned the word switchback is not in the British English dictionary because the trails were steep one way paths up and over whatever obstacle lay in their way. Even though we hiked for a couple hours we were still able to get back to Manchester a little after 1pm giving Lorcan and Morgan the opportunity to work in the afternoon while I knitted.

Pictures taken at different points of our Hope to Edale hike through the Peak District.

That evening Batool and Lorcan took us on a walking tour of Ancoats, the revamped factory area from Manchester’s past and showed off some of the city's canals. Supposedly there are better parts and the previous week’s heat had lowered the water level by a couple of feet, but the canals were some of the grossiest, least appealing public water ways that Morgan and I have ever seen. Just being around them made me feel dirty. That evening we went to a comedy show at one of the clubs within a couple blocks of their apartments. It was part of a festival and one comic, Milo Edwards, was on stage for 90 minutes, which was quite impressive.

The following morning the four of us went to the National Football (Soccer) Museum where we took a tour and learned about all the great achievements of English football. There was also quite a bit of the museum that was interactive and geared towards kids, which didn’t stop me and Lorcan from playing a penalty kick game. That afternoon while everyone was working I walked to a cycling shop/cafe, drank coffee and watched a couple hours of Tour de France coverage.

Photos from Manchester including Lorcan getting ready to take a penalty kick at the football museum and the Manchester canals. Pictured is one of the nice spots, not pictured is the dead rat about 50 feet away.

Now We’re Tourists

It was now time to fulfill the real purpose of our trip and to return to Norway, hopefully on a tourist visa. Our approach to our immigration situation had been blessed by the police and immigration services. Still, there are no guarantees when it comes to making a border crossing, especially when you are using a loophole to more or less extend your temporary legal status in a country, which is what we were doing. After 5 days of hanging out with friends and enjoying England, the whole purpose of our trip was not in front of my mind, so at 11pm when the Norwegian immigration officials at the airport asked me what my purpose in Norway was until September 1, I hesitated, because there was a lot to unpack in that question. Thankfully Morgan was there to chirp in and take control of the conversation with the practical manners of her conference and our past legal status while I stood in silence contemplating the more philosophical angle to the question of, “what is our purpose of being in Norway”. Education? Self-fulfillment? Adventure? Nothing at all? I’m glad we didn’t need an answer to any of those, but we did have to wait while he closed his window and made a phone call making everything feel a lot less uncertain than it had been 15 minutes prior when we were sitting on the plane. After what was a much shorter time than it felt like to us the window opened, our passports were stamped, and we were officially welcomed back into the country.

Back in Norway some things were still the same, the heat wave was still going strong. Summer holidays were still in full force and so the city continued to feel empty. Other things were changing. For one the sun had started to fully set again and so by 11pm it was actually dark outside. We also had to move out of our apartment that we had called home since October.

For our last month plus in Norway we will be living in a cabin in the forest next to a lake called Skjennungen. By foot the cabin is 2+ miles from Fronernerseteren, the closest public transit option, 5 miles from our apartment, and 6 miles from Morgan’s work. By bike these distances all become a couple miles longer. At an elevation of 1400’ feet above sea level we are considerably uphill from the city below, for reference our apartment is at about 300’. The road back to our cabin is gated and not accessible to us by car, only emergency services, public services, and property owners. So we must move via a combination of foot and bike travel. Morgan’s commute to her office will be a daily adventure. Grocery shopping, laundry, and other supply runs will be my challenge. The cabin is dry, but there is a well for drinking water and a nearby lake for bathing. Of all the things we will do throughout our time in Norway this will be the most classical Norwegian and has been something we have been looking forward to for quite some time.

Gressholmen

Before we went full Norwegian though, we had to move, and before we moved we had to procrastinate. We did so by leaving our apartment on Friday night and staying in a DNT cabin on Gressholmen in the Oslofjord for a night with our friends Dan and Alice. Within downtown Oslo there are a handful of islands that are within a 15 minute ferry ride of the pier. The islands are a collection of nature preserves, marinas and yacht clubs, summer cottages, and permanent homes. On Gresholmen there are 2 DNT cabins, a restaurant (summer only), marina, and preserve. Our planning of our getaway paired well with the city's heatwave and we were able to cool off in the ocean. We swam, indulged at the restaurant, stayed up too late chatting and playing games, and enjoyed breakfast under the morning sun.

Photos from Gressholmen including Morgan swimming, Dan, Alice, and Morgan outside of the DNT cabin Babord, and the Gressholmen Harbor where we were swimming.

Move to Skjennungen

Waiting for us back in the city was the responsibility of cleaning and moving. We triaged our belongings, some that we brought and others that we had bought, and dropped them off across the street at a donation depot. On Saturday we packed up everything we wouldn’t need for the month of August and took it to our friends a mile away. Morgan took her work clothes to NGI, where the plan is for her to shower and change at work everyday after biking or running into the office. On Sunday afternoon we both took a load of clothes that at the time felt like a majority of our stuff to the cabin, a 4 hour roundtrip endeavor. This also served as an exploratory mission and gave us a sense of what else we may or may not need to live there. On Monday, the day we had to vacate the apartment, I took the final loads of stuff to the cabin by bike wearing a backpacking and making use of our bikepacking bags. In all it took 3 trips and about 40 miles of biking to get everything there. A lot of the loads were extra things that we will leave behind, ie: duvets, pillows, coffee pot, food, etc, so hopefully moving out will require a couple fewer trips.

The cabin is rustic. Drinking water of questionable quality comes from a shallow well on the property. There is an outhouse and a mouse that was running around throughout our two day move. Morgan’s commute is 25 minutes by bike, 60 minutes by running, and 90 minutes by public transit/walk combination. Our neighbors are a small DNT cabin and another old cabin. Some of the next closest structures are Tryvannstua and Skjennungstua, two forest cafeterias, and about a mile away. It is quiet and peaceful and there are blueberry bushes everywhere. We have a sauna and lots of firewood at our disposal. We are next to one of my favorite lakes in Nordmarka and all of our friends are excited to come visit us. We feel very lucky to have this experience for the next month.

The outside of our cabin. Morgan showing off the outhouse. The cabin’s main room including the rings hanging down in the center that we hypothesize are used to keep kids entertained during the cold, dark winter months. A photo of me from the first of what would ultimately be 4 trips to move into the cabin.