What has happened in the past three days? I’m gonna say a lot. But that’d not really cover it sufficiently.
Saturday was, up to that point, the best weather we had had in London. Clear skies, mild wind, enough heat for me to whine (so probably around 20 C). The best day to go see the changing of the guards in front of Buckingham. We thought this was a splendid idea.
So did about 10,000 other people.
We all shared the boulevard in front of Buckingham together and admired the red guards in enormous bear-skin hats march and trot on horses to the lawn within Buckingham, play a little happy concert, wave batons and guns around, and march out. The whole process took about an hour. We got there at 11 to watch the hullabaloo commence at 11:15. Stuff was still going on until about a little after twelve. We then sat in St. James park, people watched, fed pigeons, and oriented ourselves towards St. Paul.
St. Paul Cathedral is a dome attached to another building. The dome dominates the building and the landscape. Your eye is drawn to it because of the aesthetics that the architect used. It was rebuilt after the Fire of 1666 made an ashtray out of most of London, including the very wooden and very flammable cathedral that had been there beforehand. It was built entirely to Classical ideals, so the dome is perfectly proportional on the outside but actually comprised of two concentric domes. That way, the dome on the inside is a size for maximum ooh and ahh-ing from worshippers inside. Any bigger and it would seem vacuous.
St. Paul is the second biggest cathedral in the world; only St. Peter’s is bigger. I visited St. Peter in 2009 when I was with my parents on a great Mediterranean tour de Carnival boat. I remember not liking St. Peter at all. It was crowded and everyone was taking pictures next to the signs that said “NO PHOTOGRAPHY” in at least ten different languages. Aside from that, though, I couldn’t reconcile its excessive décor. Really. I’ve been raised that a house of God is a house of God. God doesn’t give a crap about gold leafing on an altar or your mother-of-pearl nativity scene. St. Peter was all that. I went to cathedrals all over Spain that were just seeping with this almost bawdy ornate-ness. It made me feel uncomfortable. It was like the church was trying to win people over with shiny things or flaunting its wealth in an indirect way to show its power. It left me with a quite negative impression, really. All I could think about in Toledo, Madrid, Sevilla, Cordoba, all those cathedrals, was how many Jews, Protestants, and Muslims the Inquisition would have had to kill, loot, and otherwise impoverish to finance something like that.
I did not get that sense at St. Paul. It was richly decorated, but it never lost sight of some sort of austerity. There was gilding, yes, but there was just simple carving in granite. There was wrought iron next to mosaics. There was splendor but it was never bountiful and it never had an ulterior motive.
Of course we had to get to the dome. The first part is called the “Whispering Gallery,” so called because you can whisper on one side of the dome and hear someone directly across from you, about 100 feet away. It was 250-some steps, but getting up there was cool because you got a great view of the top of the inside of the dome and got a nice view of the nave below.
119 steps above that was a portion of the dome that was outside. I was all pumped up from the guard-changing, people-watching, pigeon-feeding festivities of earlier that morning, so I was going to go to the top, so help me God. My mom is not fond of stairs, and the view from the first portion was good enough for her. I dragged my dad along to the top part of the dome.
THESE 152 steps were iron and small. I’m fairly dexterous and can move around in little spaces, but a lot of people aren’t. I could see why many people elected to stay on the first landing.
Getting to the top, I could see why many people elected not to.
St. Paul is the highest point for a ways around. I could see our hotel, the London Eye, Parliament, Westminster, and the Tower of London. I took a bunch of pictures and the guard at the top had to peel me off the railings and throw me down the stairs. It was worth it though.
Upon reaching the bottom, we were all hungry. As the drunken porter so wisely said in Macbeth: “Steps are a provoker of three things.” “And what three things doth steps provoke?” “Quick breath, rueful knees, and dinner.”
Okay, he didn’t actually say that. He did that with drink. But I felt like waving my artistic license around. Or something.
We were so hungry that we basically saw an Italian restaurant and all yelled “THENCE” and descended upon it like lions on a gazelle.
I had pizza. It was good. And it was not $36 like the one in Norway.
After that we went over to Tate Modern. I have an inconclusive relationship with modern art. Some of my favorite pieces are modern art that have been so painstakingly constructed or deconstructed, or have used utmost brevity and simplicity to convey infinite emotion.
Most of it though is a black line on red paint.
And then we walked back to our hotel. We walked a lot that day. And we all felt it.
Sunday our day started later, but as usual, with some tea (TEA TALLY: 20).
Since going over to Westminster, I had been dying to get back, and I thought going to a service would be the best time: free, nice context, fewer crowds. And it was. I’m not the most religious person on the planet, not in either way. I’m not Christian, nor am I really staunchly against any religion. I haven’t been to a church service at all in the recent or even more remote past. Yet I had to make an exception for the Abbey, especially for Howells Mass in the Dorian Mode.
I mean, who can say no to THAT?
After the mass I was in a very peppy mood and exasperated it by having a chai from Caffe Nero, a local coffee chain that had some very nice brews (TEA TALLY:21).
From there we made our way to the British Museum, a place you could literally live in for weeks and never get bored of. The fun part about London is that the museums are free. Tate was free; so was this. People waltzed in and out like it were St. James Park, seeing artifacts predating civilization in England itself with a very appealing casualness.
It was originally a collection of buildings with a central courtyard, but in 2000 they put a huge lid over all of the buildings. They’re all thus encased in glass but still their own buildings. We started out with the typical fare of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece, but I’m not too fond of that part of history. I’ve always found the Indus Valley and China to be more interesting, so I dragged my parents up to the India and China exhibits, which we found much more interesting.
In between there I had an Americano and proceeded through the exhibits with increased… vigor.
We finished off our trip to the British Museum with Japan and a tiny bit of Korea. I’ve always been interested in Japan and Japanese history, but most museums ignore it or minimize it because it was not really a world power until the mid 1800’s. It was fun to see an actual exhibit that followed them from the beginning until present day.
And then we were hungry again. Because that’s how people get after walking around.
We ate at a Thai restaurant part of a chain called Beathathai. I had pad thai and a mango lassi with rosewater. It was perfect.
After dinner we walked around London some more, made it over to Soho, Piccadilly Circus, and Trafalgar Square. We went into a used bookstore where I found some Joseph Conrad from the later 1800’s. I love old books. They have that smell.
Monday we left London and headed to the English countryside. It was like going back to Wales, only not as far and all in English. There we stayed with an acquaintance of my dad and grandpa, Tim Newell, an amateur historian and one of the English historians for my grandpa’s bomb group from the war. He lives in a tiny village called Conington, situated near where the base was. A lot of his interest in the war stems from the proximity he was to the base that my grandpa was stationed at. I slept through most of the ride going there, despite having some English Breakfast before we left (TEA TALLY: 22). Before heading out to the base, we stopped by Cambridge where we took a gander at the campus and admired the town, stopping to have tea in a crepe shop called Benet (TEA TALLY: 23). Cambridge does have a beautiful campus. It was built in 1209, making it way older than anything we have in the US. It was weird visiting a university campus like a tourist, but I was a tourist once to Dartmouth. Maybe I’m visiting a future alma mater? We’ll see.
Despite my second cup of tea, I still fell asleep on our way to Madingley Cemetery, right by Cambridge, where many soldiers on the base were buried. There’s a huge wall of names that stretches all across a pond, and at first I thought they were the casualties sustained from the war. But it was not even that. It was merely the names of those MISSING and presumed dead. The wall was staggering; there were more than 5000 names on it, and Madingley is one of the smaller American cemeteries in Europe. There are 14 others too. 3000 soldiers are buried in Madingley today, but that’s only the people whose bodies have remained in England. Most of the others have been since transported back to the United States. The cemetery also only covered certain sections of the Air Corps and Navy; it didn’t even regard the infantry.
I had never visited a military cemetery like that, and the most I could make out of it was that war is just consuming. B-17’s get shredded by the slightest bit of shrapnel, armies go through bodies like lawnmowers clipping grass, and entire ships explode and instantly condemn millions of dollars and hundreds of lives to sunken eternities in frigid waters. I could have never fought in the war. I couldn’t imagine myself as a ball turret gunner like my grandpa, or in a foxhole, or running around in the boiler room of a huge navy ship. I would have probably blasted my own brains out before pointing a gun at someone else.
