Baby Slopes

Today, I finally felt like skiing was something I might actually be able to DO, sometime in the future.

We headed up to the Nordmarka at about 12.30.  I rented my skis, sticks and boots with insurance from the Tryvann Vinterpark Skiservice for 210NOK.  I think that this is relatively good value considering the risk to the ski hire business of having a Novice Ignoramous like me out and about using their equipment.

It hasn’t snowed in a week, so we weren’t sure if there was going to be enough snow to ski or not, but it turns out the conditions were perfect.  I’m not sure what perfect conditions are, but the man in the ski hire shop said that, and after my experience, I believe him!  It wasn’t overly sunny, and felt a little cold, but the air was so lovely and clean.  It was great!

We went skiing at Kong Olav’s Lope, named after King Olav (1903 – 1991) who used to ski there often with his dog, Troll.  Now, I don’t want to be casting aspersions on King Olav, or indeed his dog’s, skiing prowess, but we chose this place because of how relatively easy it is to ski.  It has very little steep slopes or high ascents, and is perfect for a beginner like me.

The past couple of times I’ve been out I’ve literally frozen at the top of anything that looked like it was going downwards.  (This happens a lot with mountains. ;))  But thanks to Henrik’s patience and repeated practice last week, I think I’ve actually developed a little.

For the first time (this is probably my fifth time skiing in total), I actually felt like I could go ‘downhill’.  Now, when I say downhill, I don’t mean like a steep slope, I mean something with a gradient of about five degrees, going in a forward direction.  But it was a brilliant feeling – leaning into the air while gliding forwards – not caring if I was going to fall or not, and gaining more and more confidence each time.

We spent about an hour and a half out on the mountain, practising technique, learning how to go downhill, learning how to break and stop, and falling a LOT!  My boss at BAI told me that it takes 100 falls to make a skier.  I think I’m getting pretty close to that target!

We found a nice spot at the top of the mountain to stop and have a picnic. Warm berry juice in a thermos and two brown bread sandwiches – one with paté and one with danish cheddar.  Yum yum.  After having eaten and rested, we skied a little more, and came home.

The Norwegians have a saying ‘Ut på tur, aldri sur’.  It means, when your out in the fresh air, it’s never bad.  I agree.

Halvorsens Conditori

It's fair to say that I have been warned often enough about how expensive Oslo is.  Between the varying exchange rate, the decimal points (my maths has suffered since the introduction of the Euro), and the fact that I haven't really been here for more than a week in the past, I sort of thought it was ok.  Expensive, but ok.  As long as one didn't go in for too many bottles of wine with a meal etc. it would be alright.  On Saturday, the bubble burst.

We were shopping in town and decided to go for lunch.  Henrik suggested this cake shop which is tucked in beside the Parliament and the Freemason Building. (Ahem).  It looked really lovely, and we were starving so we decided to go in.  On the way we passed a beautiful old-fashioned window cake-display.  This looked like the place for me!

According to Visitnorway.com, Halvorsens has served cakes, french pastries, sandwiches and canapés to the people of Oslo since 1881.  Had I read this before going in, the word canapés might have rung some warning bells.  However, none the wiser, and having passed the lovely cake display, in we went.  We passed an amazing looking counter with fabulous fresh cakes:

And really healthy looking sandwiches:

We also found a nice seat in a corner beside a photo of what the place looked like in 1881:

By the looks of things there weren't many customers back then.  But on Saturday, it was full of the pleasant hustle and bustle of people popping in for a nice afternoon cake and cafe:

As I mentioned, we were starving, so we decided to have a sandwich first, and maybe think about a cake later.  This was the moment where things started to go a little bit pear shaped.  Why?  Well, the sandwiches were made for, well, lilliputians I suppose.  An entire smoked salmon sandwich, no joke, was one slice of bread (that tiny bimbo bread) with one slice of salmon, and surprise egg underneath.  Check out the size of the slice of lemon below as a reference point.

Henrik ordered coffee and the pot that came with it was tiny, as was the glass of water I ordered.  It was pretty much a shot glass!  Fair enough I thought, maybe these Norwegians are really healthy and don't actually eat so much for lunch.  I should probably try to adapt to this custom, it might do me some good.  Then I saw the bill:

212 NOK, probably about 25e for two slices of bread with some food on them and a tiny pot of coffee!!!  The smoked salmon sandwich pictured above actually cost about 12e!!  NUTS.  I don't think I've ever eaten anywhere this expensive, and it wasn't even clear what we were paying for.  I mean, it wasn't as if some super chef was required to make the 'sandwiches', although maybe balancing all the tiny pieces of food on the tiny slice of bread is challenging.  I suppose the atmosphere was nice, but COME ON! Needless to say, we didn't hang around for cake.

