Fjord Fun

I arrived in Oslo on Tuesday with no idea where I was going to go from the airport. My general plans were to meet up with Maria, my Norwegian friend that I met last fall while studying abroad in Egypt, and stay with her family. I had emailed Maria a month or two ago and had solid dates for when I would be in Norway and even knew the flight time and number. BUT I still didn’t know Maria’s address (or even the area of Oslo she lived in!) or her telephone number. The night before my flight from Paris to Oslo, I scrambled (not only for a bed in Paris) to email Maria to see if she was going to meet me at the airport or if I was going to venture forth on Oslo public transport. Even five minutes before I boarded my flight Maria had not emailed me.

So, flying—metaphorically—without a net, I boarded the plane and made the quick jump to Oslo. Because I am traveling with one relatively small backpack, I can take it as carry-on luggage. It makes for very quick check-in and an even faster exit from airports. I cruised by the luggage carousel and customs (evidently, “Stamps in passports are not souvenirs!”) and was first to enter the welcome hall. A crowd of blonde-haired Norwegian girls was standing directly in front of the door and all gasped and then sighed in unison as I walked through the door—apparently, I was not who they were waiting for.

Luckily, I found Maria behind the pack of tow-white hair and we took the next bus into town. Maria is going to tease me for writing this because it seemed to be the only thing that came out of my mouth for my first couple of days here, but the Norwegian countryside is so beautiful. On just the bus ride in, the bright green color was remarkable with accents of purple flowers. The mountains, even in Oslo, are beautiful and the harbor and bay are beautiful.

My introduction to Norwegian culture came through Maria’s family. Maria’s family is unique because both of her parents are Turkish and immigrated to Norway about twenty years ago. Her parents are from the western part of Turkey and actually speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus that is spoken by only a small number of people in the world. The movie, The Passion of Christ, was entirely in Aramaic but Maria’s brother said the actors’ accents and grammar were horrible. Maria’s father works in the administration at their church and they live in an apartment attached to the church building. Maria’s mother, on the other hand, seemed to be working for me because she cooked so much for the hungry traveler.

Maria has one older brother who works and lives in Stockholm, one younger brother, Saliba, and one younger sister, Sandra. Saliba graduated high school last year and has been fulfilling his mandatory national services at an organization called Norwegian Church Aid. Every 18 year old male in Norway must do some form of national service, be it in the military or in an approved non-governmental organization. Sandra is in elementary school and just started learning English a year ago. She quickly became my Norwegian tutor and we practiced back and forth. She was definitely the more advance student and often said, “Nick, you-are-a-lose-ER.”













My first day in town, Maria took me on a grand tour. We visited the park with distinctive Norwegian sculptures, the harbor, the palace, the National Theater, and the Parliament. It was a great orientation and helped me know the setup of the city for my interviews over the next couple of days.

I like the statues in the park because they don’t have the Greek or Italian Renaissance look at all. Coming from the Louvre, it was big contrast but very Scandinavian. I think I read that Gustav Vigeland studied many of Rodin’s works, some of which I had seen the previous day. There are several statues out of almost 100 statues that most people have seen. The first is “the Grumpy One,” as Maria translated it. The other is the very tall monolith carved out of one solid piece of granite; it appears as a pile of people all struggling to reach the top and no one looks happy. Surrounding the monolith are many smaller sculptures, each depicting people in the mists of their personal struggle and individual lives.













Maria agreed to translate for my interviews and also help in arranging the appointments. It takes almost a full day of calling and tracking down individuals to get two days worth of interviews. Maria not only translated during interviews but also for her mother and father. For only studying English in high school, Maria is amazing at going back and forth between English, Norwegian, and Aramaic. I could pick out words from Aramaic that are the same in Arabic (Aramaic is in the same family as Arabic and Hebrew) but some times I couldn’t tell the difference between Aramaic and Norwegian.

Today in Stockholm, I asked the receptionist if ‘takk’ (pronounced ‘tuck’) meant thank you in Swedish as well as Norwegian. She said yes but that Swedes don’t say it as happy as Norwegians do. It is true, though. Norwegian has more bounce to it than Swedish; Icelandic, on the other hand, sounded like they were playing basketball with their tongues.

On Saturday, we went on a tour of a fjord near the center of Norway. Fjords are the most Norwegian thing I have found, except for maybe brown cheese and you’ll have to wait for the food post to hear about that one. We took the 8 AM train from Oslo to Myraid. It was about five hours but was so picturesque. The train climbed its way through the mountains of Norway and really put to shame what I called beautiful before. All along the way are small cottages sprinkled on the ridges. The mountains are so dramatic; the buildings look like they should not even be able to cling to the mountains. Near the end of the ride, the train approaches the summit of the mountains. The train weaves through glaciers and around glacial lakes. The train station at the top is the highest in Europe.













We boarded another train that descended into one of the valleys. The train was completely packed with tourists. Everyone got excited around each turn and a million cameras went off each time. After about three or four turns, I was getting sick of the same photo and packs of people. The train stopped at a huge waterfall and everyone filled out for pictures. Then suddenly, majestic music came on and a woman appeared very close to the waterfall. The crowd cheer with entertainment when they realized it was one of the characters from Norwegian folklore, Huldra. Huldra is a mythical forest creature with long blonde hair and a tail. Maria commented on what a good summer job this girl had and we laughed at the cheesiness that pleases tourists.

At the bottom of the valley, we found the town of Flåm and our ferry. We got chairs near the back of the boat, perfect for viewing the fjords on the sunny day. The boat started off into the fjord and some of our fellow travelers decided to feed the sea gulls. At first, it was very intense because there were so many birds in one area, but that was the problem. The whole time I kept thinking, “Don’t go to the bathroom on me! Don’t go to the bathroom on me!” The feeding died down for a bit but then a young boy sitting next to me started feeding the varmints. I thought it would be quick but instead the boy made tiny balls of bread to make the feeding last longer, along with my torment.













The fjords are so intense; just one of the fjords or one of the mountains would be a national park in the States. But the fjord near Flåm is one of the biggest in Norway and goes on for kilometers and kilometers with side fjords and waterfalls every other second. Interspersed along the fjord were many small villages. The only way I can imagine getting there is by boat. A few were up on the bluff in almost unreachable locations. There was a tour guide giving dates and names in many different languages over a loudspeaker. It was difficult to hear but each city was directly identified by the date the village church was built.

After the ferry, we took a bus out of the valley. This required a steep climb snaking back and forth up the one lane road. The bus engine strained to make it to the top and hummed very loud. After that we took another train to Bergen and spent the next day there. Maria’s family lives in Oslo but she went to school at the University of Bergen (she just graduated, mabrook!).

Bergen is a 'quaint town’ as several tourists from Texas told us. It has a small-town-feel because the buildings are not very tall, the city center is organized around the harbor, and it has maintained the fishing village architecture in parts of the city. It rained 98 days straight last year and we caught one of them this year. I think it added to the experience because “it’s so Bergen” but I was lucky that it was nice for the fjord trip.



More pictures:





Oslo harbor












Fountain near the National Theater









The Norwegian Royal Palace











Olympic Ski Jump









Traditional Norwegian Lutheran church










Switching trains on our way to Flåm









The seagulls
































Viking gear
































Yes, Harry Potter







View of Bergen from one of the seven surrounding mountains









Church in Bergen











Troll attack! *




*This, obviously, is not Huldra because it is lacking the blonde hair and tail and feminine features.







Bergen street









Graffiti art in Bergen