Christmas in Oslo

Such a great treat for a special Christmas! We finally reunited with our immediate and acquired family on the Christmas Eve, so we did not have to be the lonely Americans oceans away from our home.

On the December 23rd they after a swim meet in Gandia, kids and I left home early in the morning and took the train first from Gandia to Valencia, then from Valencia to Barcelona and flew to Oslo from Barcelona. It sounds like so much moving but actually it was very convenient and fun. We arrived in Oslo at 10 pm in the evening and entered the country without any passport check – this is the new European Union without borders policy, same idea as going from one state to another. We were so happy to meet Haakon and Tordis’s warm smiles and hugs again. Cold air hitting our face as soon as leaving the airport building was the first reminder of our distance from warm Mediterranean surroundings. The trees and bushes were all covered with beautiful frost, making everything look high definition.

A simple Christmas tree example at the Oslo airport

Drive from airport to the Helleland’s home was about 30 min. The streets were very empty and quite. Along the road, I noticed some American company names (McDonalds of course), many high tech companies, a shopping mall and sports complexes including an indoor golf course. When we arrived at home, we met much anticipated beautiful welcome hugs and kisses of Allis and Maren. Such wonderful and beautiful family and again we realized how lucky we were to have our paths crossed.

This was the first time that we visited the new Helleland home in Oslo. It was a 1967 built beautiful wooden house. Although they said it was in the process of partial remodeling, it already seemed perfect. The house was built by one of few Norwegian women architects Wenche Selmer. I was doing a little research on her work and this is what I found (http://www.aiasf.org/Programs/Gallery.htm):

Norwegian Wood
February 13 - April 18, 2008
Opening March 6, 6:00 pm

Whether set along the picturesque coast of Norway or in its remote mountains and forests, architect Wenche Selmer’s wooden cabins and houses blend effortlessly into their surroundings. Combining local building traditions with modern conveniences, her designs evoke Norway in all its rugged beauty and smart Scandinavian pragmatism. Just looking at these cabins is an invitation to sit down at the lovingly designed dining table for a hearty meal, or to curl up with a book on one of the inviting corner sofas while enjoying the panoramic view through large glass windows. These are houses that, while thoughtfully designed and beautifully crafted, were meant first and foremost to be lived in, and it is this accommodation of "high design" and livability that is partly responsible for their universal appeal. Taken from a book by Elisabeth Tostrup, a professor of architecture at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norwegian Wood captures Wenche Selmer's work beautifully.

Presented by
AIA San Francisco
Center for Architecture + Design

Sponsored by
Specialty Finishes

[Photo: House in Skadalen, Oslo, 1967. Photograph by Frode Larsen. Architect: Wenche Selmer]
There was an exhibition in Canada as well and here is the address to info exhibitions in Canada: http://www.aho.no/English/Activities/Gallery/wencheselmer_eng.htm)

Photo above , which is also on the book cover, depicts Helleland’s kitchen! Allis says that Selmer’s buildings are very hard to come by in the market because she does not make anymore and the existing ones are owned by families and usually stay in the family. They were lucky to be able to find this one because the couple who owned it did not have any kids and needed to move to a place closer to the town.

View of the Oslofjord from the house

Haakon's new baby!

From the deck on the first day when there was still some snow.

The houses in their neighborhood (Skadalen, a suburb of Oslo) reminded me of the American Northwest because they were almost exclusively wood and style was very similar to the older houses in NW. Most of these buildings looked very modest from outside like a barn or farmhouse but beautiful and good quality inside. The modern technology was amply used to heat the floors and driveways.

Montessori school across from the house

On the 24th Haakon the great surgeon began his goose operation! As one of their Christmas traditions, Hellelands make a stuffed goose for the Christmas dinner. So we watched the master debone the bird and beautifully saw it back together after stuffing with a meat blend, truffles and goose liver. I had not realized how much fat a goose actually had. Also after eating it, I realized that its fat is extremely delicious and light. I understand why French can eat it and not get fat. The fat that removed from the belly was used to make dressing for potatoes and gravy – yum yum….

In the mean time, Allis made a Christmas desert with rice, cream and almond pieces. As a Christmas tradition one whole almond is placed in the whole pot and the person who finds it wins a prize. You have to be careful not to bite on the almond because if you do, no prize!

