interest

I seem to be losing motivation for keeping this blog going. I might just start using it for picture updates whenever I take a trip. I'm not sure yet.

morocco and a crazy person

I think I'm going to try this trip in September or October, if I can find a reasonably priced flight. It should provide a nice contrast to the glacier, and I've been wanting to go on a camel caravan for a while. This trip doesn't quite involve a caravan, but there are camels.

On a different note, there was a crazyman on the train today. He looked like a scraggly, unkempt Norwegian in his 40s, possibly homeless. I didn't notice him until the train was pulling up to my stop. He was by the door, waiting for it to open, and holding a magazine curved in front of his face as if he were hiding from someone. He couldn't see anything, and as soon as the doors opened, he ducked out and headed to the right, instantly running into a woman. He's still holding the magazine in front of his face, so he didn't know which way to move to get out of her way, and she seemed confused. He reached out and felt where she was and where there were openings, and then moved around her.

He kept the magazine up and could probably see where his feet were, because he found his way to the exit ramp. He still couldn't see in front of him, though, and so ran into some guy there. The guy was kind of pissed, and yelled at him. He kept going, though, and last I saw of him, he had run into the back of a staircase and was feeling his way around it. Despite all that, he made good time getting out of the station.

night

Summer seems to be on it's way out already. It's 11:30 pm right now and it's almost completely dark outside. A couple of weeks ago at this time, it would just be about dusk now.

pics

Ok, the full set of glacier pictures can be found here.

A handful of video clips are here.

back

I'm back from Svalbard. It was cool. I have 800 pics or so to sort through and edit, so it'll take some time to post them. I'm also tired, so the description of the event will also come later.

In the meantime, here are a few select photos that probably best convey the highlights.

fourth

Here are pics from a July 4th celebration in Oslo.

North

I've been wanting to climb a glacier and kayak amongst icebergs for a while now. I had wanted to do it in Antarctica, but seeing as how I'm closer to the North Pole right now, I've decided to head to the northernmost extreme of Norway in late July. It's an island called Svalbard.

Here's some info.

Here's a map:


View Larger Map

And here's a description from the brochure of the 3-day camping trip I'll be on:

Day 1 (Friday)
After breakfast, at 7.30 am, you will be picked up by the guide at your choice of accommodation. After a short briefing, we will pack the personal safety equipment to bring along on the trip. The guide will take us to the harbour where the boat awaits, and we will head for Ymerbukta, where we will be set ashore at our camp by zodiacs. We settle in the camp and get ready for a kayaking trip. Dressed in dry suits and life vests, we will take place in our steady double kayaks and prepare for a trip along the shoreline to the Esmark Glacier front. Before start, the guide will teach us kayaking techniques and provide supervision. The kayak is the perfect vessel when our goal is to get really close to nature and experience the silence while looking for seals and sea birds. We will find a suitable spot to go ashore to have our lunch while enjoying the view of the glacier front. Back in camp after an active day, we will prepare our dinner, and if weather permits we will round off the day around the bonfire.

Day 2 (Saturday)
After a sound breakfast, we will pack the glacier equipment and head for the Esmark Glacier with its impressive front. Wearing crampons, harness, and ropes, we will hike onto the glacier. With supervision from the guide, we will hike on clear blue ice, over deep crevasses and snow bridges while linked together by rope. We will have our lunch on the glacier with a beautiful view over the mighty glacier formations and the inlet ahead. Back at the Camp, we will prepare our dinner while we let the impressions sink in. This is a relatively long day during which we will spend approximately 8 hours on the glacier. The hike from the camp to the glacier will last 40 minutes in easy terrain.

Day 3 (Sunday)
We will clear the camp and then take a hike in the surrounding areas before the boat picks us up to take us back to Longyearbyen via the Russian community Barentsburg. We will enjoy a hot lunch onboard, then get a guided tour of Barentsburg. We will also get to visit the museum before the boat sails back to Longyearbyen after an hour and a half in Barentsburg. Estimated arrival in Longyearbyen is 8 pm.

balloon

This is a picture of a horse balloon, taken at a 4th of July celebration in the park. I thought it noteworthy because the string appears to be tied to the horse in an unfortunate location.

pics and vids

Ok, here are pics and video clips from Cologne. If you want to download any of them, I think you need to join Flickr and add me as a friend or family member or something. Or I can just send you a copy.

coming soon

Got back from Cologne this weekend, and am working on editing the 300 pics and videos I took. Most of them are of a giant cathedral, which is the only structure I've seen so far in my life that I would label "majestic". I was awe-struck whenever I looked at it.

The rest of the pictures are of some underground Roman ruins lit by blue light, some night shots of the pub area and a bridge, and some dusk shots with a pretty sky. And there are two pictures of a waitress I had who is the biggest bitch in the world, and who would've ruined my day had the incident not been followed by the sudden appearance of a Hare Krishna parade (which is also the subject of several pictures).

psychogeography

I'm in Cologne, Germany, on bid'ness. As I talk with the people, I realize that the psychogeography in Europe -- the feeling of distance between two locations -- is much smaller than in the States. (I coined that term.) Europeans talk about going to Spain or Italy for the weekend like it's no big deal. Going a similar distance in the States, though, is seen as a relatively big undertaking. Cross-country travel in the U.S. is just a hassle and is something that people have to plan for; even going to a neighboring state for the weekend can seem like a big undertaking. Going from San Francisco to Las Vegas seems like a bigger trip to Americans than going from Rome to Madrid does to Europeans. There's a bigger psychological divide in our country's geography.

All this is probably due to the high-speed rail system in Europe, of course. It presents much less of a travel hassle than a plane flight covering the same territory.

