Naylors in Norway

Anna's birthday

2012-02-05T21:00:00.000+01:00

Anna's birthday! We were greeted with this scene from our window this morning. Lovely colors for a birthday morning.

Birthday person gets to pick the restaurant, Anna picked sushi, easily making for the most expensive birthday meal of the past year.

The most unusual present she got was this one from Pam:

Yep, it's a frying pan. See how pleased (confused) she is?

In the evening we watched E.T. It was a simple laid-back birthday. We'll have some kind of party for her next weekend.

Symphony open house

2012-02-04T14:51:00.000+01:00

It snowed a lot last night. But that's no trouble for our 4-wheel drive Toyota! Hurrah! I'm loving this car.

We went to Olavshallen for the symphony orchestra's open house. Members of the orchestra were there with lots of different instruments and we got to try them all. The kids also got to direct a quartet. They could make them play fast or slow and it was hilarious.

It was good to get out and go downtown for an event. Here's pictures of all 5 of us on various instruments:

New car

2012-01-30T09:19:00.000+01:00

We have a short steep hill leading up to our house. It's too steep to be plowed but folks on the street take turns graveling it. Gravel is not enough, though, especially this winter. A continuous cycle of warm and freezing has resulted in a diamond-hard 3-inch thick layer of the slickest ice I've ever trod upon.

Of the six houses on our street, we are the only ones without 4-wheel drive and the only one who regularly get stuck. We use chains on our tires sometimes to get up the hill, but there's no ice on any of the main roads and the chains get broken driving on asphalt. So, we either break chains, put the chains on and off, or park at the bottom of the hill.

Friday and Saturday we got stuck on the hill both days. A crowd of neighbors came out to help push, pull, and eventually hook up a tow line to rescue us. Saturday we said "that's it, we're buying a 4-wheel drive car tomorrow." And we did!

There were many to choose from on finn.no (Norway's online private market site, totally awesome). I made several calls and we drove out of town 30 minutes to look at one that looked great and was inexpensive. We bought it on the spot.

It's a 1988 Toyota Corolla 1.6 XLI, 5 seat station wagon (red) with full time 4-wheel drive, sun roof, light rack on top (good for avoiding moose in the country), and brand new studded tires. It's got a tiny engine but it climbs up slick roads no problem. And we got it for 15000 nok (about $2500) which is about the least you can get a functioning car for in Norway. Our last car cost 12000 nok, and we've been driving it for 2.5 years. I hope we get as lucky with our new red one.

We're finally ready for the rest of winter!

Last day of skikurs

2012-01-29T16:30:00.000+01:00

Final day of the kids' skiing/snowboarding classes in Bymarka. The kids get to ski through a finishing area where they get certificates, hot dogs and juice. A fun high school band plays and sings, and folks walk around filling cups with coffee from giant black kettles that are heated over a grill.

It was a beautiful warm skiing day. Both Anna and Peter said they've improved plenty, and Anna added that "it was the best day ever!"

Big kettles of coffee cooked on a fire

High school band

Anna moves through the award line

Some kind of parachute-glider comes down the hill

Peter and Nicholas come through the line

A borrowed baby...

2012-01-28T20:56:00.002+01:00

What do you think? My twin?

Takkie Kakkie

2012-01-28T19:25:00.001+01:00

OK, not so much Norway specific here, but so awesome. Our Dutch friends had this game featuring a pooping dog. You feed him a putty and squeeze a bulb when you take him for a walk, and if you're unlucky poop comes out and you have to clean it up with a scooper. Oh my, the kids love this game! Weird and cool...

Farm visit

2012-01-27T15:50:00.000+01:00

Peter's class will hold a fundraiser for a class trip selling hortensia plants. Today the kids had a day off of school because of teacher planning, so some of the kids took a visit to a farm where we will buy the plants.

We met at a classmate's house and I walked with the kids and the mom to the farm. It's actually a farm highschool... highschools in Norway have different focuses and you can choose a music high school or handicrafts or science, and so on, and some kids attend high schools far from home. This farming high school has a dormitory, greenhouses, stables, and many different animals.

The kids examined the plants they'll be selling in a few weeks as they come into bloom just in time for Norwegian mother's day. They took photos and will be designing the advertisement for sale. Afterwards we looked at cows, petted horses and rabbits, and walked back to the house for waffles.

The walk was pretty long, about 5 kilometers round trip, but the weather was mild and I was happy to get some fresh air and get moving after an idle week.

Checking out the cows

Peter with a horse

This horse is wearing a coat that says "Norsk Slakta". A slakta is a slaughterhouse. Good thing this horse can't read!

Woo-hoo!

2012-01-26T15:37:00.000+01:00

My third game of Scrabble in Norwegian (well, Word Feud) gave me my first victory against a friend of mine in the south of Norway who is an excellent player. It came down me being 30 points behind with a single F in my rack. That's when I saw UFO, not a word in U.S. Scrabble, but acceptable in British Scrabble and Norwegian as well ("ufo" is not an abbreviation in Europe, it's a legitimate word pronounced "oo-foh"). It gave me 22 points plus my opponent's tiles, for a very narrow steal!

I don't have strong vocabulary, but I've got good strategy, can identify letter combinations that look like they could be Norwegian words, and I'm memorizing the 2-letter word list.

Pictures of the Northern Lights last night

2012-01-23T10:07:00.002+01:00

Adressa.no, the online version of our local paper, had some nice pictures of the lights over Trondheim that folks from around the area sent in. These are much more impressive than what we could see from within the city. What we saw last night was great even if I couldn't get a really good picture of them stretching all the way across the sky, but these pictures are awesome.

They say we'll have them again tonight. It may be a good night for a drive into the country...

Word Feud in Norwegian

2012-01-22T23:11:00.001+01:00

Completed my first game of Word Feud on my iPhone... in Norwegian. I'm a frequent Scrabble player, in English, and I consider myself pretty tough. So this was quite a shock to the system to play in Norwegian. Wow, I felt dumb. So many words I don't know. To be looking at a rack of letters and not know what the possibilities are is fairly humbling. Forget playing for the high points, it was a victory for me just to be able to find a play.

I think I did all right for my first game, though. I lost 313 to 409. I've now started new games with two different Norwegian friends. I'm thinking this is a great way to build some vocabulary.

Northern lights over Trondheim

2012-01-22T23:06:00.001+01:00

Maggie's friend from next door was over this evening. She gets a text message on her phone, then leaps to her feet. "Nordlys!" she yells. Northern lights!

We rushed out on the balcony. There they were. I've never seen them this big before. In fact, this was my first time seeing them in Norway. They appear all the time in Norway, especially in the north, but they are hard to see in the city and there are few people that have seen them inside Trondheim city limits before. Green bands stretched the entire length of the sky, spreading out overhead. To the north was the most interesting part, it swirled and fluttered like a slow motion curtain, occasionally growing spikes or having dark vertical bands.

I stayed out on the patio a long time watching them, long after the rest of my family had gone in, long after the neighbors had had enough and gone in as well. It felt like a show, just for me. A sign of good things to come.

Awesome.

Barnaskikurs

2012-01-21T20:49:00.000+01:00

In Norway, it is illegal not to love skiing. It's that time of year again, where the children have their ski courses to be properly indoctrinated into this mandatory Norwegian activity. Anna is enrolled in cross-country, and Peter is taking snowboarding.

It was some kind of miracle that we were able to find all of the equipment after the move. We found a pair of skis the perfect size for Anna, her ski poles, and a pair of boots that are a little too big. Peter's snowboarding boots which were a bit too big for him last year are now the exact right size. We managed to borrow a helmet from some neighbors. All equipment gathered, nothing extra to buy!

On the way to Bymarka, we stopped off at the grocery store to get hotdogs, buns, marshmallows, chocolate and tangerines. The dogs and marshmallows are for roasting after skiing, and a pocketful of chocolate and an orange are traditional Norwegian snacks for while out skiing.

We arrived at Skistua just in time; the parking lot filled completely 3 minutes after we parked. A lot of kids take these courses here in the winter. There are 50 or so groups of 10, and there are two periods in which courses are given, so there are at least 1000 kids enrolled.

Unfortunately, Anna's class is in the morning and Peter's in the afternoon, so I was prepared for a full day out here. After getting Anna to her group Peter and I set off to find a slope to practice. He hadn't been snowboarding since last winter and wanted to be ready. The wind was cold and biting, and I was glad I wore a hat with ear protectors and a scarf. We practiced until he hit a tree – ouch! We then decided to take a break inside the lodge for cinnamon rolls and hot drinks.

After Anna's class, we met friends for grilling hot dogs and marshmallows. Anna couldn't wait to get back on her skis and eagerly set off with her friends after lunch. Peter practiced some more, and then nervously joined his group. He wasn't sure he up to snuff for the intermediate group, but after the class he was all smiles and ready to come back tomorrow.

It was long day out in the cold, but the kids loved it. Tomorrow we'll do some ride-sharing with friends.

Manna brasserie

2012-01-19T23:30:00.000+01:00

Joined some colleagues for dinner at a French restaurant in Solsiden. Solsiden was lit up with festive lights and looked fantastic. The meal and company were terrific. We shared some kind of flaming cognac dish with pork, beef, shrimp and chicken. Nom nom nom!

Hez goes

2012-01-14T23:51:00.000+01:00

My sister left today... it was a nice and relaxing visit. Thanks Hez!

Birthday bowling

2012-01-12T23:00:00.000+01:00

My annual birthday ritual: bowling! We went out with a bunch of folks and had a great time eating pizza and bowling down at the Dora bowl.

Relaxing birthday

2012-01-12T13:42:00.000+01:00

It's my birthday today! What better way to spend it than to do . . . nothing. Pam and the kids were at school and Hez and I just played guitar and recorded music and played Scrabble. Nice!

Here's a picture of Cream, wanting in. The cats have figured out how to find every window in the house and stare at us when they want in. I feel like a fish in a bowl sometimes.

"Mr. Mittens" wants in.

Mat visits

2012-01-11T13:38:00.000+01:00

We received another visitor today – an old friend from Australia came to town. We met him at a coffee shop downtown, then back home for movie night. Hez and I have played some serious games of Scrabble on our iPhones. It's been a happy easy few days.

Soup night

2012-01-10T22:00:00.000+01:00

The weather has been full of surprises. It got very warm, melting all the snow. Then rain. Then rainbows! Today, big fluffy snowflakes covering everything. Beautiful!

The snowy day today was perfect for soup day. Pam and Hez made lots of homemade soups. Spicy thai soup for lunch and french onion and a broccoli cheese soup for dinner. Cosy!

Hez visits

2012-01-09T21:30:00.000+01:00

My sister arrived yesterday from the U.S. Her bags didn't arrive, they got routed to Vancouver by mistake. They finally arrived late this evening – two big suitcases packed full of gifts and goodies. Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies are my favorites. It was like Christmas all over again. Yay!