For Christmas Eve service (Julaften), we went to the 4 o’clock service at the Holmenkollen Chapel, about 5-minute drive from the house (but by walk the distance would have been shorter using the shortcuts through the mountain). The chapel was built completely from logs and located by the famous Holmenkollen ski jump. The building was mastery in carpentry. The ceiling looked like an upturned Viking boat. This version of the chapel was built in 1996. The original buildings was torched in 1992 by the Lords of Chaos, some sort of demonic, gothic, black metal inner circle.

The chapel apparently held services every hour since the afternoon, including one that Royal family joined for they spend the Christmases at their log retreat in the neighborhood. The church belonged to the state Church of Norway, which is Evangelical Lutheran. This service was completely packed with many also standing up. Most ladies and children (and few men) were dressed in their traditional Norwegian outfits, Bunad.

Maren in her Bunad.
Tordis has a green one of these. They received their Bunads, made by their aunt, for their confirmation. Both costumes are hand-embroidered on silk fabric and accesorized by hand-made silver jewelry. Norwegians wear it to the special occasions.

I was told that nowadays most Norwegians come to the church only for the Christmas services. I wonder how all this works: I believe in Norway churches’ income is provided by the government (and also in Spain) - so different than the US. How is it possible for a secular institution to provide budget for a religious institution. Do they do that for all the religious institutions? Maybe it is necessary for the governments to keep them open to provide the traditional services to their citizens. Apparently, Spanish government recently announced that government no longer would support the churches financially. But when churches don’t get financial support from the government and their members are all time low (apparently 10% in Norway, the least church going country in Europe), how do they remain in existence?

During the 45-minute program, there was a brief reading from the bible and several carols and hymns, all in Norwegian but we understood the gist of it. The priest explained the reason why Jesus was born by using analogy. A little girl (an adopted Asian) tried to light her candle from the priest’s candle in the higher altar. No matter how hard she tried, she could not seem to reach. Finally, the priest came down and lit her candle. Haakon said the service was different than his times in Norway, which is a long time ago; these services apparently became fancier in decorations and the priest outfits.

I noticed some people speaking English with American accent. I know many of my friends have Norwegian ancestors, who visit Norway. Many Norwegians also speak English very fluently but with a little stronger accent than the Danish, who nearly have no accent. Haakon barely has any accent at all – he is just natural in languages.

As I said the chapel was located near a Norway landmark, Holmenkollen ski jump (still within the Oslo proper). This area was located near large woodlands (where we hiked up to a part of it) and has been a ski recreation area since 1892. The jump held the world’s second oldest ski jump competition. The course was renovated 18 times and today, the tower is 60 meters above ground and 417 m above sea level. Because it is one of the smallest hills in its class, the International Ski Federation declared it as unmet to the standards to award Oslo the 2011 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. Since then, the hill's destiny has taken on another turn towards demolish and rebuild effort; as a result, they received the 2011 championship event to be held in Oslo. The new project is estimated to cost over 100 million Norwegian Kroner (about $19 million). The hill record belongs to Norwegian Tommy Ingebrigtsen with 136 m in 2006.

Ski jump view from our hike trail

After the service, Haakon and I went to the airport to pick Haluk up. By the time Haluk arrived, all the frost was gone and the little snow on Helleland’s hillside had melted – the temperature went up to 6 degrees centigrade (42F). So much for the dreams of white Christmas! Al Gore who was in Oslo previously to accept his Nobel Peace Prize apparently did mention about the warm weather in Oslo. However by no means, I would call this weather warm – everywhere was frozen after all!

After a few glitches, Haluk arrived in Oslo around 8 pm. His flight from Las Vegas was cancelled because the MaxAir went bankrupt. So they placed him with Virgin Atlantic (in a packed airplane crunched up in the back instead of business class that he purchased) and arrived in England just in time for his BA flight to Oslo. a Great feeling of being reunited again….

Back home, the Christmas table was set and everyone was preparing a part of the dinner. We began the dinner around 9:30 pm and devoured everything in sight - the food was scrumptious. The stuffed goose was one of the best dishes I have ever had – it was amazingly exquisite with the musty flavor of truffles. After seeing all the fat it contained, I thought it would be extremely heavy, but it was surprisingly light. The fat dressing on the potatoes was also very delicious and light. I am so glad we had this chance to taste this yummy treat. After the meal, we had the rice pudding, which was also delicious, and Dilara found the whole almond. She was the lucky one who won the big marzipan prize. This is one meal I don’t think I can replicate so we will have to go back to the Helleland’s for another Christmas!







After the dinner, we went to the basement and sang Christmas carols around the tree. Singing carols while circling around the tree in both directions is one of the several traditions of the Christmas in Norway. The trees are decorated with candlelights (in the olden days, it was real candles), Norwegian flag (in ours it included Danish as well) garlands and simple ornaments. Many houses had 7-candle candelabras on the windows, simple white lights on one or two trees outdoors and little containers of flame along the driveways or by the walkway entrances.

After carol singing, we opened the gifts. The Norwegians open presents on the Christmas Eve instead of the Christmas morning. In Norway, the presents are brought by Julenisse instead of Santa Clause. Nisse is belived to be the original settlers of the land and they take care of the farms and animals (a belief system from pre-Christian tradition). There is not only one Julenisse but several in many shapes and sizes which look like gnomes. Julenisse are dressed in knee breeches, hand-knitted stockings, a Norwegian sweeter and a homespun jacket. The Norwegians leave rice porridge (the kind we ate for desert earlier) out on Christmas Eve to keep him happy so he continues to take good care of the land. If he is not pleased, he may play nasty tricks on people.

Julenisse decorations

The Christmas tradition in Norway is relatively new and tied to a pre-Christian Viking drinking festival Jul, when King Haakon I moved it to December 25th in the 10th century to celebrate the birth of Jesus! Before becoming Christians between 10th and 11th ADs, Norwegians believed in Norse mythology (the indigenous Sámi population followed a shamanistic religion). Even though celebration became all about Jesus, the name Jul was kept, so Merry Christmas in Norwegian is God Jul!

For three days, we drank Christmas tea and ate goodies such as Christmas bread (Julekake), filled with raisins and candied fruit similar to panetoni but not as spongy, traditional cookies kvite kakermenn (flat sugar cookies), pepperkaker (ginger bread), lussekatter (St. Lucia buns). Norwegians bake and share these cookies with the neighbors and loved ones – now I understand where the cookie exchange tradition in North America stemmed from. In addition to the cheese, cut meats (no we did not try any lutefisk!) and Haakon's delicious home-made bread, mountain cloudberries (red huckleberry, red whortleberry) were the main staples of every meal. The Hellelands pick these berries every year during their visit to their cabin in the western Norway. They are apparently abundant on the mountains as bushes and easy to pick gallons and gallons each day. Haakon makes them into this uncooked preserve with sugar and freezes for the winter. These berries are similar to huckleberries in taste, except a bit more sour with thinner skin, and when it pops in your mouth, a sweet-and-sour flavor disperses. The kids devoured them by the bowl on a butter-spread bread. We hope to visit the Hellelands in a summer for a berry picking adventure.

Mt. Cloudberries in the winter! they were still juicy

On the Christmas Day after breakfast, we went out for a hike on the hillside behind the house. Even though the temperature was not below 0, the path was mainly frozen. We had to be very cautious for not to slip. Yunus and Dilara’s grand plan for building a snow castle and giant snowman was unfortunately converted into ice-skating on every frozen piece of land.

Ice! Ice is everywhere...

Walking on water!

And soccer of course, as every good European would! A sorry soccer field in the schoolyard with a ball frozen in time...

House with the horse

Finding the path with snow to avoid an artistic fall.

Returning to home

Along our path, we passed lots and lots birch trees and some fine examples of Norwegian wood houses, some with vegetation on the shingles.

The roof of the house in the back has some vegetation growing.

Houses towards the end of the residential section had beautiful view of Oslofjord and the Holmenkollen ski jump area. One of the last houses apparently belonged to one of the famous Norwegian archaeologists.

This one also had some vegetation growing on the roof top.

Most elderly Norwegians that Haakon mentioned seemed to have lived to passed age 90; I wonder if their acquaintances are aberrations or that is a norm in Norway – their life expectancy is not one of the top in the world.

After the walk, we spent quite time at home. It normaly gets dark around 4 o’clock in Oslo. Throughout our stay, we only saw about 4-5 hours of daylight in a day – compare this to Spain, which was sunny and bright 7 am to 6 pm pretty much every day in December! I can imagine how it would get pretty tiresome to have the whole winter gloomy like this. No wonder so many Norwegians spend some time in Spain throughout the year according to the Guardian. The report says that Norwegian government finds it cost effective to send their citizens to Spanish Mediterranean cost for certain surgeries and spa treatments, including arthritis, weight loss and gait problems (I would assume S.A.D. most importantly), all paid by the Norwegian health care system.