The cemetery was quiet and peaceful, but we needed to keep moving. Tim took us back to his place in Conington to meet his wife, Angie, who was preparing us lunch. I fell asleep on the way there too. When I awoke, we were at their house, which Tim has been disjointedly remodeling. The house itself was built in 1820. It is a beautiful house.
Angie made us an array of small sandwiches, some egg and some ham. She also prepared for us a homemade lemon cake. It was heaven. With tea (TEA TALLY:24).
After our meals, we went over to what remained of my grandpa’s base, which was basically just the runways and a water tower. The runways have been integrated into a small airport today, and so we visited that airport and imagined enormous B-17’s filling out the tar mat with their size and noise. Tim owns a small plot of land near a highway on which he has placed memorials to the bomb groups and has designated the water tower as a final memorial as the last significant structure left from the base.
From there we went to All Saints Church, a semi-abandoned church by their house. There is the original memorial to the bomb group, but the church is considered “redundant” and only used twice a year. It is unlocked, so we went inside. It’s a beautiful church in spite of the mouse poop and years of neglect. I think it’s at least from the 1600’s since I found graves on the floor from the 1600’s. Tim bitterly explained that this church would be much better cared for had the crazy final owner of Conington Castle, which stood just a few feet away until 1954, hadn’t decided that his family’s 500-year old estate was “tacky” and demolished it. And I think he’s right. Tourists love castles. That castle would have been protected by now and made into a world heritage site, and this beautiful church would not be covered in feces and cobwebs.
We made our way back to Tim’s home and were fitted again with an amazing meal of lasagna and a British take on tiramisu. I like food. I also had my first cup of herbal tea since being at school (TEA TALLY: 24).
This morning, while drinking some Earl Grey (TEA TALLY: 25), it hit me that we were leaving, and I had realized that I hadn’t tried marmite yet. Luckily, both Angie and Tim are marmite fanatics and gave me some to try. It tasted like miso paste, and therefore I liked it.
What happened on the plane? I had English Breakfast (TEA TALLY: 26) and got an entire row alone.
Where am I now? I’m home. I would add some sort of conclusion, but I’m gonna write the rest of my Norway trip before I do that.
Besides, this is the longest entry to date.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
OMG SHINY THINGS?!?! Elementary, my dear Watson.
I guess I'm just gonna always be one day behind on posting. Here is something I started last night and just finished now as if it were last night because I was too tired to finish it last night. Behold.
"HOLY CRAP I DID SO MUCH TODAY IT'S NOT EVEN COMPREHENDIBLE. Actually, it's not that staggering. I just went to the Tower of London and the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Oh, and I went to the London Eye. Let us begin this entry!
This was my first full day of doing stuff since coming to London and receiving the pleasure of a fever. So I was quite pleased with myself. After breakfast with a nice cup of tea (TEA TALLY: 17), we took the Tube to Tower Hill, where the Tower of London and other great things are.
TUBE VS. T BANE:
TUBE:
-Runs every minute
-Goes EVERYWHERE
-Always crowded
-Confusing :(
T-BANE:
-Easiest thing to use
-Goes most places
-Not very crowded
-Lines run every 15 minutes :(
So, they have their ups and downs. I still liked the T Bane because I didn't have to worry about my bag getting jacked like every ten seconds.
So from there we got to the Tower of London. We spent about... four hours there. "Tower of London" is also like the biggest misnomer on the planet. Me, being sometimes the derpiest among the derps, always pictured it as just a tower, or the ruin where only a tower remained. That's not true. It's a castle within a wall within a wall surrounded by a moat. Yup.
So the Tower of London was very cool. We took a tour around the grounds, which are HUGE. The Tower was built first in 1066 after William of Normandy. Since then they've been expanding and building on to it, all the way until the Tudors, which was like Elizabeth and Henry VIII. END OF HISTORY LESSON.
The highlight was for sure seeing the crown jewels, which they kept assuring us were the REAL crown jewels. We saw a pair of super heavy doors keeping them all in place and figured they were real.
Most of the crown jewels have to do with the coronation ceremony; an orb with a 300 gram diamond (!??!?), a crown the monarch wears for twenty minutes and weighs five pounds because it's so laden with jewels... Stuff like that. It was well worth the wait (weight? AHH A PUN!!) After a cup of tea (TEA TALLY: 18), we made our way to a place very near and dear to me.
It's not really near and dear, actually. It's just somewhere I really really really wanted to visit.
THE SHERLOCK HOLMES MUSEUM!
This museum is on the (real) address and is a fully accurate construction of the (fake) apartment of the (fake) character. Ah, but I'm such a huge Sherlock buff that this just didn't matter. The guy who created the museum is a Sherlock buff who bought the property right when it got on public auction and remodeled it all according to the book. It's a bit crazy. They also had some Tassaud wax people in there to be certain characters. I didn't like that bit as much. All the furniture inside was period as well. That guy must have been pretty devoted.
After that we headed back towards the hotel. My mom said, "I be tired, I go nap," so my dad and I waited for my cousin Ingrid and her British boyfriend to come meet us. I couldn't meet her when her family came down to Oslo for my first BEST WEEKEND EVER (which was later bested but whatever), and so it's funny that I'd see her here in a country I've never been to and that the time she's here coincides with when I'm here.
ANYWAYS, the four of us had much fun going up on the London Eye, from which we could see everything, taking the free kitschy 4D thing where I got really gross white soapy snow on me, and then ate sushi at a place where they put sushi on the conveyor belt. It was awesome. They also had tea, which I drank. Twice (TEA TALLY: 20)
Why no pictures today, you ask? It's because I'm just too darn lazy."
"HOLY CRAP I DID SO MUCH TODAY IT'S NOT EVEN COMPREHENDIBLE. Actually, it's not that staggering. I just went to the Tower of London and the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Oh, and I went to the London Eye. Let us begin this entry!
This was my first full day of doing stuff since coming to London and receiving the pleasure of a fever. So I was quite pleased with myself. After breakfast with a nice cup of tea (TEA TALLY: 17), we took the Tube to Tower Hill, where the Tower of London and other great things are.
TUBE VS. T BANE:
TUBE:
-Runs every minute
-Goes EVERYWHERE
-Always crowded
-Confusing :(
T-BANE:
-Easiest thing to use
-Goes most places
-Not very crowded
-Lines run every 15 minutes :(
So, they have their ups and downs. I still liked the T Bane because I didn't have to worry about my bag getting jacked like every ten seconds.
So from there we got to the Tower of London. We spent about... four hours there. "Tower of London" is also like the biggest misnomer on the planet. Me, being sometimes the derpiest among the derps, always pictured it as just a tower, or the ruin where only a tower remained. That's not true. It's a castle within a wall within a wall surrounded by a moat. Yup.
So the Tower of London was very cool. We took a tour around the grounds, which are HUGE. The Tower was built first in 1066 after William of Normandy. Since then they've been expanding and building on to it, all the way until the Tudors, which was like Elizabeth and Henry VIII. END OF HISTORY LESSON.
The highlight was for sure seeing the crown jewels, which they kept assuring us were the REAL crown jewels. We saw a pair of super heavy doors keeping them all in place and figured they were real.
Most of the crown jewels have to do with the coronation ceremony; an orb with a 300 gram diamond (!??!?), a crown the monarch wears for twenty minutes and weighs five pounds because it's so laden with jewels... Stuff like that. It was well worth the wait (weight? AHH A PUN!!) After a cup of tea (TEA TALLY: 18), we made our way to a place very near and dear to me.
It's not really near and dear, actually. It's just somewhere I really really really wanted to visit.
THE SHERLOCK HOLMES MUSEUM!
This museum is on the (real) address and is a fully accurate construction of the (fake) apartment of the (fake) character. Ah, but I'm such a huge Sherlock buff that this just didn't matter. The guy who created the museum is a Sherlock buff who bought the property right when it got on public auction and remodeled it all according to the book. It's a bit crazy. They also had some Tassaud wax people in there to be certain characters. I didn't like that bit as much. All the furniture inside was period as well. That guy must have been pretty devoted.