Maggie and Anna waiting at the airport gate

Monster hats from Auntie Hez

This evening we ate a Jadab Indian restaurant in downtown, our favorite Indian food in town.

Peter and Maggie's electives

2012-01-05T19:16:00.001+01:00

Kids can run their own electives now at the kids' school. Peter started his today: a lego-animation elective. It runs for four 30-minute classes. He had 17 kids show up, mostly 3rd and 6th graders. He says it went great today. They'll spend 3 classes filming and then create movie files on the last class. Way to go Peter!

Maggie has registered to teach an elective as well. Kids will begin to sign up next week. Her elective: Starship Awesome! It will be a geek-themed elective. I'm dying of curiosity to see what she has planned! Stay tuned...

Hair dye

2012-01-04T11:31:00.000+01:00

I don't know what got into them.

A very good New Year's Eve

2011-12-31T23:59:00.000+01:00

Godt Nyttår!

We had a fabulous New Year's Eve.

In our neighborhood, a particularly musical family hosts an annual musical in their living room. Their children and friends compose and play their own songs and have a play revolving around a local issue. The play always involves a witch who starts bad and turns good at the end. It is a real treat to be invited to this party. About 50 neighbors pack into the living room and kitchen and enjoy coffee and cookies during and after the show.

At 7:00 a children's firework show is launched from the fortress. Maggie and her friend walked down to experience the fireworks directly overhead, the rest of us were content to watch the show from the balcony. The children's show give kids a chance to see fireworks without needing to stay up for the big show at midnight. We'd be staying up of course!

After the small fireworks show, we went to our neighbors for a lutefisk dinner. Lutefisk is pretty darn good if prepared properly, and it was. We piled on the tilbehør (accompaniments): bacon, mushy peas, brown cheese, sugar cane syrup and mustard. Mmmmm...! I ate and ate, stopping only because I was too full. Pam made an angel food cake that collapsed during baking and came out like a semi-transparent rubber ring. We dubbed it our "lute-cake". It was inedible for grown-ups, but the kids liked it well enough to eat the whole thing.

After dinner we did our own theatrical performance and then watched the show from the balcony. It is always amazing to me to witness the city on this evening. During the half-hour before the big show begins, we can see fireworks exploding in every direction from our vantage point overlooking all of downtown and the fjord. The air is filled with color and light and the constant popping of explosions. It's spectacular! The show begins at midnight, huge fireballs in the glittering night. Wow!

I learned that NTNU has a fireworks club, and students make some of the fireworks that are launched over the city. Cool.

The children were very keen to stay up until 2 a.m. ("Until I drop!" Peter insisted.) Pam and I didn't make it quite so long.

It was a great day of good food, friends and neighborliness. We start the new year in high spirits!

UDI - visa renewal

2011-12-29T16:34:00.001+01:00

Earlier this year we had a torturous ordeal at the immigration office (UDI) where we waited the entire day to hand in our paperwork to renew our visa, only to be sent away at the end of the day because they could serve everyone who came that day. It's experiences like this that make many people dread going to UDI. We've heard stories of people giving up their university jobs and leaving the country because they can't tolerate the process.

So it was with a sense of dread that I got the letters saying our visas had been approved and we need to come back to UDI to turn in our passports and some photos for the visas. Would we have to wait in line all day? Does the whole family need to come? I gave the office a call and was encouraged to fill out a visa application online and then I can schedule an appointment.

Yes! I felt like I was doing something wrong filling out the online application at udi.no – I had already filled out and submitted a paper version back in August. There was no other way to just schedule an appointment, though, so I went ahead with the form. It turned out to be short, much shorter than the paper application, and it only took 10 or 15 minutes to enter the info. At the end of the process I had the opportunity to pick an appointment time.

Our appointment was today at 11:30. We showed up at the police station, signs directed us to the window, and right on schedule at our appointed time we were able to hand our paperwork. We were out the door 15 minutes later. Hallelujah! The have a special time next week that we can pick up our passports with the visas inside, no waiting.

I'll definitely be doing electronic applications for next year. I'll have to fill one out for each member of the family, but they are much shorter forms and we get a scheduled appointment time. Nice!

Dancing around the Christmas tree

2011-12-28T21:00:00.000+01:00

We were invited to Peter and Maren's house this evening for a real traditional Norwegian Christmas party, complete with dancing around the Christmas tree. We did several songs holding hands and circling the tree. Some of the songs have actions with them – they were fun to do and it was a special feeling to be invited to take part in these traditional festivities. I think I enjoyed it more than the kids! After dinner and a few glasses of glogg we headed home, carrying the glow of the evening with us.

Big storm

2011-12-26T13:01:00.001+01:00

It was a tough night last night. A big storm blew in. Wind tossed around furniture outside, trees bent over at alarming angles, sirens could be heard down in the streets. It was frightening. This morning I cleaned up around our house, no damages here just some mess. I can see down the street at our old house a tree was felled.

The newspaper online had plenty of stories on damages. Wind speeds of up to 150 kph (93 mph) were measured. Here's a few scenes, pictures from adressa.no.

Pirbadet, our swimming hall downtown, got its windows smashed by waves. We'd planned on going swimming this week, but it looks like that won't happen.

This was an inflated sports field in nearby Malvik.

Someone's unfortunate storage barn blew into their house.

Waves blowing into the harbor in a nearby community sunk boats and forced evacuations.

Blog merge

2011-12-26T12:47:00.001+01:00

I've just merged all three Naylors in Norway blogs. There is no longer a blog 1, 2 and 3. Just this one.

God Jul

2011-12-25T22:30:00.000+01:00

It was a very happy and pleasant Christmas, one of the best I can remember in many years. All three kids were at the foot of our bed at 7 a.m. – we usually don't see Maggie until after 11. Santa had visited of course and I was very pleased to look forward to a day with absolutely no plans.

Leftover turkey, stuffing and gravy sandwiches for lunch was the greatest thing in the world. We introduced the kids to the game Risk and they spent a big part of the afternoon dancing to a Kinect video game (it's nice to see them playing a video game that gets them moving and jumping and dancing and learning rhythm). In the evening we watched the 1959 movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Just before bed some friends from Bellingham we hadn't seen in a long time called on Skype video and that was awesome.

The only thing missing from today was snow. Instead we had 6°C (42°F) temperatures and rain all day, washing away the snow. Yes, snow is pretty, but having the snow go away felt like a Christmas present just for me. Nice!

God Jul, alle!

(PS: I see this is blog entry number 500 on Naylors in Norway 3. Cool! There are a total of 412 posts on Naylors in Norway 1 and 2.)

Julaften

2011-12-24T23:30:00.000+01:00

I knew the Norwegian name for Christmas, Jul (pronounced "yule") was the same as the word "Yule" in English. I had also noticed that "Yuletide" (as in "Yuletide carols being sung by the fire, and folks dressed up like Eskimos") comes directly from Norwegian Juletid which means "Jul-time".

What I didn't know was that Jul is actually the name for the entire winter holiday season and it has an interesting story to it. I stumbled across this Wikipedia entry which says it better than I could:

Jul or jol is the term used for the Christmas holiday season in Norway. Originally, “jul” (or “jol”) was the name of a month in the old Germanic calendar, corresponding roughly to the time from mid-December through mid-January, and the concept of “jul” as a period of time rather than a specific event, prevails in Norway.

Whereas the start of “jul” proper is announced by the chiming of church bells throughout the country in the afternoon of December 24, it is more accurate to describe the season five week event, consisting of five phases: Advent, Julaften, Romjul, Nyttår, and Holy Three Kings’ Day (Epiphany), which is the thirteenth, and final day of the season.

The modern day celebration is largely based on the Church year, but has retain several pre-Reformation and pre-Christian elements.

The main event in Norway, is Christmas Eve (julaften) , when the main Christmas meal is served and gifts are exchanged.

True to the description, the church bells throughout town began ringing at 5 p.m. indicating the start of Jul proper. We had a traditional (American) turkey dinner and opened our gifts afterwards. It was a fun and special evening. The kids were off to bed late eagerly antipicating Santa's visit in the night. They are now asleep with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads no doubt.

To Røros hospital

2011-12-22T23:30:00.000+01:00

During our first stay in Norway back in 2007, Pam fell and broke her thigh. She's carried the hardware in her for 4 years without trouble, but this last year it began to ache and give her troubles. She's been on the waiting list at two hospitals to have the screws removed, at Trondheim's big hospital St. Olav's and also at a smaller hospital in charming Røros about 2 hours south of here.

The Røros hospital came through first, as expected, so today we went for a one-day medical adventure. The taxi picked us up at 5:15 a.m., and off we went to catch the 5:45 train, arriving in Røros at 8:00. We weren't due to check into the hospital until 11:00, so we had time to find a place for breakfast.

Røros is a charming and scenic historic town. Every time we've visited it's been crowded with visitors. Now we got to see Røros in a whole new light. Literally. At 8:00 it's quite dark this time of year. In fact, it's the darkest time of the year right now. The streets of Røros were empty and large fluffy flakes fell gently in the darkness. It felt like some kind of magical Christmas scene as we walked slowly through the streets. We left temperatures well above freezing in Trondheim, but in Røros this morning the mercury stood at -13°C.

On the main street, we found a bakery/coffee shop that was open. The kids and I had delicious pastries and settled in a table just before a crowd of public works workers came in for coffee. The newspaper had an article proclaiming this winter's coldest night was in Røros last night, with the temperature reaching -23.9°C. Brrrr! We were glad it wasn't that cold this morning. We played word games and leisurely woke up over breakfast, then took a short walk over to the hospital.

The hospital is built into what looks like a farmhouse and stable. "I'm not getting my operation in a stable," Pam said. Inside the hospital was decked out with artwork very much in line with Røros' reputation as an arts and crafts center.

Once we were all checked in, visits with the doctors done, and then Pam was off for surgery, the kids and went to do some shopping and find some lunch. Along the way, we passed many people on sparks, a kind of kick-sled with long blades to glide over ice and snow. Outside of the shopping center a dozen of these were parked, showing how popular this form of transport is here in Røros.

Maggie wanted to eat at the soup shop, Suppestasjon, so soup it was. The kids got Danish potato soup (with free refills!) and I got French onion. Mine came with a cheesy biscuit floating on top – I took a picture of it because the biscuit was smiling at me.

Pam awoke from her surgery at 3:00, but wasn't steady enough for us to catch the 3:42 train back to Trondheim, so we stayed on at the hospital for more hours. I couldn't believe the amount of hardware that came out of her hip: two small screws, two HUGE screws with wicked looking boring ends, and a bracket that looks like a flag holder. In fact, I may just screw this on the living room wall to hold a small flag.

Finally, we edged our way back to the train station, just two blocks from the hospital. We had to stop several times to let Pam rest. The doctors said the walk would be okay, but Pam was still sore and will be for a few days. We caught the 7:42 train in good time and were back in Trondheim at 10 pm.

It was a long day, we arrive home very tired but pleased that today was a big success.

