Norway

Last year Greg took me to Bergen, Norway, where it was cold and very rainy. This year Greg took me to Oslo, Norway, where it is cold and very expensive!










Bergen, Norway








Welcome to Bergen, the "City Between the Seven Mountains"!








Bergen has been nicknamed "The City of Rain" for the plentiful rainfall it's renowned for - annual precipitation is 2250 mm (88 inches) on average, where Texas is 38.

We made friends with a bartender while waiting for our dinner to-go order. She told us it takes a special person to live in Bergen because of all the rain. She said their winter in 2006 was just terrible. That rain fell every day between October 29, 2006 and January 21, 2007, for 85 consecutive days!!!



We were not surprised by this, as it also rained every day, the whole time we were there! When we first arrived it was pouring down, so we took refuge in the Wharf Market.

You can find many great items at the wharf, like whale meat and fancy hats. I passed on the smoked whale meat but almost bought this hat that seems to go with everything. Or was I just waterlogged and thought it went with everything??

The view from the fish market was very nice.

We had a quick break from the rain and headed off to Bryggen ("the wharf" in Norwegian), the once Hanseatic commerce center, now tourist shop district. Bergen's city centre is situated between a group of mountains known collectively as de syv fjell ("the seven mountains"), Fløyen or Fløyfjellet is the most visited of the seven mountains that surround the city of Bergen, Norway.

It has a funicular system Fløibanen that transports passengers from the center of Bergen to a height of 320 metres in roughly 8 minutes. Greg and I took a ride up, to see what all the fuss was about.


















Well, it was pretty high and pretty windy as you can see.

Since Greg and I had our V8 that morning, we decided to walk down the hill. It didn't rain and it was really pretty.



Greg was loving it and had a lot of fun playing in the grass like he was a kid.



Despite the constant rain and wind, Bergen is a fabulous city. (oh, by the way Mom, you can click on these pictures and they will enlarge ;-)

The city is rich with history and character. There is so much to do and see; although we were always busy and saw a lot, there was so much more we could have done. Maybe next time the weather will be better and I can go on a fjord ship ride.

Bergen is very pretty, relaxing and a must- see for those traveling to Norway.

Now on to Oslo!

Oslo is the capital and largest city of Norway.

Oslo is also one of the most expensive cities in the world. As of 2006, it is ranked tenth according to the Worldwide Cost of Living Survey.

How expensive you might ask?

Well, Greg and I walked into a pizza joint that looked like a Pizza Hut and for 20 Euros we could get a personal pan-sized pizza. We almost had a heart attack and ran out of the place refusing to pay 40 Euros for a pizza lunch.


Needless to say it was a very pretty place and we had a really relaxing time. Walking around town, taking in the sites and atmosphere.

Greg found out that a ski jumping contest was taking place, Fis World Cup Nordic 2008, so we jumped on a train and headed up a real big mountain to the Holmenkollen nordic skiing arena, and its centerpiece the ski jump.



















They were touting it was a 'World Cup', but I didn't see anyone from the US or Canada there. Humph, must be like our 'World Series' in baseball, where we only invite American teams but call it the World Series HA!

Anyway, on our walk up the mountain I saw a guy wearing a funny looking outfit and there were several people dressed like him all over. Come to find out, it is called Bunad, and it is a traditional Norwegian costume, typically of rural origin.

It made me laugh so I had to take a picture of him. Wiki states, "The interest for bunads dates back to Norwegian romantic nationalism and gained increasing interest with the folk dance movement at the beginning of the 20th century".

Does that not sound funny, or what! Romantic clothes for the folk dancing movement. Well, his gams are looking pretty good so I can see why a lady may swoon looking at that outfit.

Well we finally made it to the top of the mountain and here we are at the top with the ski jump behind me. I caught a little of the excitement on some film and at the end you can hear the announcer say 'yee haw'. It almost made me think I was back home in Texas...well almost.



I tried to get a shot of a ski jumper, but he just looked like an ant way way up there.

We were a little cold and it started to rain, so we decided to leave and go find a place to fill our bellies. That is when we ran into the expensive pizza place and so Greg decided it would be a good time to eat those sandwiches I packed instead.

I didn't get too many pictures of the town because of the rain and a little because it was cute but not really as photo cute as say Bergen. Or maybe it was because I was walking around town with a sandwich in my hand? Who knows, but I didn't really capture the moment or much sites around town.

Ahh, here is a funny photo, a Slutt Salg? Salg is Sale and yep, in Norweign Slutt means Out or The End . What is even worse is in Swedish it is actually Slut, and boy that caught my eye when I was in Finland and saw "A Slut Sale". hehehe

Walking around town we always saw the Radisson hotel as our focal point in case we got lost. When we found out that it had a bar and restaurant up top with breathtaking views of Oslo and the Oslo Fjord, we figured why not.