After that we headed back towards the hotel. My mom said, "I be tired, I go nap," so my dad and I waited for my cousin Ingrid and her British boyfriend to come meet us. I couldn't meet her when her family came down to Oslo for my first BEST WEEKEND EVER (which was later bested but whatever), and so it's funny that I'd see her here in a country I've never been to and that the time she's here coincides with when I'm here.
ANYWAYS, the four of us had much fun going up on the London Eye, from which we could see everything, taking the free kitschy 4D thing where I got really gross white soapy snow on me, and then ate sushi at a place where they put sushi on the conveyor belt. It was awesome. They also had tea, which I drank. Twice (TEA TALLY: 20)
Why no pictures today, you ask? It's because I'm just too darn lazy."
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
How I Went to Liverpool and Did Almost Nothing Relevant to the Beatles
"This actually happened. It was sad but a fact of life.
Our day at Liverpool began with a cup of tea (TEA TALLY: 14) before we headed out to Lina's ex-husband's house in eastern Wales. He grew up in Liverpool and obviously was knowledgable about it. He also was the one that took us around Wales yesterday, but I guess I forgot to mention that.
Liverpool is a city that people travel to but also live in. We got in at about 11 and spent the first part of the day walking around the waterfront. Liverpool was apparently where my great-grandmother went through on her way to the US from Norway. Fun fact. Now you know. A lot of Liverpool is ship stuff and half-finished ship exhibits because they ran out of funding (a fact they notified everyone of in the most passive-aggressive sign in existence). Regardless, there were a bunch of cool ships on the water, and the downtown has been newly cleaned up and implemented with a really cool new landscape. Many of the buildings have an abstract resemblance to ships, a nuance that both my parents and I picked up. We felt cool.
The only Beatles-related stop we made was going to the Cavern, the place where the Beatles got their big break. The original Cavern has disappeared, AKA turned into some garage thing, but they restored it completely about a few feet down to make it look exactly like how it did. Fun fact: it's even a sort of barseum now, for lack of a better word. Bands still play gigs here but there's tons of historical stuff. And we had COFFEE! I didn't have tea at a meal or a gastronomical event for the first time in 2 days. WHOA.
After the Cavern we went out for lunch at a place called Albert Dock and I FINALLY got fish and chips. I totally wrecked this subplot because I never mentioned that I tried to get fish and chips in Stratford but they had RUN OUT (WHO DOES THAT?!?!) and then the restaurant we ate at in Conwy yesterday didn't even have fish and chips because it was too classy for that sort of fare.
I guess that subplot was kinda stupid, but like... it seemed important about ten seconds ago?
And I AGAIN forwent having tea. It was weird. I only had one cup of tea today. I had more yesterday in about two hours than I did all of today. I'm a bad fake Brit.
Well, tomorrow we're headed to London, so that should be a big shift from Wales and the less-populated Manchester. I'll talk from there!"
This is what I wrote two days ago, prior to coming to London and feeling like crap the whole commute. I then learned that I had a fever after sleeping for about five hours upon arriving at the hotel. I also become nauseated at the very thought of fish and chips. Ewwwwwww.
So I didn't really do much yesterday. Two nice things that happened were that we got to ride first class from Manchester to London, and we got upgraded to our current room that has an amazing view of Big Ben, the London Eye, and other cool shtuff on the river.
This is our current view. I give it two Earl Greys up.
Today we went to Westminster Abbey and I enjoyed walking around for a bit. The thing that struck me the most about the Abbey is that it was built in the 13th century but is still used today. I mean, they have the SAME coronation chair for monarchs since like the 14th century when they built it. And they STILL USE IT. We couldn't take pictures, so that wasn't fun, but I think my memory won't fail me for a while.
I forwent having tea AGAIN yesterday and only had two cups today.
TEA TALLY: 16
I need to get better so I can drink MOAR TEA!
Our day at Liverpool began with a cup of tea (TEA TALLY: 14) before we headed out to Lina's ex-husband's house in eastern Wales. He grew up in Liverpool and obviously was knowledgable about it. He also was the one that took us around Wales yesterday, but I guess I forgot to mention that.
Liverpool is a city that people travel to but also live in. We got in at about 11 and spent the first part of the day walking around the waterfront. Liverpool was apparently where my great-grandmother went through on her way to the US from Norway. Fun fact. Now you know. A lot of Liverpool is ship stuff and half-finished ship exhibits because they ran out of funding (a fact they notified everyone of in the most passive-aggressive sign in existence). Regardless, there were a bunch of cool ships on the water, and the downtown has been newly cleaned up and implemented with a really cool new landscape. Many of the buildings have an abstract resemblance to ships, a nuance that both my parents and I picked up. We felt cool.
The only Beatles-related stop we made was going to the Cavern, the place where the Beatles got their big break. The original Cavern has disappeared, AKA turned into some garage thing, but they restored it completely about a few feet down to make it look exactly like how it did. Fun fact: it's even a sort of barseum now, for lack of a better word. Bands still play gigs here but there's tons of historical stuff. And we had COFFEE! I didn't have tea at a meal or a gastronomical event for the first time in 2 days. WHOA.
After the Cavern we went out for lunch at a place called Albert Dock and I FINALLY got fish and chips. I totally wrecked this subplot because I never mentioned that I tried to get fish and chips in Stratford but they had RUN OUT (WHO DOES THAT?!?!) and then the restaurant we ate at in Conwy yesterday didn't even have fish and chips because it was too classy for that sort of fare.
I guess that subplot was kinda stupid, but like... it seemed important about ten seconds ago?
And I AGAIN forwent having tea. It was weird. I only had one cup of tea today. I had more yesterday in about two hours than I did all of today. I'm a bad fake Brit.
Well, tomorrow we're headed to London, so that should be a big shift from Wales and the less-populated Manchester. I'll talk from there!"
This is what I wrote two days ago, prior to coming to London and feeling like crap the whole commute. I then learned that I had a fever after sleeping for about five hours upon arriving at the hotel. I also become nauseated at the very thought of fish and chips. Ewwwwwww.
So I didn't really do much yesterday. Two nice things that happened were that we got to ride first class from Manchester to London, and we got upgraded to our current room that has an amazing view of Big Ben, the London Eye, and other cool shtuff on the river.
This is our current view. I give it two Earl Greys up.
Today we went to Westminster Abbey and I enjoyed walking around for a bit. The thing that struck me the most about the Abbey is that it was built in the 13th century but is still used today. I mean, they have the SAME coronation chair for monarchs since like the 14th century when they built it. And they STILL USE IT. We couldn't take pictures, so that wasn't fun, but I think my memory won't fail me for a while.
I forwent having tea AGAIN yesterday and only had two cups today.
TEA TALLY: 16
I need to get better so I can drink MOAR TEA!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Britting Around/ TEA COUNTING/ WHALES!!!!!
So I've been drinking tea here. I'm gonna start a tea tally to see exactly how many cups of Earl Grey, English Breakfasts, and assorted other popular teas I drink while I am here. Before yesterday I had had one Earl Grey upon arriving to Lina's house, one in the morning Saturday, and Jasmine tea for lunch. In about a day my tally is three. This will escalate from this post.
Today I shall recount today and yesterday. Because I didn't blog yesterday. Because I... was lazy. Really, no excuse.
So yesterday started kind of early. I had an Earl Grey (TEA TALLY:4) and we headed out to Stratford-Upon-Avon, about a two hour drive from Manchester. The weather in England is kind of perpetually threatening rain, and we had the good fortune of experiencing a proper downpour right when we arrived to Stratford. It was fun. My jeans became clean.
The first part of the day was spent going on the City Tour bus and finding out where to go. We stopped at Anne Hathaway's cottage and gandered at the prettiness of it. It is what it is: a well-kept house a couple miles off from town with creaky floors and a zebra motif. Zebras are cool. The Tudors sure knew that. Anne Hathaway's also had an enormous garden with like every kind of British horticultural marvel ever. There was also a willow hut, a place made for people suffering from unrequited love to go whine to themselves without bothering others and heal. It was pretty and they played Shakespearean love sonnets in it. It was raining too hard for me to take pictures.