Lá 'le Pádraig

Ceapaim gurb é seo an chéad uair go rabhas as baile riamh do Lá ‘le Pádraig.  Ní toisc nach bhféadfainn a bheith scartha ó mo thír dhúchais leis an imeacht a cheiliúradh, a mhalairt i ndáiríre, níl ceiliúradh déanta agamsa ar Lá ‘le Pádraig le fada, nó riamh le bheith fírinneach.

An rud ab aistí ar fad ná éirí ar maidin agus dul isteach ag obair, ag míniú do dhaoine cad é atá i gceist le Lá ‘le Pádraig.  I gcead do mo chomhleacaithe nua, a luaithe is a thuigeadar, guíodh beannachtaí na féile orm.

Cé go raibh sé aisteach dúiseacht i dtír atá go hiomlán clúdaithe i sneachta, agus dul ag scátáil ar an leac oighir ar na cosáin isteach ag obair, is cuimhin liomsa níos mó ná Lá ‘le Pádraig amháin sa bhaile nuair a bhí sé ag cur sneachta.

Só, cad is cóir don exPat a dhéanamh nuair a dhúisíonn sé/sí san Iorua ar Lá ‘le Pádraig?  Bhuel, a bhuíochas le iar chomhleacaí liom, bhí cuireadh ag mé féin agus Henrik dul go fáiltiú in áras an tUasail Gerarld Ansbro, Ambasadóir na hÉireann.

Bhí sé spéisiúl a bheith ag fáiltiú mar seo agus gan a bheith ag cur eagraíocht éigin chun cinn, ach, mar a dúirt Gerald, is lá na ndaoine é Lá ‘le Pádraig agus ba cheart é a cheiliúradh mar sin.  É sin ráite, bhí an chosúlacht ar an scéal gurb maith an deis a bhí san imeacht seo do dhaoine ar mhian leo gnó a bheith acu le chéile, bualadh lena chéile go sóisialta.

Bhuaileamar le roinnt daoine deasa ón Roinn Gnóthaí Eachtracha san Iorua, agus ó Pharlaimint na hEorpa.  D’éisteamar le ceol tradisiúnta agus chonaiceamar rince Gaelach á dhamhsa ag grúpa atá lonnaithe in Oslo.

Agus muid líonta go béal leis an mbia álainn a cuireadh ar fáil dúinn, d’fhágamar ag a sé a chlog le filleadh abhaile do chluiche an-shibhialta scrabble (in Ioruais – tháinig mé sa dara háit – ní raibh sé sin ró olc!!).  Ar ár mbealach abhaile phléamar ár ‘dtroscadh’ a bhriseadh le gloine fíona a ól, nó fiú roinnt seacláide a ithe, ach níorbh a leithéid sin de lá a bhí ann.

Tá paráid sa chathair amárach leis an imeacht a cheiliúradh.  Caithfidh mé a rá go bhfuilimse níos claonta i dtreo dul ag sciáil.  Cén saghas duine atá ionam in aon chor?

Nesoddtangen

On Saturday night we took the ferry out from Aker Brygge to Nesoddtangen to visit some friends of Henrik’s who have recently built a beautiful house out there. 

Although the harbour appeared totally frozen, the boat was still going back and forth once every hour. 

The journey itself took about 23 minutes.  By car it would have taken over an hour.  We arrived to an even more frozen harbour.  Again, no problem for this fantastic public transport system.

We had a lovely dinner, and got the boat back to the city at around 11 o’clock.  The last boat leaves for the city at 1am.   Compare this to the last bus in Dublin city (i.e. no water to navigate) at  c.11.30pm!!

The Colosseum

Friday night we went to The Colosseum cinema (http://www.oslokino.no/kinofakta/colosseum/) in Majorstuen to see ‘True Grit’.  I hadn’t gotten around to seeing it before leaving Dublin so was really looking forward to this.  The cinema experience unfortunately didn’t compare well to either the IFI (http://www.irishfilm.ie/) or the Lighthouse (http://www.lighthousecinema.ie/index.php), although it did have its own kind of magic…

We had booked our tickets in advance and arrived to a row of automated machines to pick them up.  Unfortunately, the machines were a bit slow to respond to the buttons that we were pressing, and it took a couple of tries, at least five minutes, and a bit of confusion in the queue behind us before our tickets came out.  I swear it was the machines, not us!!

The cinema was like a typical Dublin cinema.  The floor was sticky under our feet. It seemed like someone had deliberately poured litres of coke all over the place – maybe in an attempt to stop popcorn thieves? It also smelled of sugar and popcorn, and it seemed like everybody was carrying buckets of the stuff.  It had some ‘Great Deals’ for popcorn and soft drink combinations.  Clearly the Scandinavians have also succombed to this brash cultural phenomenon (A-hem ;)).

The building itself was quite interesting - sort of like a colosseum (hence the name I suppose) with lots of tunnels winding around between the screens.  Were the floors not so sticky one might have been tempted to explore! 

