I made it up to Trondheim. I left on Thursday. That’s Thanksgiving where I come from. The train ride was pleasant. I hit Trondheim at a quarter to 3. Dusk. It was cold. And, disappointingly, completely lacked snow. I did see some in the high lands through the middle of the country, but it was thin and wispy. I’ll be honest; this whole lack of snow business is pretty disappointing. I mean it’s coming up on December. I had expected a full two months of knee-deep stick-around-never-leave snow by now. But there’s been nothing. And who’s to blame? Who should I talk to if I want to get my money back on the guarantee of snow in Norway? I don’t know. What worse is, ahh this really gets me, it snowed in Seattle yesterday. Or so i read in a friend’s blog. So here I am, in the country of sure fire snow with nothing but beautiful autumn sun and brisk 44 degree temperatures (no where near freezing I might add) and back home it’s gearing up for a blizzard of a winter.
I found my way to the hostel through the completely dry air. The place was a mediocre accommodation on the east side of town. A bed. A chair. A lamp. A bathroom. I stowed my bag and headed back down town for a look around and Thanksgiving dinner. I decided that I would go out to eat. I don’t go out to eat here because I can’t bare to pay the prices they charge for a meal. But it was Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. Football. Stuffing. The bird. The family. It’s a great day. I’ve had some awesome Thanksgivings. Most recently those celebrated at Liz Maly’s house. The time my brothers and I were alone on Thanksgiving because of an illness in the family and I made hamburger helper and stovetop stuffing and instant mash potatoes. A flaming turkey loaf in Ireland. Really just about every Thanksgiving has been awesome as far back as I can remember. This one, however, was not awesome. I mean, yeah I was in Trondheim. And that was cool. And I did get to have someone else cook my food, which is always nice. But still.
So I had to decide where I was going to enjoy this meal. What place would provide the most awesome Norwegian Thanksgiving meal there was to be had? I mean the chances of finding a turkey dinner above 63 degrees north latitude seemed pretty slim. I decided it would have to be American food at the very least, which narrowed the selection down. I mean it cut out the Scottish pub, right. Something quintessential was what I was looking for. Something that would remind me of home. McDonalds? No. Burger King? Maybe. Maybe Burger King. I steer clear of the fast food in general and absolutely in foreign countries (This wasn’t always the case. In Taiwan I lived almost exclusively on Wendy’s spice chicken sandwiches.) But maybe I’d make an exception. It was Thanksgiving after all. So I lit out thinking I’d have a cheeseburger and fries, cause really that’s what America is about.
I walked down to and along the river and found an old warehouse district that had been converted into a shopping mall with several restaurants along walk. This seems to be a trend in Norway. Each of the cities I’ve been to has a refurbished waterfront with shopping and restaraunts and people hanging out. It’s pleasant really. One of the places along here was a pizza place called Pepe’s Pizza, a Norwegian chain. I began thinking, well Pizza, right? Becasue what’s more American then that? Really. But I was undecided. I kept moving. I circle the city center and found the fast food and I just thought, Man, fast food sucks for your body. I’d feel like shit after. Maybe pizza. And then yes, Pizza defiantly. So I walked back to Pepe’s and went in.
I ordered a beer. A “stor” beer -- which means big but is really a pint. I was pretty excited about the beer actually. Beer and Pizza, that’s just good stuff. I ordered a piece of garlic bread. I ordered something called a “pizza salad” which was the cheapest salad on the menu, I figured you get it if you are having pizza. I ordered a pizza, the medium (there were no smalls) pepperoni and ham. The bread came first, with the beer and was all right. But really, how can you go wrong with white bread butter and garlic? The salad came with the Pizza. This poor excuse for lettuce was served with hamster testicle sized tomatoes and pungent red onions and a cup of thick ranch dressing. I ate it under protest.
The Pizza itself was sub par. Like a cheaper Pizza Hut for reference. But I wasn’t, in fact, expecting a lot. I find the foreign take on pizza disappointing (with the possible exception of Italy where it’s cheep and real). In Ireland they have curry Pizza. And in Taiwan, Tuna and corn. But regardess of the oddity in foreign pizza, the standards are also less then awesome. I blame it on the sauce. A bad sauce destroys a pizza and I have yet to have a good sauce out side of the states. Anyway, the bread the beer the salad the pizza. I ate. After I finished, spending my time staring at the various people in Pepe’s, the place was packed, ordered a piece of chocolate cake and another beer. The cake was all right. A chocolate bundt cake with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top. The beer was another stor. So let’s recap, so you understand the extent of this meal and can decided for yourselves. That was 2 pints of beer. 1 piece of bread with butter and garlic. 1 fist full of lettuce stems and microscopic tomatoes. 1 mediocre medium pizza with pepperoni and ham. 1 small chocolate bundt cake with a teaspoon of ice cream on top. Total for this Thanksgiving extravaganza? 435 kroner. I’ll just go ahead and do the exchange rate math for you so you don’t have too, shall I? That’s 435 Norwegian kroner at the exchange rate of 6.3 is roughly sixty-nine dollar and five cents. $69.05. Happy Thanksgiving. After I went back to my room and read till I fell asleep.