From there we hopped on the bus again and took it out to Mary Arden's farm, the home of Shakespeare's mother which has been converted into a Tudor life museum, complete with the "sights and smells of a real Tudor farm." There were sights and smells alright, and pretty much right away we stopped in the cafe and I had my first meat pie. My dad and I sang part of "A Little Priest" from Sweeney and we concluded that it couldn't be poet because we KNEW it was deceased. We're so cool.
Oh, and I had like two cups of tea.
TEA TALLY: 6
After eating we walked around the farm, definitely the highlight of the day. By then the sun was shining, and we were all happier because we got food. Food makes people happy.
Highlights within the visit included meeting a goat that could shake hands, honking at geese who were too cool to honk back, and seeing an array of falcons and owls that they kept there for falconry shows and... owl stuff?
We were bothering them in the middle of their night. They seemed pretty pissed off. I would be too if I had someone taking pictures of me whilst I slept. Especially if they were muttering aloud if I was alive of not.
From there we went to the gift shop where I received (from my parents. So glad to be traveling with people who have $ufficient mean$) three different smelling hand-made soaps. I sniffed them until my head got tingly.
The last stop on our journey was Shakespeare's birthplace, which had this really cool tree.
It also looked like this.
It also had a bunch of multimedia presentations, which took about 15 minutes our time. The last part of it detailed famous people who had done something significantly Shakespearean. Many were obvious: Dame Judy Dench, Laurence Olivier, Akira Kurosawa, and....
Not even Shakespeare can escape a Dr. Who reference.
We finished the night by going to a restaurant on the river, where I had delicious gammon (think really really good Canadian bacon) and two cups of tea (TALLY: 8). So good, so worth getting back at like 11 for. We spent the whole day in Stratford basically, and we could have definitely been there longer. Oh well. It seems like the theme of this trip is "So much to do, so little time, and so much tea."
Today we went to Wales. Before we went to Wales I had a cup of Earl Grey.
TEA TALLY: 9.
Also before going to Wales, I slept. When I woke up we were by an 18th century vitaduct and aqueduct. Aqueducts brought water. Vitaducts carried freight and stuff.
We walked along it and went into a 421 meter tunnel. This was the end. I used my camera's preview screen for light.
People go on the aqueducts on these canal boats that you can rent out for however long and just go through all the canals. The canals go everywhere in England. The same canals we saw in Stratford yesterday are connected to the ones that we saw in North Wales today.
And then I fell asleep.
When I woke up we were on the coast of North Wales in a town called Conwy. It boasts the majestic Conwy Castle, which was built in the 13th century and where we spent maybe like 2 hours walking up and down and taking pictures. I am only gonna post two. Because otherwise this post will just be too darn long.
After that we walked the entire wall around the city, which isn't all that long because Conwy is a succinct (? for lack of a better word) city. You have restaurants and the castle and shops within the walls and you live outside them. Also there's a lot of Welsh.
This is Welsh on the top. It looks like gibberish but when spoken it sounds like English that you just don't understand. It's quite disorienting actually. It's like your mind is constantly on search mode for words you may know, but you will know NONE.
Before I forget I must recount what I did BEFORE going to the castle. We went to a hotel that had been there since 1600 because the local authorities were like, "Gee, we need to accommodate people in our dinky dink town. Who needs a monastery? GTFO MONKS." And that's how it got started. I did approve of it though. I got my first burger in about three months and drank two cups of Earl Grey.
TEA TALLY: 11.
We also went to a sweet shop where I got wine gums. I like wine gums. They're like DOTS, but better and actually resembling fruits.
After castling and walking and wine gumming we headed over to a resort town called Llandudno. I will have eternal respect to anyone who pronounces it correctly the first time. Llandudno was a sweet little place on the sea where old people like to vacation. Two things struck me about the town:
1. Its French Riviera-ness.
2. PALM TREES?!?!
Neither of these things were expected encounters in Wales. But I had never been to Wales, so I really hadn't expected anything.
We went to a hotel and I drank two cups of Breakfast tea.
TEA TALLY:13.
And then I came back here. The end.
Today I shall recount today and yesterday. Because I didn't blog yesterday. Because I... was lazy. Really, no excuse.
So yesterday started kind of early. I had an Earl Grey (TEA TALLY:4) and we headed out to Stratford-Upon-Avon, about a two hour drive from Manchester. The weather in England is kind of perpetually threatening rain, and we had the good fortune of experiencing a proper downpour right when we arrived to Stratford. It was fun. My jeans became clean.
The first part of the day was spent going on the City Tour bus and finding out where to go. We stopped at Anne Hathaway's cottage and gandered at the prettiness of it. It is what it is: a well-kept house a couple miles off from town with creaky floors and a zebra motif. Zebras are cool. The Tudors sure knew that. Anne Hathaway's also had an enormous garden with like every kind of British horticultural marvel ever. There was also a willow hut, a place made for people suffering from unrequited love to go whine to themselves without bothering others and heal. It was pretty and they played Shakespearean love sonnets in it. It was raining too hard for me to take pictures.
From there we hopped on the bus again and took it out to Mary Arden's farm, the home of Shakespeare's mother which has been converted into a Tudor life museum, complete with the "sights and smells of a real Tudor farm." There were sights and smells alright, and pretty much right away we stopped in the cafe and I had my first meat pie. My dad and I sang part of "A Little Priest" from Sweeney and we concluded that it couldn't be poet because we KNEW it was deceased. We're so cool.
Oh, and I had like two cups of tea.
TEA TALLY: 6
After eating we walked around the farm, definitely the highlight of the day. By then the sun was shining, and we were all happier because we got food. Food makes people happy.
Highlights within the visit included meeting a goat that could shake hands, honking at geese who were too cool to honk back, and seeing an array of falcons and owls that they kept there for falconry shows and... owl stuff?
We were bothering them in the middle of their night. They seemed pretty pissed off. I would be too if I had someone taking pictures of me whilst I slept. Especially if they were muttering aloud if I was alive of not.
From there we went to the gift shop where I received (from my parents. So glad to be traveling with people who have $ufficient mean$) three different smelling hand-made soaps. I sniffed them until my head got tingly.
The last stop on our journey was Shakespeare's birthplace, which had this really cool tree.
It also looked like this.
It also had a bunch of multimedia presentations, which took about 15 minutes our time. The last part of it detailed famous people who had done something significantly Shakespearean. Many were obvious: Dame Judy Dench, Laurence Olivier, Akira Kurosawa, and....
Not even Shakespeare can escape a Dr. Who reference.
We finished the night by going to a restaurant on the river, where I had delicious gammon (think really really good Canadian bacon) and two cups of tea (TALLY: 8). So good, so worth getting back at like 11 for. We spent the whole day in Stratford basically, and we could have definitely been there longer. Oh well. It seems like the theme of this trip is "So much to do, so little time, and so much tea."
Today we went to Wales. Before we went to Wales I had a cup of Earl Grey.
TEA TALLY: 9.
Also before going to Wales, I slept. When I woke up we were by an 18th century vitaduct and aqueduct. Aqueducts brought water. Vitaducts carried freight and stuff.
We walked along it and went into a 421 meter tunnel. This was the end. I used my camera's preview screen for light.
People go on the aqueducts on these canal boats that you can rent out for however long and just go through all the canals. The canals go everywhere in England. The same canals we saw in Stratford yesterday are connected to the ones that we saw in North Wales today.
And then I fell asleep.
When I woke up we were on the coast of North Wales in a town called Conwy. It boasts the majestic Conwy Castle, which was built in the 13th century and where we spent maybe like 2 hours walking up and down and taking pictures. I am only gonna post two. Because otherwise this post will just be too darn long.
After that we walked the entire wall around the city, which isn't all that long because Conwy is a succinct (? for lack of a better word) city. You have restaurants and the castle and shops within the walls and you live outside them. Also there's a lot of Welsh.