On another, or perhaps similar, note, there's an intercountry soccer competition going on right now between the members of the European Union. Each country has its own soccer team, and the best teams play a single-elimination match against another country. The two countries left standing at the end play each other. It seems (and feels) like the Final Four in the U.S., but we're talking countries rather than states/schools.

weddings

Bachelorette parties in Norway are someone odd. The goal is to make the future bride do a bunch of embarrassing things all day. In the park the other day, such a party made her come over to us (strangers to her) and recite instructions on how to find and pick mushrooms. It was probably more embarrassing for her because most of us didn't know Norwegian and had no idea what she was saying.

Many of the party games seem to involve making a fool of yourself by saying something random to strangers or by doing something weird in front of passersby on the sidewalk. The parties are apparently pretty common, and the brides are easy to spot because her friends dress her up in clown clothes and such.

Below is a pic of the mushroom bride, talking to another group of strangers and then hanging out with her friends.

paintball wounds

On the ribs and forearms, sustained during a game today.

checks

Checks are obsolete in Norway. The banks don't have such accounts, and shopkeepers laugh if you suggest paying with one. You can't even pay rent or bills via check. Rather, you pay everyone online via your bank account, and the process is so normalized that all companies have a special ID number that you're supposed to use for the purpose; that number is included on all billing statements

Also, Norwegian banks have introduced a security measure that has somewhat replaced the PIN. When you sign up for an account, you receive a small electronic device, the size of a keychain fob. This device has a button and a small LCD screen; pushing the button produces a random 6-digit number on the display, and also transmits that number to some gatekeeping system. You enter that number when logging into your account or attempting to send money somewhere, and the gatekeeper checks to see if what you entered matches the number it received. Once used, the number is worthless, and you have to push the button for a new number for your next transaction. It took me a little bit to understand the system at first.

rabbit island

In Oslo's fjord are 3-4 small beach islands on which the Norwegians like to sun themselves during Summer. I haven't ferried to them yet, but they're supposed to be nice. One in particular has intrigued me, because it's supposed to be overrun with rabbits. From what I hear, people over the years would buy rabbits as pets, get tired of them, and then deposit them on this island.

It probably started a while ago with a couple of people planting a few rabbits there. Eventually, those rabbits found each other and produced offspring. Later visitors to the island saw some of those new rabbits bouncing around, decided they were cute, and so bought a rabbit or two as a pet. But then they got tired of the bunny, and so they abandoned it on rabbit island, where it would have friends. Soon, the island was brimming with them.

Sadly, I've learned recently that the gov'ment went and killed most or all of the bunnies. I'm not sure why, but I'm guessing the population had gotten too large to sustain itself. Either way, the island isn't as much of a draw for me, because I'm not all that interested in seeing a bunch of bleached rabbit skeletons dotting the beach.

daylight

The days are getting even longer. It's almost 11:30 pm now, and it's barely dusk outside. Even by 1:00 in the morning, it's not completely dark.

The extended sun is actually pretty cool, and it tricks your mind into fending off fatigue for a while. Makes me wonder whether people would be more productive if days were always this long.

movie trivia

In Norwegian, the wordplay in the chick movie "Made of Honor" doesn't really translate, so the name was changed to something that translates as either "A True Man" or "A True Husband".

brain

These are profiles and slices of my brain. I believe the last one just barely shows the corpus callosum in the middle, which connects the two halves of the brain. That's what doctors cut to treat really bad epilepsy. (That's just trivia, has nothing to do with me.)

bergen pics

Here they are. They're pretty amateurish, and I got to see only a couple of places in the city, so there's not a wide variety of quality shots. There are a few pics in the bunch that I really like, though.

bergen

I'm in Bergen today through Tuesday for a conference. Bergen is beautiful, and makes Oslo look like crap. Oslo wasn't really pretty before, but after seeing this town, I can say that it's downright unattractive. There was some great night scenery as I took a taxi to the hotel, so even though I got in at 11:30pm, I went out and took some pictures for about half an hour, mainly of the bay. And although I brought my computer with me, I didn't bring the little cord that connects it to my camera, so I can't post any of the results right now.

I took the train here, incidentally, because the airport staff are on strike. It's about a 6-7 hour ride, because Norway doesn't have any high-speed trains. I think the London-Paris bullet train covers the same distance in about an hour.

Click here for a google map of the trip between the two cities.

lillehammer

I went to Lillehammer on Saturday. I didn't care for it. It might've been the holiday on the following Monday, but there was no one around. We went to an open-air museum that showcased replicas of old Norwegian towns, and it was dead. No employees. The replica houses were all locked. The barnyard animals were missing. But, the employees were kind enough to leave the gate open on the odd chance that a passerby might want to go in for a stroll.

The big ski jump might have been interesting to see. It has a ski lift to the top, and inside the tower is a simulator that lets you virtually experience going down the jump. However, it is closed until late May.

The only other thing of interest was the pedestrian shopping strip. That seemed to be where the few city inhabitants were gathered. They all cleared out at about 5.

On another note, I'm hearing the Scandinavian gasping everywhere now (though just from women).

juice and flowers

I'd been wondering why it has been so hard to find vegetable juice (V8 and such) out here. I finally asked someone why that is, and it appears that Europeans don't drink vegetable juice; those I asked indicated distaste at the idea. Weird. Anyway, feel free to send me some low-sodium V8, if you like, and possibly some of those fruit/veggie mixes.

On a different note, here are some quick pics I took with my cell phone today. I've included black-and-white versions, because I'm becoming more interested in that technique.

new blog

I've started a new blog that lists various free online courses that I've found. I'm still in the process of updating it, but feel free to distribute it to interested parties.

bizarre

The days are getting really long now, and it's disconcerting. I look out the window and try to judge the time, and I always guess a few hours earlier than it actually is. Right now, for example, it's 10pm, but it's barely dusk outside, similar to a summer evening in the States at around 7-8pm.

