Woodpress

On the night of day 5, I went to the Trumpet Karaoke Bar. The bartender was very friendly, and was kind enough to teach me some Norwegian phrases that came in handy. She also looked quite a bit like my sister. She even had some mannerisms that reminded me of my sister. I talked to her quite a bit. She made fun of Norway, and apologized for the pushy prostitutes.

Here’s her picture:

Here’s a picture of my sister:

Those pictures don’t really show the likeness very well, but it’s the best I can do at the moment.

The bartender (like my sister) didn’t like having her picture taken. She made me delete a couple that didn’t turn out. I was accommodating, even though I usually don’t delete photos, as a rule. I mentioned to her that I used to hate having my picture taken until I realized that I keep getting uglier as I get older, and that all my old pictures look great to me. She said she thought that was a pretty good way to look at it.

Some Norwegian words and phrases she taught me:

• SkÃ¥l (Cheers!)
• BÃ¥nnsky (Bottoms up!)
• HallÃ¥ pÃ¥san! (Hello, countryman/old friend!)

She explained that it was very witty to say “hallÃ¥ pÃ¥san”… I got a few laughs with it. I failed to get anyone to finish off a drink with “bÃ¥nnsky” unfortunately.

I don’t remember her name, sadly… but I really enjoyed talking with her.

I thought Utah had strict liquor laws… but apparently Norway (or at least Oslo) has even stricter laws. They were only allowed to serve 21% vodka. I tasted a small amount of the vodka straight, and it was… kinda cute.

I also saw a guy denied alcohol because his ID photo was unclear. Poor guy.

Fortunately, they also had a local beer called Borg that was okay!

We are Borg. You will be slightly inebriated. Resistance is… easy.

While I was at the karaoke bar, I sang four songs… two Doors songs, a Pink Floyd song, and an INXS song. There was a small group of young people who seemed to really like my choice of music. They would get up in front of the stage and dance whenever I sang. That was pretty cool.

I also spent some time talking to a cool guy there who strongly encouraged me to get a Skype account so we could talk. While that sounds fun, I don’t really find myself in a quiet environment very often. I hardly even talk on the phone… so for the time being, I think I’ll remain Skypeless. I’ve kept his contact information though.

That more or less covers the karaoke bar.

Here is the overdue Norway Day 5 report.

Day 5 in Norway was my last full day. I was there with a co-worker (who I’ll refer to as Rick, because that’s his name). Rick suggested that since the weather was great, we might want to leave work while there was still plenty of daylight left and see a bit of Oslo… so we did. He’d been there before, so he was my tour guide.

First we went to Vigeland Sculpture Park, which was pretty impressive, but before we’d seen the whole thing I developed a sudden urgent need to visit a watercloset. Rick suspected the cause was the enormous Coca-Cola Light I had on the way, but it wasn’t that sort of need. I’d apparently eaten something that was in a big hurry to get somewhere. Even though the stay at the park was cut short, I managed to get quite a few pictures.

Rick has six young kids spaced very close together. The youngest are twins. He said “see if you can find the sculpture of me.” I identified it without trouble.

There’s also an uncensored photo of the sculpture.

This one made me think of my son. This whole park has a family theme, actually.

Those sculptures lined the walkway. Here’s a snapshot showing how it looks (including the back of Rick’s head).

In the full-resolution version, you can see some detail in the sculptures.

After I took care of my business, we left the park and caught a train to a little ski resort area. As the train slowed at one of the train stops along the way, we noticed a man being given CPR just outside our window. Rick had a view of the man’s face from where he was sitting, and said it didn’t look good. When the train pulled away, they were still trying to revive him.

We accidentally got off the train one stop early and decided to walk to the next stop rather than waiting for the train. That decision worked out very well. I got some good pictures along the way.

This picture of moss could stand to be lightened, but for some reason I included it in the group of photos I uploaded for this post.

These flowers were growing on the side of the road. They’re white with yellow centers. The picture didn’t look very good in color, but I like the black-and-white.

Here’s the road we walked along. If you look off in the distance, you can see a “NO BLUE!” sign. Norwegian’s apparently HATE blue. These signs were scattered all over.

When we reached our destination, we could see some fjords, but it wasn’t clear enough that I felt like taking pictures of them. Instead, we had some soup and apple cake. It was yummy, and apparently the apple cake is famous. That evening someone asked me where I’d gone, and didn’t seem sure what I was talking about until I mentioned the apple cake.

We sat up at the top of the mountain looking down at fjords, talking, and enjoying the clean air for a while (it had rained recently, but it was a relatively clear day), then caught the train and went to a pier where I took more pictures. I’m only including a picture of a sculpture we saw there. If you’re interested in more pictures from the pier, there’s a link to all my Norway photos at the end of this post.

It’s a melon. In Norwegian it’s called a “melon.” Those wacky Norwegians.

After wandering around the pier, we headed back to the city. For some reason we stopped at a 7-11 (Rick needed something), and I noticed that they have a better selection of prepared food there than the 7-11s I’m familiar with (basically hot dogs and nachos, if you consider the warming of nacho cheese to be “preparation”).

While we were there, someone bought the sushi in the top right corner. I think there’s an Indian dish on the bottom. Everything looked pretty edible.

For dinner, we went to some sort of fancy schmancy restaurant where we paid about $100 per person. Rick wanted to have “the big fish” (apparently it’s huge) but they had a guest chef from Belgium and the waiter was very insistent that we order the Belgian food. The food was okay, but I think I missed the point or something. I wouldn’t deliberately order it again, even if it cost significantly less. Still, it was interesting. The waiter was snobby and French, so we could tell the restaurant was fancy even if we couldn’t understand him when he told us what we were eating. “He didn’t ACTUALLY say the scallops were served in battery acid, did he?” “Nah, I think it was his accent, but I’m not sure what he said.”

After dinner, Rick had to go to sleep, because he had an early (7:00 AM) flight out. I, on the other hand, had a late (12:30 PM) flight… so I went back to my hotel room for a little while, then walked to the karaoke bar I’d visited on the night when I learned how to ditch pushy prostitutes. I’ll cover the karaoke bar later.

Oh… and I saw this sign everywhere:

If you’re interested, you can check out all the photos from the trip on Flickr. There’s an excessive quantity of candle photos. That’s because they take their time serving dinner in Norway, and they often have candles on the table.

I’m home now.

Day 5 was probably more eventful than all previous days combined. I also consumed more alcohol on day 5 than all other days combined. That was not a difficult task: I barely drank on previous days (a couple beers), day 5 was Friday, and my flight didn’t leave until after noon the next day… but this is not the day 5 report. First, I have a story from day 2 that Jeff Tulley reminded me to share.

On Wednesday morning as I walked into the hotel atrium for complimentary breakfast, I noticed an Irish family having breakfast. Actually, I didn’t really notice the family or the nationality at that time. I only noticed the father, who was about twice my size (I’m a puny 6’3″, 300 pounds), was dressed like a biker, and had more than the usual number of visible tattoos (for this particular hotel, anyway).

I didn’t really notice them again until I got up from breakfast to go to work. I’m not sure how many of them there were — they were like a single spastic organism (not so different from my own family when we go out). I’d guess there were Five or six of them.

When the father inquired about the location of his young daughter’s shoes (she was probably three or four), I realized how accurate Brad Pitt’s accent was in Snatch. It’s not so much speaking as just uttering (while preventing lips or tongue ever making contact with anything) the first syllable of each word… but that has very little to do with the issue of the child’s shoes. The answer came from the mother in a more traditional Irish brogue, and was something informative like “she doesn’t have them, does she?” The conversation continued, with the father making his disapproval apparent and the youngsters running, jumping, pulling hair, etc. within a small perimiter until someone scooped up the barefoot girl and they headed down the escalator. My colleague and I followed behind them.

On the long ride to down the escalator to the lobby, I learned of the exceptionally pungent fragrance of my new Irish friend. In following days, I became more familiar with the scent as the cumulative effect of the complete lack of soap in my hotel room–instead of soap, they provided “all over shampoo” that didn’t quite seem to accomplish the same thing.

Anyway, when we reached the bottom of the escalator, my co-worker and I managed (after some effort) to move out of the scent trail and through a separate door. We had a short conversation in which we both agreed that our breakfast companions were probably not staying at the hotel.

So… that’s the Irishman story. A unique cross-cultural experience.

Woke up. Had breakfast. Worked. Ran into a problem that I kept banging my head against until the day was over. Left work. Had dinner. Went back to the hotel. Slept. Day 4 kinda sucked.

No photos today. I took some, but they’re on the camera I can’t transfer from right now, so they’ll have to wait. Fortunately, there’s some stuff to write about. Unfortunately, I’m not feeling particularly creative, so it might be fairly dry.

Work was productive.

After work I walked back to the hotel and dropped off my stuff, then went for a walk down Interesting Street. That’s not what it’s called, but it might as well be.

During my walk, I encountered several aggressive prostitutes who said such subtle things as “do you want to have sex?” In one case, I said “no” and she said “you DON’T???” (I suspect the correct answer is silence, unless you want to have a debate, but I apparently had nothing better to do than argue with a prostitute.) I said something like “well, sure… sex is nice, but I’m going to pass.” I don’t remember what she said next, but she was persistent so I said “I’ll think about it.” She accepted that. It was true, too. I thought about it. I didn’t CONSIDER it… but I thought about the question, and now I’m writing about it. Shaking off prostitutes is kinda fun. I don’t normally get the opportunity to turn down sex with strangers.

I kept walking until I got near a somewhat abandoned looking section of town, and decided to turn back.

