Foldnes Summer Adventure
This was a charming summer for me on little island of Foldnes. I got to stay at my in-laws peaceful vacation-like home with my beautiful new bride (she takes my breath away) and experience so many new things. Being out on Arvid’s rowboat in the sea has been my favorite adventure, whether it was by myself or him or another companion. The dark cold nordic water is new to me, and much of what was in it too. The “brennemanet” had my interest all almost all summer! The word literally means “burn magnet”. The red cereal bowl sized jellies apparently burn for a few hours when they slide across your skin. In the beginning of July I saw one or two. I was fascinated by one when it came within a foot of the front yard dock. I had never been able to see any jellyfish so close and in such detail. My interest only grew as the number of them did. By the end of July I could see one every few meters as I was out rowing in the boat. To me, there were incredible amounts in the water, but that was only until a family member (Even) told me that one year there were ten times the amount. He said you couldn’t jump off the dock without touching fifteen of them! All summer, my curious daring heart and I so badly wanted to touch one with my arm just to see what it felt like. But I never mustered up to nerve to do so. Its just a matter of time and eventually I will accidentally be stung by one, so I’ll just let nature run its course. Maybe next summer ;)
Blåbær (blueberries)
I think maybe I am nearly an avid blueberry harvester. I have been picking the healthy little blue treats a liter at a time. It takes me about an hour to get a liter and paints all ten of my fingers purplish blue for the rest of the day. Mamsen taught me the Norwegian way of smashing them up with a load of sugar. Eating them with thin Norwegain pancakes or vanilla ice cream is popular here, but I like the bluen slurry best just straight with a spoon. One three-day period in July I ate nearly a liter a day by myself. mmm
Klippe Plenen (mowing the lawn)
The house has a nice big front yard, and thanks to Papsen’s summer hobby of maintaining it, it always looks beautiful. I was eager to help out and mow the lawn while he and Mamsen were away on vacation. Turns out that it’s also another activity that takes an hour to complete. In America it takes maybe 15 minutes to mow the fenced in square suburb lawns that I am used to. Here on the outskirts of the city, its like mowing a big meadow in the forest. The yard is so full of hills, trees and rock-lined flowerbeds that you feel like you are making funny patterns with the lawn mower. One minute you are mocking the shape of Mickey’s head and the next you’re mowing by the “beach”. In America, you mow around the boarder once then keep the same back and forth direction the entire time. Here, you could mow the same lawn your entire adult life, and never have the exact same patten.
Kjører Bilen (driving the car)
I have been driving too. I remember being away in Aussie and Indo for six months; driving was one of the things I missed most. Mamsen and Papsen have so gracefully allowed me to drive their car on account that I am legally allowed to drive as a tourist for a few months before I have to get my Norwegian license. I eventually want to do that; maybe when the visa comes through and I can start working. Norwegians drive manual transmissions. Here, you learn on a manual and you stay with manuals, very unlike Americans. From what I have seen, there seems to be fewer automatics in Norway than Manuals in America. In America it’s typically guys who think they are race car drivers who have manuals – I say that because I am one of them. I don’t know a single lady back home who has one. That is why my wife impresses me so much when she drives; a pretty little lady operating a clutch and gears. Its so foreign to me.
I like learning to drive the Norwegian roads and learn their rules. The roads are windy and narrow with few sidewalks. The surrounding rocky terrain decides the path of the roads. Its very unlike the broad streets of America that follow a strict square neighborhood pattern. Here only high trafficked roads have a center dividing line. Many times on the neighborhood roads does one car have to pullover and allow another one to pass because they both cannot fit. Rarely do you stop at a green.yellow.red intersection, and when you do, its for half the time and half the size of american intersections. The highway drive from Sotra to Bergen consists mostly of an 80 speed limit, but thats in kilometers. Converting to miles, this very typical Norwegian speed is only 49 mph, so my leadfoot has lost some of its weight.
Tunneler (tunnels)
This west side of Norway has tunnels like America has McDonald’s. Just to get to the city from Sotra you have to go through four or five of them. Back home, the nearest and only tunnel I know of is almost an hour away, and its maybe 200 meters. We drove through “Lædrals tunnelen” on our way to and from Oslo. At 24.5 km it is the worlds longest road tunnel. Its so long that it has tourist attractions in it. As you drive through, on three evenly spaced occasions, you come across a spot that looks like you are inside a giant igloo. The expanded sections are domed shaped and lit up with blue and orange lights. Their purpose is to cause the drivers to feel as though they are exiting one tunnel and entering another, to prevent claustrophobia or other complications that come with driving under ground for so long. My wife rolls her eyes when she sees typical foreigners taking pictures in her country. It’s because she is so well traveled in the world, but I just had to get out and be a picture snapping tourist for the moment. I had never thought of this, but it seems obvious that sound cannot escape quickly in long tunnels. Which means the noise level is greatly intensified. Even just a little car driving by sounded like a train. Mamsen and I were posing for a picture when a semi-truck driver passing by thought it would be comical to belch his horn at us ‘tourists’. The sound was so incredibly loud and startling, like a whale blowing its blowhole directly into your ear. I think we both smacked the top of our heads on the tunnel from jumping so high.