Moreover, it doesn't feel like it's 10pm right now. The light tricks mind and body into thinking that it's only early evening, so I'm not as tired as I would normally be at this time of night.

beggars

The beggars in Oslo kind of bug me. In San Francisco, there are plenty of homeless, and they're always asking for change in some way or other. They at least make an effort.

Their counterparts in Oslo, though, just sit on the sidewalk and shake a paper cup with some coins in it as you walk by. Alternatively, some leave the cup on the ground in front of them and place a picture of (supposedly) their children beside it. They don't say anything, though, at most just jingling the change in a cup at you, so it doesn't really inspire me to give them anything.

99% of such individuals that I've seen so far appear to be Pakistani or Indian, or somewhere in that general vicinity. That kinds of makes sense, because I believe they're the largest immigrant population and so may experience relative difficulty finding jobs -- particularly because of language issues.

movies

I went to a movie (Iron Man) today. The Norwegian movie experience is somewhat different than the American one. Generally, tickets are purchased online ahead of time; that's not so unusual. What is different, though, is that seating is assigned. During the online purchase process, the system presents a graphic of the theater showing empty and available seats, not unlike the graphics you see when choosing a seat on a plane. It's kind of nice, and it also lets you judge how crowded the theater might be.

On another note, the movies aren't dubbed, but there were Norwegian subtitles. That can be problematic, though, in scenes that are already subtitled due to foreign dialogue between some characters (e.g., two people speaking in Arabic on screen, with English subtitles for the audience). In that case, the English subtitles are replaced with the same Norwegian subtitles present throughout the movie. So, unless you know Norwegian well, you can miss out on some of the movie conversation.

photo contest

So, my employer had a recent photo contest for its employees. We can submit multiple pics, and the winning ones will get blown up, framed, and hung around the building.

I submitted all but a few of the ones found here. I'm not sure how many entries they had, but out of the ones I turned in, the judging committee selected the following 4:








They're ok, but those aren't my favorites.

trivia

My Norwegian teacher's gasping is starting to irritate me.

Norwegians have little conception of shared space, it seems. They don't move if you're trying to squeeze by them in a bar or walk past them in the street. As a result, you have to force your way through groups of them, and although it hasn't happened to me yet, I've heard several stories of Norwegians walking into people on an otherwise empty sidewalk.

The Norwegians apparently don't have (or use) a word for "love". Rather, they use a phrase that is the equivalent of "fond of". I believe they use it for food and inanimate objects as well as people.

scientologists

There are Scientologists in Oslo. It's disappointing. I walked by a group of them this weekend. They had set up a booth in one of the public squares and were offering free "stress tests" to passersby. They had exactly the same look and setup at the 'tologists who hassled passersby on 4th and Market in San Francisco -- same card table, same pile of "Dianetics" books, some sign proclaiming free stress tests.

In the stress tests, the hapless passerby is instructed to hold two metal cylinders in each hand, and then the Scientologist guides the person through some memory or other. From what I can piece together, the cylinder apparatus is a primitive measure of galvanic skin response, which is often used in psych experiments. The basic idea is to pass a small electric current through two electrodes attached to a person, and then present that person with something that will stress them out. Under even minor stress, the skin sweats a little bit, reducing the resistance between the two electrodes. As a result, you have a somewhat objective measure of how stressful some task or thought or other activity is to someone.

I think the cylinders try to do the same thing by passing a current between them, but I have no idea. Either way, while the Scientologist is guiding the passerby own Memory Lane, he or she notes points at which the device seems to register stress on the passerby's part. What happens next, I think, is that the 'tologist returns to whatever the passerby/victim as talking about whenever the machine indicated stress, and they talk more about it. The dialogue is probably peppered with the same kind of generic statements you might get from a psychic -- statements that could apply to anyone but sound like they're specific to you. The Scientologist will also likely play upon fears common to most people, providing some generic but useless platitudes to indicate that the passerby is not alone and that help and a better life is possible.

With that, the Scientologist will invite the suitably impressed passerby to the local Scientology "church", after which the passerby will turn over all of his or her money and will never be seen again.

For some reason, I hadn't expected Scandinavians to fall prey to the same kinds of insecurities that make Americans vulnerable to such cults.

smoking

The Norwegians smoke like chimneys, and very unself-consciously. There's no smoking in the workplace, though, so there are often clusters of people standing outside building entrances doing it. That annoys some people, so some businesses have constructed smoking booths outside for these people, so that they don't have to stand out in the cold but they're also not cluttering the entrance.

My lab placed its booth out in a corner of the parking lot. The booth is about 4' x 5', smaller than a garden shed, and made of clear plastic. The only object inside it is an ashtray on a pedestal.

The booth is somewhat amusing because the one or two people standing inside it -- silently smoking, standing in place and looking out the clear plastic walls -- look as if they're an exhibit. Or like they've been given a time out.

odds and ends

I started a new Norwegian class yesterday. The teacher is a gasper. It's distracting.

On another note, I believe I have the Norwegian Death Virus (the malignant strain, not the benign). I don't have a doctor, so I just went to urgent care. I spent 2 hours there before giving up and heading home to write my will. Another guy had been there for 5 hours before giving up. The clinic had to handle emergencies first, of course, but it doesn't give me much confidence in this state-funded health care system...

congenial

For some reason, the movie "Miss Congeniality" in Norwegian is called "Miss Undercover". I don't know why. Perhaps there's no word for "congeniality" in Norwegian.

leftovers

I learned that the concept of the doggie bag is apparently an American invention, and on that hasn't really spread outside the country.

week numbers

I thought this was just something done in my lab, because of a weird payroll/timekeeping system. It's apparently a Norwegian thing, though. Possibly a European one.