Getting into Christmas mode

2011-12-21T14:04:00.000+01:00

It's taken us time to get into gear for Christmas. We've been very busy with moving out of our rental house, but on Monday we delivered the keys to the owner and had a smooth check-out, thanks in very large part to monumental efforts by teams of friends helping us with moving and cleaning.

Yesterday then was our first official full day of having nothing on the schedule, and how sweet it was!

We made and decorated Christmas cookies, went out shopping for a Christmas tree, unpacked decorations and set up the tree while listening to Christmas songs. It was a beautiful day and we are feeling relaxed and in good holiday spirits.

Today we celebrated Solstice with our family's tradition: a nature hike and then a candle and cookie 'ceremony' where we reflect on the past year and welcome back the sun for the start of a good new year. Because Pam can't walk very well right now, for this year's nature hike we walked only up the hill on our own property behind our house. I hadn't been all the way up, and the view was just awesome and magical. Jultid, we are ready.

Butter mafia

2011-12-20T13:42:00.000+01:00

Butter shortage? It's been all over the news as of late, a story with such sordid elements as smuggling and black market butter sales. This close to Christmas, plenty of folks are getting anxious.

We're lucky enough to have contacts in the secret butter underworld. A couple of days ago we made a trip to see our "dealer". One of our friends was at the grocery store at just the right time a few weeks ago and bought up several blocks of butter and offered to share with us. She gave us half her stock, and now we will be well-buttered into the new year.

Disaster averted!

Juleverskted

2011-12-19T17:00:00.000+01:00

My work had their annual Christmas party with a craft workshop followed by a lunch. The workshop was hosted by Skolelaboratoriet, our friends in the same wing. We made blinking decorations, and it was about 5 times harder than I thought it would be. You really need to have three hands to do soldering. After soldering my 20th connection though I was starting to get good at it.

Here's my ornament, it's a fractal Christmas tree (9 little trees that make 3 medium trees that make 1 big tree). It has nine lights in three colors that blink. I'm very proud! Thank you Skolelaboratoriet!

Fractal tree and proud me

Some of the other ornaments - beautiful!

Christmas jewelry

2011-12-18T07:58:00.000+01:00

Pam's been invited group after group of children over to make glass jewelry as presents for their parents. So nice! Here's a batch going into and coming out of the kiln. These will have pins mounted on them to make broaches or hangers mounted to make ornaments. I love hearing her sitting with Norwegian children talking in Norwegian as they correct her grammar and teach her new words and phrases. She's been learning rapidly lately. Go Pam!

Sledding

2011-12-17T07:55:00.000+01:00

There's a very popular street for sledding next to our house. Peter loves joining his friends on this hill, and joins a tradition that stretches back generations. Everyone who grew up in this neighborhood has fond memories of sledding on this street in the winter. It makes me very happy to see Peter eager to run out to play in the snow. We've got a great neighborhood.

Anna's piano performance

2011-12-16T20:30:00.000+01:00

Anna and her fellow piano students had their recital, but it wasn't in a traditional venue. Instead, for two hours in the evening the students played outside of a coffeeshop in a downtown shopping mall, providing lovely background music for shoppers.

We gathered at tables with friends, chatting and enjoying hot cocoa as the children played music. Our other children explored the mall and did some shopping. It was so nice we didn't even want to leave when the event was over -- I can't ever remember feeling that way about a recital before!

Anna played very well and was very proud of herself. We're proud of her too!

Butter shortage report

2011-12-15T13:37:00.001+01:00

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Fixits

2011-12-14T15:50:00.002+01:00

Okay, probably not many folks care about this. But my dad asked, so here's the long answer.

Last week I was swimming in plumbing problems. Kitchen drain and no hot water. Here's the resolutions...

Drain

The kitchen drain had been clogged for 10 days and I had tried everything I could from the kitchen end of the clog and was dreading opening the sewage line in the basement. Plus, I've been sick lately and just didn't have much energy left for such a project. I called three plumbers and all were booked for two weeks. One person quoted me a price of 3000+ kroner ($500+) which seems pricey to me, even for Norway.

So, I waited for a good day and bit the bullet. I knew the clog must lie in the last two meters of pipe in the basement near where the kitchen drain meets the main drain. There's a port in this line that I was nervous about opening, especially with an electric warm floor down there and potential for all kinds of mess. I set up a big bucket, a shield of tape, and a string of tape from the pipe down to the bucket to encourage water to flow in the proper direction. Then I opened the port on top of the line. It was dry inside.

This was not the scenario I hoped for. I hoped the clog would be just below the port and I could drain the water slowly from a semi-open port in a controlled way and then have easy clog removal. A dry pipe here meant the clog was further up, probably at the bend 1,5 meters up with water filling 6 meters of pipe above that waiting to come down.

I tried two different snakes, which pulled out small amounts of sludge but could not penetrate the clog. Something hard had clogged this pipe. Our house stood empty for 3 years while the owner was in a nursing home. That's plenty of time for a mostly clogged pipe to harden into some kind of impenetrable rocky cement thing. The pipes down here are big, thick, and welded together – cutting into them may be the last resort.

Running out of options, I decided I would hit the mass with the snake as hard as I could 100 times. It wasn't a good plan, but it was the only thing I could think of to do. I stood there patiently ramming the snake, counting to 100. It felt like absolutely nothing was happening. When I reached 100, I pulled out the snake and was rewarded with a small trickle of water. Exciting! I expectantly stared into the opening...

Suddenly, a shlorping noise and then, well, the word that came immediately to mind was a "shit-storm". And that's a pretty accurate description actually. Sludge came rocketing down the pipe spraying out of the opening. I clapped my hand over the top, preventing most of it from coming out, but the damage was done. See below.

I called for Pam. We went into emergency cleanup mode, washing, vacuuming, drying and then repainting the walls. The sludge was not as bad as it looked at first, it was more like mud that turned into dirt as it dried. Afterwards, miraculously, it looked perfect again.

Drain works! Hurray! We saved 3000 kroner!

Hot water

Now the other puzzle. Here was our old warm water heater - over the bathtub with faucet and showerhead attached. Weird, but it works. Well, it did work. The element went out, the new element was expensive and we were planning to move the heater anyways, so we went ahead and bought a new heater and had it installed out of the way. That left this instead:

Ugh. Hot and cold pipes in weird places, faucet and shower heads to affix to a concrete wall somehow. I took pictures of the set-up, went to K. Lund and showed them the pics on my phone, and they set me up with parts. I borrowed a copper tube cutter from my tool man Martin and have this strange but perfectly functioning solution:

This will work well until we get around to remodeling the bathroom. Until then, we have the ugliest bath in Trondheim. But it works.

Incidentally, I've been told that K. Lund is one of the most expensive plumbing shops in town. But I'll tell you what, those guys were so eager to help, had great advice, and set me up with exactly the right parts first time. I think that's worth a little extra cash.

Loving it

We've been doing a lot of fix and renovating. And absolutely loving it. After renting houses for the past several years, it's a very beautiful thing to have our place that we can do whatever we want with it. It's worth every hassle!

Loi Krathong

2011-12-10T21:30:00.000+01:00

Christmas concert at the school today. The kids were really exciting and were in several numbers each. Maggie played the bass line for "Ice Ice Baby" on the piano and had a big singing part for "Imagine" where she was dressed as a hobo. Peter had a big role in the singing of "We are the World". Pam kept busy running the silent auction, which earned about twice what it did last year.

Afterwards, a lot of folks gathered in the field outside of the festning to launch paper lanterns into the sky in celebration of Loi Krathong and Yi Peng, two Thai Budhist festivals that are now celebrated together. The floating away of candles represents letting go of one's grudges, anger, and bad things about oneself and starting the new year fresh.

It was an awesome sight to see the crowd of people grouped around large glowing cylinders of paper, holding them steady against the slight wind as the yellow flame inside burned and heated the fragile pocket of air. After a minute or two, the lanterns would begin to lift, and hopeful families would skeptically release their grip, hoping the lantern would lift into the night sky. Sometimes, the lantern would not lift but slide through the air at head level, eliciting shouts of warning as the flaming airship passed through the crowd. Children would run beneath their lanterns, sometimes nudging them upwards. The lanterns would soon lift, quickly becoming mysterious points of light gliding away into the unknown. Cars along the road slowed or pulled over to see the spectacle of dozen of lanterns lifting into the darkness, like ufos.

It was a beautiful and awesome evening.

Chasing down disasters

2011-12-05T08:45:00.001+01:00

Ahhh... new house, new experiences, new things breaking all the time. I've been working all week on a clogged kitchen drain, reluctant to spend $500 on a professional. I did call a few places, and they would need more than a week to get out here, so I continue. I've tried 3 different snakes, 2 different potions, boiling water and pumping. Today I'll make my final attempt, opening a port in pipe in the basement very near to where I'm certain the blockage is. This could get quite wet. With an electric heated floor down there, I've got to set this up very carefully. We're pretty tired of doing dishes in a bucket.

The element burned out on the warm water heater. It is an old heater that is mounted on the wall over the bathtub, with the faucet and shower head connected right to the water tank. I tested the element went to buy a replacement, but the replacement element was very expensive. We planned to replace the water heater this spring anyways because we don't like it in our bath and shower space. So, we bit the bullet and bought a new heater instead which was installed two days later. The installer was unable to reconnect the faucet and shower head, so now we have hot water but no shower or bath. I'll be heading to the plumbing shop today to buy some parts to rig something up. When it's done, it will be a snake nest of pipes over a steel mounting bracket and broken ceramic tiles. It's going to be very very ugly, but it will work.

The bathroom sink needs attention also. It is a very old sink with separate hot and cold faucets, which means it's impossible to comfortably wash your hands. And the water and drain hookups for the sink? Oh, they don't exist. The pipes are welded directly to the sink itself, so that will be exciting.

Anna set the kitchen table on fire last night. She put a plastic lid on top of 3 lit candles and didn't notice until the lid was in flames. The table is burnt.

It's just one thing after another. Oh well, it feels like we're slowly making progress!

2 x 4s

2011-12-03T10:21:00.000+01:00

OK, I complained to a Norwegian friend about the strange metric sizes that were made to match awkward export sizes, and I learned some interesting things.

2x4s used to be 2 inches x 4 inches, but when drywall became popular the wood was reduced 1/2 inch in each direction to fit with 1/2 inch drywall. The name 2x4 was already a standard name, and as I said earlier it sounds nice to say it, so the name stuck.

Here's the funny bit with Norway - what do they call a 38 x 89? They call it a "to ganger fire" - a 2x4! The same name as in English, even though inches are a very uncommom unit here. (Although TVs and bicycles are measured in inches, or "thumbs" as the Norwegians say (tomler).

So, it seems even though 2x4 is wrong, it's a nice name and it's international, even in a metric country. Which makes the name twice as wrong in Norway as in the U.S.

I can live with that.