It was a really cute bar and Greg and I relaxed with a nice glass of wine and a cheese plate. I won't tell you how much it cost but Greg didn't seem to cough or convulse too much when he got the crazy high priced bill. In fact he didn't seem to mind much at all since we had a great view with great seats.














Oslo is cute and easy to get around! Great cafe culture with cute little shops every where, but not too exciting in the evenings. Worth seeing but a weekend is probably enough.

Ice Ice Baby

Christmas Day in Finland, is a time for rest and relaxation. Books brought by Santa Claus are read and food left over from Christmas Eve is eaten. It is not until St. Stephen's Day (Boxing Day), December 26, that visits are made to friends and relatives.

Greg and I decided to break tradition and go and visit his Finnsih friends Make and Anni with their two children Oli and Kaisa.They have a summer cottage not far from Kuopio where we celebrated Christmas Eve.

It is a very beautiful place that seems more isolated than Raili & Junnu's place.



As we were driving over to their place it started to rain. This gave an awesome mirrored effect to the frozen lake that was near their cottage.

Junnu and his pimp daddy outfit.


Before their dinner took place I was given a tour which included a look at a cellar, which is pretty much a place cut out of the side of a hill.

They also had a very old type of sauna called a smoke sauna.
Today most saunas are heated by electricity or wood, but this sauna is heated by the smoke. The savusauna (smoke sauna) is a special type of sauna without a chimney. Wood is burned on a particularly large stove and the smoke fills the room. When the sauna is hot enough, the fire is allowed to die and the smoke is ventilated out. The residual heat of the stove is enough for the duration of the sauna. Glad they didn't want to use it because I didn't really want to get all smokey and black.

Now back to the cottage where I found some pretty interesting decorations.

The Christmas tree was simple and plain but very pretty.

And here we have the Christmas, Moose...? hmm...

That didn't bother me as much as the stuffed squirrel and ferret that was on top of the TV.

Not sure if these were pets at one point in time or if this was some avid big game hunter's killings?? Proof of his life and death decision, Man versus Beast, and the man won against all odds.

Before the sun set it snowed and the frozen lake was covered with a light layer of snow that was really beautiful

Late into the night Anni told me to go outside to "listen to the quiet darkness". I bundled up and went outside alone ready to hear nothing but silence yet it was not quiet at all!

In fact it was rather loud and a little scary. It is hard to describe what I heard but it made goose chills go up my body.

I went running in to tell them that the night was NOT quiet and that it was making freaky noises. They started laughing and they told me that the ice must be moving and when it does it makes noises. Huh? Ice makes a noise?

Well, I went out on the Internet and found someone in Minnesota that recorded the sound of ice on a lake, and it makes a freaky noise. The exact noise I heard, this is EXACTLY what it sounded like .... so click on the item below and listen because I think it is cool.

Click here for more information about the songs
Click here to create your own MySpace Playlist

So now you know what ice moving on a lake sounds like.

Christmas Eve (a.k.a. FINNISH CHRISTMAS)

The Christmas Goat, or Joulupukki. The name of Father Christmas in Finland, literally: Yule Buck.

Only in Finland .... where their Father Christmas was a goat that frighten the kids and didn't give presents but demanded them, or else he would cause havoc.

It is an old pagan tradition in Finland that finally got a Christian flavor and now the goat is cute and made from straw or wood and they are still around everywhere!

For Christmas, Greg and I drove up to Kuopio to visit his Finnish Family, Junnu and Raili with their two children (19 and 16 year old Retta and Rosa).

I made lots of American goodies for them to try like cornbread dressing, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, double bean bean-dip (made from black beans and pinto beans), rice crispy treats. They usually don't have marshmallows here in Finland but I grabbed a bag at the store, Stockmans, when they had their New York State of Mind shopping days).

I also made several dozen sugar cookies cut in the form of stars and santas, and made my Mother's famous Cheese Ball. Which Greg tried to rename to Fromage Noel to give it a fancier name, but Greg honey we're from the countryside of Texas not the countryside of France and we like it that way!

Here is a picture of Junnu eating most of the Cheese Ball in one bite

Junnu & Raili were very proud to have bought a turkey for me and then put me on the spot on how to cook the darn thing.

I started laughing because as much as I cook, I have NEVER cooked a turkey!

I leave that up to my Mom who knows how to make one delicious and perfect every time.

Turkey is not really common in Finland, where they usually have a ham crusted with mustard and clove. I don't think Raili was very pleased to have spent a lot of money on a turkey, only to find out I didn't know how to cook it. YIKES!

Greg came to the rescue and suggested the Internet to find a recipe, thank goodness.

Here is the turkey and all its glory. I am sure you have heard me complain about how cramped and small everything in Finland is, well their ovens are no different. In fact, most of my pans and cookie sheets are too big to fit in the little ovens they have here.

I found out that if you have a house with a fireplace that this is used as an oven to get around the fact of having a mini oven.

Here is a picture of Raili putting the turkey in the fireplace stove where the heat below would cook the turkey, which I thought was pretty cool.

Since Finland had not received hardly any snow in December, we were wondering if it would be a White Christmas. Right before it turned night time (3:00 pm) it started to snow!! Yea a White Christmas after all.

J & R talked about how the sky would turn blue right before the sun went down and for a moment it seemed really blue, quite and still outside; very beautiful and peaceful.

Christmas in Finland is celebrated on Christmas Eve not Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve morning we started the day off with some rice porridge, which was really nice and plain tasting.

Raili also had prepared two Christmas desserts, joulutorttu and a spiced cake. Here is Greg pretending that he is not interested in grabbing a bite or two. He loves the joulutorttu, which is basically puff pastry cut out to make a star with plum jelly in the middle, sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Yeah, who are you kidding Greg with your arms up in the air like you aren't doing anything wrong ... I see that sweet-tooth twinkle in your eye.

Next, Junnu insisted that I go out to the forest and pick the Christmas tree I wanted for Christmas and then to cut it down. The nice thing about growing up on 10 acres of country side in Weatherford, Texas is that my Dad use to take us out to do this exact same thing.

So I have had a chance to experience this and told Junnu "Thanks but I have already done this". But as I was saying he insisted, and so here we are putting the tree in the holder that actually sits outside.

As you can see from this photo I am really "helping out".... thanks Rosa for doing the whole job for me... hehe.

CHRISTMAS DINNER: Before dinner is served you partake in the Christmas sauna. We sang Christmas carols in the sauna and enjoyed a cold cider drink afterwards. Now on to Christmas dinner, which included the following. Chanterelle mushroom soup as a starter. "Mushroom soup, anyone?"

Then comes the fish.
Usually all types of herring are served but this time only salmon was served which included: hot smoked salmon, cold smoked salmon and gravalax, which is salt cured salmon.

Salmon fish roe was also served along with the fish as well. To eat the fish roe you put small boiled new potatoes on your plate, with a side of sour cream, some chopped onion and the roe is stacked on top. This was actually really nice and I enjoyed trying all the different types of salmon.

Next, the Christmas ham and turkey was served. By this point I was already starting to be rather full. Of course, I couldn't pass on the turkey after they went to so much trouble. It was delicious and so was the ham.

I was really full after the second meat course and at this point Raili starts bringing out the Christmas sides Rosolli (a vegetable salad of beetroot, carrot, potato and gherkins),

Rutabaga or Swede Casserole (lanttulaatikko) , Carrot Casserole (porkkanalaatikko), and Sweetened Potato Casserole (imellytetty perunalaatikko), along with my corn bread dressing.

SO MUCH YUMMY FOOD. See, at our house we have Christmas dinner around lunch time 2:00 or 3:00 pm. This gives us plenty of time to eat and then come back later for the stuff you couldn't stuff in your face the first time around.

By the time we had our Finnish Christmas dinner (after skating on the frozen lake, cutting down trees, tree decorating, and Christmas sauna) it was already pretty late and I had to pass on a lot of the sides, but I really liked the Swede Casserole which tasted like sauteed cauliflower, it was really different but good!

We topped off our Christmas dinner with glögi, which is mulled wine and went and plopped ourselves down in the living room to see if Santa would come and visit.

In Finland, Santa doesn't come in the middle of the night to leave presents. He comes out in broad daylight and even knocks on the door. Usually the people in the countryside of Finland get their next door neighbor to come over dressed as Santa and to hand out presents. His words are always the same: "Are there any well behaved children here?" Naturally, in every home there are only good children and they all receive presents.

I was glad to see that the scary Christmas Goat is gone and now is replaced by Santa and his helper, even if we disagreed where Santa came from.

I say the North Pole and of course they claim Santa lives in Lapland, the upper part of Finland where the reindeer live. A big tourist theme park has even sprouted in northern Finland called "Christmas Land". This is near to where they say Santa Claus lives and people from the UK and Japan visit and send letters to Santa in Finland.

Greg told me to let them have this one thing.... but I'm not sure I can ;-)

You can't see much in this video but you will hear the Finnish song that sings hello to the Joulupukki

Winter in Finland

Actually the winter in Finland has not looked like the image here that I took a couple of weeks ago. The winter of 2007 in Finland has really been mild. When I say mild, I mean in Helsinki it is 33 to 34 degrees and raining instead of snowing.

Boo to the rain.

We have seen some snow but most days it has been cloudy and rainy. It has slowly started to get warm with temperatures in the upper 30's but just a few weeks ago it got cold, below freezing and it snowed. One thing that is definitely different in Finland, is when it snows there are NO snow days. Kids still have to go to school, buses still run, cars get around fine because of snow tires. So here is my track through the snow on my way to work.