I'm talking about the habit of referring to periods of time via the numbers of the given weeks in the year. For example, I received a note from my apartment complex saying that the entrance locks will be changed sometime in the next few weeks. Instead of saying "the next few weeks", though -- or even something like "the last half of April" or "4/22 - 5/10" -- the note said "weeks 17-19". What?

That's how they apparently do it, though. At least sometimes. And I'm not sure whether or not Norwegians actually have the numbers of the weeks of the year memorized, as with months. If I said "week 43", would a Norwegian immediately know that that's in October, or would he have to look it up on the Microsoft Outlook calendar, as I just did?

time

Norwegians have a bizarre method of informing others of the time of day. For one thing, when the big hand is on the 6, Norwegians say that the time is half of whatever time it will be in 30 minutes. So 9:30 would be "half 10", 10:30 would be "half 11", and so on.

That's minor, though. The stranger thing is that whenever the big hand is somewhere on the lower half of the clock, the reference point becomes the 6 rather than the 12. So, 9:30 would be "5 after half 10", 10:20 would be "10 to half 11", 5:33 would be "3 after half 6", and so on. I have no idea how Norwegian civilization advanced with such an unnecessarily complicated and long method of expressing time.

Moreover, they don't have an a.m./p.m. to express morning and night. Sure, they use the 24-hour clock sometimes, but that's a relatively recent adoption. Before that, I'm assuming they had to add "in the morning" or "in the evening" or some such to every expression of time.

taxes

I heard from a couple of people very recently that foreigners working in Norway are eligible for a tax rate of only 10% for their first two years in the country. So, I called the Oslo tax office and asked about it. The tax person asked me for my Norwegian personal number (like an SSN), said that I'm indeed eligible for it, did some quick typing, and said that I'll be sent a new tax card in the mail. All I have to do then is give that card to my employer.

That's it. That's all it took. Less than 5 minutes. If I were a foreigner trying to do something like this in the States, the amount of red tape that I'd have to go through would be immense by comparison. I mean, even trying to prove that you're a state resident in order to get in-state tuition can be a nightmare. I'm still in shock.

So now, rather than having to give upwards of 40% of my check to the gov'ment each month, I have to give only 10%. It's tempting me to stay here for two whole years so that I can abuse the system.

language and food

Norwegians eat 4 meals a day, traditionally. Only one of them is a hot meal, and that's dinner. Lunch is generlly the simplest meal, with many Norwegians bringing from home a "matpakke", whose literal translation is "food pack".

A matpakke consists of maybe three slices of bread (cut fresh from the loaf that morning) layered on top of each other, with perhaps cheese or meat on each slice. The set of slices are wrapped in something that's a mix between butcher's paper and wax paper. To eat it, you unwrap the paper, peel off a slice, spread some substance on it from a tube (see my earlier post about tubed substances), and enjoy. At lunchtime, maybe half the people in the cafeteria have a matpakke bundle.

Interestingly, the matpakkes are generally made by the wives before the husband goes to work.

On another note, I mentioned in an earlier post something about a tubed substance that had a picture of a baby on it. It turns out that substance is pate'. I'm not sure what's up with the baby, but it might be a brand icon.

Finally, the Norwegian language has the most logical naming scheme for members of a family that I've encountered.

father = "far"
mother = "mor"
father's father = "farfar"
father's mother = "farmor"
mother's father = "morfar"
mother's mother = "mormor"

brother = "bror"
sister = "sostre"
father's brother = "farebror"
father's sister = "forester"
mother's brother = "morebror"
mother's sister = "morster"

son = "sonn"
daughter = "datter"
son's son = "sonnesonn"
son's daughter / daughter's daughter / daughter's son = not sure, but it probably follows the same scheme...

Anyway, it's a very efficient scheme for indicating both a family member's place in the hierarchy, and which side of the family that member comes from.

cake

pictures

My pics from Belgium, Amsterdam, and Trondheim can be found here.

trivia

1) Out here, "Chicken Little" is called "Lille Kylling" (pronounced "lilla shilling"), which means "Little Chicken". It totally destroys the nuances of Chicken Little's name. I'm not sure why the Norwegians couldn't have put the noun before the adjective, because that makes just as much sense in Norwegian as it does in English.

2) I've seen a few Norwegians now put sliced hard-boiled eggs on a thick slice of bread for lunch. I haven't tried it yet, but it's not a bad idea.

3) What IS a bad idea is something I encountered in Trondheim. There, a giant Czech loaded up a piece of bread with a pile of tiny shrimp. I imagine that if you like shrimp, it probably tastes fine, but it looks unsightly. This same Czech put ketchup on his pasta.

trondheim

Well, the traveling is over for a while, so it's back to the same old blog entries. That means you can stop reading again...

At any rate, I'm in Trondheim right now for a workshop for newcomers to my research facility. It's corny and kind of a waste of time. The people are interesting, though: genius scientists and engineers who have lived and studied all over the world. They (I'm sure) and I are both wondering what I'm doing among them.

One of the people is a Finn who has been living in Canada the past six years. He brought his wife and two kids (a 3-year-old and 6-year-old) here with him in January, and the wife and kids hate it. The wife is unable to work, because she has to take care of the kids, who would otherwise be in school, during the day. So, I guess coming here with family/loved ones has pros and cons, just like coming alone. Freedom and independence vs. increased social isolation.

I think Tronheimians gasp as a form of verbal cue. The speaker this morning, instead of giving a normal "mm hmm" or something to indicate that she was listening as a member of the group spoke, gasped. A short intake of breath, almost like she was getting ready to say something. My guess had been that she'd trained herself in people skills, and she originally starting gasping in response to comments to indicate sudden enlightment achieved as a result of what had just been said -- thus giving the speaker cause to feel good about him- or herself. Over time, though, she may have starting gasping in response to simple sentence fragments that warranted at most a nod or mm-hm. Either that, or she has asthma.