Lumber

2011-12-02T08:25:00.000+01:00

I made my first purchase of lumber in Norway, buying it from Obs! Bygg, the equivalent of Home Depot. There were new things to figure out, for sure. I asked a fellow shopper to explain the system to me, and then it was pretty straightforward.

First, there's some sizing to get used to. In the U.S. the most common size is a 2x4, which measures 1.5" x 3.5". I've always that was insanely difficult. I guess I've always liked the name "2-by-4" – it's catchy. I just didn't like that the measurements were not 2"x4".

The equivalent here is the 38 x 89, which measures 38 mm x 89 mm. The name matches the measurements, but it's awful all around. Why not make them 40 x 90 and call them "4-by-9s" (4 decimeters x 9 decimeters)?

Well, 38 x 89 happens to be, maybe you guessed it, 1.5" x 3.5". The standard is international, the names are domestic. It's a bit of shame the numbers aren't easier. Metric fail!

Each piece of wood is stamped on the end with its length and quality. Instead of buying 6' or 8' pieces, you pick out the lengths close to what you want, anything from 2.5 meters to 4 or 5 meters long, and then cut only what you need if you like.

I was very impressed with the quality of the wood. Every single piece was straight and strong with clean edges. This was definitely not like sorting through piles of 2x4s in Home Depot, trying to find the straighter and less knotty pieces.

It cost 16 kr per meter, which is a bit less than $7 for an 8 footer. I think I'd normally pay about half that in the U.S., which makes it an okay price. Given the very high quality, it's a purchase I can feel good about.

Advent calendars

2011-12-01T08:41:00.001+01:00

All the kids got advent calendars and were very happy this morning to be up early and seeing what is behind the window for day 1. Peter got a Lego advent calendar, Anna got a Kinder mix calendar, and Maggie got Smarties. Exciting!

Goodbye to our visitors

2011-11-29T21:13:00.000+01:00

Judi and my nieces left today. Farewell dear family! It was a really nice visit for us all. Here's some pics I stole from her Facebook album.

Arrival at Værnes. They loved the Trollmobile.
Trolls would become the theme of the week!

The kids coming up the steps to our house.
Maggie borrowed Rachel's animal ear hat all week.
Maggie, Rachel and Frøy had a lot of fun together.

Troll sighted at Steinvikholmen!

Reading 'Where the Wild Things Are' in Norwegian

Jordan's boyfriend visited us often via Skype

One of the many handknitted things Judi made for us

Norway has gnomes, too!

New hair

2011-11-29T08:28:00.000+01:00

... well, no hair! Yes, I know shaving my head is not the way to prepare for winter, but it feels so good! Peter was eager to do the honors, and in fact he did a great job with the electric razor. After 25 years with long hair, it's time for something new. Awesome!

Snow!

2011-11-27T08:47:00.000+01:00

Anna came running upstairs at a ridiculously early hour yelling "Daddy! Daddy!" It was snowing. She was so excited. Me, less so. The forecast calls for above 0 temperatures all through this week and next, so hopefully it won't stay around.

Yes, it's pretty. And I'm glad the snow stayed away long enough for us to finish the move. I'm hoping for a very mild winter. We deserve one after the last two winters!

Inside we stay warm and cozy with candles, good food, and good company.

Judi, Jordan and Rachel went to church at the cathedral this morning. They didn't understand the service, but loved the acoustics and the awesome feeling of sitting in the big beautiful stone medieval cathedral.

Sightseeing

2011-11-26T20:38:00.000+01:00

According to the weather report, we might be in for some colder temperatures and snow tomorrow. We've enjoyed remarkably mild November weather, today might be the last of it.

We took our guests to visit some of our favorite sites and sights in the Stjørdal area. This is the latest in the year we'd visited these places, and though it was getting cold and windy it was still pretty good. Hegra festning was a hit, although the tunnels were closed for winter. Then we visited Steinvikholmen, a Leonardo daVinci inspired medieval fortress. It felt particularly stark and foreboding today – a storm last night had blown all kinds of weeds and sticks all over the beach, and the sky was big and full of dark clouds and low sunlight. The bridge was down for the winter leaving only the bare support posts, but the tide was out and we could pick our way across the stones to the fortress. The entire scene was a bit surreal. We could sense the trolls watching us...

Troll hunt

2011-11-25T20:32:00.000+01:00

My sister loves trolls! She used to collect them a child, figures called wishniks. For the next few days we'd be hunting trolls.

We walked around downtown today visiting the cathedral and a few shops. Tourist information has a very good shop with lots of trolls and moose and viking stuff. Here she found a couple of troll figures she loved. We took the trolls to visit the cathedral and then took them for hot chocolate at Choko Boko in Bakklandet.

In the evening, we settled in to watch Trolljegeren (The Troll Hunter) with English subtitles. We'd taken Maggie to this wonderful and scary movie last year at the theater. Anna watched it this time, she sat on my lap the whole time!

We are now prepared to go troll hunting in tunnels and fortresses tomorrow!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T23:24:00.000+01:00

We had six others join my family and my sister's family for Thanksgiving in our new house. It was very koselig (a great Norwegian word meaning "warm and cosy and nice and fun"). Our small house felt full but not crowded. We had traditional American Thanksgiving meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, brown gravy, corn and sweet potatoes. And plenty of red wine of course.

New appliances

2011-11-24T14:49:00.000+01:00

Martin came over last night to get our house ready for new appliances. We had to remove parts of a kitchen cabinet and shorten a cupboard door to fit our new BIG fridge/freezer. And we had to remove parts of the bathroom cabinetry to fit the washer and dryer. We cut the full-height doors in half so it looks hilarious right now. It doesn’t matter, the bathroom is covered with crappy tile that’s falling down and dozens of holes in the wall where I pulled out all kinds of mysterious chrome plastic holder clips. It needs and will get a make-over when we get other things in order.Today we get cable-TV, broadband, fridge, oven, and washing machine. This place will be awesome eventually!We will enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with my sister and nieces tonight – nice!

The weather

2011-11-23T21:50:00.000+01:00

Last November we had the coldest November in 222 years. This November must be one of the warmest. The temp has dropped to freezing only 2 or 3 times for a couple of hours. We’ve been enjoying 8°C (46°F) temps all week, which has made moving houses so much easier. We are very lucky! It’s warmer here than it is in Michigan and Wisconsin right now.

Sister and nieces arrive

2011-11-23T08:21:00.000+01:00

My sister Judi and her two daughters Jordan (20) and Rachel (14) arrived from Wisconsin to visit for the week. They brought two suitcases full of gifts and American food and treats. Our living room quickly filled with all kinds of stuff. We are so excited, and ready for a great week!

Butter shortage!

2011-11-22T21:48:00.000+01:00

Norway is out of butter. I should have asked my sister to bring some. Friends say that there’s a new low-card high-fat diet kick in the region that involves eating a lot of butter. The factories are out, the stores are out. The dairies will be gearing up for butter production again, but we won’t have any for Thanksgiving.

House progressing

2011-11-21T21:47:00.000+01:00

House has been going great! Everyone’s working as hard as they can and we’re enjoying very much seeing the house come together. We’ve done a lot: new warm flooring and wood flooring in the basement, new electrical system, lights and wiring and switches and outlets, new kitchen appliances, newly wired and plumbed laundry room, new cabinets and furniture and moving all of our things into this little space. It’s been a joy.

Anna's play

2011-11-20T20:16:00.000+01:00

Anna has been in an after-school drama club in the community (which means it's a Norwegian-speaking group). They performed their play today as part of an arts weekend in Svartlamoen, the industrial/artsy/hippie section of Trondheim. Their play was part of a 90 minute music and drama program that concluded with a free lunch. Other concerts and programs were running all day .

Anna had the main speaking part, playing the part of the narrator and one of the characters. She has a good stage presence and strong and clear voice. I love hearing her speak Norwegian, her entire voice and inflections change and she hits the accent spot on. Aaahhh... to learn a second language at a young age.

Rock Band party

2011-11-18T20:14:00.000+01:00

Maggie had 5 friends over for a rock band party. With our house mostly empty, the acoustics are that much better!

Moving weekend

2011-11-15T15:02:00.001+01:00

Big moving weekend! We have moved every year for the last 5 years. I'm not even kidding. (Moved to Norway 2007, moved back to U.S. in 2008, big move back to Norway 2009, moved to different house in 2010, moving now to our very own house 2011.)

The last two moves have been gruesome. This time, we are moving 200 meters, and we have two months to do it, so it is much less stress.

On Saturday we had a big moving day, just for 4 hours from 10-2. We'd expected about 12 people to show up. At the end of day, I counted 23 people working on the move. We were just blown away by how much help we had. We'd expected two big days of moving, but most was done on Saturday. The final people reluctantly went home at 3:30, but they would have stayed until midnight if we hadn't insisted.

It was a fun day. Friends brought brought pumpkin soup and fresh baked bread, and so many hands make for fast work. We were surprised how quickly it came together, and we asked people not to return on Sunday.Seven people did return on Sunday though, and that was the perfect number for some unpacking, cleaning, rearranging, and sending a few more things over.

Now we will take some time to organize and figure out how we fit in with this new space.

New house preview

2011-11-09T09:41:00.000+01:00

It's been a busy time! I've been sick and Pam is having some foot and hip troubles, so it's a difficult time for us to be moving. But dozens of friends have come forward to help with our new house and our move, and we've been overwhelmed with how much help we've received. It really drives home how many friends we have here and what an amazing and supportive community we're in. Thank you awesome friends!

First, here's some pictures of the inside of the house. Here's a route from the front door, up the stairs to the left to the upper level I've been calling "the loft" because it's one big airy room with the kitchen attached to the side.

A friend likened the house to a tree, rooted into the cliff. You enter and your in the middle of the tree with the roots below, you climb up and you're in the tree branches looking out over the valley. It's a special feeling, for sure. It makes me happy every time I walk in.

Below are some pictures of the bathroom. It's from 1956. The hot water heater for the house is over the bathtub, with the shower head attached. It looks weird; it works great. There is a drying closet in the room, a large room with a heater on the floor where you hang up your wet clothes to dry. It's brilliant! We're putting in a washer/dryer instead and moving the hot water heater to this closet also. Notice the paper towel dispenser? Awesome! It's a solid bathroom that we'll remodel next year.

The bathroom and toilet are on the main floor, along with bedrooms, coat closet, and utility closet.

The basement was very rough. A lot of friends came over on many different days to work on it. Several friends painted. Others installed warm flooring and wood laminate in the basement. Others put in cabinets in the kitchen and assembled furniture for us. Thank you friends!

We're redoing the electrical down here entirely, including putting in a circuit breaker instead of a twist-in fuse box. It is totally transforming into a beautiful space.

Halloween

2011-10-31T23:22:00.000+01:00

The school had a big Halloween party the Friday before Halloween. Peter has been in love with his black leather hat he bought in Paris so he dressed up like a mafia-guy. Anna was a cat (and later a witch for another party and later another costume for trick-or-treating). Maggie dressed up as "the scariest thing I could think of – a princess!"