The next day I visited the Sverresborg folk museum. The receptionist/cashier was very pretty and talkative. She had red hair. They had some good buildings. The oldest Stave Church in Norway brought from Haltdalen. Here are some photos:
I also went to the Trondheim cathedral and Bishop's Palace. The cathedral is the biggest in Norway. The bishop’s palace is a similar building to what Sverre Fehn’s museum in Hamar is built into. The one in Trondheim, however, is larger, and two of the wings are in tact. Two wings have been rebuilt after a fire in 1983. These new buildings are beautiful. Instead of rebuilding the storehouses exactly how they were before the fire, the architects, Nils Henrik Eggen Arkitektkontor, put two simple brick buildings in their place. The simplicity of the buildings gives them a place in the courtyard; it both distinguishes them and allows them to become part of the whole complex. One is an administration building and the other is the Archbishop’s palace Museum.
I walked around the town. I found it pleasant. The river is great. The Nidelva It sort of snakes through the city, which also sits on a fjord. I visited the technical school.
And wandered up to the Kristiansten fort which over looks the city on the east side. The second and third night I ate in my room and read my book. And that was Trondheim. Worth it.
As I was getting on the train to leave a guy in a WSU sweatshirt was coming down the isle of my car. I went to WSU, or Washington State University, for my first college. While there I got an English degree and an anthropology degree. Go Cougs. WSU is in a small town called Pullman on the edge of the Washington-Idaho border. 8 miles from Moscow Idaho. 3 hours south of Spokane Washington. There are 25,000 locals in the town and 35,000 college students. It is in the middle of wheat fields pretty close to the Snake River, which feeds into the Columbia. There is nothing to do there but drink and party. And study unless your getting an English and anthropology degree. I did that a lot drinking and partying the six years I was there. Go Cougs. However, my opinion of wearing sweatshirts with the letters of the school you went to while doing your partying is don’t. That’s just me. Further, I don’t really approach people who do wear such duds as I find the whole thing embarrassing unless you actually played for a team sport of some sort, preferably football, but I’d take baseball and field hockey as well. (I do, however, whisper “Go Cougs” under my breath when I see one, just in case the wearer actually played football or baseball or field hockey.) So when I saw this guy coming down the isle I debated whether I should say something. In a foreign country, the kid probably went there, I’d could make a friend. For crying out loud it was just Thanksgiving. But, ultimately, I decided to skip it. That is until I found that he actually was in the seat next to me on the train. So I figure what the hell and start up. Turns out he went there for a year. Got back last spring. He’s an electrical engineer. We swapped stories about Pullman. Talked football. He told me what he did. I told him what I was doing in Norway. This all took about 20 minutes. We were pretty much done with our conversation before we left the station. Which only left six and a half hours of uncomfortable silence. Which is why I tend to not talk to people I sit next to in a travel situation. I put on my earphone and fell asleep after a while. Read some. Got back to Oslo yesterday afternoon.
I found a gift from my friend Liz Maly in the mail. A book. Paul Auster’s Moon Palace, which I’ve never read and which solves the problem of which book I’ll read next saving me from starting Stephan King’s Gunslinger series which I don’t want to do, but fear I will. Then last night another friend of mine, Carly, called me up using Skype. (Skype is brilliant. Just brilliant free talking all over the world business with you computer. Brilliant.) That was great. Liz and Carly were part of a group of us who had breakfast each week for the last three years while we tried to learn how to be architects. It was nice to have breakfast to look forward to on saturday morning. Traveling around the city, trying all the best breakfast places in Seattle over the course of three years having great conversations. The other member of our little breakfast cabal was Justin. I miss breakfast.
In the mail was also the letter I sent to Sverre Fehn asking for an interview. Returned unopened and stamped “Retur -- Flyttet, Ny Adresse Ukjunt” Which means: Return -- Moved. New Address Unknown.” You may have read how I staked out an address I got off the Internet for Fehn. And how I thought I saw him in a window. Turns out I didn’t and that’s not his address. I had found another address for him, however, and today I hiked up to that building to check it out, see if I could suss out whether it was Fehn’s office or not. I found this:
Turns out it is his office. So I’ll send the letter there instead.
I also found two great buildings. One I knew about from Byggekunst. The Business school. Here are some photos.
I really liked it as a campus. There are essentially four buildings connected by this indoor street. The pathways cross from one building to the next at different places and different levels all the way up. I climbed to the top. The long escalator was an interesting experience. It sits out in the open space and you rise up and I was suddenly stuck with nerves at rising through the height. The spiral stair also was a bit unnerving at the top, some 7 stories up out in the middle of the atrium. I forced myself to walk the edge to get over the momentary fear of the height. The whole space was active and dynamic. It was done by an architect Neils Torp. Besides the business school, there are shops and café’s and a gym in the complex. It’s in an old industrial part of town that is being revitalized with new and reused architecture. It’s close to where I use to live when I first moved here. Had I found the place before I moved I might have stayed up there.
Across the street from the business school was this building. I know nothing about it yet, but I really liked it.
So today was a good day. The last week was a good week. I feel good. Things are good. Good.