This is Welsh on the top. It looks like gibberish but when spoken it sounds like English that you just don't understand. It's quite disorienting actually. It's like your mind is constantly on search mode for words you may know, but you will know NONE.
Before I forget I must recount what I did BEFORE going to the castle. We went to a hotel that had been there since 1600 because the local authorities were like, "Gee, we need to accommodate people in our dinky dink town. Who needs a monastery? GTFO MONKS." And that's how it got started. I did approve of it though. I got my first burger in about three months and drank two cups of Earl Grey.
TEA TALLY: 11.
We also went to a sweet shop where I got wine gums. I like wine gums. They're like DOTS, but better and actually resembling fruits.
After castling and walking and wine gumming we headed over to a resort town called Llandudno. I will have eternal respect to anyone who pronounces it correctly the first time. Llandudno was a sweet little place on the sea where old people like to vacation. Two things struck me about the town:
1. Its French Riviera-ness.
2. PALM TREES?!?!
Neither of these things were expected encounters in Wales. But I had never been to Wales, so I really hadn't expected anything.
We went to a hotel and I drank two cups of Breakfast tea.
TEA TALLY:13.
And then I came back here. The end.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Chester, England and the Actual BEST WEEKEND EVER!!!
So it's pretty late at night here, and we're gonna head out to Wales tomorrow morning relatively early, so I'm gonna try to write this post as succinctly but thoroughly as possible. This means no extraneous fluffy fluff.
Fluff.
So what have I been up to for the past week? Here are some pictures, because we're all visually stimulated creatures, aren't we?
Pretty, no? This is Røros, Norway, AKA my favorite place on earth. It's an old mining town that has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My cousin Arne lives here and used to work for the town as a tour guide, so he knows just about everything imaginable. I have been waiting to go there for three years, and this past weekend I was finally reunited with the only place in the world that actually makes me cry upon seeing it. Seriously. I also cried when I left.
My travel to Røros was by train, at 7:30 AM. I had the International Cultural Evening (ICE) the night before, and I was completely out of it. I'll talk about the ICE on another post because I am too much on a schedule to be thorough. ANYWAYS, this was the first time in my life I've ever been on a commuter train. The US fails at the railways, though this wasn't the case about 100 years ago. Oh well. Norway has railways, and gosh darn it, they use them!
I had a winner of a breakfast when I got to Hamar, my transfer stop before Røros. I was starving and ate whatever sounded satiating at the time. Which was this.
Breakfast of Champions.
I got into Røros at about 1:30 and was greeted by my second cousin Arne and one of his grandchildren Amanda and her friend Camilla. They were cute. Little kids speaking Norwegian, or any foreign language for that matter, makes me go D'AWWWW.
Arne's wife, Ingela, anticipated my arrival and my hunger with a pseudo-frokost, wherein I ate yummy salty ham and gulost and molte (cloudberry, the best thing on the planet. Look it up. They're bright orange and rare and it seems like you shouldn't eat them but then you do and once you realize you won't die from poison they're SOOOOOOOOOOO good). After that they basically ordered me to sleep because I had a long afternoon and evening ahead of me.
So I took a nap. It was the best nap ever.
When I awoke from my nap I walked around with Arne in the city, including the church, where I hadn't been. I found it funny that the church had the company logo because it was paid for by the mining company in Røros.
The company symbol is two hammers and the Venus sign, the sign for copper.
The interior is entirely made out of wood. The marble effect is done on wood, and the pipe organ is made out of wood, giving it a distinct sound. WHAAAAA
In the evening Arne and his son, Øivind, and I went to the main reason I came to Røros: a bilingual play about Røros's history and its role in the Swedish invasion of Norway in 1714. Sweden's king had died in southern Norway, and in its retreat Sweden made a nice stop at Røros and demanded the inhabitants to give them all the copper. The townspeople refused and hid the coper, but the Swedes had this endearing habit of burning Røros whenever it crossed their path. Røros, being made almost entirely out of wooden buildings, is a giant, colorful pyre just waiting to happen. Concluding that quenching the Swede's pyromania was a crappy idea, Røros forked over its copper. The Swedes rejoiced for about five minutes. Then they crossed the mountains right along the border and found a terrible snowstorm. There they all died. Whoops.
I really enjoyed the play, even though half of it was in Røros dialect, which I didn't understand, and the other half was in Swedish, which I REALLY didn't understand. But Arne provided me with translation, and I could tell by their actions onstage what was going on. I mean, when people are shooting each other, you kind of figure it's a war.
Sunday Arne and I went to Olavsgruva, an old mine used by the copper company for 300 years. Arne was also an old tour guide there, and the drive up through the mountain road used to be his daily commute. I was grateful for this, especially when he was going about 70 km/h on it to catch the 10:30 tour. I thought I was gonna die, but he seemed to know what he was doing, so I pretended I was on a roller coaster at EPCOT.
Though I've never been to EPCOT.
After Olavsgruva we went to the Smelhytta, or the smelting hut, another museum in Røros, where they used to smelt the copper from the ore. In it were all of these historically accurate, to scale replicas that ONE MAN made. This was basically his life. He forsook his wife and then died from basically working so much. Regardless, they were spectacular.
We also walked around the mountain terrain where Olavsgruva was, where I admired the treeless landscape and jumped like a little mountain goat on ore piles and cairns. It was fun. I'm not a goat though.
This took me up to the afternoon, wherein I had to leave Røros. Arne and Ingela saw me off, and I sat backwards on the train so I could watch Røros disappear behind me. And I cried. I'm not sure when I'll get back to Røros, and I've never loved a place so much in my life.
END SENTIMENTALITY.
Finals were also this week. My cousin Peder came for ICE, and I went and visited him at Sigrid and Hogne's for dinner on Monday. It was nice to get off campus, see their house again, and chat and NOT eat Blindern food. Because you can only have so many frozen haddock cakes before you realize you just can't do it anymore.
I had my literature final on Wednesday and Norwegian final on Thursday. I wrote ten pages for my literature final and my hand twitched for about 20 minutes afterwards. Whoa nelly.
Then we had our farewell party. The only thing that's really worth mentioning is that I saw Peder again and got free Solo Sitron and chocolate cake. Yum. My friends and I went back to the dorm and spent our last evening together hanging out and talking and being up to the same stupid antics that we always are. It was a good ending.
I left for England in the afternoon, and Gus and I had flights twenty minutes and four gates apart, so we traveled to the airport together and hung out by our gates until I had to go. I had a layover in Stockholm, which has the nicest airport I've ever been in. It had hardwood floors and made me feel like I came from a third world country. Maybe because I do.
I got into Manchester at around six, and my parents and my mother's friend from the university named Lina came to pick me up. Lina lives in this very cute townhouse in Manchester that is ALL vertical. I'm on the top floor, where I am sitting currently on my bed and typing like an Adderall'd up computer programmer. TYPE TYPE TYPE.
Today we spent the afternoon in Chester, a town about 45 miles away from Manchester. They use miles here but also use the metric system. I don't get it. I'm having trouble with it after using kilometers for about 6 weeks. Grrrrrrr. Lina's daughter, Karen, lives in Chester, and she took us on a tour of the city. Chester was first settled by the Romans, and the city is bounded by this retaining wall built by the Romans in AD 100, and the wall was later restored in the 14th century. I say thumbs up.
Chester is a touristy but still quaint town. I really liked that everything was close together and within walking distance. I also liked Bergen for that reason. I enjoy walking places because then you get to know the city way better.
For lunch we ate Thai food, which was heaven-sent for me. I love Norway and Norwegian food, but I was CRAVING something ethnic, and I love Thai food. So that made me happy. Happy face for Cali. :D
From then on we walked around more and stopped at Chester Cathedral. It was beautiful. It started out as a monastery but then stopped when England left the Catholic Church. Henry VIII was very fond of destroying any evidence of Catholicism in England, which meant desecrating any church he got his hands on, but he spared this one because he needed somewhere to start his new church. Hooray! I'm not even going to try to put pictures up. There are way too many and I'm not in any disposition to choose.
