Ødderøy, falling into the Atlantic, and Max Manus

Homecoming: Day 3-

"Waffle Island"

Today could be considered the first official day of tourist activity, for yours truly. Christian had been talking non-stop about this place –Ødderøya- which has spectacular waffler (“waffles”). Unbeknownst to me, this waffle-house of Norwegianess stood halfway up a small mountain. But you know what? Eff it. I’m Norwegian and Norwegians, when they want something, they do what it takes and by God, I raised my hands unto the sky and screamed at the top of my lungs- “BRING IT!”

[Editor’s Note: I more or less stated, “Alright, I’m down” and it’s not so much a matter of willpower to conquer this small mountain, rather it’s just a relatively small hike and as we all know, Norwegians like the outdoors and like to walk around. So, when the walking gets tough, the tough get walking, right?]

So we began out hike and it was not bad at all. For a country of fjords and ginormous hills and valleys, it turns out Ødderøya is quite small in comparison, and since the waffle house sits roughly at the halfway point, it was a good morning’s outing. The waffles, though, were mondo overpriced for what they were - store bought pancake batter slapped onto a do-it-yourself waffle iron.

EH, it’s all about the experience, ikke sant?

[Editor’s note: saying “ikke sant” at the end of a sentence like I did means essentially “am I right?” or “don’t you think”. Try saying it sometime, it feels much more….international and suave.]

Interesting thing, though: I’ve been trying hard to use my Norwegian the entire trip and I don’t know what it was (either my backwards UW cap, red flannel shirt, touristy-looking camera, s.v.) but the moment my sentence didn’t make sense, I apologized and said I was from the USA and it was my first trip to Norway (said like this: Unnskyld, men Jeg kommer fra USA og dette er min første tur til Norge) and guess what the dude says?

“Oh, I know.”

If he weren’t such a tall, built, and very strong looking Norwegian man, I’d probably have slapped in the face with my white-glove and challenged him to a duel. But instead, I laughed and said “hahah yeah.” Whatever, you’d have done the same thing if you were called out like that….

After waffles, we decided to listen to the big-Norwegian behind the cash register and follow some trails up Ødderøya because there was a good chance of seeing some wild-life [dyr]. This ended up being a very long hike up the mountain with no animal, or its tracks, in sight. Luckily for us, Christian and I were wearing tennis shoes and were able to trek the mountainside like we owned the fool (though to be honest, we slipped and fell a lot and had soaking feet by the end of the trip from all of the off-roading we did). Even though we didn’t see any animals, we say a lot of coolness that was the WWII bunkers and remnant buildings that the Kristiansand military was nice enough to leave behind for us. See, during the Nazi invasion of 1940, Kristiansand was one of the main oppositions because it is a large port city. And yes, if you know your Scandinavian countries, you’ll have said to yourself- “Wait Mike, most of Norway is port cities”- and you’d be correct, which is why the Nazi’s attacked ALL of the major cities (all ports) and began its occupation in one fell swoop in April of 1940.As you will eventually see when I get around to posting my pictures, I took a TON of photos. See, I only go to countries that are rich with history and give me an inquisitive and awe-inspired history boner; Norway fills the “history-boner” shoes quite well.

SO, boners all of varieties aside, we made it down the mountain just fine, even with a couple of ice-related falls. Once down, Christian whips into a sweet-looking dock spot where the ice had been broken leading up to the shore from the obscure warm weather Kristiansand had just received. And this is where I, Michael Snowden, fell into the Atlantic Ocean.

Short story short: I took an unlucky step between two rocks that were hidden under the snow and slipped right down into the frigid water. It really wasn’t that bad and only my calf was soaked but to be honest- it was hilarious. Had I been walking by and seen it, I would have been that dude you hear in the background that sounds like Nelson from The Simpsons- “HA-HA!”

After wringing some Atlantic from my jeans [bukser, pronounced “book-sir”, with a long ‘O’], we toured downtown Kristiansand. By the way, the city center for a Norwegian town is simply referred to as sentrum [pronounced like the multivitamin “cen-trum”]. Everything was closed because it was Sunday [Sønndag, “sun-dog”, long ‘U’] but it had a really nice feel to it and I felt instantly that if it came to it and someone said “Mike, you’re moving to a city in Norway- where shall it be?” My answer would be Kristiansand. Flat-out. Inflation is still high, but it’s not as bad as Oslo (which I’ll get to in a bit).