Both theories were ruined, though, when the other session speaker, a Frenchman living here in Trondheim, displayed the same behavior. He didn't do it nearly as often, but it was more disconcerting coming from him, either because he was a guy or because he was French.

I thought he might have developed the habit from working for a long time with the original speaker. However, this afternoon, the CEO of the cmpany gave a short talk, and SHE did it, too. Not much -- about as often as Frenchie -- but it was there.

The only conclusion I can make is that it's a Trondheim thing.

The only other thing to note here is that near the computers that the hotel has set up for guests, there's a freezer containing all kinds of ice cream treats. I have idea whether it's free for guests to pillage or not, but it's sitting RIGHT THERE, so I don't know what other message to take away.

what the hell?

I had to walk through a freakin' hailstorm in Amsterdam today. Hail. They were small pellets, so I wasn't hurt, but birds and small animals probably got pelted to death.

trivia

For some reason, in Belgium, "Calvin & Hobbes" is called "Casper & Hobbes"...

adventures in antwerp

I traveled to Antwerp this afternoon. It's an hour's train ride North of Brussels. I'm the guest of a girl who was part of the symposium I went to in Vienna a couple of weeks ago. She and her roommate/girlfriend took me to q restaurqnt. We all had stew with a cone of french fries. Trivia: The Belgians qre fond of French fries. They just call them "fries", though, because apparently they invented them; the French just got the credit.

Afterward, not feeling up for much, we watched Fargo.

Tonight, I'm staying at her parents' house. I'm in their living room right now, using their computer as they watch Belgian football behind me. Keep in mind that I've met this girl only once, and I met her parents for the first time tonight. Yet, they took me in and gave me the run of their house. I can't imagine the same thing happening in the States.

These people are incredibly nice, too, and their house is huge. They live in an expensive pqrt of town, but they got their house long ago when things were cheqp; it's probably worth a fortune now. Anyway, it stands flush against the buildings on either side of it, which has led to an odd layout. Imagine a decent-sized studio apartment -- basically, a small living room and a kitchen. Add four stories to that studio, and you have their house. They have two sets of stairs, too. The place is huge, at least by city standards.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be shown around the town, before heqding back to Amsterdam.

adventures in brussels, pqrt 3

I went down restaurant row again today qnd confirmed the similqrity of the menus. I had lunch qt one on the corner, choosing it becquse there was no barker outside. I ordered spaghetti bolognaise. Either the Belgians reqlly love spaghetti bolognaise, or that's the only dish they know, because every restaurant serves it.

At any rqte, I sat outside under a heater. Because I had a pen in hand and a notebook in my lap, I felt somewhqt like qn aspiring novelist sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Paris, writing about the passersby.

Oh, for dessert, I went to a kiosk and got a Belgian waffle with bananas, whip cream, and Belgian chocolate sauce. I ate the whole thing, but the richness made me a little queasy.

adventures in brussels, pqrt 2

Qside from the keyboards, I like Brussels q lot better than Amsterdqm. The old pqrt of town here is much more picture-worthy than Amster's.

Despite a near blizzqrd, I wqndered qround the old part of Brussels. Here you hqve ancient stone buildings stqnding shoulder to shoulder, their lower quarters dominqted by gift shops and restqurqnts lining the streets qnd alleys. I can qctuqlly see this part of Brussels becoming q lot like the area qround Bourbon Street eventually -- nothing but a string of tourist shops selling identicql merchqndise. This plqce still has some old-aorld chqrm, though.

The most interesting street, I think, is a 2-block alley lined by restqurants on both sides. The restqurqnts qre side by side qnd fqcing qn identicql set of shops 10 feet away qcross the cobbled street. They qll look the sqme, each with q red awning thqt nearly touches thqt of the shop opposite it.

Qs far as I cqn tell, the resqurants qll hqve different names but serve exqctly the same fare -- qnd I'm guessing at the same prices, too. I would imqgine they qll had q price war long qgo, each shop trying to undercut the other in order to draw in bid'ness. Too much supply. However, given the proximity of the shops to each other, the prices probably soon reqched an equilibrium at a high-enough level thqt everyone could still make a small profit, but low enough that nobody had much room to undercut. Either thqt or, as is wont to happen in q free market, they all colluded and begqn price-fixing.

Either way, the shops have little to distinguish themselves. Sqme prices, same location, a fluctuating tourist bqse that prevents the development of regular customers. Any otherzise qttention-getting chqgnes to q shop's facade just get lost in the visual complexity of the scene. For exqmple, someone apparently thought to get more business by putting up a large placard, eye-cqtching and readable at a distqnce, describing the menu. It must've worked, becquse now every shop has multiple plqcards filling any available nook, and they've now become just noise.

Hence, to get customers, shop staff members stand outside qnd try to charm people into eating there. They have a lot to leqrn from carnival barkers and the guys who stand outside Vegqs casinos, though, because these people are actually q pleqsant bunch. They don't hqssle you unless you meet their gaze qnd look either lost or hungry. Many of them, in fqct, just stand there qnd talk with their friends at the identical shop across the street.

I hqd q drink qt a bar that serves 200 different beers. Or 2000. I forget. Either way, 25 of them are Belgiqn. I hqd a strawberry beer thqt tasted just like q refreshing strawberry sodq.

adventures in brussels

I'm in Brussels now. Just got here, so I hqven't seen much. And it's rqiny, so I doubt thqt I'll do much exploring.

Why the "q" typos qbove, you qsk? Because the Belgian keyboqrd is retqrded. It's arranged totqlly wrong. The Q is where the A should be. The M hqs jumped up to the second row, qnd the W to the third, with the A occupying W's former position. And even though I'm loooking qt the keyboard qs I type, I still hit the arong letters, so I just sqid screa it.