We went to another party on Sunday that some friends have every year. Fantastic food, decorations, costume contest, pinata. It was a superb weekend.

We had a lot of pumpkins this year, and the kids did great jobs carving them. I drew the face I wanted on my pumpkin, but Maggie had a friend over who had never carved a pumpkin before, so I let her do it for me. (It was a funny realization that I got more pleasure watching a child enjoy something than I would have gotten by doing it myself. I guess I'm getting old!)


Some first-time pumpkin carvers

We had a lot of trick-or-treaters this year. Last year we got only about 6, there were 20 or 30 this year. All of them were amazed with our six glowing jack-o-lanterns on the porch. Halloween is very new to Norway, only starting to get popular about 5 years ago. People haven't figured it out yet. The younger generation loves Halloween and the older generation hates it. But it's been growing and growing and I'm pretty sure it's here to stay in Norway.

House take-over

2011-10-28T18:32:00.000+02:00

We signed the final paper on our new house. The owner gave us permission to begin moving in things early, but today is the official take-over date. The final step of the real-estate purchase process it to meet the seller at the house and sign a document that says the house is clean and in good order, record the water and electric meter readings, and receive all the keys.

We did it! We got a house! There will be some work to do before moving our things in, but we have two months before we need to out of our rental house, so there is time.

Here's a picture of us on the balcony right after take-over. As you can tell from the pic, the autumn weather has been glorious and mild.

Moving begins!

2011-10-22T16:15:00.002+02:00

Several friends came over today to help us begin moving! 4 loads were taken from garage to garage, a light work load. We will try to do a little at a time, moving the non-essential things up. We have some work to do inside the house before we occupy it. I'd like to get the bulk of the moving done before it begins to snow, and with the temperature dropping this past week it's getting more and more likely!

We ordered a heatpump for the house today too. Prices have come way done, and the local discount building store had a great deal that includes installation and 10 month no fee no interest financing. That's perfect for us, because we're going to need to live skinny for a few months now that we've picked up a big expense and are paying double for housing (the new house and our house that we're renting for two more months).

Hospital

2011-10-18T16:09:00.000+02:00

I went to the doctor's to get my various maladies examined. Yep, I got a hernia, and yep I got some fluid around my lung. We've scheduled the hernia operation, but that could take 3 or 4 weeks. They'll send me a letter when they have it scheduled. Medical things which are not high priority can take a long time in Norway, like I found out last winter when I injured my arm and it took six weeks to get a diagnosis. By then, the arm had healed! (Magic!)

But the lung was a more serious issue, so I was sent directly to the hospital for x-rays. They kept me overnight and stuck a tube in me the next day to drain the fluids. Now they're determining the cause, but at least I can breathe again and I'm on my way to recovery.

The doctor's visit, by the way, cost the equivalent of $50. All of the hospital work and procedures are free. Parking at the hospital for 8 hours cost $30. You could get all kinds of extensive work done at the hospital for no charge, but they'll get you on parking! Maybe that's how they afford to provide healthcare...

House

2011-10-17T19:45:00.000+02:00

We're buying a house! We've been to many viewings and even placed bids on a couple of places, but the bidding has always skyrocketed. Somehow we managed to get this one, and it's just about perfect.

Real estate purchase is strange in Norway. An open house is held and bidding starts immediately. SMS updates are sent your phone to announce the latest bid, and if you want to bid over you need to do so within hours. The sale is usually over in a day. And at the bidding wars we've seen, the price is usually way above asking.

I wasn't sure we'd be able to get a house in town that we could afford. Housing prices are really crazy here, and getting more expensive all the time. The folk wisdom is to buy something sooner rather than later and get into the system or else the prices will outrun you. We've been renting for the past three years, paying about $2600 month. Buying a house means much lower payments.

This house came to market right behind where we're living now, next door to some very good friends, in the neighborhood we love close to school and work, and with an amazing view of downtown and the fjord. The house is small (113 square meters/1130 square feet) but passable, and we can build on later. It also includes a strip of land up the hill, so we have our own slice of cliff. There's a two-car garage and good parking at street level. The house needs updating, but it's entirely good as it is.

We were the high bidders with our bid below the asking price, but the owners insisted we meet the asking price which we did.

We won the bid a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't want to post until I knew we actually got it. We signed the contract today. And because our rental contact extends a bit longer we'll have a leisurely move-in period and some time to do a few improvements before we move in.

We're very pleased to have found a house we can afford right in the neighborhood we wanted. A new adventure awaits!

Paris day 7: Versailles

2011-10-14T21:07:00.000+02:00

First this picture of a train stop on the way to Versailles. You probably need to be Norwegian to appreciate it:

Today was time for our dose of history. As expected, Pam loved it, the kids hated it, I thought it was just okay. Old palace, old stuff. I like the gardens, but they were so HUGE that you need to walk a long long way to appreciate it. I’d like something a bit denser where you could take more in. They do rent electric golf carts, and if we were feeling rich this would have been the way to go.

We signed up for a guided tour and that was all right. We all had earphones so we could clearly hear the guide at all times. The highlight was at the beginning when the tail end of the group, including our family, got cut off from the rest of the group. We were in the courtyard frantically looking for the group, when we heard the guide saying over our earpieces “Hello, we are over here!” “Where?” I yelled waving my arms. “Over HERE!” she said again, over the earpiece and not yelling or giving us any kind of clue as to which direction 'over here' was. It was amusing and irritating and utterly unhelpful. Finally she walked up to us. “Couldn’t you hear me on the earphone?” she asked.

The other good part when when she explained how Louis XV would gather no more than 20 people together for dinner each night and they were allowed to talk about anything except for politics. It was these dinners, she explained, that started the tradition of enjoying conversation at meal times. So we have King Louis XV of France to thank for thinking of the idea of having conversations while eating. Yay! Thanks King Louis!

The most impressive part of the palace was the opera house, built in something like 10 months. Absolutely gorgeous. A raised floor could be placed over the main floor seating to transform the room into a ballroom.

My favorite parts were the statues in the garden of half-frog, half-men creatures. Weird.
My least favorite was the art exhibit where chunks of rusted iron are strewn about the palace. In another setting, the art would be quite nice. In this setting, it looks comically out of place!

We spent a good chunk of the day at the palace, then back for our own meal times and conversations. Pam and Anna went on an outing to a Japanese restaurant while I stayed home, still feeling sick.

Tomorrow, back to Norway.

Paris day 6: Girl shopping vs. guy shopping

2011-10-13T20:57:00.000+02:00

The girls went shopping in Lafayette while the guys did our own "shopping". In this case, the guys' version of shopping involved walking up to Montmarne and plunking ourselves down at a cafe for a couple glasses of wine. It was delightful to just sit and be and watch. A scissors artist cut a portrait of Chris, simply a ‘demonstration’ he said, and while we watched another walked up and did one of me. I thought it was a really great job and thought that I would pay 5 euros for that, which was exactly the price he offered.

The guys wax philosophic while the artists make their rounds

In the evening we rejoined the ladies at the apartment for wine and cheese. It was a simple day, which suits me well as I continue to be sick. It’s been tricky to enjoy Paris when you can't eat, walk or breathe. I’ve never felt gimpier.

Paris day 5: Fondu

2011-10-12T22:47:00.000+02:00

Jack and Zabby and Hanna arrived. We split into two groups, the nappers and the shoppers and did our various things. Later in the day we split off into three groups, agreeing to meet later for dinner. Pam and the kids and I tubed down to the Cité stop and hiked past Notre Dame to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. This used bookstore has books covering nearly every surface and was a joy to experience. We then wandered in the neighborhood, drooling over the variety of good-looking restaurants. This area was overloaded with creperies, and we decided to finally get a few crepes ourselves from a stand in the street outside of a Hagen-Daas shop. It was fun watching the guy roll out the batter perfectly every time. I wonder how many crepes he’s made? Must be thousands.

A little more shopping and wandering, and then off to the north side near the Sacre Coeur where we were yesterday to find our restaurant: Refuse du Fondu. Pam found this restaurant in her Paris travel guide, and it was a good choice. The dining room was narrow and cramped, the walls covered in graffiti. They brought out a plate of appetizers immediately, then the pots of cheese and oil. Mmmmm... very good. Their signature at this restaurant is serving wine in baby bottles, by doing so they avoid the wine tax that the city levies on each “glass” of wine. We thought it was a bit ridiculous at first, but it turned out to be quite fun.

Back at apartment, our guests went to promptly to bed after having admirably battled sleep deprivation. The kids settled in to watch “The Pink Panther Returns” and experience some more French culture.

Paris day 4: Charming!

2011-10-11T20:49:00.000+02:00

Outside of the Sacre Coeur, a fine view of the city

Chris has spent quite a bit of time in Paris, so he knew some interesting places to go. We started today going to Sacre Coeur church up a hill with a fine view of the city. We walked quietly around inside of the church. A service was going on; the sign said that there has been prayer going on in the church non-stop for 125 years. We looped around the outside, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the rows of vending machines where you could buy souvenir medallions and the two gift shops inside the church (“My parents went to Sacre Coeur and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt”). You could also increase your chances of your prayer being heard by buying candles in 1 euro, 3 euro or diety attention-grabbing 10 euro sizes. The church was lovely, but the commercialism was a bit much.

Inside of the Sacre Coeur... gift shops and souvenir vending machines

Outside the church little trains would take you to Montmartre, a shopping and cafe district, but we walked instead. While Pam and Anna went shopping, the rest of sat in a cafe drinking cola and beer and wine while sketching in our books. At one point, an old artist with his art case walked up to us, glanced at our sketchbooks, and left with a smile on his face. I hope he was smiling because he was pleased that we were drawing, and not smiling because our pictures were so bad!

On the other side of the court, rows and rows of artists were set up, selling art or sketching portraits. Their portraits were amazing and impressive. A paper cutter quickly snipped out an unsolicited portrait of Anna that was very cute; Pam offered him 2 euros for it but he insisted on 15. We politely declined.

We then wandered through the streets, and this was the real Paris we were looking for. Charming alleys, gardens, parks. Beautiful atmosphere. Chris suggested we eat at a brasserie, where one can find real French food for a reasonable price. So we stopped for lunch at a brasserie called “Pari’s Cafe” and had an exceptional lunch for a reasonable cost. The waiter was wonderful and enjoyed playing with the kids.

After a while, we found ourselves in Pigalle and poked around in some shops, reaching the famous Moulin Rogue just at dusk.

We were all pretty tired now, so back to the apartment for pizza and Doctor Who episodes.

A vineyard in the middle of the city

The Agile Rabbit

Peter found a new brother at the brasserie

Towers of macaroons... mmmmm!