The screening room we were in was fantastic.  It was absolutely massive and must have had capacity for two hundred people.  It also had a great big screen and pretty good sound, which was not too badly affected by the international community of loud popcorn-munchers.

The film itself was great and probably worth the 100k (c. €13) ticket price. Hailee Steinfeld was amazing as Mattie Ross.  Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon were also good.

My First Day at School

Today was my first day at school!  The day started with a pretty full-on conference at the Litteraturhuset on Wergelandsveien (http://www.litteraturhuset.no/).  This is an interesting building which hosts debates, conferences, book launches and houses a café, a restaurant and a book shop.

The conference was about innovation and growth in the Norwegian media industry.  The conference was totally in Norwegian and I was pleasantly surprised by how much of the language I understood, although I could be susceptible to a dose of begginer’s optimism here. 

The conference was organised by the New Media Network (http://newmedianetwork.no/2011/02/20/membermeeting-march-10th-2011/) which has been fostered by Innovation Norway.  Innovation Norway has been set up to promote development that is profitable to business interests and the country’s economy.  I’m quickly learning how structured and focused these Norwegians really are!!  Imagine something like that in Ireland – Shell anyone?

After the conference, we caught the tram to the University, where I was given a tour of the building, including my office/desk and information about the administrative side of things.  I met lots of welcoming, smiley, friendly faces which was very reassuring.  It certainly seems like I have landed in a good place. 

Following on from the tour, some members of the faculty took lunch in the canteen.  It seems quite customary to bring in your own lunch to eat, although the canteen itself is really reasonable priced.  I bought my lunch for half the price of my tram fair.  However, I like the idea of bringing in food to eat, instead of depending on what is available from day to day.  Resolution: make lunch for tomorrow!

One thing to watch out for here is the cost of public transport.  I paid 40NOK for my tram fair to the university, a journey which was about five stops in total.  I paid the same for a journey from Bygdoy to Solli Plass with my parents on Monday.  This works out at about €5 a pop and is pretty damn expensive.   

The trick, aparently, is to by your tickets for public transport in advance.  I’ve been advised to buy something called a ‘Flexikort’, even if I don’t intend to use public transport regularly.  This will allow me to travel up to eight times for 200NOK which is about 25NOK a pop.  This is still pretty expensive relative to Dublin Bus standards (it’s about double the price of a standard fare) but I suppose regular, timely services make up for the cost somewhat.

As I couldn’t access my computer (I didn’t have a login or password – some things are the same everywhere!) and had left my laptop behind, I decided to head home for the afternoon and work here.  On the way, I got caught in the first snowfall that I have experienced since I got here.  It wasn’t so bad at all!  Tomorrow I’ll go back to the uni with my laptop and start mapping out my project.  Exciting times!

Ski Saturday!

On Saturday we went to see the penultimate event in the Nordic Ski World Championships – the mens ski juming competition.  For anyone who ever watched ‘Ski Sunday’ on the BBC as a child, this was a spectacular event!

We all used to love watching 'Ski Sunday' at our house.  Apart from a particularly memorable theme tune (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB74Y_jDN6c) it was amazing to sit in our Irish sitting room watching people racing down slaloms and flying out of the ski jump like Eddie the Eagle!  It was like watching aliens on another planet, one that we thought we would probably never visit.  Looking back I realise we had no idea what was actually going on, but it was 'must-see tv' all the same.

So some twenty years later, I’m leaving the appartment where I now live in Oslo on the way to this ski jumping event.  We leave the house at 12.30 on a beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies.  We had been warned to leave early as people had missed competitions the previous weekend due to the large crowds attending.  It certainly seemed like the entire country was making its way up to Holmenkollen.  Holmenkollen is home to a new Ski Jump which was completed in February 2010.  It is a fairly intimidating looking construction once you get up close but rest assured; it is Norwegian, and therefore, the best in the world!

We took the express train and arrived in relative comfort with plenty of time to find our seats in advance of the event.  The place was packed, with vuvuzelas and cow bells parping and clanging at every turn.  However, as soon as we got to our seats, we were in for a great show.  We were very lucky that our seats were quite close to the bottom of the runway, so we could see exactly where the jumpers landed.  It was unbelievable to see each competitor come flying out over the jump.  By the end of the day we were all experts on the style that was required to make a long jump.  Although no world records were broken, we did see a jump that was 141 metres long.  It was wind assisted but amazing all the same.

The crowd entertainment before, during and after the event was impressive.  We all found ourselves dancing to some classic hits like A-ha’s ‘Take on Me’ - more for maintaining body heat than any particular fondness for the music it has to be said.  We (the crowd) also apparently broke the Holmenkollen stadium world record for Mexican Waves – although seeing as how the stadium is about a year old, this may not be a particularly fantastic feat!