The greqtest atrocity, though, is thqt the Belgians have tqken some of the most commonly used alphqnumerics qnd mqde them accessible only viq the Shift key. Most notqble is the period. You hqve to hit SHIFT qnd then the "." in order to get it. Probqbly the most frequently used symbol, qnd it takes two keys to produce it. In its place is the semicolon - a single tap, qnd you've got one.

Possibly worse is thqt the numbers all require the SHIFT key, too. You knoa the row of numbers above the letter keys, which in combinqtion with SHIFT will produce virous puncuqtion marks? Well, thqt's reversed in Belgium. The punctuqtion mqrks hold the primqry position, with the numbers being downgrqded to second clqss. Perhqps it makes more sense that way, if the puncqtion is used more frequently. But it's just wrong.

adventures in amsterdam, vol. 1

So, I arrived in Amsterdam yesterday. I'm staying near the Red Light district, which is right by the train station, and it's the first thing you see when you step into the city. I wasn't terribly impressed with it at first, and I'm still not.

After wandering the streets a bit, I decided to try people-watching at one of Amsterdam's "coffeeshops". I found one called the Hill Street Blues, and it looked nice enough, so I went in. It turned out to be a two-level pub/cafe/marijuana den, with a first floor and then a basement that had been converted. I walked down the steps to basement, and I saw that one half of it was filled with mostly grungy people, all fairly quiet. None of them made any sudden movements, but they did all look in my direction as I came down the steps -- prompting me to stop at the bottom, pretend to look for my friends, and, not finding them, precede back up the stairs.

On the first floor, I headed to the back, which had several plush leather couches covered with graffiti. They were arranged in 2 sets of 4, each set grouped around a coffee table. I sat in a free couch and pulled out a book. The people in the neighboring couches included two guys on one couch playing gameboys or something. They weren't together, they just happened to be doing the same thing. Across from me was a guy with a girl I think he had just met; he had a drum with him. To the left of me was a guy lounging back in the couch, half-closed eyes, breathing but not moving. He stayed in the same position for maybe half an hour, but didn't seem to be sleeping. Eventually I followed his gaze and determined that he was watching the Discovery Channel ("Dirty Jobs") on the TV in the corner. A few minutes later, he came alive, lit his joint, and returned to his watching position.

Stoners are not an active people. The more you know (NBC).

This next part contains some filth, so if you are easily offended, a prude, or are my parents, you can stop reading this entry and go on to the next one. Seriously.
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Ok, so I decided to see one of the Live Sex Shows dotting the Red Light District. I figured it was going to be some trick, a glorified striptease, and that the audience would leave disappointed. That's how it would be in America. The Dutch, however, seem to be an honest folk.

There was an opener to the whole affair, involving a dancer and 4 audience members, and eventually a guy in a gorilla suit. It was bizarre, a lot like a Japanese Gameshow that went horribly, horribly wrong.

Then the curtains closed, opening again a few minutes later to show a man and woman. They got together and did stuff on a rotating bed. Serious stuff. They didn't look all that into it.

Another curtain close, opening again a few minutes later. This time, a lady in a red Moulin Rouge outfit came out and "danced". I use the quote marks there because this was the most mechanical, uninspired dance I had ever seen. She moved almost as if she was following a dance footprint pattern on the stage. She seemed like a not-so-graceful stripper who had memorized, but not learned, a few dances. It turns out that's really what she was, because a little into the second song, she started taking her clothes off. All in all, the act was pretty tame. Then, it veered in an awful and astounding direction as she produced a cigar from out of nowhere, lit it, and did something that, for lack of a better term, was exceptional, producing a collective gasp from the audience.

For good or bad, she was finished and off the stage a minute later, to be replaced in a few minutes by another dancer, this one with a latin flair. Things went pretty much the same: tame, tame, nudity, tame, tame, holy christ. At the end, she suddenly produces a dry-erase marker and proceedes to do the most amazing thing with it.

Then she's gone, to be replaced a few minutes later by another couple. This one was a little more lively, with the guy performing some gymnastic/callesthenic routine.

Afterward, the third dancer of the night appeared, establishing the pattern. By this time, I realized that the women had all been hired because they have a singular talent in something uncommon, and that the dancing had just been tacked on to their act to stretch it from about 60 sections to about 3 songs. After realizing that, there was a palpable anticipation as to what prop the dancer was going to produce for the finale -- and then when it appeared, the collective, unspoken question: "Gosh. What's she going to do with THAT?"

Most of the finales were just variants of the "Where can Jenny hide things?" game, but others were wondrous.

It wasn't at all "hot", though.

After, I got some quick food at a chain of french fry kiosks out here. You get a bagful of fat fries with 1 of 20 available sauces, from ketchup to curry. I got mayonnaise.

travels

Norway takes a week off around Easter time, which means I get a break, as well. I'll be going to Amsterdam on Wednesday for several days, then, because I've wanted to see it for a long time. I'm going to take a side trip to Belgium while I'm there.

Sadly, because I stupidly packed both my SLR and my compact cameras in boxes of stuff that I'm having shipped to me, I have no way to take pics of either location, which is upsetting. The best I'll be able to do is a single-use camera, if I can find any.

first aid

I experienced the Norwegian emergency room setup today. I had some allergy thing going on with my eye, and all the doctor's offices are closed on Sunday, so I just went there. It wasn't so bad. There are three stages to it. First, you take a number and wait to see one of the administrators sitting at a computer terminal. When that's done, you find your way to the waiting room. The average wait, at least on Sunday, seems to be 30 minutes. Finally, your name is called along with a couple of others, and then you and those people are seated in a few chairs outside of the examination room in which you'll be treated. Whomever's name was called first is the first one to see the doctor. I was last, and it was maybe another 15-20 minutes waiting.