This is a shot of where Tram 6 picks me up in front of our apartment. It takes me down Bulevardi to where Bus 42 will take me on to work.

Here is what it looks like at the bus stop near my work.
And here is a picture of my work building, KONE.

A Finnish lady, I work with, told me she is mad at the snow because it wasn't here for her when she needed it a couple of months ago. It might sound like a funny thing to say, but I can relate and agree with her. In Helsinki, they didn't have a white Christmas and it was rather dark. The whole of winter has been really dark as the sun rises after 10:00 and sets around 3:30 pm and there isn't any snow to reflect the light which can help make things look bright. So it has really been a dark and dead looking since mid October.

I remember when we first got to Finland in February 2007. There was lots of snow but it was also really cold. It was my first time to experience -20 C temperatures and what it meant to be properly dressed for the winter: wool socks, spikes on boot heels, scarfs, hats, gloves and dressing with several layers before the coat is put on. By the way, I had none of these items when we arrived, but Greg quickly took me to the Finnish sports stores to stock up on these items.

It didn't seem like we had been here long before Greg actually expected me to walk around outside in this winter weather. You would think that because he is from Australia that he likes warm weather too and would be just as scared to venture outside, but NO. He loves it when it is cold and even talks about how crisp cool days are his favorite. Shhh, I think the heat in OZ must of fried his brain a little or maybe it was one too many bites of bread with Vegemite.

A couple of weeks after being here Greg wanted me to see Suomenlinna. We walked down to the harbor (yes walked) and jumped on a ferry. It was pretty cool (literally and figuratively) sitting on the deck of the ferry watching it as it made its way crushing up through the ice to take us to the small island 15 minutes from Helsinki. See that white stuff behind Greg and I, well that is ice instead of water!

Suomenlinna Fortress Island was built late 18th century to protect Swedish Kingdom from Russian Empire. The fortress was lost to Russia (along with the whole of Finland) in 1809, when a confusing order made the Swedish soldiers to give a retreat order instead of engage. Doh! hehe silly Swedes.
At early 19th century, when Helsinki became capital of the new Grand-Duchy of Finland and the capital was being built, most of the workers lived on this island. There are a few hundred people who still live on the island and it looks like a great place for kids to grow up. Well, not from a parent's point of view, but from a child's point of view. As there are cannons and bunkers and old places carved out of the hill to hide in. Here is what it looks like during the summer. In 1991, it was included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

I never associated swans and ice before I came to Finland, but here they are enjoying walking on water.

In Easter 2007, Greg had two friends from Australia come to Finland, Craig and Katie. They joined us in Kuopio a city 5 hours north-east from Helsinki. This is where Greg's Finnish family lives and they were very excited to see Greg...oops I mean us.
They have a lovely home out in the country side of Kuopio. Raili, the Finnish mother, decided she would teach us to cross-country ski on the frozen lake right by their home. Here we all are (I am in the baby blue outfit) trying to learn to ski .

We also made it to Puijo hill, which is a famous landmark of Kuopio, and the ridge of Puijo is among the most popular recreation areas of the city. There was some downhill ski event, where people made ski items (for example, someone had a small house on skis). They would push these items down the hill to see if they made it in one piece and which one made it in the quickest time. At the end of the event you heat sausages over a grill and drink champagne out of plastic champagne flutes. Wasn't too bad, I just wished the Finns served bread with the sausage instead of just a stick... it would make it a lot more filling and less messy.
Here we are sipping champagne and freezing our bums off. Ahh, nothing like drinking champagne with a mitten on.

Here is a cute little girl all dressed up for downhill skiing and has wings to boot! I wonder if those wings help her get more hang time??

At the end of a hard day of skiing and eating sausages, we made it back to the Finnish Family's place for dinner and a relaxing sauna.
I even experienced my first Avanto, which is ice swimming. A hole is made in the ice of a frozen lake or sea and you jump in after a sauna and swim around a little.

See that house in the background? Well, that is their sauna. See that hole in the ice? Yep, that is the hole that I jumped in for my ice swimming. Greg was proud of himself for cutting it out of the ice and I was proud of myself for getting in at all! Greg talked about avanto like it was no big deal, so I didn't believe him when he said it was a real nice experience. The Australian girl, Katie and I looked at each other like heck no! Her man, Craig, gave it a shot and talked on and on about how wonderful it made him feel. He said that it made your body tingle and you felt clear headed and relaxed. I thought if it makes you feel so great, maybe I will give it a shot. And you know what? It did make my body tingle and any stress I was carrying around in my head disappeared. Probably because my brain was shocked quickly into thinking 'Holy crap, you just jumped in a hole through the ice, are you crazy or something'??!