The Last 4000 Miles

We had no goal beyond getting home today -- and there was one added bonus to the trip: Rebecca decided a few days ago to come home for a couple of weeks to write her thesis proposal while lying on our couch instead of staying in her apartment by herself.  So we knew that we could probably find her in the Brussels Airport before our respective flights, once we got back on WiFi. It is an amazing world where a person can decide on a Tuesday to take an international flight, book it for $170 and travel on Thursday..  Of course, you have to have no luggage at all, but our kids manage that.

The walk to the bustling Gare Noord was quick and downhill.  We got on a train without any stories to tell, and we got off at the Brussels Airport.  Such seasoned travelers.  As we were going up the escalator into the airport, remarking that we had been on this very escalator 18 days before, up swoops Rebecca right behind Jon, with a joyful laugh. She had managed two train connections between Maastricht and the airport and we all were ridiculously early for our flights. But we know that it could have been different, very easily, and we were glad to have time to lounge around.

We had breakfast sitting down and then we made our way to the gates. They don't tell you until it is just about time to board which gate you are departing from, so there is no incentive to go and hang around.

All of our travel was successful. Becca's flight left an hour before ours, so as we were walking through the airport in Iceland we could hear the announcement for her plane, and she sent a picture of boarding in the snow, so we had to take one too.

When we got back to Dulles, we checked to see where she was -- making her way back from BWI using another assortment of public transportation.  Michael L. picked us up (more snow here than in Iceland) and then we went straight to the Springhill Metro stop and scooped up Rebecca.  It was all very amusing.

While we were on the plane, we did our final accounting.  We counted how many trains, planes, cars, buses, city buses, subways, boats and trams we took to while in Iceland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany. We went to nine museums, some more successful than others but we learned something memorable at each of them. And we rated the quality of the food, the venue, and the value of the restaurant meals we ate. We only rate these places against their own potential, not on a grand scale.  So a neighborhood Bulgarian restaurant can get a 5/5/5 for being interesting and welcoming with tasty, authentic food at a good price. It does not have to be fancy at all. We ate a lot of really excellent soup on this trip, and only once was the soup a disaster. Even though I am not such a great walker any more, we did manage to see a lot on foot.  My travel companions were patient and kind and let me sit on any bench I found. We came home healthier than when we left.

It is very nice to be in our own house with our own bed and bathroom.  My mom made us some delicious stew for dinner, which Rebecca started eating as soon as we came in the door.  Stephen dropped by when he saw our lights on and he and Rebecca were still talking away at 11:00 when I finally went to bed.

When you go on a trip, you are reminded how much of the world's collective effort goes into moving people from one place to the next. Everywhere you go, people are moving.  It is an incredible modern reality, how many resources we commit to moving humans, all day and night, in every direction. It will be so great to be stationary for a few days.  I am sure there is a blessing for that, but I don't have a clue what it is.

When we thought we were saying goodbye to Rebecca in Maastricht.

When we were together again at the Brussels airport with Becca's purple WOW airplane in the background.

Brussels on Foot

We considered the idea of buying one of those tickets that lets you get on and off a bus that just rides around all the hot spots, but when we looked at the route, it was much more than we could ever digest in one day and our hotel room is within walking distance of the center of the city.  So never mind. One more day of walking on sidewalks.

Our first destination was a comic book museum that was established in 1989, about Belgian comics and the art of creating them.  We knew we would recognize two of them (Tintin and Asterix) and we didn't realize that the Smurfs originated here, although we actually missed the Smurf era. The museum is in a rare building that was originally a cloth store/warehouse in the 19th c.  Wide stairways, balconies, fancy iron railings, elegant spaces.  The exhibits were in Flemish (probably), French and English.  I was happy to find that I can still read more French than I realized, but the English was much appreciated.  The narrative was about the history and purpose of comics as a form of communication, storytelling, news, education.  The structure of comic strips was first established by monks, with panels and story balloons. Who knew?

You can just see some of the architectural iron work above the Tintin exhibit.

Every comic book you could ever imagine, if your imagination stops at the Belgium border.

Every Tintin book and action figure.

Asterix definitely gets second fiddle, but you can spend €2,500 for this model.

As we were leaving, Jon opened the door for some new visitors and said very nicely, "Bienvenue!" I looked at him oddly, and he started to doubt his choice of vocabulary, and then we just cracked up on the street.  We laughed so hard our stomachs hurt.  Jon's French is legendary -- he studied it for years and never really got too smooth. But he really believes in using it as much as possible when we are in a French-speaking place.

Next stop: the National Cathedral where royal weddings and important funerals happen. This was a classic, heavy duty building, started in the 14th c. and holding up well.  Large stone columns, statues everywhere, all very familiar. The only people we saw inside were tourists.

This pulpit doesn't look like a cauldron for cooking the clergy (see Hamburg).

It was getting to be lunchtime so we had to find the downtown area. It wasn't far away.  Narrow, winding streets with cobblestones, lots and lots and lots of chocolate shops, plenty of food, some hotels.  We had thrown off the constraints of eating regional food (being in such a multinational city), so we went into a noodle shop and had some delicious Thai soup and an udon noodle dish.  There were at least four languages we could hear around us, although we can't tell Flemish Dutch from Nederlands Dutch and we can only barely tell Dutch from German. And there was an unfamiliar accent to the Spanish, so perhaps it was Castilian.

We were ready for another museum, so we headed uphill to the Jewish Museum. The security was intense.  Had to wait for them to unlock each door as we entered, went through a scanner, another locked door.  The exhibit turned out to be all about Leonard Freed, an American photographer who documented many events and cultures and eras in the 20th c.  Israel in 1963 with a focus on the Hassidim, Brooklyn, Harlem, a series on police, jails in Chicago. He had a full career, all in black and white.  It was not what we were expecting, but it was much more interesting than it might have been. After that we went into the traditional wing and saw a few rooms of a small in-home synagogue, some art by Belgian Jews, and a bunch of rooms under construction. It is always interesting to see what museums do with the Jewish story.

Could be in France.

Many bottles are displayed in their own cubicles, I imagine costing thousands each.

Running out of steam, we headed for the Grand Place. On the way we stopped for an indulgently over whip creamed Belgian waffle near the landmark statue of the Mannekin Pis, which means little pisser in Dutch. The earliest mention of its existence goes back to 1451 -- it's a fountain that people got water from in the center city. A story is that a little boy saved the city from a foreign power that was preparing to blow up the city walls, so he peed on the fuse. Apocryphal.  It is a symbol of the people of Brussels, "embodies their sense of humor and independence of mind (Wikipedia)." It is pretty odd and apparently people keep trying to steal it so the real one is in a museum and the one outside is a copy.

A copy of the copy in the window of the store in which Jon is buying a waffle.

The Grand Place was grand on all four sides. Large, old, ornate stone buildings gilded with gold, a wide open square, people taking pictures, kids chasing pigeons. After several ineffective attempts to photograph this space well, we headed for home.

We walked past so many chocolate shops and Jon kept wondering how they all stay in business. We didn't stop but everything smelled delicious.

Dinner was at a small Turkish place directly across the street from the Bulgarian restaurant. There was no English spoken, but we muddled through with terrible French. The food was not as hot as Jon would have liked, but the flavors were good.

Farewell to the Netherlands

After yesterday's day on the trains, we didn't even try to go outside all morning.  Just hung out in Becca's apartment and talked about what she is doing at school. (This particular school deals with business on a theoretical rather than practical level, which suits her just fine...the only trouble is they take the Master of Science part very seriously and they insist on a scientific process for creating experiments and gathering data for a thesis. She thinks a thesis is just unnecessary in this program.)  I finally understood that this program is much closer to sociology and psychology, which is another reason R. likes it. It's not about being an entrepreneur, it's about organizational psychology. She finds it all interesting, and that is a relief since she might not have completely understood what she was getting into when she chose this one.

All morning we sat in front of the window looking out over the roundabout with buses and trucks and cars and bicycles
(we don't understand why this photo doesn't show bicycles) busily and efficiently getting through the intersection.

We finally roused ourselves to go out for lunch.  Went to another bright and wholesome lunch place with vegan options, fancy juices, high quality options.  We had a lovely, lazy lunch and then walked a half block to the train station where we had stashed our bags for a few hours.

Confidence was not high,
but the agent came through.

Inevitably, we had 30 minutes of excitement when the fancy locker refused to take our ticket.  Jon and R. asked three different people for help, got sent from one office to the next while the minutes ticked by. Finally they found a station agent who went and got a special key and a machine and a little book with some codes (only after trying to put the ticket in the slot about 12 more times). I started to think about what Plan B might look like, since there wasn't another bus for us today. She finally got the door open at 2:50, we cheered and charged off to the bus.  We were the last ones on the bus and for the first time in six countries, the bus driver examined our passports carefully. We probably looked a little scruffy, with only a few bags and rushing in at the last minute.










Arrived in Brussels just a few minutes before sunset.  Walked a half mile or so through a decidedly seedy part of town, complete with ladies in the windows in a small Red Light District, but pretty soon we got past that to a non-descript area with our anonymous and unremarkable hotel.  I was ready for a more transactional type of place to stay, one that didn't require us to be in relationship with anyone. And Jon agreed because it was in fact the cheapest housing that met our needs.

For dinner we walked up to a lively street with lots of restaurants.  We were aiming for a Bulgarian restaurant that was well reviewed. It was cozy and small, full of regulars (we could tell who they were because they knew how to close the door correctly on the first try). The prices were unexpectedly low -- a beer for two euros?  A truly delicious bowl of real chicken soup for 3.50. I got a main course of a pot of lamb stew and Jon got a nice kebab. And it was the first restaurant with music that was not American pop. In fact, for a minute we thought we were hearing a version of Sto Mi E Milo and we had to look up where Bulgaria is, how close to Macedonia.  Right next door. We lingered and spied on what everyone else was eating, even though we had eaten as much as we wanted, and then some.

One more day of tourist life.  We have a plan.  We will see if any of it comes true.

500 Kilometers Can Be a Long Way

Beating almost all our previous records, we were packed and walking out of the apartment at 9 AM. First stop, the corner grocery store for some provisions – food is cheaper in Germany than anywhere else we have seen on this trip. Next, another day pass for the subway even though we were only in Hamburg for a half day. Then off to the central train station to stash our bags in the lockers.  What a convenience, having a place to put your stuff down. Even if we didn’t bring very much, it is no fun dragging a small suitcase and carrying a backpack and a computer bag and a sail bag around.

Then we had to figure out what we were doing with our morning. We hadn’t been able to decide because it was snowing and once again it didn’t seem like good walking around weather. 

Snow, to sun, to snow, to sun. Our destination, the train station, in the background.

But by the time we were ready to roll, it was sunny again. So we got on the subway and transported ourselves to Reeperbahn, a street that is apparently more well-known at night in that city.  Lots of sex toy shops and big signs about various shows.  In the morning there are homeless people sleeping, wrapped in good sleeping bags, surrounded by their possessions, sprinkled up and down the street. By day, this street has a tired air about it, with trash overflowing and a general sense of exhaustion.  We didn’t see any other area that looked so dirty.

We walked the long block down to the underwhelming Beatlesplatz, the local homage to the Beatles who spent three years in Hamburg during some formative times, playing concerts and honing their skills. At some point along this street, a slow-but-insidious blister on my bunion started to scream, so walking got less easy.  Back on the subway to another tourist destination:  St. Michael’s Cathedral.

Barely discernible metal cookie-cutter-like statues of the Beatles (with Pete Best, not Ringo)
in the center with the famous Reeperbahn in the background.

We really hadn’t been to any churches yet on this trip, so we thought we should go to at least one.  The outside was not the slightest bit ornate or even particularly interesting (just plain brick, a massive chunky vertical building with a dome) but the inside was where they had put their efforts.  Instead of the traditional long nave, the interior was a wide open space with a very high ceiling – there was a tower we could have climbed but we didn’t.  The most interesting and German-looking piece was the little balcony where the service leader stands. It looked like a giant cauldron to me, something out of a folk story.

By the time we made our way back to another subway station, I was finished with hobbling around. We had got our bearings in the harbor area of town but missed about 98% of the rest of that huge city.  Back to the train station to wander around, buy some sandwiches and snacks (there was so much food Jon would have happily purchased at the station, all cheap and delicious-looking), wait and wait for the board to tell us which platform to depart from. It felt good to be sitting on a warm and comfortable train, heading toward Maastricht.

With everyone waiting for two different late trains, a long freight train comes rumbling through.

Little did we know that the predictable and easy part of our day was behind us.

When we pulled out of the station, we were about 15 minutes behind schedule.  We had a peaceful four hours of reading, eating lunch, looking out the window at the tidy German countryside (made me think of Heinz, all those wood piles and very organized barnyards and traditional architecture and windbreaks). 

A typical large, beautiful Tudor-style house with many outbuildings and perfectly tended fields.

There are wind turbines on what looks like private land, so maybe farmers are benefiting from these installations.

We knew the next connection was going to be tight because, although we originally we had 20 minutes between trains, by the time we got to Dusseldorf, we had maybe a 5 minute window.  It is a big train station, lots of people rushing around, no big board with information in evidence (we must have been past it already when we arrived). So we hustled to an information desk and learned that we should be on Track 9.  Rushed up the stairs to the platform and there was a train waiting to leave.  The words and numbers did not match up with anything we were looking for but the departure time was right and we had been directed to this track.  So, with some trepidation we jammed ourselves onto this commuter train and set off in a direction that we couldn’t decipher.  The map on the wall had no names that corresponded to anything we were looking for. 

By the time we got to the first stop, I was ready to get off.  Jon still had hopes that we were on the right train, but I was uncomfortable just hurtling off in some direction with no information that confirmed our destiny. As it happened the first stop was the Dusseldorf Airport. After a bit of arguing about what to do next we just went down and got on the next train that took us back to the big train station.  Went to a different and more reliable-feeling information desk and got a new itinerary (no need to buy more tickets, just keep going).

Unfortunately the new itinerary had two more stops built into it, but we gamely did our best. At the next connection, our train was running 10 minutes late and we missed the next train by seconds (it pulled out as we huffed our way down the stairs, through the tunnel, under the tracks, up the stairs).  A nice young man from Toronto told us another one would come in half an hour.  About 29 minutes into our wait there was an announcement that the train was coming in on our original track so we all had to go back down, across, and up to catch the dang train. My feet were not happy.

The next time we got luckier, although I had formally given up on trying to race to any trains. We arrived at a small station, our train was once again on the furthest away track, we had to go down and up. We moved with purpose but we didn’t run. Caught that train with 5 seconds to spare.  Phew. Jon’s phone was out of battery by this time, adding to the general air of stress but somehow mine managed to pull us through (we took a picture of our train ticket just before his phone died, which we needed, and Jon navigates using maps that he stores when we get to a place with internet).

Not sure why German trains have a reputation for being on time.  Also the bathrooms don’t work on all the trains. But when we got on the last train, a familiar-feeling one in the Netherlands, the bathroom worked and everything was fine. We got off in Maastricht and promptly got onto the right bus, but going in the wrong direction.  Sigh.  We got off when it seemed clear we were not heading for home, crossed the street, read the bus schedule carefully and got ourselves to Becca’s house.

Becca was our Airbnb host this time, and she packed up to go to a friend’s house, leaving us with her good bed and couch.  We had a very comfortable night in her perfect little studio apartment.  My feet are happy to be out of their boots and off the pavement. Thank goodness I work on forgiving surfaces in my real life.

Grey Skies In Hamburg

Rebecca only had a half day in Hamburg before she had to get on a train and go back to school, so she and Jon set off to do a quick walking tour of whatever they could find. They bought a one-day subway pass so they could just get on and off the train without considering the cost.  Only trouble was that it was a rainy day, and walking around in the rain is not actually all that much fun. I stayed home in the super quiet apartment and lounged -- had breakfast, took a shower, wrote, read. It was delicious. I went out for a half hour walk in the neighborhood but it just didn't seem all that worth it, walking in the rain, so I went back up the 65 steps to the cozy couch and continued reading my novel.

Meanwhile, they went to the Miniature Wonderland, an expansive warehouse full of model trains and city dioramas and mountainscapes and airports with planes that land and take off on a schedule. Incredible.

Then they walked around until they found a random bus and rode for a while, got off and walked to a park, but it was raining so that seemed unnecessary.  Took a train back to the central train station, Becca got some lunch and got ready to go. It wasn't the best day to be a tourist on foot.

Jon came back home to collect me up. We had a little lunch together, he got dried off, and then we went back out.  Our host had told us to go and visit the Elbphilharmonie concert hall, so that's where we headed.  It is down on the harbor where there are huge boats, small boats, cranes for unloading cargo (big port city, very big).  We walked a few blocks to the entrance -- it is a blue-ish glass cube on top of another existing brick building, so it starts way up high. There are these unusual cut-outs on the windows, like a giant finger scooped out a divot and left the flap sticking out. Of course we will have to read about that because it was a design feature I have never seen before and don't understand.  There was a ticket booth, and many guards, and a bank of turnstiles. Since we didn't know anything, we walked up to the ticket counter and asked what you get when you buy a ticket. You get to go up to the plaza (a lookout spot), you can eat and shop. How much are the tickets?  They are free.  Huh. So we got two tickets, were strictly schooled on how to use the turnstile, and then headed up the series of escalators.  The plaza is a fancy, wide open indoor space with a perimeter balcony with lots of views. Cloudy, rainy views but you could see just how far this city goes. And it was very windy on one side.  People had to hold onto their hats.

When we walked back to the subway, crossing a bridge over a canal, we went through a crazy wind tunnel.  The winds may have been a steady 50 mph as we pushed our way over the bridge, and the rain was coming sideways.  People with umbrellas were not doing well.  We were going to head to another tourist attraction but instead we just took random warm, dry rides on the subway, getting off at various places to look for a place to have some tea.  Eventually we ended up in another relatively active tourist area and went into a tall, glitzy downtown mall.  The food choices were amazingly diverse: Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, sushi, Mexican, lots of pizza and gelato, burgers.  I just wanted something hot to drink.  We went to a coffee shop and had tea and hot chocolate and a pastry and then we gave up on the tourist thing and headed for home.

Very quiet without Rebecca but we were in touch with her by WhatsApp because she was frustrated to be waiting for a train that never came in Aachen.  For some unknown reason, it just never came so she had to buy a bus ticket to get herself the last leg home. She knows that town, and it was only another 45 minutes, but the ticket agent was completely unsympathetic and useless.  Eventually she got back to Maastricht without any further troubles. 

Heard from Alissa that she arrived in Antigua, Guatemala.  So now our family is as spread out as it will ever be, for sure.  Two in Hamburg, one in Haifa, one in Antigua, one in Maastricht.  And the last three are in residence in their foreign countries.  The parents are just flitting around, watching Colbert on YouTube to try to get some perspective on what we are reading in the news.  I can understand why our children are staying out of the country for a while.

Wake Up in Sweden, Sleep in Germany

We tried to leave quietly, but our host was watching and came outside to say goodbye (it was 10 AM, we were not sneaking out in the dark).

View from backyard of B&B. Note town in background and vineyard in front.

In the course of our long farewell, we learned that he is an officer in the Danish Army and will be leaving for six months in Afghanistan, in a couple of weeks. The main weight on the family right now is their au pair -- she doesn't speak enough English to meet their needs and they need a new one immediately. Becca said she wouldn't be available for another seven months. She is probably not the right one for the job anyway. In the car later, we lamented that it was our country that got everyone into Afghanistan 18 years ago and now this man in Sweden has to leave his family for 6 months because of us, sort of.

Muscovy ducks at the end of their street. A domesticated breed not native to Sweden.

The navigation system was necessary, but sometimes inscrutable.

We stopped for brunch in Malmo at a cafe that Jon found online.  It was not immediately clear to us what the system was, but there was no table service at all. You just go back into the kitchen, pay about $20 for the buffet and a drink and then you just go down this wonderful counter of homemade food and pick out what you want. Becca figured out what was going on when she saw other diners emerging from the back with full plates.  There were homemade jams and biscuits and a lot of cheeses, yogurt, meats, cereals, juices, baked savory tarts, a delicious mixed berry crumble.  They can just cook whatever they want and keep changing the menu as they like. R. said it was like we were eating their leftovers (not in a bad way, she loves leftovers) -- whatever they wanted to cook in the kitchen. It was kind of like a market style CSA for brunch.  You just find what there is, pick out what you want, it is all good. This was our third restaurant meal in Sweden. We only ate out once in Norway.  At every single restaurant everywhere, there are no disposable dishes or cutlery.  When you buy street food, the cutlery is made of wood.

Not only are there two people
in this carrier, but one of
them is an adult male.

Back across the bridge to Denmark, they dropped me off at a bus stop with the luggage and went to return the car. I was a bag lady at the bus stop, knitting. I consulted my phone for instructions on the looser method for binding off and I paid no attention to all the people biking and walking past.

A family that rides together...boy in front on first bike, girl in back on second.

The bus loaded on time and we were off to Hamburg. I finished knitting Rebecca's scarf, finally, and got it off the needles.

Just right for the winter.

The miles just flew by, and no one got car sick.

Just out of curiosity, I asked Jon what the route was and he looked on his phone and discovered that we might be taking a ferry.  One more exciting mode of public transportation.  The ferry was huge -- it held many buses and full sized tractor trailers.  They made everyone get out of the vehicles and go up to the deck for eating and shopping and walking around. It was 45 minutes across the Baltic Sea (? or some other body of water) to Germany. We shared a plate of currywurst and fries, but we skipped the giant scoop of mayonnaise.  R. said we have now eaten the quintessential dish of Germany and we can check that off.

It was too dark to take pictures outside so here we are eating the currywurst.

Arrived in Hamburg at 7:45, scrambled to navigate to our next apartment because the host was anxious to go out and had been trying to text us, unsuccessfully.  Got on the subway, went the right direction, got off at the right station, walked in the right direction and arrived at the apartment (four flights up) on time.  Phew.  Another young man who is renting out his spacious and fully furnished home and going to stay at his girlfriend's for a few days. It is such a funny sequence, moving into people's houses and having them go stay somewhere else. But they seem very happy with the arrangement and they give us appreciative reviews, inviting us back.

Rebecca just read that Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany, it's the one that Germans most like to visit, and it has more bridges than London, Venice and Amsterdam combined! That is incredible. This must be a huge city with a vast network of canals.

Road Trip, Backtracking

When we first thought about driving from one big city destination to the next, we saw that the distance from Copenhagen to Oslo was about 7 hours and then it was the same from Oslo to Stockholm, and then the same again back to Copenhagen.  We decided that was too much, so we took Stockholm off the list. This means that we opted to backtrack, which is not in either Rebecca's or my nature.  However, when you are seeing something from the other direction and you have only been there once, it doesn't seem like you have really seen it before. And all the signs are still impenetrable so you can't even think, oh yes, I remember that. This is not billboard country, except in the cities, so all the signs are basically Scandinavian Mille Bournes.

Leaving Oslo, we drove down the coastline of the fjord, getting occasional glimpses of the big scenery (not quite as winding as the road to Hana, but not unrelated) as well as views of small coastal towns and lots of boats.

Because I asked, Rebecca recounted for us the highlights of the stories of the Norse gods and giants, including an analysis of why those myths are actually more useful to the Norse people than the myths and legends of the Greeks. In a nutshell (because she has read Norse Gods and Giants front to back so many times, she remembers this), this part of the world is a dark place, with a reality of scary chaos, and the stories were part of a culture that kept the chaos at bay as they stayed together around the fire. It's not that everybody believed these stories, but they grew out of a body of oral history that was written down sometime in the ninth century CE.  This is equivalent to the Torah as a document of origin and foundational stories. I am fascinated to think about all the simultaneous societies that were in existence around the world. It takes forever to piece all that together. In high school, you just don't know enough to be able to understand how all the various world civilizations were evolving, no matter how hard you try. Becca says Benjamin knows about a podcast that tackles this through tracing specific objects as they emerged in different cultures -- I need to remember to ask about that.

Traditional Norwegian cave (not mountain) trolls.

Before leaving Norway, we stopped and got our tax refund for our one substantial purchase plus Jon spent the last kroners in his pocket on a bag of chips.  Not a lot of choices at that particular tourist stop.

As it happened, we were passing the same Swedish town of Stromstad at lunchtime so we decided to return, trying out a restaurant that got excellent reviews by other passers-by (or perhaps by the owner's family, as Jon pointed out).  It was in a re-purposed train station right next to the harbor. No English spoken but we managed to de-code the menu enough to order lunch. We couldn't quite believe it, but it was true that every lunch was price fixe for 89 kroner -- and it was a huge amount of food.  Once again, on real dishes with very nice chairs and tables, not at all in the mode of casual dining.  Soup, salad bar (full of pickled stuff), bread, coffee and a main course.  I ordered fiskasoppa and got a monster bowl of creamy soup with loads of fish and shrimp.  Too much shrimp, had to off-load that to Becca. We took home most of Jon's vegetarian pizza and we finished R's bowl of Swedish-style nachos together.

The rest of the trip was unremarkable, on a super highway that doesn't feel much different from home once it gets dark.  When you get off the highway you have to navigate many roundabouts.  We like roundabouts very much and wish that the US would figure that out. Going past Goteburg, we got stuck in a very long traffic jam and lost about half an hour. So they do have traffic jams in Sweden at rush hour.

Our next beds were in a small town, up a very long and winding road into the country.  The hosts are a young family with a large house, an au pair, and plenty of space to spare.  They gave us an extensive tour of our basement rooms. I am sitting in the office of the woman of the house who clearly has a profession that involves writing books and doing something with a lot of paper and binders. There is a copy of her book in English sitting here on the couch, so it must be for our benefit, called The Art of Focus. The book jacket says she is a Swedish shooting world champion, lecturer and officer in the Swedish army.

It is 8:15 in the morning and it is just starting to be almost dawn.  The view from this house (we are on the edge of a tall hill overlooking a bay, maybe) will be spectacular. Last night R. did not miss the opportunity to do something Swedish, and we went into the sauna that is part of our space.  By the time we finally had enough, the thermometer said 72 C. And we only had it cranked to 4 on a scale that went to 10.  Whoosh.

This is a very different way to travel from the ways we have done it before.  Because there are no easy ways to interact with random people in a foreign country other than shopping or eating out, this is one way to do that and to see a lot of different domestic settings.  People have to be quite trusting to let strangers into their house, but there is a system that allows them to turn down our request, and both host and guest are registered online. This house has lots of clues about the lives of its residents (reminds me of Uncle Babe) but some of the apartments were empty and soul-less (in Copenhagen, that apartment was clearly just a rental, not a real home).  So far our favorite space was the one in Oslo, partly because of its proximity to real life outside and partly because of the nice young man who rented it to us -- even though he clearly had no propensity for sweets: we could not find a trace of sugar in his cupboards.

Oslo In Six Daylight Hours

Well, Rebecca knows what she likes (ever since she was born).  She knew she as soon as we got out on the street that she likes Oslo.  And as we moved through the city, we kept finding more evidence that this is a much cooler place than Copenhagen. I am sure that the weather gave it an unfair advantage -- it was sunny and beautiful today, if only in the 20s.

However, the system for purchasing bus tickets was a bit primitive. I didn't witness it because I sat on a bench and watched people while the other two went down into the train station to wrestle with the ticket machine.  They were gone long enough for me to watch a delivery person unload a full straight truck of cargo, one pallet at a time, and roll it down the bumpy pedestrian walkway to the store.  He wasn't a big burly man but he knew how to operate a pallet jack and he took the whole operation to its very edge. When the lift gate hit the pavement, the wheels of the pallet jack started to roll and the whole tippy stack began to leave the truck.  The man deftly slowed it down, adjusted the load and maintained control of a pile of boxes that was much taller and heavier than he was. I see this dance of the pallet jack every year when Carroll S. unloads the pumpkins, but it was fun to watch it in an urban setting, on ice.

We walked to our bus stop with our 24-hour bus tickets and expertly got on the bus (Jon and I never try to ride buses in foreign countries, but Becca has a Google Pixel and supreme confidence.  It is amazing how much data Google can provide on any topic, any time.  Bus schedules, endless fun facts, closing times for the cathedral that definitely appears to be closed. I understand that everyone else in the world already knows this, but this is not how I operate. It's not my age, it's my lack of technological curiosity/aptitude.).

The first bus ride took 25 minutes, through the center of town and on out to the west where there are lots of museums in a relatively undeveloped area.  Oslo is apparently 2/3 open space, with lots of parks and trees and water.  Our first destination was the Viking Ship Museum.  It was great.  One story line, some incredible artifacts, three real Viking ships that were discovered buried in ship graves and one handful of nails that represent a fourth ship. They don't have much information on how the Vikings lived, compared to other co-existent cultures, but those buried ships have left them many dots to connect.  The whole story is pretty amazing. If you ever get a chance to go to a Viking Ship Museum, you should do it.

The wood is the actual wood from 1000 years ago, preserved in the mud, which was
painstakingly labeled, disassembled and put back together as the fully assembled ship.

We headed back toward the city center and got off to walk up a big hill (did I mention that it snowed here recently and there is an icy coat on all the sidewalks? Some people are wearing crampons, some people are just slipping and falling, some of us are walking with small steps to avoid disaster.)

Certainly no salt is used in this crunchy country.

to Vigeland Park, a huge park with dozens of sculptures all by one artist. I had read about it some last night so we knew there were a few statues that were especially notable. We found some of them. Without intending to, we went to the most-visited spot in all of Norway -- a big column carved out of one piece of granite, of lots of bodies climbing and crawling up the column. They say 1 - 2 million people a year go to see it (as R. says, that's a big range). We will have to read more about it if we want to understand those sculptures. Some of them were pretty weird.

Angry baby, some say this is an allegory about Norway.

It was time for something to eat, so we uncharacteristically went into a tiny cafe right in the park. We had the best beet soup ever, and a sandwich with very substantial and good bread. But the biggest surprise was the hot chocolate that was made with coconut milk.  Becca said it was like drinking a macaroon. It was the most satisfying meal in a restaurant in a very long time. The dishes were beautiful, which I appreciate a lot.

Back on the bus downtown, got off to walk around the waterfront and admire all the boats. We saw but did not visit the building that holds all the archives for the Nobel Peace Prize.  We found a random statue of FDR, erected in appreciation for all that he/we did for Norway during and after WW2.

Becca (and Hana) in silhouette.

Wandered through the downtown shopping district, stopping to do some research about sweaters ($$$), and eventually actually buying a sweater in a mall, after a great deal of pondering.  Rebecca knows way too much about consumer psychology now, and neither of them is keen to spend money on themselves, so the proper compromise was to buy a sweater for Alissa that Rebecca will break in for a few months first.

The Norwegian Palace at the end of a busy street.

And then I was the one who was finished with walking in increasingly uncomfortable boots and I started to whine.  They took pity on me and we went home by 5:30. After our daily rest, R. and Jon went back out to buy some more groceries.  We had a salad that tasted like home because Jon finally got to assemble all the right ingredients. The store-bought soup was not like home, but we fluffed it up some with leftover rice.

As usual, we didn't make it to all the places that we had marked on R's phone, but we did see a remarkable number of iconic Oslo spots.  It was an excellent day of touring. I think we feel more at home in a city that is so full of immigrants -- Wikipedia tells us that a few years ago 40% of the kids in grade school did not have Norwegian as their first language.  For some reason, people are just pouring into Oslo and the population is growing fast. It must be a good place to live.

The famous Oslo Cathedral which closes at 4:00, with, oh yes, some chickens in front.