snow and boots

So, God caved to the snowmen’s demands. The city is blanketed in white and it’s awesome. Cold, in the teens, the sun was out today. Beautiful low angle glow off the snow. Far from the depressing black winter that one imagines, it is actually the most pleasant experience to be in this part of the world as the planet pulls away form the sun. And despite my earlier grumbling about the lack of snow, it has been a great season. Wet in parts. When the sun is out it’s amazing. Like sun set all day. Now that the snow has come it makes it all that much better. We got maybe 4”, which isn’t the feet I was hoping for, but it’s substantial and sticking around.

But there is this, and I’m not complaining mind you, it’s just a thing I have to deal with. Here are my boots.

I got this funny foot dragging gate. Always have. It’s not monstrous or anything, but it does wear out a shoe in no time. The outside half of the heal specifically. Like this.

6 months tops. I’ve recently taken to resoling these boots when they wear down. I like these boots. They are plain, honest footwear. I never had my shoes resoled. Ussually opting to just get new ones. But before I left for Norway 8 months ago I had these resoled for the first time and it was great. Like buying the boots again, only cheaper. And they threw in a shine on top of it.

When I came to Norway I brought these boots, a pair of running shoes for running and a pair of sandals. The sandals got lost somewhere in Italy. Not that big a deal, they were not good footwear. I lost them in Rome I think. Under the bed in the hostel. And by lost I mean I left them there. The running shoes I wear, well, running and at the gym. I don’t like wearing running shoes as casual footwear because I feel like an a-hole. Boots fit my internal picture of myself. So when I’m not in summer climes and not running to of from the gym, I’m wearing my boots. I like them. They’re amazingly comfortable. But after 6 months here I was face with prospect of getting them resoled. However, since it became necessary, I have been unable to find a place that will do that. I’m sure they resole boots here, I just can’t figure out where. I thought about getting a new pair of boots as winter was coming and I would surely need them for the snow. But I continued to put it off because snow wasn’t coming. Then it came, and this is the point. Now that it’s here the worn heal of my boot is helpless against the inherent frictionless nature of the snow and ice. I slip. A lot. I slip and slide and have fallen on my ass because of the smooth frictionless contact my heal has on the snow. Now I am stuck with a little more then a month left in country and the prospect of falling every time I go to the store for cheese and lettuce, or hobbling to the post office with my arms out for balance. I could get a new pair of boots for $200 dollars (See earlier explanations of economics as to why a pair of boots would cost $200) a sum I have never paid for a shoe nor ever intended to pay for a shoe. It look at them longingly in the windows of shoe shops. There are some nice boots here. But at that price, knowing that they will only last me 6 months before I had to lay out another 40 bucks when I already have a pair of boot I like. I just have a difficult time shelling out that kind of scratch for really. I’ve been mulling this over. In the last three weeks or so it’s snowed a couple times at night, then left the next day. But what is here now is here for a while. A week? All month? Can’t say. At any rate, yesterday I was explaining this to Liz Maly, who called we from the future using Skype and a web camera, and she suggested I just buy the boots seeing as I had a long walk ahead of me latter in the afternoon (See below) and a good pair of boots would last a good long time and I might as well have them as soon as possible rather then waiting. I agreed. And when I went for my walk I was determined to get some new boots. But it was Sunday, (I sometimes forget the days of the week) and pretty much everything is closed on Sundays. So there were no shoes to buy. I had to decide whether to continue with the walk, up and down several snow covered hills, or go home. I toughed it out. Took the walk. It was totally worth it. I didn’t fall once. So, I think I’ve decided to skip the new shoes and tough it out the rest of my time here. Just be careful is all. Easy does it and all that. And falling ain’t so bad once you get the hang of it.

The walk I took was to a Fehn building. The Okern Aldershjelm. A senior housing project. It was really difficult to get to and not just because of the snowy hills. This wasn’t the first time I’d tried to find it. It is beyond a particular crazy snarl of freeway that my map just doesn’t provide for. Anyway, I made it to the place yesterday. Unfortunately they’ve built a large new facility next to the Fehn building and the Fehn building appears to be being prepared for demolition. I got a few shots, but I couldn’t get in and it was depressing to see.

I did get some good news though. I had sent a couple letters to the residents of the houses in Oslo that were built by Fehn and I heard back form one of them. The Carl Bodtker, who agree to let me photograph the exterior of his house. I’m trying to figure out when I can do it right now. I’m stoked.

In not so encouraging news, I’ve not heard from Fehn himself yet. If you remember I wrote him a letter at the beginning of December. I figured it might be the holidays that kept him from responding. But now that it’s the end of January I figure it’s most likely not going to happen. Unfortunate, but I half expected it. I’ve been told that he is pretty old and he’s had some tough couple of years. I’m not interested in bugging the man so I’ll let it go.