Finally, we stopped for coffee. I got a cappuccino. It was £2.25. All I could think about was how I spent 35 kroner for a cappuccino the first weekend I was in Oslo.
Then we returned back here. Today has been a long day, and now I must sleep. This was a beast of a post. See? I can write. I just am too lazy most of the time.
Fluff.
So what have I been up to for the past week? Here are some pictures, because we're all visually stimulated creatures, aren't we?
Pretty, no? This is Røros, Norway, AKA my favorite place on earth. It's an old mining town that has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My cousin Arne lives here and used to work for the town as a tour guide, so he knows just about everything imaginable. I have been waiting to go there for three years, and this past weekend I was finally reunited with the only place in the world that actually makes me cry upon seeing it. Seriously. I also cried when I left.
My travel to Røros was by train, at 7:30 AM. I had the International Cultural Evening (ICE) the night before, and I was completely out of it. I'll talk about the ICE on another post because I am too much on a schedule to be thorough. ANYWAYS, this was the first time in my life I've ever been on a commuter train. The US fails at the railways, though this wasn't the case about 100 years ago. Oh well. Norway has railways, and gosh darn it, they use them!
I had a winner of a breakfast when I got to Hamar, my transfer stop before Røros. I was starving and ate whatever sounded satiating at the time. Which was this.
Breakfast of Champions.
I got into Røros at about 1:30 and was greeted by my second cousin Arne and one of his grandchildren Amanda and her friend Camilla. They were cute. Little kids speaking Norwegian, or any foreign language for that matter, makes me go D'AWWWW.
Arne's wife, Ingela, anticipated my arrival and my hunger with a pseudo-frokost, wherein I ate yummy salty ham and gulost and molte (cloudberry, the best thing on the planet. Look it up. They're bright orange and rare and it seems like you shouldn't eat them but then you do and once you realize you won't die from poison they're SOOOOOOOOOOO good). After that they basically ordered me to sleep because I had a long afternoon and evening ahead of me.
So I took a nap. It was the best nap ever.
When I awoke from my nap I walked around with Arne in the city, including the church, where I hadn't been. I found it funny that the church had the company logo because it was paid for by the mining company in Røros.
The company symbol is two hammers and the Venus sign, the sign for copper.
The interior is entirely made out of wood. The marble effect is done on wood, and the pipe organ is made out of wood, giving it a distinct sound. WHAAAAA
In the evening Arne and his son, Øivind, and I went to the main reason I came to Røros: a bilingual play about Røros's history and its role in the Swedish invasion of Norway in 1714. Sweden's king had died in southern Norway, and in its retreat Sweden made a nice stop at Røros and demanded the inhabitants to give them all the copper. The townspeople refused and hid the coper, but the Swedes had this endearing habit of burning Røros whenever it crossed their path. Røros, being made almost entirely out of wooden buildings, is a giant, colorful pyre just waiting to happen. Concluding that quenching the Swede's pyromania was a crappy idea, Røros forked over its copper. The Swedes rejoiced for about five minutes. Then they crossed the mountains right along the border and found a terrible snowstorm. There they all died. Whoops.
I really enjoyed the play, even though half of it was in Røros dialect, which I didn't understand, and the other half was in Swedish, which I REALLY didn't understand. But Arne provided me with translation, and I could tell by their actions onstage what was going on. I mean, when people are shooting each other, you kind of figure it's a war.
Sunday Arne and I went to Olavsgruva, an old mine used by the copper company for 300 years. Arne was also an old tour guide there, and the drive up through the mountain road used to be his daily commute. I was grateful for this, especially when he was going about 70 km/h on it to catch the 10:30 tour. I thought I was gonna die, but he seemed to know what he was doing, so I pretended I was on a roller coaster at EPCOT.
Though I've never been to EPCOT.
After Olavsgruva we went to the Smelhytta, or the smelting hut, another museum in Røros, where they used to smelt the copper from the ore. In it were all of these historically accurate, to scale replicas that ONE MAN made. This was basically his life. He forsook his wife and then died from basically working so much. Regardless, they were spectacular.
We also walked around the mountain terrain where Olavsgruva was, where I admired the treeless landscape and jumped like a little mountain goat on ore piles and cairns. It was fun. I'm not a goat though.
This took me up to the afternoon, wherein I had to leave Røros. Arne and Ingela saw me off, and I sat backwards on the train so I could watch Røros disappear behind me. And I cried. I'm not sure when I'll get back to Røros, and I've never loved a place so much in my life.
END SENTIMENTALITY.
Finals were also this week. My cousin Peder came for ICE, and I went and visited him at Sigrid and Hogne's for dinner on Monday. It was nice to get off campus, see their house again, and chat and NOT eat Blindern food. Because you can only have so many frozen haddock cakes before you realize you just can't do it anymore.
I had my literature final on Wednesday and Norwegian final on Thursday. I wrote ten pages for my literature final and my hand twitched for about 20 minutes afterwards. Whoa nelly.
Then we had our farewell party. The only thing that's really worth mentioning is that I saw Peder again and got free Solo Sitron and chocolate cake. Yum. My friends and I went back to the dorm and spent our last evening together hanging out and talking and being up to the same stupid antics that we always are. It was a good ending.
I left for England in the afternoon, and Gus and I had flights twenty minutes and four gates apart, so we traveled to the airport together and hung out by our gates until I had to go. I had a layover in Stockholm, which has the nicest airport I've ever been in. It had hardwood floors and made me feel like I came from a third world country. Maybe because I do.
I got into Manchester at around six, and my parents and my mother's friend from the university named Lina came to pick me up. Lina lives in this very cute townhouse in Manchester that is ALL vertical. I'm on the top floor, where I am sitting currently on my bed and typing like an Adderall'd up computer programmer. TYPE TYPE TYPE.
Today we spent the afternoon in Chester, a town about 45 miles away from Manchester. They use miles here but also use the metric system. I don't get it. I'm having trouble with it after using kilometers for about 6 weeks. Grrrrrrr. Lina's daughter, Karen, lives in Chester, and she took us on a tour of the city. Chester was first settled by the Romans, and the city is bounded by this retaining wall built by the Romans in AD 100, and the wall was later restored in the 14th century. I say thumbs up.
Chester is a touristy but still quaint town. I really liked that everything was close together and within walking distance. I also liked Bergen for that reason. I enjoy walking places because then you get to know the city way better.
For lunch we ate Thai food, which was heaven-sent for me. I love Norway and Norwegian food, but I was CRAVING something ethnic, and I love Thai food. So that made me happy. Happy face for Cali. :D
From then on we walked around more and stopped at Chester Cathedral. It was beautiful. It started out as a monastery but then stopped when England left the Catholic Church. Henry VIII was very fond of destroying any evidence of Catholicism in England, which meant desecrating any church he got his hands on, but he spared this one because he needed somewhere to start his new church. Hooray! I'm not even going to try to put pictures up. There are way too many and I'm not in any disposition to choose.
Finally, we stopped for coffee. I got a cappuccino. It was £2.25. All I could think about was how I spent 35 kroner for a cappuccino the first weekend I was in Oslo.
Then we returned back here. Today has been a long day, and now I must sleep. This was a beast of a post. See? I can write. I just am too lazy most of the time.
Friday, August 5, 2011
uh....
Not going to even try to come up with an excuse.
But this is an update to basically say that I am in MANCHESTER! Thus begins the chips in my "fisk and chips" adventure. I have a few leisurely days ahead of me, so I'm going to be updating like crazy, hopefully. So I say. Here is what I'll be covering and when.
TOMORROW:
ICE, Røros, past week in general
SUNDAY:
Bombing, Hallingdal, post-bombing stuff
MONDAY:
Bergen part II
TUESDAY:
Norwegian cultural evening (LOL this took place in the middle of July. Now that's what I call not updating.)
In each I'll include tidbits of what I'm doing here too. Wednesday and beyond I'll be in London where I'll probably be doing a lot.
Cheerio!
That was horrible.
-Cali
But this is an update to basically say that I am in MANCHESTER! Thus begins the chips in my "fisk and chips" adventure. I have a few leisurely days ahead of me, so I'm going to be updating like crazy, hopefully. So I say. Here is what I'll be covering and when.