At the end of the day, we watched a movie called Max Manus, which chronicles the WWII hero of the same name. Basically, Manus becomes one of the most lethal and successful saboteurs for Norway and unlike movies about famous people- he isn’t a martyr; he doesn’t die in the war! I know, right?!

In any case, this is long enough. I’ve included a link to a (hopefully) subtitled trailer for the movie. Check it out and Netflix the real thing later.

Fra Norge med kjærlighet.

The Exhausting Realization of faulty Planning

Homecoming: Day 3, Part 1

"Early Morning Hussle"

For the record, I am not awake at 6:30am because of jetlag- I simply fell asleep at like 7:30 from an awesome day and I woke up accordingly.

But, I have been kept up with the realization that I haven't planned out everywhere I'm staying yet and even though I wanted a "non-itinerary-dominated" trip, I guess I got too cocky about my first real international trip and didn't plan enough.

So, in order to fix this, I have boiled down my options to thus:

1. Pay monies to rent hostels and cheap hotels;
2. Use family and friends as hookups for couches or floors;
3. Utilize a world-wide couch-surfing website that gathers travelers the world over who have couches for you to sleep on.

Right now, I'm leaning towards the CouchSurfing thing because I can travel to more places and meet more people. Yes, MOTHER, there runs the inherent risk of the movie Hostel taking effect, but from what I have seen and have been noticing- at least in Norway- it's typically safer to do these types of things. They have a group on the CouchSurfing website that is called "Last Minute CouchSurfing". Those kind of categories aren't created if everyone has been abducted, ya know?

So, I've created my profile and I'm looking for places to stay on my travels for cheaper. Although, socializing and going out at night miggggght make it more expensive...we'll just have to see! If I stay mostly in non-EU countries, I'll be fine because of the exchange rate.

However, if anyone knows of family or friends abroad in the area, I'd love to hear about it!

Anyway, I need to plan a trip, so...umm..peace!

JULTREFESTEN!!

Homecoming: Day 2, Part 3

After we showered and changed from working, we walked down the street to the old school house where the Jultrefest was. Don’t worry, I was just as confused about it when I realized we were going to a Christmas tree party in January. Here’s what I gathered about the celebration:

1. It’s an annual event that basically retains all the goodwill of Christmas for one final celebration held in the small, retired school house;

2. It’s not elitist by any means, but it seemed that only those who were relatively familiar with the Wathne family knew about it [there’s no way it’d fit the whole town];

3. It felt as if this was the Christmas party for families and friends, the ones we all have before Christmas;

4. Santa Claus comes after they sing a song to “call him out”;

5. Songs of the season are sung while everyone gathers around the Christmas tree [I’ll talk more about this in a second].

I’ll tell you this much, it was a damn comfortable and friendly little school house. We had gotten their late and didn’t have a place to sit, but the place was just filled with happiness and joy. It almost felt as if it were Christmas Eve, truly. I saw Farfar being a pimp with the other elder men against one of the walls; Farmor was sneaking into hidden seats to talk with everyone; and I met a nice man and his kid who were sitting at the table with us (this happened after people brought out another small table). As we drank coffee and ate cookies, fruit, and bread, this man (whom I can’t remember) talked to me about my trip so far and how long I was here, where I studied, etc and it was nice to meet such friendly people. I tried my best to keep up the language, but in my attempts to be clear, I spoke really quietly and repeating things too often forced my hand to use language. As it turns out, the young snowboarder/skateboarder clothing line in America is alive and well in Norway. The guy’s son was wearing an LA Dodgers cap to complete his outfit and I asked him if he’s ever been to LA – low and behold- he has not. He just likes the team, but there is nothing wrong that! I used to where an NC Tarheels cap and I didn’t even like the team, I just liked the colors- they went well with most of the clothes I wore.

After the Santa song was sung and a very skinny Santa came out to give candy to the kids, we played trivia. They had a round of trivia for the kids and there was this one girl who kept saying she got the answer but I didn’t see her answer one-yet she had almost 12 pieces of candy! She’s a sneaky little devil! When the kids had had their fun, the adult round began. I was proud because I only had Christian translate a few of the questions for me, and right when I was getting the hang of it- the Ringleader of the Night calls out- “we have a visitor from America with us tonight- this question is for you!”

So naturlig, everyone turn around to see me in my red flannel shirt, Seattle-style glasses, and me looking around at everyone-because-they-were-all-looking-at-me; I was made. I was put on the spot and kind of nervous about the question ‘cause I mean, what if I got it wrong? I’d be the worst American to visit this small and beautiful town!

The question: Who is the Governor of California?

I know, right?! Perfekt question! BUT right before I answer, Christian speaks up and calls “Arnold Schwarzenegger!” What a douche! He had all night to answer and get candy, yet he takes mine! OH MAN I WAS ‘PISSED’! We started laughing and I brought it up to him, saying, “You know, Arnold isn’t the governor anymore, right? He was done in office on Monday”. Christian quickly turns to quiet me and says, “Shhh! They don’t know that yet!” Retaliation: Complete- I almost had his candy taken away. Boom! Don’t mess with me, yo!

When trivia was done, they wrapped up the night singing songs around a Christmas tree, but in a traditional manner, where the youngens hold hands and make a small, inner circle around the tree and the adults hold hands to make up the larger, outer circle. When they sing, they move around the tree, but in different directions. Usually it started out with the kids moving clockwise and the adults moving counter-clockwise, but at stopping points in the song, they would halt, sing, and change directions. Christian at first seemed embarrassed but quickly got over it as he remembered the words to the songs from when he was a kid. I also remembered one of the songs from class and joined in from the sidelines, tapped my boot a bit, and clapped my hands together.

After 8-9ish songs, they Ringleader of the Evening concluded with a “thanks for coming, it was a fun night and we are so lucky you came” kind of thing and they sang a final song and that was that.

EXCEPT afterwards, I had a TON of Norwegians flank me to talk to me about being from America and how my trip was going, if I had family, if I could speak Norwegian, and so on. I tried to use my Norwegian for a while but after a bit I couldn’t think of the words so I allowed them to practice their English.

We came home to a homemade-from-scratch pizza that Berit (my host-mother) had prepared, which was DELICIOUS! OH.EM.GEE! SO good! The crust was perfect! I don’t even know what flavor it technically was but I definitely ate too much of it to be comfortable!

The night was ended with going to Christian’s sister’s place just down the street to use her wifi and plan out our trip to the capital city of Oslo. Just saying- I’ve been having these weird dreams where I’ve been getting into a bit of trouble…I’m hoping this isn’t a premonition for my upcoming trips….

Fra Norge med Kjærlighet

Work all Day, Party all Night

Homecoming: Day 2, Part 2-

"Klæver vi ved og drikker noe kaffe med Farmor! [We chop wood and drink coffee with Grandma!]"

I managed to get a couple more hours of rest and it was good, because it was my first day of wood chopping and I didn’t want to be that guy that got his fingers chopped off from being too tired to pay attention.

[Editor’s Note: this is not a jab at Christian’s grandpa’s brother who actually had this happen to him- I’m just saying I didn’t want it to happen to me]

It all started with a quick tractor ride to the CHOPPING ZONE i.e . the area where we worked. And yes, I rode in the bucket of the tractor, which I will say, will always tickle my fancy since it is one of those things you just don’t do very often. After we got p the property a little ways, Christian cleared some of the piled up snow out of our way and then lowered the klævermaskin into place.

“Wait? Klævermaskin? Woahwoahwoah! What happened to lumberjacking, yo?”

(or so I would think someone would say)

Today, we didn’t technically “chop” wood how most westerners, myself included, would think to chop wood. The wood was already chopped in smaller pieces from an earlier trip to the tree farm and what we did was essentially chop it up even further by setting it on a guiding track and having a very powerful metal arm push it towards an industrial strength axe-head. And I when I say industrial, I mean, it really wasn’t that sharp, but with the torque of the extendo-matic robot arm, this thing was splitting big-ass frozen pieces of wood. Even though I only lifted the handle to being the arm-moving-process, I still felt like a badass when that wood seemed to cry out to the world. Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears because it was just SO AWESOME! I did have a small part to do with it, seeing as I would lift the heavy, ice covered pieces of wood onto the tracks. It gets to be quite a workout not because all of the pieces were massive, but they are frozen, which means that maybe a 3olb piece of wood could easily now weight 35-40lbs. Do that for a couple of hours and you got yourself some MUSS-KULLS! Christian and I switched jobs after an hour or so. My new task was to break the ice on the wood that was frozen together and stack it next to the chopper dude (which was now Christian) and then stack the wood he cut. In between all that, I would do small things like shovel some snow from around the stacks, or axe small pieces of wood that were a waste of time on the machine, etc.

After a couple hours, we walked down to Farmor’s house to dry-off and warm up over some coffee and cookies- and some good conversation. Once again, Farmor was a champ and slowed down her speech for a little bit, but thanks to the easier Kristiansand dialect, I was able to pick up more than before. I contribute this partially to being rested, but also to the fact I pick up on things quickly. In any case, we mostly talked about how the weather was going to take a turn and it wasn’t a good thing, but then Farmor remembered she had shown me an olddddddd school perfume bottle from 1742 and this set her off on a history tangent, which, I thought was absolutely amazing!

Farmor showed us:

1. A pair of scissors that were probably, if not certainly, used by the tailor-trade Wathnes back in the old days;

2. A busted up flint, that we eventually also said could have been a fishing weight;

3. A HUGE ass pipe one of their relatives used (remind me to tell you this story as a follow-up post);

4. Pictures of said guy who used the pipe;

5. A Flint-lock from a rifle that was found in the ground;

6. Small, horn-looking things that Christian and his brother had found as small children;

7. A powder-tobacco horn;

8. And her families collection of generation-spoons [every generation imbibes a silver spoon as a sort of commemoration. This has been going on for thousands of years. The earliest I can remember was 1718).

Of course, there was probably more, but these were the ones that stuck out the most. Seriously, people pay butt-loads of cash to go in a museum and see an item with a caption that says something like “Found on Wathne, 1718” and here I am –ON Wathne (the property is their family name)- and talking to the family historian about all of this cool stuff that is hardcore history…AMAZING!

Eventually we went back out to work for another hour or so, but then we left to get ready for….

JULTREFESTEN!!!!

A dying iPod and two strange lights

Homecoming: Day 2 (technically), Part 1-

"I could swear I saw one!"

[Editors note: As you’ll see, I’m breaking up the days into smaller parts, because as anyone knows, I can talk about things I’m passionate about for a good while. Some of these parts may over lap, but that’s ok. Why? Because I said so]

So, it’s now 6am here and I can’t get back to sleep. I was actually really fortunate to sleep another 5 hours after I initially woke up but still- no one is awake and I feel inclined to stay put, ya know? I decided to look out the window, which was slightly illuminated from the massive amounts of snow outside. It was still early, early morning but because of all the gorgeous snow, it wasn’t completely dark. This left a light purple haze across the hillsides that I found completely encaptivating (if this isn’t a word, too bad. I added it my computer’s dictionary, suckas)- until I saw the lights. Two small lights across the lake that looked like headlights at first, but then I realized that they were two individual lights, not pairs. Oh, and as anyone might know about me, when I am tired or can’t sleep, my imagination wonders incredibly far. Right, so, my first thought went straight where it usually does: aliens. Yes, I swore they were alien headlights because as the picture below will show, I SWEAR I captured an UFO on film. Look! Look in the top right- streaaaaky thing!! AH! EFF! Sh*tballs, right?! Yeah, that’s how I was at 6am!

[editor's note: I had the photo, but in between noticing it and having my paranoid filled night, it has disappeared. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!]

Until I remembered the last Norwegian film I saw: Dead Snow. Right?! Right?! I mean, the movie is about a group of friends who go camping at an isolated cabin that one of their uncles owns. Soon enough, Nazi Zombies pop out everywhere and everyone dies. Oh, Spoiler Alert. Yeah! So, now, I can’t stop thinking about NAZI ZOMBIES AND ALIENS swarming around the house and this doesn’t help my restlessness, so I decide to listen to a collection of music that tends to calm me down and make me more at ease.

UNTIL MY iPOD DIES.

Now….I am effed. No computer ( I was afraid to plug in my adapter after horror stories of Christian’s experience- which I’ll include at the bottom of this post) and no iPod, there were NAZI ZOMBIES AND ALIENS swarming the house and I couldn’t sleep. What is a guy to do now?

Try to remember Norwegian vocabulary from years of learning the language. For instance, what is the Norske word for “experience”? The answer: utføre. How did I remember this? I wrote an essay about a magical experience doing “magic” for the younger kids in my grade school as the “Great Snowdini”. How long did this take me? At least an hour. Why? F*CKIN NAZI ZOMBIES AND UFOS, motha EFFA!

In any case, my first night was spent 50/50 between a jetlagged coma and a ridiculous paranoia-fueled imagination. Right now, I’m finished this post as I can hear Christian waking up. Time to Lumberjack! It’s a good thing we’ve got tools because I swear, if any- ANY- of those Nazi zombies or UFOs try to eff with me…well…they got two armed Vikings waiting for a fight.

Fra Norge med Kjærlighet

A frozen lake, Farmor, and a ski-shoot biathlon

Homecoming: Day 1, Part 2-

"Hot-Damn it's cold!"

So, back to the flight: I couldn’t sleep, I understood children, yiddyiddyiddy- the most awesome part of the day was when I saw the coast line of Norway.

I couldn’t stop myself from putting on the biggest shit-eating grin of my life.

[editors note: I have no idea to this day what that phrase “shit-eating grin” means, but I had a pretty big effin smile]

I mean, here I was, in Norway! I had done it! I’d dreamed of this moment for so long that I put myself to it and I was moments away from landing in Norway. I was just at the start of a whole new experience and life that I have dreamed of for so long. I recently began believing in a the mantra of living without regrets, right? Well, as opposed to some who say this before eating a “gotta love it” tub of ice-cream from Coldstone, I up and left to Norway. I’m sorry, but this is much better than some f*cking ice cream.

I have studied for years about a language and a people that held so much fascination it’s hard to contain and now I was diving head-first into it. And let me tell you something- it feels absolutley incredible.

The coastline was breathtakingly gorgeous with small islands spotting the last quarter of a mile before the mainland. Each island looked like one of those rocks in a puddle you’d come across on your way to school on a cold morning- that iceberg-esque image where the top half juts from the water and that scant frozen ring of water around it, the ring that is lighter in color from being more shallow that the rest of the puddle; the trees were all frosted like the perfect Christmas morning; the sun was dancing off the snow-laden terrain from the last couple of days of precipitation; and there is not flat land- it’s all beautiful rolling hillsides of trees, lakes, and packed houses.

Speaking of houses, there are three, and only three, colors of houses in Norway:

· White

· Red

· Brown

Granted the brown can have variations of lighter or darker colors, it is still—brown. You don’t see elaborate *cough* ridiculous ‘baby-blue’ houses with its ‘Easter yellow’ trim and ‘teenage-girl pink’ garage door; no, this is Norway; its décor is simple but damn cozy. I likened it to a cottage a family might borrow from a friend for a summer vacation- it has the necessities for living and then a tv, but you feel comfortable in every room. Oh, and out every window in Kristiansand, you see hills covered in snow and lakes buried under snow, and the snow buried under a light mist that literally takes your breath away.

One of the first things I did after I’d dropped off the things in my temporary man-cave was walk onto a frozen lake, with an axe and a shovel, to chop a hole for ice-fishing.

Yes please.

We didn’t actually go ice-fishing, but we’d tested the lake for thickness of ice. See, the best part of ice-fishing- outside of sitting on a frozen lake catching fish- is when you don’t fall in and die of hypothermia. Just saying- it would kind of suck.

After ice-fishing, we went back to Christian’s dad’s place to get some coffee. His Dad came home and we met and upon discovering my college major, his dad began a long and in-depth chat about the state of the economy- of both countries- and it was nice to know that I hadn’t lost all of my college knowledge.

3 o’ clock rolled around and Farmor had dinner waiting at her place, so we drove down and got our food on.

[editor’s note: Farmor means “grandmother”, but on the fathers side. Far means “father” and mor means “mother”, literally translated, but put them together and it means “father’s mother”. Equally, Mormor would mean “mother’s mother”- your maternal grandmother.

And boy… was it good. We ate kjøttkaker med brunsaus [mean-cakes in brownsauce] with steam carrots, broccoli, and potatoes (a staple of the people), with flat-bread. Dessert was small snack-cakes, jørdbær (strawberries) and crem (whipped crème) with kaffe (coffee). Dessert was akin to that of an English tea-time….but better. Because it was Norwegian.

Farmor is a champ because she not only made some bitchin’ food, but as Christian introduced me he made the note that I could speak Norwegian and to only speak in Norwegian to me. What does she do? Just that, but she slowed it down so I could pick it up easier. I used to be able to understand people much better when I was surrounded daily by the language, but graduation I haven’t really been using my Norwegian and even though Christian and I said we were only going to use Norwegian around the house (which lasted a day), I just haven’t gotten enough practice for the country. But as I said, the aforementioned badass Farmor helped give me a launching pad into being able to comprehend the speech and participate in conversations.

Now that we were fed full of delicious, delicious food, what were two Norwegian boys to do the night before lumberjacking? If you answered “drink beer and watch a winter biathlon”, then you must really know your Norwegians!

True story: we got home and busted out the Christiansand Bygger i, the renowned ale of the Kristiansand area, and watched a biathlon which featured skiers from across the globe in a 3-lap cross-country circuit which included skiing downhill and uphill stretches. I’m not going to butter this at all- those guys are CRAZY. Not only were the uphill stretches mega difficult, but even the flat areas demanded intensity! Oh, and in the middle of pushing their bodies to an all-time ‘wtf’ level of athleticism the participants stop to shoot rifles. Intense! One of the guys, Boe, was SO freaking fast! And he did it seemingly without effort! Cuhhh-razy!!!!

The biathlon did two things for me: got me interested in the sport and progressed my jetlag to the point of blackout every few minutes. Even though it was only about 7pmIsh in the House of Wathne, it was far past my bedtime. I think, though, that I stayed up long enough to beat the jetlag effect (hopefully). Even though right now as I typed this initial draft it’s roughly 1am here (4pm back home) and wide awake, I think I can contain this demon that is Jetlag….

[at this point, I decided to try and sleep again].

Fra Norge med Kjærlighet

Homecoming: My Journey to Earn My Viking

Stardate 1.7.2011

Day 1, Part 1

First and Foremost, I need to shout-out to Serrrrruh Canosa because through all of my decision making and planning process for this trip, she has been there for me with never ending support. Thank you, Sarah for helping to encourage me to follow my dreams and go with this new adventure in life.

Now, onto Day 1:

I really didn’t listen TSA or whomever tells people things to go by when they are going on international trips for two main reasons: 1. Whenever they say something about new 3oz supplies and what not, I don’t care because I don’t pack that stuff. 2. I have one of the most skewed senses of time of all…time. If you were to ask my dad about my time-keeping abilities, he will without a doubt say” he has to speed up to slow down”. And he’s right. I usually think I’m doing fine, but don’t consider the small variables when travelling. Namely- traffic. Or forgetting things. Or just being ignorant of things. But I digress, my time is almost always skewed in my favor. Why? Because I haven’t had that ‘wake-up call’ that tells me otherwise. I’ve never missed a flight, never been kicked off for not checking in on time, etc (though one time I almost missed it, but that’s cause I confused a “something:45” with “something:15” Honest mistake.

Note: To any one who reads this that might employ me, my skewed sense of time is surprisingly applied only to my personal life. When I am employed, I am very meticulus with deadlines and timing in general. Know this.

Back to it: I thought to myself this morning, Feb. 6^th- “I don’t need to be 3 hours early. 2 hours will be fine. Suck it, TSA”. Lonnng story short, when you’re flying internationally, be prepared for LONG ass lines of people who STILL don’t understand new flight regulations [yes, YOU, lady in the red dress, your high-heels, golden hoops, and freakishly small watch need to be scanned]. I am not hating on anyone specifcally, but honestly, flight regulations are going to be eerily similar throughout the world, so the fact that you can’t really speak English shouldn’t trump your abilities to get through security quickly. Just saying- I got through Dutch security pretty quickly using common sense.

FAST FORWARD: Amsterdam , ho!

I got quite lucky, all things considered, for I was sitting next to a quiet and very nice Dutch woman. I’m saying she’s Dutch, but to be honest, I am going off of 3 words, her accent for said 3 words, and how relaxed-yet-supremely excited she was to be in Amsterdam. I know the feeling everytime I fly into SeaTac. Anyone else can probably relate to the feeling as spending a long day shopping and finally coming home, the last stretch into the garage. Yeah, it’s a good feeling; however, I was not lucky for several other reasons. Instead of complaining in great detail, here is a small power-note style bitchout:

1. Four babies. Use your imagination;

2. Grown men punching and kicking the back of your seat. Seriously, how old do you have to be to not act like a small child on a public school bus?

3. Sitting behind a 12 year old. First thing the kid did was recline his chair to capacity.This act of ridiculous nearly decapitiated me when I was reaching for my bag;

4. Number 4’s buddy using your chair to pull himself out of his chair. This is simply irritating and doesn’t deserve any more of my time wasting complaining.

Good Things about my Flight to Amsterdam:

1. Aforementioned Dutch woman. I didn’t really talk to her much, but she had a nice ‘grandma’ atmosphere about her and I enjoyed sitting next to her;

2. Modest collection of on-board films. I started watching Inception, but felt that I needed to pay more attention and the inconsistent volumes didn’t give me the abilities to do this. I watched a few movies (will review later) and they weren’t bad choices-why? Because they didn’t censor them. This = happy mike;

3. Free beer. For anyone who knows me, my reasoning should not surprise you- ‘Nuff Said.

4. The Food. It wasn’t all that bad. I had the chicken and rice pilaf, with limited mixed greens, a roll, cheesestick and crackers. Dessert was a cookies ‘n’ crème brownie. Breakfast was weak in comparison [egg mcmuffin with some odd condiment] and a banana. But I reiterate- free beer. Heineken makes all poor breakfasts better

Amsterdam Airport [Schiphol]

At first, my arrival was absolutely surreal. I never thought that I’d be standing there, in the Netherlands, on my dream trip to Norway. So what naturally was the first thing I did upon setting foot in the Schiphol? I deuced. I know, I know-MONDO inappropriate, but it’s true! I took a picture of the Schiphol sign and then did my deed. Am I proud of it? Yes. Would I do it again in that order? In a heartbeat. Anyway, Schiphol wasn’t too confusing, however, the overwhelming desire for the Dutch to smell good was. From gate to gate, I saw at least -at least- 4 fullsized perfume stores. Ralph Lauren was EVERYWHERE! And by Ralph Lauren I mean the pungent odor of hundreds of perfumes and colognes mixing together to make this all-encompassing smell that was nothing I’d wear on the first date and probably could be found in my grandfather’s bathroom cabinet [sorry, GPA, but it’s true] i.e. Ralph Lauren.

I’m not sure if every international airport makes you go through security (once) while leaving your origin country and (again) in the transfer country, but The Netherlands do and I’ll tell you huwaht- they do not want to be there JUST as much as you don’t. The lines were built up akin to a scene from 28Weeks Later when everyone realizes there is a zombie in the room so they all run and crowd by the only exit; Unfortunately, we were all running towards the zombies. They were alright once we got up to the window, but like a teenager working the McDonald’s drive thru, saying the same line over and over had gotten to them and it showed.

[copy and paste this into your computer’s automated voice – “microsoft sam” for PCs]

“Hello. How are you. Good. Where are you travelling to. Kristiansand? Why? For how long? That’s neat. Enjoy.”

Like I said, I doubt they meant to be drones and hold up thousands of people from an ill-desire to be working there, but I get it. I mean, c’mon, I worked in customer service for over 4 years (collective), I feel them. I think what they needed, though, was something AWESOME to happen. Like, have Johnny Depp from Blow come in with some cocaine in his suitcase and totally get busted. I bet the guy that helped me would have been the first to pop him just so he could feel alive [editors note: I find this sentence interesting because in order for the guard, in my hypothetical situation feel alive, he would have to kill. Hmmm]. In any case, standing in line wasn’t all that bad because I had plenty of time before my flight and it gave me a chance to listen to all the languages around me. I was able to soon enough discern Dutch from the different dialects of Norwegian, so I felt pretttty badass, just sayin’….

I eventually got through and was able to connect to the local wifi and do the customary Facebook message to mother. I would have called, but you needed this special phonecard and I honestly did not want to waste my small amount of Euros on it. Sorry Mom, you can wait until I get a prepaid phone in Norway. When my flight arrived, I boarded easily and tried sleeping, but everytime I got close, the two kids in the seats in front of me would jibber-jabber about random things and I’d perk up realizing that I could understand them. Mostly they were asking about driving and how long it was going to take to get home, because they missed their video games…BUT…I could understand them and I felt proud. My next challenge: speaking my rusty Norwegian with the natives.

Fra Norge med Kjærlighet