On the way back to the hotel, I learned that the going price for a prostitute in Norway is 1000 Kroner. I think that’s just under $200 US. What a bargain. I also passed by a guy who said “Want speed?” By his appearance, I was convinced that he had plenty… unless he’d used it all up. I also noticed a karaoke bar on the way home (Trumpet Karaoke Bar) and found out the karaoke started at 9:00.

When I got back to the hotel, I reported in with my wife. I talked a little with some friends online, then headed to a pizza place that had been highly recommended by several people. It took a really long time to get my pizza, then it took a really long time to get the bill. I took pictures of the candle on the table while I waited. They didn’t turn out particularly well.

After I got out of the pizza place, I headed over to the karaoke bar. On the way, I encountered two more prostitutes. Both of them were even more pushy than the ones I’d encountered earlier. I explained to the first one that my wife would not approve of me sleeping with her. She explained that I would not TELL my wife (DUH!). I explained that I definitely WOULD tell my wife if I were to sleep with a prostitute, and that it would not go over well. She seemed to understand, and asked if I’d just buy her a Coke. I agreed, and we walked over to 7-11 where I did in fact buy her a Coke… then she started the pitch again. I managed to convince her that it wasn’t going to happen, and moved on. Shortly after that, I encountered another prostitute. I was a bit more terse this time, realizing that I could probably spend my whole night being polite to prostitutes. She ALSO suggested that we head over to the 7-11 (I guess that’s a scheme that gets men to change their minds), but I declined. I pointed at the karaoke bar (now in sight) and said “I’m going there.”

I arrived at the steps of the karaoke bar and a very cute young blonde struck up a conversation with me. I sat and talked with her on the steps while she smoked. She asked where I was from. I said I was from America (when people have asked that, I’ve answered US and United States, but got blank stares — America seems to work though). She asked if I was from New York. I explained that I was not, and she proceeded to talk about how tragic 9-11 was. I agreed. We talked about how much religious fanaticism sucks and how Bush isn’t so great, then I went inside while she talked to her sister on the phone. She ended up sitting next to me, and was joined by her sister after a few minutes.

We talked a bit (which was complicated by her accent and the loud music), then I sang People Are Strange by The Doors. People seemed to cheer more than they had for other singers, which made me happy. When I finished my song and sat back down, she said she wanted to go smoke again. I went outside with her, thinking it was probably late enough that I should get going. I showed her pictures of my kids, she showed me a picture of her boyfriend. She demonstrated her knowledge of Greek (she knew a few phrases, including “I’m very pretty” and some profanity), and told me that she visited Texas when she was three, but her only memory of it was that she wanted to seem American so she said “mommy! mommy!” a lot. Her mom bought her a cowboy hat and jacket, which she still has. In kindergarten she wore them to school sometimes, and they made her feel tough. She’s saving them for her own kids, so they can experience the toughness. We talked a little more, then I asked her what time it was. It was almost midnight, so I headed back to the hotel. I don’t remember her name. I’m not entirely sure we even exchanged names.

Oh yeah… while I was talking to my wife, I decided my back was sore enough that I wanted a massage… but after a small amount of googling I came to the conclusion that (in Norway) massage is more or less synonymous with sex. Not terribly surprising.

That’s pretty much how things went today. Now it’s 1:00 AM and I need sleep.

For dinner today, I ate reindeer. Hopefully Norway doesn’t have mad cow disease (or mad reindeer disease) because it was really only cooked on the outside. It was pretty close to being reindeer sashimi. It looked like this:

I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t so good that I would go out of my way for it a second time. Please do not tell my three year old daughter that I ate reindeer… thanks.

Unfortunately, it was another bad photo today. I’m pretty rusty with my big camera (which is sad, because it’s much more capable), and I have no way of getting photos from my small camera to the computer until I get home (I forgot a necessary adapter).

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Here’s a photo I took yesterday of Oslo Central Station. It’s right across from my hotel. I rode the train from the airport to the hotel. It was very convenient.

It’s about 11:30 PM in Norway and I’m falling asleep, so this is all I’m posting for day 2.

I’m in Norway. I arrived at my hotel around 4:00 PM local time. (Midnight my time.) I checked in, took a shower, unpacked, tried to get online, wandered around the area near my hotel, had sushi, watched a couple drug deals outside the window of the restaurant, went back to my hotel, tried again to get online, took a short nap, woke up and succeeded in getting online, then slept through the night.

So far all my photos are crap. I blame sleep deprivation. I think the camera was in macro mode when I took the picture of the bed. It’s not actually small enough to justify that. In fact, it’s a pretty normal sized bed.

This is where I slept last night. It’s a bed. It’s in Norway. It’s a Norwegian bed.

This is also where I slept last night. It’s a hotel. It’s also in Norway. It’s a Norwegian hotel.

That’s all for now.