On the December 26th, we went to downtown Oslo. All the stores and museums were closed but streets were filled with people taking a stroll. Apparently, Norwegians also take every opportunity to avoid a workday. The public transportation was running (the kids took the train, which Allis takes everyday to work) and working people in general looked like belonging to non-Scandinavian ethic groups. Most corner stores seemed be owned by middle easterners (we shopped at one that belonged to a Turkish person, who came to Scandinavia 30 years ago).

We first went to Allis’s office to pick up a computer part. The museum's administrative offices were located separately than the museum itself. The Hellelands moved to Norway due to Allis’s new position as the director of Norway’s National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design. This is a higher responsibility position than her previous one, which was the director of National Museum of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. After her appointment to this job, the majority of the newspapers in Norway welcomed her appointment and reported the Museum board’s decision as a positive move. However, I found an article that had a completely irrelevant take on the subject. The February 18, 2007 African Press article by Korir (http://africanpress.wordpress.com/2007/02/18/) states that marrying a Norwegian can earn an immigrant top job in Norway. Korir was obviously sore from some mistreatment, which ended up attacking a highly qualified person for the job. A more sensible comment by Ndlrangu to this article pointed to the fact that Allis’s credentials and work in Copenhagen was excellent and well qualified for the position. Obviously, some people will do anything to advance their agenda. Previous director, Sune Nordgren (Swedish!), apparently created a controversy when he tried to modernize the museum. We had seen partly demolished hands-on art building that he placed in the current parking lot space – it did look radical compared to its surroundings to say the least. Allis seems to have some brilliant ideas to transform the tired look of museum into a refreshed and refined enchantment. I am pretty sure within 5 years, National Museum of Norway will be a place everyone hangs out - she has that magic aura.

Allis's Museum - she has lots of work to do...

Back entrance to Allis's Museum

Remnants of modern addition to the museum

Allis is an extremely hard working, driven and enthusiastic person with a passion for her field and excellent leadership qualities. Her job of transforming the Copenhagen Museum into its current form is exemplary. In spite of her well-earned success, she is an incredibly modest person and a wonderful mom and wife – not to mention a terrific cook! She possesses the magic blend of intelligence and humanity. When I visited her hometown Lemvig last summer, I realized why she is so down to earth and possesses an amazing sense of family. She grew up in a farmland on the western Denmark’s seashore, where almost the whole town knew each other like a big family. She told us about hearing the stories of seafaring people as she was growing up. We visited the town’s graveyard where Allis’s family laid; she knew almost everyone, who was buried there. Her upbringing and strong connection to her roots apparently gave her the ability to lead with confidence and diligence. At her birthday party last June, one of her staff described Allis as “bread yeast.” Such great and suitable analogy: little piece of her makes her surrounding grow and the end product is delicious! I have a great respect and admiration for her.

After Allis’s office, we walked towards the Royal Palace and passed by some buildings with historical importance and some of the faculty buildings belonged to the University of Oslo .

National History Museum

Rontgen Building


Oslo National Theatre

Buildings of University of Oslo (road leads to the Royal Palace)

As we walked up the slight inclination leading to the Palace, we had to watch our steps for the sidewalks and the streets were all icy - no one is suing the city yet for this lack of maintenance! Along this road I picked up some horse chestnuts to bring me some luck; Allis told me that it also keeps me away from getting arthritis! (I wonder why they still provide arthritis treatments in Spain with so much horse chestnuts laying around.)

The Norwegian Royal Palace and the Christmas tree in front of it looked very modest. The modesty is something I noticed with the most Scandinavian royal heritage. Maybe due to its rough surroundings and priority of surviving in adverse weather and land conditions, they had to be more pragmatic than fancy.

Royal Palace - every year on the Constitution Day (May 17th) the king and queen wave at the passing by parade from this balcony all day long.

Looking into the city from the Royal Palace entry

The Royal Guard (normally a Buckingham Palace scene!)

Guard change - don't try this at home! the whole patio is ice covered and walking in a good posture requires this type of training.
Apparently, military service in Norway is mandatory up to 19 months (although it ends up being 6 months, I don't know how this works) and pacifists may choose a non-military service for 12 months.

Similar to the UK, Norway is also constitutional monarchy. The Norwegian king has mostly symbolic function and keeps the country united. The kingdom was linked with Sweden and Denmark in its history. When Norway separated from Sweden in 1905, the prince Carl of Denmark took over the throne after a popular vote through national referendum and changed his name to Haakon VII. He moved to the Royal Palace with his wife Maud and his son Olav. I find these family intricacies of European royalty quite amusing; what country is related to which by marriage is hard to follow.

Norwegian King Haakon VII (1905-1957) - the second son of King Frederik VIII of Denmark. As the 7th child, our Haakon was named after this king.

Queen Maud - wife of King Haakon VII, mother of King Olav, and the daughter of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of England. Haakon Helleland's artist aunt Ada Madsen (who is still alive) was the sculptor of this 1959 standing sculpture. She also sculpted the bronze one, erected 2005, in front of the Norwegian Embassy in London

Because of these ongoing relationships with Denmark, the Norwegian and Danish are very closely related languages; this Norwegian is called Bokmal. In 1800s Ivar Aasen created Nynorsk (New Norwegian, using old dialects!) based on Norwegian dialects. 10% of the population uses Nynorsk (New Norwegian) as written language. Apparently, there has been an effort to revive Nynorsk, where it is used in broadcasting and theaters.

Norwegians are also very proud of their role in fighting Nazi Germany during the WWII. Being a neutral country during the WWI, it tried to be neutral during the WWII, too. However, the country was invaded by Germany in 1940 despite a long military resistance because the Germans were interested in Norway’s hydroelectric power plant Vemork (west of Oslo), which produced heavy water as by-product. Norwegians with the help of British and Americans sabotaged this facility many times to prevent Germans from making an atomic bomb. During the resistance, the German marine forces lost many ships. Nazi Germany occupied this country for 5 years. Upon the invasion, the King Haakon fled to London while sending his family to the US. From the exile, he ran a continuing resistance effort against German occupation in Norway. In the meantime, the Norwegian merchant navy (which was one of the largest in the world at the time) under the leadership of shipping company Nortraship helped with the war efforts including evacuation of Dunkirk and the Normandy landings.

After the war, the royal family returned to Oslo and resumed their crown. After Haakon’s death, his son Olav succeeded the crown and in 1991, Harald V became the king of Norway. He married to a commoner and had two children. His son, the Crown Prince Haakon, married to a single mother, which initially stirred some controversy. The Princess Martha Louise apparently created some havoc after opening a private school called Astarte Education, where she teaches healing by talking with angels in a three-year program! So this is it for the royal gossip for me for now although the Norwegian press spends a lot time reporting these affairs.

From the Palace, we walked to the seafront. A Christmas market was still waiting lifeless to be dismantled.

Julemarked - note the sky!

The Christmas decorations around the city were simple and scant. The seafront, Aker Brygge, overlooking Oslofjord was developed with shopping centers and apartment dwellings, which reminded me of Yaletown in Vancouver. Even though called a fjord, apparently Oslofjord is not geologically a fjord. It is actually a bay (in the past it was called Viken, the bay in Norwegian). The Norwegian painter Edvard Munch had cottage in Asgardstrand on the fjord. No, we did not get to see his paintings because the museum was closed. Another time…

City Hall (Radhauset) (First among the 10 most important buildings of Norway in 2007); Christmas market was right to the picture

Nobel Peace Hall - this is where all the Nobel Peace Prize (considered to be the most prestigious) winners receive their awards unlike all the other Nobel Prizes that are presented in Stockholm Sweden.

Sunset at 3 o'clock in downtown Oslo

Akershus Fortress

Taxi Boats

Boats offering fjord tours

Shops along Aker Brygge - Note the big Horn Steak House

Some examples of sculptures scattered throughout Aker Brygge.

Ready for Costa Blanca!

As we were completing our tour, an elderly lady slipped on the ice and fell right in front of Haakon. That day was her lucky and unlucky day. She was unlucky for breaking her wrist few days after removing a cast from the opposite arm. Lucky for her that Haakon was there to help. As the great doctor he is, he quickly examined and comforted her, and called an ambulance. In the mean time, Haluk and I tried to help her to call her husband’s cell phone, which she did not have a number for. We asked her if he ever called her from this phone so we could track and call back. It was amazing how quickly she could switch to English when she realized Haluk and I could not speak Norwegian. This most likely would not be possible with a Spanish elderly. Well, she could reach her husband, the ambulance came promptly and the lady was taken to the hospital. We all felt like good scouts that had done their good deed of the day.