TOMORROW:
ICE, Røros, past week in general
SUNDAY:
Bombing, Hallingdal, post-bombing stuff
MONDAY:
Bergen part II
TUESDAY:
Norwegian cultural evening (LOL this took place in the middle of July. Now that's what I call not updating.)
In each I'll include tidbits of what I'm doing here too. Wednesday and beyond I'll be in London where I'll probably be doing a lot.
Cheerio!
That was horrible.
-Cali
Saturday, July 16, 2011
BESSWEEKENDEVARRRR/ Me vs. The World
OMG TWO BLOGS POSTS IN A ROW IN A DAY?! It must be Christmas. But seriously.
Now I shall recap the best weekend ever. Because it kind of was. Especially seeing that I was alone for most of it. Gus, Ian, and Lauren all went on excursions over the weekend, which left me with Evan, who was going to spend most of the weekend doing homework anyway. (NOTE: he did not actually do this. He spent four hours playing Knights of the Old Republic on his computer. Way to go.)
This gave me the chance to go out and do stuff on my own at my pace, which I will admit was kind of nice. After waking up early Saturday and doing laundry, I set out on my incredible journey as if I were a talking animal. I hope someone gets that reference. Unfortunately, the public transport system is getting the equivalent of a total body lift and will emerge from Extreme Makeover more streamlined or whatever, but for now it's just annoying because large sections of it are closed for construction on the weekends. Regrettably, these sections severely interfere with my transportation. So this has forced me to get more acquainted with the bus lines and trykken. Or at least that's what I tell myself.
First item on the agenda was the Munch Museum, to which I hadn't gone with my parents the last time I was here. I have become very fond of Munch and decided that the excursion all the way out to Tøyen, which is on the other side of Oslo, would be worth it. I like carrying around my ISS ID because that means I get discounts to all the museums. I like that. 50 kroner is less than 70 kroner. That is my math and I'm proud of it!
Very early on in my expedition, I told myself I was going to use as much Norwegian as I possibly could in order to practice. I idealistically told myself that I could even go the entire day without slipping up. I walked into the Munch Museum, and the first thing I heard from the guard, in perfect English was,
"You need to go put your bag downstairs."
World: 1. Cali: 0
Disheartened at my apparent American-ness, I went downstairs and locked my bag away and went back up. After going through security I was about to go into the museum when I heard,
"Hallo! Do you need to buy a ticket?" This was also in English.
World: 2. Cali: 0.
I was on a fail streak and became extremely conscientious. I figured that I was just getting it all out of my system, but then I got up to the exhibit doors and did not know how to get in. They're the same as the ones in Sentralstasjon, where it appears that you have to scan something and then the doors open. So I kept scanning my receipt, which elicited a cheerful bip but nothing else from the door. So I did this a bunch and started creating a line behind me. Finally, a security guard from the other side of the exhibit said,
"Just walk through."
Apparently they open automatically.
World: 3. Cali: -1.
However, once inside it was definitely worth the hassle. They had a copy of The Scream and of Madonna here as well as a bunch of studies I hadn't seen before. They did not have my favorite picture of his, which is of his sister Inger sitting on a beach.
I love the tenderness with which he paints her in all his paintings. She was very important to him.
After going through the exhibit, which is fairly small because it is only Munch, I went to the gift shop to buy a postcard. I regathered my resolve and made my way to the counter, compelling myself to speak in Norwegian. It worked out well at first. She said "12 kroner" in Norwegian, and I paid out to he in exact change to show my prowess with the coin system here. But then she asked me something very quickly, and instead of processing what she actually had said, I just replied "ja." She giggled and put my one postcard in a plastic bag.
World: 4. Cali: -1.
Feeling particularly derp, I made my way back to the T Bane in order to go to the city center and see the Ibsen museum. However, my sense of direction failed me and I walked in the wrong direction for a few minutes before realizing I had not seen this part of Tøyen before. I then walked back and started recognizing my surroundings and kept my eyes peeled for a T sign marking the T Bane entrance. What basically happened is that I circumambulated it for about another twenty minutes on the block surrounding it, stopped, looked around me again, and saw the T sign floating over a bridge that I had to cross under to go. It was a big sign.
World: 5. Cali: :(
However, once I did find the T Bane I zipped all the way over to Karl Johan's Gate on my great quest to find the Ibsen Museum. Yet once again my sense of direction failed me, and I ended up crossing over Akers Gate three times before I figured out where Karl Johan actually was. I became very acquainted with the street though and will never get lost there again.
World: 6. Cali: 0.
Upon finding the Ibsen Museum, which is on Henrik Ibsens Gate (duh) and just west of the palace, I sat myself down on a bench in the palace park and enjoyed my matpakke and creeping on the Ibsen Museum. It was wonderful.
World: 6. Cali: 1.
I arrived to the museum at the top of the hour to go on the tour, by this time completely abandoning my goal of speaking Norwegian on this trip. Turns out the building is actually his old apartment which was turned into a dentist office after his death but then reconverted in order to make the museum in 2006. I was the only one that showed up for the tour and therefore got a private tour. Of his apartment.
World: 6. Cali: 2.
Apparently Ibsen was loaded. He was the only person in Norway to have a bathtub. Not even the king had one, and Ibsen took two baths a day, twice as many as most Norwegians took in a year. Stinky Norwegians, clean Ibsen. Go figure.
The museum was fascinating and I think was a subconscious attempt to get me motivated for reading A Doll's House, which I have to do this coming week. I'm not familiar with Ibsen much, aside from seeing Peer Gynt staged a couple years ago at the Guthrie Theater. It was definitely some place I wanted to go back to.
After that I was pretty much done for a day and decided to head back to the dorm. I saw a trykk right outside the museum that had a line that ran to Majorstuen, the stop on the T Bane right before Blindern and right after all the construction. I took it straight there.
World: 6. Cali: 3.
Upon arriving back I did little else besides eat dinner and go to Sognsvannen to relax and stuff. That was the first day of the weekend.
Sunday was a later start. I did laundry again and then vegged out in my dorm before heading over to the National Gallery. I had been there before last year and was dying to go back. Admission is free on Sundays so I figured this was the best time to mosey on over.
The National Gallery has a very large collection of art including a temporary exhibit of only Werenskiold. I'm fond of Werenskiold also. I think my favorite of his is "Peasant Burial"
The museum also has a HUGE collection of Dahl paintings. I enjoy Dahl, but he's not my favorite of the landscape painters. Without a doubt, Peder Balke is my favorite, and "Fyr på den Norske kyst," or "From the North Coast," is my favorite of his.
I think Balke does an incredible job providing a mood without the use of people.
So after walking through there and enjoying the romantic paintings and some from Picasso and Van Gogh, I went outside to wait for my cousins to come pick me up.
What, was that not a smooth transition? Hold on; let me elaborate.
The ending of my weekend was to be a nice home cooked meal and football game provided by my cousin in Oslo, Berit, and her husband, Vegard, and her two sons, Magnus and Kristian. My cousins from Trondheim, Anne, Bjørn, and Øyvind, were in Oslo for the weekend en route to heading to Paris for a week for Øyvind's football tournament. With so many people in Oslo in one time, I got to see a bunch of people very conveniently.
It was wonderful to not have Blindern food. Vegard grilled veggies and chicken wrapped in bacon, and we had strawberries with ice cream for dessert. It was nice.
Øyvind, Magnus, and Kristian have all gotten so big. I only see them every few years, so they grow in spurts rather than increments. Øyvind speaks perfect English now, Magnus speaks quite a bit (last time I saw him he didn't speak any really), and Kristian is.. well.. adorable.
Left to right: Kristian, Øyvind, Me, and Magnus.
After that we departed for the football game, which was between Vålerenga, the Oslo team, and a team from Trømso at Ullevål Stadion, just a few T Bane stops from Blindern. This was my first football game, and it did not disappoint. Vålerenga won 2-0, and their fans sang pretty much the whole time. Some of the melodies I recognized as Christmas melodies, like "O Christmas Tree," "Jingle Bells," and "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." I couldn't understand the lyrics, but I did enjoy watching them bob up and down for about two hours.