Picture of a famous thing

Paris day 3: Bus Tour

2011-10-10T21:52:00.000+02:00

First the Metro to Angelina’s, which our guidebook hyped as the best hot chocolate in Paris. It’s a very fancy-looking restaurant, very Paris. We tried to buy just 3 hot chocolates to share, but the waitress told us 5 seats, 5 drinks. So, 5 hot chocolates. At 7,20 euros times 5, this was an expensive treat. The chocolate came in jugs with dishes of fresh whipped cream, and was rich and lovely but too strong for the children. We could drink only half of what they brought, and the waitress perhaps feeling sorry that we had tried to order what was reasonable and she pushed us to order more, charged us 10 euros less.

Maggie practicing looking Parisian

$10 hot chocolate at Angelina's

After chocolate, we found an English bookstore, WH Smith, back near the Concord plaza. Pam bought some books and I bought some sketchbooks for the family. (We would soon lose Peter for the next two days with head buried in the latest Percy Jackson book.)

All of this walking in the past couple of days has been taking a toll on me (along with stomach troubles I also have some kind of lung problems and a hernia – good things come in threes I suppose!) So today we planned something a little easier, a bus tour. We boarded Le Car Rogue tourbus and just rode around for a couple of hours on the top of the double-decker bus, listening to the tour and snapping touristy pictures. At the stops, instead of hopping off we stayed on the bus and made sketches in our new books. Very nice.

On the bus, Maggie sketched and Peter read

Spotted from the bus: my new favorite statue ever. Someday I want a statue like this made of me, boldly standing there naked with my business in the wind while wild horse rush past me crushing my enemies. Awesome

We finally hopped off at the opera house and found a bathroom in the J3 department store. Finally we called it a day and went back to our neighborhood for dinner at a fabulous vegetarian Indian restaurant and to wait for our first guest.

Pam’s father Jack and girlfriend Zabby and her goddaughter would be joining us Wednesday morning, and Zabby’s goddaughter’s boyfriend would be joining us tonight. We’d never met him, but were told he’s an astrobiologist so how bad could he be?

At 8:38 pm there’s a knock on the door and a shaggy man comes in the entrance. “Hi I’m Chris, sorry I’ll socialize in a few minutes but I hope I can use your internet because I’ve got a NASA proposal that needs to be turned in in the next 22 minutes.”

“Proceed,” I tell him, and he does.

Afterwards Chris and I went out to get cheese, sausages and wine and the grownups sat around socializing while the kids read their books.

It was an easy day, Paris-”lite” perhaps.

Paris day 2: Louvre and Notre Dame

2011-10-09T21:39:00.000+02:00

The food shops are beautiful, even in our neighborhood the bakeries are beautiful. As I am experiencing stomach troubles (one of three ailments I'm currently enjoying), I could only stare longingly at the amazing goodies piled high in window after window. Life is never fair.

After breakfast, we headed out for a walking tour. We started at the Concord Plaza and after spending a few minutes trying to orient ourselves, found the right direction towards the Louvre. We walked though a long park filled with statues and flowers and hedges, and the kids spent several delightful minutes trying to catch pigeons or push them into the pond.

We reached the Louvre and marveled at the glass pyramids. The fountains were drained and Peter and Anna ran about on them excited about something. They showed me later: they had collected a hundred small coins from the floor of the fountain, coins of little value from all over the world. They’re all a bit rusty but we’ll clean them off later and see what they’ve found.

Desperate for lunch, we committed a terrible sin and went into a fast food restaurant. Yeah yeah I know, but they advertised chicken nuggets that the kids love, and it was a good chance to get French Fries, which was only of my goals for the trip. Ugh. Big mistake. The chain, called “Quick”, has disorganized service, was out of most of the menu items, and my seafood salad was pretty bad. I don’t think we saved that much money over a French restaurant. Oh well, it was pretty quick, and we needed the break.

We headed south past the Hotel de Ville, where we stopped to let the kids play with a man creating giant soap bubbles to the delight of many children. He let the kids take turns making the bubbles as his bucket filled with euro coins. Pam remarked that it’s possible to make money doing anything in this city.

Next stop, the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Yeah, it’s nice. The line stretched so long, much longer than our patience, so we decided to just walk around the outside and perhaps return later. We didn’t see the Hunchback of Notre Dame, but we saw the Pigeons of Notre Dame, the Sandbox of Notre Dame, the Parking Lot of Notre Dame, the Toilets of Notre Dame, and a shop called the Juggler of Notre Dame.

Money idea: Pam and I talked about coming back with me dressed as the hunchback and she as Esmeralda. We’d make a killing off of tourists taking pictures with us.

The Pigeons of Notre Dame

The Juggler of Notre Dame

From here we walked up to Cité and found a marketplace full of caged birds and gerbils and rabbits and the like. Strange and wonderful. Then back to the apartment for dinner and TV.

Paris day 1: Eiffel Tower at Night

2011-10-08T22:32:00.000+02:00

The Metro, as we would discover again and again, is surprisingly easy to use. We transfered trains and chatted excitedly as the car barreled ahead through the darkness. Suddenly, “Oooohhh!” Pam pointed to the window behind me. I turned, and there it was. Our train had come out of a tunnel onto a bridge, and the Eiffel tower huge and magnificient glowed in the darkness before us. Our excitement was palpable as we exited and made our way up the street to the world’s most famous monument.

We stopped to buy a beret for Anna and a light up toy for Peter (yes Dad I know: “Don’t do that it will only encourage them!”) and then hurried onwards.

I don’t know what I expected. I don’t think I expected much. But standing beneath this massive metal structure lit up like a spaceship straight out of Battlestar Galactica was far, far above and beyond my expections. The monument was controversial and even hated at the time it was built, but I could not see how anyone could not love this beautiful tower. We wandered beneath, and when the hourly light show started at 9:00 we walked over to the adjacent park and lay down on the grass to watch. The light show is really just 5 minutes of sparkly lights, very bright like strobes, flashing all over and within the tower, as if it were filled with flash photographers at a fashion show. Just lovely.

We then walked across the street to a carousel, shelled out 3 euros a ticket to give the kids rides, and then back to the Metro station. On the ride home, a trumpet player wheeled an amplifier into our train car, started accompaniment tracks, and played several beautiful songs. We clapped for him (apart from the one other tourist on the train we were only ones who did so). We finished our ride back to the Chateau Rogue Metro station, to our apartment, and to bed.

Arrival in Paris

2011-10-08T21:29:00.000+02:00

Clutching my hand tighter, she looked up at me with eyes like saucers. “Daddy, this place is horrible.” My youngest daughter had been looking forward to Paris for months. Always somewhat of a romantic, to her Paris was sure to be the most wonderful destination of all. Now we had bustled through the crowded Gate du Nord Metro station, packed into overstuffed subway cars, and come up into a street strewn with garbage and stinking of rotting meat. People pushed sunglasses and headphones at us, corn grilled on barrels in shopping carts, and empty cardboard boxes and banana peels covered the streets. This was nothing like the Paris any of us had imagined.

“It will get better, let’s just find our apartment,” I told her. It was a great relief when we did find our apartment, and in contrast to unclean world outside our doors, the apartment was luxurious, spacious, beautifully furnished and had a garden with a waterfall. The housekeeper who showed us in spoke no English, so we communicated with gestures and got the tour. This apartment would be superb.

Leaving the children to relax in the comfort and safety of our apartment, Pam and I walked down the grocery store, purchased exciting food including plenty of puddings (mmmm!), figured out how to use the produce scale price sticker printers, and returned for dinner and naps.

We awoke at 8 pm, and decided we needed an evening outing to see something in Paris to replace this bad vision. Off to the Metro again...

Camping in the parking lot

2011-10-08T21:25:00.000+02:00

Meanwhile in Trondheim, Pam and the kids had been busy preparing for fall break. The plan: the family would drive 7 hours from Trondheim down to the Oslo airport and meet me as I got off the plane Friday night. We’d park the bus in long-term parking and sleep in it overnight, getting up early for our 8 am flight to Paris.

To facilitate sleeping arrangements, Pam and the kids had been working on building a wooden platform in the bus so suitcases could go under and a bed could go on top. They’d packed up and planned our trip in Paris and loaded the bus with food and supplies. I was a bit worried about them making that long trip without me, but I got a phone call from them while I was waiting at baggage claim saying they’d arrived at the airport. They’d had a fun trip with singing and shenanigans.

We met some friends who just happened to be at the airport that evening also and all had pizza together (small country). Then we took the shuttle bus back to long-term parking to our “portable cabin” for a cheap night’s sleeping arrangement. The beds worked great!

It was a much-to-early 6 am wakeup call, but we pulled ourselves together and got checked in in good time. Now we’re off to Paris! Adventure awaits!

Alta -- into the far far north

2011-10-07T21:37:00.000+02:00

Just last month I went to the arctic circle for the first time, now I've gone nearly to the 70°N latitude line, visiting the farthest north city in the world with population greater than 10 000.

Alta is a city built on the northern lights. Home to world's only northern lights observatory, I'm told the aerial light show is visible about half the nights. Wouldn't you know it, the two days I was here it was cloudy both days... and nights.

After a three-day workshop series in Oslo, I arrived in Alta for another set of workshops. I got in at dinner time and it was already dark and cold. It's early October and the thermometer outside of the Rica hotel reads 2°C. Brrrr...

Alta is home to Finnmark College where my 2-day teacher workshop was being held. By quitting time Friday, I had spoken almost no English for the past 6-days, including 11 hours of teaching teachers in Norwegian. They were a fun and friendly group and seemed to enjoy helping me fix grammatical errors on my slides. I hope to be back next year to work with these fun people again!

Alta city center is tiny, but nice and student friendly. Nearly everywhere are names and artwork inspired by the northern lights. Here's a few I spotted:

The Rica Hotel lobby is filled with pictures of the Northern Lights

This wooden art piece in the Finnmark College cafeteria is Northern Lights inspired

Another Northern Lights sculpture in the college's hallway

The new swimming center is called "Nordlysbadet" = "Northern Lights Pool"

... and you can catch a film at the Aurora cinema

Loppemarked

2011-10-03T07:52:00.000+02:00

The 9th graders and their families are responsible for the school rummage sale, or loppemarked, in order to raise money for the class trip. Friday evening the whole family came to the school to set up for the rummage sale. I was a driver and was handed a map and list of locations to make pickups. As the drivers returned with full vans and trailers, others unloaded, organized, and priced item. We worked from 5 to 9, and then returned early Saturday morning to set up more things. Folks were lining up outside a half-hour early; these would be the ‘professionals’, the ones who swoop in, move quickly from table to table, buying the high-value treasures tucked between the glass candle holders and old film cameras.

Pam ran the cantina, selling waffles, cookies, spaghetti, coffee, and juice. I planted myself in the books sections. Maggie and the other 9th graders were go-fers. Sunday we did it again. It was a lot of work, but very social and surprisingly fun. The class made 75.000 kroner, about $20,000, money that will go towards the 10th grade class trip next year.

We were all envious of Martin's money-changer!

Google today...