Flight

We left Dublin on Friday 4 March at 12 o’clock.  I say we because my parents came with me.  I had booked a trip to Oslo for my mother for Christmas to see the Nordic Ski Jumping World Championships (more about that later) but that was before I found out that I had a job in Norway!  It just so happened that the trip coincided perfectly with my planned start date. 

Our SAS plane was lovely and clean, spacious and comfortable.  Boarding commenced on time.  There was no queue to get on the plane, and it was fully boarded ten minutes in advance of take off.  You gotta love the Scandinavians!  We got a free newspaper each – ok it was in Norwegian – but still!!  I tried to read the newspaper to brush up on my language.  Again, the pictures helped quite a bit, but I was able to make out pretty much what had happened with the crew of the Beserk ship that went missing on its way to the South Pole, and with the Nordic Ski World Championships.  I tested my understanding on the Norwegians over the weekend and I think I did pretty well!!

The plane journey was made all the more exciting by the radically different landscape that appeared as soon as we approached the Norwegian coast.  Literally everything was white.  Mountains, valley, trees, everything.  All of the lakes (I’m not sure if they were fjords) and rivers were also frozen.  It looked spectacular!

Landing in Oslo Gardemoen was also very pleasant.  Nothing beats the ‘Flytoget’ train that leaves roughly every ten minutes for central Oslo and beyond to Drammen.  I in my ignorance thought ‘Flytoget’ was a bit of an akward name and that the Norwegians could have come up with something better in their own language.  This was until I discovered that ‘Flytoget’ does not mean ‘Fly to Get’ in English but ‘Fly’ as in ‘Flight’ and ‘Toget’ as in ‘Train’!  It’s the little things….  

Packing

Today is all about packing.  Well packing and dumping to be honest.  It’s quite the cathartic experience!  I finally get to through out those hideous black shoes that I wore to work almost every day.  Not for want of choice (I really don’t think Henrik had any idea what he was getting himself into on that front), but because when cycling in and out every day, one tends to get a bit lazy about the change of clothes one is willing to carry from A to B.

I’ve always prided myself on not being a hoarder, but it’s interesting how much useless stuff I’ve managed to gather in spite of myself.  It’s also quite a lesson in appreciating what a sucker I’ve been for marketing.  I’ve found a full tube and refill of some miracle anti-wrinkle eye cream that I’ve barely used.  I am bringing that with me – just in case!  I have however decided that I won’t be needing sunscreen for my hair for the next couple of months in Norway, so I can part with that.

I’ve spent an unnecessary amount of time trying to decide whether I should bring silly things, like my unsolveable Rubik’s Cube, with me.  The Rubik’s Cube is unsolveable because I’m pretty certain I cheated once and moved some of the stickers around - that’s my excuse for never having matched up more that two sides.  Although I’m fairly certain I won’t be needing these things, I’m realising that I have absolutely no idea what my life is going to be like on Norway.  I feel like I’m standing on the edge of something and about to jump – I just hope I remember to pack my parachute!

The Last Days in Dublin

I’ve spent the last two days walking around Dublin and meeting friends for food and drinks.  The weather has been stunning, with clear blue skies and sunshine.  Dublin is really beautiful when the sun shines. 

On Tuesday I walked from Glasnevin to Ranelagh via Clery’s on O’Connell Street, stopping for a stroll through Merrion Square and a well-deserved break on a bench there!  I had lunch in TriBeca – a beautiful Lamb Tagine, and met Jessica and her new baby Sadhbh who is absolutely gorgeous.  I then walked back into town via Leeson Street and Stephen’s Green, and met Eimear for dinner in Wagamama.  Eimear and I then moved on to Oleysa’s wine bar on Exchequer Steet, intending to have desert and a glass of wine there.  As the deserts cost €7.50 each, we decided to share a bottle of wine instead.  It was the right decision.

On Wednesday my mother and I went into town early to buy three oversized sports bags in a bag shop on Liffey Street.  These sports bags are going to carry the final lot of my belongings from Dublin to Oslo.  The great thing about flying with SAS is that each of us has 23kg baggage allowance, plus 8kg hand luggage, included in the price of our ticket.  It really is a pleasure to be flying with an airline that appreciates its customers!

Following the purchase of the bags, I walked over the Ha’penny Bridge and through Crown Alley and Temple Bar to meet Sinéad and Pamela for lunch in Coppinger Row.  Lunch was lovely – stuffed aubergine with salad and parmesan – yum.  I then walked down to the National Gallery for a quick look at the Modern Irish Art exhibition there, before catching the DART out to Dun Laoghaire to meet Ellen.

In Dun Laoghaire, Ellen and I walked along the East Pier which looked magnificent in the light. We got some food in the Harbour Bar and Grill before heading home.  I had fish and chips.  It was that kind of day.

I’m really going to miss these people and this place.