Ice skating in downtown

There are apparently only 4 medical schools in Norway and it is pretty competitive to get in. Giving up the hopes of going to medical school in USA, Tordis has investigated her options for medical schools in Europe. She found 3 English teaching medical schools in Poland, which only admits non-Polish foreigners. They offer a 6-year after high school and 4-year after two year college programs. In one of the schools, the majority of the medical students are seemingly Norwegian and some Americans, and Canadians who return to their countries once being trained. This economically makes great sense for these countries for they don’t have to invest into the most costly part of the medical education and once they pass their exams, their education is no different than developed countries (the students may also choose their elective rotations in major university hospitals in US, such as UCLA, UCSD, UCI) – smart move. In the mean time, these medical schools make money for one year’s tuition fee is about $15,000 – 7,000, which is still cheaper than USA. I am glad Tordis pursues a profession in the medical field. She is smart, compassionate and creative – and the medicine needs many of these kinds.

For dinner Tordis made her scrumptious lasagna from scratch again. Dilara helped her with making the pasta leaves from fresh dough. This pasta is so light and fluffy that after eating it the first time 3 years ago, we cannot seem to enjoy the restaurant lasagna any more. The Hellelands seem to be blessed with the talent of cooking - all of them are just great cooks. They enjoy good food and making it - maybe their artistic gene has something to do with it. Every time we have this lasagna, we are inspired to make it ourselves at home, but we never managed, yet.

Brief country info:

Norway is located between 58 and 72 degrees north, the area is 148,746 sq miles and the population is 4.8 million (of which 70,000 are Sami people) (by UN 2005 density is 31 people/sq km – 213th out of 240 in the world; vastly empty land! US is 179th and Spain 111). The per capita GDP is $72,306, which is the second in the world after Luxembourg (by world economic outlook). Of course we know why they are so rich: oil! In 1960s large reserves of petroleum and natural gas were discovered and thereafter the Norwegian economy took off. Our British friend David worked at the digging of these petroleum reserves as an engineer in the 1970s.

I hear that the Norwegians are very politically correct people. Just like us in US, their freedom of expression and religion are protected by constitution and the press is not censored; so even though they can say whatever they want, they must be self-censoring pretty well. Norway ranked 1st out of 168 countries in worldwide freedom press index according to Reporters Without Borders. In 2007, Norway was also ranked 2nd after Iceland in the UN Human Development Index (HDI), which includes life expectancy, education level and purchasing power parity (PPP) – a drop from 1st place in years 2001-2006. According to the same UN report, they also ranked number 1 in women empowerment index (GEM), which indicates whether women take active part in economic and political life of the country. However, it ranks 94th in gender-related development index (GDI) as percent of its HDI, which measures HDI adjusted for gender inequalities in achievement between women and men. Obviously Norwegian women have the opportunities in economic and political life but are not equally well off as men in terms of life expectancy, education level and GDP PPP - a word of cautions: this indicator only points to the disparity between men and women in a particular country, so a poorer developing country might rank better if the men are doing as badly as women! - so everything is relative isn't it?

As a nation, Norwegians are very proud of being moral compass of the world. Apparently if they learn that a company profits from a wrong doing or mistreatment of human rights, the country pulls out its holdings from that company, which most likely guarantees the imposter's demise – that should teach the other tempted ones a lesson (not to have Norway invest in your company ;=)!

Despite all the wealth, the Norwegians seem to live very modestly. We did not see any fancy cars around the city but maybe rich people were vacationing on the Mediterranean coast! The gas prices were outrages: 1.5 euros per liter (3 times more expensive than US). Due to this fact combined with their nationwide environmentalism, most Norwegians ride the public transportation (and no fancy Christmas lights). Obviously, Al Gore rode the train when he arrived in Oslo to accept his Nobel Prize in December – Allis said that it was quite the contrast to his visit to Copenhagen during his Vice Presidency - well, we all see the light sooner or later, right?

Some fine examples of public transport - tram and train (the one that Allis takes)

Finally, our journey ends on the December 27th. We again made fine memories and anchored our family ties. Morning sight of the drive to the airport was spectacular. The pastures and landscape reminded me of the driving along the roads of American northwest – I understand why many Norwegians choose to live there; Norwegians love their nature. This ride concluded our trip to Norway. Off back to Gandia, our temporary home for the last 3 months and so far remains to be another while…


Things we would like to do in Norway the next time around:
1. Visit Allis's Museum
2. Visit Vikingskiphuset
3. Bergen and Troldhaugen
4. Geirangerfjord
5. Northern Lights
6. North Pole
7. Blaafarveværket
8. Mt. Cloudberry picking