2011-10-01T14:00:00.002+02:00

Forskningsdagene

2011-09-25T08:15:00.000+02:00

It's Forskningsdagene, or Research Days, in Norway. Many big cities have special events to celebrate science research. In Trondheim there are series of shows and lectures and the Research "Torg" (market/square/court?) Every year, the math center participates in the torg, and for the past few years I've been in charge of planning and coordinating the event with the university's math department.

The theme for this year was chemistry, so we decided to 'number chemistry'. I've always thought of the integers like molecules, with prime numbers as the atoms. We set up number molecule decorations, a prime number target game, and computers where visitors could find the prime factorizations of their phone numbers.

Students for the math department made the decorations and the ball toss game and did a very nice job. I wrote the program to find the factorizations, and we all made a variety of signs talking about primes, twin primes, the GIMPS project, and some prime number periodic tables that are pretty cool.

The game was a big success. Kids waiting in line were given a card with a number on it, maybe 18 or 54 or 770. The would need to figure out the prime factors by the time they got to the front. They would then throw balls at targets painted with primes, the goal being to knock down primes whose product matched the target number. Winners wrote their names on a sticky note and stuck it on the wall, enough of reward to make players proud without having to hand out candy.

It was once again a very fun two days.

Anna making slime at one of the booths

Knock down your prime factors and win!

Anna experiments with primes

Set up Thursday night in the pouring rain

My periodic table of prime numbers

Italian visitors

2011-09-19T08:18:00.000+02:00

We played host family to two 9th graders from Italy who came to visit Trondheim for 4 days. They stayed with us for 2 days and went camping for 2 days with Maggie's class. The first day they were scared and so it was nice to see them looking and feeling confident on the final day. Maggie had a great time with the gang.

Fjord og Preikestolen

2011-09-18T15:52:00.002+02:00

Here's a game I got Pam for Christmas that we've enjoyed playing:

I showed the game to my friend Martin and he immediately said, "that's Preikestolen!" I found this picture that very closely matches the angle of the image on the cover of the game. It's located in southwest Norway, and the name means "the pulpit".

Corn on the cob in a can

2011-09-16T16:44:00.000+02:00

I promised this picture for my friends in New York. This is one of two ways to get corn on the cob in Norway. The other way is in a vacuum packed plastic bag. Does that sound gross? Yeah, it kinda is.

Bergen in the rain

2011-09-14T09:48:00.000+02:00

Finally, a trip to Bergen. In all my time and travels in Norway, I've never visited to this city, so I was excited to take a speaking engagement in this city that is considered 'probably the best' in Norway. After a speaking engagement in Oslo Monday (where I was proud to have successfully navigated buses, planes, trains, and subways without a hitch), I arrived at night to a rainy Bergen. Bergen is famous for its rain, so I took it to be part of the experience. I checked into Thon Brygge hotel which I'd chosen for its proximity to the harbor area (and it's relatively lower price). My room had a view of the Bergen fortress, splashed with yellow light in the rainy darkness.

My presentation was scheduled in the afternoon so I had the morning to explore. I was not eager to spend too much time walking around in the rain, though, so I waited until nearly 10 before departing the hotel.

The first surprise was this boat, the Bounty, the same ship that was used in the 1984 film "The Bounty" which retells the famous story of the mutiny. It is Bergen for the week as part of a world tour. Across the street from the water is a row of shops. Do they look all crooked in this picture? They are! They're sort of leaning this way and that. I suppose they're several hundred years old and have settled and now it's part of the charm. Because they're historic building, I imagine they will never be straightened.

Walking around downtown was a treat. This city has plenty of statues, gardens, fountains... it's just lovely. I wandered through a fish market packed with salmon and some of the biggest shrimp I've seen. I wandered through alleys and park, all the way around the inlet out to the ocean's edge and back again. I saw a memorial covered with roses which I reckon was for the Utøya victims. I saw an art project outside of the art museum where children had created hundreds of sculptures from recycled materials and attached them a carpet that stretched across the road, across a pond, and up the the other side. I saw the cable car that goes up into the mountains to give a wonderful view I'm told, but I decided not to ride on so cloudy a day.

My raincoat served me well, but my feet were soaking wet by the time I reached the Engineering College three hours later. I changed into dry socks and delivered my workshop in stocking feet.

It was a good adventure, a fine walking tour, and it looks like a wonderful city to enjoy during a dry summer. I'll bring the family here next year I'm sure.

One more picture: here's a statue of boy crying presumably because he doesn't being spit upon by fish. I thought it was bizarre choice of subjects for a fountain, but it amused me greatly and so I suppose it fulfilled its purpose!

Pam's birthday

2011-09-10T22:41:00.000+02:00

To celebrate Pam's birthday today, we went on a family picnic on the fjord, near a spot called Ringvebukta. The cleared up for a sunny and warm afternoon on a secluded rocky beach, where we skipped stones and roasted delicious sausages. In the evening we ate at Jahdab, our favorite Indian restaurant. Maggie and Anna baked, frosted and decorated Pam's birthday cake: devil's food cake with vanilla frosting and oreo cookies. We made that cake disappear by the next morning. Mmmmm...

Happy Birthday Pam!

Pstereo

2011-09-07T18:36:00.000+02:00

Here's an article written by someone visiting Trondheim for a rock festival, PSTEREO, that took place last month. There's lots of great references to things we know well. I found it a fun read, maybe you will too.

http://thequietus.com/articles/06828-pstereo-festival-norway

Back from NY

2011-09-06T21:36:00.000+02:00

I've been in Manhattan the past few days for the annual Infinity conference. 4 days of incredible ideas and presentations with very good friends.

Kindergarten film

2011-08-29T23:35:00.000+02:00

What a day! I'm involved with filming a series of films for kindergarten math, and today was day 1 of film 2. I spent the day at the beach with ten 5-year olds and their teachers, a colleague, and a cameraman. Making these is demanding, it takes a long time to keep shooting scenes again and again, and the kids need a lot of patience.

We got lucky with the weather, though; it was fabulous. On Friday the forecast called for rain today and tomorrow, so we were very pleased to find everything changed over the weekend and we got perfect weather instead. It will be another day of filming tomorrow, and maybe I'll have some energy to post a few pics...

Sang kurs

2011-08-24T23:29:00.001+02:00

We'd signed the kids up for classes through the Trondheim Culture School. Lessons are available in just about everything at very low prices, maximum of two classes per person. Maggie and Anna were in circus last year through the culture school, and this year we applied for music classes for each of the kids as well. There's a waiting list for the music classes so we've been keeping our fingers crossed... today Maggie got the call and she's started singing classes. She's very pleased.

I was verifying the location of the school on Google Maps and caught the cool shadows of a sculpture in the school yard:

First day of school

2011-08-22T22:07:00.000+02:00

The kids were awake at 6:30 this morning. Screeching. Running. Laughing. Anna appeared bedside to tell me it was 6:30. And then again at 6:45 to let me know the time. I haven't seen them this excited since Legoland. Peter even left the house 1/2 hour early to go wait outside of school.

Unfortunately the excitement didn't last. They came home a bit disappointed that school was exactly how they remembered it. I imagine by next week we'll be struggling to pull them out of bed. At least I'll get to sleep to a reasonable hour!

Workshops, language, haircut

2011-08-18T21:51:00.004+02:00

This week has kept me busy. After writing two papers, I had to prepare for a series of teacher workshops we offered over two days. On each of the days I gave two workshops and then a main lecture for about 100 teachers each day. This took massive preparations, but I put together a good show and delivered everything in Norwegian. It's become quite easy now to communicate, and I'm even following lunchroom conversations which was my original litmus test for Norwegian mastery. It still requires effort, but I can see the day coming soon when it will be easy and natural.

I started meeting with a tutor this week. We'll meet every week for 90 minutes, working on an audio book and working through a Norwegian 3 text. The lady I'm working with likes language as much as I do, so it's really fun.

Oh yes, Pam gave me a haircut yesterday. It was a one-snip, 5-second haircut, and it turned out great. We saved $50-100 (the going price of a haircut in Trondheim). Cut off 8 inches/20 cm. It had gotten so long though you really can't tell it was cut.

Mini-vacation to Sweden

2011-08-15T21:41:00.002+02:00

Getting down to the end of summer, one last trip. We joined friends Daniel and Evelina across the border into Sweden for an overnatting at Holiday Club in Åre. This is a pool/spa hotel that the whole family likes a lot. Combine the strength of the Norwegian krone vs. the Swedish krone and the money saved from grocery and wine shopping and the trip comes out costing not so much.

On the drive out we cross through Meråker, a very beautiful area of Norway. We like to make frequent stops when we travel, so we pulled off at a one-lane bridge over a river. It was a gorgeous spot to climb on the rocks and skip stones.

I spend much of the drive out writing a paper, as I had two papers due Monday afternoon to meet a deadline for publishing a book of conference proceedings. I managed to finish the first one on the two-hour drive and I was ready for swimming and beer. After several hours in the pool and the variety of steam rooms they have at the hotel, we cooked fancy sausages on the grill outside by the lake. Cheap and lovely! Thankfully, shops are open in Sweden on Sundays.

Sunday evening, Evelina taught us to play Scopa, an Italian card game that uses special cards with coins, swords, clubs and cups and all kinds of different ways to score points. It was great fun. The boys totally crushed the girls, so that was extra-satisfying!

I rode back early on Monday with Daniel, finishing my second paper on the ride home. I set a personal record for writing academic papers this weekend. It's just one week left of summer.

Geology adventure

2011-08-13T20:52:00.002+02:00

Beautiful sunny day today. I've been glued to my computer learning to program in Flash, so I was eager to get out into nature. Following a tip from my geologist friend Allan, we drove south from Trondheim 45 minutes to go pyrite (fool's gold) hunting.

The spot was gorgeous, on a river's edge far beneath an old bridge, and we had the spot to ourselves. The sun warmed us as chipped away at loose stones uncovering cubical crystals of FeS2. Exclamations of "Oh! Look at this one!" were repeated dozens of times as we accumulated our treasure trove. A nearby trail led to some delightful discoveries including an old artistic gateway and many raspberry bushes bursting with ripe berries.

We spent far longer than I thought we would, two hours maybe. Afterwards we drove a short distance to the Horg Bygdatun, a cultural museum/farm. There is a 5 km trail that winds through the area's history, showing off buildings and artifacts from throughout the past. We didn't walk the trail (another day perhaps) but we did explore the children's trail that had a few surprises and a playground at the bottom.

It was a very satisfying day and we can add another location to our list of cool things to do.

Into the Arctic Circle: Bodø

2011-08-10T11:28:00.002+02:00

Yesterday marked my first time entering the arctic circle, even though we live rather close. Trondheim is at latitude 63° 44 while the Arctic Circle is latitude 66° 33'. Previously the furthest north I'd been was 65° 50', in the city of Mosjøen. But now I've been to Bodø, latitude 67° 16. It's 716 km / 444 mi from Trondheim if you drive.