I have to say, I haven't been impressed with the medical facilities in Oslo. I've seen two offices now, and neither inspired the sort of antiseptic confidence you (usually) get in an American hospital or office. The rooms weren't dirty or anything, they just didn't scream out "state of the art", and the walls weren't an intimidating white or green. Instead, the room today was a dull orange, and the floors were a mottled grey linoleum. It had all the ambiance of a middle school that hasn't been renovated since the 70s.

Oh, and it wasn't free. The visit cost about $50, which is probably more out-of-pocket than I'd pay via insurance in the States. However, I did have the ease-of-mind of knowing that, if the doctor discovered I had eye cancer or something, I wouldn't be financially ruined.

Norwegian names

My Norwegian instructor's last name is Aune. He told us that it means "desolate farm", or something like that. It's a common name and can be traced back to the Black Plague. The plague wiped out half of Europe, and Norway was apparently hit pretty hard. The Norwegians apparently either died or retreated to the hills. Either way, they left their farms behind.

After the Plague was through ravaging Europe and the population started to rise again, the Norwegians eventually came back down from the hills. The cities and surrounding farms were still standing, so families would just find a property and take over it. No one could remember the names of the people who had originally owned the land, though, so they just started calling the places "deserted farms", or Aune. And because the Norwegians generally took as their surname the name of where they happened to live, Aune became a common last name.

On another note, prior to the Viking days, Norwegians didn't have family names. They eventually adopted the practice of using the name of their current home as their last name. However, names were not a permanent thing for them, it seems, because if they happened to move somewhere else, they would change their name to the name of their new home. So if a farm worker, for example, worked at several different farms over the years, he would generally adopt the name of the family or place at which he was working at a given time.

Or something like that.

bush

I saw a Norwegian commercial in which a Bush impersonator is sitting at the Oval Office desk and addressing the Norwegian nation. He tells people to go see a certain movie that's coming, or else he'll invade their country. Kind of funny.

boobs

I just saw my first instance of nudity on Scandinavian broadcast TV. It was a woman playing a half-dressed library clerk on a hidden-camera-type show. Bit of a shock, actually.

haircut

Well, my first haircut in Norway came out to the equivalent of $68.04, plus tip. I believe that's on the lower end of the price range. My cutter was a Swedish lass of around 23 or so. She moved to Oslo because the Norwegian Kroner is worth a lot more than the Swedish Kroner, so she can make a lot more money.

The good Norwegian

On the tram this morning, a Norwegian (I think) left a backpack behind. I saw him leave -- he had been leaning against his backpack in the seat, so it would be hard to forget. Naturally, I assumed it was a bomb, so I sat a few seats back to provide me some cover in case it went off. I considered saying something, but I'd rather be blown up than create a ruckus, so I let it go. Another passenger, though, looked at it, thought for a couple of minutes, looked around, then picked it up and took it to the driver. He probably saved the lives of everyone on the tram.

On another note, desperate for interaction, I took part in a badminton club after work today. There were just 5 people, but it was ok. Badminton's harder than it looks, so I got some needed exercise, at least. Of note is that it took place in a newly constructed high school whose facilities could put many colleges to shame. It's got a huge exercise room, 12 badminton courts, and its own climbing wall.

nails

I came across what I think is the second instance of a Norwegian clipping fingernails in public. This was a cute, 20-something blonde girl on the tram. They're apparently not self-conscious about that kind of activity.

An earlier instance involved a guy in a second story window, clipping his toenails so that they flew outside. I don't think he was a Norwegian, but rather an immigrant or student.

sammiches

Norwegians don't eat normal sandwiches. Rather, they take a loaf of bread, saw off a thick slice, put some meat or cheese or something else on top of it, and then eat. Many also put some sort of meat spread on the bread. I'm not sure what kind of meat, but it comes in a squeeze tube, and some of the tubes have pictures of shrimp or pigs or fish on them. I thought at first that the Norwegians were somehow turning meat into a paste and putting it in a tube with the appropriate pic. However, I came across some tubes with pictures of Gerber babies on them, so I'm hoping that's not the case.

I met a brit

I had a drink with a British ex-pat tonight after work. He's maybe in his early 40s, divorced, been out here since October. Nice guy. He said a normal haircut out here can cost upwards of $130. I'll need one soon.

second day

Had my second day of Norwegian class today. All the Europeans speak it much better than I do, but I was the one asking all the good questions.

I rode with three 23-year-old Filipinas from the class on the train back. They were child-size, not unlike pixies or some other forest-dwelling sprite.

public transit

The Norwegians seem to have smaller personal bubbles than Americans do when it comes to public transportation. With Americans, at least in my experience, if you're sitting next to a stranger on a crowded train, either you or the stranger are expected to move to an empty row as soon as one opens up (or possibly when a certain number of empty rows open up). That way, as vacancies increase and personal bubbles expand, neither of you has to intrude into the other's personal space.

With Norwegians, though, the etiquette seems to be that you stay in your seat. Even if empty rows of seats open up all around you and the stranger beside you, I believe you're expected to stay put. Perhaps it's considered rude to do otherwise.

dammit

When I got to the airport, I realized that I forgot my passport. So, no trip to Slovenia for me.

sundays

On Sunday, when everything is closed, Norwegians apparently all go out for walks. The sidewalks are full of twosomes and foursomes as people take a walk with their partner. Single individuals are uncommon. And about 1 in 5 groups has a baby carriage.

Regarding baby carriages, crime is so nonexistent here that people are OK parking a carriage in front of, say, a cafe and going in for a bite to eat -- leaving the baby in the carriage.

food

Aside from 7-11, I haven't eaten out here yet. Just too expensive. My dinners tend to be fairly simple fare, then, because I don't really care to cook, and because all I have at my disposal right now is a stove and oven. No microwave. Tonight, for example, I tried to cook hot dogs (of some sort) on the stove top. They turned out OK, but like most of the food I'm able to get my hands on, they're full of fat and not very healthy.