Vålerenga fans after they scored a goal. They went basically crazy and you could hear nothing but their singing.
I was relatively exhausted after the game and came back to campus to see all my friends back from their excursions. It was nice to hear we all had fun this weekend.
Except for Evan.
Now I shall recap the best weekend ever. Because it kind of was. Especially seeing that I was alone for most of it. Gus, Ian, and Lauren all went on excursions over the weekend, which left me with Evan, who was going to spend most of the weekend doing homework anyway. (NOTE: he did not actually do this. He spent four hours playing Knights of the Old Republic on his computer. Way to go.)
This gave me the chance to go out and do stuff on my own at my pace, which I will admit was kind of nice. After waking up early Saturday and doing laundry, I set out on my incredible journey as if I were a talking animal. I hope someone gets that reference. Unfortunately, the public transport system is getting the equivalent of a total body lift and will emerge from Extreme Makeover more streamlined or whatever, but for now it's just annoying because large sections of it are closed for construction on the weekends. Regrettably, these sections severely interfere with my transportation. So this has forced me to get more acquainted with the bus lines and trykken. Or at least that's what I tell myself.
First item on the agenda was the Munch Museum, to which I hadn't gone with my parents the last time I was here. I have become very fond of Munch and decided that the excursion all the way out to Tøyen, which is on the other side of Oslo, would be worth it. I like carrying around my ISS ID because that means I get discounts to all the museums. I like that. 50 kroner is less than 70 kroner. That is my math and I'm proud of it!
Very early on in my expedition, I told myself I was going to use as much Norwegian as I possibly could in order to practice. I idealistically told myself that I could even go the entire day without slipping up. I walked into the Munch Museum, and the first thing I heard from the guard, in perfect English was,
"You need to go put your bag downstairs."
World: 1. Cali: 0
Disheartened at my apparent American-ness, I went downstairs and locked my bag away and went back up. After going through security I was about to go into the museum when I heard,
"Hallo! Do you need to buy a ticket?" This was also in English.
World: 2. Cali: 0.
I was on a fail streak and became extremely conscientious. I figured that I was just getting it all out of my system, but then I got up to the exhibit doors and did not know how to get in. They're the same as the ones in Sentralstasjon, where it appears that you have to scan something and then the doors open. So I kept scanning my receipt, which elicited a cheerful bip but nothing else from the door. So I did this a bunch and started creating a line behind me. Finally, a security guard from the other side of the exhibit said,
"Just walk through."
Apparently they open automatically.
World: 3. Cali: -1.
However, once inside it was definitely worth the hassle. They had a copy of The Scream and of Madonna here as well as a bunch of studies I hadn't seen before. They did not have my favorite picture of his, which is of his sister Inger sitting on a beach.
I love the tenderness with which he paints her in all his paintings. She was very important to him.
After going through the exhibit, which is fairly small because it is only Munch, I went to the gift shop to buy a postcard. I regathered my resolve and made my way to the counter, compelling myself to speak in Norwegian. It worked out well at first. She said "12 kroner" in Norwegian, and I paid out to he in exact change to show my prowess with the coin system here. But then she asked me something very quickly, and instead of processing what she actually had said, I just replied "ja." She giggled and put my one postcard in a plastic bag.
World: 4. Cali: -1.
Feeling particularly derp, I made my way back to the T Bane in order to go to the city center and see the Ibsen museum. However, my sense of direction failed me and I walked in the wrong direction for a few minutes before realizing I had not seen this part of Tøyen before. I then walked back and started recognizing my surroundings and kept my eyes peeled for a T sign marking the T Bane entrance. What basically happened is that I circumambulated it for about another twenty minutes on the block surrounding it, stopped, looked around me again, and saw the T sign floating over a bridge that I had to cross under to go. It was a big sign.
World: 5. Cali: :(
However, once I did find the T Bane I zipped all the way over to Karl Johan's Gate on my great quest to find the Ibsen Museum. Yet once again my sense of direction failed me, and I ended up crossing over Akers Gate three times before I figured out where Karl Johan actually was. I became very acquainted with the street though and will never get lost there again.
World: 6. Cali: 0.
Upon finding the Ibsen Museum, which is on Henrik Ibsens Gate (duh) and just west of the palace, I sat myself down on a bench in the palace park and enjoyed my matpakke and creeping on the Ibsen Museum. It was wonderful.
World: 6. Cali: 1.
I arrived to the museum at the top of the hour to go on the tour, by this time completely abandoning my goal of speaking Norwegian on this trip. Turns out the building is actually his old apartment which was turned into a dentist office after his death but then reconverted in order to make the museum in 2006. I was the only one that showed up for the tour and therefore got a private tour. Of his apartment.
World: 6. Cali: 2.
Apparently Ibsen was loaded. He was the only person in Norway to have a bathtub. Not even the king had one, and Ibsen took two baths a day, twice as many as most Norwegians took in a year. Stinky Norwegians, clean Ibsen. Go figure.
The museum was fascinating and I think was a subconscious attempt to get me motivated for reading A Doll's House, which I have to do this coming week. I'm not familiar with Ibsen much, aside from seeing Peer Gynt staged a couple years ago at the Guthrie Theater. It was definitely some place I wanted to go back to.
After that I was pretty much done for a day and decided to head back to the dorm. I saw a trykk right outside the museum that had a line that ran to Majorstuen, the stop on the T Bane right before Blindern and right after all the construction. I took it straight there.
World: 6. Cali: 3.
Upon arriving back I did little else besides eat dinner and go to Sognsvannen to relax and stuff. That was the first day of the weekend.
Sunday was a later start. I did laundry again and then vegged out in my dorm before heading over to the National Gallery. I had been there before last year and was dying to go back. Admission is free on Sundays so I figured this was the best time to mosey on over.
The National Gallery has a very large collection of art including a temporary exhibit of only Werenskiold. I'm fond of Werenskiold also. I think my favorite of his is "Peasant Burial"
The museum also has a HUGE collection of Dahl paintings. I enjoy Dahl, but he's not my favorite of the landscape painters. Without a doubt, Peder Balke is my favorite, and "Fyr på den Norske kyst," or "From the North Coast," is my favorite of his.
I think Balke does an incredible job providing a mood without the use of people.
So after walking through there and enjoying the romantic paintings and some from Picasso and Van Gogh, I went outside to wait for my cousins to come pick me up.
What, was that not a smooth transition? Hold on; let me elaborate.
The ending of my weekend was to be a nice home cooked meal and football game provided by my cousin in Oslo, Berit, and her husband, Vegard, and her two sons, Magnus and Kristian. My cousins from Trondheim, Anne, Bjørn, and Øyvind, were in Oslo for the weekend en route to heading to Paris for a week for Øyvind's football tournament. With so many people in Oslo in one time, I got to see a bunch of people very conveniently.
It was wonderful to not have Blindern food. Vegard grilled veggies and chicken wrapped in bacon, and we had strawberries with ice cream for dessert. It was nice.
Øyvind, Magnus, and Kristian have all gotten so big. I only see them every few years, so they grow in spurts rather than increments. Øyvind speaks perfect English now, Magnus speaks quite a bit (last time I saw him he didn't speak any really), and Kristian is.. well.. adorable.
Left to right: Kristian, Øyvind, Me, and Magnus.
After that we departed for the football game, which was between Vålerenga, the Oslo team, and a team from Trømso at Ullevål Stadion, just a few T Bane stops from Blindern. This was my first football game, and it did not disappoint. Vålerenga won 2-0, and their fans sang pretty much the whole time. Some of the melodies I recognized as Christmas melodies, like "O Christmas Tree," "Jingle Bells," and "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." I couldn't understand the lyrics, but I did enjoy watching them bob up and down for about two hours.
Vålerenga fans after they scored a goal. They went basically crazy and you could hear nothing but their singing.
I was relatively exhausted after the game and came back to campus to see all my friends back from their excursions. It was nice to hear we all had fun this weekend.
Except for Evan.
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