Bodø is a very nice little city, population 50 000. I walked from the airport to city center, which is built around a lovely harbor. Bodø was the site for this year's LAMIS summer courses. LAMIS is the national math teacher association, Norway's version of the USA's NCTM. I gave a workshop on using computers with kindergartners. It was a great meeting – I met old friends and made new friends and very much enjoyed this charming little city.

Here's a sign I spotted in a window. It's impossible to read this without hearing Yoda's voice in your head. Go ahead, try:

Maggie's Birthday

2011-08-06T21:18:00.010+02:00

Maggie needed a new bike. Pam asked her what color she wanted. Maggie in her usual enigmatic way answered: "unicorn color." So Pam and I spent the week making a unicorn bike. It's sparkly with a unicorn head, tail, bell, basket and unicorn mascot. Wow was she excited when she blew the magic whistle and her unicorn came around the corner!

Later we had cake. Maggie's favorite TV program is Bones, a show about a bone scientist who uses science to solve crimes. We made her a bone-shaped cake and a microscope made out of Rice Crispy treats. That was an engineering challenge, but it came out great. All that work and it was eaten up in a few minutes!

Happy birthday Maggie!

Portugal - Math Art Meeting

2011-08-02T21:04:00.116+02:00

Yesterday concluded a week in Coimbra, Portugal at another incredible Bridges conference. This is the conference I look forward to the most every year, a cerebral explosion of mathematical beauty that fills my head with amazing ideas for years to come.

Too much happened to tell all, but here's a few pictures and comments...

PEOPLE: Met lots of old friends and make lots of new friends. There are some good opportunities for collaborations on projects which is something I love to do. Here's Nick, who with the help of friends tessellated his head with rhombuses. Extra credit for that!

COIMBRA: The city was charming. It took a little getting used to getting around - much of the town is twisty alleyways that go up and down steps and make little sense. But it was easy to remember that the university was on top of the hill and the hotel was at the bottom, so as long you remember whether you were going up or down, you could get there. It was hot all week, 35°C, but it was dry. Here's a picture of a an old woman who sold me a bag of salty beans for one euro, and a picture of the fado band at a restaurant near our hotel.

Fado is a style of Portuguese music with two guitars and a singer who sings sad and beautiful songs. Our fado experience was fantastic. The first night I went out with my colleagues from Norway to find something to eat. We went into the first restaurant we came to and had a great meal. I ordered beef steak, and it came to the table as bowl of raw steak strips and a very very hot stone that I used to cook the meat. After the meal, the waitress asked us quietly if we'd like to hear some music. She led us out of the crowded eating area to a staircase and took us downstairs to a basement pub that was filled mostly with old men. "Oh, there isn't a seat," we told us. "No problem!" she said and she proceeded to push some men over at a long table. Ah! Shortly afterwards the band came on. It was absolutely beautiful and we felt extremely lucky to stumble upon this our first night!

THE GALLERY: The math-art gallery was especially impressive this year. I got to share gallery space with some very high quailty work and top artists. I exhibited three pieces of printed art (see some of my art at nakedgeometry.com).

SCENES: Here's a few picturesque scenes - a mansion near town, a view of Coimbra from up the hill, and the art museum all decked out and ready for our math art banquet.

HUMAN GEOMETRY: I did a workshop with Vi Hart on Human Geometry where we made all kinds of shapes and played games using our bodies. It was incredibly fun and the group of 25 participants were all both creative and enthusiastic. Vi and I came ready with a program of things to try and explore, and the group far exceeded our expectations with ideas and creations. I came out of there with a dozen new activities. Yes!

I also presented a paper in the regular sessions (my Abacaba stuff, always a good time!).

DRAMA: I was asked to participate in the drama production and I accepted. I was hesitant at first because we were to receive our scripts on Thursday, rehearse for 4 hours on Friday, and perform on Saturday. That was a lot to do in a short time when there was already a lot going at the conference. But wow was I glad I did it! It was incredibly fun and I made some very good friends in the process.

The performance was The Physicists, a 1961 play by Friedrich Dürrenmat. It was supposed to be just a dramatic reading, but we wanted costumes, props, and to move around the stage. I played the part of Sir Isaac Newton, one of three patients in a mental hospital. The play hit on the theme of the responsibility of scientists for their creations, especially when those creations can be used as weapons. We played to a full house on Saturday and were critically acclaimed.

After the play, I gave a reading of one of my poems for poetry open mike, and then later that evening I sand a song in Norwegian at informal music night.

THE SANDWICH: I found my dream sandwich, the Franceshino. It is from bottom to top: a bed of french fries, a slice of french toast, a slice of ham, a pork cutlet, sausages, another slice of french toast, cheese, a fried egg, and covered in hot sauce. Oh was I ever happy with this!

ZOME TOOL SCULPTURE: Every year at Bridges the owners of the Zome Tool company bring thousands of pieces of plastic construction components and enlist the aid of all they can to build a huge sculpture. This year the sculpture was designed by a famous sculpter, last name of Fabien. I participated in the final construction phase... it was exciting and stressful, not knowing if it would collapse under its own weight or not. It was supposed to be done by 8 pm Sunday night, but it wasn't. We took a time out for a concert of classical music then hurried back to get it together. At 1:20 a.m. we declared success! It was a brilliant way to end an amazing week.

National resolve

2011-07-25T08:12:00.000+02:00

Everyone I've talked to has been glued to the news for the past few days. And all the commentaries I've read and political speeches suggest the same thing: Norway will not allow itself to be changed by this act, Norway will not become a less open society, and Norway will not surrender to fear. Good luck Norway.

Terrorism attack

2011-07-23T11:04:00.000+02:00

A bomb in Oslo and shootings on Utøya last night. Insane. We were at friends' house for dinner and we were glued to the TV, much like on 9-11. This kind of thing has never happened in Norway. Most of the victims were children. It's just horrible. This will take a long time for the country to process. My heart goes out to those families affected.

Culture plasticity

2011-07-21T17:40:00.000+02:00

We're back from the USA now. Two weeks were spent working on our house in Washington to get it ready to put on the market and then two weeks visiting family in Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. There were a couple of things about my behavior that caught my attention.

The first was driving. It took me a while to switch to U.S. mode. For the first few days I found myself wanting to stop every time a car approached from a side street on the right. "Do I need to stop?" I asked myself. Weird. And turning right on red? Seemed unsafe. It was tricky getting used to speeding again as well. You need to pay a lot more attention driving in the United States, it requires a certain degree of agressiveness. It took me about a week to get it back, then zoom zoom zoom!

The other thing I noticed was privacy and cameras. It bugged me to see surveillance cameras in public places, even in elevators. What's up with that? Damn voyeurs. We were in a blues club in Chicago and people were taking photos of the band without asking their permission. That bothered me too.

It's funny how living in another culture for a time can change your attitudes. I guess we really are fairly plastic, even old dogs like me.

Yanks in Trondheim

2011-06-05T19:59:00.001+02:00

YIT (Yanks in Trondheim) had a picnic this weekend at Nedre Leirfossen, a park on the south end of town near a dam. We'd never been to this park today and it was excellent. Grills, playground equipment, a dock and a boardwalk along the river, coupled with a beautiful view of the river and the dam. We ate, played, made giant bubbles, and learned ballroom dances that Maggie brought back from Vienna. Nedre Leirfossen: good place for a picnic.

An amusing warning sign at Nedre Leirfossen. Run little red person, run!

Lian Restaurant

2011-06-01T07:54:00.001+02:00

Our office had a end-of-the-year gathering at Lian Restaurant with two other organziations. We socialized and presented topics of common interest to each other. The resaurant/conference center is pretty amazing. It's in Byåsen, near to the skiing area where the kids have their lessons every winter. The view from the building is outstanding, overlooking a valley, a lake, and all of Trondheim. It's remarkable that this little gem is tucked away right in town in a place I never would have guessed.

Short update

2011-05-31T23:09:00.000+02:00

I've got lots of good pictures of lots of adventures the past few months, but busy days continue and it's hard to find to assemble posts. So here's just a short message until I get the time to get caught up:

The new business is off to a good start with projects running in many positive directions. We've been to Germany for Easter vacation. Maggie is currently in Austria on a class trip. Kids are gearing up for a circus show. We've had good parties, good food, good friends. It is light all the time, but it is cold (two days ago I could see my breath in the afternoon). I've been on many trips, giving lectures for national courses and a national math prize award ceremony. Today I taught math-art lessons to two groups of 1st graders.

Maggie to Austria

2011-05-28T11:51:00.000+02:00

Maggie left for a week to Austria on a school trip. They'll join kids from all over Europe at a campground for a week of diplomacy activities and a tour of Vienna. They're pretty excited. God tur, Maggie!

World's Largest Snowflake

2011-05-27T16:11:00.002+02:00

Anna asked if she could tape together a whole bunch of sheets of paper to make a giant snowflake. My boring adult brain immediately thought "That's a waste of a whole lot of paper." Then my real brain took over and thought "That's an excellent use of a whole lot of paper!"

"Okay," I said, "but only if I can help!"

What a project! First we had to tape together dozens of sheets to fill as much floor space as possible. Maggie came to watch and we had a conversation of European paper sizes. One sheet is A4, a double sheet is A3, double that to get A2, double again for A1, and one more double gives A0 which has area exactly one square meter. Ours was larger than A0, "Anegative1" Maggie suggested. As we got near the end, Anna and I had a good discussion about whether we needed to add one more row or one more column to get it as square-like as possible. We pulled out a tape measure and figured out the dimensions as it was and how it would be with one more row or with one more column.

Then the folding and cutting (with some more good math to measure 60° – precision is important with so large a model). After each cut we needed to retape parts that had come loose, because we didn't tape the complete edges of the paper together, that would have used too much tape.

Finally, the unfolding and a beautiful thing. Now if only we had a window large enough to hang it...

To USA

2011-05-08T08:58:00.000+02:00

Off to Wisconsin to surprise my mother for her 70th birthday. Unfortunately, it wasn't much of a surprise because Bill had a surgery rescheduled and we've had to change locations, so my sisters had to spill the beans that I was coming.

It was a great visit with my Mom and Bill and my sisters, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. We were in the tiny farming town of Luxemburg outside of Green Bay where my brother-in-law owns and operates a good size dairy farm. We took a trip to Algoma for a birthday lunch. Algoma is an up-and-coming artistic town on the shore of Lake Michigan.

I had company on the trip: Peter sent his favorite stuffed animal with me. I took good care of Snow Kitty. Here's Snow Kitty ready for the big flight, and a few pictures from the trip.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Here's Mom, my oldest sister and her two kids.

Here's a photo of a photo of my two oldest sisters:

Judi demonstrate sword dancing, her latest dancing obsession!

Rachel, Judi, Mark, and my youngest sister Hez at a cafe in Algoma.

Mark wheeled in a new-born calf. He has 2-3 births every week, it was amazing to see how quickly he could pick up a calf and set it up in its own baby cow hut and then hustle off to return to farm duties. With over 200 cows on his dairy farm, he wastes no time taking care of business!