I did, however, finish a draft of the thesis. Which is a tremendous relief to have a draft to work through. And I worked out a preliminary outline for the presentation. So I’m pretty much set to nail this thing up on the wall. Anyone interested in reading 220 pages of Norwegian Architectural history I have pdf’s available all you gotta do is ask.

Over all things are winding up nicely. I’m going up north, next week maybe, to visit a Fehn building. And I might do some day trips around Oslo in the next couple of weeks. And then after that I’ll be on a plane back to the states.

BEDRE LEVEVILKÅR

photo lifted from this site(http://www.morgenutgaven.com/269) for dramatic purposes

In an effort to draw attention to and increase awareness of the injustice of global warming, the plight of the winter dwellers, the evilness of things like oil and air pollution, and God turning his back on those who have a basic right to winter, the snowman marched on parliament yesterday. (see story here and here and pictures here). The snowman stage their protest calling for “Better Living Conditions” in the face of Norway’s warmest winter in 60 years. The snowmen and women were quickly rounded up and, most likely, shipped off to some rent a tan salon where they are currently undergoing the most humiliating of tortures under the closed lids of scorching tanning beds at the hands of the Global Cartel of Evilness and Stuff.
In response God sent an insulting threadbare dusting of snow as if to say, “There, it snowed.” He could not be reach for comment at the time this story was published.


In other news the Holiday season has come and gone and it was all very relaxing. I spent Christmas watching movies and reading. A friend of mine said it sounded like a “mildly depressing” Christmas, but really it was not. True I like the conversation and the togetherness the holidays bring, but I am just as content being on my own. It’s been difficult to meet people with the traveling all summer and not being in classes or having a group of people in the same program hanging around. If I’d have gotten into a class or two it would have been different, and I’ll try to get into on for a while this quarter. There is a great one about construction in Norway I’d like to take. I have found it listed as being taught in Norwegian in one place and English in another. Classes start on the 15th and I’ll check it out then. The truth is, though, that it worked out perfect. I am zeroing in on a draft of my thesis complete. Hopefully next week, at the latest by the 15th. This is due to the time I had to travel and research and not have to worry about classes. And also, as will I will talk about in a moment, friends would have been a source of cash vacuum. In that friends would want to do things like, get drinks or have coffee or dinner. And I am not opposed to these things in principle, but here, in Norway, I am opposed to them in practice.
This is another description of the economics here (which I’ve talked about a lot the last 7 months and it continues to boggle me.) For instance, today I went to a café. I have not gone to a café or bar or restaurant really because to cost is ridiculous. But I miss sitting in a café, sipping tea, looking out a window, writing, reading. And so I thought these last two months could be a time for that sort of relaxation. A cup of tea. Ease in life. But the cup of tea was $5. And not an American super immense tall, but an actual single cup of tea in a teacup on a saucer. $5. And I was sitting there, drinking it and it occurred to me that I would like to do that everyday. I mean I could, I have the time. And a quick decent into the math found that if I went and had one cup of tea every day until I left it would cost me $280. For tea. This makes my stomach hurt. So I am undecided, because other them that the place was great. Cozy, a sitting bar that faced the street and a park the other side. People in and out. Pretty waitress types serving. Everything you could ask for. Except a reasonably priced cup of tea. Which is key, really.
And so that is to say, if I had made a bunch of friends and they all wanted to go have tea and beers and diner and stuff, I’d be busted flatter then I am already. But if I meet some people now it’ll cost me a little bit as opposed to a lot to hang out with them. Having just written this I wonder about the morality of choosing your friends based on economics. Regardless, the holiday was not “mildly depressing” it was perfect. I got some packages from friends. 3 actually. A package from Matt, full of a bunch of treats. A packages from Christina Haslip, with home baked cookies and an umbrella and some books from Justin and a robot drawing from Coffield. And a package from Tim Mace and his family. Also with treats and a wooden puzzle (which I already beat a bunch of times) and a package from Liz Maly, a small wooden Christmas scene including a fireplace, a tree and Santa. Liz’s gift arrived before Christmas and so I saved it and opened it Christmas morning. The others arrived after the holiday and so it was like four separate Christmases.




For New Year I was going to go check out some festivities. But I started feeling bad and got really tired and fell asleep at 10pm. At midnight I was awakened by the battle like roar of fireworks and the beginning of the New Year. These are not the week ass fireworks we see in America, but heavy artillery type things from china with fire in their guts and screaming exploding glory. And loud. And everyone had them. Crates with names like “Hell” and “Missile Base” and “Hell’s Missile Base.” The first day of Ought Seven I took a walk. All the parks were littered with spent revelry, discarded bottles and charred remains of firework.

My friend in Sweden Carl Baker, mentioned this housing to me as a place he wanted to see. I had stumbled through it one day and new what he was talking about. I finally got back to take some photos:








This is a student housing, the brick on this building was pretty cool:



Here are some photos of Oslo from a couple of walks:
























And finally the “snow” and how desperate people are here for it to come: