France-4

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man [or woman], then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast” –Ernest Hemingway

The last month has gone by unreasonably fast; I feel like I just arrived in Paris and now, after almost three months here, I’m packing up the last of my things before I head out into the rainy night to catch a bus to a train to the airport.
When Jayme left Paris he left me a little disenchanted with the city. The boys were still a handful and picnics in the park and sightseeing lost a bit of their wonder without a companion to share them with. Somehow working, a daily run along the seine, and trips into the city made the time fly by. I spent as much time with Kim and the friends I made in Versailles as I could; they usually had something fun planned and it gave me a chance to really work on my French. I was always impressed by how much they knew not just about their own country (social systems, government, current events, etc.) but about most others as well. It was fun to talk about the election and to learn about France’s history from people who were obviously well-educated and quite opinionated about it all.
A few weeks after Jayme left Brittany brought her friend Jody from Italy and they stayed with me so we got to do a little sightseeing and crêpe-tasting. My work schedule kept me from spending as much time with them as I wanted to but we were still able to meet up at the Sacré-Cœur, art hunt on Montmartre, and see the Moulin Rouge at night in all its flashy glory. We also spent a day inside the Louvre (even thought that doesn’t begin to cover it) where we weaved our way through the crowds of people to see the Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa. It was a quick visit but, as usual, it was nice to have travel buddies especially someone who I’d become so close with.
Having most of the day off allowed me sufficient time to take advantage of the city. I caught Herbie Hancock at an outdoor concert at La Défense, took a scooter-ride tour of the city with Olivier, saw Sex and the City the movie dubbed in French, and spent about three days at the Indian Consulate trying desperately to get my tourist visa. I also did a lot of writing and read a few books on my list.
The boys left for summer break a few days before I was set to leave so I said a regretful goodbye and have spent my last few days tying up loose ends. My Indian tourist visa ordeal had caused me to delay my flight by a few days and although it was a fairly unpleasant situation (at one point the airline was telling me that the only flight available was a month later) it was actually a blessing in disguise giving me time to wrap things up and say all my goodbyes; to make sure I had taken everything from this experiences that I wanted to have taken.

Although it was trying at times, I have lived and loved in Paris…in the springtime, and I will carry that with me always.

France/The Netherlands-3

Before I left one of my very best friends, Bekki, put together a kind of scrapbook of pictures to take with me and she had all of our friends sign it, kind of like a yearbook. Not only was it one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me but it has become the perfect reserve for moments when I’ve been homesick or when I feel as though I’ve lost my sense of purpose. I look at the pictures and find encouragement in their words all the time, but it was something one of our mutual friends, Michael, wrote that made all the difference when I came back to Paris; he wrote: when one embarks on a great journey, one must remember three important things: 1) Who you are-so when you are in strange places you can always have some stability. 2) Why you are on your quest-so you will always feel like you have a purpose. 3) Who is waiting for you to return-so you know you can always come back to love from family and friends. I had just spent three months researching and writing about global poverty so at no point did I pity myself or become ungrateful but my reality was this: I did not have a place to live, I did not have a job, and my budget (considering the current exchange rate was about 1.58) was not going to get me very far. So I went back to Michael’s words and found solace in discovering what they meant to me. What I found was quite simple, and absolutely necessary; I am someone who is perfectly capable of finding her own way through just about anything life has to throw at me, my ‘quest’ in Paris was originally to get a much better grasp on the language and essentially the culture, but I also found it to be about living in the moment; appreciating what I have in this very second, letting go of everything but my faith and if all else ‘failed’ me…knowing that I am blessed with the most amazing family and friends who would bring me home in a heartbeat if that’s what it came to.
On my second day back I interviewed with a family in Bougival, which is just 15 minutes North of Paris. I went into it with my renewed sense of faith and was offered the job on the spot. Caroline and Olivier and their three boys, Charles 9, Archibald 7, and Alistair 4 hired me to fetch the children from their afterschool programs at about 6:30p, help them with homework and baths, prepare dinner, and get them to bed around 8:30p. They also needed the occasional babysitting and asked that I accompany them to their beach house in the Touquet when/if they went. All of this was in exchange for my own little basement apartment, most meals, a weekly stipend, and all the cultural lessons I could handle. They were also kind enough to extend an open invitation to have Jayme stay with me during his visit the following week. After meeting the family and going over those details I thought I had hit the au pair jackpot and it stayed that way for my entire first day with them. Caroline’s sister went into labor so I spent my first four hours with the boys sitting in an emergency waiting room and I was thrilled about it, really. It seemed as if, just as the families in Norway had, they were just going to incorporate me into the normal family day-to-day, and the boys were being absolute angels. They were quiet and respectful; little Alistair was giving me big cuddles every five minutes or so, and the older boys were eating up our mixed French and English exchanges. They are a very wealthy, self-proclaimed “snobby,” family that look as though they’ve just walked off the set of a Ralph Lauren photo-shoot, and based on this and our interview I didn’t think that seeing France through their eyes would be all that bad.
On my second day things began to go rapidly downhill. We attended a family brunch at Caroline’s sister’s tiny apartment in the ritzy 16th arrondesmont and that’s when I started to get the distinct feeling that I was, and would remain, not much more then the hired help. They all use the common niceties but they pretty much left it at that and I found myself standing in the corner with my arms behind my back and then at lunch being lectured on all the ways in which us ‘Americans’ get it so wrong when it comes to…well, everything (but it started with how ‘we’ cut our meat). The Grandfather, a very friendly, very opinionated man who is over-the-top with everything he says and does gave me these tid-bits which always began with “you know what I say?”: Women do not pour their own wine and are always given just a little bit less then men so they don’t look like hussies, fork stays in the left hand, upper-class families never say ‘bon appetite’ before eating, when cheersing one must always look in the other person’s eyes (it’s an old custom that ensures you haven’t poisoned one another)…and his advice has continued on to every meeting we’ve had since; men never walk behind women on the stairs that way they can’t be looking up their skirts, don’t date a man who doesn’t open your doors, Leonard Cohen is a musical God, good parents must be severe…
Being in the position of coming into someone else’s home to learn things from them and to partake in their family life has made me extremely conscious of being as helpful, positive, and appreciative as I can be and in Norway I felt a perfect balance of respect with the ‘Mad Family.’ Without saying too much I can say that with this family I am an employee and that, after hearing some of the details of my experience, it was Courtney’s suggestion that I leave a copy of the Nanny Diaries (in French) on their coffee table…food for thought.
The boys have also proven to be quite the hurtle. If you can imagine what an orangutan trainer faces on a daily basis then you’ll have a pretty good idea of what I was dealing with (except mine were very angry orangutan’s that could mouth off in not one but two languages). They lied to me constantly, everything was a battle, they were stubborn and rambunctious and they only served to agitate one another so the scene was constantly escalating. Bath time was like trying to break up a WWF wrestling match under nine feet of water, they despised their homework and anything I tried to feed them, I was head-butted, kicked, hit…the littlest one even threw a rock at my head, AND spit in my face, AND shot me with a toy BB-gun. They were also huge fans of repeating obnoxious catch phrases like “C’est moi qui decide,” “Bonjour ma veiux Nanny” or “…Mais, Solvay-uhgh” which began to sound like finger nails on a chalkboard after the first few times. When I brought this up with Caroline her advice was to ‘give them a good smack,’ which, unfortunately, goes well beyond the limits of my moral compass, so I was left to my own devices. I tried every trick in the book and could not get through to them. It was actually really disappointing because there are very few things I enjoy more then working with kids and they left very little room for fun.
To their credit, when they feel like it and when their parents are around they are three of the most adorable children I’ve ever known. Saying goodnight and reading them bedtime stories (after their parents get home) is like a scene out of Peter Pan complete with little giggles and good night kisses and in rare fleeting moments, usually when I get them one on one, they open up a bit and I can see they’re just craving affection and attention. Caroline unexpectedly lost her mother right before the holidays and it has become increasingly apparent that she was the rock of this family, so everyone seems to be feeling the effects of this loss in different ways. Caroline has thrown herself into her work to keep her sorrow and her guilt surrounding the lack of time she spends with the boys at bay and even though she has checked in with them on several occasions that seems to be what is at the root of why these boys are so pissed off.
Their bad behavior never completely subsided but they did seem to buckle-down a bit after Olivier got wind of their behavior and, after waking them up at 11p to address the issue, spent a week taking them through a series of punishments including fifty lines each of “It is Solveig who decides.”
Aside from those downfalls they have shown me a great deal of the culture, there is an abundance of wonderful food and wine, I get to work on my French everyday, they brought me to the Touquet with them so I got a little beach/pool time in and had the chance to see another part of the country, and the little apartment they’ve provided has been a bigger blessing then I could’ve imagined. It’s been the best way to recoup after being with the boys and for the two weeks that Jayme was visiting we got to tuck in and play house without having to worry about finding him a hostel or a hotel.
I’ve known Jayme for over four years now but we didn’t start dating until one month before I was set to leave for Norway. We both fell pretty hard, pretty fast but we also knew we were looking at almost a year apart so before I left we made a promise not to hold each other back. In the last four months he has done everything but hold me back; he has not only been the light of most of my days but he’s become the best team mate any girlfriend could ask for. He has guy-time with Ian, helps my mom out, checks on Rosie, and has developed solid relationships with most of my very best friends…all while I’ve been thousands of miles away. So when he threw out the idea of coming to visit me in Paris I was more then ready to see him (I don’t think I gave him much room to say no). Jayme arrived in the middle of my third week in Paris and it was bliss from the moment he stepped off the bus in Bougival. There was a summer-time heat so we took a picnic into the town park that sits on the bank of the Seine and spent hours catching up and watching the clouds roll by. We took a late bus into the city and arrived at the Eiffel Tower just in time to watch it light up as the sky grew dark. As we sat under it in awe of where we were and of being there together, all of the sudden the whole thing began to sparkle with a million little lights…it was truly breathtaking. After the lights had stopped we turned towards the Seine to find a bite to eat and just as we got to the middle of the bridge over the river the spring showers rolled in and we both just looked at each other and started laughing. We were drenched but it was all too surreal to be anything but romantic. We spent the next three days weaving between my work schedule with the boys in Bougival and the sights of Paris. We mastered the maze to find the grave of the Lizard King (one of Jayme’s heroes) at the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, sipped our café-au-laits on the Champs-Élysées, and breathed deep the Jasmin that wafted through the parks in the classy neighborhood of Jasmin. Every morning would begin with a café and a baguette from the local boulangerie and then we’d hop the bus straight to La Defense and tour the city until I had to work. Around 6p we’d truck back to Bougival and Jayme would work on his photography while I wrestled the little monsters for a few hours. As soon as I had a few days off we jumped on a train (first class complete with endless bottles of wine and canard confi) to meet Brittany (Jayme’s best friend and my new favorite travel buddy) in Amsterdam for five days of fun in the European city of sin.
Our first night we found our way to a hostel in Zeeburg, dropped off our bags in a room full of fellow travelers already peacefully sleeping, and met our friend Daniel, whom we’d met in our cabin on the train, at the only bar still open and serving up good beer and loud techno. We spent a few hours dancing on their underground dance floor (Jayme had to duck to keep from hitting his head on the ceiling) and then snuck quietly into our bunks at the StayGood Hostel.
Both of us being serious Beatles fans we decided the John and Yoko way was the best and only way to do Amsterdam. We tried to check-in to their famous Hilton hotel room but budget was a restriction so we settled for an equally inspiring room at the Armada where we set up camp in our giant window that looked out onto the canals and street cafés and the many passers-by. In the late afternoon Jayme and I decided to traverse the city to get our bearings and what we imagined would be a half-hour jaunt became a four hour loop of the entire city complete with a broken flip-flop, bus rides, a shuttle ride, and the never-ending game of ‘just around this corner.’
I was continuously surprised by how picturesque Amsterdam was with its bridges and canals and quaint 17th and 18th century architecture. For a city that is resting on such a wild and rambunctious reputation ‘they’ seem to keep it hidden away quite well. The only signs we saw of a city that was anything other than scenic and charming seemed to be the obvious red-light district and a few triple-X signs hanging on lampposts and in windows, any other evidence always seemed to pop-up out of a deep layer of disguise. We stepped into a few ‘coffee’ shops that definitely did not specialize in espresso, went shopping in a market that sold beautiful flowers and potted plants above ground and ‘super-special mushrooms’ below, and bumped into a kid from Finland who did not quite have his wits about him and he explained, in extreme detail, the levels you ‘had’ to dig down to find the ‘real party.’
Brittany arrived with her usual air of zest and mayhem but we still managed the more laid-back city tour. Together we spent three days walking the canals, taking regular Stroopwafel breaks, touring the Van Gogh, sex, and marijuana museums, perusing the book fairs, and enjoying great Argentinian and Italian food---we did do a speed walk through a few streets in the red light district but found it a bit imposing. We could all see how Rembrandt and Van Gogh could be so inspired living in this city with its many levels of beauty and intrigue; Jayme was in photographer’s heaven, I found myself wishing I had my paints with me, and both Brittany and I did a little writing during our down-time.
Duty was calling us back to our respective countries so we parted-ways with Brittany and promised we’d see each other again soon. Jayme and I fell right back into our routine as soon as we arrived in Paris; breakfast at our favorite little café in the sunshine in Bougival, touring the city, returning late evening to retrieve the boys, and then heading back out into the city for the night. We took a picnic to the Sacré-Cœur looking out of the sprawl of the city and watched the street performers and musicians, skimmed the art on Montmartre, toured Versailles and fed the catfish in the grand canal all in the pouring rain, we ate crepes under the twinkling Eiffel Tower at night, and danced until four in the morning with Kim and her boyfriend at a club in the premier arrondisemont. On Jayme’s last night we stayed up late sipping Chablis and talking about the next six months. Paris had turned into such a fairytale of an adventure that we both felt good about keeping the momentum going. We talked about places we wanted to see and places we could afford—we both wanted to see Australia; my ticket was booked already but the budget equation just didn’t seem to work out until we looked at traveling Southeast Asia. Jayme left on a Tuesday and by Friday night we both had tickets to Thailand booked.

France/Italy-2

My boyfriend Jayme’s best friend Brittany is also an au pair living in Rome and after a brief but warm meeting over Skype we decided we wanted to plan a few adventures together to take advantage of our unique situation. So, as both a way to avoid overstaying my welcome and to avoid the stress that job/home hunting had proven to be, we organized a six day Italian tour just four days after my arrival in Paris.
I took the night train from Paris to Florence, and although it came highly recommended, my experience was actually quite dismal. I began my 12 hour train ride with nothing but my backpack and a train ticket marked with a deceptive plate that had a knife and fork printed on either side of it (meal included right?...wrong) I quickly learned that just means dining car available; that you can buy food, for cash, so my five Euros bought me the most bland salad I’ve ever tasted and that was my dinner, snack, and breakfast. I was also looking forward to the camaraderie that I anticipated would come out of the long trip and the close quarters that four people are meant to share but my ‘bunk’ mates were not so keen on that idea. I learned most of what I knew about them when customs officers came through and we all had to show our passports and let them riffle through our bags. The Chinese man who sat opposite me, we’ll call him Dave, spoke only enough to report the 13,000€ in cash he had hanging around his neck and to tell us how to turn off the light when we were all tucked in. There was also a young Italian woman, Wendy perhaps, and an African man, who we’ll just call Aly, who said where they were from and who were both kind enough to offer me some of their food (I probably looked a little freaked out), but that was the extent of our ‘bonding.’ The experience with customs was actually pretty intense. We were awoken at about 2am, they practically punched our door down, and after they counted all 13,000€ of Dave’s cash collection and completely unpacked my bag (down to opening and sniffing my conditioner, smelled pretty good if I do say so myself) they asked Aly for his passport and when he could only provide an identification card he was taken off the train with all his bags, and we never saw him again. Wendy quietly cried herself to sleep; not sure if it was Aly’s abrupt departure or her homesickness, but the darkness made me weary of crawling down to see if she was ok. I woke up and it was an hour passed the time I was supposed to arrive in Florence, they were calling the name of the town that was listed after my stop on the ragged old piece of paper taped to the window, and Dave looked really worried. We soon learned we were actually three hours delayed so Dave said he’s watch for our stop and I fell back asleep.
I made it to my final train station in Florence with a little help from Dave and was only three hours late for my 7:30-9a meeting time window with Brittany. Luckily we both had agreed on the necessity of a back-up plan for that, and yet another for that plan. So I found her tucked under a purple umbrella on the steps of the Duomo right where we had planned. We were instantly friends, I know it was in large part the relief of actually finding each other and having a travel buddy but it was also a like-mindedness that has blossomed into a great over-seas support system and a lasting friendship.
We had cappuccinos at the ‘Any Time’ Café and spent a little time organizing our thoughts and getting the ‘team’ together, and then caught a bus to find the famous Dany Hostel. We asked for directions with everyone we encountered and found that, after hearing the address we were looking for, people were pointing both up the hill and down the hill. So we made the trek up the hill, didn’t find it there, and headed back down the hill. By the time we found it and someone answered the door, we were drenched from the rain and yelling and jumping up and down from the excitement of it all. We checked in and settled into our three bunk-bed dorm-style room and met our roommates Midori from Japan (who goes by Green) and Andrea from Argentina. We hit it off with them immediately and had so much fun that Green changed her train ticket and ended up staying an extra night.
After we had settled in Brittany and I headed out to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring Florence. We started out with a plan but we ended up just letting ourselves get lost and seeing the city that way. Our first stop was a little side-walk restaurant where we ordered three entrees and a celebratory glass of wine. We both had recently read Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and decided we too would indulge in the Italian way; we stopped for Gelato at least twice a day and by the end of our trip had tried every pasta dish imaginable. After our lunch we let a group of boys from Naples give us their version of the city tour, which ended up being three times around the same block while they tried tirelessly to get us to profess our love for them in Italian. We took pictures in front of the David ‘imposter,’ perused the jewelry stores near the Pontevecchio, went back for another peak inside the Duomo, and roamed as many Piazzas as we could find.
That night we enjoyed a home cooked meal and live entertainment by Frederico the 70 year-old piano man extraordinaire at the Dany Hostel. For his last song he asked for a volunteer to play with him and out of the four of us there wasn’t one who could play, so he picked the timid, nervous little Green. She sat down awkwardly at the piano and Frederico had her stick out her pointer finger as he guided her through a very choppy version of Fur Elise. They finished and everyone applauded, and Frederico went into the kitchen for a break, leaving Green in the spotlight at the piano. Her cheeks rouged a bit, but then she placed her hands and feet in position and began to play the most beautiful version of Fur Elise I’ve ever heard. Frederico came running back into the room and we all sat in shock as she played the entire piece, and then sheepishly backed away from the piano, swearing it was the only song she knew how to play. We stayed up late laughing and joking, disagreeing on our count of the continents, drawing cartoons of each other, and then we exchanged information and all agreed we had to meet up again sometime in the near future.
The next day Brittany and I checked out of the Dany Hostel early to get a good spot in line to see the real David at the Academia Museum. Then we took the train out to Lucca to see the famous wall of Lucca, but because of train times and scheduling conflicts the wall and a coffee shop were all we had time to take in. We took the train back in the opposite direction and went a few stops further where Brittany’s family friends were waiting to take us to their home in Pontessieve, out in the Italian countryside. There we were treated to yet another wonderful home-cooked meal and great conversation. Andree is from the states and married an Italian man so she was able to provide a fun little sneak peak into the Italian culture that we would never have otherwise seen. She explained the no flip-flops in public, no bare feet at home, no cappuccino’s after noon, and pasta first on its own plate traditions and even shared some of the bidet etiquette.
The next morning we took the train back into Florence, grabbed our last Gelato (in Florence) and hopped the train to Rome. Due to the worker’s holiday we were stuck at Roma Termini waiting for a bus for about three hours, and just when we were going to give up a man came out of nowhere and informed us the buses would begin arriving in about twenty minutes (we both swear he was an angel). So we made it back to Brittany’s home in Perioli and recharged before heading out for the night. We walked into town and had dinner and drinks at a funky little bar with a live jazz band, and then managed to find the one store that sold Gelato until 2am.
On my last day in Italy we got up early, grabbed cappuccinos at the café across the street from Brittany’s house and headed off to see as many Roman sites as we could fit in. We made it to the Vatican, stopped for Gelato by the Pantheon, climbed the Spanish Steps, and threw a penny in Trevi Fountain (so both of us knew we’d come back). We also saw the Arco di Constantino, the Coliseum, and the Roman forum. It was a holiday so there were more tourists than usual, which only made the contrast between the modern-day city that Rome is and the vast history that the city is built on, even more apparent. It was bizarre to watch mopeds and mini-cars go racing by the Coliseum; it was almost as if everyone there had somehow managed to get passed the security guards and had taken over this giant museum.
I caught the night train back home, although this time I boarded after everyone had tucked in and turned off their lights, so I crept quietly into my bunk and tried, without luck, to fall asleep until Paris.

France-1

The uncertainty surrounding my future living situation and the people and places I was leaving behind had me completely stressed and sulking as l boarded the plane in Bergen but the welcome Paris gives made it all disappear. Just a little sunshine, a few conversations in French, and a warm croissant was all it took; I was giddy all over again. Paris is the city in which one loves to live. I hadn’t realized how small-town Bergen had felt until I took the train out to Versailles and watched this endless stretch of old buildings, quant terraces, and great views whiz by me for what seemed like hours. It felt really good to be somewhere new again and to be doing it all by myself.
When my original au pair position fell through unexpectedly I put a call out to family and friends and my good friend Stephanie’s Cousin Kim, who lives in Versailles and who I’ve only met once before, offered up her home indefinitely. She was my saving grace for the first two weeks I was here; not only did she make room for me in her one bedroom apartment but she mapped out bus and metro routes, made phone calls for me, introduced me to new friends, and helped me brush up on my French.
Kim lives on Rue de la Paroisse in Versailles which is right in the center of it all. Her street is lined with trendy stores, boulangeries and patisseries everywhere, outdoor cafes, and even an outdoor market. On my first morning I went for a run hoping it would help me learn the streets and the area a bit better, and I found myself running by huge pastures with horses and goats, and then right by Marie Antoinette’s mansion, and out onto the Grand Canal of the Palace of Versailles. That became a morning tradition; just a little run in my backyard. Kim threw a party on my second night so I got to meet a bunch of people and spent the night trying desperately to keep up with their speedy French, which was drenched in slang. I actually went to bed with a giant headache from five hours of trying to stay up on the conversations. I spent all day the next day laying in the sunshine in the gardens at Versailles, and then met my new friends at a local pub for drinks before we all went for a little backyard BBQ. The French are serious about their partying/dancing scene so where I am used to getting in around 2:30a from a long night out at home…that’s about when they start heading out here. This night was apparently ‘low-key’ so we were only up till about three playing cards. Sunday morning we did, what they explained to me as being something a bit unconventional, in that most people our age don’t meet up for a wine and cheese brunch on Sunday, but that’s just what we did. They had the whole spread: local wine (red and white), five or six different cheeses (spread out/and devoured in order of strength), and of course a fresh baguette. I am usually not a fan of ‘stinky’ cheeses but somehow the way my friends understood and appreciated them inspired me to be adventurous. They were strong, one of them tasted like grass, another like manure, but there were a few that had really good tastes to them (especially with little sips of wine afterwards).
My new friends, days spent in the park, my scarf, and our Sunday brunch were all I needed to start feeling right at home.

Norway-6

My last two weeks in Norway were surreal in every sense of the word. The intense winter weather finally gave way to the budding flowers and the blazing sun the result of which was two full weeks of a complete pseudo-summer. Bergen is a completely different city when the sun is shining: the fish market expands to capacity, boats flood the port, tourists appear, outdoor cafes are packed, and best of all there are people (happy people) everywhere. The whole town becomes a bustling hub of activity with throngs of people packing into places that, just days before, had been completely neglected and deserted. At one point I had to ask Helene if there was some kind of festival or fair happening in town because there were so many people roaming the streets almost shoulder-to-shoulder. We enjoyed the sunshine to the very fullest. We did a few beautiful hikes including a hike down Floyen after taking the tram up, had BBQ’s and our famous homemade guacamole, sunbathed on the deck, and went on plenty of sunset runs. The time in the evening when I’d return home from a long run to find all the neighbors outside chatting and the kids all playing and running around became my absolute favorite. My happiness in the last two weeks was contagious; the kind where you can’t stop smiling and everything seems to be perfect.
As my time in Norway quickly came to a close I truly felt I had exceeded all my expectation for my stay, there were just a few loose ends left to tie up. I was finally able to take the two hour trip out to Stranvik to visit my Grandmother and the experience became the inspiration behind the entire two week-long theme of ‘surreal.’ To see this house I had only known in pictures; to see the town and the sea the way my mom had seen it for so many summers of her childhood was absolutely priceless. I found myself walking around the house and the garden trying to see it through my mom’s eyes and trying to find something of myself in all of it, something I would look at and immediately recognize. Despite my efforts, aside from seeing the house from a distance, a few flowers in the garden, one or two family portraits in the living room, and the two gold bracelets both my mom and Grandmother wear on their right wrists, I couldn’t seem to find myself or my family in any of it. The feeling I get when I immediately recognize myself in a picture of my mom when she was young, that’s the feeling I was looking for. In the little three-bedroom house, out in the tiny side yard, even in my Grandmother’s face, I just didn’t see it. I also found myself unprepared for the state my Grandmother was in. The last time I saw her she was walking fine and was still quite sharp; this time she could barely walk, she had a hard time remembering the names of my cousins and my brothers and sister, and the entire time I was there she asked me only two questions and because about ten minutes into the visit she switched to Norwegian with me the extent of our communication was very limited. Helene and her son Nicholas had accompanied me on the trip and I didn’t realize until after we had driven away just how grateful I was that they had been there with me. Helene was so kind, she did most of the talking; just small talk for a while about who tends to the garden and checks in on my Grandmother, the neighbors, and the house, and then Helene started to talk about my family and me like she had known me forever. She said how great everyone was doing and told her about my travels and schooling and how proud of me she was, I actually saw and felt more family in Helene then I did anything else that day. I took a few pictures of the house and the view, tried to patch up the emptiness I could feel from my Grandmother with lots of smiles and hugs, helped her with a few household chores, told her she was very loved, and tried to leave at that. The leaving was the hardest part; my whole stay I got the feeling we were kind of disrupting her space but as soon as we tried to leave she made every attempt to get me to stay. There were buses I could take home, she explained, I could even take her car if I wanted. Being so far out and unprepared felt like too much to me so we left anyway, but I couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt or sadness, neither of which I could completely understand. The whole drive home both Helene and I tried to distract ourselves with other things but inevitably our conversation always fell back to what we had just experienced. Surreal.
Then the days of ‘lasts’ came. I had my last day at work, where they had all signed a card for me and gave me sweet little going away gifts. I went in for my last day at Megafon and was surprised with my own mini-photshoot and an invitation to send in any stories from my travels at any time (this time with the added benefit of a little pay) as well as the opportunity to attend this year’s Street Papers Convention in Scotland. Then came my ‘lasts’ with the families: the last big family dinner with all the kids, my last trip to town, and my last movie night. We exchanged gifts and open invitations to visit each other (they also threw in the lure of a free place to stay on the water, complete with a Google earth image and everything), I packed up my little room, waved goodbye to ‘home’ and tried to muster up excitement about my next stop. All very surreal.
My hope, and I’ve made this pretty clear to Janne and Helene, is that they both get knocked up at the same time so I can come back to see and take care of the little additions to the ‘Mad Family.’ Even without that, I know these people will be in my life forever. They are the reason this trip was as amazing as it was and I am truly blessed to have come to know them as well as I have.
Next stop: Paris, France!

Norway-5

I’ve been so content with my situation here that it wasn’t until yesterday, going over schedules with Helene, that I realized I have less than a month before I leave for Paris. It’s amazing how quickly attachments are formed and new habits are created; two months ago this was a foreign country, I was surrounded by strangers I couldn’t understand, and home was very far away. Now I have found my niche here and am feeling the heavy onset of nostalgia. In the last month I’ve made a priority of creating and taking advantage of any and all opportunities that could give me more perspective and understanding of the Norwegian culture.
I have officially mastered the public transportation system which has been a key factor in helping me to fill in a mental map of Bergen and its surrounding areas. I don’t have an awful sense of direction but I’ve had to walk the same streets I rode by on the bus and drove through with a ‘tour guide’ many times now to finally feel adept. The ultimate test came yesterday when I drove across town and back…alone. I’ve always felt entitled to call Seattle my city because of how well I know it, and I’m starting to feel the same way about Bergen. The more I learn the more I belong. The highlight of this feeling has been the few times I’ve popped out of a café or turned a corner in town and actually ran into someone I knew. This familiarity has given me a sense of ease as I discover the ins and outs of the city one street at a time.
Although my ‘families’ would like to give me a hard time about my language proficiency, to my credit learning Norwegian without a formal class has been exceedingly difficult, I have come leaps and bounds from where I was when I arrived. I get through every morning with the kids speaking only Norwegian and navigate most informal every-day situations, and, while I can’t necessarily participate, I do understand most of the broader conversations that happen around me. The kids tend to be my harshest critics. The first to correct me on pronunciation, they are constantly reminding their parents that I’m never going to learn if they continue to speak English with me. I play up the language barrier a bit just to keep the kids entertained; they think its hysterical that I still call their ski hats (lua) their swimming caps (bad hat) and they’ve found joy in correcting me EVERY time.
Food is another difference here that has finally become ‘normal’ to me. Traditionally breakfast, lunch, and the evening snack (after dinner) are all the same concept: slices of fresh bread (skive) with an array of toppings including jams, cheeses (jarlesberg, blue, brie, etc.), veggies, sliced meats, shrimp and chicken salads, and, to my dismay, kaviar from a tube and liver paste. Geitost (brown cheese) which is actually caramelized goat milk is my new favorite; on toasted bread with jam, mmm. The only meal that strays from the norm is dinner which holds a close resemblance to the dinners that I am used to although I have been treated to a few Norwegian specialties. Over the winter holiday I tried ‘the famous Grouse’ which is a gamey bird that Kristen hunts himself, it’s served with a gravy-like sauce that supposed to be the piece de resistance; lots of cream and nutmeg, and its very own, strategically hidden, bullet shards. I also tried rakfisk which is fermented trout that was served on flat bread with chopped leeks and sour cream, and fenalår, at Easter dinner, which is a slow-cured lamb’s leg. The common thread in of all these dishes was how extremely rich they were. At one meal I looked out at the huge expanse of the table (14 guests) and did not see one green dish; there was meat, gravy, caramelized mushrooms and onions, potato gratin, more meat…all fit for a Viking. Being in charge of grocery shopping, packing lunches, and preparing meals has been the best kind of cultural lesson, every day I have people depending on me to know how to shop and prepare for a proper meal and I haven’t had any complaints thus far (aside from Thale’s request that I carry her lunchbox instead of putting it in her backpack so that the toppings don’t come off her bread on the way to school…that’s pretty much where I draw the line).
I have also made travel a priority as well so I’ve managed a few day-trips and my big adventure was another ten day skiing extravaganza in Geilo. I spent most of the time trying to develop my insane cross-country skills although Janne, Helene, and I (we like to call ourselves the iron women) also decided to try snowboarding on one of the days. We had the most amazing weather; sunny during the day and snow at night, which motivated a hike to the peak of one of the mountains and many sledding/snow fort adventures in the evenings.
The trip was a good reminder to slow-down and it gave me time to think about what I had already achieved and what I felt was missing from my time in Norway. I had managed to find avenues in to most of the areas I was interested in except for volunteer work and the few people I had spoken to about it had all said the same thing. That because of the way the government is run the kind of volunteer work that puts you in touch with the community is hard to come by. I was determined to find something and as soon as I got back Helene put me in touch with a friend of a friend who is the editor of a local magazine that supports Bergen’s homeless. By Tuesday I had sent my resume to Megafon and by Wednesday they had hired me as a volunteer/intern. The paper not only gives homeless people the means to support themselves but it also gives them a voice that is unparalleled in this community. The vendors buy the magazine and sell it in town for twice the value, and at about $10 a magazine they are actually making a considerable profit. Thomas, the editor, was unsure of how much help I could be given the language barrier but the projects have just kept popping up. I’ve already interviewed the Executive Director of The International Network of Street Papers, chosen a feature article, written two articles, and spent a few hours volunteering in the store. This week I got to go out into the city with another intern to get answers to the question ‘what is the hardest part of being a youth today?’ We initiated conversations with some of the local ‘youths’ and took pictures of them holding their opinions on giant pieces of poster board. It was so fun to get out and interact with the community in that way, and to see how passionate some of these kids were about this topic. Not only has it been refreshing to be doing work that pushes me, that I’m excited about doing, but it has also been really interesting to see what poverty and homelessness look like here in contrast to the poverty I’ve seen at home.
This internship and my four other jobs are still keeping me pretty busy during the week but I also have more than enough free time. I’ve finished a few books that I’ve been trying to finish for years, taken more Norwegian lessons, done some hiking, and still spend a lot of time exploring the city. I also made a new friend, Agnete, who’s taken me to work out at a real gym and given me another perspective on the grand city-tour.
This weekend Helene is running a marathon in Paris and most of the neighbors are away so Nicholas and I have had some serious bonding time. I don’t think I’ve ever had to be so creative with entertainment, because he’s up at 6:45a and he only likes to spend about 15 minutes on each activity that means… a lot of activities. We have colored, played every board game in the house (his way, of course), shot a toy superman off of a hill a million+ times, played footbal (which I think is Norwegian for ‘kick the ball as far as you can and watch Solveig run for it…while laughing hysterically’), baked cupcakes, beat Dora the Explorer at her own exploration, and made a few apple juice non-tini’s Nicholas is quite the mixologist. He’s kind of a quiet little boy, it takes him a while to warm up to strangers and he’s usually the most outspoken when Helene is around, and getting him to sleep when she isn’t around has meant a lot of rocking and back rubs. All of this bonding paid off when I went to put him to sleep tonight and he skipped to his room, jumped in bed, smiled as he said goodnight, and fell quietly asleep. He’s hard not to fall in love with.
Its been surprisingly rewarding to be learning so much in what feels like such a short time. A few weeks ago, having newly discovered Skype, I was finally able to check in with my mom and I spent two hours telling her all about what I was doing and all the things I was learning. It wasn’t until this conversation that I fully understood the importance of what I’m doing here. Norway holds so much of who I am; my mother, my family, my name, our history, its almost been like walking through an art gallery with a blind fold on, hearing all the oohs and ahhs but never getting to see it for yourself. My mom and I talked about the house that she grew up in, the town where our family’s country house is, our favorite foods, places in town, we even spoke a little Norwegian and I hung up feeling a sense of relief like I had settled something that had been bothering me for years. Maureen O’Hara said it best when she said “my heritage has been my grounding, and it has brought me peace.”

Norway-4

This week was a nice change of pace…and scenery. The Aspelund-Strømme family invited me to spend the winter holiday with them at their cabin in Geilo, so I’ve spent the last ten days touring Western Norway, skiing, and sipping hot cocoa (it’s been rough). We left Bergen Friday afternoon and drove East into the countryside passing through the famous Dale, where the famous Dale sweaters are made, and stopping for a quick dinner in Voss, a picturesque town that sits right in between the Hardanger and Sogn Fjords. Then we actually took a ferry over the Hardangerfjord, which was amazing (even in the dark), and drove up into the mountains to Hol where Geilo is. The roads on the way up were solid ice; the wind was blowing at crazy speeds, and on either side of us for as far as I could see were rolling hills covered in snow. I had never seen terrain like that; it almost looked like what I would imagine Antarctica to look like.
Their cabin is actually a really old school house that was converted before their family bought it (it still has some of the original paint and decorations!) And they’ve done a lot of work on it so it now has a guest house, a ski storage, an attic (where I slept), and a sauna. It was very cozy and quiet, aside from the trains that passed their back door every hour or so, and it had a beautiful view of the ski slopes and a little lake at the base of the mountain.
A wind storm shut the lifts down on our first day so we went extreme sledding instead. With the wind still blowing full-force we managed to lug a dog, a million sleds, and eight kids up the side of the mountain to the perfect sledding spot. As soon as we reached the top the sun came out and the wind stopped…perfect conditions and the entire mountain to ourselves (that dream usually involves skiing, but I won’t be picky). We did get four days of skiing in and they even took me for my first cross-country skiing trip which I loved. The downhill skiing was a bit different than what I’m used to. The slopes are very gentle and wide open, there were at least half as many people on the mountain, and after taking two lifts up to the farthest point I could get to, I was skiing by and around private cabins, just right in the middle of the mountain. I also got to partake in my very first ‘after-ski’ experience which was fun. We went to a lounge at the ‘famous’ Dr. Holmes Hotel, where people go to “see and be seen,” and had drinks while the kids ran around loose in the hotel with all the other children.
Nights were spent visiting friends, playing board games, watching movies, reading, and relaxing. I also completed a ‘Norwegian course’ the girls created for me; they labeled everything in the house with post-its and they would walk through the house with me helping me say each word. My final exam was to put the post-its back after they had been taken down which I managed to pass with a 99%! I even have a certificate to prove it.
I was surrounded by breathtaking scenery and views the entire trip: At the top of the mountain with the sun shining, looking out across the fjords, even the view from their living room was beautiful. There was one night coming out of one of their friend’s cabins where I had to stop in my tracks to try to take everything I was seeing in. There were mountains as far as I could see with the quiet little lake at their feet, all covered in snow. The stars were clear and bright, it almost looked like just the constellations had come out. No street lights or house lights were shining it was just me and the view in the dark, and yet it was almost as bright as day. The moonlight shown everywhere but it was a different moonlight then I’ve ever seen, a beautiful blue I can’t describe, it was so amazing. Sometimes I lose sight of what my purpose here is but it has been moments like that that make me stop and say ‘this is why I’m here.’
It felt good to get out of Bergen for a little while, see more of the country, and spend time with the family as a whole. Sometimes I think the kids think I’m from another planet so this was a good way to show them how ‘normal’ I can be. We got to play together, they saw me fall over myself on skiis, and they even got to speak to my mom in Norwegian (I think that did the trick).
The day we were supposed to leave they shut down all the roads so we were going to have to drive East to Lillehammer, and then all the way around to come back to Bergen (seven hours of driving to get four hours away) but we got lucky and they opened up the pass by Hemsedal so we only ended up going about an hour out of the way. I think I remember a few tears when we found out the pass had re-opened, at that point Andreas had been screaming for about an hour, I had been moved to the middle seat after he had pulled Vilde’s hair and punched me, Vilde was crying in the very back, and Thale (who was sitting by me) had thrown up. Quite the adventure.