Benedicte and I drove to Stavanger in late July, another big city in southern Norway. We both got to drive in the three underwater tunnels. A six percent grade down and seven percent up. The musty dark tunnels were the farthest I have ever been underground. In the long tunnels, every kilometer there is a sign posted to show you how far you have come and how far to the end. Of coarse because I am the foreigner I have to learn what these signs mean on my own. There is an up arrow with one number under it, then another number and a down arrow. The first time I saw one of these signs was in an underwater tunnel. The entire weekend I was trying to figure out how the heck we were seven kilometers underground! Not until the drive to Oslo through one of the really long tunnels did I figure our what the sign actually meant.
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| Out to eat at her favorite Tai food restaurant; JAJA's. |
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| This is the newly built Opera House in Oslo. The slanted surface reaches from the roof all the way down to the water. |
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| Thought this was cool, my girl and her smile with a Ferrari in the back ground. In Oslo. |
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| Wife and Mamsen outside Oslo, City Hall building. |
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| This is the Nobel Peace Prize building in Oslo. And that is a fact I had to have pointed out to me. |
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| Mamsen and me relaxing in the sun. |
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| I miss american tasting peanut butter. This tastes like the real stuff, but at 71 kroner, its $11.80 US. |
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| This is a blacksmith house. Notice the grass growing on the roof, its very Norwegian for cabins and other small buildings. |
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| Just had to add some of the beautiful scenery; this one was in the backyard of one of Benedicte's friends house. |
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| Playing Chicken on the diving board; she would have not been happy had I let go. |
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| My beautiful wife in downtown Stavanger. |
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| This was a pretty street I was impressed by in Stavanger. |
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| One view on our way to Stavanger. |
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| My wife got a new iPhone app that must have been developed just for her. |
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| My mother-in-laws favorite treat; "soft is" or soft ice cream. |
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| Mamsen and me in view of the beautiful scenery. |
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| This picture is one of my favorites; in the tunnel, just after the truck driver blew his horn at us tourists. |
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| mmmm |
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| Summer here was paradise. |
Læring Norsk (learning Norwegian)
Im still slowly learning Norwegian everyday. Benedicte and I both have plans of me taking a Norwegian course eventually, but with the visa not yet complete and a possibility of the government giving us free enrollment afterwards, we haven’t done so. I have had a few Norwegians ask me what I think about the language when I hear it. I can best describe it as short, choppy words that constantly rise and fall in tone. Remember when you were a kid and your dad would put you on his back and let you ride him like a horse? And how you would exaggerate your words every time he bucked you up? That’s what it reminds me of. However, I think it’s not so foreign to me anymore because I am beginning to recognize several words when I listen people speak. That is encouraging to me, because I so badly want to be able to speak the language. I have a little pocket dictionary that I constantly look up words in. I’m finding that I learn a word best when I need it in practical moments, then look it up, then use it. But even then, it usually takes three or four times of that before the word sticks in my vocabulary.
I used to think people who are bilingual have a little imaginary switch in their mind that they flip to speak the other language, but I’m starting to decide otherwise. Even though I am just barely speaking a few basic sentences in Norwegian, all my words seem to blend together. I chuckle at myself sometimes when I try to say something in Norwegian and something from my very concise Spanish vocabulary pops out. The three languages that I know any of are all jumbled together in my mind.
I’m very attentive when Norwegians speak English because it gives me some insight on how to structure sentences in Norwegian. Sometimes these sentences are grammatically incorrect, but the point comes across just fine. I listen and practice this everyday, but what I am noticing is that I now sometimes use these sentences even when I speak English. I think because I’m not around many native English speakers, I begin to not hear the incorrectness so much. For example, just yesterday I caught myself saying “I not need milk”. Directly translated from Norwegian that is correct, but in English I know better.
That is my experience thus far with speaking Norwegian. To all of my American friends and family who periodically use online translators to say something to me in Norwegian, thank you, its making me feel loved and missed! A few people, both American and Norwegian, have told me that they like the blog. I hope that it gives you a small taste of the adventure and experience that I am having. I appreciate you reading it :)