I also bought a can of some sort of meatballs. I don't know what kind of meat. And I don't know if they need to be cooked or not. However, I had them in a frozen dinner out here, and they tasted good. They might be Swedish meatballs.

culture shock

Yesterday, I experienced my first bout of culture shock. It had been growing slowly all week, and then hit me suddenly on Friday. Basically, the distance and differences instantly became too much for me. I talked with some other ex-pats, and apparently that's common.

containers

Maybe it's the low-end stores I'm patronizing, but the Norwegian grocery stores don't bag your purchases for you. Rather, they ask if you want a bag, and then give you one. You then hurriedly pack your groceries while the clerks start scanning the items of the next customer and sliding them into the bagging area. If you need another bag, you have to ask for one.

Also, the Norwegians don't seem to have anything resembling tupperware or any other storage container. I wonder if those are an American thing, reflecting our tendency and ability to make more food than we can eat.

chanting

Although the wall between my apartment and the one next door is mostly cement, there's an air vent that seems to connect the two, the result being that I can clearly hear what goes on over there. And chanting seems to be what's going on. Every Friday night, and then scattered throughout the weekend, it sounds like of group of several guys over there chanting loundly. It's not a Gregorian-type chant, but rather a fast-paced one with not a lot of rhythm, or perhaps a fairly complex one. I can't tell what language it is, but it sounds like Arabic, African, or possibly even Hebrew.

learnin' norwegian

I had my first Norwegian class today. It was long. Useful, though. I'm the only American in it. The rest are Polish, German, Yugoslavian, Australian, and Filipino. The language is taught in English, which is good for me. Despite that advantage, though, the others are all better than me at it.

Norwegian is a messy language, incidentally. Pronunciation, grammar, and spelling can vary not only in different parts of the country, but in different parts of a given city. There are no hard rules for pronunciation -- many words simply have to be heard to be learned. And, a lot of words have strings of just consonants or vowels. On the plus side, it's a very sing-song language, sounding much like the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show.

The Scandinavians are apparently aware of the Swedish Chef, by the way; they accept him.

pics

Here are pics from the Vienna trip. I'm in there a few times somewhere in the first 2-3 pages.

http://flickr.com/photos/citizenmedia/

Next week is a symposium in Bled, Slovenia.

fleas and rabbits

I got to meet other ex-pats last night -- one Brit and one American. It was good being able to hang out with people socially again.

One tidbit I learned is that flea markets in Norway are apparently called "rabbit markets". Freaks. Also, the Brit experienced the recent winter here, and she described how it's light only from 10:00-2:00, meaning you may well have lunch when it's starting to get dark outside, and it's always dark going to and leaving work. It's apparently depressing. She described how the Norwegians seem to wilt during that time, holing up at home and generally exhibiting low energy. As winter recedes, though, they start to pick up, almost like flowers blooming in Spring. They're very tied to their environment, I think.

public transit and honor

The public transit system here seems to run on the honor system. I've never seen anyone asked to show a ticket, yet I see people buying passes or stamping their tickets all the time. And there are no gates around the train entrances that require a ticket to get through. Rather, people are free to walk right past the ticket stamp machines, into the boarding area, and onto the train. Same for trams and buses.

That system would be horribly abused in the States.

my town

I think my area of the city might be Little Pakistan. Many Muslims and East Indians seem to be here, as well as little pizza/kabob corner diners.

Speaking of diners, the food here is quite expensive, so I haven't yet gone out to eat. The most I do is get a panini or some other quick food from 7-11 or Narvesen (the Norwegian 7-11). The food still ends up costing maybe $12 or so.

Rather than eat out, then, I've had to make to with groceries and cooking. I can't find all the stuff I'm used to eating, but I seem to be making do.

fish with a face

I've met a good many Europeans the past couple of days, all very inquisitive. Politics does come up a lot, but they aren't expressing views so much as looking for information.

I was surprised to find that Scientology is not uncommon in Europe. Amusingly, the people I talked with about it first heard about Scientology through the South Park episode. They love South Park.

It's interesting how traveling between countries in Europe is nothing to them -- it's just a weekend trip to Tahoe or something. Because of the European train layout, traveling across Europe is psychologically less of a big deal than Americans traveling to a different state for a weekend.

I had trout for dinner tonight. Apparently, it's common in Europe to serve the whole fish (head and tail), rather than just the meat. My companions were amused at my surprise, and they had to tell me how to eat it. Interestingly, on the way out, the fish in the tank by the door resembled the fish I had, and I wondered if they just yanked it out of there for dinner.

vienna

Arrived in Vienna today for a symposium for a work project. The city didn't seem that different from any other city.

Went to dinner with a group consisting of a few co-workers and several other members of the project. They were Belgians, Austrians, and Scandinavians, but they all spoke English. My conversations with all of them eventually brought in politics. They were all very curious to get news of the election campaigns and who I though was going to win. Europe seems to be following the presidential race very closely, and Obama, in particular, seems very popular out here; I was told that many of the younger people watch his videos on YouTube, and he's a symbol of hope to the younger set in Italy.

During dinner, I had veal for the first time. It tasted just like any other good steak, but it was damn tender, and I understand why people rave about it.

arrival

Arrived in Oslo on Friday. Jan picked me up at the airport, took me to IKEA for supplies, and then to my new place. My new place was essentially a dorm, and like a dorm it provided basic furnishings such as futons and a bed, and an internet connection, but nothing else. I'd been expecting something along the lines of an AmeriSuites room, unfortunately, thinking that a TV and some other niceties would be provided. Sadly, they weren't, and I couldn't get my internet connection to work, and so for the first four days, I was without any means to contact anyone, gather information, or entertain myself. Fortunately, the hostel next door had a computer that people cold pay to use, and that gave me limited email access, at least.